They had been driving for hours, and Ierei was about to go crazy. One moment, the air conditioner in the truck was blasting arctic-level ice, the next it was spitting out hot desert heat. She crossed her arms, shivering against the sudden chill, only to be met seconds later with an oppressive wave of warmth. "Why…is this thing so ridiculous," she grumbled.
Orvyn let out a hearty laugh, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. "Bahaha! Not holding up too well against my baby's signature climate control?" he teased, throwing her a sideways glance. Ierei groaned, throwing her head back against the seat. "Uncle! One minute, I'm buried under an avalanche, the next I'm suffocating in the world's biggest wool sweater. What kind of monster is this truck?!" Orvyn snorted, giving the dashboard a proud pat. "A resilient one. Built for adventure. Keeps you on your toes! And besides, this is just part of her personality!"
The truck wheezes, and the AC spasms, somehow blowing both ends of the extreme temperature straight into Ierei's face as if to prove a point. "Gahhh, what the-!"
Orvyn looks like he wants to double over in laughter. "See? She's got spirit!" Ierei lunges forward, determined to wrangle the controls into submission. The moment her fingers brush the dial, the AC convulses. It doesn't just deliver another blast of hot air straight to her face, it lurched, a wave of heat forcefully, physically, resisting her movements. Recoiling with a strangled noise, Ierei frantically swipes at the air, as if trying to fight off the heat with punches. Orvyn hums to himself, his eyes quickly turning to look in the rearview mirror, still grinning, but she notices his slightly too long stare and the way his fingers tensed against the wheel for a moment, before relaxing.
After a moment, the truck's AC settles into a rare moment of a reluctant hum, neither too hot nor too cold, like it had weighed its options, and had decided to give her mercy, for now. Ierei slumps back in her seat, exhaling a long breath, her earlier frustration melting into exhaustion. The road stretched seemingly infinitely ahead, the shining mountains and golden fields glowing in the afternoon light.
Orvyn glanced over at her and sighed, his fingers idly tapping the steering wheel in a pattern. Tap, tap, tap tap, tap. Over and over. Ierei blinked. It wasn't random. The familiar cadence gnawed at the edges of her memory- a half forgotten melody she couldn't place. The moment stretched, the patterned beat pressing into the silence like it was waiting to be acknowledged. Before she could pin down the feeling, Orvyn's fingers stilled.
Their laughter had faded, swallowed by the silence that settled thickly over the truck. It was too heavy, too deliberate. The echo of the rhythmic tapping of Orvyn's fingers had seemed to carry something unspoken, something she couldn't understand. Ierei reached for Clover without thinking, her bunny plush settled atop the passenger side dashboard. Clover's presence was grounding and familiar, but, for the first time…she felt only like stitched fabric and stuffing.
_______
Rounding a curve, they enter a thick forest, the leaves casting dark shadows. Despite the wide open landscape, she hadn't noticed the forest creeping in over the horizon until it had swallowed the road ahead. The dense fog clung to the ground, and seemed to weave through the forest, blurring where the road ended.
Orvyn's eyes dart to the rearview mirror, and do a quick scan, almost as if he's looking for something that Ierei can't see. Unlike earlier, Orvyn's face is unreadable, blank as a slate as he scans their surroundings. Ierei can't help but feel unsettled, as the quietness of the truck seems to mirror the surrounding forest.
After a couple minutes of driving in silence, Ierei notices a sign on the side of the road. Many of the letters had been erased, leaving behind only 8 letters on the sign. The letters spelled out contract. Ierei opens her mouth hesitantly, "Uncle... what was that sign we just passed supposed to say?"
Orvyn, not taking his eyes off the road, grins. "That sign? It was originally supposed to say Cars Beware of Loss of Traction. It's an extremely old sign. Probably from around 100 or so years ago, when humans first came to Aegyptus. This forest is actually part of a larger Flux Area."
Ierei stiffens. "Wait...this- this is a Flux Area?!" Her voice was loud, but trembling, slicing through the quiet of the cabin. Orvyn gives her a nonchalant shrug, "Technically, yes. One of oldest recorded, actually."
She blinked, something didn't add up. We've been driving for around five hours. That doesn't make sense. "Aren't...Fluxes supposed to be far out. Isolated, and quarantined from society?" Orvyn doesn't answer. The silence giving far more than words would.
Turning back to her window, unease curled at the edges of her mind. She knew what Flux Areas were. Everyone did. Regions where unexplained phenomena happened. Regions that only highly-trained professionals were supposed to enter. Regions where stories of events that happened within them were warnings. But Flux Areas had always been distant. Safe. Abstract even.
