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Before long, an orange spectral form completely covered him, and his head felt... heavier. He lifted his hand to inspect how his soul covered his entire body and wasn’t a tiny flame.

“How do you feel?” Weldir asked as he floated back.

Nathair shrugged in answer. Perhaps due to still being within Tenebris, the biggest change was that his gut twisted with hunger.I remember it being worse before.

However, the moment he was taken from Weldir’s stomach and set upon the living world, Nathair’s sense of smell bombarded him. That gut twist rotated further. Hunger, more prevalent now that he’d been without it for so long, became cruel and unrelenting within his mind.

A sharp gust of wind rustled the frosted autumn foliage around him, and it was entirely too loud compared to the muteness of Tenebris. The bright sun was somehow blinding, and the scents of the grass, the dirt, and the trees were too strong against his inexperienced senses.

And the chill... the one that surrounded him due to the oncoming winter, invaded him like blades beneath each of his scales. His lukewarm-bloodedness, the reason he instinctually sought the sun and warmth, shoved in like an ice shard lancing his sternum. It shattered and bled coolness within him.

The lucidity he’d gained a solid grip on was released, and he let out a roar when chatter instantly made him squirm.

Red infiltrated his sight as he gripped his skull, clawing at it, needing tosilenceit.He didn’t care how. He bashed it against the ground, the nearest thick tree trunk. Even if it broke him once more, he wanted his skewed peace back!

He pleaded, he begged, but those words never left his thoughts. His whines of pain, of distress, all of which broke low in his throat and chest, echoed within the forest. His mind’s speaking was still present, but he could no longer project it past his skull.

Had he not gorged on dozens of souls during a time in which Weldir had rested, this never would have happened. He’d hurt his creator by doing so, had prolonged his weakened rest, and hurt himself in the process.

Nathair would never have gained the humanity, intelligence, or knowledge he now possessed. A blessing yet a terrible curse that outweighed it.

He’d been hurtled into a much brighter mental state, yet it had cracked his mind. Weldir had rescued him at his worst. When the memories of all the souls he’d consumed ate away at Nathair’s consciousness, his subconscious, and every part of his mind, Weldir had removed all that he could.

Unfortunately, scars had been left behind. Ruminative fragments. Memories that refused to leave him, voices that had pestered him for centuries until they blended with his own. He’d been many people, had faced many deaths. He became them, or they became him, and they never ceased, never left him be.

And, as he was thrown back into the chaos of life, they, too, demanded a chance to live it.

The Veil lay just behind him, barely a short distance away, but its existence meant little to him. The air, the pleasant forest scents, the warm sunlight he was bathed in... he couldn’t enjoy any of it. All he felt was suffering in every drop of his physical and mental being.

Make it stop.Nathair bent his body forward and whined as he dug his claws into the underside of his skull from behind, trying to rip it from his shoulders. To remove it so he could have quietness, to have control.Make it stop!

Warmth cupped the undersides of his skull, and a face became clear in the murk of his sight.

A woman with brown skin and dark curling hair looked up at him with comforting and welcoming eyes. She spoke to him, her voice gentle, beseeching, and soothing.

Her scent was strong. Her blood pounded viciously in his ears and mind, making them throb. The pulsating of it only pushed him further into madness.

Lower jaw segments parting, he struck with the suddenness of lightning. When he shut his maw together, he clasped air.

The scent was gone, as was the sound of her inviting pulse.

“Nathair,” she called.

He let out a hiss as he spun to her, finding she’d turned as intangible as air. Her mostly white cloak of feathers floated around her body, as if a tiny gust within the afterlife lifted them.

“Shhh, little one,” the Witch Owl cooed as she regained her physical form.

A mistake. The moment her scent and sounds of life bombarded him, he raked his claws sideways towards her. She managed to turn her face to the side quick enough to only be slashed across the cheek.

She cupped it, as the sickly sour aroma of cloaking magic bled into the sun-filled gap they were in. It did little to help, only hiding the scent of blood and confusing him. He recoiled from her presence.

To escape the coldness, the scents, the harshness of the world, his trembling form coiled around itself. In ‘S’ shapes and figure-eight patterns, he attempted to hide within the sanctity of his tail while holding his aching skull.Make it stop... please.He felt as though it would burst at any moment, but the dozens of human voices refused to relent.

They wanted out.Hewanted them out. Freedom from their torture, his torture.

Light pressure settled onto him from above. Hidden within himself as a barrier of scent and partial sound, the warmth provided was the only thing that became soothing. The longer it remained, bleeding heat, the more he wanted to bring the Witch Owl into his folds.

He didn’t let her sink within him due to her sickly magic aroma making the hunger worse. His gut would gurgle, bubbling with an emptiness as if it wanted to punish him for being without it for centuries. His inexperience with it made him forget how clutching and cruel it had been.