Eli runs along the outer wall of the corridors. She can see an intersection where three corridors combine and one of them runs the closest to the levitating stone planet.

She finally finds her way to the intersection of the corridors and skids to a stop. A few steps later, Silvana stops by her side. From their point of view (and point of gravity) the intersection is a set of steep ramps running up in a Y shape.

Both of them glance at each other and nod. Eli carefully steps on it, bracing for the shift of gravity. She adjusts to the change in perspective before Silvana imitates her, and both of them break into another run.

The closer she gets to the floating planet, the more details stand out. The entire surface is covered in crystal outcroppings, crevasses running into the earth here and there. The rivers of gold all run into the cracks, making shimmering waterfalls that sink below the surface.

Eli desperately wants to make a three-dimensional sculpture of it, or at the very least sketch it.

Both of them jog to a stop at the nearest point to the planet, looking at it overhead. It's still at least a school bus's length away from them.

"What do we do now?" muses Silvana, breathing heavily.

Eli, makes a considering noise and then puts her hands around her mouth and shouts: "HELLO?!? ANYBODY HERE?!?"

"What are you doing?" whisper-yells Silvana and clutches at Eli's arm, dragging them both to the ground. "You're attracting attention!"

"That's the point," Eli responds. "HELLO?!? IF YOU'RE HERE WE'D LIKE TO TALK– hmmph!"

Silvana claps a hand over Eli's mouth and she squirms trying to get the hand off her mouth. Eventually, she licks Silvana's hand and she lets go, a disgusted grimace on her face.

Then the planet begins to move the cracks widening. The planet unfurls into a creature resembling a hedgehog, the white crystals rippling and extending into quill-like constructs. However, its limbs are too long, its snout too square for a hedgehog, its shape looking closer to that of a hare. The rivers of gold run backward to their source until they coalesce into tranquil lakes on the creature's face, just like eyes. Geysers of gold sprout from its extremities, coming to form its claws. The source of the rivers is right in the middle of its forehead, where they spring to life in three distinct spouts, curling back into the creature's quills where they crash and disappear under them. What would be a hedgehog's soft inner fur seems to be a field of parchment paper.

It faces both of them, its unblinking, golden eyes resting on both of them.

"Greetings," it says, without opening its mouth. "What is it that you seek in my realm, little humans?"

Eli flounders with her words, struck speechless by the beautiful fae.

"We came here for answers if you would be willing to provide them," interjects Silvana, her tone measured and hitting the perfect balance between firm and respectful.

Now that Silvana's not raging out, Eli can see in her the elegance and poise of a queen as she greets the creature, face stern but open.

"I would," the creature responds, its claws gently placing themselves on each side of Eli and Silvana, boxing them in. "For a price."

"One I'm sure we could negotiate," acquiesces Silvana, an assured smile on her face. "What may I call you, and what pronouns would you prefer I use?"

The fae smiles with its eyes. "Call me, Inkuire. And I have been referred to as she for many, many years."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Inkuire," Silvana responds, doing a picture-perfect curtsy. "You can refer to us as Silvana and Eli."

Inkuire doesn't respond beyond a nod.

Silvana takes a deep breath. "Our question refers to, how do I stop an unwilling possession?"

"I see, that is certainly a plight, young one," the fae answers, one of its claws gently tapping Silvana in the head.

Silvana freezes up for a split second, but then resumes her previous loose and confident posture. "Will you be able to help?"

"I can certainly point you in the right direction," Inkuire acquiesces. "How exactly to stop an unwilling possession is a secret heavily guarded by Epoche"

"Epoche?" Eli asks before she can stop herself and then she slaps a hand over her mouth at the dirty looks Silvana throws at her.

"...Oh dear, you have much to learn!" says the fae, utterly delighted. "If this is the state of matters, I believe it would be most beneficial if instead of a deal, we enter a pact."

"If I may inquire without a price," Silvana interjects. "What entails a pact?"

"Nothing is without a price," says the fae, it's maw opening to reveal a row of pristine, golden, wolf-like teeth. "Offer something in return."

"Your teeth are amazing," says Eli, stepping closer to the fae and standing on her tiptoes to get closer to them.

"You are a strange human, are you not?" Inkuire says, closing her mouth and nearing the tip of where her nose should be to Eli's face.

"I'm strange as fuck!" agrees Eli, extending a hand to put on Inkuire's snout and pet it.

The fae laughs and backs up slightly. "Well, it seems a different approach is needed! How about a small deal? I'll tell you what a pact is, and in exchange, you'll both tell me your weaknesses."

Silvana clamps up, pursing her lips and looking thoroughly vexed at the idea.

"Oh! That's easy!" Eli says, spinning in place. "I'm shit at concentrating. Like really bad, unless in very specific things. Math doesn't like me. My reading comprehension is pretty bad. Ummm, what else? People! People get tired of me easily and I don't know why. Also I do a lot of bad decisions. So yeah."

Silvana just sighs. "I am... not, good at keeping my emotions in check. And I can't draw, or sing, or do anything artistic besides playing the violin."

"She's really good at that!" Eli says brightly. "You should hear her she's sooooo good."

"I have never been athletic or strong, physically," continues Silvana, ignoring Eli entirely, which is rude. "And I guess that is it."

"Nope!" says Eli. "You also suck at people."

"What?" Silvana says, looking offended. "I'll have you know I am very charismatic when I want to be. People like me."

"Yeah, sure," concedes Eli. "But you don't like people."

Silvana's mouth opens and closes like that of fishes.

