A Finger Depressed on the Scales of Fate

	Choked prayers issued to an unfeeling and coldly glimmering night sky, over red drooling out onto a forest floor. Bandages tied taut to a seeping bite, soaking with crimson that outlines hastily scrawled runes whose long-forgotten script begs not for divine intervention, but merely a finger depressed on the scales of fate, as the skin underneath grows pale and the muscle yet further seizes and twitches. A pair of brightly glowing eyes gazing from the hazy darkness of the forest, a knowing stare meeting a desperate gaze.

	"En," they cry out, "En, please, please, do not let this venom reach his heart!"

	The rain begins to fall slow, languid and thick like blood, even from few clouds. With no moon to crest in the sky, the only sign of midnight's arrival is the depthless dark that settles over the world as the last of the color drains from the horizon, only the stars and sparse torchlight to outline the looming forest. Carefully and gently the other members carry their ailing compatriot through the forest, following their trail as best they can in the dark, feeling him twist and coil in their hands as the venom seeps through his veins.

	Just as they breach the treeline and start to slink into the familiar and calming warmth of their campfire, they notice something: another member of their group has vanished without a trace, having sunk silently into the darkness of the forest sometime before.

	...

	In the morning, the bitten man begins to recover, the color slowly beginning to show in his ghostly pale skin and his muscles calming. He sits up, close to the fire as he can to drive back the chill that has settled into his veins, and looks into the treeline, into the endless forest. He wonders about the trade they'd made, as his tribe gathers about the shrine. A wisp of flame carved in plain stone but with such delicate detail, floating atop a basin where they gather the day's offerings.

	En's glowing spectacles catch his gaze, vacant and white, nestled amongst the shade of the trees. As soon as he blinks they are gone, but they have left their message—he will not soon forget the grace and luck he'd been given. Hesitantly, he casts his favorite dagger into the basin, in the hopes that his grisly fortune will not return to haunt him.