Location: Flower Fruit Mountain, Narn — Year: 6999 NY
The morning light filtered through the towering boughs of Flower Fruit Mountain with a grace that could only be called enchanted. Sunbeams tumbled through the green canopy above like streams of gold, catching on the dew-slicked leaves and glittering like tiny stars made for the earth rather than the sky. The air was soft and warm, tinged with the scent of blossom-heavy trees, the musk of ripe fruit, and the damp, honey-sweet perfume of moss and earth. Birds sang their gladness to the sun with earnest voices, and the wind, gentle and drowsy, hummed as it passed through the leaves.
High above the ground, tangled amidst the limbs of an old oak tree whose trunk had twisted upward for centuries, lay a creature half-waking, half-dreaming. His limbs hung loose over a thick branch, his brown fur ruffled by the breeze, one foot swinging idly in rhythm to a tune only he could hear.
Trevor Maymum.
A monkey Tracient by birth, a scamp by profession, and a dreamer by nature. His orange eyes opened slowly beneath heavy lids as the morning warmth soaked into his fur. His tail, which had dangled from the branch like a lazy vine, twitched once, then twice, before curling and lifting him in a graceful arc that brought him upright.
He stretched — not just a lazy sort of yawn-and-sigh stretch, but a full-bodied acrobatic flourish, hands and feet splaying as though he meant to greet the sun with all four limbs at once.
"Mmm," he murmured, blinking down at the forest floor far below. "Smells like a peach morning…"
A playful grin tugged at his lips. He scratched his head, flicked a strand of chestnut hair from his brow, and then dropped. Not fell — dropped — the way a petal might drop from a flower, or a spark from a flame. He landed on his feet with the casual grace of someone who had never feared gravity in his life.
"Bananas first, peaches second," Trevor declared to the forest, placing his hands behind his head with theatrical flourish. "And maybe a guava if the stars are in a good mood."
The trees, it must be said, gave no reply. But the wind seemed to laugh softly, and that was enough.
Trevor padded down a narrow dirt trail carved more by habit than by hand. The forest around him was alive with motion: shimmering insects danced in patches of sun, lizards darted across roots, and birds chuckled from their perches as if chuckling at some private joke. Trevor greeted it all with a whistle and a spring in his step.
He passed by neighbors, fellow monkey Tracients lounging in hammocks strung between branches, or tending to the berry clusters that hung like chandeliers from the vines. An elderly Tracient reclined under a particularly fruitful pear tree, arms crossed behind his head, eyes half-lidded in peaceful dozing.
"Morning, Ozzie!" Trevor called as he bounded past.
The elder cracked one eye open. "Hunting for bananas again, are we?" he said with a chuckle, voice gravelly with age and mirth.
"You say that like it's not a noble cause!" Trevor laughed back, already vaulting up a low-hanging branch and leaping through the canopy. "Think of it as... breakfast diplomacy!"
He moved like the forest itself — swift, light, and entirely without effort. His tail curled around branches for balance, his fingers gripped bark and vine as naturally as air fills lungs. And always, his grin never faded.
He wasn't just in the trees — he belonged to them.
It didn't take long before the familiar scent of ripened fruit grew stronger. He could taste it in the air before he even saw it. The trees ahead began to thin, revealing shafts of light so bright they made the forest seem like it was exhaling — revealing a space that shimmered just ahead.
And then he saw it.
The Ford of Beruna.
The trees gave way to a clearing, and beyond it, the river — wide and clear, its waters drawn from the distant peaks of the Forj mountains. It flowed silently, yet with great purpose, its surface reflecting the cloud-dappled sky like a mirror that had never known dust.
He swung down from a vine-thick branch and landed with the soundless ease of someone long-accustomed to making gravity his friend. The ground beneath his feet was soft and loamy, dappled in the morning's fading gold, and ahead stood a grove of banana trees, their heavy fronds nodding lazily in the breeze.
"Ah, there you are," Trevor said aloud, grinning as if he'd stumbled upon a dear companion he hadn't seen in years. He patted the nearest trunk affectionately, then set about his noble task of breakfast gathering. Bananas first — thick-skinned, sweet-smelling, sun-warmed. Then peaches — soft, flushed, perfumed with summer.
