This time, when his memories were once more torn away from him, Xothok was awake to see it.

In a way, it helped that he was choosing for this to happen. The Guildmaster was standing too-close-for-comfort, for someone of her level, one hand hovering just an inch in front of his chest; Xothok was struck once again by that odd impression of familiarity, like this was someone he had known once. Not something intentional on the Guildmaster's behalf, he was pretty sure; she seemed to be a pretty private person. Nor was it that he'd simply interacted with the Guildmaster before.

Had he known the Guildmaster before she'd taken on the role?

That train of thought was torn immediately asunder by a sharp pain in his skull; Xothok grimaced, nearly collapsing forward, and only Max catching him and helping him up prevented him from smacking snout-first into the corridor.

"I didn't need your help," Xothok grumbled. Max just looked at him; she didn't say anything. She didn't even give him one of her signature grins.

"Are you okay?" she asked instead.

"I'm fine."

He really wasn't. He felt empty. He was exactly who he would have been if a multitude of things hadn't happened — if he hadn't been born a noble, if he hadn't pursued the path of astronomy that he had, if he hadn't grown into his own as a leader of a small group of navigators.

There was a bitter sort of knowledge in knowing that without that bit of help from his birth, he would've been this. A bandit. A failed bandit, even, for all that they'd managed to survive for a little while; that was less than a year out on their own before they'd been captured.

And now that was all he was and ever would be, because the piece of him that had been those things was torn out. That other-Xothok was standing in front of him now, as far as he could tell visible only to him. He was a little scrawnier, but he seemed healthier; less gaunt, brighter scales, a kinder smile. He wore a strange, flowing garb that touched the ground, decorated with long stretches of cloth colored like the night sky, with tiny pinpricks of white and lines drawn between them.

Xothok hated him, almost instinctively. Or maybe he just hated what he represented.

"They're constellations," the other-Xothok told him, noticing his staring. "Patterns in the stars."

"Do they mean anything?"

"Only historically." Other-Xothok chuckled. "And I mean that very literally. The stars used to sing, you know."

"...How would we hear them?" Xothok was vaguely aware of both Max and the Guildmaster staring at him, curious; neither of them said a word, though.

"Through the mana." Other-Xothok smiled at him. "They sang about everything that had happened, and sometimes about things that would happen. They were archives of history in the mana. We could visit them, even. There was so much to learn — that was what our House did. We went to visit those archives, and drew what knowledge we could from them."

"...Fuck."

Xothok had never cared much for history — or at least, this version of him hadn't. But even he understood the implications. Other-Xothok spoke of the stars being a repository of information, and the fact that they were all gone reflected the spotty nature of their own history...

There was a more pertinent detail there.

The stars had changed.

They once sang through the mana, and at some point they had become nothing more than balls of burning fire; Xothok remembered how Derivan's spell had looked. That was presumably the version of stars that came about after they had started burning. Now Xothok imagined libraries in the sky, filled with the history of the universe, slowly burning out.

"We have just one left," Other-Xothok said, pointing up. It was more a symbolic gesture than anything; the only thing above them was the wood of the Guild's ceilings, but Xothok understood what he meant. Other-Xothok smiled again, this time a small, sad smile. "One more archive, burning in the sky."

Xothok might not have given a shit about their history, but he didn't want it gone. Not like this.

The Guildmaster saw the look on Xothok's face, clearly, because she seemed almost immediately concerned. "If there's anything important we should know," she said. "You'll have to be careful about how you tell us. You're still under infolock — you can just bypass it while you're talking to your echo. And you'll need to remember that you can talk to your echo."

Xothok nodded stiffly, not trusting himself to speak quite yet. This was far above his paygrade—

—but it hadn't always been, a small part of him whispered. He saw proof of that right in front of him, in this gentler version of himself that once navigated the stars.

"I'm not sure what I can tell you," Xothok said. "But I think I'd like to join the Guild."

The decision had been an impulsive one, but Xothok didn't regret it. Not even when his men yelled and shouted at him, though some of them seemed quietly relieved; they had been afraid he would ask them to join him as he left, to return to a life of banditry or what-have-you. Those were the ones that had grown comfortable here, that secretly wanted to try this new life.

The ones that yelled and shouted — those were the men under Byrrhon, mostly. They led the charge by far, with Byrrhon himself being the loudest and angriest among them.

"Coward!" Byrrhon was hissing at him. Xothok watched, trying to keep himself impartial. There was a time when he would have lost his temper and slammed the man into a wall, demanding subservience, but in light of everything else he'd learned... no. All these problems seemed to small in comparison.

"He used to be one of us, too," his echo observed, looking at Byrrhon with no small amount of pity. "Not one of the most talented, but maybe one of the most dedicated."

Xothok swallowed his questions; it would be strange to ask them now, in full view of all his men. Other-Xothok seemed to sense what he wanted to ask perfectly well, though.

"You aren't all related by blood," he said. "The Principle our House was based on was in the method we used to get to the stars; we were quite happy to let anyone who was interested join, as long as they shared anything they found."

"Are you fucking listening to me?!" Byrrhon spat.

"No," Xothok replied bluntly; he ignored the outraged sputtering that followed, turning his attention instead to the way the rest of his men were looking at him. Half of them looked genuinely hopeful, and the other half looked like they were more worried about what was happening with Byrrhon —

Xothok faintly registered that Byrrhon was throwing a punch.

