Aurelian leaned against the window frame of his treehouse, a quiet contentment settling in his chest. Sunlight—liquid gold—filtered through the leaves of the Great Tree. Somewhere above, a mourning dove's hollow coo braided with the creak of rope bridges in the breeze. The air smelled faintly of warm sap and crushed moss.
His home, carved from living wood, fit him and Fayte perfectly. The walls curved like the inside of a seed pod, smooth and pale, etched with natural whorls. Lattice windows held leaf-glass that breathed in the heat and sighed out cool.
Fayte darted recklessly, the patchwork griffin doll clamped in his beak. Aurelian turned toward the window, drawn by the low light beyond the glass. He had seen it before, yet wonder always caught him off guard. The adult Noctians slept within their translucent vestals—wombs of shimmering fluid that cradled them in perpetual rebirth. The pods swayed with the tree's slow breathing, their glow pulsing like the heartbeat of the divine. He caught himself thinking he'd lived here for months. Yet he'd been born only days ago, full-grown and untested. The mind was strange that way—it clung to rhythm faster than memory could keep up.
As he returned to his work, Fayte darted past, shaking his toy as if he had gone rabid. "You're going to shred that thing," Aurelian murmured. The last thread slid smoothly beneath his fingers. He was finishing a tunic—midnight linen quilted in feather motifs—when the System flared in cool script along the cloth in his lap.
For the first time in days, he was alone. His eyebrows rose. Was it time to explore the new shop? The menu flicked through his mind.
[An upgrade is available.]
Do you wish to sync the system's shop to your Auctioneer's Assistant?
His eyes widened. Yes. The tablet hummed, and he seized it.
A charge lifted the hair on his arms. He opened the shop. He opened the shop: 32 motes, one elemental fire seed—the currency of this world. Images gleamed: armor, staves, spellbooks, foci. Not words in his head, but a marketplace he could walk into.
He filtered to find what he could afford. Only three items appeared—an amulet, a focus, and a ring. Each was exquisite, but he refrained. Best to wait and see more.
His thoughts wandered where he'd avoided. Rita. Likely in the medical bay, palm against a fevered brow, whispering comfort. Her hand had been constant through the worst—sure as law. The ache struck without warning. He let it, then breathed past. She had placed him here, in the only way that mattered. He would make her proud—even if she never knew this world's name.
And the other question, always lurking—what would he be doing back home? Dead... A grim truth, but no bitterness. Not ended. Refolded. Fresh air in the lungs. Work for the hands. He would love new people, and they would love him.
He knotted the last seam and drew the cedar box Eden had left at his door. Carved vines curled across the lid. Inside lay tools. A Starbriar's stitching hoop and delicate bone needles were nestled inside.
He clipped the gate to his hip and slid the folded tunic into its dark mouth. It vanished with soft pressure, like a secret gladly swallowed.
Outside, the grove shimmered with preparations. Lanterns hung like captured stars between branches; women in white and pale-green crossed rope bridges with armfuls of ribbon and prism-frames. They'd been building a secret for him and Fayte. No one would say what.
A soft rap at the door. Fayte froze mid-pounce.
Aurelian said, "Stay," even while seated like a student feigning innocence. He opened the door.
Eden stood framed in lantern glow, winter-queen in a gown of pure white. Feathered pauldrons glinted on her shoulders; a pale headdress crowned her dark hair. In her hands, a prism-lantern pulsed as if it, too, awaited permission.
"Turn," she said, smiling.
He obliged, letting her take in the ceremonial whites, and the ornate silver belt that had appeared earlier like a conjured compliment.
"You look like a Noctian prince," she murmured, and kissed his cheek.
"All mothers say that."
Her laugh was unapologetic. "This rite is special," she said, voice lowering. "You are the only one the Tree has given us in years. It is a welcome of silence, not boasting. No jokes about the Before tonight, hm?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good."
He knelt. Fayte trotted over, doll dangling.
"Shoulder Fayte," Eden said. "And breathe."
He nodded. He always forgot until she said it.
