There were four types of people in the valley. The Avar, with their hollow bones and great leather wings. The amphibious Gillain, with their spotted skin and large eyes. The Mora, with their scales and serpentine tongues. And the Ekri, who were made of stone.

And this woman was apparently none of the above. 

"Why can't ya ask her what she is?" Dasha slurred, limping against the rough cave walls.

"She's not exactly lucid. I think she's some type of mage practitioner, but I couldn't tell you which tradition."

"Right, right, okay..." Dasha rubbed her head. This day just couldn't get better. Day? Night? 

"Hey Noonin? How long have- I mean where are- How are...?" She trailed off, fumbling to put her scattered thoughts into any coherent order. It felt like a swarm of wasps had nested in her hair and were crawling all over her scalp, buzzing too loudly as they went.

Fortunately, Noonin seemed to understand. "I don't know where we are, or for how long we've been down here. Or how we got here at all, beyond somehow waking up past a monster attack." He eyed the Gyr's slashes on Dasha's wings and back, before continuing.

"She has us trapped, I think. But she's trying to protect us...?" He tilted his head, the yellow glow of his eyes gleaming off the half-shed patch of scales on his cheek. "As I said. Not wholly... here."

"Dangerous thing, if she's still well enough to work mage-craft."

They stopped walking, slumped against the walls for a much needed break. It was fortunate that the Avar and the Mora could both see in the dark, else they would have been hopelessly lost by now. 

Dasha looked over Noonin. In addition to his missing arm, he sported several scars and bruises. His scales had been shorn off in several places, and his skin was a sickly pale. She supposed that she didn't look much better. She certainly didn't feel better.

"How ya holding up?" She asked.

"I miss Youna." 

His wife. They'd just gotten married too. Dasha and Krell had been there to witness for them.

Dasha wanted to tell Noonin that he'd see her again, but the words would have been hollower than a clay pot, and they both knew it. She let out a sympathetic trill from her throat.

"Ready to go again?" Noonin asked, his voice cracking slightly.

"Not really. Let's go." She replied, a tired smirk on her face.

Noonin chuckled weakly, as they limped on. There was nothing funny about it, but that wasn't the point.

After several more moments of quiet, Dasha asked him how much longer it would take for them to arrive. 

Noonin frowned. "I... I don't actually know. She twists around the tunnels, or our perception of them, I'm not sure."

"Well that's just great-"

Dasha was cut off as everything around them began to shake. The walls rumbled, and dust fell from the ceiling. It felt like salt in her open wounds, and it burned. 

She could see Noonin clawing at the sand as it irritated the cracks in his scales. 

"Don't do that! You know you'll make it worse-" She swallowed a mouthful of sand, coughing out dust, as the wall slid around her. Or perhaps she was spinning?

Another jolt, and everything had stopped. She was alone, in the dark, and the dense air was warmer than ever. 

"Noonin? Noon-" 

A soft whistling caught her attention. In the distance, through the dusty gloom, a faint glow was coming from around the corner. Still coughing and waving away dust, Dasha staggered towards it. 

Her eyelids grew heavy, and she let herself droop, staring at her feet as she stuck one shaking foot in front of the next. It might be nice, to just lay down in the dust like a Mora, to curl up cloaked in the warmth, to slumber until the sun returned...

She hoped Noonin was okay, wherever in these wretched tunnels he wandered.

She hoped Krell was safe, alone and out there in the cold mountain tundra.

One foot in front of the next, sending spirals of dust dancing in the dark, where no light would ever reach them. Or at least, not the golden haze of the sun. But this heatless blue glow? This was different.

Dasha felt the space around her widen, opening up to a massive cavern as she was bathed in blue brightness. Blinking to adjust her eyes, she slowly raised her head.

"Oh wow." She breathed, barely a whisper.

The whole of the cavern was aglow with translucent crystals, arranged intricately like frost on autumn leaves or snow through a sunbeam. The sight dazzled her eyes, and it was hard to focus on any one part as her gaze chased the marvelous pattern up and down the cavern walls.

Surely, this was no natural phenomenon!

