London wasn't magical.
Arthur Bell had long given up that idea.
The city droned like an endless machine—constant, indifferent, and numb to wonder. Red buses hissed by in congested streets, raindrops clung like parasites to misted glass, and grey skies choked out even the illusion of sunshine. From his flat window, Arthur could barely see past the rooftops soaked in soot and drizzle.
He'd once believed in magic. When he was younger. Eight, maybe nine. He'd even made a wand out of a stick and chanted words stolen from Latin textbooks, half hoping he'd blow open the garden shed door. It never moved. He'd burned it, embarrassed.
Now at nineteen, Arthur was days away from finishing his first year of university, studying theoretical physics at a modest London college. Nothing too prestigious—somewhere you could blend into the crowd and not get asked too many questions. His parents were distant, busy with careers they didn't care to explain. No siblings. No pets. No mentor figure. Just books, routine, and a worn laptop that never left his side.
But even without magic, Arthur loved the strange. He buried himself in scientific journals and the occasional philosophical essay. His desk was scattered with equations beside alchemical symbols. Entropy beside elixirs. Newton beside Nostradamus.
He wasn't popular, but he wasn't alone. He drifted through campus life like a polite ghost—always there, never close. Professors described him as "focused, albeit introverted." Friends—if they could be called that—knew him as "the quiet guy who says weirdly smart shit when no one expects it."
This particular morning, Arthur had pulled an all-nighter reading up on resonance frequencies and how they might interact with theoretical aether fields. A nerd's fantasy, sure. But it kept his mind occupied. He ate cold toast, shoved two notebooks into his canvas bag, and stepped out into the wet, indifferent city.
The drizzle wasn't heavy, but it was constant—each droplet like a reminder of how small he was in a city that didn't care. The umbrella he carried was half-broken, one rib bent awkwardly backward. His shoes were scuffed and wet within ten minutes.
He passed a bakery on Holloway Road. The scent of warm bread tugged at something in his gut. He considered stopping, but the bus timetable in his mind nudged him forward. College was just twenty minutes away.
Headphones in. Rain tapping. The streets, quiet. No honking. No crowds. Just the sound of damp footsteps and static jazz bleeding from his phone.
Arthur liked this. The stillness before life happened. The rhythm of nothing.
He didn't see the van.
It came from the right. A white delivery van that missed the red light. Maybe the driver was checking his GPS. Maybe he was texting. Arthur stepped off the curb as the pedestrian light turned green.
Then the impact.
No slow-motion. No dramatic music. Just pain.
An explosion of sensation erupted in his hip, flinging him sideways like a rag doll. His head smacked the curb with a grotesque thud. A woman screamed nearby. The sound felt distant, underwater.
Arthur blinked. He couldn't feel his legs. The sky looked wrong—twisting, darkening. Blood pooled beneath him, sticky and fast. His vision blurred into crimson smears and broken teeth. One of his ribs had punctured something—it gurgled when he breathed.
The noise around him faded. Panic clutched at his mind, and then…
He was gone.
Arthur's awareness snapped into place like a door slamming shut.
He found himself standing—not waking—in a space of blinding white. No walls. No sky. No floor, but he didn't fall. No wind, yet his hair moved slightly, as though something unseen pulsed beneath the stillness.
It was empty.
Dead empty.
He looked down at his body. Whole. Clean. No blood. The bone-crushing pain from earlier was gone, as if it had never happened. A thin white garment draped over him, weightless and seamless, like mist pretending to be fabric.
Before he could process anything, a presence thudded into the space like a dropped stone in still water.
Arthur's body froze.
The being wasn't there, and then it was.
It stood tall, humanoid in shape, draped in robes that flowed without motion. Its surface was blank, smooth, with skin like polished porcelain. It had no eyes, ears, nose, or hair—just a wide, slow-moving mouth that gaped open and closed with unnatural rhythm.
And when it spoke, it didn't make sound.
It forced thought into Arthur's mind.
"Be quiet."
Arthur flinched backward instinctively. "Wh–what the hell is this?! Where am I?!"
The mouth didn't move.
But the pressure did.
A vice gripped his spine. His lungs stopped working. His voice died in his throat. Muscles turned to stone.
