Waterfall Basin - Canyon Floor, South of Tenzurah Buried Library
They’d probably spent an hour, two, maybe, doctoring her report.
Now Writ had wandered off, circling the oasis to scout for paths that might lead toward civilization.
He’d offered to help, but the cliffs ringed the basin like closed mandibles, unyielding and sharp.
Even when he flew straight up, their jagged rims clamped the sky like a trap.
Midday light buzzed hot against his wings, still crooked from Writ’s earlier grip, and every beat pulled at sore joints like old husks shedding too late.
So he gave up the pretense, perched on a low-bending branch, and let the shade cocoon him awhile.
The air was still warm, syrup-thick, laced with humidity that clung to skin and wing alike.
A drone of unseen life buzzed between the reeds and stone pockets below.
He focused on that for a moment. Mundane noises meant no hunters nearby.
Somehow, still, he hadn’t been caught. Not by her.
Not yet.
The Silent Writ, sharp as a scorpion’s stinger, should’ve spotted him by now.
But she hadn’t.
She’d looked him in the eye, accepted his food, and followed his suggestions without peeling back the disguise.
Either the Accord truly kept their shadows in the dark, or he was playing the role well enough to pass.
And he wasn’t sure which made his skin crawl more.
He exhaled through his nose, slow.
The tether between them had pulsed faintly in sync with a few of his lines. Telling.
Not proof, but enough.
Maybe she believed him.
Or maybe... she wanted to.
It wasn’t trust, not yet.
But it was understanding. And cooperation.
That counted.
The first was simple.
Nothing written down.
No traps. No events. No truths.
Not in that notebook of hers, half-miraged beneath layers of his spell.
If she scribbled the truth into the wrong half of the page, the spell would bend it. Warp her words into a fake Bronze Concord map, dressed up as outdated routes.
It would’ve been catastrophic if she believed she’d submitted a clean report, only for the Accord to see something else entirely.
Not a mission log, but ink warped by his spell.
They’d think she was toying with them. Mocking them.
He hadn’t needed to explain the risk.
She’d picked up on it quickly. Likely for reasons different than his own.
But still, she understood. Another small point in his favor.
Not mentioning him at all was... obvious.
The moment she did, her movement would be monitored, if not revoked outright.
The Accord wouldn’t take kindly to one of their Shadows being tainted by outsider contact.
And him? He’d be burned out of his cover like a beetle beneath glass.
Then there was the flower. The Blissbane bloom.
Or... according to Writ, 'the bli- flower.'
She kept calling it that. Repeating it with this sly little twist in her voice that made him blink every time.
The first time she’d noticed his reaction, her eyes had narrowed. Amused, curious.
Now she said it on purpose. Every time. He could tell.
He let her. If teasing him kept her amused, then fine.
He could take a few barbs for the sake of her laugh. Love it for her.
She hadn't figured out what the plant really was.
That meant she hadn’t been involved in any mission tied to it.
Or at least not directly. No exposure. No blood on her hands.
That... reassured him. More than he expected.
At the very least, it hinted she hadn’t touched the Accord’s grand betrayal.
The false cure offered to Rynhaar’s queen.
His theory, yes, but it aligned too neatly.
The Accord thrived on control. On leverage.
And what better leverage than a cure that doesn’t work?
They’d traded that 'cure' for winged beasts.
Tir Rynhaar’s finest. Mounts nurtured for generations to never leave their homeland. Creatures of pride and power.
Revered by every nation, but never once offered beyond their borders.
It made too much sense.
It made him sick.
He wouldn't even be surprised anymore if they’d orchestrated the queen’s illness from the start.
The Rynhaari were known for passion. For fury.
And their king... stars, that man would’ve bartered his soul to save her.
Kion shut his eyes and tilted his head back against the bark.
The wings behind him flicked once, restlessly.
He had a viable blissbane sample now.
Hidden. Untouched.
The Bronze Concord could recreate the antidote with it. Could offer a real cure.
