[X] Get to another city. You know that Marita, while not exactly close, is relatively nearby and has its own Golden Crow Society presence. If you can evade the Hunt, you can maybe convince that branch that you need a place to lay low for a bit (and definitely lie about the reason why; no mere criminal organization is going to go up against a Dragon-blooded host).
Taking a look at the river, you try and coordinate exactly where you are along the Yanaze. At the very least, the flaring energy surrounding you helps you see further than you could. Your own best guess and a powerful gut feeling you can't really explain informs you that you're on the south bank of the Yanaze, significantly to the west past where the Gray River forks off from it. That would put you in the thereabouts of Marita, that hub of diplomats. You figure their political neutrality might help you; Lookshy soldiers might not be so eager to shed your blood on territory that's not a part of the Confederation of Rivers, or at least would prefer to wait and find an assassin to do it quietly. And, in addition, there's a few of the Golden Crows there, a smaller operation than the main one in Great Forks, running the same construction rackets as they do in Nexus.
As you start to head west you find that you seem to have slipped unconsciously into a different pattern of walking, your feet barely grazing the soil and grass before they lift up from the ground. That gut feeling returns again, telling you to head away from the river, and this time you take the time to inquire with yourself about what's going on. Thinking about it rationally, it makes sense to not walk so close to the Yanaze; the only bridge close by to Nexus is south of it on the Gray River, a significant delay for your pursuers if they went by land. They would definitely take a boat as a result, so you alter your course, dipping into the nearby woodlands.
You think, as you tread through the trees and bushes, that what just happened to you seems to have altered your instincts in some way; you feel as though your human impulses were augmented with those a completely different species, one that had lived and hunted here in the river deltas for millennia before mankind claimed its own territory here. You know how to step on a branch without snapping it, what direction to go despite your lack of any tools or navigational training, and more. You harvest a few fallen mulberries off the ground, popping them into your mouth. They're bitter, but you find an almost rapturous glee in eating after so long going without anything.
Eventually the light surrounding your body fades, gradually shrinking from its mile high beam to only envelop you then fading out entirely over the course of several hours. You feel glad, but that happiness is tempered by how utterly tired you are from the journey so far. You've only made it to a fifth of where you need to go. You press on until noon, and then hide yourself in an abandoned bear den to rest.
The next few days are largely a blur to you. Only a few moments stick out in your mind.
On the first day, you drank a puddle of gritty, muddy rain water that had not dried up due to being in a shaded copse, your newfound instincts shouting at you to continue to stay away from the river. On the second, half-delirious from lack of food, you began talking to a hare, exhorting it to come closer to you, and found that it was actually listening to you. Smiling, you told it you had a bit of food for it behind your back, and when it hopped over within reach, you took a sharp rock you had found and dashed its head in. Later that day, as you meekly poked bits of bloody uncooked rabbit into your mouth on your hike (you deeply wish you could have cooked it, but the gut feeling had forbidden you from lighting any fires), you tried to experiment and see if you yourself could shape-shift like the other Lunar Anathema could, finding that with a bit of mental effort like that of struggling to remember someone you met exactly once a decade ago, you could give your skin a deep tan (an impossibility before hand; you'd always burn if you got too much sunlight, a fact Yazu would always mock you for) and remove several of your old scars. The scar left from your unfortunate encounter with Ephiselle was far more stubborn, never going away no matter how much you tried to force it, and eventually you reverted all changes made, finding the presence of your past wounds a comfort.
On the fourth day, wanting to get at a few grubs you could see wriggling in a fallen tree but could not grasp them with such relatively large hands, you suddenly found yourself in the form of a beast. Your paws plucked out the larvae and you ate them then and there, shoving them into your snout and finding the taste far more suited to this palate than that of your human form. Inspecting yourself with eyes unable to perceive any color, you found you looked like the raccoons that would wander the streets of Nexus at night dueling alley cats and raitons for food. You'd always liked raccoons, but after you returned to your human form, you found it frustrating you could not turn into something more intimidating or fierce.
Day six, you saw your first fellow human in what felt like ages. A hunter, middle-aged and carrying a longbow in one of her calloused hands and a string of felled pheasants in the other. Before she could spot you, you assumed your raccoon form and silently tailed her back to her camp, and when she fell asleep that night, stole one of the pheasants, a spare set of clothing, and a pair of leather boots. You took great care not to spill the bird's blood on your new clothes as you tore into its corpse with your teeth, sparing the russet-colored tunic and black trousers from any stain that would make the militia men guarding Marita suspicious, and disposed of your stained Nexus rags by shoving them down a badger's burrow and cleverly constructing a pile of leaves and soil above it.
Eight days of hiking finally brings you within sight of the harbor city of Marita. You spot the Dome of the Concordant first, a gleaming white marble structure recently built to house the various diplomatic missions within as well as the Council of the Concordant itself. Hundreds of ships from all over the Scavenger Lands and the Realm crowd its harbors, as well of those from stranger places; as you get near the city, you see a house-sized lotus flower, a boat made of lacewing and whose sails you somehow grasp are made of solidified poetry and light, and a whale parked near the docks. The streets are crowded, bustling with activity as workers head their ways to support an economy that you can only assume is entirely based around catering to rich foreigners; servants walk towards mansions, teams of strong men carry huge barrels of wine marked with the mon of the new Realm House, V'neef, and slave auctioneers holler out bidding prices for their living cargo.