He stuffed them eagerly into the pouch that hung at his hip, bouncing with every step as if sharing in his excitement. His tail flicked behind him in quick, satisfied motions. For a moment, everything was as it had always been — the peaceful rhythm of Flower Fruit Mountain, the joy of the harvest, the hum of the forest's quiet approval.
He reached up toward another branch—
And froze.
A sound. Small. Distant.
A voice.
"Help…"
He blinked, hand still outstretched. The word seemed to hang there, faint and ghostlike, as if spoken not into the air but into the very fabric of the trees. He turned his head sharply, scanning the grove.
"Hello?" he called, ears swiveling instinctively.
But there was only the whisper of leaves and the creak of branches. No reply. No movement. Even the birds had gone still.
Trevor scratched the back of his head, puzzled. Had he imagined it? A trick of the wind? Too many overripe bananas?
He shook it off and turned back to the branch—
"Help me…"
This time it was clearer. Closer. Yet not from one place. It came from everywhere — and nowhere. It seemed to pass through him, rather than around him, as though the forest itself had spoken with the aching voice of someone very far away.
Trevor's heart gave a single, sharp beat.
"I don't like this," he muttered, though he wasn't sure if he meant the voice, or the silence that followed it.
He turned in a slow circle, eyes scanning the treetops, the underbrush, the river beyond.
Then a thought struck him like a stone tossed in still water.
"The Ford!" he gasped.
His voice cracked the quiet like a twig underfoot, and suddenly he was running — legs swift, tail whipping for balance — leaping over gnarled roots and ducking beneath low branches.
His feet pounded the mossy ground, a whisper of movement against the hush that had settled over the mountain.
Someone's drowning.
That was the only explanation. That was what voices said when they were pulled under — what lives said when they were almost gone.
He reached the Ford of Beruna in record time, skidding down the slope, his toes digging into the slick moss as he stumbled to the edge of the water. The river glistened in the early light, its surface glassy and undisturbed.
There was no thrashing. No ripples. No bubbles.
Trevor crouched low, his eyes scanning the shallows. "Hello?" he called again, quieter now, as if afraid to frighten the voice away. "Is anyone there?"
Nothing.
Only the gentle, gurgling hush of the water — not the sound of someone dying.
He leaned in, eyes narrowing.
His reflection stared back — orange eyes, tufted hair, wide with worry. He looked into his own face as though it might offer answers.
And then—
The reflection changed.
It was not a shift like ripples distorting the image. It was something deeper. Truer.
A lion now gazed up at him.
Its mane flowed like wind through golden grass. Its eyes were filled with something that stung to look at — sorrow, yes, but something older too. Memory. Majesty. Pain.
Trevor's breath caught.
And then it was gone. Just like that. Only water remained.
He staggered backward, heart hammering, paws slipping in the damp earth. "What—what in the name of banana bread—?"
Before he could finish the thought, a tug — fierce and sudden — yanked at his legs.
"What the—!"
He fell forward, slipping on the slick rock, tail lashing wildly to find hold. His hand clawed at a root, but it snapped. The air fled from his lungs in a gasp, and then—
SPLASH!!
He was under.
The cold hit him like a wall. Not sharp, not biting, but deep — like falling into memory.
His arms flailed, bubbles exploding from his mouth. The river should've been shallow, but the moment he went under, it became vast — unfathomably deep.
He kicked hard, but the water had a will of its own. It wasn't just dragging him down — it was pulling him, wanting him.
As if the Ford of Beruna had decided he belonged to it.
Trevor's tail whipped behind him like a rudder, trying to find purchase, but the current was everywhere — strong and slow and patient. His eyes stung. His chest burned. And fear, sharp and real, gripped him at last.
He wasn't laughing anymore.
He reached out — wildly, blindly — but there was no root now, no branch. Only the distant shimmer of the surface, retreating like a dream one wakes from too soon.
His thoughts, frantic, screamed.
This is it. I'm done for. This is how I go — dragged into some haunted puddle by a sad ghost lion who talks in echoes.
