Hulti Windtalker
Grimskin, Devoted to Syvareal
The lodge was round as a tortoise shell, woven with reedbone and old talonwood, where the wind whistled through ancient flutes tied to the rafters. A dozen wide-eyed Grimskin children huddled in a crescent before the fire, faces aglow with mosslight and ember crackle.
Hulti Windtalker, draped in a mantle of weathered feathers and smoke-blue moss, tapped his cane twice on the stone. The wind outside stilled.
"Now hush, ye wrigglers," he rasped with a crooked grin. "Open yer ears, yer minds, yer bellies even—this story fills more than just heads, it stirs the soul."
A soft gasp. One child held their breath, clutching a carved dragonstone. Another's small tusks trembled with anticipation.
Hulti's eyes, pale as starlight, gleamed in the glow.
"Before the mountains had names, before even the roots of the world were planted…"
"…there was Nothing."
"No sound. No sky. Just a silence that slept for endless evers."
A few children whimpered, huddling closer.
"Until…"
"Vorthyx bit it."
"Aye, the first god—the Father of Stone and Sovereignty—gnawed the void until it cracked like brittle shell, and land poured out. Mountains rose. Rivers groaned awake. And Order was born."
He lifted his arms dramatically, cloak fluttering with the motion.
"Then came Syvrael, Windmother, Dreamkeeper—she sang, oh yes, and the stars flocked to her voice. She scattered them like fireflies and breathed skies across the dead stone. Memory was born. And with it, hope."
One child's eyes glistened. Another mouthed her name in reverent awe: "Siiiv-raell…"
"Third came Kau'Zorith," Hulti continued, voice now fierce and full.
"He struck flint to sky, and the Sun was born screaming. Life sparked, fires danced, beasts awoke. Rebirth and courage roared into being."
The children now sat up straighter. One leaned forward so far his nose almost kissed the flames.
"And then…"
"…came Him."
The fire dimmed. Hulti's voice dropped to a whisper so soft, even the flutes above seemed to still.
"The Wyrm Below—forgotten, unnamed, jealous. He coiled beneath the roots, twisted in shadow. While the others built, he devoured. He whispered through cracks, and fed on silence."
"The gods cast him down. Buried him beneath the world."
"But he whispers still. In tombs. In madness. In nightmares that rot."
A hush fell so deep a single child's breath could be heard trembling.
"From the gods' quarrel came dragons," Hulti finally exhaled, releasing the children from the tension.
"Born of sky and fire, of stone and soul. Not monsters—but keepers. They watched the world's birth, shaped the winds, and held our destinies in their gaze."
"They were not tamed then, no no," Hulti tapped his cane.
"They chose."
The fire brightened. Children's faces reflected wide-eyed awe, as though seeing the gods in every flicker of flame.
"They chose riders whose hearts burned true. And those who bonded—truly bonded—walked not as lords but as equals. Wingbrothers. Sky-sisters. The First Accord."
"But time—time made us forget."
"Solvaris crowned itself with haloed lies. Varethorne chained beasts of war to iron thrones. We turned from gods to power. From memory to conquest."
He lowered his head.
"Now, we live in the echo. The fracture."
"But Syvrael still sings."
"You hear her when the wind lifts your hair. When a name you forgot dances on your tongue."
"She waits. And the others watch. Even the Wyrm stirs…"
A long silence followed Hulti's final words. The fire murmured softly, casting dancing shapes like dragons in flight across the walls. The wind moaned faintly through the flutes above, a low, distant song.
Then, a child—barely older than his tusks—raised a trembling hand.
"Hulti… what if the gods don't come back?"
The old Windtalker froze.
For a breath.
Then he turned, slow as mosslight, and grinned.
Not with mockery, nor comfort—but with knowing.
He bent close, eyes reflecting embers like twin storm pearls.
"Ahh… but who says they've left, hmm?"
His cane tapped the floor once. The wind outside shifted.