They descended, rope bridges swaying, lanterns wheeling like fireflies tethered by silk. The masked sisters sang a low, wordless harmony that seemed to move the boughs. Woodsmoke rode the air, threaded with an iron sweetness that raised the hairs along his neck—ceremony's smell.
On the forest floor, an arc of people waited in white and gold. Eden stepped forward masked, her voice a bell.
"Tonight, we welcome a new brother and son into our grove. Sisters and daughters, let us welcome."
Aurelian eased onto the low bench at the circle's heart—warm, weighty, trusting—and Fayte perched on his shoulder, solemn for once, frayed doll still clenched.
"Tonight," Eden said, "we welcome Aurelian and Fayte into our family. The Land of Shadow is what we are. We are guardians of our wood. We charge you—both—to stand with us, to shield one another and the Tree that feeds us. Will you join us?"
"We will," he said, surprised at how strong it came.
"Welcome, brother," the grove intoned. "We grow stronger as a grove. Welcome."
At Eden's gesture, the tinder curled and breathed. The bonfire answered—light leapt across dry wood, a tower of flame blooming at once. Sparks spiraled like startled stars.
A masked attendant placed a cold prism in his hands. Eden tipped her head… now.
"Aurelian," she said. "We give you our dawn. Make it yours."
He extended the prism. When the flame touched its lip, color unfurled inside the glass—rose, amber, and a ribbon of blue—as if first light had poured into it. He drew it back, warmth blooming in his palm.
"Welcome, grove brother!"
"Let the festival—" Eden began.
The night tore.
Something vast beat the air above—leather thunder. A gout of fire ripped through the canopy, snapped the bonfire dead with a hiss, and etched a reptilian silhouette in raw flame. Lanterns burned sickly and alone. Screams broke and scattered. Aurelian moved faster than thought; he cinched Fayte to his chest and summoned a globe of hardened air around them—shelter and shield.
Figures stepped from the trees—thin, elegant, wrong. Bone-white faces above regal tatters, eyes like coals in ash. The first of them smiled with too many teeth and stroked his silk cravat as if testing its worth.
"You are not welcome here, Saintilus!" Eden's voice struck stone. "Take your children and leave our woods. Grove—prepare!"
Saintilus bowed as to a gala. "Eden," he sighed, "you teach your daughters to guard all beneath your boughs. Surely your kindness extends to me. And my children." A glance behind. "Besides… was my master not once your own?"
Another shadow peeled free—taller, winged, horn-crowned. A feather-cloak hung at his shoulders like a winter cut to fit a corpse.
"Mother," he said.
Eden went still. "I am no longer your mother, Zion. You chose a throne of night. This grove renounces you."
He laid a hand on his heart with theatrical gravity. "Even here, heresy rots the branch. A boy with a half-moon blazing on his brow? Born as you were. You thought I would not come." His gaze found Aurelian like a thrown knife.
"You will not touch him," Eden said, stepping forward.
"Will," Zion murmured. "Won't." His smile curved, and darkness pooled at his feet like spilled ink. "A son to replace a son?"
Fayte dropped from Aurelian's shoulder and planted himself between them—small, but his pelt licked with flame. His growl carried the promise of fire born from lightning.
Zion extended a hand as to a stray mongrel. "Come, bastard-phoenix," he whispered. "Cor Umbrae comes when I call. You mean nothing to me."
A command crept into Aurelian's marrow, cold and absolute.
"Kneel," Zion said.
Aurelian's knees hit loam.
Zion slashed his wrist with a nail. Black-red blood ticked down. "Drink," he murmured, velvet over a blade. "Let me make you greater. Let us honor a mother with a son." He leaned closer. "Regardless of your contract, boy, you will be mine."
Contract? The word pierced through the haze. A contract had brought him here. Was Zion from his world?
Aurelian's hand shot up and clamped around Zion's wrist. The skin hissed. Smoke curled in a thin, astonished ribbon.
Zion flinched, mask cracking. "You dare burn me?" He backhanded Aurelian—wings flared, voice now jagged iron.
The System cut through the roar.
