I awoke slowly, blinking as a dim, grainy light pressed faintly against my eyelids. When my vision steadied, I found myself staring into the uncomfortably close glint of a short, curved beak hovering re inches from my face.
“You had a strange dream,” Harua said, her voice flat, matter-of-fact, as though announcing the weather.
I recoiled instinctively, trying to put a breath of distance between us before clearing my throat. “You—you saw all that?” My voice rasped, still rough from sleep. The remnants of the dream lingered. Voices echoing faintly, their words blurring at the edges as the scenery and faces dissolved into a haze.
Harua tilted her head, eyes narrowing with simple puzzlent. “I said you had a strange dream. Why would that an I saw any of it?” Her tone was so plain in its confusion that it made my question feel even more ridiculous.
“Right,” I muttered, rubbing the heel of my palm against my temples.
I sat up, my shoulders stiff, stretching the sleep from them. Nearby, Bristle lay curled, snoring like the beast he was, each breath a heavy rise and fall of his flank. I’d have to check his Inner Realm later. Already using fire was a bit astonishing.
The air here—wherever here was—felt cool, yet thick with the scent of stone dust. A muted light seeped through a jagged opening in the wall behind Harua, painting her feathers in a dull orange sheen. “What happened after I fell asleep?” I asked, scanning the shadows past her.
She gave a shrug that belonged to a bored teenager, folding her wings around her legs. “Sa as usual.”
“Which ans?” I pressed.
“Sa,” she chirped again, either missing my aning entirely or pretending not to care.
I exhaled in defeat and rose to my feet.
Are you two alright? I asked inwardly.
Wyrem’s rumbling voice ca first. As long as I can keep eating, yes.
Which ans you have to stay alive, Luna added dryly.
I followed the light toward the cavern’s edge, stepping past Harua, who rocked idly where she sat. Leaning forward, I peered through the opening and instantly stumbled back, breath catching.
We were high. Crawling forward on my belly, I eased toward the edge again, forcing my eyes to adjust. The cave was carved into the second-highest stone of the precariously stacked tower, each layer of rock appearing more unstable than the last. Far below, the ground dropped away in a dizzying plunge.
“I want to talk about your dream,” Harua called from behind, making turn. “It seems that you’re still bothered by it.”
“Not exactly,” I said, retreating from the ledge to steadier ground. “It just… didn’t make much sense.”
Her gaze sharpened slightly. “Do dreams ever make sense to you?”
I ignored her jab. “Would you like to know what it was about?”
She nodded, quick and curious. “If it’s fun.”
My mouth opened, then faltered. The images were mostly gone, yet the weight of them clung to . Still, was it wise to share sothing that felt more like a vision than a dream? Especially with soone who seed to know more about than I did.
She leaned closer, scooting across the stone until she was within reach.
A gust of wind funneled through the cavern, whipping my hair across my eyes. I brushed it aside. “There was soone speaking. A Master, I think. About creation? Sothing like that.” I paused, replaying the fragnts in my mind, step by step, until the words fit together well enough to tell her everything.
The process itself was grounding; recalling and re-examining the details in a clearer state of mind made the dream feel more real.
Harua blinked once, her expression unreadable. “I don’t get it.”
I huffed a faint laugh and shook my head. “Sa here. It’s a bit too out there for . Fusing with fate?”
She shook her head this ti, feathers rustling softly. “No, that part makes perfect sense. But reversing creation? I don’t get that at all.”
“Umm…” I murmured, caught off guard. “What do you an it makes perfect sense?”
She leaned in until her face hovered near the sa distance as when I’d first opened my eyes, her sharp gaze gleaming with strange intent. “Do you not know? I thought you already knew.”
Intent? Luna whispered cautiously in the back of my mind. She might be talking about intent.
The mont Luna said it, the pieces locked together. “We influence Force through intent,” I said slowly, thinking aloud, “but it also moves according to its own will.” The words ca naturally, the truth of them settling in. If everything I saw was real, then…
Harua leaned back, satisfied, a faint smirk tugging at her beak. “See? You know. The stagnation too. It’s strange.”
The more I considered it, the stranger it beca. During the fire purification, I’d witnessed what looked like the birth of everything, or at least, the start of sothing. Fire had shown the act of creation itself, and later, water had revealed its settling, its cooling into balance.
