Part I — Morning Rites
Alistair woke before dawn, the rainforest still dripping from the night's rain. His AR overlay flickered in dim green, half-locked, reminding him of the tasks still unfinished. Ancient whispered through his neural lace, the voice neither male nor female, but calm, patient, ever-present: "Begin the rites. Stewardship is balance."
He rose from his shelter, stretching lean limbs, and gathered the remnants from the day before—the shavings of branches, scraps of bark, even his own waste sealed in a clay pot. He carried them to the sapling at the center of the clearing, a young consumption tree no taller than his chest. Kneeling, he spread the offerings around its root zone, careful not to wound the soil. The overlay brightened, green lines sharpening to clarity. His full vision unlocked with a pulse of satisfaction.
"Offer accepted," Ancient confirmed. "Growth probability increased. Path efficiency: +3%."
Alistair pressed his palm to the sapling's bark, murmuring the phrase every elf learned from birth: "As sworn, so lived." Even here, in a simple rite, oaths mattered. Ancient's presence in his mind made that truth unshakable. Words could bind, and in time, oaths would mean life or death. All elves knew their kill switch was entwined with their promises. Even the youngest treated speech as sacred.
He glanced across the clearing to Edith's shelter. She was already awake, her dark hair damp with mist as she performed her own rite. They had been paired since gestation, raised as siblings in their home cluster, but even as children they had always known they were destined for deeper partnership. Ancient had synchronized their training, their dreams, their bond. When Edith looked up and caught his gaze, her smile carried the weight of years. Enduring. Certain.
She scattered her offerings with the same precision he had, then added a small flourish—placing her hand over her heart before touching the soil. The overlay glowed faintly brighter. Ancient approved of her reverence, and by extension, so did he. Their laces hummed in harmony for a moment, and Alistair felt the strange intimacy of it: two minds brushed together by a presence older than either of them.
When she finished, Edith crossed the clearing to meet him. "You woke first again," she said, her voice light but her eyes sharp. "Ancient gave you the early bird bonus, didn't it?"
Alistair shrugged, trying not to smile. "Only fair. You'll have your chance in the chase."
They walked side by side to the edge of the clearing, their AR lines guiding them toward the day's lessons. Above, the Ring gleamed faintly through thinning clouds, a crown in the sky they believed had always been theirs. Neither of them questioned the story. They had no reason to. Ancient lived in their minds, and Ancient never lied.
"As sworn," Edith said softly, echoing the rite.
"So lived," Alistair finished. And together they stepped into the forest.
They moved with the unhurried grace of people already old in some ways and impossibly young in others. By human reckoning, they had been conceived six years ago, born only two. Yet their simulated lives stretched past twenty years, and their physiology marked them as twelve—on the cusp of their first breeding rite. It would not be a sexual act, but a solemn ritual, a trigger for the epigenetic shifts that would ready their bodies to produce the cells their people needed. Complex math of time and growth was second nature to them. To live as elf was to accept many ages at once.
Edith brushed damp hair from her face, her voice carrying both challenge and affection. "Today's a chase day. Don't think Ancient's bonus will carry you all the way."
Alistair's smile was slight, but certain. "We'll see."
They looked little different—slight of build, androgynous, both carrying the lithe femininity that was the natural default of their people. Only within mated pairs did elves adopt and sustain chosen genders, binding themselves to roles as firmly as they would bind themselves to oaths. Edith had chosen the female role, Alistair the male, though neither had entered a breeding cycle yet. When they did, their bodies would diverge: breasts budding for nourishment if needed, musculature shifting, cells primed for fertilization or seeding. For now, they wore the forms of promise, not completion.
Ancient's voice threaded gently through both their laces: "The chase begins when the light clears the canopy. Prepare yourselves."
Alistair and Edith shared a glance—siblings in upbringing, partners in oath, and now competitors in the day's trial. The forest awaited.
Part II — The Consumption Trees
The forest thickened around them, shafts of pale light piercing through the canopy to catch on leaves still jeweled with rain. Alistair slowed his pace, scanning the ground with the practiced eye of one who knew every sign mattered. A clawed footprint in the loam. A scatter of gnawed husks. The faint, almost oily scent that clung to bark when a consumption tree's drones passed nearby.
