He kept slipping in and out of reality, sometimes jerking awake when darkness flashed in his mind. But he stayed awake for no more than a few moments, feeling his light, fast pulse in his chest and how it seemed like his veins would leap right out of his body. The air was still hot, still uncomfortable on his raw throat, giving his lungs no respite. It was like trying to drink sea water to quench thirst. No matter if he tried to gulp it down, it didn't fill out his lungs with the same satisfying ease that cold air did. Whimpering, quivering, Moth slipped out again, back to the world of feverish dreams and wild imaginings. So many things flashed before his eyes, not as memories, but as if he was there, or they were here; Menth, the leader of his birth herd in the Vale, Voltaic, with his sword and heavy heart, Feather and Miako, his loving parents, and Onni, his angel.

He didn't know if they spoke. They just... came. And if he tried to look at them properly, they disappeared, like smoke. In his mind, he tried to struggle upright, to call out to them, touch them, but his body was unresponsive. It just lay twitching, back against a rock face, the sweat slowly drying upon his hot skin. He didn't really have any water left, not enough to dissipate the heat the sun had infused him with. He blinked in the sunlight? There was no sun here; it slid away behind the clouds of the world and sluggishly Moth lifted his head, thinking someone had been here, but the motion left him dizzy and his eyes fluttered shut again. He thought he'd caught sight of Onni, but she wasn't there. He slid away again, and once more they came, all those shapes, but he couldn't reach out, couldn't speak, couldn't hold on.

Noise clapped like thunder through his ears, and again he flicked back into life, opening his eyes a crack to the gray, strange world in which he lay. He saw her again, dulled nearly to gray under the clouds. He saw only her legs. To crane his head back would just be to invite another spell of dizziness. Moth's eyes shut again. She hadn't been here the last time he thought so either. Faithless, he drifted off, feeling the flutter of his heart; it kept beating too fast, but it held nothing of the power it did when flying fast and far. It felt like it was trying to run away, and propelled only weakness through him. And the air was still hot. Why hadn't he found a cold place to crash? Somehow, the idea of dying up here, hot and miserable, didn't terrify him - it just disappointed him, that he'd been fool enough to kill himself before finding Onni. Just how stupid wasn't that?

Moth's left eye cracked open again, and fell upon a paler blue eye framed by a silver-and-brown forelock. She was probably touching him, but he wasn't quite sure of anything right now; instead he frowned, ever so slightly. Hadn't she been here before, too? Why was she still here? She didn't slip away when he looked at her, like she had all the other times... But he was dead, or near enough, anyway. Was she dead, too? Had she died when the shades came? Had he been tracking a ghost, blind on hope and childish arrogance, all this time? Had someone tried to tell him, but had he ignored them? He didn't know. Didn't remember. Did that mean that the others - Menth, Voltaic, Miako, Feather - were dead, too? "Onnnnnni...?" he hissed; it came out a dry rasp, more of a sigh than anything else. Moth's eyes, normally so vibrant, were dull. "Arrrrr.... are w-we dea...d...?" It was the thing that would make the most sense, anyway. But if he was dead, but with her, it would be okay.