Ares floated in stillness.
For a long time, there was only the soundless hum of the gray world around him — a place that was neither air nor water, where motion felt like drifting through the sea. He couldn't feel his hands or feet. He didn't have any. His body had taken a round, translucent shape, like a small globule of light, faintly pulsing with his breath — if breathing was still something he did.
When he looked down, faint strings came out of him, stretching and vanishing into green motes. Some were dull gray, others shimmered faintly, trembling whenever he thought too much or found something new. The strange part was that he wasn't the only one with them.
All around, creatures moved among the threads, feeding, breaking, or mending them. Tiny, mosquito-like things with crystal wings hovered close to him, biting into the thinner strings and drinking them dry. They glowed red as they fed, then drifted away sluggishly, dissolving into motes of green light.
Farther away, long, finned shapes glided slowly through the air like fish, their bodies shimmering with translucent scales. When they turned, he could see the faint green motes swirling inside them — the same ones that drifted through the mist like slow-moving dust.
Everything seemed to have a purpose. Everything was feeding, changing, reshaping.
Ares watched with a kind of horrified fascination. He should have been afraid — but he wasn't. He was curious. There was something so deliberate about it all, so quiet and intricate, that he couldn't look away.
Then he noticed Rodan.
The old man's body stood motionless, just ahead — his real body, the same one Ares had seen before. Only the eyes were different now. They weren't eyes at all. They were black holes, wide and terrible, swallowing the light around them. Inside, something moved — long, shadowy filaments, twisting like smoke but alive, coiling and uncoiling as though they held something even greater within.
From those eyes, faint blue rays reached out into the air, touching the drifting green motes. One by one, the motes stirred, gathered, and bent toward him. The blue light shaped them, folded them, tied them together into a growing pattern — a weave of black ribbons that slowly took form before Ares's gaze.
He didn't understand what he was seeing, only that it was beautiful and terrifying at once.
"What is he doing?" Ares whispered.
A quiet voice answered from above. "Weaving."
He looked up — and nearly jumped.
A small creature sat perched on Rodan's shoulder. Its body was a strange mix of man and hedgehog — upright, thin, covered in faint purple fur with spines that rippled like wind over grass. Its eyes were bright and clever, and a thin purple thread connected its head to Rodan's temple, pulsing faintly with light.
"Who are you?" Ares asked, wary.
The creature smiled, showing a mouth too wide for its face. "Me? Astro. I think. Don't look at me like that — I've been here longer than you."
"You're… connected to him," Ares said, noticing the line.
Astro tugged it lightly, and it hummed. "Seems that way. Been watching him work for ages. He doesn't say much — obsessed with his weaves, selfish bastard."
Ares's gaze drifted back to Rodan's eyes. "He's binding them. Forcing them to move. But how? They move like they have minds of their own."
Astro grinned, glad for the company. "They do. The motes don't like to be told what to do. They flow the way the world made them. But he—" Astro gestured with a claw — "he's weaving them using something stronger."
Ares tilted his head. "His will?" he said; somehow he knew the answer.
Astro nodded. "Yes. He's using his soul — his will — as the thread that pierces through the motes, binds them together, and gives them shape. That's how spells are born here. You don't carve symbols; you force meaning into being."
Ares looked at the pattern again, the black ribbons thickening, pulsing faintly. "And what are they?"
"They're vessels," Astro said, voice softening. "Made from the same thing that holds your soul together. What he's doing is forming an entry — a way for your soul to look through your real eyes, to see this place for what it truly is."
Ares felt his pulse quicken — or what passed for one. "He's doing that for me?"
Astro shrugged. "Seems like it. Maybe he thinks you're worth it. Mind you, it's terribly hard."
The purple thread between them flickered, and for a moment Ares could feel Astro's thoughts brushing his own — light, fast, full of noise. Then a second purple line extended toward Ares, touching his surface.
"Here," Astro said cheerfully. "Makes talking easier."
The line sank in with a faint warmth, and suddenly Ares could hear the voice not through sound, but inside his mind.
"I'm really glad there's someone new here," Astro went on, his tone bright. "It gets boring. This old man's always muttering about will and power and how things exist. I hope you're not like him. He never asks how I'm doing."
Ares almost laughed. "I think he's too focused for that."
"Oh, he is. Completely lost in his own brilliance." Astro leaned forward, grinning. "Still, he's not bad at it. Look at those ribbons — smooth, even, no collapse at the edges. That takes focus."
Ares watched, fascinated, as the blue light from Rodan's eyes gathered more motes, aligning them in impossible precision. "So it's not the motes that make the magic," Ares said slowly, "it's how you order them."
"Exactly," Astro said. "They're just raw pieces. The strength is in the soul. The more will you have, the more motes obey you. You can make them bend, form, hold shape. But you—" He tapped Ares's faint glowing form with a claw — "—you're too small right now. Too weak."
Ares frowned. "How do I make it stronger?"
"That's easy," Astro said, pleased with the question. "You strain it. Push it past what it can do. Then let it rest and feed. Same way everything grows — you stress it, then you nourish it."
He scratched the side of his snout thoughtfully. "There are foods that help too. Like that golden soup your old man wanted. It restores the soul faster than anything else."
Ares blinked. "Yeah… I've never seen anything like it before."
"Neither have I," Astro said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "The one making it — she's quite accomplished. I've not seen that kind of weave anywhere, and neither has he. That's why he's so interested. Wants to know how she's doing it."
Ares smiled faintly. "He didn't tell me that."
"Of course not. He never tells anyone. But don't mention I told you — he'd sew my mouth shut with thought-strings."
Ares looked again at Rodan — at the slow, deliberate motion of his eyes, the way the air bent to his will. "He's still working," he murmured. "Still shaping it."
Astro's tone softened. "Yeah. He'll be at it a while. You should stay close to him. This place isn't safe for something your size. There are things that eat light like yours."
"Then why does he stay here?" Ares asked quietly.
Astro tilted his head, smiling in a sad, knowing way. "He prefers it this way."
The green motes drifted gently between them, and for a long moment, Ares simply watched — the old man, the light, the pattern being born in silence. The fear had long faded. What remained was something stranger, deeper.
Wonder.