Before The Weight Of The World :-
Before the titles. Before the scars. Before the heavy, suffocating silence of responsibility turned their hearts into stone and fire -
They were fifteen, and the Second Realm was a kingdom of endless light that seemed to stretch into forever.
The Academy back then was a different beast—stricter, colder, a fortress of rigid ancient rules. The High Elders didn't believe in "potential"; they believed in iron results.
Yet, despite the cold stone and the grueling ten-hour study sessions, the air had felt lighter. It smelled of ozone and blooming star-lilies, not smoke and ash.
Felix had been the first to arrive at the gates. At fifteen, he was a whirlwind of energy with a messy shock of light brown hair that he absolutely refused to comb.
He didn't walk; he bounced. He was the boy who hid croaking marsh-toads in the High Elder's formal robes and spent his afternoons balancing on the very edge of the highest rooftops just to see if the wind would catch his cloaks.
He laughed at everything—loud, infectious peals of joy—convinced that life was just a grand game he was destined to win.
Kai was his constant shadow.
Even then, Kai was serious, but it was a different kind of intensity. It was the pure, quiet focus of a boy who loved the craft of the bow, not the weary burden of a man who feared the cost of failure.
He and Felix were an impossible pair: the anchor and the sail. Kai would spend hours in the library helping Felix translate ancient scrolls, hiding his rare, genuine smiles behind his hand whenever Felix made a ridiculous face to distract him.
Then there was Ember.
At fifteen, Ember didn't bark orders or keep her heart behind a wall of heat. She sang. Her fire wasn't a weapon of war yet; it was a companion. She would sit in the center of the Academy gardens, her face glowing with pure wonder, making tiny fire-birds dance between her fingertips to make her classmates giggle.
She was fierce, yes, but it was the fierceness of a summer sun—warm, vibrant, and inviting—not the scorching, protective desert heat she carried now.
And Melissa.
Melissa had been the soul of their group. She was the one who brought bandages when Felix inevitably fell off a wall, the one who smuggled extra honey-bread for Kai during his late-night vigils, and the one who listened to Ember's wild dreams of traveling beyond the stars.
She was shy, but her laugh was the loudest of them all when they were alone. Back then, she didn't doubt her connection to the earth. She played with the stone and soil like it was a sandbox, building tiny, intricate castles that the wind could never blow down.
They used to sit together on the "Thinking Stone" at the edge of the floating islands, dangling their legs over the clouds.
"When we're Leaders," Felix had declared one evening, throwing a pebble into the abyss, "I'm going to make sure no one ever has to study on the weekends. Only festivals!"
"I'm going to build a training hall that reaches the stars," Kai added quietly, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
Ember looked at the sunset, her eyes reflecting the gold and crimson. "I'm going to make sure the Great Fire never goes out. We'll be the strongest team the realms have ever seen. No one will ever be afraid."
Melissa had just leaned her head on Ember's shoulder, her fingers tracing the grain of the stone beneath them. "I just want us to stay like this. Always together."
The memory fades now, like smoke in a winter wind.
The Second Realm is still there. The islands still float in the ether. But the boy with the light brown hair who laughed at the wind is now a man who hides behind a mask of hollow humor.
The girl who made fire-birds is a commander who fears the flame's hunger.
The boy who loved the craft is a general who carries the weight of an army on his back.
And the girl who built castles is a woman who wonders if she is enough to hold the world together.
They were fifteen, they were awestruck, and they were invincible.
They just didn't know that the world was waiting for them to grow up, so it could start breaking its promises.