With his mood ruined, Yun recounted his birth (as told by Sister).
"It was stormy that day."
As Yun recalled Sister's retelling of his birthday, the Soul Plain responded in kind, bringing the images in his head to life.
A pregnant Mother and Sister had taken the transit lines leading down to the Transit Station, located a few miles away from the Hollows border.
The tracks ran above the Stone District, winding up and disappearing just beyond the barrier that managed the city's weather. They would then take a sharp descent, coming to a halt at the station below.
Passengers mostly consisted of humans; tourists, couples on dates and some who had come for work.
A malfunction left the car they were in stuck amidst the turbulent storm. Yun and Miri watched with dazed expressions as a procession of humans exited the car, hiding from the rain with the emergency umbrellas.
Soon, a circle of umbrellas formed on the translucent barrier.
In the middle of these people was a woman in labour. Her agonized cries rivalled the booming thunder and heavy patter of raindrops against the barrier.
Next to her, was a young woman, gripping her hand and shouting something with tears streaming down her face. Hours passed in seconds, and soon, the woman's cries weren't the only ones cutting through the rough wind.
Yun had just been born.
Floating above his own birth, his mouth hung open. His thoughts had fled his grasp, and so he just… watched.
The nothingness began creeping in again, washing away everything. The newly born Yun and his family, the Stone District and the vast sprawl below it. Gone.
Before he knew it, Yun was sitting in the empty field once more. Except this time, a round seed rested in his palm.
He wiped the tears he didn't realize had stained his cheek, and addressed Miri. He held the seed between his thumb and index finger.
"What is this?"
"That is your vital core, or rather, that's what is going to become your vital core."
"Usually, you'd have to plant it in your Soul Plain and water it with your own essence over a few months to years till it cracks open. But that's not what we're doing today, for obvious reasons."
"Okay. What now."
Yun looked up to see red mist flowing in, coalescing into a dense cloud. He felt his chest and back heat up intensely, the same place where Miri had placed her palm.
The nothing sky slowly became tainted with an angry, crimson hue. After stirring and boiling like hot blood, raindrops started falling from the sky.
And then…
Boom!
Red lightning struck the round seed in his palm.
"Argh!"
At the same moment, the heat in Yun's chest spiked, causing him to cough up blood. The pain was comparable to when his celestial core formed.
Miri's strained voice boomed:
"Don't let go of the seed until it's cracked!"
The rain fell in a straight line even harder now, and the red clouds grew darker and larger.
Boom!
Yun reeled back with his teeth clenched, but made sure not to drop the seed. With tears forming in his eyes, he checked on the seed. It was still in one piece, hard as a rock.
Boom!
"Fuck!" he screamed. "Miri, I don't think it's working. Stop…"
"… No, don't listen to me! Keep going!"
Strike after strike, Miri violently poured her own essence into Yun's Soul Plain. After hours that felt like an eternity, Yun had stopped counting. He held both his hands up, waiting for the lightning to strike the stubborn seed.
No lightning came. The clouds had thinned considerably. It seemed Miri was out of vital essence.
"Screw this!"
Gripping it tightly, Yun repeatedly slammed the seed on the ground. When that didn't work, he started biting. He alternated between those two actions whilst shouting like a madman.
***
On the mountain, the sun had begun to set. Miri had collapsed beside the servant boy, trying to catch her breath amidst a rough coughing spell. Casting her gaze towards the path they came from, she saw a shadow growing taller. A pit formed in her stomach.
"Crap. We were so close too."
That thing had found them.
Miri forced herself upright, throwing the servant on her back. She scanned the surrounding slopes, hoping to find a cave of some sort.
With a single leap, she had hidden them within the treeline, running in deeper as the seconds passed.
She refused to fall here and join the failures of past eras. Falling by her own brother's blade would surely deny her entry at the gates of the Heavenly Court. As its last survivor, she had to carry the Maliki name forward.
Soon, she came upon a crack in the rocky slopes. Summoning every inch of remaining strength, she leapt and launched herself in along with the servant, collapsing on stone.
Once in, she was greeted by a shaky hand aimed at her throat. She looked up to see a scruffy-looking man. One of the prisoners, his eyes wide with fear.
"You wench! Go back where you came from!"
Unconcerned, Miri shifted her gaze to the object in this man's free hand.
The Maliki's precious artifact. The map to the Falling Sky.
"Hand it over."
Miri's hand shot forward, only to grab empty air. She pushed herself upright against the cave wall, one hand finding the hilt of her broadsword. The grip felt weak, her fingers weren't cooperating.
The prisoner had retreated back, and kept his shaking hand aimed at her throat. It was a kitchen knife taken from the Blood Maiden's galley stores, most likely.
"I'd rather not repeat myself."
"Like hell!" His voice cracked. "You people planned on feeding me to monsters! I've had quite enough of Maliki hospitality, thank you!"
Miri's arm moved to disarm him, but found nothing. The prisoners jumped back and Miri didn't have the strength to give chase.
Fine.
She breathed through it, while mentally cataloguing her condition. Core depleted, legs spent, hands unsteady. Using any more vital essence would have been lethal, not like she could even if she wanted to.
All her Gates had automatically closed when she exhausted her essence. It was going to take a few hours for her to recover.
The map was clutched against the prisoner's chest with his free hand, knuckles white around the ornate case. He was just three feet away. She watched his grip and waited for something to return to her limbs.
Nothing did.
So she lunged anyway.
She got one hand on the map's case before he wrenched sideways, crashing them both into the cave wall. He was stronger than he looked, so the impact rattled her teeth. She desperately pulled and twisted against the rock face, trying to wrench the case from the prisoner's grasp.
"Stop— just stop!"
He scrambled back, pressing himself into the far wall, knife raised. His whole body was shaking now. "It's mine! I carried it all the way up that forsaken mountain!"
Miri dropped on one knee. Her sword arm hung useless. Her eyes remained fixed on the case. The scruffy prisoner was shaking badly, and he was sweat-drenched despite the cold. His eyes kept cutting to the cave mouth, then back to her, then to the unconscious boy draped across her shoulders.
He was afraid and cornered. Just an ordinary man.
Except…
Miri had grown up reading essence the way other children learned to read script. Even a dormant core left its mark; a faint whisper in the air, a signature as unique as one's face. She'd barely registered this man's on the ship. Why would she? It was unremarkable.
But now, there was nothing.
She checked to see if it was suppressed, but it was simply gone. As though he had simply never carried one at all.
She looked at him again; same weathered face. Same unkempt beard. Even the same wild expression. But something had vacated the eyes. Suddenly, the frantic shaking stopped.
What was left was restrained patience.
She thought of the other prisoner. The older one. The one who'd walked out of a hold full of Plague untouched, while many others hadn't.
The old one caught me off guard, Mortin had said.
The knife lowered, almost without decision. The hand holding it had stopped shaking entirely.
"Old man?" she said.
The weathered face rearranged itself. It didn't change, but the expression beneath this one shifted into something settled and unhurried.
"Well done, little girl," he said.
"Let us talk."