Year 400 - Duskrend Wildlands
Rain again.
Duskrend didn't have weather so much as moods — and today it was bitter. Cold sheets of water fell from a sky that hadn't been blue since he arrived. Takaya's cloak clung to him like skin, soaked through, mud caking the hems.
He walked because stopping meant freezing.
The forest around him had changed. The trees were thinner here — pale things with bark like bone and no leaves. Their roots jutted from the soil in coils, snaring the ground as if trying to drag the whole land down.
Takaya staggered through, boots falling too heavy, shoulders hunched.
He hadn't eaten in days.
The berries he found three nights ago made him hallucinate so vividly he woke up screaming into the dirt. His mouth still tasted like metal. His hands still shook from the fever.
"Maybe don't eat things that smell like sadness next time," the Veyl muttered, low.
Takaya said nothing.
His breaths came in slow, hard drags.
"You know, I could offer a little help. Maybe a map. Maybe a glowy line in the air. Like those RPGs you're so fond of."
Still nothing.
"No? Just going to do this the hard way? Excellent. I'll shut up, then."
And it did.
The silence made things worse.
He wasn't used to silence anymore. Not since the failsafe. Not since the ring started talking back. But now, walking alone through a forest that felt like the lungs of a dying god, he was painfully aware that no one was coming.
Not ever.
He slipped.
The mud was too slick — the hill too steep.
He fell hard, rolled twice, and came to a stop against a rock that didn't feel like rock. It was warm. Pulsing.
He crawled off it with a grunt and stared.
Not a boulder.
A shell.
Something massive had died here long ago. Its remains now half-buried in the hillside, covered in moss and fungal growth that pulsed faintly with mana. He sat beside it, too tired to care if it was dangerous.
His fingers traced the spiral edge of the shell. The touch made the ring on his finger glow faintly.
Then the Voice returned.
"You're adapting."
He didn't answer.
"You're still slow. Still stubborn. But you're not dead yet."
Takaya leaned back against the shell. The rain softened into mist.
"I'm not winning either."
"This isn't about winning. This is about lasting."
"I don't want to last," he murmured. "I want to go back."
"Back to what? A school you didn't like? A bed you barely slept in? The friends who'll show up a thousand years too late?"
Takaya closed his eyes.
He hated how much that stung.
His stomach growled. His bones ached. And somewhere in the distance, something howled — not animal, not demon, just… wrong.
He opened one eye.
Mist moved through the trees like something that had forgotten how to be wind.
He reached for Solthar, but the blade didn't answer. Not yet.
He breathed.
One more night.
One more step.
One more page in the story of a boy who never should have arrived.
Takaya didn't fall asleep. He passed out.
Somewhere between hunger and rain, his body simply shut down. He woke shivering beneath a rotted canopy, throat raw, ribs pressed against wet cloth. The light had changed — not brighter, not darker, just stranger. Like time here had different rules for different people, and he didn't belong to any of them.
He coughed.
The sound startled birds — real ones, for once — from the boughs above. They scattered, and their wings left ripples in the mist. The ring on his finger itched. Not pain. Not power. Just a throb — like a reminder.
He was still alive.
"Barely," the Veyl muttered, quieter now. "You're running on blood memory and stubbornness."
Takaya didn't respond.
He was too focused on standing.
Each step through the gnarled forest was a decision. A promise. One leg, then the other. Don't stop. Don't look back. Don't think about food. Don't think about Earth. Don't think about the seven people who should've arrived with you, but didn't.
A scream pierced the air.
Takaya froze.
It wasn't far. It wasn't human either — not fully.
He heard it again. Then a smaller one. A child's.
His body moved before his thoughts did.
Branches whipped his face. Roots tried to trip him again. The sound of wet feet on moss — the sound of something heavy moving through undergrowth — and then he saw it:
A Duskrendi beast.
Tall as a horse, with bone-white skin stretched too tight over its frame. Its limbs were wrong — too long, bending backward. Its mouth split in three directions, dribbling steam. Its spine had grown out through its back like spines on a cursed lizard.