And yet, when I’d first seen the elental beings ford purely of energy, they’d been performing a ritual. But if that ritual was ant to sustain a world, then why had one been made instead?
Harua’s lazy voice drifted across my thoughts. “Thinking too hard is pointless. We are small.” She stretched her wings wide, then brought them close together, leaving only a finger’s width between them for emphasis.
It was hard to argue with the last part. Still, calling it pointless didn’t sit right with . But like she said, there wasn’t much I could do except shelve the thoughts for later.
It’s a good story at least, Luna offered, light amusent in her tone. Maybe you could tell the others.
Yeah, I agreed silently. They’d probably show more interest than this bird.
Wyrem’s voice followed, low and distant. It’s strange… He trailed off into silence.
What? I prodded.
It’s fine. Nothing worth saying for now.
Harua turned her gaze outward toward the open sky, her feathers catching the light. Then, as if the thought had just co to her, she asked, “Would you like to learn about wind?”
Her offer didn’t surprise , but it made pause. If I could form another essence, that would be invaluable. Especially if she had a reliable thod. Experiencing the extres and reaching understanding seed to be the universal key to every Elental Essence, but I hadn’t yet figured out how to do it with air.
But I haven’t even mastered fire. Water could hardly be called that too, but at least I had a good grasp at the techniques. But fire? That was—
“You’re still thinking too much,” Harua cut in sharply. “Stop worrying. Just understand.”
This ti her tone wasn’t airy or detached; it carried a quiet command that hinted at thinning patience.
“Yeah… alright,” I said.
“Good.” She gave a quick huff, pausing before continuing, “I told you before: you were mostly right in your guess. Air and change.”
I shifted, uneasy under her stare. “Still wondering how you know about that.”
Her feathers fluffed out slightly, a flicker of pride passing over her. “It’s why your dream of the Master and fate fusing makes perfect sense.”
My brows knit together, partly at her sudden shift to precise, almost scholarly speech, and partly at the aning itself. “aning?”
“It is the Connection,” she explained, her tone smoothing out. “The motion and carrier of all things… including change.”
The spiritual role of Air was easy enough to hear about, but it didn’t exactly clarify anything tangible. Seeing my confusion, Harua sighed, feathers lowering.
“In your dream, there is your blood,” she said at last.
She stopped there, watching expectantly.
“Creation?” I guessed, uncertain.
“And the Master—his blood?” she prompted, patient but firm.
“Creation?” I repeated, even less sure this ti.
She nodded slowly. “And where is he?” Her voice softened like she was leading a child toward an answer.
“Well…” I began cautiously, “if I assu the dream was real, then—fused with fate.”
Another quiet nod.
“This is why it makes perfect sense,” she repeated softly, echoing her earlier words. “Fusion with fate—an entity that imposes its will upon others.”
Her sudden clarity unsettled . Just monts ago she’d been scattered, teasing, almost air-headed, but now her words struck clear. How could soone drift so easily between sanity like that?
“Yep,” I said simply, unsure what else to offer.
She stared at for a long mont, her eyes sweeping up and down in quiet appraisal. “Are you not right in the head or sothing?”
Luna flinched inside our link, her essence curling inward and tinting faintly pink with amuesnt. Wyrem followed suit, though instead of color, his energy form rippled with a low vibration that felt like a suppressed laugh.
“No more than you,” I replied dryly.
Harua gave a solemn nod, as if we’d just agreed on a fundantal law of the world. “Think,” she urged. “What did the Master create in your dream? Why could you see sothing like that? Why can I see you? What is Air Force?”
“It’s… a connection,” I murmured, half to myself. “So through that connection, you saw .”
“But why you?” she pressed, leaning closer again. “You, out of all existence. You belong in this connection.”
Her words hung in the air like a riddle, vibrating through until my thoughts began to align. It wasn’t a sudden revelation, more like the slow shifting of pieces coming together. Her questions. The dream. The Master. The twofold nature of Force. One will that acts, and another that is acted upon. His Bloodline bound to that duality. Mine too.
“Force…” I whispered, the word leaving a strange weight in my chest. “He created Force from fate.” I looked up at her, realization taking shape. “You can see because—”
“I’m super suuuper good at compression!” she interrupted with explosive pride, wings flaring wide as if to punctuate her brilliance. “And now,” she declared, puffing her chest feathers, “we can make you better… if you’re not an idiot.”
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