"Do you know how Coils are classified?" asked Bran.
Misha stared at him. He couldn't speak while he was a dragon.
"Just nod or shake your head."
Misha shook his head.
"That's alright. I just couldn't remember if I mentioned them in the notebooks you've read or not." Bran raised the bow and strung it. "To make it simple, Coils are organised according to how obvious it is that you're in one - its 'opacity'. Both of the two you've been in were relatively opaque which means it was obvious from the weird things going on that, well, you're not somewhere normal."
He pulled back the string, testing its tension.
"Not all Coils are like that though; some are more transparent - you can walk straight into one and have no idea. The reason for this is that there is an intentional hand behind them - they're Coils that were purposefully made by someone who wants them to look natural for whatever reason. Now, while some unintentional or naturally occurring Coils have guardians, intentionally created ones all do. These are magical beings created for the express purpose of protecting the Coil and helping it to continue existing."
Bran raised the bow and pulled back the string as if he were drawing an invisible arrow.
"Draw."
Misha felt power suddenly ignite in the air and a flame flared to life right where an arrow should have sat on Bran's bow.
"The Walled City no longer exists," announced Bran in a strong voice. "It was demolished in nineteen ninety-three. I deny its existence!"
A sharp whistle shot down the passage where Bran and Misha stood. The air boiled and suddenly a floating figure bubbled into existence a few metres away. It was tall, far taller than a normal man, and clad in pearly white armor. In its hand it held a spear that glinted in the dim light.
Misha's whole body tensed but the site barely registered with him as Bran had loosed his arrow, and the flaming thing hurtled down the passage toward the knight.
For a moment it seemed like that would be it, Bran would shoot the Coil's guardian dead in one shot, but the creature fizzled in the air then reappeared a foot to the side, completely avoiding the arrow and raised its sword.
"Careful!" Misha heard Bran shout, but it didn't register with him. His own animalistic instincts had kicked in and he lunged toward the knight, a burning need to defend what was his.
The knight's helmet turned as it changed targets to the dragon speeding towards it and slashed downward, but Misha was ready, zigzagging first to the left then right. This got him behind the knight, and he used the opportunity to slash at his opponent's exposed back with his claws.
For a moment the heavy armor resisted then cracked as Misha's claws broke the surface. A wave of light beamed out from the knight's chest, throwing Misha back against the passage wall.
The knight, suddenly looking haggard, took its sword with both hands, ready to strike but again it was unable to as a second arrow shot from Bran forced it to teleport away.
Bran ran up to the dragon.
"Misha!"
Misha rolled onto his front and rose again, snapping his jaws impatiently and growling. Bran looked him over and, satisfied he was alright, raised his bow again, this time aiming it at the sky.
The knight tried to teleport, then dodge the arrows, but it was clear the wound to its back was causing it problems. It lashed out at the last falling arrow with its sword then, as if angered, charged toward Bran.
Bran let the bow drop to hang over his wrist and reached for the knife at his hip, but it wasn't needed. The knight had neglected to keep an eye on the dragon who now bore down on it with the sharpest of teeth.
Before Bran had started firing, Misha had flown up to the top of the buildings, keeping to the shadows, then dropped like a stone along with the arrows.
The knight gave out a grating groan as it went down onto its knees, the dragon coiled around it like a snake.
Quickly, Bran strode forward, both daggers now drawn, and plunged them into the knight's chest. The creature shivered and briefly warped the air then fell apart. Misha bounced back, teeth still bared just in case, but the knight continued to disintegrate until it was a mere mound of dust on the ground.
Misha, heart pounding in his scaley chest, sniffed the dust then looked to Bran whose brow was still furrowed. Was it over?
"Quick, this way!" Bran said and began to run down the passage.
Misha felt a blanket of anxiety fall over him like rain and he raced after his partner.
Some metres down the passage, Bran stopped in front of a door, pulled a piece of paper out from his pocket, and slapped it to the door. He tried the door handle but it didn't budge.
He swore under his breath.
Around them reality seemed to be disintegrating, much like how the knight had disintegrated just prior and a dark half smoke, half gooey substance was now seeping up through the ground.
Bran tried the door again, this time shoving his shoulder against it, but again it didn't budge. He reached for the charm he'd placed on the door then fell backwards as a white, scaly tail wrapped round him, pulling him back a step.
The door didn't stand a chance against the frightened fury of the dragon and the pair were through the door in under a second.
Once inside, Bran quickly twisted and shut the door behind them.
The groaning immediately dropped to a low, intermittent hum and for a while, the pair merely lay on the floor, Misha curling around Bran. Bran ran his fingers through the green-blue ridge of fur then rested his hand on the white scales.
They were home.
"Good job back there," Bran said quietly. The lights were off in the living room and his voice echoed a little in the dark.
Misha shifted underneath him then suddenly the fur and scales disappeared. Bran immediately sat up but the sensation of touching bare skin still burned his hands.
"You could have warned me a little better," said Misha with a smile as he lay on the floor, looking up at Bran. With his eyes, he could easily make out Bran's face and his wide eyes.
"I actually couldn't," he said, swallowing. "If I'd said much more, the guardian would have turned up sooner."
"That's something I don't quite get." Misha sat up, bringing his face closer to Bran's. "So you're saying that where we are… doesn't exist?"
There was something odd going on in Misha, he knew it himself, but it had come on too quickly and he'd wanted it for too long to stop it.
And besides, Bran wasn't moving away.
"It does," replied Bran, "but not like how we've been experiencing it."
"But…?"
Bran's eyes half closed as his gaze dropped to Misha's lips and naked body. "But..."
Suddenly there came a knock at the door and Bran and Misha jumped apart like they'd been burned.
The knock came again.
"I'll… I'll get the door," said Bran, averting his gaze and getting up quickly. He stumbled to the door then stopped. "Have you, have you got your clothes on?"
"Yeah," said Misha before appearing at Bran's shoulder, fully dressed and carrying the two daggers.
He offered one to Bran without looking at him.
Bran took it then unlocked the door.
"Amethyst?"
Misha leaned over and peered over Bran's shoulder and saw that the person standing outside the door was indeed the gu-huo-niao.
"Was it you two who did it? It must have been you two." The woman's eyes were wide and there were tears in them though Misha sensed not sadness or anger in her, but relief and happiness.
"What have we done?" he asked.
Amethyst stepped aside. "Look."
And so, he did.
It was still the wee hours of the morning but there was already a slight glow in the sky off to the east.
Wait, the sky?
Misha stepped outside and found himself standing on a long outdoor corridor spotted with doors on one side and railing down the other that looked out over a large square with a large tree planted in the middle. Some distance away was another tall building and another and another and beyond that, the unending horizon.
The 'walled' part of the Walled City had vanished leaving behind just the 'city'.
"Is this…?"
"This is what this area is supposed to look like," said Bran. He stood beside Misha. "You can imagine I was pretty shocked when I came back from overseas and discovered it had turned into the Walled City."
Misha stared down at the tree. Just on the other side of it was a basketball court, one that looked eerily similar to the one he'd played on with Coral and her friends ages ago.
"But you didn't say anything because… it would have summoned the guardian of the Coil? So… the entire complex was inside a Coil? That's-"
"Crazy," finished Amethyst. "It is indeed crazy. I struggle to imagine how hard my mind must have worked to trick me into believing that everything was normal."
"Wait, so you knew too?" asked Misha, mind still reeling. Then he sneezed.
"Let's all get inside," said Bran, ushering the other two in.