And cornered between two trees, barely protected by a broken wooden cart, stood a woman — and a little girl clinging to her side.
The woman held a blade.
Shaking.
Useless.
The beast lunged.
Takaya didn't think.
He screamed.
It wasn't heroic. It wasn't sharp. It was raw and cracked and desperate.
The beast turned — and Takaya threw himself at it, full weight, shoulder first.
It barely budged.
His body hit the monster like a child hitting a wall, but Solthar ignited in his hand — and the beast's shoulder vanished in a spray of white ash. It reared back, shrieking in a tone that turned Takaya's stomach inside out.
He couldn't breathe. But he moved.
The second slash missed. The third didn't.
It took five cuts to bring the creature down. Five cuts, a cracked rib, and whatever strength he had left.
When the thing finally hit the ground, it evaporated — literally — the way things born of too much mana tended to do. What was left behind was the silence.
He collapsed beside it.
The little girl didn't run.
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
"…Are you a hunter?" she asked.
"No," he coughed. "I'm lost."
The mother knelt beside him. Her hand on his forehead.
"You're burning," she whispered. "Come with us. You'll die out here."
"I already did," he muttered.
But he didn't fight her when she helped him to his feet.
Their home was barely a home — a stone-and-thatch structure on the edge of a shattered glade. One window. No door. But it was dry. And it smelled like herbs and soup.
She was older than he first thought — maybe thirty. Worn, but steady. Her name was Lira.
The child was small and fierce-eyed. Maybe six. Her name was Eri.
They didn't ask him his.
They just fed him.
Bread. Broth. Water so clean it made his tongue hurt. It took everything he had not to cry.
Lira changed the cloth around his ribs while humming a song Takaya didn't recognize. Eri showed him a drawing she made in charcoal — a bird with too many wings. He told her it looked like freedom.
She giggled. Then asked if he had wings too.
He said not yet.
That night, he slept beside the hearth.
It was the first time in weeks that he dreamed of something that didn't burn.
**Day One of Three**
Takaya woke to the sound of birds.
Not monstrous. Not cursed. Just birds. Singing.
It felt wrong.
He opened his eyes slowly, half-expecting teeth above him or another wound to press shut. But all he saw was the dim orange flicker of a hearth. Smoke curled lazily out of a stone chimney, and the scent of something cooking drifted under the door curtain.
His body ached — in the normal way. No open cuts. No broken bones.
He hadn't dreamed of fire last night.
For a while, he just lay there, on the thin mattress tucked against the wall. Letting the warmth seep into him like water through cracked earth.
"You're alive," the Veyl whispered, softer than usual.
"I noticed."
"And comfortable. That's new. Should I be worried?"
He ignored it. It didn't push.
Takaya sat up and stretched. Slowly. No sudden magic jolts. No Echoes whispering bloodlust. Just bones, sore from sleeping in peace.
Outside, he heard footsteps.
Lira's voice, speaking gently to someone. A low laugh. A pot being set down.
Then a small head peeked around the doorway.
"Are you awake?" Eri asked, eyes wide.
"Kind of."
"You look better."
"I feel… weird."
She nodded seriously. "That means it's working."
He smiled. Really smiled. The first since he arrived in this cursed world.
Lira entered a moment later, apron dusted with flour and damp hair tied back.
"I didn't think you'd sleep so long," she said. "You had the kind of fever that eats through days."
"How long?"
"Two and a half," she said. "Give or take. Eri's been drawing pictures of you with wings and a sword."
"I hope the sword's accurate."
"It's massive," Eri said proudly. "And your hair is on fire."
"I like it already."
They gave him a bowl of root stew with herbs and something that might've once been rabbit. He didn't ask. He didn't care. It was the best thing he'd ever tasted.
After the meal, Takaya helped gather firewood. Lira handed him a rusty hatchet with a grin.
"Don't summon lightning on the logs. I like my walls intact."
"No promises."
He moved slowly, still cautious, but stronger than before. The forest nearby didn't whisper or stalk. It just existed. Trees, wind, birdsong.
By midday, Eri was sitting beside him as he chopped logs, asking questions.