Ancient's overlay traced the signs in faint green, but Alistair didn't need the guidance. He had grown up with these trees as both threat and promise. Saplings were tender, hungry things, lured into survival by their symbiotic lizard swarms. Mature trees were something else entirely: immense, omnivorous, and cunning. They chewed what they caught with muscle-bound roots and swayed with a predator's patience, their fruit dense with nutrients so complete it could sustain an elf for days. To approach without respect was death. To tend them wisely was life.
Edith crouched beside a track, running slim fingers through damp soil. "A young troop," she said. "Their drones can't handle anything larger than a bird yet."
Her overlay flickered brighter for the observation, awarding points. Alistair noticed it but didn't comment. They were rivals in the chase, but bonded in the same destiny. Both had chosen to anchor themselves to these trees—he through the fungal webs that fed their roots, she through the kobolds that served them.
"My path is in the ground," Alistair said, tapping the soil. "The fungus here is already carrying more than it should. If I can weave a strain specific to the trees, it'll lighten the load and thicken the forest's breath."
Edith smiled faintly, eyes still on the tracks. "And mine is in the kobolds. They're faithful, but stupid. If I can coax more cunning into them, they'll keep their trees alive longer. Maybe even keep themselves alive longer."
Alistair gave a low chuckle. "So we both meddle with the caretakers."
She straightened, brushing dirt from her knees. "That's what the Gray Son made us for."
They both fell quiet at that. The name carried weight, part myth, part reverence. None of their people had ever seen the Gray Son, but his story was written into them as surely as their kill switches. He had shaped the trees, the kobolds, the forest itself—and them, to walk among it all. Whether he was a man or something more, Ancient reminded them daily that they were his continuation.
A chime sounded softly in their laces. "The chase begins."
Alistair's overlay thinned to a single narrow line threading between roots and vines. Edith's shimmered beside his, branching paths she alone could see. They exchanged one last glance, then broke into a run, weaving through the living labyrinth the Gray Son had left for them.
Part III — The Game of Tag and Shelter
The forest seemed to hold its breath when the chime sounded. Then Alistair bolted, legs pumping, overlay narrowing into a faint green thread that twisted between roots and vines. His lungs burned, but exhilaration drowned the ache. Behind him, Edith's laughter cut through the underbrush, sharp as a hawk's cry. She was close. She was always close.
Tag was more than play. It was practice in silence, balance, precision. A snapped twig could cost him points, a stumble could mean capture. Ancient whispered metrics into his mind—impact weight, noise dispersion, efficiency bonuses—but the numbers blurred in the rush. What mattered was not being touched.
Alistair vaulted a fallen trunk, landed light, and veered toward higher ground. His overlay pulsed faintly as it highlighted a challenging route, worth more points if he could keep it clean. He grinned despite himself. Risk carried reward. Edith would take the steadier path; she always did. Reliable, careful, steady. That was why they were paired.
The forest tested him at every stride. Drone lizards rustled in the undergrowth, already sniffing at the saplings scattered between the larger trees. If he drew too near their patrols, he'd lose time fighting them off. If he ignored them, they'd mark his trail for Edith. Every choice mattered.
By the time the sun's angle shifted past its first marker, the chase was over. Alistair had reached the shelter ground with a thin lead. His chest heaved, sweat slicking his skin, but his eyes gleamed. Edith burst into the clearing moments later, hair plastered to her forehead, her smile equal parts irritation and admiration.
"Two steps," she said, breathless.
"Two is enough," he replied.
Ancient's voice confirmed the tally, overlays updating with clean scores. Alistair: +192. Edith: +187. The margin was slim, but real.
Without pause, the second phase began. Both turned to the saplings planted in the clearing, already staked as anchors for the shelters they were expected to build. The rules were simple: two hours, minimal tools, maximum sustainability. The execution was never simple.
Alistair set to weaving fallen branches, his hands quick, his overlay flickering suggestions as he bent each length into a growing arch. A lean-to was easier, but he aimed for elegance, interlocking branches until they almost hummed with tension. By the end, it resembled an inverted bird's nest, round and sheltering, with a narrow arch for entry.
