For a thousand years, the land of Narn had known nothing but storm.
It was not the ordinary tantrum of clouds that came and went with the whims of season. No — this was a wrath carved deep into the bones of the sky itself, a curse as old as forgotten oaths, stretching from horizon to horizon in endless uproar. The heavens clashed above as if giants in their fury warred among the stars, hurling bolts of silver fire and bellowing their rage down to the world below. The wind was no longer merely air in motion — it had become a voice, terrible and mournful, shrieking through the mountain passes like a mother weeping for lost children.
The Forj mountain ranges stood against this fury — black, jagged, unmoving. And across the valley, the ancient palace of Tradon lifted its defiant towers into the squall, a grim monument to endurance. Between these two titans of stone, the land lay weary and beaten, stripped of song and colour, its creatures bent low beneath the weight of ceaseless wind and snow. It had been this way for so long that no living soul could remember a time before — and even stories of peace had grown quiet, like distant echoes trying to reach through fog.
Upon those treacherous slopes of Forj, where even the eagles had learned not to linger, a lone figure struggled upward — a wolf, though not like any common beast of forest or field. He was a Tracient.
His paws, once swift and sure, now slipped against the snow-slick stone. Each claw that scraped the rock did so with an urgency born not only of survival, but of something greater — something sacred. His deep blue fur clung to his powerful frame, soaked through and trembling from the cold. Each breath he drew came with effort, misting from his jaws in pale clouds that vanished instantly in the storm's breath. Muscles burned. Joints ached. Yet onward he climbed.
The wind tore at him as if it hated him personally, yanking at his limbs with unseen hands, hissing curses in a language only the mountains seemed to understand. He had no right to be here. Not here, not now. It was madness to attempt the ascent — madness, or something stronger.
A voice stirred in his thoughts.
You cannot do this. Even your ancestors failed. Turn back, little pup.
He ignored it.
There was pain — yes — but pain had long since ceased to be a stranger to him. Pain was a companion now, a quiet shadow behind every step. What made this journey different was the weariness. The weight of years. The haunting suspicion that the world might remain broken no matter how far he climbed.
And still, he pressed on.
He had no choice. Narn depended on him, even if it no longer remembered him. Even if it had forgotten all who still dared to hope.
"I must save Narn…" he breathed, his voice lost amid the howling wind. The words came out more like a thought spoken aloud — not for the storm, but for himself, as if hearing them again could steady his soul. "At all costs…"
The path narrowed. The slope steepened. The stones beneath his paws crumbled, shifting like treacherous promises. He leapt, caught hold of a jutting ridge with his front claws, and pulled — groaning — until he stood atop it, legs quivering with the effort.
And then… something changed.
A wind — but not the same. Not biting. Not cruel.
It came as a hush. A warmth. A breath that brushed his soaked fur with a gentleness he had almost forgotten existed. It circled him not like an adversary, but like a friend — like an old melody remembered on a lonely night. There was no thunder in this breeze, no threat. Only peace.
He stood still, his eyes wide, heart suddenly quiet.
It was the kind of moment that would seem small if one told it aloud — a mere shift in the wind — yet the wolf knew, in the marrow of his bones, that this was no accident. This was something other.
Something sacred.
A memory flickered — long ago, when he was just a cub. A name constantly said by his guardian. Not a beast, but the King Beneath All Kings. Not a myth, but a presence behind the veil of all things. Asalan.
Most wolves had long stopped speaking His name. Probably because there were no other wolves left. Some had never believed to begin with. But this wolf remembered. Not with words — but with longing. With dreams. With the ache that woke him in the night and whispered that he was made for more than running and fighting and enduring.
Now, here, at the edge of his strength, he felt it again.
Not a voice.
Not quite.
But a sense — of being seen.
Of being known.
Of not being alone.
His chest rose and fell. The storm still raged around him, but it seemed… farther away. As though a great hand had cupped the very air around him, shielding him — not from the trial, but from despair.
He closed his eyes. The wind toyed with the fur around his ears, no longer clawing at him but brushing like a father's hand across a fevered brow.
"Thank you," he whispered, and the words cracked with reverence.
And then the name — the name he had not spoken aloud in so long, not because he had forgotten it, but because it had always felt too holy for his voice.
"…Asalan."