But transporting it...?
Getting it across the border?
Nearly impossible.
Tir Rynhaar’s surrounding perimeter was crawling with disguised Shadows.
Smiling citizens by day. Ghosts by night.
They didn’t wear masks, but the moment they caught wind of anything Bronze, those migrants disappeared.
And the Accord had a mole.
Someone embedded deep within Bronze’s ranks.
Someone who could sneak Writ into restricted areas.
Who had access to older layouts, like Tenzurah’s, and passed them to the Accord.
Who knew about the Oathroot’s Truth Door and how it worked.
That level of intel didn’t come from surface-level spying.
If they really had someone like that on the inside...
Then yes. The Shadows posted near Rynhaar made sense.
So did their crackdown on Glitterstorm’s failed smuggling mission.
Arkwyn hadn’t exactly been subtle about warning the high councils to evacuate.
And Glitterstorm, quiet though they were, had never fully denied their role in helping refugees escape.
Not that they were ever official. The group had started as nothing more than Arkwyn’s inner circle. Friends, not colleagues.
Even the name Glitterstorm wasn’t public, at first. Just a half-joke between them, never spoken outside their own banter.
But when the Accord began pressing Bronze, and Arkwyn started urging evacuations in earnest, the jokes gave way to quiet plans.
Smuggling people out. Keeping more of them alive.
Everyone could sense Arkwyn’s intent. Smell it on the wind.
And intent had a way of bleeding onto his immediate team.
And then there was the issue of alibis.
They could only come up with so many 'plausible' explanations for the sudden disappearance of Bronze personnel. Archivists, attendants, guards, even clerks, quietly smuggled out of Bronze-held territory.
Kion pressed both palms to his face and let out a thin, warbled sound.
Not quite a groan. Not quite a scream.
Just... a release. Like a cicada straining beneath too-tight skin.
“Something happened...?”
Writ’s voice drifted up from under the tree.
He froze. Blinked. She was back already?
The Silent Writ’s POV
Waterfall Basin - Canyon Floor, South of Tenzurah Buried Library
He was up in a tree, making some kind of strange, strangled noise.
By now, Writ wasn’t even surprised. Kion was... Kion. The walking embodiment of randomness she could never quite predict. She'd given up trying.
She’d told him to rest. After all the exertion. The barrier he held through the river ride, the way he lit up like a beacon just to pull her out of panic, the long hours helping with her report despite his obvious reluctance.
He’d finally agreed, grudgingly, and climbed up into the branches. Now he was lowering his hands from his face, spotting her below.
“Nah,” he said, responding to her stare, “just thinking how this trip’s about to end. Real life’s gonna catch up soon.”
“You think this is a holiday?”
He made a noncommittal noise, “close enough. At least I’m not buried under all that paperwork right now. You humans really love your documentation.”
That one pulled a quiet breath of laughter from her. Even she couldn’t deny it. Accord did love their paper trail.
He caught her amusement, and something in him brightened. Then he dropped from the branch and hovered to eye level, “so. How was it?”
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She shook her head, “barely saw anything. All cliffs. Too steep to climb without gear. Tried fifteen minutes tracing the river. Too many forks in the canyon. No clear path.”
Kion nodded, thinking, “I could try levitating us up. Same kind of bubble we used in the river. We’d get a better look from the plateau edge.”
She touched her chin, “too exposed. No cover. No telling where the sand ends.”
“Right. Not ideal either.”
They both fell quiet, weighing dead-end options.
Then Kion’s head snapped toward the waterfall. Writ sharpened her senses instantly. She felt it too. A shift in ambient mana. A presence.
She didn’t draw her blade, but her fingers drifted toward it instinctively. Then... she frowned.
It was too subtle. Too small. Not human.
She looked to Kion again. He wasn’t frozen. Not quite tense. Not quite calm either. More like unsettled.
And then she saw them. Three winged figures, Kion-sized, drifting down from above. Her gaze darted back to him, scanning for clues. Threat?