"On the night where the sky forgets its name…"
"…when the stars shiver and the rivers run upward…"
"Vorthyx shall bite the void once more."
The fire cracked violently.
"And from the wound shall pour things not made by gods… but remembered by them."
A pause. The children stared, breathless. Even the flutes above fell silent, as if listening.
Hulti leaned back, folding his cloak like wings about him.
"Or so the wind whispers to me."
*
Caelan Ravenwell
There was no sky—just a void that churned like a wound in the heavens.
Caelan lay still, cheek pressed against cold soil slick with dew and ash. He didn't move at first. Couldn't. Something heavy sat on his chest—grief or gravity, he couldn't tell. A metallic taste clung to his tongue.
"…Claire…?"
Silence.
The kind that made you realize just how small you were.
His limbs worked, barely. He pushed himself up, fingers sinking into loam and roots that didn't belong to any plant from Earth. His breath came ragged. Each inhale stung.
But he didn't look around—not yet.
Not until the panic forced him to.
There was no Tower. No glow of civilization. Just a jagged forest of twisted trees, their branches clawing toward the warped stars above. The mist hung thick, a shroud that dulled all sound. His heartbeat felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.
He was alone.
Completely.
And then the guilt surfaced.
Echo. He'd forced her hand—no, overwritten it. That final override had redirected power away from the evacuation systems. He'd seen the results in the screens as they flickered and died. Hallways sealed. Doors half-open. People…
He squeezed his eyes shut, trembling. A crackling breath escaped his throat. "What have I done?"
And Claire—where was she?
A sharp pain shot through his skull.
"Caelan! Behind you!"
A blur of white light.
A monstrous roar that tore the air in two.
The anomaly—his anomaly—burst through the collapsing lab, shattering reinforced glass and shielding him from a wave of imploding energy.
He'd caught one last glimpse—Claire, screaming, Eris racing toward her.
Jack shouting something—his voice drowned by chaos.
Then came the fall. The tearing.
And now—nothing.
He pressed his palm to his forehead. Blood, sweat, guilt. A storm behind his eyes.
Somewhere in his coat pocket, he felt the shape of a small orb—the compact shell that once held Echo's essence. It was cold. Unresponsive.
Empty.
He didn't cry. But he nearly did.
The trees whispered around him in a language he didn't know. Something creaked in the branches above, far off, distant, but watching.
For the first time in his life, Caelan Ravenwell was utterly alone.
*
Claire Ravenwell
Everything burned.
Her hands. Her knees. Her throat. Her mind.
Claire sat hunched in a shallow ditch, legs scraped raw, her clothes torn at the edges. Her breath hitched in jagged bursts. She wasn't sure if she'd screamed or was still screaming.
There was no answer. No voice over comms. No tether to Caelan.
Only emptiness.
The world around her was both too quiet and too alive. Strange birdlike chirps echoed through fog-drenched trees. The dirt smelled wrong—sweet and spiced like rotting fruit.
Claire staggered to her feet.
"Caelan?" she croaked.
Nothing.
She clutched her ribs. Every movement felt off-kilter, like she didn't belong in this body anymore.
Then came the memories.
The moment the rift began to shatter.
Jack's voice, cutting through the chaos:
"No matter where it throws you—find each other. Protect each other. I love you both—more than anything."
She remembered Eris—snarling, leaping in front of her as beams of light tore through the collapsing portal ring. She saw her bonded beast in silhouette, jaws wide open, eyes locked onto her like a promise.
Then—obliteration.
Her chest heaved. "You better be alive, you stupid oversized lizard…"
But the words were hollow.
And she was so alone.
*
Caelan Ravenwell
The trees whispered again—but this time, not in wonder.
Caelan froze, breath shallow. The cold mist thickened around him like gauze, and somewhere behind, something moved—soft at first. Then deliberate.
Crunch.
Snap.
Sniff.
Not wind. Not nerves. Footsteps.
