The fox rested in a nest of leaves and petals, curled tight with his tail wrapped over his nose, his fur fluffed into a warm blanket. He yawned, pawed at his eyes, and stretched long enough that his back trembled before settling again. The air was sweet with the scent of fresh bark and the faint floral drift of Valerian. It was pleasant and calming, the kind of scent that eased the mind into drowsy comfort. Sunlight painted shifting patterns across his fur as the breeze moved through the leaves in rhythm with his breathing.
Somewhere nearby, music wove through the air. Soft strings plucked in time with a voice humming along, laughter carrying from what sounded like a plaza. He tapped his paws against the ground to shake the sleep off, expecting soil, and instead felt hardwood beneath them. When he looked up, he wasn’t sure what he had expected, but the unyielding wall of bark still surprised him.
His gaze followed it upward and kept going. The trunk rose endlessly, its branches spreading so far they blurred into the clouds. The willow towered like a mountain, its upper boughs half-hidden in the light. Faint figures moved along paths suspended between the branches and vanished into shopfronts between the leaves. The branches hung low, each one bending under its own weight with leaves trailing in thin curtains of green. Pale buds dotted the hanging veil, hinting at a bloom not far off. They swayed with the wind in steady waves, brushing together with the white noise of a trickling stream. From where he stood, the height of the tree made the falling leaves look like an endless sky draped downward.
A little drunk on brightness and air, he felt dizzy from the spectacle. His ears perked to the sound of light, unhurried footsteps approaching.
He turned his head, still half-asleep, but his ears flicked upright in sudden alert. Zhou stood a few paces away, hands in his pockets, a familiar smirk resting easily on his face. A portion of his silver hair was tied in a half-bun, held taut by new manasteel hairpins set with gem inlay. Two thin braids, threaded with fresh willow blooms, hung forward to brush against his chest when he moved.
Nico tried to stand and immediately wobbled. The world swayed too warmly around him, and Zhou laughing didn’t help. He blinked hard, ears angled forward, trying to steady himself.
A message blinked into view between them.
|| SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ||
[Explore the city~ ?(???マ?]
It blocked Zhou, making Nico notice the people moving behind him through streets set between the tree's network of roots: Serifs with veiled eyes, their irises glowing behind a white cast that made their gazes look distant. Some had blooms across their skin, others carried feathers growing along their necks and shoulders, and many wore vines woven through their hair.
He dismissed the message with a small tap of his paw and looked up at Zhou. For the first time, he noticed the faint veil over those amethyst eyes. It was subtle, almost invisible. Nico had assumed they were a natural pale lavender when Zhou stood alone, but among Serifs the resemblance was impossible to miss. The veiled eyes curved into crescents as Zhou smiled, and the sight made Nico’s ears feel uncomfortably warm.
Veiled eyes were a common result of mana depletion. For most species, reserve collapse was dangerous and often fatal over time, scarring the eyes until blindness set in.
Serifs were the exception. Often referred to as ‘children loved by mana’ in records of the diaspora, Serifs kept little mana stored within themselves because the world supplied it freely. Their bodies absorbed mana as naturally as lungs drew breath, taking it from air, earth, and touch alike. Mana restored in their systems before depletion could ever turn deadly. Though, that same abundance left its trace. Over years, constant cycling clouded their vision, softening it to white. It dulled sight much like hearing fades with age. Yet they never stopped sensing the world. Their carbon spines held resonance with the ambient mana, letting them read manaflows alongside light and sound—an innate sixth sense, not dissimilar to Arcanites.
Zhou crouched in front of the fox, smiling contently. “How’re you feeling? You’ve been asleep for two days.”
Nico squinted, fur still ruffled with bedhead. “That’s not how—” he began, cutting himself off with a yawn.
▌ Active Skill: Lycanthropy ? ?
Deactivate? Y/N]
He shook his head as his form straightened, ears fluffing unevenly, with one left lowered. “That’s not how humans work.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
It wasn’t his sharpest line, especially once he realized he had probably been lulled to sleep by a mana-imbued bloom potent to canines, but Zhou let it pass with a chuckle.
The city unfolded around the base of the great willow, a lattice of terraces, bridges, and waterways woven through its roots. Canals curved between buildings, filling the air with the low hum of moving water.
