The wind had gone completely still.
Not a leaf stirred. Not a ripple broke the hollow where Lake Dawn used to be. The boy stood there, golden bow in hand, surrounded by silence so deep it seemed to breathe.
The smell of ozone lingered in the air, sharp, metallic, and electric, like the ghost of a thunderstorm. On the cracked lakebed lay four figures, unmoving. Their clothes, elegant and foreign, were untouched by dirt. Their chests rose faintly. Alive.
He took a cautious step forward. The bow pulsed in his grip, its golden light flickering in rhythm with his heartbeat.
"…Another Celestian?" he whispered.
No answer.
He knelt beside the silver-haired woman, the first to appear, and hesitated just short of touching her hand. Her skin was unnaturally pale, cold, but not dead. Power clung to her like frost.
Then,
> [Unknown energy detected.] <
[Warning: Foreign Sequence signature identified.]
The voice rang out, not in his mind this time, but everywhere at once. It crawled across the air, the earth, even the still sky.
The boy stumbled back, bow raised. The woman's fingers twitched.
A faint light spread beneath her skin, tracing silver veins along her arms. The same glow rippled through the others, the crimson-haired woman gasping as her chest rose, the white-haired man's golden aura flaring briefly, and the black-haired one's shadow deepening until it seemed to devour light itself.
His instincts screamed. Whatever they were, they weren't normal, and definitely not human.
"I should've listened to Rain," he muttered, drawing the bowstring tight.
Then the silver-haired woman opened her eyes.
For a heartbeat, the world shifted.
The sky flared with constellations no human eye should ever see, patterns older than memory itself. In that single instant, he saw a whole cosmos reflected in her gaze.
Then the light was gone. Silence again.
"…Where… am I?" Her voice was quiet, soft, but edged with something sharp.
The boy froze. "She… speaks Terran?"
He scanned her face, pulse racing. "Then she's not a Celestian?"
The woman blinked, her gaze unfocused at first, then sharpening as it landed on him, and the bow. The golden light coiling around it seemed to hold her attention. Confusion flickered. Then something close to recognition.
"A–Aetherion," she murmured, voice trembling between awe and grief. Tears, clear and crystalline, welled in her eyes.
He frowned. "…Memory configuration?" he muttered. The aura around her reminded him of his teacher, Kain, the Sequence Master of Memories.
Before he could think further, the crimson-haired woman stirred. Heat bled into the air. The ground hissed and cracked. The boy stumbled back, shielding his face.
> [Warning: Residual Celestial Pressure rising.]
The silver-haired woman stood slowly. Her movements were unsteady, but her presence felt vast, pressing against the edges of the world. She looked at her companions, then back to him.
"Aetherion…" she murmured, almost tasting the word.
"The hell is going on…" he muttered under his breath.
She tilted her head slightly. "Forgive me. I just," Her hand brushed her temple, eyes narrowing. "It's… fragmented. Everything."
Dawn didn't lower his bow. His tone stayed flat, steady. "You've got about ten seconds before I start assuming you're hostile."
"Hostile?" she repeated slowly, as if testing the word. "No. I"
A pulse of heat rolled across the crater. The crimson-haired woman gasped awake, flames curling from her fingertips. The air rippled from the surge.
"Alright, that's it!" Dawn barked, stepping back. The light around his bow condensed into a blinding point. "Stay down, or I'll—"
He hesitated. That kind of aura, burning, violent, almost bestial, belonged only to war criminals, or those who'd sold their stars to the Dragon King.
"Don't."
The silver-haired woman's voice cut through the tension. Not loud, but it hit like a command buried in the marrow of his bones.
His body froze mid-draw.
Sequence ability? No... aura control?
She stepped forward, still unsteady but calm. "We're not here to fight," she said quietly. "If we meant you harm, you'd already be gone."
"Yeah?" His voice was tight, but his hands trembled slightly. "Then what's your 'red friend' doing radiating murder?"
"Her prana?," the woman said absently.
He blinked. "Her what?"
The crimson-haired woman stirred again, her voice faint. "Elara…"
The silver-haired woman turned, kneeling beside her. "Rest," she murmured, weaving faint silver light through the other's hair. The heat eased, the air settling once more.
The boy lowered his bow a fraction. "…Core stabilization?" he muttered.
Without looking at him, she said, "What's your name?"
He hesitated. "Release whatever you're doing first."
A faint smile tugged at her lips. "Ah. My apologies." The invisible pressure lifted.
"…It's Dawn," he said finally.
"Dawn." She repeated it softly, as if weighing the name. "I'm… Elara. I think."
"You think?"
Her brow furrowed. "My memories, they're… fractured. It's like pieces are missing."
Dawn sighed, the tension in his shoulders fading slightly. "You people are seriously messed up."
Elara let out a quiet breath, somewhere between a laugh and a weary exhale.
Behind her, the man with white-and-gold hair stirred. His eyes opened, twin suns flickering beneath still water. The moment he drew breath, the air vibrated, like the world itself remembered him.