Not...this.
Not the fog curling thick around them, shrinking the world into a box she could barely see ten feet into. Not the trees swaying in a way where they seemed to be watching.
Quietly, Ierei mutters, more to herself than to Orvyn. "...Why didn't they mark it?"
Hesitating for a moment, Orvyn replies to her question, his tone soft. "Because some things are easier to forget than to explain."
________
The silence between them dragged out like a shadow at dusk. It was long, and distorted. Unnatural.
Ierei shifted in her seat, arms crossed, Clover sat on her lap. She could feel it. Something unsaid hanging in the air between her and Orvyn. It was as tangible as the fog that bended around the truck's headlights.
Orvyn hadn't spoken since they passed the sign. It was clear that he was lost in his own thoughts, his eyes forward, lip drawn into a tight line. The tapping, gone. The joking, gone. Just the hum of the tires, and the occasional sputter of the engine. But even those were muffled, somehow being swallowed by the dense hush of the woods.
Ierei realized now why Orvyn had seemed so...shifty, when they first entered the forest. His glances behind their car. His hands flexing against the wheel for a fraction of a second. He had been keeping watch for any uncertain phenomena. Perhaps...he may have even been tracking something.
Turning her head slowly, Ierei studied his movements. While he looked calm, she could see the tightness in his jaw, the slight twitch of his eye, and the way his fingers clenched slightly harder when the road dipped.
Suddenly, the fog grew thinner, pulling back, and the evening sun shone through the clouds. Clover tumbled in her lap as the truck hit a bump, and Clover felt...warm? It wasn't heat, but warmth in her chest, almost soothing her unease. The forest was behind them. The fog was gone, and the familiar flat terrain was all around them. The forest seemed to disappear, fading into the golden fields, as if it had never been there at all.
Ierei could almost feel Orvyn's relief, and she could see his body slightly slump, the tension releasing from his shoulders.
________
The fields left them behind, and slowly melted into a rocky coastline cliffside. They drove along the cliffside as the grey foamy water relentlessly hurled itself against the base of the cliffs. It was loud, too loud, almost trying to drown out the silence of the forest behind them. The waves were colliding with the stone in a rhythm that felt too precise. Each impact melded perfectly with the end of the echo of the last, keeping in time. And yet, Ierei couldn't help but admire the bay. Its forward motion seemed to carry a quiet conviction, instilling in her a confidence that even in unfamiliar terrain, continuing to persevere forward was the path to take.
The drive lasted for another three hours before any noticeable landmarks appeared. It was a road sign. A welcoming sign. Bright green, loud and unmistakable, with the words Welcome to Okeeno Keep, plastered on the front in a bold white font. Orvyn glanced at the sign. "This is it! We're almost there," a bright smile plastered across his face. Ierei watched him closely, noting how the cheer in his voice didn't quite reach his eyes. Okeeno Keep meant something to him, something more than just his home.
The town was rural, a seemingly stark contrast from her home in New Vie. The town emerged slowly as they drove down the dirt road. Ierei hadn't even noticed when the roads had switched from pavement to dirt. The buildings were aged with wood panel walls that somehow looked silver, and the streets were narrow, and curved, meandering without clear paths. A few signs swung in the breeze in front of shops, their paint chipped and their names faded but they looked...maintained. It was the kind of town where everything seemed quiet on purpose.
It was strange, the calm rural quiet was so...different. And yet, as they drove in through the entrance of the town, Orvyn's smile returned steadily to his face. He stops the car and turns to Ierei, "The town doesn't allow cars past the front camp area, so we're going to park here."
Ierei nods slowly, then blinks. "Wait- we need to walk? What about my luggage?!"
Ierei's tone hovered between genuine concern and reluctant protest, as she was already imagining herself needing to trudge through the streets, dragging her bags through the dirt. Orvyn chuckles, and throws open the door of his truck. "Don't you worry! I've got it covered. All you need to do is walk, and look dramatic!" He then gives the side of his truck a fond pat, as if an apology for his rough movements.
Ierei's eyes narrowed at him, debating whether or not she should follow, but she sighed and stepped out of the truck, grabbing Clover, her boots meeting the dirt with reluctant commitment. By the time she's out, he's already walking down a path and she rushes to catch up. "Wait, Uncle! My luggage?"
He glances back at her with his usual cheerful smirk, "Relax! I'll have some of my students drop it off at your room."
Students?
Ierei froze midstep, her hand slackening around Clover's head. Orvyn has students? He's a teacher?!