"Why do you have a ring?"
"Long story."
"Can it talk?"
"…Sometimes."
"What's it say?"
"Mostly annoying things."
"Rude," the Veyl muttered. "But fair."
They sat on the porch that evening, all three of them, watching the clouds pass.
Lira poured him a cup of something warm. Not tea, not wine — but herbal and bitter and calming.
She didn't ask who he was. Didn't press.
She just said: "You're safe here. For as long as you want to stay."
Takaya didn't answer. But he nodded.
And that night, when he finally lay down again — this time in a blanket Lira insisted on sewing back together for him — he felt something he hadn't in weeks.
Heavy.
Not with dread. But with peace.
He let himself fall asleep without the sword in his hand.
**Day Two and Three**
The next morning, Takaya woke to the smell of bread.
Actual bread. Not the idea of it. Not the haunted scent of something long burned. Real. Warm. Crisp-edged and soft at the center.
He opened his eyes and blinked sunlight out of his face.
Sunlight.
Duskrend's skies had never stayed still—sometimes dim, sometimes blinding, sometimes bleeding with stars midday. But today, the light was golden, gentle. It painted the cracked walls of the hut like hope pretending to be ordinary.
Lira hummed quietly from the kitchen, turning dough over hot stone. Eri sat cross-legged on the floor, drawing with charcoal on a flattened plank of wood.
She didn't look up when she said, "You snore."
"I absolutely do not."
"You absolutely do," the Veyl added, dry as salt. "Loudly."
He groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.
It didn't last long.
By midday, Eri had declared it a "no sadness" day and assigned everyone jobs. Lira was on cooking. Eri was on art and "stick gathering." Takaya was placed in charge of "heavy things and protection." When he asked what that meant, she simply handed him a large stick and said, "You'll figure it out."
And somehow, he did.
They spent the afternoon out near the edge of the glade, Lira harvesting bitterleaf stalks from under the shade and Eri stomping through shallow puddles. Takaya carried the baskets and watched for anything unnatural.
He didn't see anything. No monsters. No anomalies.
Just trees.
Just wind.
Lira asked him questions now—not about where he came from, but about things he missed.
"What's a convenience store?" she asked.
"It's like… a place with everything. Food, drinks, band-aids, umbrellas. You walk in at midnight for a snack, and leave with a little more will to live."
She laughed. A real, short burst of amusement that made her seem ten years younger.
Eri asked if convenience stores had birds.
He told her about vending machines instead. She decided they were cooler.
That night, he told them a story.
It was a simple one—from middle school. About a school trip gone wrong, Arata getting locked in a museum bathroom, and Mira somehow talking their way out of detention. He didn't realize how much he missed their voices until Lira asked what Mira looked like.
He described her like a memory.
He stopped before the part where he watched her vanish behind the light.
When Lira and Eri fell asleep that night, Takaya sat outside.
No sword. No armor. Just a cup of strange tea and the sound of Eri's soft breathing through the wall.
"You stayed," the Veyl said.
"Yeah."
"You're smiling."
"Don't ruin it."
"I wasn't going to." A pause. "They like you."
"I didn't do anything."
"You bled in front of them. Then didn't leave. That's rarer than you think."
He stared up at the stars.
They were quieter tonight.
Maybe they were watching too.
The third morning started with laughter.
Takaya wasn't used to that sound anymore.
Eri had tried to make a cloak for their dog—a scraggly, half-blind creature named Bo—and Bo had retaliated by stealing her breakfast roll. The chase around the hut left flour, fabric scraps, and joy in equal measure.
Lira threw a wet cloth at Takaya's shoulder. "You could help."
He pretended to be asleep.
She threw another.
They had stew for lunch again—root-heavy, but warm. Then Takaya helped reinforce the hut's roof, hammering dried bark panels into place while Lira held them steady. Eri spent the afternoon weaving a flower crown and declaring herself "Queen of Monsters."
"You should be king," she said to Takaya.
He raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because you're the strongest."
"Not really."
"You are when you're with us."