But Kion’s expression didn’t change. His voice low, unreadable, “no. They’re fine. Probably.”
She didn’t draw. But her fingers stayed close. Ready. Their voices reached before they did.
“Look! Look! He’s here! He’s actually here!”
“But he’s with a human. Dangerous.”
“The sylph said they’re fine, though?”
“No, she said the banished one is safe. She didn’t mention any human.”
“Then what do we do?”
They hovered a stone’s throw away, bickering in rapid voices, too low for proper chatter, too loud to be called whispers.
Kion looked at her. She met his eyes.
“Do you mind, uh... sitting down?” he asked, quieter now, “back to the shade?”
He pointed a few paces behind her, toward the tree they’d rested beneath earlier.
She gave a single nod, walked beneath the canopy, and sank to the ground. Though her gaze never left the three.
The first looked like she’d been sculpted from water. Semi-liquid skin. Mist trailing every time she shifted.
The second was darker, rough and ridged like dry earth. Her russet wings looked thick and sturdy.
And the third, the smallest, had a flickering flame for hair. It danced when he moved, but never dimmed.
All of them were so different from Kion. And from the translucent sylph who’d once floated into her Accord room with eerie calm.
Writ flicked her gaze to Kion again. He seemed... at a loss.
Then he took a breath and drifted toward them.
“Um. Hi?” He raised both hands. Waved with both, “seems like you’re looking for... me?”
Writ could feel the hesitation in his voice from where she sat.
The fairfolk froze.
Then, still a little too loud...
“You talk.”
“No, you.”
“Guys, are we sure this is safe?”
“The human stayed away. That’s a good sign.”
“But he’s banished. There has to be a reason!”
Banished.
The word landed, sharp and sudden. He’s been banished. By his own kind. Why? What had he done? Is that why he’d ended up with Accord?
Kion still hovered awkwardly, expression blank as the three argued among themselves.
Then the fire-haired one, pushed forward by the others, said, “Cyl visited us with a sylph friend. Said you’d be coming and gave us... uh... what were they called again?”
“Sweets! Cookies!” the earthy one chimed in, “and that’s not what Cyl said, you sparkbrain!”
“Then you do it!”
“Fine!” The earthen one stepped forward with dramatic flair, “Cyl came to us with a forest sylph. She said a red-winged banished outlier would be spat out of the waterfall. He’d have sweets. And he’d share.”
All three nodded, solemn and eager.
“The sylph gave us samples!” added the water one, still trailing mist.
“And when we showed off at the meet-up,” said the flame-hair, “Mael one-upped us with a whole pouch. Then Cyl outdid us all. She brought a whole jar! Called them snow cookies!”
The earthen one floated closer, wide-eyed, “so... do you have them?”
Writ blinked. Slowly.
She was witnessing a fairy being mugged. For cookies.
She let her hand fall from her blade, leaned back against the tree, and watched with the focused intensity of someone watching a surreal play.
“Uhhh... so Seraithe told you I was coming?” Kion asked, inching back.
“Yes! Seraithe! That was the sylph visitor’s name!” said the watery one.
“Didn’t I say that?” asked earth-fairy.
“No, you didn't, wormwit,” came the watery one’s reply, “oh! By the way, is the human with you? Is she safe? Not dangerous?”
All eyes turned to her. Even Kion glanced over. She raised a hand in a small wave.
“Yes, she’s with me,” he said, nodding toward Writ, “she’s safe.”
The group nodded, seemingly satisfied.
“And yes,” Kion said, digging into his satchel, “I have cookies. Not many, though. One pouch each?”
A chorus of cheers erupted.
As he handed them out, they zipped circles around him, leaving trails of mist, soot, and dust behind. The air sparkled.
She crossed her arms, watching the glittering chaos unfold like it was a stage far too whimsical for the day she'd had.
It was... absurd.
She’d just come out of a buried ruin. Sent by Accord. Carrying trauma like stone in her chest. And now this. An oasis where winged creatures squealing over sugar.