It was spoken not as a request, nor as a demand, but as an offering.
He stood there, atop the ridge, the light from the distant lightning revealing his form in jagged flashes — soaked, trembling, but unbroken.
The climb was not over. The storm had not ceased. Narn still wept beneath the sky.
But for the first time in a long while, the wolf did not feel alone.
He was not healed, not restored. But he was seen.
And somehow, that was enough.
He turned his gaze upward again. The cliffs loomed higher, the path ahead no less dangerous than before. But the strength in his limbs was returning — not all at once, but with a quiet persistence, like roots finding soil after a long drought.
Tracient moved.
Not with the frantic desperation that had driven him earlier — but with a calm purpose, as though he no longer climbed merely to survive, but because it was his place to climb. His paws found surer purchase now. The mountain did not yield — but it did not cast him off either. And that, perhaps, was mercy enough.
The world below had forgotten what it meant to be still.
But Tracient remembered.
And as long as he remembered, there was still a chance.
______________________________
In the beginning, there was nothing.
No sky stretched above. No earth lay below. There were no stars, no seas, not even silence — for silence presumes a space in which sound might someday be heard. There was only void. A vast and shapeless un-being, infinite and inert, where neither darkness nor light reigned, because neither yet had a name.
No moment passed — because there were no moments to pass. Time itself lay unborn, sleeping still in the womb of eternity.
And then…
A sound.
So small at first it might have been imagined — if there had been any minds to imagine it. It was not a thunderclap, not the tearing roar one might expect to announce the beginning of worlds. It was softer. Older. A single note, drawn out like a sigh remembered from a distant dream. Not just heard, but felt, like warmth in the bones on a winter's night.
A voice.
It was the voice of a man, though that word would come later. And his song — for it was a song — rose like a breath through the void, trembling not with fear but with hope. It carried neither pride nor grief, but something older still: gentleness.
He sang not to the void, for the void could not hear. He sang through it.
And as he sang, the emptiness began to stir.
His melody was neither hurried nor grand — no trumpet-blast, no battle cry. It was tender, like hands shaping clay, or fingers brushing a sleeping child's brow. The tune did not command, it invited. It did not force, it called — and the void, in its vast emptiness, answered.
Something was changing.
A ripple, unseen but felt, spread outward from the center of nowhere. Where before there had been not even the idea of existence, now there was possibility — and where possibility dared to bloom, creation soon followed.
The song wove itself into the fabric of unbeing, spinning threads where none had been. The music was not decoration — it was the act of making. With each note, the void lost a measure of its grip, and in its place… light.
Soft, hesitant at first — as if unsure it was welcome.
The light did not explode, it unfolded. A glow, then a shimmer, and finally the first flicker of flame. A thousand sparks bloomed across the unseen canvas like fireflies returning home. Tiny pinpricks at first — hardly more than glimmers — but they pulsed with life, with music. Each spark a note in the divine symphony. Each light a thought. A name. A promise.
And still the man sang.
His voice — so human, so impossibly kind — was not alone now. From across the new-waking realm, other voices joined him. Some deep and rich as thunder underfoot. Some high and clear, like wind through hollow stone. Their harmony did not echo his melody — it expanded it, lifting it upward, outward, onward, as if all of reality were drawing its first breath through the lungs of song.
From these voices — countless and eternal — the stars were born.
Not flung, not forged. Sung.
Each star was a note sustained. Each constellation a verse written into the sky. And in that moment, a kind of time began — not the ticking, hurrying kind we know now, but a sacred rhythm, measured in light and breath and wonder.
But not all hearts received the song the same.
To the pure — those untainted by hunger, by fear, by pride — the melody was balm and blessing. It stirred joy where there had only been stillness. Peace where there had never been war. They drank of the sound and were filled with the desire to be, not for their own sake, but for the beauty of the music itself.
Yet not every heart was pure.
There were some — even from the beginning — who heard the melody not as invitation, but as threat. Who did not feel soothed, but disturbed. In the harmony, they sensed their own disharmony. In the peace, they glimpsed the absence of their own rest. And so the song, instead of softening them, scraped against the jagged walls of their pride. It made them aware of their smallness. Their unimportance. And it made them burn.
Anger stirred. Not loud — not yet — but smoldering.
And the song continued.
