The bird disappeared.

His bright body vanished into the foliage that swallowed him up before Gaucho could even think to move after him. The dun might have been fast and could have likely kept up with Kygo in the open, but here, where the brush of the labyrinth was thick and dense, there was simply no hope.

Despair and darkness swam before Gaucho’s dull gray stare (or was that the parasite? Had the world always possessed a vignette around his eyes’ border?), before Vorsa’s light flashed in front of him. I follow, she assured him, and disappeared after the parrot. All at once Gaucho’s senses began to malfunction. His ears began to seemingly hear a buzz from all around him, and grow suddenly hot on the outside. He dropped his head to snort and try to shake away the buzz, when his balance shifted and he found himself stumbling forward into a thick bush. His skin suddenly felt as though it could see the thorns pricking against his muscular hide, and as if could taste the thick sweat breaking out across his scarred coat.

All the while Vorsa was sending flashes of Ampere lurching after Kygo, but the mail-slot of Gaucho’s mind was closed. Sorry. No post on Sunday’s.

Silently Mara held her place in his antlers, feeling around the dismal depths of his mind that had been polluted by the bug which had found its way into his brain. She could feel him dying inside and was helpless to stop it.

Perhaps the blue could help.

Gently Mara leaned her body trying to direct Gaucho’s movements. The dun complied and the pair moved forward towards where Vorsa - and earlier, Kygo - had vanished.

Finnddd Ammpeereee Mara tried to remind him, hissing aloud to get his attention. The thought of the blue had sparked something deep inside of him, and the snake could only assume that seeing her again would have an even stronger reaction.

Gaucho clumsily stomped through a thicket, and then drew to a sudden stop of his own accord. There before him was Ampere, and for a moment it was as if she hadn’t been gone, as if he had only seen her a few days ago rather than weeks and weeks. The confusion of trying to reconcile how he felt and what was truth halted him firmly in place, and for a few moments all he could do was stare. Like a flaming beacon emerged suddenly through the brush, he stood sentinel as if doing nothing more than watching the mare try to rein in her panicked companion.

Vorsa, only a few yards ahead of the dun hovered in mid air, turning her beak and her gaze back and forth between the blue and the dun, as if comically miming her reaction of, what is taking you two so long?

”Ampere?” Her name shuffled and fell off of his lips. In his mind it was a scream, but all that came out were whispered syllables.