I float. I drift through the warm mist of past months, feel the feather touch of fronded memories. Leaves and branches, young bahlwood sap smoking in my nostrils, acorn pancakes in my throat and a good yew bow across my back. Arrows in trunks, wild boar falling. Meat at the fireside on the forest floor, fruit and nuts high in the branches where the tree boles house the huts that offer views of the world beneath.

I’m deep in the hadayil.

The memories splinter and branch, crossing and mingling, cat growls and bird flesh melding into a confusing mixture of sound and scent and taste. Senses begin to fracture, colors taste of ginger, sounds smell like porridge, a sweet touch is green like verdant moss.

Sharp cold fingers chill my bones, liquid memory hardens into an icy, unclear shell. The blurring details sharpen, memories themselves crystallize into full actions that joint at clear breaks. I remember running through the forest floor, bow slung and hands sweeping aside the plants. One wide leaf I push away, and suddenly I'm crouching on a low branch, scanning the trees from top to bottom and sniffing the air for a scent I can't remember. Flash through and I'm climbing up a rain-slicked trunk, hand claws holding strong, sheltering my face against the lashing water. Then sharing jokes and bathing in the hot springs. In a rush I feel the cold of the rain and the wind, the warmth of the sun and the pressing heat of the air, the onrush of a thousand scents.

Things speed up, events run together like honey of different colours, blurring into a single indistinct blanket of senses, sounds and vague half-seen half-felt events and words that make no coherent whole. But it's cold. So cold.

A shiver runs through the haze, like a grimace shaped in the mind rather than the face. Something is wrong.

It was like a slim-holed net coming down over my mind. Gaps appear in the visions, in the experiences, and through those gaps there is something coherent, and alien, and strong. Something dark and disturbing, a chill where there shouldn't be one, growing to overpower the warmth, darkening the hot sun and cracking the nigh-unbreakable peaks of bahlwood trees into splinters. A vague impression of a figure with sharply orange hair, running through a dying forest.

The contrast hurts me in no easily definable way. I feel the chill and fear, yet at once the warmth of sun, friends and forest is there, overlaid completely and at once. Tearful memories merge with joyful ones, hate with apathy, love with rage, emotions and senses fade into nothing, and all becomes dark.

Very, and naturally, dark.

A sharp cold begins, there's a violent downwards lurch. I'm floating, or I was. Then I'm cramped, and trying to move. I ache, my head hurts and for a moment I'm blank. I breathe, but I don't use my own lungs. I'm bigger, yet shrinking. I start being vaguely aware of warmth outside, but it's cold inside. I struggle against my confinement, a sound gurgles from my throat, and from my body.

I land on the ground in an uncoordinated slump, flailing and waving my limbs. Above me, the cocoon's unraveling, the iron-hard, swollen thing unstitches, breaking down cleavage lines and shrinking away. I watch, utterly confused, as it recedes, dissolves and contracts into singular tendrils that are pulled into my body at arms, legs, swallowed down my throat and dragged back in through a couple of other cavities. I can't control any of it, I'm lost in the pain of rebirth, the choking, breathless pain of rebirth.

There's a hard feeling, things settle. Where one of the tendrils went there's now... male. I'm male. There's no gap there anymore. I open my mouth wide and breathe deep, looking but not seeing.

"He's out!"

The voice is familiar, but there's no name. I look around and my vision's a blur. I'm cold again. Then warm. Scents attack my nose, I smell blood, something that's sweet in the air, person-scent. Earthier, gamey scents mix in, meat, wood and metal. All this before she's taken a step. How do I know? The voice. Female voice. Tone.

I become aware that I must look stupid. For a moment I don't know why. Then I'm wondering if I'm blind, because my eyes should be clear now. But I don't why or how I know that.

"Sharoyu, are you all right?"

I back away from the multi-colored blur. I think those are hands reaching for me. I'm the one who smells sweet. Oh. I'm wet. I realize this when I back away only to slip on my own drippings and splash on my back. My arm starts hurting. I think I twisted it. But the bone is still hardening. I feel it bend very slightly, then return to proper shape. It'll bruise once it's done, but it'll be fine.

An attempt to speak results in violent upheaval in my stomach, I vomit up something liquid. No, not just something. The tendrils! That's it. I'm regurgitating the tendrils now, they've broken down completely. They pour from me in a viscous, liquid mass, I feel it erupting from my stomach and warming my chest before I'm manhandled onto my front, on my knees and forearms. I resist, but it doesn't work very well. Too busy vomiting. My throat burns, mouth fills with a taste like sweetvine and thickness passes my lips. It's oddly pleasant, actually. The process involved takes the luster off, the feeling of growing lighter becomes more intense.

Then its done, and I'm coughing hoarsely.

I struggle, I smell someone else in the room over the sweet stink, I slip in the thick stuff and splatter away. I'm left alone. Something hard hits my back. I pull away from it and stare, but even through blurry eyes I can tell its a wall. I put my back against it. How bad can it be?

Memories. I know I'm meant to have some. I put one hand to my brow, squeeze my temples, as if this might release the flow. I have a name. She said it. I repeat it. The word triggers other memories, memories of other words, of speech, of a language that rustles like the leaves of a tree, a constant moving sound that never strikes the ear but instead infiltrates and seduces.

