The morning rose with a quiet that pressed against the village like a soft hand. Mist curled along the riverbanks, curling around reeds and stones, painting the world in silver and shadow. Aion walked along the edge of the stream, bare feet sinking slightly into the damp earth, the wooden horse tucked under one arm.
He had grown taller since last summer, though his body still bore the awkward angles of a boy on the cusp of something else. His eyes, golden and deep, watched the water ripple as if it held secrets meant only for him. And perhaps it did.
"Why does it always move?" he whispered to the stream.
"Because it must," a voice answered, low and steady.
Aion looked up. Drazon stood at the edge of the trees, tall and quiet, a shadow among shadows. His cloak hung loose over his shoulders, but there was weight in the way he carried himself, a gravity that seemed to bend even sunlight around him.
"I don't understand it," Aion admitted. "Why can't it stay still, even for a moment?"
Drazon stepped closer, the grass bending slightly beneath his boots. "Because stillness is not what makes life," he said. "Movement is. Growth is. Change. Even the rivers must flow, even the mountains must crumble. Otherwise, nothing would last."
Aion frowned. The lesson felt simple, yet he sensed a deeper truth, one he could not grasp entirely. The pulse beneath his skin, faint yet insistent, throbbed in answer, reminding him that his own life, too, was not meant to be still.
Drazon crouched beside him, studying the water. "You are more than what you see, Aion," he said gently. "But do not mistake power for purpose. A river cuts through stone not to dominate, but because it must. So too must you learn when to move, and when to let life shape you."
Aion tilted his head. "But if I hurt someone by moving… by existing…?"
Drazon's eyes darkened briefly, a shadow crossing his calm demeanor. "Then you will carry that weight," he said. "And you will learn from it. Pain is not always a punishment, boy. It is a teacher."
Aion's hands clenched around the wooden horse. He felt the truth of Drazon's words in the pulse beneath his skin, the silent stirring of something immense and alive within him. And yet he did not fully understand. He never would, not yet.
They walked together through the fields, past the swaying wheat, past the distant hills where the village slept. The air smelled of damp earth and sun-warmed soil, carrying with it a hint of smoke from the chimneys, a reminder of human life untouched by gods. Aion felt small in that world, yet impossibly large in ways he could not name.
"Do you remember why you were brought here?" Drazon asked suddenly.
Aion shook his head. "I don't know. I only know what I feel."
"Good," Drazon said. "Feelings are more honest than words. They are what tie us to the world, even when everything else falls away."
The boy nodded, though the words offered no comfort. Sometimes the pulse beneath his skin surged uncontrollably, reminding him that he was not like other children. That he carried something inside him both terrible and magnificent.
They reached the edge of the forest where shadows thickened, and Drazon paused. "Here," he said. "We will train. Not to make you strong, but to make you aware. Power is meaningless without understanding. Without restraint, it becomes destruction."
Aion followed him into the trees, the forest breathing around them. The air smelled of moss and decay, of life hidden beneath shadow. Sunlight fractured through the canopy, catching on his hair and turning it to gold in flickering streaks.
Drazon demonstrated movements, slow and precise. Each motion was a conversation — with gravity, with the air, with unseen forces that shaped the forest itself. Aion mirrored them, clumsy at first, limbs uneven, breath coming in bursts. But as he moved, he felt something shift — the pulse beneath his skin syncing with the rhythm of the trees, the wind, the earth itself.
"You feel that?" Drazon asked, his voice a whisper.
"Yes," Aion said. "It… listens."
"Not listens," Drazon corrected. "It responds. Everything has its own rhythm. Learn to move with it, not against it."
Hours passed like this, sunlight sliding across the forest floor, shadows lengthening, retreating, then blending into evening. Aion grew tired, but he did not stop. There was a curiosity inside him he could not name, a hunger to understand the pulse, the rhythm, the strange, terrifying beauty of the power that dwelled within.
At last, they sat by a small clearing where wildflowers trembled in the evening breeze. Drazon's eyes softened. "You are learning," he said. "Not mastery, but awareness. Awareness is the first step. Everything else comes later."
Aion looked at him, eyes wide. "Later… will it ever be safe?"
Drazon shook his head slowly. "Nothing ever is. Not fully. That is why restraint is more important than strength. And why mercy must guide even the mightiest hands. Remember, Aion, power is not a gift. It is a responsibility."
The boy understood, though not entirely. He felt the weight of Drazon's words pressing against the pulse within him. And somewhere deep in his chest, he understood that the world outside the forest — the one he loved and feared — would never be the same once he learned to move fully, consciously, with what was inside him.
The sun sank beyond the hills. Shadows stretched long across the fields. The wind carried the scent of smoke and earth and the faint hum of life. Aion and Drazon walked back to the village, silent companions in a world both familiar and utterly alien.
That night, as he lay beneath the blanket Mara had stitched with careful hands, Aion felt the pulse again, steady and insistent. It was no longer a whisper, no longer distant. It was a heartbeat — his own, and yet something far older, far larger, echoing through him.
Somewhere beyond the stars, the gods stirred. Somewhere beyond the mountains, the universe whispered its memory. And in the quiet, small village, a boy slept, unaware that each breath he drew carried both hope and ruin.
Tomorrow, he would rise again. And the world, already trembling beneath the weight of what he would one day become, would wait.