The chorus of voices faded, each falling away like lanterns dimming in reverence — all save one.
The first voice, the man's voice, remained. Alone again, but not lonely.
And as he sang the final phrase, the music deepened — not louder, but lower, like the soft tolling of a bell that had always been ringing, even before sound existed to hear it.
The void itself — or what remained of it — shivered.
And then, as if drawn by the song's last note, a great brilliance rose over the edge of the world — though there was not yet a world to rise above. A sphere of light, whole and glowing with unspent power, emerged into view. It was not fire, though it burned. Not gold, though it gleamed. It was the sun.
The first sun.
Its light spread like water across the waking expanse, revealing for the first time the shape of a world beginning to be. Mountains not yet formed stirred beneath the glow. Skies not yet set in place began to colour with dawn. And beneath the radiance — within the sun itself, almost indistinguishable in the glare — stood a figure.
Tall. Still. Shining.
A silhouette at first. But not empty. Not vague.
There was strength in the stance — a kind of strength that did not need to prove itself. A dignity that came not from dominance, but from being the source of all that was beautiful and whole. His form gleamed, not like armor, but like the inside of a promise — and though no eye yet existed to see Him, the new-born light bent around Him as though bowing.
His presence was not loud. But all that had just been made trembled gently at the awareness of Him.
Not fear. Not awe. Something deeper.
Recognition.
As though all the song, all the rising stars, all the lights and voices and breath, had been leading here. To Him. He was the Singer, and the Song. The Creator, and the Creation. And yet — somehow — He bore the shape of a Tracient.
And still, He had not yet spoken.
He only stood, watching the light He had called into being, as though savoring the taste of what He had not merely made, but loved into being.
Soon, there would be more.
Sky, sea, beasts, and children.
But for now, He stood in the golden hush of the first dawn, as the world waited, breathless.
_________________________________
"Hey, Adam, drop that! Do you want me to stop the story?"
The voice came clear and quick across the twilight room — not harsh, but bright with a mix of gentle scolding and unspoken amusement. It belonged to a young man with golden hair that caught the firelight like sun on water, and eyes that gleamed with the familiar mischief of older brothers and good uncles. His name was Dirac, and though still young himself, he carried the mantle of storytelling with an ease that made even the stars seem to lean in and listen.
In the circle of woven rugs and scattered cushions, a small wolf cub looked up in alarm, the crystal clutched in his paws glittering with a kaleidoscope of color.
The Tracient — though in this gentler hour he was simply Adam, a name for home — blinked guiltily, his ears flattening against his soft fur. The Merman crystal had caught his eye the moment Dirac opened the velvet pouch earlier that evening. It sat like a dream in his paws — cool, smooth, and impossibly radiant. It shimmered with a living light, like it held the memory of ocean tides and moon-kissed caverns deep beneath the world.
"I wasn't gonna break it…" he mumbled, though not very convincingly. His eyes — wide and too honest to deceive — stayed fixed on the swirling dance of colors in the gem. "It's just… so shiny."
Dirac gave a long-suffering sigh, but there was affection folded in it, like a blanket worn thin by use. He crossed the room with the easy grace of someone long accustomed to uneven stone floors and the company of young mischief-makers.
He knelt beside the cub, lowering himself until they were nearly eye-to-eye.
"I know it's shiny," Dirac said, tousling Adam's fur with a hand rough from travel and warmth. "That's exactly why it belongs in the pouch and not in your mouth."
Adam's tail curled sheepishly around his paws.
"But Uncle Dirac," he said, voice softening with curiosity, "was that really how Narn came to be? With music? And lights? And that man who looked like a sun?"
Dirac's smile, which had hovered somewhere between play and discipline, shifted — softened — into something slower, deeper. His eyes, once bright with teasing, grew quiet with memory. A flicker passed across his face — not sorrow, not exactly. More like reverence. As though a great bell had sounded far away and only he could hear the last of its ringing.
He reached for the crystal and gently pried it from Adam's paws, placing it back in the pouch. But he did not look away from the cub.
"That," he said at last, "is a story for another day, little one."
Adam's ears twitched.
"Why not now?"
"Because," Dirac said, standing once more and stretching with the groan of someone not quite as young as he used to be, "bedtime comes before answers."