Ierei couldn't believe that despite knowing him all her life, she hadn't known he was a teacher. He had never once mentioned teaching. Never spoken about lessons, classrooms, or even a single student of his. And now, here he was tossing the word out of nowhere. How much did she not know about him?
Ierei resumed walking, but the rhythm in her steps had changed. Students. What kind of teacher could he have been in a place like this? Maybe he taught philosophy, or botany. With Orvyn, it could've been anything. But how do I bring this up with him? She was unsure on how to approach him about his job.
________
Orvyn moved with certainty, he knew the roads, and the roads knew him. They seemed to meld with his steps. It almost felt as if everything in the town responded to him, like it was greeting him in its own language. Ierei felt as if the town was showing off for him, slightly straightening its roads, letting the breeze catch the smell of warm bread and coffee from a nearby cafe, making the forge's smoke spiral just as they passed. The general store had bright signage and automatic doors, contrasting with the chapel built of darkened, weathered stone right across the road.
The blacksmith forge was...strange. A heavy timber frame, soot stained walls, and a single apprentice hammering something unseen beneath the dim lantern light. It was uncanny how the town's oldest building lived besides the newest ones without conflict, almost as if time had folded around Okeeno Keep, and they were walking within its layers.
Then Orvyn waved at the apprentice with a grin, and walked over to the counter. Ierei couldn't make out what was said, but the apprentice nodded, but didn't speak, and didn't pause. Ierei hovered near the doorway, unsure if she was welcome inside. The apprentice didn't seem to notice her presence, his focus on his work. Ierei stepped closer, inhaling the air tinged with ash, and at first her eyes wandered around the forge, to the tools, over the counter, and around workstations, but she found her gaze drifting to the apprentice.
His frame was compact but powerful, every movement honed, like muscle built for repetition and endurance rather than show. His hair, black as coal, was tied back into a tight bun, and his features were angular, chiseled with precision, but with a quiet softness, like a stone smoothed by water, not sculpted by hand. He couldn't have been any more than twenty, and yet there was a steadiness in his movements, a precision that seemed to whisper of his hard earned skill.
The forge itself didn't just feel strange, it felt...spiritual, or perhaps ritualistic, as every swing of the hammer seemed to honor something, or someone unseen.
Orvyn turned back to her, "This place is still running like clockwork," he says with a mischievous grin. "Its the only place in town that hasn't aged a day. Figures- no chance a forge like this would crack under pressure."
Ierei stared at him for a small moment. And then she groans. "Seriously? That's the joke you went with?" she muttered, looking down as if doing so would shield her from secondhand embarrassment.
Orvyn's smile stretches across his face as he adds, "Go on, you know I nailed that one."
Ierei groans again, louder this time. "Uncle!! NO!! You don't get to have two puns in a row. There has to be laws against that!"
He chuckles, utterly unapologetic.
She shoots him a look that could melt metal. "I swear!! If you start hammering out forge jokes for the rest of the day, I'm walking back to New Vie!"
"So...you'd forge out your own path, eh?"
The apprentice stifles a laugh from behind the counter, and Ierei snaps to look at him. Oh. My. God. Had he been listening the whole time? Of course he had. They had been less than 10 feet away. His eyes, a warm brown, were flecked with a soft, knowing glint which held a kind of mischief that wasn't teasing so much as amused. It was the kind of look that made you feel as though he was three steps ahead.
Ierei's face flushed hot, and she lowered her head into Clover's fluffy head, wishing she could disappear into the bunny's embrace. He didn't say anything, just went back to his hammering, wearing a little smirk, a few rogue strands of his hair falling across his brow, singed at the ends, and touched with copper where the forge had kissed him.
Great. Now she was the dramatic girl with a punny uncle. Fantastic. First. Impression. Orvyn gave a pleased little hum and turned towards the door. "Come on," he said, a large smirk spreading across his face again. "Before the forge sets your embarrassment in stone."
Ierei groaned and dragged herself after him, Clover tight to her chest like a comfort plush, softening the edge of her shame. She couldn't dare to look back.
________
Half an hour later, they arrived at the base of a mountain...and a staircase. The stairs carved upward with the mountainside, rigid and unyielding. There were no curves, no gentle inclines, just a straight ascent as if some higher being had carved them into the stone as a challenge.
The mountain itself loomed like a monument to forgotten gods. Its ridges clawed towards the sky with stone that was dark, not grey, but an almost bruised hue, as if the mountain had been hit with more than just storms. Trees twisted at odd angles from the mountainside, their limbs reaching out as if crying for help. Wildflowers bloomed at the base, faded as though time had drained their color without taking their will to exist.