"You people never shut up. Always whining. Always asking where and why. Your world ends, and the first thing you do is scream at your betters."
Arthur's entire body was locked in a silent tremble. The thing didn't radiate rage or menace—it radiated sheer, exhausted apathy. Like a tired teacher facing another failing student.
"Yes. You're dead. Mangled, frankly. Your bones were like matchsticks. Someone will scrape you off the pavement and forget your name in two weeks. Congratulations."
Arthur's limbs unlocked. He dropped to his knees, coughing out airless, panicked breaths.
"You're… a god?" he choked out.
The figure tilted its faceless head.
"What gave it away? The blinding void or the existential paralysis?"
Arthur winced. "Why am I here?"
"You died. I brought you here. You're being reassigned."
Arthur blinked. "Reassigned? Like a job posting?"
"No. Like a pest control reroute. There's a world that needs a variable. You're the variable."
Another flick of unseen will brought a glowing panel into the air before him. It hovered with gentle pulses, cool blue text printed across it in simple, gamelike format.
Attribute Selection – 100 Points Available
Strength
Endurance
Intelligence
Mana
Charisma
Agility
Luck
Arthur stood, still rattled, and approached the panel.
"So I get to customize myself?" he asked warily.
"That's the idea. It gives you the illusion of control. Now hurry up. I'm already behind schedule."
Arthur grimaced but didn't argue. He reached toward the interface and dragged sliders.
He boosted Intelligence to 35.
Then Mana to 30.
Charisma to 15.
Endurance to 10.
Strength to 7, Agility to 3.
Luck remained untouched.
He double-checked the numbers. "I don't want to fight. I just want to study. Learn. Understand."
"Touching," the god muttered. "Done? Good. Next."
A second panel replaced the first. This one was bloated with endless scrolling skills—paragraphs of glowing data, half of it locked or redacted.
"Choose six. No, you can't have reality manipulation. Don't ask."
Arthur flinched. "I wasn't going to…"
"You were."
He carefully selected:
Magic Pioneer – vague, but promising.
Engineering – for crafting or modification.
Swordsmanship – basic self-defense.
Large Mana Pool – obvious synergy.
Mana Efficiency – to reduce waste.
Magic Eyes – mysterious, but practical.
"That's six," he said.
The god gave a dry grunt of approval.
"No world-breaking. A pleasant surprise. Most of you ask for godhood."
"I just want a peaceful life," Arthur said. "A place to study magic."
"Hah."
The god's laugh wasn't kind. It was like someone spitting on a child's drawing.
"Magic. You'll love that part."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing." The god waved a long-fingered hand. "Time for the final selection."
Another panel unfurled—this one marked:
Race and Lineage
Arthur scrolled quickly. The list was vast. Too vast. Elves, beastfolk, dragons, even demons—each with flowery descriptions and warnings about world balance. He scrolled past all of them.
"I'll stay human."
"Of course you will. Predictable."
The next menu showed noble houses, merchant clans, clergy bloodlines, and more. After a minute of browsing, one name stood out:
The Light Family – Human, Noble Class – Second Son of a Marquis
Arthur read the short bio aloud:
"A historic noble house, known for its contributions during the Continental War. Earned their name from the 11th King. Loyalists. Politically secure. Respected, not feared."
"This one," he said. "Not too grand, not poor. Just enough to fund my work."
"Ah, mediocrity. My favorite."
The panels shattered, dissolving into glowing particles.
A new light bloomed beneath Arthur's feet. Runes swirled, forming a radiant sigil. The ground rippled like disturbed water.
"You'll keep your memories. You'll have a body. A place. A name."
The glow intensified.
Arthur shaded his eyes. "Wait—you said I'd study magic. There is magic in that world, right?"
The god's mouth widened into a sick grin.
"Magic?"
Arthur hesitated. "Yeah."
"There's no such thing there."
The light roared. The symbols cracked open the void beneath him.
"You'll be the first, Arthur Bell. Good luck figuring it out."
Arthur screamed.
The world pulled him down.
The first thing he noticed was how heavy everything felt.
Limbs like wet sandbags. Muscles that refused to listen. A throat too soft to support air, much less words. He couldn't breathe right. Couldn't move right. Couldn't even turn his head.