"I can't see. Everything's blurry," I say. The first five words feel awkward in my mouth, unfamiliar. The second five are natural. I know it shouldn't be like this. There's something very, very wrong here. I shouldn't be so... disorientated.

"That's okay. Don't be afraid. You're in safe company."

"I am?"

"Yes."

"Who are you?"

"Eshara. Does that help?"

A wave of memories. I remember him, last time. I was female then. We made love at a fireside. We're... linked!

I try to see her, aware that something's wrong, not sure what. I feel dizzy and fall onto my back again. My vision begins to clear.

"Don't crowd him! Sharoyu, can you see better? Your eyes are focusing."

"Yes. Yes, I can see."

I'm glad she doesn't ask me what I can see, because at this exact moment I have only the shadiest memories of what I'm looking at. The walls are mud and reeds, with a network of vines and stiff branches forming support and enforcing a round shape. The floor is carpeted with rich woven mats, or was. Now half of them are stained by a lurid yellow mulchy liquid, the remains of my cocoon. My limbs, long and muscular, are slicked with it, that and another reddish blue liquid. A sniff and, alongside the scents of people and distant life, I recognize it as the sweet scent.

Slowly, I try to stand, looking carefully around me. There's no furniture, the room's small. Something buzzes at the back of my mind. I remember what this room is for, but the memory has no form in my awareness. It's there, like that little bone I've broken four times and nobody has a name for. We called it the silly bone, I remember, just because it was something to laugh about no matter how much it hurt. And it hurt a lot.

"Sharoyu, are you feeling any better yet? Memories coming back?"

I nod. Her voice is filled with tenderness. I remember her scent very strongly, and suddenly she sticks out from the blurs. Strange that I can see the world but the people remain clouded. I drink it in, and remember many happy times spread over the past century. A good spread, to be sure.

She's crouching on my level, fixing me with brilliant violet eyes. I love those eyes. Her hair is a blaze of sunny yellow, body a crafted streak of lightning, clad in gleaming dark yellowed skin which is covered up by patchwork clothes dyed to match the forest.

One by one the others become clear as I differentiate their scents. None form memories as solid as Eshara did, though. Two males with her, both looking worried. I know them, but not right now. I feel a sense of importance, it's imparted onto me by them, they're expecting something from me.

"Who am I?" I ask. It's an odd question. I'm quite certain that I'm meant to have that answer.

"Just be calm. The answers will come," she says. I can feel nervous energy draining out of the scene. The two males accept her words, look at me sidelong. I smell changes in their scents that have meaning, probably shifts in emotion. But I can't remember what they mean. Just that my nose goes from slightly ticklish to being filled with a sharp and tangy aroma. Oranges. It reminds me of oranges. What's an orange? Fruit.

I lie back again, try to calm my mind down. The chaos is poison. It shouldn't be there at all. But strangely, I'm not scared of it. I think I ought to be, but I can't remember why. It feels... comfortable.

"Can you get up?"

I stand. It's not difficult now. My body feels strong, but limber, made for running, climbing and jumping. It appears to be in a better state than my head. I'm naked, and I'm dripping, and I'm suddenly very glad that it's almost always warm in the forest. But what about that chill I'd felt?

She doesn't feel the need to speak again. I watch as she goes to the corner. There's water there in a wooden bucket. She washes me down and I'm reminded that it's possible for things in the forest to be cold even if it's generally very warm. I feel a lot better once the last of the various vomit and stains of the tagayon matigai are washed off.

"So, what now?" I ask.

"I give you clothes, you dress, and then we go out for a walk. That'll bring it all back. Your name is Sharoyu, you are my linked, and you are one of the leaders among the Drakir Yleratra of South Ylerashu. There's some food for thought."

I hadn't noticed the clothes. Similar to hers but patched differently, again colored to match forest patterns, tree bark brown and leaf green for the most part. Bits of fur and tooth are sewn in so that someone might mistake us on a chance sighting. They were under the bucket, and so are a little wet on the outside, but they're made as waterproof as possible. I remember that the rains come often and heavy. I smile, for I like the rain.

Yleratra. We are Yleratran. I am a Ylerat. We guard Siuyushu, the heartland, the forest at the center where the old wood grows. We kill unwanted visitors, guard against predators, hunt and cut wood for the others. They weave and forge for us; love but never touch. We are the bloody hands of the Drakir, and it’s a rare fool who brings hand to cheeks when they're wet and reddened.

I frown. What a grim way of thinking! But yes, I do think like that.

"There's something wrong with me, isn't there?" I ask.

Eshara smiles, but shakes her head. "You'd think so, but no. I've become very used to dealing with this. You're worse than most, though. I'll fill you in once you've remembered who you are, it'll be meaningless until then. Feel a little better?"

"Slightly," I say, truthfully. It is good to know who you are. Where helps, too, and in my mind the words South Ylerashu had triggered a reaction, a crash of images and routes through branches and undergrowth. Tree by tree, vine by vine, tiger by tiger, I felt my home returning to me. Logging areas, safe zones, the nesting grounds of birds I liked and the places where I'd wait for hours to watch the hunters stalking prey. The best spots for when the rain comes down. "Yes, I feel a little better."

"Good. Come on. Time to give your head a nice, solid kick."