Other-Xothok moved before he did, surprisingly. He moved before Byrrhon even did, but as a creature of perception he couldn't do anything to block or prevent that punch — he just showed Xothok what to do.

Traditionally, Xothok handled fighting by taking the blows, rolling into them with his body, and dishing them back; the way other-Xothok fought was completely different. He slid between them like he saw them before they even happened, and Xothok found that while he didn't himself remember how fighting like this worked —

— his body did.

Skill Acquired: [Martial Navigation]

Byrrhon couldn't hit him.

He tried. The man was getting increasingly furious, and it occurred to Xothok that perhaps he should have just let him have a blow; maybe Byrrhon would calm down if he could get a good hit in and work off that anger. But the other man had invested heavily into strength, too, and regardless of health taking that blow would hurt.

"Byrrhon," Xothok tried. "Listen to me."

"I'm fucking done listening to you," Byrrhon snarled. "I've been listening to you, and look where that's got us!"

"It's gotten us a place to sleep and food to eat," Xothok said calmly; he saw a few of his men agreeing with nervous nods, though all out of Byrrhon's sight.

"It's got us workin' with the enemy," Byrrhon said.

...That was really the way he thought, wasn't it? This version of him, anyway. Now that he thought about it, he'd only ever seen Byrrhon angry; he had no memory of the man being happy, except when he was taking joy in fucking someone up. The man was a sadist —

— he was a danger. A liability.

"And?" Xothok asked, just to test him. "We get to eat now. We're not sleeping in the grass. We aren't constantly hungry and waiting for a traveler to pass by."

"We're not us anymore."

"And you think 'us' is starving? Sleeping on awful, uncomfortable dirt beds? Always afraid of fucking dying? Some people in the Guild fucked us over, but clearly that was just the Elyran branch, and we know exactly how Elyra treats just about anyone that doesn't fit into their idea of value."

"It made us us," Byrrhon said, but he sounded like he couldn't further defend his position; even his own men were starting to look disheartened. "It made us stronger."

"Starving did not make us stronger." It wasn't even Xothok that answered; it was Two. Xothok blinked; he hadn't expected Two of all people to speak up. The man had been mostly taciturn for as long as Xothok could remember. "It just made us tired and weak."

Byrrhon just scoffed. "Cowards," he said again, but without the same heat in his voice; there was instead a resigned anger, as he glared around at all of the crew. Xothok didn't think he was any less angry — he just wasn't willing to take all of them on at the same time. "You're all just cowards."

He stalked out of the room.

Morkar frowned after him. "If he's not gotten better 'bout bein' here by now..."

"He's not going to," Xothok said, finishing the thought. He frowned at the door Byrrhon had left through for a moment, like he could summon the man back by glaring hard enough — but then he shook his head.

"Give him time," someone suggested.

"He's had time," Xothok said. "It's not going to help. But keep an eye on him. He's going to try something."

"And what're we gonna do when he does?" one of Byrrhon's own men said — he wore a scowl on his face, but it was a slightly worried sort of scowl.

Xothok shook his head. "Whatever we have to," he said.

Byrrhon was powerful. He was weak to spellcasters, but in melee was second only to him; Morkar was almost as good as him, but still consistently lost their duels, and even Xothok had a hard time winning consistently.

If it came down to it, though... he could win.

It was telling that even Byrrhon's own men said nothing to this pronouncement.

"That man," other-Xothok said, pointing to Two, and providing a rather convenient distraction. "What's his name?"

"Two," Xothok said, causing Two to look up at him curiously.

"It used to be Twice-In-Starlight," other-Xothok said thoughtfully. "We didn't know where he was from; we thought he might be a planeshifter, but he never really confirmed it. He still doesn't talk much?"

"You don't talk much," Xothok said, both to Two and to his echo. Two inclined his head and shrugged slightly.

"I speak when I have to."

"He was always like that," other-Xothok said with a small smile. "He spoke the most when it was about the stars. I hope we figure out what's going on."

"I do too," Xothok said softly. He glanced back to where he slept; a lot of the notes he'd left for himself were fading away, getting harder to notice. Even his echo looked more transparent than anything else, now.

"You'll be able to call on me whenever you remember," other-Xothok said. "The workaround is a good one, but you still need to trigger it."

"It's a good thing I made a note, then," Xothok said; his gaze lingered on the ink-drawing he'd made of the stars. It wasn't fading out of sight like everything else; it stayed solid in his perception. Had he avoided the lock somehow? His men were looking at him a bit strangely, perhaps because he'd been talking to himself, but he ignored them and went to pick up the drawing, then held it up. "Two — do you recognize this?"

Two glanced at the drawing, and his brows furrowed, just slightly. "The sky," he said. "It is... familiar. But not."

"Hey, I recognize that too," Morkar said. "What the shit?"

"This has a pull to it," other-Xothok muttered; his copy touched the parchment, and seemed to solidify, just a bit. At the same time, the drawing deepened, the ink running into the darker black of the night.

Small gasps rose from his audience, and Xothok's eyes narrowed.

"Seems you've created something special," other-Xothok said.

"We're joining the Guild," Xothok said to his men. "And I think we have a mission."

They were going to find out what happened to the stars.