He was alive again—but in the worst possible shape.
The screaming came naturally. The panic in his lungs exploded outward, filling the grand birthing chamber with noise. It wasn't conscious—just the body reacting, howling to exist.
Then silence followed.
Not from him. From everyone else.
All voices in the room stopped. The midwives. The attendants. The bishop. Even the physician who had helped deliver him. For a moment, the only sound was the fluttering of candlelight and the soft breathing of a newly born child.
Then came the whispers.
"By the gods... look at his eyes."
"No, no—it's not just gold. Look again. There's something in them."
"Stars... they're shaped like stars."
"Is he cursed?"
"Or touched by heaven?"
The bishop stepped forward, robes dragging across polished stone. His hands trembled as he leaned in.
"The child's pupils are stars," he breathed. "Five-pointed, golden as a sun. There are no records of this in scripture. None."
Lady Fionne, pale and soaked in sweat, held the baby closer. "Then it's a miracle," she whispered hoarsely. "A gift."
Her husband, Marquis Gaunder Light, gave only a brief glance. "Hmph. Then the heavens favor him. Good. We could use more favor."
He turned and left without another word, cloak fluttering behind him.
Arthur, now Arthur Light, blinked slowly in his mother's arms—quiet again.
Stars in my eyes…?
It took him a full day to understand what had happened.
That he had died. That he had been reborn. That he was no longer in England, no longer in London, no longer even in a modern world.
And worst of all… that his body no longer obeyed him.
This is insane, his inner voice muttered. Why can't I move my fingers? I can think, I can reason, but I can't even lift my hand? What kind of sick reincarnation is this?!
Every little movement was a struggle. Turning his neck took nearly a full week. Lifting his arm? Two weeks. And his vision… his cursed, golden-star vision… never turned off.
The first time he saw them, he thought he was hallucinating.
It was night. The firelight was dim. His crib sat near the open window, the moon spilling white-gold shadows over the marble floors.
And then — a thread.
A thin, golden filament drifting lazily across the air near the ceiling. Glimmering like a cobweb in candlelight. Unmoving… and yet alive.
Another floated near the window. Then another by the door. Spirals. Threads. Patterns.
Not dust.
Not wind.
Something else.
What... is that?
He tried to cry out. Not with sound. With his mind. With his eyes.
The threads didn't react.
But they were everywhere.
Over the next few days, he saw more. Always golden. Always faint. Always drifting. No one reacted to them. Not the nurses. Not his mother. Not even the curious old bishop who returned several times to examine his strange "divine" eyes.
They all looked through the threads. As if they weren't real.
And maybe they weren't.
Is this mana? he asked himself. Or am I just going mad already?
He stopped crying soon after that.
Not because he wasn't hungry or uncomfortable—but because crying didn't matter. It was a primitive function of the body. His mind rejected it.
Instead, he observed.
He stared at the golden strands for hours, tracking their movement. They were slow. Gentle. Organic. They seemed to drift with things. Behind people. Along walls. Around corners.
Sometimes, they curled like smoke. Other times, they danced like silk in water.
But no one reacted.
His mother visited often—Lady Fionne. Soft voice. Tired eyes. She would sing lullabies and speak to him gently. He liked her. She didn't understand him, but she treated him like a person, not an object.
"Sleep well, little star," she'd whisper each night. "You'll shine brighter than your brother ever did."
The brother in question—a ten-year-old named Darian Light—was a phantom figure in Arthur's newborn life. Sometimes visible through the open nursery door, walking in polished boots, flanked by tutors and armed retainers.
He trained with swords. Rode horses. Recited history.
He never looked at Arthur.
Their father, Gaunder Light, appeared once a week at most. He said nothing. Gave one glance to ensure the child hadn't died. Then left.
So that's how this family works… power above blood.
It made sense. Arthur didn't resent it. He preferred it this way. Distance meant freedom.
At roughly five weeks old, Arthur began tracking the threads more aggressively.
He couldn't move well yet, but he could watch. Memorize. His eyes, star-pupiled and sharp, mapped patterns the way mathematicians map constellations.
