Morning light slanted through the ether-laced vines of Ellowyn's window — but today, it carried no warmth.. It fell pale and strained, as if the sky itself were holding its breath.
The city beyond stirred to life with its usual rhythms — the distant chimes, the soft murmur of artisans beginning their work — yet something felt… off.
Ellowyn sat on the edge of her bed, tugging absently at a thread in her sleeve, unease coiling low in her stomach.
The memory of last night's laughter, the glow of firelight and music, seemed strangely fragile in the cool hush of morning.
In the market square, as she made her way toward the Ether fields, the usual soft bustle was tinged with restless whispers. She caught snatches of conversation as she passed:
"—Taken in the night, they say—"
"—Re-education, it's just temporary, surely—"
"—Talanar, poor boy, should have kept his mouth shut—"
Ellowyn froze mid-step. Talanar.
The memory of his voice — bold and uncertain by the fireside — rushed back. The look in Aeryn's eyes when he had placed that firm hand on his friend's shoulder.
She turned sharply on her heel and made for the patrol barracks.
—BREAK—
Aeryn was there, speaking in low tones with another guardian. He looked tired — more than tired. Worn.
When he spotted her, he straightened, forcing a small smile.
"Ellie. Shouldn't you be with the herbalists team?"
"I heard…" She swallowed. "About Talanar."
The smile faltered. Aeryn rubbed the back of his neck.
"He'll be fine," he said too quickly. "Just... re-education. A misunderstanding. They'll set him straight and send him home."
Ellowyn's chest tightened. The way he avoided her eyes said more than the words.
She wanted to press him, to ask where Talanar had been taken, for how long, and what they would do to him.
But Aeryn's face — usually open, teasing — had closed off like a shuttered window.
Some questions, she realized, even brothers would not answer.
She nodded stiffly and turned away, the unease growing heavier in her chest.
—BREAK—
The Blue Forest should have soothed her. It always had before.
The trees still shimmered with soft Ether flows, the flowers still bent their glowing heads toward the light.
But today, even the forest seemed subdued. The wind whispered strange things she couldn't quite catch. The Ether flows hummed lower, heavier.
Ellowyn joined her usual herbalist team, slipping wordlessly into the rhythm of plucking the blooms and sealing their soft energy into woven satchels.
Her mind wandered, her hands moving automatically — until a sudden ripple brushed across the flows.
A familiar presence.
A tug, almost like a voice threading through the Ether itself: Ellie.
She straightened sharply, scanning the treeline.
There — a flicker of copper fur. A flash of motion, quickly hidden.
Rikuin? Here?
It was far too early — their meeting wasn't until twilight, and he rarely approached during working hours.
She pressed a hand against her satchel, heart hammering.
She couldn't go now — too many eyes.
Meeting his gaze through the trees, she shook her head subtly and mouthed, Wait.
The glint of golden eyes vanished.
Ellowyn forced herself to turn back to her gathering, but her thoughts whirled wildly about what would force him to do such reckless move.
She finished her work in a rush, handing her satchel to Ysilwen with a breathless apology.
"Tell the others I... I have a call to deliver," she said, not waiting for the puzzled reply.
She slipped away down the hidden trails, toward the place where the Ether hummed softer and the wild glades held their quiet council.
—BREAK—
As she rushed to their common gathering place, she found him in a hollow shrouded by weeping vines and trembling light.
The air was different here — thick with the scent of crushed leaves... and something sharper, metallic, that pricked at the back of her throat.
A shape shifted within the shadows.
Then he stepped forward —
Ellowyn gasped, stumbling back a step.
His coppery fur was matted, his cloak torn and streaked with dark, ugly stains. His scarf — the familiar red one he always wore — hung tattered around his neck, frayed and heavy with dampness.
One of his ears was nicked, his breathing ragged as he leaned against the twisted trunk of an old willow.
Yet even wounded, his golden eyes found hers — steady, pleading.
"Ellie..."
His voice was rough, barely a breath.
Ellowyn rushed forward instinctively, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"Rikuin, what— what happened?" she whispered, reaching out but hesitating, afraid to hurt him further.
He gave a faint, exhausted smile, the kind that barely touched his eyes.
"My home... Caelarion Glade..."
He paused, swallowing hard, as if even speaking cost him strength.
"It's under attack."
Ellowyn's hands fluttered near his torn scarf, trembling.