The stairs were carved with intent, each step of the staircase was cut from stone, worn smooth from time and stubborn feet. Moss and vines crept along the edges and tufts of grass peeked from between the cracks, but the path itself remained. Ierei squinted towards the top. That had to be at least a hundred feet. Maybe evenmore.
Orvyn turned to grin widely at Ierei, as if he was enjoying her suffering. "Almost there now! Just a bit of an uphill adventure left!"
Ierei stared at him in disbelief. "That ain't uphill Uncle! That's like a vertical climb!"
Orvyn chuckles and begins his climb, humming as if it was just any other stroll throughout the town.
Grumbling under her breath, Ierei started after him, adjusting Clover in her arms. "This better lead to a hot bath...or an ancient treasure. Or both."
Ahead of her, she hears Orvyn's booming laughter echoing off the stone, he was absolutely delighted.
As Ierei walked step by step, she found herself observing each stone ledge. Patterns were etched onto the stone. The markings weren't decorative, they held some form of language. Some of the markings repeated. A strangled claw-like hand that seemed to be reaching outwards. A shining star that was high above the world. She could even make out a twisted tree in a courtyard, and then, slowly, it was...the shape of a boy.
Not just a boy, but the stages of one, drawn in shifting poses. Planting, harvesting, kneeling. Then laid to rest in a grave. Every fifth step added a piece. A beat. Like walking through a poem she wasn't meant to read. It sat wrong with her, this tale told in stone. She didn't know this boy, she hadn't lived his life...and yet, she felt like she had been walking beside him.
She didn't know why, but the story felt familiar. Uncomfortably familiar, like a memory she had forgotten she owned.
_______
Her legs were absolutely burning. Ierei felt as though she had just trudged through molten lava. In fact, she was surprised she could even still feel her legs. Every step close to the end had twisted her breath into sharp exhales. Every next step upward felt like a plea to the summit itself. But they had finally made it to the top of the stairs. The evening had settled around them during the climb, painting the mountain top with gorgeous streaks of purple and orange. A cooling wind brushed against her skin with a gentle relief, this mercy keeping her upright.
She stepped close to the edge, the wind gently tugging at her sleeves. Below, the world stretched out in a quiet wonder, layers of forest unfolding like ripples, rooftops clustered in a sleepy pattern, and the river glinting like silver in the light. The stone path they had climbed looked impossibly steep from here.
She saw some figures moving down a road, and she found herself drawn to observe them. Somehow, she could tell it was the apprentice, and two other people. Perhaps it was his striking dark hair, or his frame moving with a steady rhythm even while walking. The two other people were just as peculiar as him.
One carried what could've been coils of metal, goggles adorning his face. He had short hair that was a striking ember red color, and he moved with kinetic energy. Almost like he couldn't be still. He walked with a bounce, each movement loud, but not disruptive. Restless, and charged with a hum of impatience, and invention. Ierei caught the moment he opened his mouth to speak, gesturing with his hands, only for his face to fall as the apprentice replied. His mouth curved into a faint pout, his disappointment immeasurable.
The other walked with her face buried in a book, with what looked like prayer beads on her wrists. Her hair was a deep jet black, tied back into a neat ponytail, not out of vanity, but of precision. She moved as if the world around her barely registered, her eyes never leaving the book cradled in her hands. Her posture was disciplined, and her stride was steady, and while she seemed to entirely ignore the other two, she kept in perfect time with them.
Ierei watched them for a moment longer, feeling oddly anchored by their sight, before they moved out of sight. Then, a shift in the wind pulled her attention back to the summit. Back to Orvyn.
He stood just a couple lengths away, waiting for her to catch her breath. As Ierei took in her surroundings, she realized just how much Orvyn clashed with his surroundings. A grand temple sat atop the mountain, tall and sprawling, shimmering under the dying light. Ornate pillars stood to each side of its entrance, wrapped in bands of metal that threw back light in fragmented gleams.
And there was Orvyn, with his mismatched bright jacket, and his ever-widening grin, looking like a misplaced traveler dropped into the middle of a painting. He couldn't belong up here, not spiritually, and definitely not visually, and yet...he fit anyway.
Ierei followed him towards the entrance, where the lanterns shone a soft glow onto his boots. It was so bizarre...this towering temple gate, carved with reverence, lit like the inside of a children's storybook...and Orvyn, humming a tune and fishing keys from his jacket as if he owned the place. Because apparently...he did.