Yoshi and Vlad were barely holding up the massive half-formed creature that was Hawk. His right side looked somewhat stable: steel-grey feathers; a powerful electric-yellow arm striped in black, ending in a massive taloned hand that he was holding the bloodied cloth to his opposite shoulder with; a huge half-furled wing that dragged on the floor; and a yellow skull-like, vaguely bird-shaped face crowned in a crest of white feathers. The rest of him, though, was a confusion of legs and arms and feathers that ran the gamut from bare skin to long talons, all erupting from the injury in his shoulder. And the whole of him seemed to swim and shimmer, livid and bright compared to his surroundings. He turned the face to Teige; the left side of it was distorted, as though another face was trying to separate itself from it.

"Teige!" Yoshi said, bracing herself under Hawk's elbow to keep him upright.

"Thank God!" Vlad exclaimed. Teige had leapt to his feet, tail bristling in shock.

"What the hell's happened?!"

"Here!" Unceremoniously, Vlad heaved Hawk forward into Teige's arms, and he collapsed into Teige heavily with his huge head coming to rest on Teige's horns.

"Eh?! Where are you going?!" Teige shouted, because Vlad was sprinting past him, through a small crowd that was gathering and towards the open doors.

"I'm gonna warn Liya!" he called without looking back. "We can't just spring this on her!"

Teige's ears flicked forward as Hawk's voice came from somewhere inside the huge blunt jaws, sounding garbled and small. "He's got a point."

"Too right," Teige said grimly, and he and Yoshi began to lower Hawk slowly to the marble floor. "Ease on down here, Hawk."