"By what?"
Rikuin's gaze darkened, flickering toward the distant trees beyond the dome.
"Shadows," he said simply. "Creatures not of Ether but pure evil. Twisted things that spread rot in their pase and consume everything they touch. We held them off as long as we could, but..."
His voice faltered.
Ellowyn's breath caught. Her hands hovered helplessly, torn between instinct and fear.
"And you came—"
"I came because you know the flows of Ether better than any of us. If you—" he caught his breath, grimacing— "if you could bend it... maybe you could help us hold them back for awhile…."
"I..." Ellowyn stammered, her voice catching painfully in her throat. "I want to. But I can't go. It's forbidden. If they catch me—"
Rikuin's gold eyes softened with deep, aching understanding.
"I can get you out without anyone noticing," he said quietly. "Take my hand, Ellie. I'll guide you there. And I'll bring you back. No one will know."
For a heartbeat, her hand lifted—
The warmth of his outstretched palm brushed the space between them—almost touched.
The faint, pulsing shimmer of the dome in the distance suddenly felt suffocating.
Then she pulled away.
Her heart cried yes.
Her duty screamed no.
Tears welled in her eyes as she slowly pulled her hand back, trembling.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I... I can't."
Rikuin watched her with quiet sadness, but no anger.
He tugged his red scarf slightly higher around his neck — almost like a silent shield — before stepping back into the shadows.
"No shame in being afraid," he murmured. "Just don't let fear be the only voice you hear."
And then, he disappeared into the mist —
leaving Ellowyn alone beneath the whispering trees, her heart heavy with something she didn't know how to name.
That night, the memory of Rikuin's wounded figure stayed with her — sharper than any dream.
Ellowyn had not slept the night after their meeting.
She had stared at the weavings of light across her ceiling, listening to the pulse of the Dome overhead, feeling the weight of her choice pressing against her ribs.
Morning brought no relief.
The streets of Yal Elunore buzzed softly as always — tradesmen setting out their goods, scholars bent over scrolls — but beneath the practiced smiles and measured steps, a tremor of unease lingered.
And so did the whispers.
At the fountain square, Ellowyn lingered near the herb carts, listening with half her mind to the murmured conversations.
Words carried on the misted air:
"Re-education, they call it… but no one's seen Talanar Vaelwyn since."
"The young ones speak too freely these days. Dangerous thoughts."
"Better they correct them early, before worse happens."
Ellowyn's stomach twisted painfully. She turned sharply, making her way toward the academy gardens where apprentices and scholars trained.
She needed to find Talanar to ease her mind.
She made her way toward the learning halls of a great Ethereal Academy— a place where apprentices studied Ether, history, and service — hoping, somehow, to find Talanar among the students.
The halls were quiet.
Too quiet.
She approached one of the elder tutors — a woman with fine silver braids and pale, unreadable eyes.
"I'm looking for Talanar Vaelwyn," Ellowyn said, voice careful. "I heard he was sent here... for re-education."
The tutor gave a cool, practiced smile — one that did not reach her eyes.
"You need not concern yourself, child. Talanar Vaelwyn is receiving the guidance he needs elsewhere. Focus on your own duties."
Ellowyn hesitated, her fingers tightening around the strap of her satchel.
"But... where is he?" she asked softly. "I would like to visit. To wish him well for his re-education."
The Elder woman paused, her back rigid.
For a long moment, she said nothing — only turned her head slightly, just enough for Ellowyn to glimpse the shadow of her face.
Her gaze was blank, distant. Not cruel. Just... empty.
"You cannot," she said at last, her voice flat as polished stone. "No visitors are permitted."
Ellowyn opened her mouth to press further — but the woman shifted her robe and walked away, the soft whisper of fabric against the floor the only answer she left behind.
Left alone in the vaulted corridor, Ellowyn stood frozen, the polished tiles gleaming emptily around her.
Something in Ellowyn's heart shrank a little smaller.
A silence growing inside her that no kind words could seem to reach.
She pressed a hand lightly to her chest, as if to steady something shifting inside her.
Something she couldn't quite name, but could no longer ignore.
—BREAK—
That evening, beneath the soft hum of the trees, Ellowyn returned to the wild edge of the Blue Forest — to the hidden glade where she and Rikuin had always met.
The satchel of gathered blooms slipped from her shoulder as she cupped her hands to her mouth.
