The ash fell like snow that never learned how to be gentle. I registered it before I smelled the sulfur—fine grit coating my shoulders, clinging to the blue of my skin, dulling the red glow of the lava flow threading the valley below. Volcanic country. Bad visibility. Worse footing. It’s the kind of place that made you want to dig in your heels, but there was nothing firm to dig them into.

I slowed, rifle low but ready. Pandora felt wrong here. The forest wasn't singing. No bioluminescent pulse, none of that ethereal glow I’ve come to associate with this damned moon. Just blackened trunks, cracked stone, and heat that crawled up through my boots like something alive, something that remembered what it meant to burn. It was a primal, elemental anger radiating from the ground itself.

Then the pressure hit.

It wasn't a sound—it’s intent. A ripple in the air, a shift in gravity that screamed danger. My body reacted before my mind could fully process it. I pivoted just as something slammed into me from the side. Hard and fast. Not clumsy. A blade flashed—obsidian, razor-thin—and I barely got my forearm up before it kissed skin.

Pain flared. Clean cut. My blood, hot and sticky, began to seep through the unfamiliar fabric they called skin. Good weapon, I acknowledged, even through the sudden surge of adrenaline. They knew what they were doing.

We hit the ground in a snarl of limbs and ash. She’s on me instantly, knee to my chest, weight balanced like she’s done this a hundred times. Her face was streaked with charcoal markings, eyes burning gold in the low light. Fire-clan, if my instincts were worth a damn. They always were. Her eyes were narrowed, primal, devoid of any emotion I could readily identify.

She pressed the blade to my throat. The cold, sharp edge bit, a stark contrast to the simmering heat beneath me.

I exhaled slowly, trying to keep my breathing even. “Y’know, most folks introduce themselves first.”

“Silence,” she snapped, her knee digging deeper into my ribs, a dull ache blooming. The pressure was enough to make me wince.

“Okay,” I conceded, a flicker of something akin to amusement playing at the edges of my thoughts. “So we’re skipping pleasantries.”

Her eyes narrowed further. “You wear stolen skin.”

“Borrowed,” I corrected, the word tasting strange on my tongue. I wished I could say stolen. It would imply a degree of ownership, of intent. “If I stole it, I’d feel better about it.”

The blade pressed harder, the edge finding a more definitive point of contact.

“Careful,” I added mildly, my voice a low rumble. “You nick the artery, I make a mess. Nobody enjoys that.” It was a threat, but also a statement of fact. Bloodshed was messy, inefficient. And right now, efficiency was paramount.

“You are not afraid.” It wasn't a question. More like an observation, laced with something I couldn't quite decipher. Confusion? Disdain?

I shrugged as much as the position allowed, the movement tight and controlled. “I’m standing in a volcano with a stranger holding a knife to my throat. I’ve had worse Tuesdays.” The words were true, in a way. Tuesdays on Earth were rarely peaceful. And the hell of it was, even in this alien body, that old, hard-won resilience still answered.