[Quest Received: Survive]
Class Note: Starbriar — built to burn the Fallen
Available Skill: Mend
Zion turned his palm toward Fayte. Shadow spilled from it like ink in water. Tendrils unfurled—writing themselves into the air, into him. Fayte screamed—high, shocked—as black coils wrapped his beak, throat, chest. Gold spiraled into darkness, brilliance turned sick.
"No!" Aurelian lunged, clawing at the corruption with bare hands. The thread between them thrashed—vibrating with the sound of something about to tear.
"Silence thy panic, Starbriar." The voice struck his mind like thunder behind glass. "You wish to save him?"
"Yes!"
"It will have a cost."
"I do not care!" His voice cracked through thought and air alike. "Whatever it takes—help me save him!"
"Then heed me. Feel the bond that joins you."
Before Aurelian could ask how, he felt it—alive and trembling, a current he could hold.
"Do not sever it. Split it, like a web. Funnel the corruption through it. Let it pass into thee, not him."
"It will consume me." The truth rose in him like breath.
"It may."
He didn't hesitate. "Then let it. He gave his life to save me—now I give mine to save him."
[ALERT: Feral State Entered]
Control: Reduced
Shadow Bolt → Shadow Spark
The grove shattered into vectors and threats. He fled.
A pair of wild otocyon elders burst from the brush. Sparks shattered spines. Claws raked and snapped. Lynx, stag, boar, fox, snake—each fell, their deaths counted in sudden XP chimes until the numbers blurred.
Chimes blurred into silence. Anything that breathed, ceased.
Total: +455 XP
+319 motes
[Level Up] 2 → 3
XP: (67 + 455) − 400 = 122 / 600
Health: 26 → 27 | Mana: 52 → 54 | Stamina: 21 → 22
Strength: 9 → 10 | Dexterity: 10 → 11 | Vitality: 9 → 10 | Intelligence: 13 → 14
Wisdom: 10 → 11 | Charisma: 9 → 10
Control returning… Feral bias subsiding.
Blood and rain blurred into one long taste of iron. Branches whipped past; bones cracked underfoot; small lives blew out like sparks in wet wind. When the hunger finally loosened its teeth, the world lurched back into shape.
He staggered into a glade, hands slick, chest heaving. Dawn speared the canopy, and the feral haze fell away from him—he collapsed naked to the grass, breath tearing at his ribs.
Rain came as if the sky had washed him—or erased him; he couldn't tell which. Water hissed where it struck the last clinging ash of void on his skin. For an instant, the hunger for carnage faltered, allowing grief to rush in.
Through the gray veil, the qirin stepped.
Mane glistening with rain, antlers woven with light, eyes like sorrow learned to be patient. It bowed—its brow to his shoulder—as if offering itself again. Something in him buckled. He had wanted that covenant with a desperate, childish want—and then the night had taken the choice from him and bent him into something that did not feel like a man.
"Stay away from me!" His voice cracked raw against thunder. "What would this darkness have done to you—" He couldn't finish. Fayte's cry still rang in his bones.
The qirin watched him. A brightness gathered behind it—warmer than fire, steadier than rain. The air itself leaned, listening.
A voice—not in his ear, but in the shape the world made—"I'm Ursaela, Mother of the Moon. Darkness came early, little one. Too soon for an ardentis to bear, you purged it, and accepted his darkness. The hybrid chose true. A protector—a guardian. Do not fear it—I do not. Shadow and light walk together. You walk with this darkness, but learn to mold it, temper it, as the world does the storm. Hold on to that."
The qirin's outline wavered, starlight loosening like threads in water. It didn't turn away in anger. It simply faded, as storms do when they've said their piece.
Aurelian bowed over his knees and wept—ugly, wracking sobs that leave a body emptied but somehow still alight. Rain sheeted down, and the glade took him in. Far behind the sound of his own grief, the grove still lived—shouts, calls, the harsh ring of steel, the frantic wingbeats of something reptilian fighting branches too thin to bear it.
He pushed onto his hands, shook, tried again, got one knee under him. The half-moon on his brow burned low and steady—a coal, not a blaze. He drew a breath so deep it hurt and made himself a promise that needed no witness.
Mourn later, protect those he had learned to care for… even if it was from himself.