The half-breed didn't know what to make of the strange, new people who had taken charge of him. They dispelled shadows like She did, but seemed nothing like Her. The pale, shiny one held him while he cried out his fear and confusion, and then she healed him, but it didn't leave hurts behind, and she didn't eat the rest of the blood. Instead of using her tongue, she washed him clean with a damp rag, then she draped him with a blanket that smelled both sharp and musty and was ragged and black at one end, as if she noticed his shivering. The dirty red one glowered at him, as if she hated him, but didn't do anything to harm him. She didn't even scream at him, though he could hear her muttering things that sounded less than friendly under her breath now and then, and her shadow was furious and calling him things that he had never heard of before.

It was all very confusing. Healing without loving, without the familiar, hungry licking of the blood afterwards, hatred without pain, without shouting and blustering and intimidation. He couldn't understand a word that either of them said, but their shadows spoke eloquently, too eloquently for him to completely understand them, either. The shining one kept murmuring softly to him, and her voice was constant and soothing. Her words would come with pictures that somehow made what she was trying to say a little clearer. He didn't understand why or how, but he was too confused and tired to protest the alien kindness. 

Kindness. Somehow, he knew what it was, but he had never felt it before. The shadows were occasionally kind, but only when he threatened them, or when it suited their own purposes. She was rarely kind, usually only to woo him to loving Her again after She hurt him more badly than usual or frightened him. He was never kind, for He hated too fiercely. But then where did he learn kindness enough to recognize it? 

Thoughts clashing against each other inside his head, he let them lead him out of his safe room, though his shadows trailed after him tamely, whispering amongst themselves but not trying to wrap around him again and not even directing their comments to him. They walked down the hall that led to Her room, but it was not to Her room, with its soft sheets and thick memories, that they took him. Instead, there was a charred, stinking room filled with an acrid haze that brought tears to his sore eyes. Coughing, he tried to hang back, frightened and even more confused at the abrupt change of something so familiar, but the pale, shining one led him gently forward, murmuring and radiating assurances.

"I don't understand," his voice rasped, but she didn't seem to understand, either, and just brought him across the room, following the angry red one. As they walked, he could see the shadows of what used to be, hear them murmur of pain and anger and love, and he shuddered, drawing closer to the unfamiliar comfort of the pale one. She smiled at him, her hand bracingly on his arm, her lips without malice or desire or hunger in it, and he looked back at her, puzzled. He had never seen a smile like that before. It was surprisingly beautiful, and comforted him. 

Then they were walking through the forbidden door, and to someplace the half-breed had never been. Wide, black eyes took in the continued destruction, the charred remains of small bodies, the sooty claw marks in the earth and stone walls and floor. Smoke was everywhere, making his eyes water again. Beneath the tang of fire's remains, he scented something that reminded him of blood and meat but was subtly different. He didn't know what it was, but it made the shadows louder and more panicked, clambering for answers which he could not give, each shadow-voice overrunning the other until it made one blurred cacophony inside his head.

What is this?

Who is this?

I'm frightened!

What do they want?

What are they doing?

Leave us alone!

Go back, go back, they will kill us!

Where is this?

Where are we going?

Then their voices were a blur he could no longer understand, and he ignored them, too weary to try and shut them out completely but also too weary to make sense of them, and clutched his ragged blanket around him as he staggered where he was led. The pale, shining person would take care of him. She promised she would, in a way without words that the half-breed couldn't quite understand, and right now he trusted her. Eyes falling half-shut with exhaustion, he only barely watched where he put his feet as they took him into a smaller tunnel that climbs slowly upwards. There was a brightness at the end of it that made the half-breed cringe tiredly, remembering the shadowless light of Her chamber.

The light grew brighter, and larger, and closer, until finally the red one ducked into it and disappeared. The half-breed held back against the pale one's grip, frightened and not understanding. The shadows hissed and roared and screamed behind him, holding him back, warning him not to go, not to leave his world, however destroyed it might be now, and go into that terrible light. He pulled away from the pale one and ducked against the wall, feeling the cold earth and shuddering.

Whispering words he still couldn't understand, the pale one followed him, putting hands strangely free of claws or talons gently on his shoulder and arm. Calm threaded through his tired, chaotic thoughts, but he resisted it, baring his teeth at her to warn her away. "Stop it!" he growled, and the foreign feeling disappeared immediately, the pale one's smile disappearing right after it. "Leave me alone!" He drew further from her, desperate for something familiar, anything familiar, even Her. "Mother, Mistress, help me--" His cry died into a strangled croak as the red one reappeared, her flushed face angry, and he cringed into the wall with a wary hiss.

Snapping something impatient at the pale one, the red one grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the light with more strength then the half-breed could resist, though he tried. The shadows swirled around him, but the light made them thin and weak, and their voices screamed in his mind. He dug in his heels, struggling and twisting, but could not get free from the red one's powerful grip or the embrace of the shadows, and the light was getting closer, blinding him. "Please, please let me go," he pleaded, but she ignored him, or didn't understand him, or both.

And then the brightness was suddenly everywhere, and he couldn't see, lost in a blaze of light.