Something was following him.
He turned slowly, gaze sweeping the underbrush. The twisted forest offered no comfort—just gnarled roots and warped bark, like bones grown in the wrong direction.
Then came the growl.
Low. Guttural. Wet.
Like rusted chains dragged through blood.
Caelan ran.
His breath tore from his lungs in ragged bursts. Branches lashed his face. Roots clawed at his boots. He didn't look back—he couldn't. Every instinct screamed run, now, faster.
But it was fast too.
The sound grew louder behind him. Six legs pounding, claws scraping bark. The thing didn't stumble. It chased like it knew the path.
A shriek pierced the fog—a sound that bent the air around it. Caelan's knees buckled. He staggered down a slope and fell.
The world spun. Mud and bark slammed into his side as he tumbled through brush and landed in a shallow gully. His leg twisted. Pain lanced through him.
He tried to scramble up—too late.
The predator came into view.
It was massive—six-limbed and low to the ground, its body sheathed in dull chitin and matted fur. Its mouth split vertically and horizontally, rows of slick fangs jutting from multiple jaws. Two eyes gleamed like coals.
It didn't growl this time.
It just pounced.
Caelan raised an arm instinctively, breath caught in his throat. The orb in his coat pocket vibrated once, weakly.
"I'm sorry…" he thought.
He never finished the sentence.
—
Something descended from above.
A shockwave cracked through the trees—low and deep, like thunder filtered through stone. Wind slammed the gully. The world became light with gravity.
Something landed.
Not gently. Not like a bird or even a beast.
Like a weapon.
The predator shrieked, mid-leap—and was gone. Snatched in a blur of movement and hurled into the fog with a sound like crushed steel.
Caelan blinked, dazed.
And then he saw it.
The anomaly.
It stood in the clearing—wrong in all the right ways.
Tall and lean, its long body plated in iridescent silver-white scales that shimmered like cracked moonlight. Its forelimbs were long, ending in raptor-like talons that curled and twitched with unnatural grace. The tail, barbed and segmented with three jagged ridges, dragged a line through the earth like a blade too heavy for this world.
It wasn't breathing.
It didn't need to.
It simply existed—radiating a gravity that bent reality around it.
Its head turned.
Black, obsidian eyes locked onto him—deep, reflective, unreadable. Not hostile.
Not kind.
Just aware.
Caelan couldn't move. Couldn't speak. His pulse slowed, like the world held its breath.
Then it stepped forward once. The ground trembled faintly underfoot—not from weight, but presence.
They stared at each other.
No sound.
No bond.
Just recognition.
Something passed between them. Not words. Not emotion. A thread of understanding stretched across impossible distance—between creature and human, or maybe just two anomalies in a new world that is foreign to them.
The beast didn't approach again. It simply stood for another breath… then turned. It walked into the mist, vanishing without a single sound.
Gone, as if it had never been there at all.
And Caelan, still breathless in the gully, whispered to no one:
"…What are you?"
*
Claire Ravenwell
Claire ran like hell.
Trees blurred past. Roots snagged her boots. Thorned ferns lashed her arms. And behind her...
Something massive hunted her.
She didn't look back. She didn't need to. The sounds tell enough.
The crash of bark. The tremble of the earth. The thunder of monstrous limbs plowing through the woods.
She gasped, ducking beneath a low branch as a shadow swept overhead—huge and fast.
"You know," she huffed through clenched teeth, "I'm starting to deeply resent this world's welcome committee!!"
She burst into a clearing—and that's when it caught up.
A towering brute exploded through the underbrush after her. Reptilian, horn crowned, scaled in iron-grey hide gouged with old battle scars. It moved like a tank fueled by hatred, each step shaking the ground. Its jaw split open wide, revealing double rows of gnashing teeth, and it roared.
A thunderclap that stole the breath from her lungs.
Claire skidded to a stop, fell back hard, eyes wide. "Oh you are way too big to be this fast!"