Across the clearing, Edith had taken another approach. She dug shallow into the soil with a stick, crafting a pit lined with clay scavenged from an abandoned termite mound. Her overlay shimmered approval. The clay lent her shelter insulation, and with it she shaped a crude stove and chimney. When she lit the fire, smoke rose clean and thin, carrying heat without choking the chamber.
Ancient logged their work, tallying scores. Edith's ingenuity in materials edged her ahead: +196 to Alistair's +192. She didn't gloat. She rarely did. She simply smiled faintly as she settled by her clay stove, placing a few stones near the flames to heat.
Alistair sat back against his woven wall, breathing deeply. The points mattered, but not as much as the practice. Shelter, silence, patience—these were not games. They were the bones of survival, dressed in the skin of play.
Part IV — Courtship and Mating Rite
Dusk gathered over the forest, and with it came the summons. Ancient's voice threaded into every lace at once, calm and resonant: "The rite begins. Assemble."
Edith and Alistair joined their cohort in the clearing, nearly two dozen lithe forms moving with quiet anticipation. Shelters glowed faintly behind them, smoke rising from clay stoves, the scent of damp soil and woodfire mixing with something sharper—the bitter resin waiting in carved bowls at the circle's center.
Each elf took a seat on the mossy ground. The android caretakers stood watchful on the edges, silent as statues. The bowls were passed one by one, each filled with a thick, dark substance distilled from consumption fruit sap and fungal extract. It reeked of spice and rot, a perfume of heat and earth that curled into the nose before it even touched the tongue.
Edith held her bowl with steady hands. Alistair felt his own pulse quicken. The resin wasn't lethal, but it was punishing. Its heat cut through the body like fire, its bitterness like swallowing iron. It would shock their systems into the cascade Ancient had prepared, epigenetic keys turning, reproductive pathways unlocking.
When the command came, they drank as one.
The spice burned instantly. Alistair's throat convulsed, tears springing to his eyes as fire spread through his chest and belly. Edith coughed once, then closed her eyes, riding the pain. Around the circle, their cohort writhed, gasps and muffled cries breaking the silence. The android caretakers did not move. This suffering was necessary.
Ancient spoke within them all, calm against the storm: "Roles confirmed. Paths declared. Balance ensured."
Overlays flared bright with new glyphs. Each elf's chosen gender locked into place—Edith's physiology primed toward female, Alistair's toward male. The first hints of hormonal shifts coursed through them, subtle now but undeniable. Their other roles, too, were affirmed: Alistair marked as fungi-tender, Edith as kobold-breeder. Their choices of path became vows, etched as deeply as any genetic sequence.
Then came the words every elf knew, carried in their culture since their first days: "Oaths bind life. To break is to end."
The myth of oathbreakers lingered in the air, half-whispered, half-felt: elves who betrayed their word struck down in an instant, their bodies unmade by forces unseen. They did not know it was a laser coded into their genomes, a kill switch built into their cells. They only knew that to swear falsely was death, and so each oath carried a weight beyond choice.
Edith's gaze found Alistair's across the circle. Pain flushed both their faces, but their eyes held steady. Their bond, forged since gestation, affirmed now by choice, glowed bright in their laces. They had been rivals in play, siblings in home, but tonight they became partners in truth.
Ancient's voice sealed the moment. "You are no longer children. You are stewards. You are bound."
The cohort bowed their heads as one. Through fire and oath, they had crossed the threshold. The breeding rite was not the end of childhood—it was its erasure.
Part V — A Few Months Later
The forest seemed unchanged—humid air thick with the drone of insects, leaves glittering with dew after the nightly rains. But within the cohort, change was written on every body. The resin rite had done its work.
Alistair moved with a heavier stride, his shoulders broadened, his muscles strung tighter beneath his skin. Yet by human standards, he would still be called effeminate—his face fine-boned, his hips narrow, his movements smooth rather than heavy. Edith, by contrast, had grown into a hyper-feminine form, her chest now full with breasts that strained the woven fabric across her torso, her waist slender, her voice carrying a softer lilt. Their bond had shifted subtly with these changes, no longer children paired for practice, but young adults marked clearly by chosen roles.
The cohort carried similar transformations, each shaped to the genders and paths they had declared during the rite, confirmed by which concoction they drank. Females, even outside of breeding cycles, bore breasts as insurance against failure of the communal wombs. Males carried more muscle, more reach, yet still retained the androgynous grace of their kind. None of them resembled humans closely enough to be mistaken, but their echoes were familiar, uncanny reflections of old archetypes.