They looked so light. So unburdened. Hovering through the air like nothing weighed them down at all.
She felt it before she could stop it. Not anger, not really, just a flicker of something hungry. She buried it, but it left a bruise on the way down.
Kion looked back at her, mid-gifting, and floated over.
“Lunlun? You okay?”
She didn’t answer. The thought was still too sharp. She flicked her hand, dismissive.
He started to turn, had already hovered a few steps closer to her, when the watery one zipped up beside them, suddenly close.
“Wait! Outlier! Are you hurt? Your flight’s all wobbly!”
Writ’s eyes fell on his wing. Still crooked. Her fault.
He blinked, “yeah, the ruin got me. Tried working it out, but it’s being stubborn.”
“I’ll heal it!”
Before he could reply, water droplets leapt from the air, swirling around him. Mist clung to his wings, cool and weightless, before catching the light in a soft, steady glow.
Then the glow faded. Kion gave a tentative flap. Then another, stronger. And then he soared.
He shot upward, higher than before, until he was just a shimmer above the treetops, a blur against the sky. For a long moment, he hovered there. Letting the wind carry him, letting the healed wings stretch fully.
Then he dove. Fast. Too fast. Writ stiffened. The impact wouldn't be kind.
But just as the ground rushed up to meet him, he pulled back. Wings snapped wide. Air caught under him. He twisted once midair, graceful, reckless, and landed in a crouch with barely a sound.
“You’re good at this,” he said, a little breathless, flashing a grin at the watery one, “thank you.”
The fairfolk beamed. All three chimed in, basking her in praise.
Writ watched them all. Like a show. A different world. One she could see but never enter. She was used to that feeling. Detached. Looking in from the glass.
But not when he was on the stage.
That... That wasn’t supposed to happen. That hurt. He was tangled in the Accord. Chose to be. He wasn’t supposed to have another life. And still, somehow, he did.
It wasn’t fair. But life had never been fair. Not to her.
“Hello, human!” The flame-haired one stood beside her, “are you hurt too?”
She glanced at him. His fire-hair had faded to orange, his glowing skin gentle in the shade.
“I’m fine,” she said. Flat.
“You don’t seem fine,” he tilted his head, “Shea can heal you, too.”
She blinked. What was with these fairfolk? Why were they kind? Why warm? Didn’t they know it would only make everything worse?
The earthen one floated near, “it’s my first time seeing a human up close!”
Their eyes sparkled. She couldn’t bear it.
“Alright, guys. Move. Move,” Kion shooed them away, “Give her space.”
“Aaaaww... whyyy...”
He dug again in his satchel, “by the way. Do you know any nearby human settlement?”
“Ooh, I do!” said fire-hair, “just an hour’s flight. Dunno how long that is for walking, though.”
“Follow the river,” added the earthy one, “It’ll lead you there.”
“Thanks,” Kion tossed each of them a bigger pouch. More squeals.
“One more thing.”
He leaned close to the fire-fairy, whispered something. Their heads perked. They whispered back, quick, eager.
Kion blinked. Whispered again. They turned to the others. Hushed giggles followed. More whispering. Now all three were in on it.
Writ saw Kion gestured, brows raised in question. The fairfolk mimed something with their hands. One even twisted midair, as if reenacting a flight path. Another drew invisible lines in the air.
He nodded slowly. Then asked something else. More whispering. This time softer. A long pause. Serious. One fairy looked away, then whispered back.
Kion’s expression changed, briefly. Then smoothed over. He flicked his wings once. Whispered something final. They all nodded.
Writ watched him among them, laughing low, wings flicking, like he belonged. And he did.
“All right, now go,” he said, waving them off, “don’t go near other humans. They’ll pluck your wings.”
They scattered with more noise than necessary, vanishing behind the waterfall in a blur of color.
Writ didn’t move for a long time after they left. Laughter still clung to the canyon walls like mist, light. The shimmer of wings lingered at the edge of her vision, flickering in and out like dust motes with intent.