The predator lunged.
A blur of black and silver slammed into it mid-leap.
The two titans collided with a boom that sent shockwaves through the trees.
Claire scrambled to her feet as the forest erupted.
The fight was on.
Eris, her obsidian-scaled monstrosity, snarled like a hurricane made flesh. Her silver-plumed spine bristled as she slammed the predator into the dirt, jaws snapping for the neck. The creature twisted violently, expert in battle, unshaken. It spun, raked its claws across Eris's flank, drawing a roar of pain.
Blood sprayed the ferns. Claire ducked as a piece of wood whipped past her head.
The Drakhelm beast had done this before. Too many times.
It anticipated Eris's pounces. Dodged like a duelist. Countered every move with terrifying precision. It slammed Eris into a tree so hard the trunk split. She recoiled, staggered.
Claire's heart sank.
Eris had the strength—but she was too wild, too raw. And this beast—it knew dragons. It had probably feasted on them.
She had to do something.
She scanned the battlefield—tree line, terrain, scent, wind.
There. That boulder at the edge of the clearing. The shattered root system underneath. A nest of hornet-like fliers buzzing in the canopy above it.
Nasty, territorial. Highly aggressive.
She calculated the angle. The timing.
Claire ran.
"HEY, YOU UGLY LIZARD-APE!" she screamed.
The predator turned—only for a moment. It was all she needed.
Claire leapt onto a rock, then kicked loose a stone from the edge of the slope—straight into the buzzing nest above.
The swarm exploded.
A cloud of winged stingers rained down—furious, shrieking, and blindly aggressive.
The monster roared as dozens bit into its eyes, nostrils, and open wounds. It thrashed wildly, distracted, unbalanced.
Eris didn't hesitate.
With a guttural roar, she lunged.
This time, her jaws found purchase.
She dug in, anchoring herself with those earth-ripping talons, and sank her teeth deep into the exposed throat of the flailing beast. It shrieked—high, gurgling—tried to buck her off.
Too late.
The Tyrant twisted her neck—and tore out the beast's windpipe in a spray of arterial blood.
It collapsed, choking, dead before it hit the dirt.
Silence.
Then...
RRRRROOOOOAAARRRRRR!!
Eris reared back and howled to the heavens, a primal, blood-soaked bellow that shook the treetops and silenced the forest.
Claire staggered back, arms up, awestruck.
The Tyrant Queen stood victorious—blood dripping from her fangs, body heaving, one eye nearly swollen shut, her muscles steaming from the heat of battle.
Claire's awe curdled into sudden fear.
Eris turned to her.
And took a step forward.
"...Oh," Claire breathed. "Oh hell."
There was no recognition in those eyes—only fury. Unchecked, all-consuming.
Eris advanced again, smoke curling from her nostrils.
Claire stood her ground.
Her voice shook, but she didn't run. "You just killed a monster from hell. I helped. I'm on your side. So maybe don't eat the cheerleader, yeah?"
Eris snarled.
Claire's heart pounded. "I'm not food."
Another step.
Claire gritted her teeth and shouted:
"ENOUGH!"
A pause.
The Queen growled… but stopped.
Claire, breathless, held her ground.
"Yeah," she muttered. "That's what I thought."
The beast exhaled. A rumble, deep in the chest. Then collapsed onto her side, exhausted.
Claire almost crumpled from relief.
She walked forward slowly, touched the slick scales of Eris's shoulder soaked in blood, ragged with claw marks.
"You crazy, terrifying, glorious monster… You really are mine, aren't you?"
"Thanks Dad, you brilliant old man!" She thought.
Eris didn't reply. She just let her eyes close.
Claire stood there, hand on her hide, trembling with the weight of it all.
She smiled, crooked and proud.
"I don't know what's coming next, but whatever it is? Let them come."
*
Caelan Ravenwell
His hands still trembled when he thought about the thing that nearly killed him—and the thing that saved him.