He noticed the threads pooled in certain places—corners, near iron fixtures, under old wooden floorboards. They were denser when the air was colder. Weaker during heat.
He saw that they lingered around living things.
But never visibly affected anything.
This world doesn't have magic, he reminded himself. The god said so. And yet... these threads are here.
He bit down on his lip until his newborn body began to whimper.
Not from pain.
From frustration.
Two months passed.
Every hour crawled. Arthur had read books faster than this in his past life. He'd learned programming languages in a week. But now, it took days just to learn to turn his head smoothly.
And still, the threads tormented him.
"Are you… real?" he whispered one night, his voice a scratchy breath no louder than a breeze. He was testing his speech in private, in a room with no witnesses.
The threads shimmered faintly. No reply.
"I think you are. But I don't know what you are."
He closed his eyes. His infant body longed for rest. But his mind spun in loops.
"Is this mana? Or something else? Am I insane?"
No answer.
Only stars in his pupils and golden strands in the air.
On the morning of what marked his third month, he said his first full word aloud. On purpose. Alone.
"Mana."
It was soft. Perfectly formed. No baby-like lisp. No struggle.
Just the word.
It felt forbidden somehow. Like naming a dead god.
He said it again.
"Mana."
Still nothing changed.
But when a maid entered minutes later and locked eyes with him, her tray slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor.
She stared, mouth trembling.
"I—I swear I just heard him speak."
The room went still.
Arthur did not repeat the word.
Not yet, he thought. Not until I understand what I'm seeing. Not until I know what they are.
He turned his gaze back toward the floating thread above his crib.
The world had given him no magic.
But these golden strands…
They would be his first hypothesis.
The Light Estate was a world unto itself. Gilded halls. Hanging silks. Marble staircases and iron-framed windows that gazed down over vast green gardens and training yards. Every hour was filled with purpose—servants cleaning, guards drilling, nobles whispering behind velvet doors.
But none of them saw what Arthur saw.
He lay in silence, a three-month-old with the mind of a scholar, staring up at threads of glowing gold that twisted lazily through the nursery air.
He still hadn't proven they were mana.
There was no reference point. No tutor to confirm it. No book in the library with diagrams or spell glyphs. This wasn't a world where magic had gone extinct or underground.
It had never existed.
The closest comparison Arthur could find were the old philosophical texts the maids read aloud to each other. Theories of "life energy," of "ethereal will" passed down from the gods. But even those were treated more like bedtime tales than doctrine.
And yet the threads persisted.
They weren't hallucinations. Not unless he had hallucinated the same patterns for ninety straight days with perfect visual consistency. They responded to movement, sometimes curling toward people, sometimes shrinking away.
He watched one cling faintly to a guard's sword hilt one morning, just for a moment, before vanishing.
That event stayed with him.
The next time the maid opened the wooden toy chest in the corner of the room, he noticed a cluster of threads pooling beneath it.
He made a sound—not a word, but a soft whimper—and reached for it with trembling hands. The maid, startled, quickly distracted him with a velvet doll.
He didn't take his eyes off the chest.
That night, when the moonlight spilled through the tall windows, he turned his gaze back to the same spot.
The threads were gone.
But when he stared at his own fingers, he noticed a strange detail—his bones glowed faintly.
Not visible to normal eyes, of course. But with his golden pupils, he saw a network of internal light. Not quite veins. Not quite nerves. Like latticework. Thin lines that shimmered and pulsed faintly in synchrony with the threads around him.
His heart skipped.
This isn't metaphorical. This is real. There's a system. A structure.
He flexed his infant hand. The glow dimmed, then surged.
He stopped moving. It steadied.
He tried again—more deliberately. Slow motion. He thought about pulling the threads in, toward his chest.
Nothing happened.
He breathed out through his nose, frustrated.
It's too early. This body's too weak.
Later that week, he was carried to the grand salon for his mother's monthly gathering.
Lady Fionne Light had taken to dressing him like a tiny prince—gold-trimmed white tunics and silk booties, even though he couldn't yet walk. She sat him upright on a plush pillow beside her chair, a position where he could observe and listen.
He didn't care about noble gossip or wine preferences.
He was watching the walls.