Adam made a noise — something between a whine and a sigh — and flopped dramatically onto his side. The fire crackled nearby, casting soft gold along the walls, painting them with the last flickering images of ancient beginnings and light-born silhouettes.
The night was settling thick around the cottage. Outside the wind had quieted, and the hush that followed stories — the sacred stillness that always came after a tale well-told — lay like a blanket across the room. Even the shadows seemed to lean closer, reluctant to disturb the moment.
Dirac watched as the cub's eyes began to flutter shut, heavy with sleep and dreams yet to be shaped. There was always a pause at this point — a space between waking and rest, when a child's heart still lingered in the world of stories and might yet slip back into them with the right word.
He bent down one last time.
"May Asalan protect you," he whispered.
The words, though soft, held the weight of something ancient — not a ritual, but a promise. It was the sort of blessing that meant more than protection. It meant presence. That somewhere, beyond the dark and the dreaming, there was a Lion who watched and waited and never forgot.
Adam stirred slightly, nestling deeper into the folds of his blanket. The warmth of the fire, the fading echo of the story, and the hum of safety in his uncle's voice pulled him downward, gently, toward sleep.
Dirac remained kneeling for a moment longer, watching him.
And for just an instant, as the firelight danced across Adam's fur, Dirac could see — not the small, sleepy cub curled up before him — but something else. Something older. Stronger. A shape not yet grown into. A glimmer of the wolf he would one day become.
The one who would climb mountains in the storm.
The one who would remember.
But that, too, was a story for another day.
He rose at last, turned down the wick of the lanterns, and left the room in a hush of shadow and gold.
Outside, the stars were singing.
And the Lion listened.
____________________________
Adam stood at the edge of the world — or at least, what remained of it.
The horizon stretched out in a long, breathless silence. The once-vibrant land of Narn lay cracked and pale beneath a sky drained of colour. Grey clouds hung low and motionless, like ash that had forgotten to fall. Nothing moved. Nothing sang. The air itself felt heavy, like it had grown tired of being breathed.
He had not expected it to look like this.
This place… this was not the Narn of bedtime stories, nor of whispered prayers beneath warm blankets. It bore no resemblance to the golden fields his uncle had spoken of, or the forests where light once filtered through emerald leaves like laughter. Here, there was only stillness — a world not yet dead, but dying slowly and thoroughly, as if grieving itself into the grave.
Adam's paws pressed into dry, brittle soil that cracked beneath his weight. There was no scent of rain. No rustle of wind. Even the sun, somewhere high above that endless blanket of grey, seemed to shy away from touching this place.
"This is what Narn has become…" he murmured.
He hadn't meant to say it aloud. The words slipped from him, shaped more by grief than intent. His voice felt small, unfit for the vastness of this hollow place. And yet, hearing them — spoken into the airless silence — made the truth settle deeper in his chest.
This is what remains.
A thousand questions stirred behind his golden eyes, but none could form clearly enough to chase away the ache. He had always imagined — perhaps even believed — that if he found Narn, he would find wonder. That buried beneath the layers of myth and warning, there would be beauty waiting. A quiet kingdom, perhaps wounded, but still alive. Still breathing.
But this…
He drew in a breath — shallow, dry, sharp. And in that moment, his ears twitched.
Something stirred in the distance.
Not loudly. Not violently. Just enough to fracture the quiet.
He stilled, body instinctively low to the ground, muscles ready to move. His senses sharpened — a gift of his kind, honed by instinct and training alike. In the skeletal remains of what might once have been a forest, he saw movement: a squirrel, lean and ragged, its coat dulled by dust and famine. It pawed frantically at the dry leaf litter, seeking the tiniest scrap of sustenance. It moved with a desperation too quiet to be called panic — the kind of weariness that came from surviving too long.
But it wasn't alone.
Above, among the ruined branches, something darker shifted — the slow, deliberate movement of a predator in wait. There was no haste in its posture, no need for urgency. It had done this before. It would do this again.
Adam watched.
He could have warned the squirrel, perhaps. But his limbs felt rooted. His mind was too full. The moment held him like a dream in which you're always too late.
Then—
CHOMP!
Splash.
The sound was abrupt. Brutal. Wet. A sound that ended something.
It was over in an instant.
