The shadow of the great cat lingered in the green silence between them as they made their way back to camp. This time, their journey was not one of flight, but of provision. Othniel carried waterskins, heavy and sloshing from the spring, the weight a comforting promise of security. Xeno walked beside him, his eyes constantly scanning the twilight-draped forest, reading the textures of bark and the patterns of moss as his father had taught him.
It was in the deepest shade, on the cold, north-facing side of a colossal Stone Bark tree, that his eyes caught a hint of something that defied the fading light. A soft, ethereal glow, no brighter than a handful of captured starlight, pulsed faintly from a cluster of shelf-like growths.
"Father," he called softly, his voice cutting the stillness.
Othniel was at his side in moments, his hunter's instinct overriding casual curiosity. His hand went to his knife, his body tense. Beautiful lies, the old warning echoed in his mind. He peered at the fungi, his eyes narrowing. Their tops were a dull, woody brown, perfectly camouflaged against the bark. But their undersides... their undersides held a soft, blue-green luminescence that seemed to breathe with a light of its own.
He did not touch. He simply watched, his breath misting in the cool air. After a long moment, he knelt, his movements reverent and slow.
"Glimmer-Caps," he murmured, the name a ghost on his lips. "I have only heard them named in stories traded for a day's labor at a Sun-Eater fireside." He carefully, so carefully, used the tip of his bone knife to pry one from the bark. It came away with a soft tear.
He held it in his palm, and the cool light painted the lines of his hand in shades of alien jade. "They say they hold the moon's glow within them, a light that does not burn, but simply... is."
That night, their camp was transformed. The fire was a necessity for cooking, its light a familiar, warm heartbeat. But Xeno placed the Glimmer-Caps around the terrace, nestling them in cracks and on flat stones. Slowly, the clearing was bathed in a soft, silent radiance.
It pushed back the crushing blackness without a single sound, illuminating their shelter in a dreamlike haze. It was light as a secret, light as a held breath.
Othniel watched the effect, a grim line of approval easing the tension around his mouth. "Good," he grunted. He skewered thick strips of the Hoof meat over the fire. The scent of roasting meat, rich and savory, wove through the cooler, earthier scent of the damp forest and the strange, clean smell of the glowing fungi.
As the meat sizzled, his practical mind assessed this new discovery. "The old tales say they can be eaten," he mused, breaking a small piece from the edge of a cap. Its glow flickered momentarily. He chewed slowly, his face a mask of concentration. "Bland. Like chewing on damp bark and cold stone. But it is bulk. It fills a space that hunger wants to claim."
He handed a larger piece to Xeno. It was not a feast, but it was variety—a small, significant step away from the bare edge of survival.
They ate in a silence that was no longer strained, but contemplative. The combination of the rich, hot meat and the soft, chewy mushroom was the most complete meal they had shared since the world ended. The ghost of their old life—of meals shared around a larger fire, surrounded by voices—flickered at the edges of the strange, silent light.
It was Xeno who finally gave voice to the question that had hung between them since the previous night. "Father," he began, his voice quieter than the hiss of the fire.
"The tale. You said you would tell me about the Old Walls."
Othniel finished his mouthful, washing it down with a sip of water. He set his waterskin down carefully, as if settling a weight. His gaze grew distant, fixed on the pulsating heart of a Glimmer-Cap as if it were a scrying pool.
"The stories are old, Xeno," he began, his voice dropping into the rhythm of a storyteller, low and measured. "Fragments. Like shards of a pot shattered across generations. I gathered them in my wandering years, trading labor for words around the fires of bigger tribes, who were sometimes kind enough to share their lore."
He paused, the forest listening with them. "The tale, as it's whispered, says the walls were raised by Aetherlian hands. But not our hands, lad. Not the hands of a small River Reed tribe. The hands of our ancestors, from an age so deep its bones have turned to dust. They built them as a shield. A great, desperate scar across the land to hold back the things that hunted them when they first came to this place."
He looked at his son, the firelight and the fungal glow carving his face into a mask of ancient worry. "Things that would make the Shadow Cat seem like a pet. And not just beasts. Other... intelligences. Other folk who saw our ancestors as invaders, or worse... as prey."
Othniel leaned forward, the glow from the mushrooms catching the intensity in his eyes. "And this land, Xeno. This entire, vast, breathing beast of a continent we are lost in... our ancestors, in their defiance, gave it a name. They called it Athelaros."
The name landed in the clearing not as a word, but as a fact. Solid. Immense. It was the first time Xeno had ever heard a name for the ground beneath his feet, the air in his lungs. It was no longer just wilderness; it was a place with a history, a name earned in struggle.
"They named it to claim it," Othniel's voice was barely a whisper now. "To carve a place for themselves against the teeth and the shadows. The Old Walls were their defiance. But the stories..." He shook his head slowly, a profound sorrow in the gesture.
"The stories never say what happened to them. Only that the walls were left behind, standing long after the reason for their building was forgotten."
He fell silent. The unspoken question hung thicker than the smoke, colder than the fungal light: If the walls were built to keep something out, was that something still here? Or had the builders ultimately fallen to what was already inside with them?
Xeno stared into the gentle, persistent glow of the mushrooms, the tale settling into his bones like a second skeleton.
The world now had a name—Athelaros. And with that name came the terrifying weight of its forgotten wars and the silent, waiting judgment of its history.