He'd limped for what felt like hours through a twisted forest alive with things that didn't make sense. Trees that grew in slow spirals. Flowers that bloomed only when breathed on. He'd found shelter beneath a massive root arch, half-fused with stone, overlooking a bioluminescent clearing where the grass shimmered in the windless night.
And now, he sat there. Just breathing.
The two moons still hung overhead—one ivory-white, the other a hazy violet, painting the forest floor in layered light. The glade looked like a dream carved from the void. Bushes glowed softly like constellations. Tall fungi pulsed faintly with pale blue veins. Motes of firefly-like insects danced around him, veering sharply away from the silent creature nearby.
The anomaly.
It had returned without sound. Not as a protector, not as a companion. It simply was there, coiled atop a mossy rock outcrop like a living statue.
It hadn't moved in twenty minutes.
But Caelan could feel its gaze. Watching him. Studying.
He tried to ignore it. Focus on the glowing moss beneath his fingers, the brush of cool air, the occasional flitter of a curious bat-creature overhead. But his eyes always drifted back.
To it.
It had no name. No obvious purpose. But it had saved him—and now it was here again. Not threatening. Not tame.
He reached for a stalk of fern that glowed faint green when touched. The creature's head tilted, almost in sync.
He blinked.
Then slowly—very slowly—he raised a hand and waved once.
The anomaly's forelimb lifted, mirroring him.
Its talons curled and uncurled, just once, before lowering again.
Caelan swallowed hard. "…You're copying me."
The creature didn't respond.
Not with sound. But its tail gave a faint, twitching flick—those three jagged ridges catching moonlight like broken crystal.
Caelan scooted an inch closer. The anomaly didn't flinch.
"So… you're not just some wild beast," he murmured.
A soft rustle in the underbrush made him pause. A trio of strange birdlike rodents peeked out—translucent skin stretched across luminous bones. They chattered once. Saw the anomaly.
Vanished instantly.
He glanced at it. "They don't like you, huh?"
Still silence.
"You scare them."
Nothing.
Caelan sighed and looked down, tracing a spiral into the moss with his finger. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I don't even know if my sister's alive. If Echo still works. If any of this is real."
The anomaly blinked once. A small, subtle gesture—but the first blink Caelan had seen.
"You're not going to eat me, are you?"
No answer.
Just those bottomless, watching eyes. Alien. Unreadable. Yet…
Present.
They sat there for a while longer, two figures stranded in a world of glowing trees and layered stars. The forest buzzed gently—an ambient hum of life that was starting, just barely, to feel familiar.
And then the anomaly shifted.
It stood, sinuous and quiet, then walked to the edge of the glade. Its plated body shimmered beneath the moons. It looked over its shoulder—back at Caelan.
Not beckoning.
Not commanding.
Just waiting.
Caelan rose, painfully. His leg still ached, but something tugged him forward. Not a voice. Not a thought. Just… momentum.
He followed.
Into the forest.
*
Claire Ravenwell
The Tyrant Queen slept like a fallen mountain, one eye swollen shut, ribs rising and falling in slow, tremoring breaths. Her body steamed faintly where blood dried and heat bled off a victor's wounds after a war.
Claire stayed close, not quite leaning on her. Not quite daring to relax.
Then
Crunch.
A very distinct, very deliberate crunch.
Claire didn't even bother turning at first. She just sighed. "If it's another murder-ape lizzard thing, can it please wait until I emotionally process the first one?"
Silence.
Then a shuffle, grunt, small squeak.
She finally turned.
And saw it.
Barely three feet tall, greenish-grey, spindly as a scarecrow, with floppy ears and cracked tusk, crouched atop a root with a crooked stick held like a scepter. Its wide, reflective eyes blinked at her. A bone charm dangled from its nose. It drooled a little.
Claire squinted. "You're… not a predator thats for sure."
The creature pointed dramatically. "Zzhak-ta! Frah-noom! Skretbok-zik!"
