Yoshi looked over her shoulder as Liya crouched down behind her, ducking underneath one of the many wings. "Ah, Liya!! Teige is trying to talk him--"

She broke off, seeing the expression on Liya's face: wordless, but tearful, and full of fear. So she said softly, "It really is him, Liya. I promise."

Without speaking, Liya looked down, and placed her hand on a patch of steel-grey feathers. The nerves in her face and down her arm lit, and a glow from beneath the feathers answered it--

--And then she was looking down into an endless, flickering spiral of bones and nerves and veins, punctuated by the beating of an infinite number of hearts, all swimming and out of focus and chaotic.