The last of his air fled his lungs.
And then, just as the world began to dissolve into shadow—
A light.
Far below him. Or above him. He couldn't tell.
It pulsed once. Like a heartbeat.
Then again.
He stopped struggling. Not because he surrendered — but because something had changed.
He floated now — not rising, not sinking. Still.
The water was no longer cold.
And the light… the light was calling him.
Just as the last threads of strength unraveled from Trevor's limbs, and the watery silence pressed in like the lid of a coffin, a sound pierced through the murk — sharp, unnatural, alive. A crack, loud and metallic, like ice shattering beneath something immense.
CRACK!
Trevor flinched — not physically, for his body could no longer move, but deep inside, somewhere beneath the panic and the cold. It wasn't just a noise. It was a summons.
And then—
Hands.
Not claws, not currents, not magic — hands. Strong and urgent, they plunged into the river, wrapping around his arms and shoulders. Trevor was yanked upward with a force that was almost violent. Cold air slapped his face as his head broke the surface, and for a split second, the whole world was noise and color and blinding light.
Then he was on the ground — not warm moss or soft earth, but a harsh, frozen flatness that sucked the heat from his soaked fur like a thief in the night.
He coughed violently, his chest convulsing as water poured from his lungs. He gasped for air, each breath like inhaling daggers. His fingers clawed at the icy crust beneath him, his tail twitching feebly. His heart thundered in his ears.
Where am I? he tried to think, but the world spun too fast to catch a thought.
He slipped into darkness.
______________
A moment, or an hour, or perhaps a century passed.
Trevor opened his eyes.
The light that met him was not golden or green. It was pale, harsh — the kind that belonged to places no monkey ever wanted to wake up in. His vision blurred, but the whiteness around him was unmistakable.
Snow.
Not frost. Not a dusting. But real, endless, swallowing snow.
The forest was gone. The comforting arms of Flower Fruit Mountain had vanished. Instead, the landscape before him was a barren tundra, white and vast, stretching into distant hills where black shapes of jagged rock pierced the sky like broken teeth.
The air smelled of ice and something older — something ancient.
Trevor pushed himself upright, groaning, every joint stiff with cold. His breath came in soft clouds, curling in the air like smoke from a fire long gone out. He wiped at his face with a trembling hand, peeling strands of wet hair from his eyes.
"This… isn't home," he croaked.
His voice sounded far away.
And then he saw him.
At first just a shape in the snow. Upright. Still. Watching.
Trevor squinted, squinting harder as his eyes adjusted to the glare.
A figure stood not far off — tall, quiet, unmoving — framed in gray clouds and drifting snow. He wasn't wrapped in armor, nor did he wield a weapon. But something about him carried weight — not physical, but spiritual. The weight of someone who had seen too much and still walked forward.
He was a wolf.
That much was clear now. His fur was an arresting blend of dark ocean blue, like the stormy sea before dawn, streaked with bands of bright yellow — not glowing, but vivid, like sunbeams that refused to be swallowed by winter.
And his eyes.
Trevor had seen many faces in his life — old, young, cruel, kind — but this one… this one was different. The wolf's gaze was not harsh, but it saw through. Past the shivering monkey, past the puddle of footprints in the snow, down into something deeper.
Trevor staggered upright, swaying slightly. "Who… who are you?" he asked, voice raspy from water and wind.
The wolf said nothing at first. He walked forward slowly, the snow barely crunching beneath his steps, as if even the storm dared not hinder him.
Then, with a calm voice — steady, quiet, yet laced with something deeper than mere certainty — he spoke.
"My name is Adam."
The words carried a stillness with them, the kind that came just before thunder.
Trevor swallowed hard. He wasn't sure what he'd expected. A rescuer? A ghost? Some strange creature of ice and magic?
But instead, he had found a name.
A name he thinks he had heard before — whispered in stories, etched in half-forgotten songs from old Tracients, spoken only when the winds were calm and the forest was listening. What stood before him was a wolf tracient, so it could only mean one thing.
Trevor stared at him, wide-eyed. "Adam… Kurt?"
The wolf said nothing.
But his eyes answered everything.