[1037] They's...knives?

Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. What is going on here.

You win all the awards.

I don't know who this dude is, but I already don't like him.

Zimmy's past tense suggests that she knows she's looking into a memory of some past event. Maybe telekinesis practice during the forest stay?

Oh WOW! Last panel looks just amazing!)

Me neither. Something about Antimony's Mona Lisa smile in the last frame makes me want to douse that spinach colored wossname with octane and light him on fire.

Plus it might be the fact that his hair looks like some kind of bro-elvis fusion.

Also: Check out the fire spike symbol on the back of her head in panel 4.

Shouldn't she have a scar on her face? Or are these indeed memories, and, since she is unaware of the scar, she doesn't remember it? But then why is the band around her arm represented by teeth? Maybe she went into the Aether then and she saw them like this?
Is the green boy not one of the family she stayed with? Maybe the boy that taught her to loosen up (Kamlen)? (from there the memory without a collar, it's the representation of her that is loosing up? Or Tom forgot it/artistic license).

I think she's just dreaming.

It looks to me like he is protecting her from the binding, because he slid his finger under the tooth.

I thought the binding was supposed to be gone? Of course, Coyote could have lied.

The Coyote does not lie, but he never promised to take the binding off, either. He just said that her hand will be cut off if she tells anyone in the Forest about his tooth. There was no time limit to his threat.

So, the binding is still there but invisible, at least on Annies etheric body. I wonder what would happen if your etheric hand got cut off, while your physical hand still remains? Paralysis? Necrosis? Something worse?

Late in commenting; but that's an interesting intimate scene. So Annie is likely to have had romantic and/or sexual (or atleast quasi-sexual) experiences during her time in the Forest.

But I very much doubt it's *pregnancy* that's the problem, as someone above suggested.

So wild hypothesizing time:

I think if the condition of Annie's heritage could be avoided by merely not getting pregnant, then it would not be spoken of quite in the manner it was -- e.g. it would not be assumed that Annie *would* have a child to eventually pass her spirit on.

I wonder if romantic/sexual feelings themselves produce the weakness; if acting on them actually alleviates the problem (going with the fire analogy, the bigger the fire the more fuel it requires to consume -- a smaller fire requires less fuel). In which case that she started having romantic/physical yearnings but *not* acted on them, may themselves be a problem (and once adult, perhaps engaging in sex but not conceiving a child would likewise cause even more weakness). That's why having a child is inevitable -- it wouldn't actually prolong Annie's life to indefinitely abstain from sex or indefinitely avoid pregnancy.

Might explain why Surma chose Anthony to be the father of her child -- Surma might have hoped that his cooler head would help delay this phase in Annie's life.

From what I can tell the clothes are transitioning from her hospital gown to her school clothes from when she ran off. So I don't think you're just seeing things, porcupineadvocate :]

Rather creepy, but it would explain why everyone seems so certain... hm.

The forest summer also marks the shift in Antimony's appearance.

My objection is that it seems rather too odd to fit in with the past tone of the comic, but that could change.

Everyone's speculating on the green dude and what relationship *he* might have with *our* dear heroine, and no-one's yet commented on the *other* green (legged) dude that Zimmy flicks off.

Did the spider become Kamlen? Did Zimmy become Kamlen?

Anne being pregnant would be a *very* interesting development, but I don't buy it: I think she'd have mentioned an affair with Kamlen to Kat (and not hint that Kat would find him interesting)

Current hypothesis: this is a memory of a dream. Zimmy is currently narrating it to Kat, based on input she's getting from Kat. Kat is drawing on what Annie's told her of her time in the forest.

...or something.