The gate closed behind him with a low groan of steel.
Argolaith didn't look back.
Ahead of him stretched a vast grassland, endless and wind-swept. At first glance, it seed peaceful—tall green blades swaying softly in the breeze, clusters of pale-blue wildflowers blooming like forgotten starlight. Birds wheeled lazily in the air far above, and the sky, though gray, was vast and open.
But Argolaith felt it imdiately.
Sothing was wrong.
The air was too still.
The silence was too perfect.
He stepped forward, boot crunching lightly against the grass.
There was no rot. No twisted roots. No malford monsters prowling the horizon like in the lands near the other trees.
It was… serene.
Cultivated.
He crouched, touched the earth.
The soil was rich. The grass was healthy. But everything in him—his instinct, his experience, the very pulse of his body—told him this was no untouched wilderness.
This land had not survived.
It had been maintained.
By force.
By sothing powerful.
He stood slowly, eyes scanning the horizon.
And then—he saw it.
Just a glimpse.
A flicker of motion along a distant ridge, where the grass bent in a direction opposite the wind.
Argolaith narrowed his gaze, holding his breath.
There.
Atop the hill stood a figure.
Not beast.
Not man.
Its limbs were long and graceful, too fluid for a human, too symtrical for a beast. It wore no armor, no cloth, but the shape of its body was draped in a living shadow that fluttered like torn silk. Its head turned—just slightly—revealing eyes that pulsed like dying stars.
The Reaper Beast.
He had seen it before.
Distant. Watching. Unmoving.
But now… now it had moved closer.
And for the briefest second—its gaze locked with his.
Argolaith's breath caught.
It wasn't a feeling of fear. Not exactly.
It was the pressure of being asured.
Judged.
Rembered.
He took a slow step forward—but the Reaper Beast tilted its head once, then faded from view like smoke on the wind.
Gone.
Argolaith stood alone once again.
The grass rustled. The wind returned. And the illusion of peace settled back into the land.
But the feeling remained.
That sothing ancient had seen him.
That sothing intelligent now knew his path.
Argolaith adjusted his cloak, tightened the strap on his sword, and kept walking—each step deliberate.
He didn't speak.
Didn't look back.
But in the back of his mind, a single thought stirred—
It's not just watching anymore.
Argolaith walked with care.
His steps were steady, his pace unbroken, but every movent was deliberate—asured to avoid snapping even a single blade of grass. He moved like a guest in soone else's ho. A trespasser who had not yet been told to leave.
The silence of the grassland continued around him, hushed and heavy.
The wind moved only where it was allowed to. The birds overhead flew in a perfect arc, never dipping too low. The insects humd just beyond hearing.
This place is watched, Argolaith thought.
And he knew by what.
Or rather—by whom.
He kept walking.
An hour passed, maybe two.
Then he saw it—low, weathered stones half-buried in the ground, placed at regular intervals. Not ruins. Not the remains of a wall. These were markers, intentional and ancient. Each one bore a rune etched so faintly into the surface that only the sun's angle revealed it.
He knelt beside one, brushing off a layer of moss.
The rune pulsed faintly beneath his fingers.
Boundary.
Argolaith stood slowly, gaze tracking the markers. They stretched far in either direction, forming a kind of gentle arc that curved into the horizon like a vast, unseen gate.
And then it clicked.
These aren't border stones.
They're guardian markers.
A line drawn not to keep sothing out—but to warn what lay within.
He looked past the boundary, into the deep green that stretched beyond.
The Lands Beyond Morgoth.
The realm no one returned from.
The Reaper Beast hadn't attacked him at the edge. Hadn't barred his path. And now that he'd crossed the threshold, nothing had risen to stop him.
That didn't an he was welco.
But perhaps… perhaps the guardian was curious.
A few miles later, the landscape changed again.
The grass shortened. The wind stilled. And the silence gained an almost reverent quality—like a chapel in the heart of nowhere.
There, in a small clearing nestled between two gentle hills, stood an elegant garden.
Trimd hedges lined its borders, impossibly neat. Pale flowers swayed with unnatural grace, untouched by weather or ti. And at its center was a perfectly round stone table, with two chairs—one on each side.