No struggle. No chase. Just the quiet flick of fate's hand in a place where life was measured not in years, but in seconds. The predator vanished as quickly as it had struck, melting back into shadow. The forest, if it could still be called that, fell silent once more.
Adam blinked slowly. His expression gave little away, though his ears were stiff, and his jaw tight.
A part of him — the child still lingering beneath the growing form — wanted to feel something sharp. Outrage. Pity. Horror. But in this place, emotions seemed dulled, as though even sorrow had grown tired.
It was not the squirrel's death that troubled him most.
It was how ordinary it had seemed.
"Tch. It's hard to find a good meal these days."
The voice came like gravel grinding against stone — rough, low, and worn through with years of use. But beneath the exhaustion, there was something else. Not cruelty. Not delight. Just… resignation.
Adam spun, muscles coiled. His heart kicked hard in his chest.
Someone was there.
Not just someone.
Another Tracient.
He had never seen another before — not beyond Dirac, whose presence had always been comforting, familiar, safe. But this figure emerging from the gloom bore none of that warmth. This was something else entirely.
The stranger stepped into the thin shaft of light that filtered through the cloud cover. He was massive — taller than Dirac, broader through the shoulders, with the unmistakable frame of a warrior. His fur was marked in dark stripes, a tiger Tracient, and his coat carried the scars of too many battles. One eye glowed faintly in the half-light — sharp and searching. The other… was hidden beneath a tangled fall of golden-blond bangs that swept down across his face like a curtain drawn to hide what had been lost.
The stripes along his body shimmered faintly — not with magic, but with memory. A life of blood, of struggle, of survival. His presence filled the space like a blade laid gently across the room: not swung, not yet, but ever-ready.
Adam felt a dozen questions crowd into his throat.
Was he an enemy? A guardian? A remnant?
But none of them came out.
___________________________
"No one appreciates being spied on, you know?"
The voice carried through the trees like a low growl beneath a heavy breath. It was accusing — sharp at the edges — but not cruel. There was no immediate threat in the tone, only a weariness, as if the speaker had grown used to being watched and had long since given up the luxury of surprise.
Adam froze where he crouched behind the gnarled roots of a dead tree, one paw still pressed to the dry earth, heart thudding wildly beneath his ribs. The tiger's voice felt like it belonged to the very bones of this ruined place — deep, echoing, carved from the same grief.
"You can come out now," the voice added, a little softer.
He hesitated.
A part of him wanted to run. Not because he was in danger — though he likely was — but because he suddenly felt so small. He was supposed to be here. He had trained. He had journeyed. He had listened to stories, believed in destinies, and followed paths carved by fire and memory. But now, face to face with a presence that pulsed with strength and lived experience, he felt more cub than wolf. More listener than hero.
Still, slowly, he rose.
Leaves crunched beneath his paws as he stepped out into the open, tail low, posture careful. His ears twitched, and he offered a small, apologetic nod.
"Sorry about that," Adam said, his voice smaller than he'd intended.
The tiger Tracient stood a few paces ahead, his arms folded, one claw idly tracing the edge of a long scar on his forearm. His good eye studied Adam with something between irritation and tired amusement. His expression didn't soften — not quite — but it relaxed just enough to allow for acknowledgment.
"No kidding," he grunted, scratching behind one ear.
Adam offered a weak, hopeful smile. "Say, what kind of Tracient are yo—?"
But the words died in his mouth as the tiger's expression changed in an instant.
Gone was the lazy indifference, the half-amused weariness. In its place came a flash of something fierce — not anger alone, but pride wounded, history provoked. The good eye narrowed to a slit, and his lips curled slightly, revealing sharp teeth beneath the fur.
"Seriously?" the tiger spat. "Now you think I'm a freak?"
"What?!" Adam's voice cracked, panic flaring in his chest. "No! I— I didn't mean it like that! I think we started off on the wrong foot. My name is Adam, Adam Kur—"
He never finished the sentence.
One heartbeat, he was standing.
The next — the world flipped.
A flash of movement. A blur of orange and black.
And then the breath left his lungs as he was slammed to the ground, the full weight of a warrior pressing him down like a boulder crushing a leaf. A massive paw pinned his chest with ease, claws retracted, but strength unmistakable. The earth beneath him trembled from the force.