You find that for whatever reason, you simply cannot suppress anger at the state of things like you once could. You walk through the roads fuming silently, your blood demanding some form of action against all these petty tyrants that make the lives of people like you miserable, but you manage to barely rein it back in once you remember exactly why you bothered moving through hundreds of miles of woodland to a completely foreign city. You decide to not blow your cover, and instead walk into the best tavern you can find that's closest to you, a respectable-looking place named "The Old Sturgeon". It looks like the clientele here are mostly dockworkers, burly and top-heavy from years of hauling cargo off of ships. You find a seat on the bar, and the publican, an elderly man with a face that reminds you of a dog in someway (perhaps its his very long earlobes), says, "Can I get you anything, miss?"
You manage to keep a straight face instead of startling, remembering that you don't exactly look the way you used to just ten days ago. You shrug it off and, surprising yourself, launch into a bold-faced lie instead of your original plan, which was to ask him for work in exchange for lodging. "Yes, I require a room. As I recall, you owe me one."
The man looks confused, and says, "Why, we've never met before."
You say, with a friendly smile, "We have, though. As I recall, I had sent word and payment ahead that a single bed room was to be reserved for me on the third day of last year's Calibration, and unfortunately when I arrived, you had filled all your available rooms. So, you promised me that you owed me a day for later."
As you say the words in a voice far higher-pitched than it used to be, you feel that now familiar gut feeling and you let it steer you. It lends your voice an almost hypnotic confidence; you give off an air of unbelievable certainty in this complete falsehood, and as the man nods, you know that what you just said has taken root in this publican's head. He bows and says, "Oh! So terribly sorry to have forgotten. Yes, m'am, one moment."
He calls over a servant, asking which single occupancy rooms are open, and then says, "Ah yes, room seven on the second floor is available." He presses a small iron key into your hand, and in addition reaches behind the counter and pulls out a bottle of wine. It's not terribly expensive, but a cut above what you've drank before. "And, ah, take this on the house for your troubles."
You do feel genuinely appreciative, but hide the smirk that was about to crawl over your face. "Why thank you. And, tell me, is there a bath? I've been traveling for a while and I've business tomorrow."
The man nods. "Of course. I'll have the servants draw one up for you."
"Ah, thank you, sir." You walk upstairs to your room, bottle of wine in hand, and laugh once you're out of ear shot. You barely take in the features of the room before you collapse into the surprisingly comfortable bed. For once, you feel appreciative of what happened to you. You could get used to this, if you could get that nagging feeling of being a horrible Anathema out of the back of your mind.
You soak in the warm water, reveling in the sensation of being clean after such a long week. You think on how best to find the local Golden Crows as you take another sip from your cup. You suppose you could try to ask around the place, but that might raise unwanted suspicion. As you ponder this, you catch a glimpse of movement in the corner of your eye. A six-winged cherub, purple-eyed and clad in fine silk embroidered with phrases in what you think is Old Realm, phases through the wall of the bath room and begins hovering in front of your face. At this point, you're far too tired to be surprised, so you just roll with it when it begins talking, with a rather statue-like look on its chubby face, in the voice of a man, his tone rather uneven and rapid.
"Hello, hi. This is Blue Lantern Ember, right? Of course it is, this spell literally cannot go to anyone else, I'm fucking wasting time again. Anyway, hello! I've found out about your recent run-in with a certain Incarnae, and uh, don't worry about it because I'm not a shikari and also this messenger can't be seen or heard by anyone but you so if you're like walking through a crowded marketplace or are surrounded by Lookshy soldiers right now, they're oblivious to this. So, it's cool, yeah? Also don't bother talking to the cherub, this is prerecorded.
Anyway, just wanted to arrange a meeting with you. I'm gonna guess you're in Marita right now, but uh, if you aren't, please come here. I've got a proposition for you that might be interesting, put you in contact with your fellows, if you know what I mean. And uh, only if you want, I can't really force you. Ah, give me one moment..."
You hear a loud snorting sound come from the cherub before the man resumes.
"Holy fuck, I needed that. I am so very tired. Anyway, yeah, I can offer protection from the Hunt if you accept my offer. I mean, I already have. Let's just say your pursuers have run into everything that could possibly go wrong on their trip along the Yanaze. Maybe a few things that are impossible, if I do say so myself. I'll be at the One-Headed Hydra Pub, north side of town. I know you can read but if you need extra help, I think you can guess what's on the sign. Well, then again, I don't know if you know what a hydra is; in case you don't, it's like a big snake with many heads. But, uh, this one only has one... That sounds really dumb when I say it out loud. Whatever, you can figure it out. Anyway, hopefully you take my offer. I'll be here for about a week or so. Have a good one."
The cherub dissipates into nothing. You stare, blankly, at the wall that was behind it, and try to think on what to do.
[ ] Go to the One-Headed Hydra tomorrow. Despite the, well, quality of that message, you're intrigued.
[ ] Hold off on that and visit the Crows tomorrow. You've got to get yourself secure before you can talk to this guy, in case it is a ruse.
[ ] Fuck this guy. Find the Crows tomorrow and pretend you didn't just have a cherub materialize before you and ramble at you for three minutes.