Upon the table sat a delicate silver tea set. Steam still rose from the cups.
Argolaith stopped just before the garden's edge.
His first thought:
The Reaper Beast wants to talk.
He stepped forward, careful not to disturb the boundary. His boots sank into grass that sohow felt softer here, less like earth and more like mory.
The entire setting was surreal.
But it wasn't a trick.
He knew that instinctively.
This wasn't an illusion or bait—it was an invitation.
Argolaith walked to the nearest chair and looked across the table.
The other seat was still empty.
But he could feel it—sothing standing just beyond sight. Waiting. Watching.
Perhaps even preparing to speak.
He did not sit yet.
Instead, he reached out and lifted the teacup.
Warm. Fragrant. Floral, with a hint of sothing ancient and unplaceable.
He took a small sip.
And smiled faintly.
"Guess I really am expected," he murmured.
And sowhere in the stillness beyond the garden, the Reaper Beast began to walk.
The garden held its breath.
Not a leaf stirred. Not a bird sang. Even the wind, so present in the highlands before, had vanished—swallowed by the hush that preceded sothing ancient.
Argolaith stood at the edge of the stone table, his fingers gently wrapped around the porcelain cup. The tea's warmth lingered in his hand, but he did not drink again.
He waited.
The empty chair across from him did not remain empty for long.
There was no flash of light. No thunderous entrance.
One blink—and the Reaper Beast was sitting across from him.
Its shape was still wrong. Humanoid only in the broadest sense. It had limbs, a torso, the semblance of a head—but its joints bent too smoothly, its motion too quiet, too precise. Its body was draped in a coat of dark mist that resembled shadow-wrapped cloth, though no fabric could ripple that gently without wind.
And its face—
No eyes. No mouth.
Just a smooth, pale surface that pulsed faintly with colorless light. Like a mask of starlight worn over sothing unknowable.
Argolaith said nothing.
The Reaper Beast raised its hand slowly, its fingers longer than any human's, tipped with faint claws—but graceful, not predatory. It lifted its own cup of tea and mimicked a drink, the gesture silent, surreal.
When it lowered the cup again, a voice echoed through the garden.
Not from its mouth—there was none.
Not through sound—there was no vibration.
The voice ca through the soul.
"You seek the fifth tree."
Argolaith's eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded once. "Yes."
The Reaper tilted its head—not mocking. Curious.
"You are not from this land. Your blood carries threads from elsewhere. And yet, the trees accept you."
"I never asked for their favor," Argolaith said softly. "But I've earned it. One at a ti."
A long silence passed.
Then the Reaper Beast placed its cup back on the saucer, with a sound that echoed like crystal against ti.
"This realm was never ant to be entered."
Argolaith exhaled slowly. "Then why are you letting ?"
The beast didn't answer imdiately.
Instead, its hand drifted over the surface of the table. Where it passed, the polished stone shimred—and an image ford.
A tree.
Not the ones Argolaith had seen before—not crumbling or broken, not reaching skyward for salvation. This one grew inward—its branches curling down into itself like spiraling veins, its roots vanishing into a pool of mirror-black stillness.
"This tree does not test the body," the voice murmured. "Nor the will. It tests the self. What is real. What you think is true. What you hide from even your own soul."
Argolaith stared at the image, his jaw tightening slightly.
"Most who co here," the voice continued, "do not pass the final gate. The tree sees them. And breaks them."
Argolaith looked up.
"I'm not most people."
The Reaper Beast stilled again.
Then, slowly, it raised one finger—and pointed to a spot just beyond the garden's edge, where the mist of the grassland had begun to part.
"Then walk."
"The tree waits."
Argolaith finished the tea in one long sip and set the cup down.
He looked across the table, not defiant—but certain.
"I'll return when it's done."
The Reaper Beast did not nod.
Did not move.
But sothing about it pulsed faintly—an acknowledgnt… or perhaps a warning.
Argolaith turned from the garden and stepped into the parting mist, where the unseen realm stretched wide and still ahead.
And behind him, in the silence of the sacred clearing, the Reaper Beast faded from sight—leaving only the faint echo of words that never touched the air:
"He might actually do it."
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