Adam gasped, eyes wide, lungs burning for air. His body screamed in confusion.
What just happened?
"I didn't even see him move," Adam thought, dazed. His limbs felt heavy, his mind spinning to catch up with reality. How is he that fast?
The tiger leaned down, close enough that Adam could see the glint of old scars crossing his face — maps of survival etched in fur. His voice came low, a whisper wrapped in a threat.
"Who exactly are you?"
Adam tried to answer, but the tiger cut him off with the next words — words that struck deeper than any claw.
"The Kurt family comes from a long line of wolf Tracients," the tiger growled. "And they've been extinct — without a trace — for over a thousand years."
Silence followed.
Heavy. Searing.
Adam's breath caught.
His mind raced. A thousand years? That wasn't just a mistake — it was impossible. But then again, everything had become impossible lately. His very existence, it seemed, had crossed the line between history and myth.
The tiger's grip tightened ever so slightly — not enough to hurt, but enough to make the message clear. There would be no escape. No lies. No pretending.
"Start talking."
Adam blinked up at him, still stunned, his fur matted with dust and his limbs still buzzing with shock. But even now, dazed as he was, he couldn't help himself.
"This is a rather uncomfortable position for a discussion," he muttered. "Don't you think?"
There was a beat.
The tiger didn't laugh. Not quite. But a flicker passed across his face — a twitch of the brow, the ghost of surprise.
And then — Adam was no longer on the ground.
He hadn't moved.
Yet somehow, impossibly, he was now standing behind the tiger.
The older Tracient spun, instincts honed by battle driving him into a defensive crouch, his eye wide. He stared at Adam with open disbelief.
"You— What did you—?"
Adam stood calmly, though his heart thudded against his ribs like a drum. He didn't understand what had just happened any more than the tiger did — only that some hidden part of him had responded. Instinct. Reflex. Something older than thought.
He swallowed hard, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Like I said," he repeated, "we started off on the wrong foot."
He straightened slightly, brushing dust from his fur. "My name is Adam Kurt."
The tiger didn't answer immediately.
He just stared.
His eye moved slowly across Adam's face, studying the features — the lines of the muzzle, the shape of the ears, the unmistakable glint of something ancestral in the golden eyes. He looked at Adam as one looks at a painting long thought lost. Not just surprise — but memory, rising from the deep.
When he finally spoke, the name came like a recognition, a shift in the wind.
"Kon," he said. "My name is Kon Kaplan."
Adam nodded, quietly, as if sealing a pact unspoken.
For a moment, the wasteland around them receded. The dead leaves rustled faintly. The clouds shifted, just enough to let a dim shaft of light fall between them.
It was not peace.
But it was a beginning.
______________________________________
The fire crackled softly in the dark.
Thin flames licked upward from the small pile of branches they had gathered, casting flickering light across the ruined stone that ringed the clearing. The campfire was modest, hardly more than a circle of warmth in a world grown cold and vast, but it was enough. Enough to ward off the edge of the chill. Enough to mark a moment of stillness in the long, wandering night.
Adam sat cross-legged across from Kon, his cloak pulled tight around his shoulders, the coarse wool still holding the scent of rain. His fur was still damp in places from the earlier trek through the ruins. Kon sat more rigidly, one knee raised, a long black-furred arm draped loosely over it, the other resting on the hilt of the curved blade at his side — not drawn, but not forgotten.
Between them, the fire cast shadows that danced and died and rose again, like memories summoned and dismissed.
They had spoken — haltingly at first, then more freely — though the air between them remained heavy with the weight of things not yet said. Trust had not yet taken root, but curiosity had begun to push through the cracks.
Kon reached for a stick beside him and jabbed at the fire, sending a shower of sparks briefly into the air. He didn't look up when he spoke.
"It's not possible," he muttered. "Asalan is a myth. Folklore. A bedtime story for cubs."
There was no venom in his tone. Only tired disbelief — the kind worn smooth by years of disappointment and the slow erosion of hope.
Adam said nothing at first. He watched the fire, eyes reflecting its orange light, his thoughts stirring like embers in the ash. The warmth on his fur was pleasant, but did little to chase the cold inside.
"I used to think the same," he said at last, voice quiet.
The words were not spoken to convince Kon — only to remember.