No, Dasha realized, as her eyes came to rest on the slumbering woman in the center of the room. This was not natural at all. Gently, she crept closer, trying stubbornly not to be distracted by the mage-craft crystals. If one knew the right spells or signs, they could make the whole illusion vanish like a puff of morning mist.

Alas, Dasha was no mage. She would have to make do with her own two eyes and a will as strong as her wings could manage.

Her wings...

Dasha's eyes grew damp again. She couldn't continue like this.

Finally, she reached the woman lying on the stone floor. Noonin had been wrong. She was Avar- Dasha would recognize her own kind anywhere- But she understood the confusion. Avar were not translucent or pale or glowing. An armor of stoney scales did not grow around their skin, nor did pools of black tar weep from their blankly open eyes. 

Dasha hissed sharply as she knelt beside the woman. She reached over, gently squeezing the woman's hand. If she leaned in closer, she could barely glimpse her wings, torn and tightly tucked away beneath her. Hopefully, she would not be too bothered about Dasha's obvious status as a plague-wing, but all things considered, Dasha had a strong feeling that this woman was not long for this world. She was too...

Too...

It was a splintering of a spent and sorrowing spirit, a quality that she intimately understood in her heart, but that she would not be able to explain if Krell or Noonin had asked. At best, she could have shrugged, and mumbled that it was an 'Avar thing' and left it at that.

After a moment's consideration, Dasha sucked in a pained breath, and folded her tattered, plague-marked wings as well as she could behind her. She could at least do that.

"Greetings sister." She whispered softly, melody crooning through her voice. "Arise, awake, for you have slept for too long."

The woman's eyes fluttered, but the tar remained, flowing with greater frequency than before.

"Aiiii." She sighed, voice low and mournful. 

"One of mine. At last, one of mine. Sister, sister, hear me. All I am, all I have given, it was to save her. The greatest of the old ones, king of beasts and monsters, he shall come again for her. Do not let him take her... Safe, she must be safe..."

Her limp hand tightened, gripping Dasha like a vise, and her voice strained in desperation. 

"She must be- She must be!" 

"Shhh, shhh, she will be." Dasha reassured her, stroking the woman's wispy white hair with her free hand, not knowing or caring what she meant at all. It didn't matter. The woman was clearly unwell, and Dasha wanted to offer her some comfort, at least. As far as mage accidents went, the damage of this one was clearly serious. 

The woman smiled. Still blinded by the weeping tar, she pointed across the cave. "There... I hid her... Go to her..."

And then she lowered her arm, and faded away. Dasha could feel the moment that the life went out of her, and she gave the woman's hand one last squeeze. 

"May you fly forevermore free, from here until the end of eternity." She murmured. It felt wrong to leave the woman's eyes open, but she didn't dare risk touching the strange black tar. Who knew what that substance could do to her?

No one would have closed a plague-wings' eyes either. The plague caught through bodily fluids, and no one would want to take the risk. Even other plague-wings wouldn't, since different strains had different severities.

Dasha's heart ached for the stranger woman, alone, denied even a proper funeral.

She reached out, and gently slid her eyes closed, smearing the tar over her fingers. She tried her best to wipe it off on the cavern earth, hoping that she hadn't contracted another curse on top of the plague.

When Dasha finally looked up again, she saw that the glowing crystals were slowly beginning to melt away, dissipating into fine powder.

She stood there, silent, wishing that she had never taken such a dangerous job. Sorrows, all this wasn't even in the job description. But a plague-wing could not afford to be choosy, and at the time, she had thought that any work would have been better than none. 

Dasha turned, following the mage woman's instructions, and walked across the cavern. Even as they were fading, the largest crystal had split open, a dark crevice running through it from top to bottom.

Dasha felt her heart beat quicker as she approached the crumbling structure. Head buzzing, she hesitantly peered inside.

Asleep within the cracked crystal was a tiny Avar girl, curled up with her leathery white wings wrapped around her. She was young. Too young. The girl was paler than death on a cold snowy morning, and her wispy white hair matched that of the dead woman.

The child shifted, slowly blinking herself awake. She stared at Dasha with a dazed expression, a yawn forming on her bloodless lips.

"Mama?"