That sentence stayed with him longer than it should have.
That evening, as dusk settled and the glade fell into soft shadows, Lira pressed a small cloth-wrapped bundle into his hands.
"Just in case," she said.
It was dried fruit. And a single carved charm—a spiraled knot of bone meant to ward off sickness.
"We're not keeping you," she said quietly. "But if you ever choose to stay…"
He nodded.
Didn't speak.
Couldn't.
And then, as they stood there on the threshold of the hut, firelight casting long shadows behind them, Eri reached up and pressed her crown into his hands.
"I hope you remember this," she whispered.
Takaya froze.
Just for a second.
And smiled.
"I will."
That night, he didn't sleep. He just listened—to the crackling of fire, to the even breathing of two people who didn't see him as myth or monster.
Just a boy.
One who hadn't laughed in far too long.
And outside, in the brush, something moved.
**The Last Quiet Morning**
Takaya stepped out into the light.
The morning air was cool. The glade was quiet. Birds chirped, unaware.
Lira was at the well, humming under her breath as she hauled up the morning bucket. Eri danced barefoot through the dewy grass, her too-long sleeves flopping with every spin. She saw him and waved the flower crown — now slightly frayed — above her head.
"You remembered it!" she shouted.
He raised the crown over his heart. "Told you I would."
"Ah fuck, this is going to hurt," the Veyl whispered. No sarcasm. No wit.
"What do you mea—"
That's when the shot rang out.
Takaya didn't see where it came from.
He only saw Lira collapse.
No scream. No warning. Just blood and weight hitting the dirt.
He froze.
Eri did too.
Then screamed.
Another shot.
And the world exploded.
They came from the trees — two men, masked, moving fast. One carried a long-barreled mage rifle, steam hissing from the chamber. The other wore Covenant-grade armor — not frontline military, but high enough clearance to be dangerous. A bounty patch marked his pauldron.
Takaya moved.
But not fast enough.
The soldier raised his arm. Mana surged from the runeplate on his wrist and lashed across the glade like lightning. Takaya blocked it with Solthar — barely. The impact sent him skidding back, boots tearing lines in the earth.
"Two of them," the Veyl hissed. "Mercs. Covenant-sanctioned. Hunting anomalies. That means you."
Takaya saw red.
Eri was screaming again — screaming words that no longer had meaning.
He lunged.
The rifleman fired.
Takaya dodged left, blade slashing forward, cutting a perfect arc through air — but the man teleported. Short-range blink rune. He reappeared ten paces back and fired again.
Takaya ducked, rolled, closed the gap.
This time Solthar struck true.
The rifleman's body fell in two perfect halves.
Takaya didn't breathe.
He spun toward the second.
The soldier raised a hand.
"Target acquired. Anomaly class confirmed. Engage lethal."
"You ASSHOLE," Takaya growled — and moved.
Their clash wasn't elegant.
It was raw. Ugly.
Steel against magic. Blade against enchantment. Takaya bled. The soldier bled more.
Then, the bastard made a mistake.
He looked at Eri.
And smiled.
Takaya snapped.
Voidspire ignited in his free hand. He threw it.
The axe sang.
It didn't hit the man.
It went behind him — embedded in a tree.
The man laughed. "Missed—"
Voidspire returned.
It passed through his back before he could blink.
The soldier dropped.
Takaya was already running.
"Eri—!"
But he was too late.
She wasn't moving.
Her tiny body slumped over Lira's. Her arms around her mother. Both still. Both quiet.
One of the first shots must've hit her. Or maybe it was the mage pulse.
It didn't matter.
They were gone.
The crown was still in her hand.
Takaya fell to his knees.
And the world collapsed inward.
"I told you," the Veyl said softly. "I fucking told you."
He didn't speak.
He didn't cry.
He just sat there, hands trembling, staring at the two people who gave him three days of peace.
Three.
That's all the world allowed.
Three days to remember what being human felt like.
And now?
Only ash.
Only silence.
Only the ring still glowing faintly on his finger.
Eri's last words echoed in his head.
I hope you remember this.
He did.
He would never forget it.