"I didn't even know the name Narn until a few moons ago. Didn't know what I was, or where I came from. My uncle... he told me stories, sure. Of the old days. Of the lion. But they felt like songs sung to the wind. Beautiful, but distant."
He paused, eyes fixed on the flame, seeing something far beyond it.
"And all that time, I was away. Safe. Sheltered. While my people… were suffering."
The guilt clung to the back of his throat like smoke. It wasn't loud. It didn't cry out. It simply was, constant and quiet — a shadow that followed each step.
He looked up then, meeting Kon's gaze, his voice a little stronger now.
"So tell me about yourself. I've done all the talking."
Kon didn't respond immediately. His eye held Adam's for a moment, unreadable, then drifted to the fire.
"What is there to say?" he said, almost to himself.
He leaned back slightly, shifting the weight of something invisible. His silhouette loomed large against the ruin behind him, a figure carved by time and loss.
"You're looking at the last free Tracient."
The words dropped like stones.
"A lot has changed in the past thousand years."
His voice, usually rough and guarded, now carried a thread of something older — grief buried under dust, too brittle to hold shape.
Adam's ears twitched.
"Last free…?"
Kon nodded, slowly.
"They were hunted. Broken. Taken. One by one." He glanced away, jaw tightening. "Some gave up. Some were taken into the Dominion — changed. I've seen their eyes. Glazed. Empty. Like the light was pulled out of them. The rest… well… they're ashes now."
He didn't say it with dramatics. He didn't need to. The fire told enough of that story — always burning, always hungry.
Adam's throat went dry. "The Dominion?"
Kon's eye narrowed slightly. "The ones who rule what's left of this world. They're not like us. Not anymore. They twist things. Take what's living and hollow it out. Power, territory — that's just the surface. Underneath, it's control. Silence. Obedience. Every tree they touch grows without leaves. Every river turns black."
He took a breath, slow and steady.
"I fought. At first. Joined a band — we called ourselves the Emberline. Tracients from all over. Thought we could push them back. Reclaim a little light."
There was a silence.
"What happened to them?" Adam asked, already fearing the answer.
Kon smiled — not out of joy, but from the absence of it. It was the kind of smile worn by those who had nothing left to lose.
"They died."
The fire cracked sharply between them.
Kon's gaze drifted again, this time to the sky — though it could barely be seen beyond the dense gray shroud above.
"I've been alone a long time, kid. And I've seen things that make me question every story I was raised on. About the Lion. About light. About redemption."
He turned back to Adam, eye sharp again.
"You say you believe in Asalan now. Fine. But you'd better hold onto that belief tightly. Because this world will pry it from your paws, piece by piece, and ask you why you ever held it to begin with."
Adam looked down.
He didn't have an answer.
Not yet.
But in the silence that followed, the fire's warmth seemed to stretch just a little farther.
The world beyond remained broken. The night, vast and uncertain.
But here — for now — there was light.
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Narn,Great Narn War
Year - 5999 NY (Narn Year)
It was the end of the world.
Not all at once — no, the world seldom ends that way. It unravels. Quietly at first, like a seam coming loose from within. Then, suddenly, it tears.
The land of Narn had been unraveling for a long time now. But on this day, the thread was pulled too far.
The sky was a seething cauldron of smoke and fire. Thick, black clouds rolled over the heavens like an angry tide, swollen and heavy with the screams of a dying land. The wind carried ash instead of snow, and the ground bled heat where cities once stood. Once, this place had been called noble — fertile, green, thriving beneath the light of the Lion's grace. Now, it was fire-stained rubble. A charred memory still smoldering.
Fires danced across the skeletal remains of villages and strongholds, their hungry tongues casting a terrible orange glow over the ruins — as if the sun had fled and left only flame in its place. The air was thick, choking, bitter with the scent of burning wood and fur and something worse.
Through this nightmare, two figures stood side by side — tall, proud, and still.
Tracients.
Once the guardians of Narn, their kind had stood between the light and the dark, fierce and noble, bonded by oath and blood. Now, only a few remained.
Abel, whose fur was the color of a winter storm — pale blue-gray, kissed with silver — bore scars that crisscrossed his body like ancient roads. He stood like a fortress cracked but not broken, shoulders squared against despair. Beside him was Amaia, his mate — her coat near identical, save for the stark pronounced faded yellow hair she had , like a fallen sunbeam braided into her fur.