Everywhere he looked, motion was gentle, deliberate, unhurried. It reminded him of the sage. Serifs walked beside Virids and Ori, their paths crossing seamlessly. It was difficult to tell who was Serif based on appearance alone, as not all had veiled eyes. Many carried traits borrowed from their neighbors: feathers down at the collar, petals threaded through hair, thin vines curling across their shoulders. Those with veiled eyes still moved with unthinking grace, their steps in rhythm with the flow of the crowd.
The city’s structure felt ancient and advanced at once. Aqueducts arched high overhead, channeling water into smaller stone canals running through the homes and gardens below. Inscriptions ran beside every walkway, etched into the stone wall and wood railings. Nico paused beside one and crouched, tracing the newly familiar lines and loops. The glyph structure was nearly identical to what he’d seen at the abandoned orchard station, inscriptions that directed mana through channeled streams by utilizing pressure and temperature. The handwriting here was more elegant, unmarred by wear, but the logic was the same.
Even the streets showed consideration for the veiled. The central lanes were smooth, while the borders carried a textured ridge for the veiled-eyed to follow by touch. He watched a young Serif walk past, hand trailing the ridge that vibrated as she passed, her other arm linked with a Virid companion whose cattails bobbled with their pace.
Nico trailed a few steps behind Zhou, suddenly aware of being the tallest person in a riftborn city. It made him feel clumsy, scaled wrong for the setting. The low arches and branches that Virids and Serifs walked beneath without thought forced him to duck constantly. Still, it was better than passing out in fox form again. He stifled a yawn; the air was thick with Valerian and mature bark.
He kept Zhou in his periphery. The sage carried on with his usual grace: sunlight resting on the edges of his horns, hands in his pockets, head tilted slightly upward. As if his attention were being pulled by something just out of reach. Except now, the veil on his eyes shone bright, as it did on the others belonging to this rift.
Nico couldn’t help but admire their glow.
He thought back to how Zhou had spoken with Imae, the way he pressed her about the Serifs and urged her to clarify. Maybe that had been his way of saying it was alright to ask.
They crossed another bridge that carried them over a stream adapted to the form of the willow’s roots. Zhou stopped at the far side, gaze fixed ahead, eyes reflecting the canopy’s glow.
Nico looked past him. They stood in the city’s heart, surrounded by an entire world. The sight stirred something deeply familiar in him—a nostalgia for a memory he’d never lived.
He looked at Zhou again, searching for words. It felt like Zhou was waiting for him to speak, but his throat tightened regardless. He couldn't help but lower his gaze.
Standing here felt like—
Feeling like—
The feeling of something—
His heart’s pace quickened. The peace here felt familiar in a way that unsettled him.
He had the sense that—
Zhou said something, but the sound slipped from his grasp, stolen from his ears.
— he already knew what was coming.
The fox’s ears flicked back up. A low rumble rolled through, thick with static—a storm gathering far away. The breeze carried away the last of the Valerian bloom’s sweetness, replaced by a metallic bite that eagerly seeped in, mixed with smoke and scorched stone.
Nico turned toward the city’s edge, a straight line of sight from the central plaza. A dark grey mass spread across the horizon, dimming the light.
Ash began to fall in slow flakes, soft as snow.
He lifted a hand, letting soot drift against his palm. His pupils widened as it gathered, staining his skin.
This, too, felt familiar.
▌SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ▌
[Primary Scenario Unlocked | Mission: Rewrite history.]
A thunderous boom swept through the city, erasing the hum of voices and footsteps. People froze mid-motion, their outlines fraying into static until they snapped and reconstructed, as if the rift were struggling to render them.
Ash drifted through the still figures. The flakes passed through their skin and fabric, untouched until they smeared grey across the ground. The canals still ran, the leaves still swayed, and the air still sat warm, but now with a heat laced with ozone.
The notification hung in the air, waiting with its cast of cold light.
Nico dismissed it and turned toward Zhou. The sage stood a few steps away, hands in his pockets, head tilted upward. Whether he was still reading the prompt, watching the horizon, or lost in thought, Nico couldn’t tell. His face was calm, lit by sunlight diffused through ash, his eyes covered by a transparency. Behind it, his amethyst irises glistened, dulled yet luminous, preciously buried beneath frost.
The veil was unmistakable now that he’d seen it.
The sound of running water filled the silence left by the thunder’s roll. The breeze stirred ash into spirals around his feet. Nico drew a breath and faced forward.
On the exhale, he began walking. He moved past the silhouettes caught in endless pause, knowing they would have given if he’d stepped through them. He continued toward the gate, toward the source of the ash, toward the waiting horizon.