"…Not helping."
It leapt down, tumbled, flailed, recovered with unearned dignity, and stabbed its stick into the dirt with great authority. "BLIK!" it declared, thumping its chest.
Claire tilted her head. "That's your name?"
It thumped harder. "BLIK! Bite-knees! Thornfeet! Sky-howler! Champion of the northern stump-wars!"
Claire blinked, then narrowed her eyes. That name… it rang faintly. A whisper from something she'd read not long ago.
She muttered aloud, "…Didn't Kael and I read something in Dad's journal about Grimskins? One of them kept showing up. What was his name… Bl—Blib."
The creature's ears shot straight up.
Its eyes widened, and it gasped so dramatically Claire almost laughed.
Then it dropped the stick, ran up to her, and grabbed her boots with both hands. "BLIB?! Youknow BLIB?! Blib-throat-howl! Blib sky-friendoflight-boxman! Blib teachwords! Teachmany-muchsound-tongue!**"
Claire stared. "Holy crap. That was a thing. You… actually knew him?"
Blitch nodded so hard he nearly dislocated something. "Blib say tall-light-man speak 'Common'. Teach us 'pleassz', 'not-death', 'snack-trade' and 'no-bite-now'."
Then, as if something in its head clicked, Blik switched languages.
Or… tried to.
"Yes! I make speech with you now, tall not-dead woman! You have mighty teeth pet. You roar. You kill. You… smell like woodburn and sky meat. You is Blib-friend, maybe?"
Claire squinted. "You really are trying to speak my language?"
"Yes-yes! Blib say 'important to try even if mouth is bad-shape'!"
She snorted. "He's not wrong."
Blitch puffed his chest, glanced at Eris's resting form, and then immediately dove behind Claire. "But that? That is no drakkin! That is… Blik dont know what it is! With too-many-growl and no-wings-but-death-eyes!"
Claire crossed her arms. "She is a bit dramatic."
"You ride her? You command her? You… not eat Blik, yes?"
Claire looked down at him and raised an eyebrow. "How often do people eat you?"
Blitch held up three fingers, then reconsidered and showed seven. "Many time. But Blik too sharp now. Learn survive. Learn run. Learn hide in corpse-pit and wear bug-hats. Blib teach smart-smart."
"…I'm not even gonna ask about the bug hats."
Blitch nodded solemnly. "Good. They cursed."
He paused, then made a little chattering sound, suddenly skittering to Eris's tail and poking it once with a stick. She growled in her sleep. He screamed, flung the stick, and sprinted back to Claire.
Claire gave him a dry look. "You're really committed to dying stupidly, huh?"
"Yes. It is tradition."
Despite herself, she laughed, a short, frayed bark of a sound that cracked the tension in her ribs. She eased down next to Eris again, still wary, but… lighter.
Blik sat beside her, humming tunelessly, gnawing on something vaguely shiny.
"Hey," Claire said quietly, watching the glowing bugs drift between moonlight and leafshade, "You said you knew Blib. Did he… ever mention a man with silver-black hair? Eyes like mine? Or a younger version of him with black hair?
Blik blinked, then nodded. "Yes! Light-box man with voice like thunder. Blib say he bring shiny rocks, fix sick-skin, and make Big Roach explode. Many like. Much boom."
Claire stared. "…That's actually the most helpful summary I've heard." She said deadpan.
Blik looked proud. Then sneezed, scuttled to a nearby bush, and tried to trade Claire a squirming root-worm for her belt.
She sighed, watching him flutter around like a broken festival puppet.
"Drakhelm" she muttered to the stars, "You are so weird. But maybe… maybe I can work with weird."
Eris shifted behind her, tail twitching. Claire reached back, touching blood-warmed scales, and didn't flinch.
She was alone. Her brother was out there, maybe. This world wanted her dead.
But she had a monster.
And a lunatic goblin for a sidekick.
It'd do—for now.