"Rikuin?" she called, voice trembling. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to turn away. Please don't be mad at me."
Only the sighing leaves answered her.
"I should have trusted you," she whispered. "I just... I didn't know what to do."
No answer came.
Not a flicker among the trees.
Not even a whistle in the mist.
She came again the next day.
And the next.
And the next...
Each time, she brought small offerings — moonberry tarts, still warm from the kitchens, knowing they had once made him laugh and curse at their stickiness.
Each time, she waited.
Each time, she whispered into the twilight:
"Please... come back.
Please be safe."
But the glade stayed empty.
No coppery flicker moved between the trees.
No familiar voice teased her from the shadows.
The days blurred together, and with them, the last of her hope frayed — like a once-bright thread worn thin by unseen hands.
Then one misted evening, when the first stars were just beginning to bleed through the sky, a figure slipped through the trees.
At first, Ellowyn's heart soared.
"Rikuin!" she gasped, rising from the moss.
But as the figure stepped into the half-light, she saw the difference.
It was another Kinitu — female, slightly smaller, her copper fur darker, her golden eyes harder, colder.
A stranger, cloaked in dusk and grief.
She moved stiffly, as if carrying a weight too heavy to be seen.
The Kinitu held up a hand.
"Stop calling," she said sharply, voice rough with exhaustion. "The forest can't bear your cries anymore."
Ellowyn's heart twisted painfully.
She stumbled forward, hands trembling.
"Please — please tell him I'm sorry," she said in a rush, tears already stinging her eyes. "I would have helped — I wanted to. I just — I couldn't leave. It's forbidden. I just want him to know—"
The Kinitu said nothing.
Instead, she reached into her satchel and withdrew something small and limp — a tattered red scarf, frayed and stained with dark, dried patches.
She placed it solemnly into Ellowyn's open hands.
Ellowyn stared down at it, breath shuddering, as if the world had tipped sideways and nothing could be made right again.
It felt wrong in her hands — too small, too thin.
The scarf was all that remained — a fraying thread where a life had once been.
The familiar touch of the cloth nearly broke her.
It was still warm from the day's sun — but in her hands, it felt unbearably cold.
Flashes of memory surged up — Rikuin grinning beneath the ivy, teasing her about slow Eldian feet, daring her to steal riverberries.
His laughter, his stubborn kindness, the soft promises of "someday" whispered beneath the trees vanishing.
The Kinitu's voice cut through the memories like a blade:
"You keep calling a name that will never answer."
Ellowyn shook her head desperately, the world blurring through her tears.
"No... no, he's strong — he must have survived—" she choked, her voice breaking like a snapped bowstring.
The Kinitu's gaze did not waver.
It was not cruel.
It was simply empty — the gaze of someone who had already buried too many hopes.
"Maybe the Nyxes were right," she said bitterly.
"Maybe Eldians only care for their own peace."
Ellowyn's knees gave out.
She collapsed to the earth, the moss offering no comfort against the weight crushing her chest.
She clutched the scarf so tightly her knuckles whitened, sobs wracking her slender frame, raw and helpless.
She had left him with nothing but silence.
Not even a goodbye.
Not even a promise.
The Kinitu turned to go — but paused.
For one final moment, her voice softened, almost like a lullaby meant for a child long gone.
"In the end," she said, "you were all he called for."
Without waiting for an answer, the Kinitu stepped into the mist, her form swallowed by the weeping trees.
And Ellowyn was left kneeling alone — the red scarf pressed desperately to her heart —
while the towering forest stood silent, indifferent, around the small, broken shape of her grief.
The scarf slipped from her trembling fingers, trailing across the moss like a fallen banner.
Her sobs cracked the hush of the glade, raw and ugly, until even the birds fell silent, as if the forest itself bowed its head.
Above her, the first stars pierced through the mist, cold and unblinking — witnesses to a sorrow too old for their light to comfort.
The Ether currents in the trees dimmed, their soft glow guttering like candles left too long in the wind.
Still she wept — for Rikuin, for herself, for the pieces of a world that she had never realized was broken until it shattered inside her.
And when no more sound would come, when even her tears had run dry, she remained kneeling there —
small, hollow, cradling the ruined scarf against her chest, while the night closed gently around her like a tomb.
Only then, in that crushing stillness, did Ellowyn understand:
Some silences could never be filled again.