"So there! Our weaknesses!" says Eli, completely ignoring Silvana's quiet outrage.

"Good, that is plenty of information," Inkuire says. "You've both made a Deal before, I assume?"

"Yes," confirms Sivana, her voice cold, side-eyeing Eli with a disgruntled face.

"Then a Pact enables both parties to make Deals without having to negotiate every single aspect of them," the fae explains, the golden rivers changing courses to add emphasis to its words. "Think of it like opening a tab in a restaurant. You ask for what you desire and I give it, but if you ask for more than you can give you can make up for the difference at a later time without me having to forcibly take what you owe," Inkuire says sweetly.

"And if we take too much?" asks Silvana suspiciously.

The fae laughs like chimes. "You can never take too much as long as you live."

"Cool!" Eli says, walking forward. "I don't know about grumpy face over there but I am 100% on board!"

"I don't think I have an alternative," Silvana sighs. "Yes, I will enter a Pact with you."

"So what'dya want?"

"For you to learn and grow," the fae answers. Then, her shifting, liquid claws lose their shape and spiral out like floating rivers that envelop both of them.

Eli laughs with delight as she is lifted off the ground gently, held aloft by the fae. She hears Silvana shriek in terror beside her but doesn't mind her. She trusts Inkuire. She knows she's safe.

Inkuire's crown of golden rivers uncurl themselves, reaching and flowing in the air, extending into the darkness. The corridors of stone shatter, the pieces crumbling and floating like meteors in outer space. Then, the chunks of stone fly towards them, reforming into a platform underneath their feet, a floating island straight out of a Smash Bros stage.

Inkuire sets both of them on the platform, Eli jumping around in excitement while Silvana scrambles to stand as far away from the fae as she can.

The rivers of gold ripple and then start to retract back, the edges of the space retracting with them. Eli's brain struggles to comprehend what she's seeing as the endless space becomes finite but somehow still endless, enforcing a boundary that she knows she somehow could walk around but never surpass.

Inkuire smiles and suddenly shrinks, becoming tiny and more compact until she has the same height as Eli, so basically until she's slightly smaller than a horse.

"I will provide now some of the answers you desire," Inkuire declares, sitting back on her haunches, looking like a huge, spiky magic wolf. "We fae are beings of magic; we are made of it, born from it, feed from it. Unfortunately, we ourselves cannot produce it. Humans don't produce it either, but they have the ability to gather the ambient magic and give it to us."

"That checks out," mumbles Silvana, her grey eyes coldly analyzing Inkuire.

"However, the transfer of magic from human to fae is quite tricky," she explains. "We cannot consume it unless it is given in the right form."

Eli cocks her head like a lost puppy.

"What it means is that your magic has to be tinged by the right intention for me to be able to siphon it from you." Inkuire clarifies, reaching over to pet Eli's head. "And the intention I need is that of growth. Of bettering yourself and reaching new heights in knowledge and ability."

"So we just learn?" asks Silvana, dumbfounded. "That's it? No blood sacrifices, no fear, no firstborn child?"

"Are those myths still going around?" Inkuire says, cocking her head to the side. "No, we only require the right intention. If another fae needed the intention of causing suffering, then maybe. But I am a spirit of self-growth and both of you are here to do just that!"

She then strikes the rock with a gold-tipped paw and it sinks into it, before two mounds of boulders burst from the ground and rearrange themselves into vaguely humanoid figures.

"First off, both of you need to learn how to channel fae magic!" Inkuire exclaims, standing on her four paws. "Silvana you'll focus on learning how to work with Boile. And you Eli, you'll be learning how to channel my magic, since you aren't being possessed."

"Wait, we came here for–" Silvana protests, outraged, before one of the rock constructs takes a swipe at it.

"That comes later! Now it is time to learn!"

Silvana stumbles to a stop, sweat pouring off of her, completely covered in dust.

She's been screaming so much her throat is sore, but she doesn't care because that damned construct keeps dodging all of the hits she throws at it and she stumbles and falls and gets up and she's completely covered in damn dust!

That's what pissess her off the most. When the rock thing strikes at her, it stops inches from her and instead lets out a poof of gold dust. She's covered in gold dust and she hates it.

"Will you die already?!?" she screams and surges towards the thing in a reckless attack.

It dodges and trips her up, and she rolls to a stop in the dirt before she gets back up again.

"Silvana! The point of your exercise is to learn to dodge and get up again! Don't attack!" Inkuire says before she calmly goes back to talking to Eli.

Silvana screams and punches a hole straight into the floor before the construct releases a cloud of gold dust right in her face.

"Magic pulses through everything," says Inkuire in a soft, gentle voice. "From the tiniest grain of sand to the glorious sun in the sky. It is with practice and patience that you can learn to perceive it without the aid of another fae."

Eli furrows her brow, holding her still as a tiny river of gold runs through and around them.

"Feel my magic, perceive my magic. Focus on it as it moves and changes, grasp its unique nature."

Eli's brow furrows even further, a look of intense concentration on her face.

"Do you feel it?"

"I feel... hungry."

Eli's head hurts from all her concentrating as she walks into her room after four hours straight of sitting trying to perceive whatever the hell Inkuire's magic felt like. She collapses onto her bed with a groan.

Silvan collapses too but she looks like one of those actresses in old movies fainting on a fainting couch. She looks so pretty it's unfair.

Eli's thoughts drift around and sharpen and soften into a lull of half-sleep until Silvana's head lifts up from the bed. "She never told us about Epoche."

"FUCK."