#474Yuèjù

Yuèjù moves through the Wàngyuè Grottos at the pace of lunar tides, jade haunches carrying her between mineral pillars in a gait no bestiary has predicted. The crimson in her eyes predates every calendar the Convergence erased. Pilgrims come to read the color. Most leave without interpretation, carrying silence home like a secondary organ. She is Fauna within the Feral tier — sacred ecosystems claim her, territorial surveys log her transit, xenobiological indexes classify her under lapine. None of these facts constrain her. The jade composing her body retains a warmth mineral science exhausts itself classifying: press a palm to her flank and feel a thermal response that answers back, like endothermic contact with living membrane. The faithful call this reciprocity. Sovereigns who have attempted to collar Feral organisms of her grade call it jurisdiction. The crystal vessel she carries has been empty on no recorded occasion. Field researchers stationed at the Grottos for seventeen cycles cataloged intake against output, hunting the anatomical mechanism responsible. The logs terminate mid-entry. [Zhūhuáng Zhēnjiǔ](https://maximals.shape.network/token/946) arrived in the aftermath of the Drowning of Iaret, carrying grief particular to organisms that watched symbiotic networks dissolve. Yuèjù met them at the threshold and extended the vessel — posture of a predator certain of the prey's thirst. What [Zhūhuáng Zhēnjiǔ](https://maximals.shape.network/token/946) drank has reorganized the ecological balance of two nesting territories since. [Yùhuáng-Tu](https://maximals.shape.network/token/1136) receives portions through a rite performed at no scheduled interval. The vessel refills. If seventeen cycles of observation failed to locate the mechanism, what does it mean that the filling rate has accelerated this season?