In her arms, she held the last hope of their kind.
A cub.
Small and quiet, with fur as dark as the deep ocean and a single lock of bright gold nestled into his brow. His eyes were wide, too wide, and far too calm for the chaos around him. He did not cry. He only blinked, cooing once — a soft, innocent sound that felt too delicate for the world it was born into.
Adam.
The name hadn't been spoken aloud yet. But it lived on their lips, trembling like a candle against the wind.
"We have no choice, Amaia," Abel said.
His voice was hoarse — not from fear, but from wear. He had been fighting for too long. His throat bore the smoke of too many battles shouted over too many dead. But still, it held strength. It always had.
"We can't let the Arya fall into the wrong hands. This is the only way."
Amaia turned toward him slowly. Her eyes were shining, but not from the fire. There were tears there — quiet, resolute tears. The kind shed not from weakness, but from unbearable love.
"I know," she whispered, and her voice broke on the wind.
But even so, she nodded.
Her arms tightened around the cub, drawing him closer, memorizing the weight of him — the softness of his breath, the warmth of his fur. How could a single heartbeat carry so much?
"Very well," she said. "Let's do it."
They looked down together.
Adam blinked up at them.
He did not understand, of course. But he saw them. And perhaps that was enough. There was something in his eyes even then — something neither of them could name. Not magic, exactly. Not prophecy. Something quieter. A question, maybe.
A calling.
And then — a presence stepped from the shadow.
Dirac.
He moved like someone who no longer needed to be introduced — a figure half-lit by flame, half-silhouetted by smoke. Tall, strong, but silent in step. His golden hair was tied back, streaked with soot and dust, though it still shimmered faintly. His eyes held none of the innocence Adam's did, but they held something close: resolve.
Abel turned to him and bowed his head. The gesture was brief — but in it lived a thousand unspoken things: respect, grief, trust.
"Thank you for this sacrifice, dear Dirac," Abel said. "We will always remember your kindness."
Dirac said nothing at first. He stepped forward, slowly, almost reluctantly, as Amaia looked up with sudden, startled focus.
"What do you mean… take care of them?" she asked, a sharp edge creeping into her voice.
Abel hesitated.
"Amaia—"
"No." Her voice flared — fierce, like a blade unsheathed. "No, Abel. I am not leaving you here alone. Don't you dare. Don't you dare say goodbye."
She thrust the child into Dirac's arms — not gently, but with urgency, like passing a torch that must never be dropped.
"Take him," she commanded. "Protect him with your life."
Dirac cradled the cub with reverence. His arms adjusted instinctively, holding Adam against his chest. The child squirmed slightly, then stilled, nestling into the warmth.
Abel approached and unclasped something from around his neck — a necklace, modest but ancient, the metal dark with age and bearing a single carved emblem: a lion in profile, its eyes closed.
He took Adam's tiny paw and curled the necklace into it.
"May Asalan be with you, my son," Abel whispered.
Then louder, to Dirac: "Please. Protect him."
Dirac looked up.
"I will," he said. "With my life."
Their eyes met, and in that moment, there were no more words. Only the fire. Only the screaming wind. Only farewell.
Dirac turned, cloak billowing behind him like a shadow caught in motion. He ran through the rubble, each step sending up clouds of dust. Behind him, the glow of ruin painted the skyline like a dying star. Adam was silent in his arms.
Amaia and Abel watched until he was gone.
And then — slowly, wordlessly — they turned.
The fire swelled.
A shape moved through it.
A figure approached through the smoke, black against black, a shadow darker than the flame. It did not walk. It arrived. The very earth recoiled beneath its steps. Its eyes burned, not with flame, but with something colder — hatred so deep it had long since devoured joy, reason, even self.
"Are you ready to die, Lord Abel?"
The voice was velvet-wrapped venom. It oozed across the battlefield, slick and merciless.
Abel stood tall. Beside him, Amaia's claws slowly unsheathed.
They looked at one another — not for strength, but for the last time. Their eyes spoke volumes in a single glance.
Yes.
They were ready.
"For NARN!!!" they roared, and their voices rose like a war-song torn from the bones of the earth.
And they charged.
Not to survive.
But to end.