The rite had also changed their presence. They stood taller, spoke slower, their gestures more deliberate. Even laughter carried weight now, touched by the gravity of their oaths. Ancient's voice threaded through their laces with quiet affirmation, rewarding balance, reinforcing bonds. Every step they took felt calibrated to the roles they had sworn.
Edith and Alistair walked side by side through the clearing one morning, their strides syncing without thought. They had sparred and chased, competed and teased for as long as they could remember. Now, when their hands brushed, they lingered. Their bond, practiced since gestation, had found new flesh to root itself in.
"You've grown into your role," Edith said softly, her eyes sliding over his chest, the taut muscle there.
He glanced at her, then away, his throat tight. "So have you."
Neither smiled. They didn't need to. The changes were visible, undeniable, and Ancient whispered in their laces: "Balance confirmed. Partners affirmed."
They had each endured the pain of transformation, alone in their rooms within their shared home, eating nothing but the fruit of the consumption tree. The changes were rapid and excruciating, and quite personal, as they were demanding that each elf confront the shifting landscape of their own body, learning its new rhythms and unlocking what lay dormant.
They were each excited by the certainty of their paths, slightly pitying those of their cohort who had chosen to wait until the next breeding cycle before confirming, if ever. Though an oath taken was death if broken, there was no requirement to take an oath at all. Those who refrained simply did not earn the status of adulthood yet.
The forest pressed on around them, lush and hungry, but for the first time, they felt less like children within it. They felt like the future itself walking, fragile but certain, written into their very bones.
Part V — The Homeland
Far from the forest where Edith and Alistair tested themselves, the homeland pulsed with quiet design. Android caretakers moved in gentle routines, tending hearths, shaping tools, singing the lullabies that had been written into their cores. To the children, they were simply elders—keepers of memory, shapers of order. The truth, that they were machines sculpted to mimic what did not yet exist, remained hidden behind smiling faces and warm hands.
Egg's drones patrolled the perimeter, unseen watchers that reinforced the illusion. The settlement itself had been carefully crafted among half-buried ruins uncovered by the thinning forest. Walls carved with borrowed symbols, stones rearranged into patterns that whispered of antiquity, all designed to convince young minds that their people were old. Their neural laces reinforced the story, offering cultural lessons as inherited memory rather than instruction.
The elves believed they were the remnant of an ancient race who had narrowly avoided extinction by retreating into artificial wombs. To them, the android caretakers were survivors, weary but devoted. Every sapling planted, every oath spoken, every tool crafted confirmed that story. They never doubted it, because Ancient's steady voice affirmed it at every turn.
In truth, their species was barely two years old. And yet they lived with the weight of centuries. Their rites were binding, their oaths absolute, their kill switch the silent shadow behind every promise. Myths of oathbreakers struck down instantly were told around the fires, warnings that ensured no one treated words lightly.
Edith and Alistair, now marked by their chosen roles, moved among their peers with quiet certainty. Their bond was no longer just personal—it was archetypal, woven into the very fabric of their people's story. They would grow into stewards not only of the forest but of the truth itself, when the day came for it to be revealed.
Just over the horizon, aboard his floating base of steel foam and fungal vats, Grayson worked on parallel projects while glimpsing their progress through feeds. He refused to intrude directly, burdened by the knowledge that their culture was built on a lie. When he saw them running, building, swearing oaths as if they had always been, he felt both pride and grief. He had given them life, but not his presence. He was their ghost, shaping from the shadows.
Meanwhile, the elves grew with startling precision. Every six years a breeding rite allowed their numbers to climb, tied always to the resources and structures they had secured. Ancient wove their individual innovations together, so that one discovery fed another, accelerating their mastery of living technologies. Already they read fragments of story embedded in their own genetic code, piecing together a half-mythic figure whose hand had guided them. They knew of the Gray Son long before Grayson realized they had seen through the silence.
Egg's metrics ticked upward: biodiversity rising, ecosystems stabilizing, cohesion strengthening among the cohort. The work was working. But the burden remained: one man playing god, and an entire people raised on the edge of truth and myth.