"I'm going to tell you a story. And you're going to listen. No matter how disgusted or bored you become—just listen. It'll be over soon... along with your suffering, once I grow bored of it."
A long time ago. Or maybe not yet, maybe tomorrow even. There was a little monster at the top of a tower. The monster had no name, no mother, no father. No memory of where it came from. But it had stories. Two of them, to be exact.
From the top of that tower, the monster slipped into those stories like dreams. Observing the lives of their protagonists from above, like a ghost haunting someone else's fate.
The first story followed a boy—a dreamer amid apocalypse—named Silven Windrega.
As a child, Silven was beaten and used by his family, nothing more than a tool to ensure their future prosperity. His only solace was a paintbrush and the battered canvas he clung to like a secret. But at seven years old, his childhood ended for good. He was to be married off to a woman decades older—a widow of sorts, once engaged to his older brother.
On the eve of the wedding, little Silven climbed a bridge and dove into the black river below. He thought, This will make my brother happy. This will free me from them.
But fate, in a rare act of mercy, refused to let him die.
Dragged from the water by a band of street orphans, Silven was terrified. He'd thought himself ready for death, but survival... it shook him. Grateful and afraid, he changed his last name to Windrega and joined the orphan gang who had saved him.
Years passed. Silven became their fiercest defender—swinging a rusted metal pipe like a spear to fend off wild dogs, predators, and desperate men trying to steal their scavenged supplies. He was a protector. A brother.
When he was eleven, during a routine trade zone trip with his closest friends, he overheard whispers about the Royal Knights Exam—a brutal tournament to select the personal guard of the next ruler. The reward? A real home, enough food to last a lifetime, freedom from the hunger and danger they'd grown used to.
Silven ran back to the gang, breathless and bright-eyed. The gang leader—his new family's matriarch—saw the fire in him and signed him up. So did his best friend.
In the tournament, Silven fought like he'd been born for it. A child among killers, but stronger, faster, more desperate. He shocked the audience, dismantled opponents, and earned the title of Champion.
Word spread fast.
And then the past came clawing back.
The Alfell family, those ghosts he thought he buried, heard their little pawn was still alive—and now useful. They came with threats, with bribes, with chains hidden in smiles. They wanted to reclaim him. Bend him back into a tool.
But Silven wasn't theirs anymore.
He became a beast of vengeance, wild and cold. One by one, he hunted them. The family that beat him, sold him, broke him. He erased them—every last one—for the sake of his new family's safety.
A decade passed.
At twenty-one, Silven stood tall as the King's Guardian and Military Chief. In his shadow walked the king's sister, his lover, the only person who seemed to understand the broken pieces left in him.
The Alfells—desperate to reclaim what was lost—made one final gambit: they tried to kill her.
But the king and his sister saw it coming. They gave Silven the order. Burn the Alfells from existence.
He did it without hesitation.
He reduced his old house to ash and memory, and never once looked back. The years that followed brought bittersweet peace. Silven's romance with the king's sister crumbled, but their bond didn't. They still met over food, still laughed, still watched the younger orphans grow and dream.
But good things never last.
His brother—somehow, impossibly—had survived. And he waited. Bided his time. Then, in one night of blood and smoke, he locked the Windrega Gang in a house and set it ablaze.
Silven heard their screams. He arrived too late to save anyone.
In a storm of grief and fury, Silven killed his brother. Nearly ended himself, too. But she—his former lover—found him. She held him together, stitched his body and soul back into something vaguely human.
Silven resigned as the King's Guard. Became an advisor. He tried to rebuild his life. Tried to breathe again.
But fate wasn't finished with him. Assassins struck the king, and Silven was framed. Hunted. Betrayed. The king's sister—now queen—was made a puppet, forced to marry the very man who killed her brother.
Silven crashed the wedding. He challenged the usurper to a duel and overwhelmed him with ease, even with a bullet in his gut. Bleeding, broken, still breathing, he drove a spear through the usurper's heart.
And then he vanished before the queen could say a word. Collapsing in a dark alley. Surrounded by trash and rot, Silven Windrega died.
"I like that story a lot," I said, polishing a broken fang with my sleeve. "To me, it's far more interesting than the second story. A child who had everything but could never keep it—who ran away and grew up with nothing, then took everything he wanted. A man who ended up with nothing again, and somehow still held everything. You'd agree, right? I'd go into more detail but then I'd have to write a book about it."
Groaning in agony, the thing I spoke to choked out, "Kill... me... bastard..."
"You wouldn't like that story would you?" I waved off the plea like a buzzing fly. Then I tossed the polished fang into its mangled jaw, silencing it with a wet crunch. "You'll love the second story," I said, smiling coldly. "After all, it's about you and your brother. Well—another version of you two at least, Cayde."
"Urgh..." moaning in pain. A bloodied mess with his insides spilling out into the crater he was within while corruptive energy flowed through his body keeping him alive by force. "My name... is Corvus!"
"Not in the future, not originally." Picking up what was his liver i ripped it out of the devil's opened chest making him hiss in pain through his teeth as he resisted. Screaming before crushing the liver beteeen my gauntlets fingers. "Does that count as a pun? I'm counting it as a pun considering you were technically two people before inheriting Raum's curse."
Sensing a shift in the horizon i lifted up poking my head out the crater of gore. Seeing the tidal wave of rewound time spreading across the universe and seeping into the planet.
"Oh, looks like times up for this universe." I announced matter of factly before shooting an energy spear through Cayde's skull and killing him. Clambering out the crater i spoke to the air asking, "you enjoy torturing Incursik, Thorn?"
"Would have preferred the pedophile." Appearing next to me a black wolf with a silver mane walked with me. Spitting out purple flesh from between his canines before continuing. "Outer gods are always terrible to eat. Feel like I'm chewing on rubber more than meat."
"You're the one who wanted to flip a coin to see which of us get to kill which of them this time." I reminded.
"Yeah, yeah. No need to rub it in." Thorn huffed and then the temporal wave washed over the planet completely.
The regressing time rewound linear time on the planet and the rest of the universe by two decades. Before the universal regression stopped and time returned to normal.
Looking around with Thorn i expected a message from either Clarity or Sathuna but nothing came. No request or demand to alter someone's memory.
"Hmm. Looks like we get to—"
[skill: astral third eye — anomaly detection!]
Whipping around and looking at the stars in a certain direction a mad grin seeped up my face. "Cayde survived the forest... and it wasn't Sathuna who saved him this time. Someone else. Its that old hag from the future you and i are from Thorn!"
"Seriously?!" Shifting his body into a raven Thorn could barely hide his excitement. "If that crone is there then... it has to be my original timeline!"
Grinning eagerly with madness i began walking. "Lets go pay a visit to Laegii. And extend our thanks to this unknown stranger for finally setting things on track."