Her skin still buzzed faintly where the fairfolk had neared her, as if their presence left residue. Magic, maybe. Or memory.
Kion hadn’t noticed her watching. Or if he had, he’d chosen not to show it.
He’d laughed. Let himself be pulled into their games, their chaos, their joy. Like he hadn’t once learned to be cautious. Like belonging came naturally. As if he'd never forgotten how.
And it wasn’t just that he fit. It was that they’d healed him. Effortlessly, casually. As if healing wasn’t sacred. As if it didn’t cost anything. As if magic like that could be offered through laughter, through a song, through a tap on the head mid-skip.
Writ didn’t know what she was feeling. Just a pressure in her chest. Not grief, or anger. Something quieter. Muffled and growing. Like a splinter she couldn’t find beneath her ribs.
She felt like a stone figure, unmoving in a garden of wings. Rooted. While everything else danced.
The flutter of wings stirred her from thought. Kion landed lightly, soundless as always. His feet brushed the earth as though the air still hadn't fully let him go. He stood for a moment, gaze turned to the canyon’s mouth, where the last traces of glitter and laughter had disappeared.
“Rowdy little things, aren’t they?” he said, tone light. Not careless, just gentle.
She didn’t answer. He sat beside her, not quite facing her. Just close enough.
“Younglings are mostly like that,” he added, a dry thread of amusement in his voice, “too curious. Too fearless. My kin was the same.”
“Was?” she asked, glancing at him.
He met her gaze, “was.”
A pause stretched between them.
“Because they banished you?”
A faint smile curled at his lips, bittersweet, but not sharp. He shook his head, “No. Not because of that.”
And that was all he gave. She didn’t push. He looked away, toward the waterfall, and let the silence settle again.
“I know I said I missed my family,” he’d joked once, as the ruin collapsed and the sand poured in, “but this wasn’t the reunion I meant.”
She remembered.
They always said you should feel sadness when you lost your family. Your blood. Your kin. But she had none.
She’d already been in the Threshold as far back as her memories went. No parents. No before. No stories. Just a number and a cot and a system of order. When new children arrived and cried for the ones they left behind, she could only watch, confused.
She remembered the older ones trying to calm them. Patting shoulders. Saying 'there, there'. Repeating words they must’ve heard once, somewhere.
She didn’t know how it worked. She’d never felt it. Not the wanting. Not the comfort. Not even the need.
Now, she stared at her hands. Too big to pat Kion with her palm, but... maybe a finger would fit?
Without thinking, she lifted one. And gently, awkwardly, tapped the top of Kion’s head with a single finger.
He froze.
“...Um?” he blinked rapidly, twisting to face her, “what... are you doing?”
“They said it helps,” she murmured, still slowly patting, “Calming. When someone pats your head.”
Kion stared at her like she’d grown another limb, “you’re... trying to comfort me?”
“Is it not working?” Her hand paused, uncertain.
She began to lower it. But Kion caught her finger mid-motion and tapped it back onto his head, once, twice, gently.
“Nope. It’s working! So, so well. I am very comforted right now.”
She squinted at him. He looked ridiculous. She let the patting continue anyway.
He’d been patient with her. Steady, even when she wasn’t. That deserved something back. Even if all she had to give was this.
After a moment, he chuckled and raised a hand to tap her finger in return, “thank you, Lunlun.”
She nodded once. A small, quiet thing. He mirrored it. His smile still bright, undimmed.
She looked at him, not at the shimmer or the wings or the strange stillness he sometimes wore like armor. But him.
He hadn’t changed. Or maybe he had, but not away from her.
This place, this world, wasn’t hers. Never had been. But maybe she didn’t need to belong to it in order to walk through it.
She stood. Kion rose with her, smooth and easy, stepping half a pace back without thinking. Always letting her decide. Pace, direction, path.
“All right,” she said.
He didn’t ask what she meant, whether it was the plan or just... the moment.
She started walking.
He followed.