"We can leave it out for the carrion birds to eat. Seems cruel to deny them food."

Just leaving it feels wrong but Lev's the obvious person to make the decision, here.

"Sure, okay. If that's -- that's what makes sense." He sure doesn't know what else to do. He's not at all sure they have a shovel.

"We should-- probably head back soon." He doesn't move.

"Yeah." He drags himself into motion and starts mechanically making sure their supplies are packed.

Packing. Packing is good, it's a concrete thing that needs to be done, Mordred can do concrete things that need to be done. At some point he is going to need to stop putting off having feelings but that point doesn't need to be now, and in fact can't be, because there is a concrete task that needs to be done.

Lev is not going to do concrete tasks. He is going to trace eyes into the sand.

Meanwhile--

Magnificence has decided to STEAL the six of swords, because it is Anemone. He is aware that this is not really how things work. But he wants it anyway.

Magnificence is TRYING to be STRONG and do what Anemone would want him to do, but he can't show any of his pictures to her, and it just makes him more distraught that she isn't here anymore.

Araari doesn’t move much while she’s in Kolluli. She sits with her back against the wall. She sleeps lightly and wakes often.

She doesn’t eat or drink anything between midnight and 3pm; she eats two (vegan) meals a day. She breaks her fast on Christmas.

She prays for hours. She doesn’t use the name Azathoth. It feels safer, like that. Sometimes she asks for guidance. Sometimes she thanks God. Sometimes she begs His forgiveness.

She spins thread until her hands ache and then she keeps going. She wishes she had a loom.

Zoe tries to keep her mind off of her worries by chatting with the people in the village. The language barrier makes it difficult, and she often resorts to pantomime, body language, and just being a companionable presence. She tries to help out, where her injury will let her. She tries to keep her wound clean and dressed and checks on its healing often, and wishes she knew more about how to help it. She spends time with Araari, but mostly avoids subjects like mouths and strange gods, often resorting to small talk or lapsing into silence. She does her best to care for Magnificence, but suspects he doesn't really want to spend a lot of time with her, and doesn't push the matter. She wonders how long the others will be, out in the desert. She wonders how Frank is doing, back at the airplane. She misses Anemone.

Araari has nightmares of the cultists. Of the volcano. She runs and runs. Sometimes she’s fast enough, and she has to watch their children die screaming, engulfed in lava. Sometimes she’s not fast enough, and she feels her flesh burn and crackle and melt.

When she wakes up, she runs. Not thinking, just moving. It’s hot. It is not hot enough. It feels like penance. Her feet hurt. Her legs hurt. She keeps running.

She runs for six hours before she collapses, gasping for air, on the hot sand. It hurts. Everything hurts. It almost feels like it’s enough, maybe.

Magnificence SEES IT HAPPEN and he's gonna have to go run to Zoe and desperately try to communicate that Araari is abandoning them to go run out into the desert!!

(Rude!!)

Zoe goes to see what Magnificence is trying to show her.

Magnificence will DESPAIRINGLY POINT AT THE FIGURE DISAPPEARING INTO THE DISTANCE.

"Araari! Where are you going!"

When Araari doesn't respond, Zoe worries. Even if Araari had decided she didn't want to wait here any longer, she wouldn't have run off into the desert by herself with no provisions. Maybe the thing that happened to her is happening to Araari?

Zoe runs to the bicycles and hops on one and goes after Araari as fast as she can.

Araari is just going to keep running. There’s someone chasing her—she has to go faster—

Well it DOES NOT SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO RUN OFF INTO THE DESERT ALONE WITH NO SUPPLIES.

Zoe is not actually sure how to overtake Araari safely. No matter which way she goes, Araari runs from her, and it's all open desert here. There's nowhere to corner her, and if she tries to stop her bike and approach her, she just puts more distance between them. Araari is very fast and does not seem to be tiring. Zoe despairs of catching her, and spends a moment torn between following her at a distance to keep an eye on her, and going back to Kolluli and possibly losing her completely.

HOW DO YOU TELL HUMANS THAT THEY ARE DOING A STUPID THING

He is going to SCREAM and point back at the village.

Magnificence screaming is enough to pull her to a halt. She promised to take care of him and she can't do that if she gets them lost in the desert with no supplies. With a pained expression, she watches for a moment as Araari recedes into the distance. Then, she turns her bike back towards the village and pedals as fast as she can.

When she gets there she shouts for help, and tries to express across the language barrier how Araari ran off into the desert, how she has no water or supplies, how even when Zoe caught up to her she didn't stop running.

"We need to go after her, and find her! She's not safe out there!"

Zoe frantically begins packing.

The Kolluli residents are concerned and create a search party! They convey through pantomime that Zoe, being frail, should stay here.

Zoe HATES being the weak one. She wants to help. She has to hold back screams of frustration, because they wouldn't understand her. Once they're gone, she doesn't hold back anymore. She paces, stamping her feet and kicking things and cursing her helplessness.

Not long after Araari collapsed, someone helps her up and puts her on a camel's back.

“Thank you,” she says, kind of weakly.

And so with one thing and another they meet back in Kolluli, and travel to Mersa Fatma, and fly to New York City.

Where Mrs. Winston-Rogers has found a new member of their team to replace Carrie Meadows.