POV: Arthur Starlight
We hit the ground like falling stars.
No scream. No warning. Just weight—and silence.
And then, the world spoke.
Not in thunder. Not in prophecy.
But like a wound reopening.
A voice quiet and uncertain, as if it had broken a vow by daring to speak.
"We're sorry."
"We didn't save you when the Golem of Space cast you away."
"We couldn't… not again. The last time we interfered, the world fractured—for three seconds… and didn't heal for years."
I pushed myself up from the red-grained soil.
The sky above was not sky.
It was a shifting prism of impossible hues, a place so distant even time seemed reluctant to arrive.
We weren't just far from home.
We were somewhere home itself couldn't reach.
Even a compass would spin helplessly here, trying to remember which way memory pointed.
The voice returned, fainter, but close—as if it came from just behind the silence.
"We still can't help you."
"But we can give you something. To move. To endure. To carry what's coming without breaking."
Four lights descended.
No thunder. No divine chorus.
Just gravity bowing to truth.
To Me:
A wing—white fire hammered into form.
No feathers. No bone. No flesh.
Just script. Just myth. Just purpose.
The Wing of Michael.
The battle-saint of heaven. The arch of final flame.
It shimmered like it remembered every war it ever ended.
The moment my fingers touched it, my Evolvanth stirred—not in fear, but in recognition.
Like something ancient in me had been waiting to be found.
To Vanitar:
A wing blacker than death.
It had no weight. It drank light.
It drank meaning.
The Wing of the Angel of Death.
It pulsed like an echo you weren't meant to hear.
Vanitar didn't flinch. He held it like he'd always known it was his.
His shadow smiled before he did.
To Elanor:
A cube. Living. Breathing. Becoming.
Not stone. Not machine. Not alive.
Something between.
The Golem of Existence.
"It will shape itself to what you need," the voice whispered.
"Even when you don't know what that is."
It shifted slightly in her hands—like it agreed.
To Nyriel:
A pocketwatch.
Made of mirrored glass.
Ticking in four directions at once.
The Clock of Timeline.
"You won't walk through time," the voice said.
"But you'll know when to ask for a ride."
"Let the golem carry you. When the moment is too fragile to step through."
She blinked at it—then chuckled.
Not out of amusement, but understanding.
"One more thing," the voice added, barely audible now.
"These relics—aren't weapons. They're buffers."
"They'll carry the risk. The backlash of your Evolvanth."
"So your powers won't destroy the body that bears them."
The silence that followed was heavier than the gift.
Above us, the sky bent.
Not cracked. Not torn.
Just… folded.
As if something watching had looked away, and now chose to look back.
We stood quiet.
Each of us holding something older than the world's first story.
My wing pulsed like a living word.
Vanitar's wing was still—but its presence was louder than thunder.
Elanor's golem twitched, like breath taken for the first time.
Nyriel's watch ticked… and somewhere in the distance, another watch answered.
We weren't saved.
We weren't rescued.
We were… equipped.
Not with answers.
But with permission.
Permission to keep walking.
Permission to survive what the story hadn't dared to write yet.
And that's when I heard it:
A whisper, etched into the folds of the world itself—
"Don't tell anyone about this encounter."
"If you do... you won't die."
"You'll vanish."
"Like a page that was never written."
Then silence.
Not peace. Not comfort.
Just that terrible, holy hush that falls...
...right before a story begins again.