The fire cracked like a whip as its green flames danced under a trillion stars and nebuli. It was hard to find dry wood in the Kordani marsh, and those you could scavenge hissed and crackled like Janis powder nuts— Pregnant with pockets of thick, chartreuse sap that popped in the heat.

Ansel didn't mind the sound. He had served during the war, and the pops and snaps reminded him of musket fire. He had grown accustom to that long ago. He grinned with both mouths, yellowed teeth wet in the light and looked towards the Andretti sitting across the firepit.

It was Decanter, the ego of his dust, that spoke from within him. “I lend, seer. Speak of what your blind eyes see in the mists of my life.”

The old Andretti sighed, past heavy upon his leathery blue skin. He let his quad of milky eyes sluice open at Ansel's words and brought his bony hands up, sipping from the bowl of water held between. “Thick yer mists, man of threes. I see from nine eyes through mine which have gazed naught in all my coil. I gaze death around yeh, and despair within yeh. Yer loved ones taken by yer own selves, bashed and beaten 'pon rocks and dragged nude o'er hills of razor. Ye'll be the winds of their dust, Drogen.”

The milky spheres slid up to face him.

“Ye'll be the winds of this world, ya raggin' pathos.”

Ansel burst into laughter. He fell backwards onto the ground, mouths gnashing and membranes thick over eyes, and rolled in the soggy moss, whooping and hollering at the grimacing Andretti. Once sated, he sprung back up and shook the clumps of green from his ponytail. “I gaze yer dust speakin' sackcloth, “ Ansel bemusedly spake in the rural cant of Korsicus. “Cluck yer tongue— Yeh know of what makto yer gazin' at, don't yeh?” He cracked the dual grin once more and kept the translucent membranes across his three eyes. His arm reached across the moss and gripped something hard in his pack.

“Course I know yer makto, Ansel Arcus, son of Dwynn and Fryt. Yer a raggin' plague on the dust of this world!” The Andretti seer started to his feet and cast the bowl at Ansel. The Drogen tumbled to the side and brought his arm up from beneath himself as the flames danced across the seer's blade.

The next pop wasn't of wood. The Andretti stuttered a gasp, took two steps, and fell forward into the fire. The flames quickly engulfed his dirty robe and filled the camp with thick smoke and a foul stench. Ansel stood and pulled the collar of his undershirt over his mouths before collecting his belongings, and set off betwixt the close-packed trees that blanketed the marsh. The Grenk lived in this poison land, and they would smell the smoke quite soon.