The salon had columns carved with stylized lions and angels. Between them, hanging mirrors and polished bronze plates reflected sunlight that struck at odd angles.
And in every reflection, threads danced.
More here than anywhere else.
Some trailed near a harp in the corner. Some curled upward from an incense brazier. But most interestingly, a few of them coiled tighter when certain people passed.
One such person: a knight-captain with a deep scar on his cheek. As he passed through the salon to deliver a message, the threads wrapped around his shoulders for a split second—then disappeared.
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
Do they react to power? Or will?
He reached toward them with nothing but concentration. No motion. No noise.
One thread hesitated in the air. Wavered. Tilted slightly toward him.
Then stopped.
Arthur fell backward in his seat, his infant muscles too weak to stay upright. The maid caught him with a yelp and quickly repositioned him. Lady Fionne barely noticed—deep in conversation with another noblewoman.
But Arthur was silent now.
Eyes wide.
He had seen it. Just for an instant.
The thread had moved.
That night, he tested again.
He waited until the moon was highest, when the room was still and the air cold. The stars overhead poured silvery light through the open skylight. A few threads spun lazily above his crib like sleepy fireflies.
He focused on one.
Come to me, he thought.
Not a command. Not spoken. Just intent.
The thread quivered.
Arthur's breathing hitched.
Do it again.
It did.
Just barely.
He felt nothing—no power, no surge, no warmth. But the thread had obeyed. Or responded. Or… maybe just drifted at the right time?
No, he thought. That wasn't coincidence. That was will.
He began building a mental framework.
By now, Arthur had started silently naming the pieces of what he saw.
Threads — the base units. Drifting energy lines that seem passive, natural.
Lattice — the inner pattern in his body. Probably unique to him. Maybe everyone has it. But no one else sees it.
Density Pools — where threads gather. Always around metal, stone, or focused emotion.
Tether Reactions — the brief "pull" moments when threads seemed to shift in response to attention.
It wasn't science yet.
It wasn't even magic.
It was... proto-magic. A system beneath the skin of the world.
But with each new revelation came a heavier question.
Why doesn't anyone else see this?
Was the world so blind?
Or was he simply mad?
He didn't know. He had no one to talk to. No textbooks. No peer-reviewed articles.
Only golden strands. And silence.
The maids had stopped speaking around him as much. At first, they thought him a quiet child—divine, perhaps, or precocious. But now… they seemed nervous.
Too quiet. Too observant. Too knowing.
He listened. He watched. He never cried.
And his eyes—those damned star-shaped eyes—shimmered even in the dark.
One night, a maid whispered near the door:
"I swear he's not normal."
"Hush," another hissed. "He's blessed. The marquis said so."
"He watches. All the time. Like he knows."
Arthur said nothing.
He let them speak.
He wouldn't give them reason to look closer.
Not yet.
The days passed like a slow fever.
Arthur Light, second son of Marquis Gaunder, had lived nearly a year beneath the carved ceilings and high stained glass of the Light family estate—and in that time, no one had seen him cry.
Not once.
He babbled when expected. Laughed when prompted. But only briefly. Just enough to keep suspicion at bay. He'd long since realized how uneasy his silence made the staff. Even his mother—kind as she was—had begun watching him with a touch of reverence… or fear.
But it was fine. It gave him space. Space to observe. To think.
And now—to move.
He had learned to walk.
Clumsily, yes. On legs that trembled like reeds. But he could manage four, sometimes five steps if he used the walls for support. Hands outstretched. Tiny fingers brushing stone and tapestry to guide him.
He moved in silence through the corridors of the east wing, his golden star-pupiled eyes drinking in the world. Soft carpets. Candled sconces. Polished railings. Footsteps echoed at all hours—guards, nurses, the shuffling of cloaks and boots—but no one questioned a child near his own room.
Most assumed the maids watched him. The maids assumed his mother did. His mother trusted the guards. And Gaunder Light, of course, did not ask.
So Arthur roamed.
His first destination—whether by luck or instinct—was a quiet hallway wrapped in old red velvet, lined with portraits of previous Light family members. It was here, behind two wide iron doors, that he found it:
The Library.
It wasn't locked.
No one assumed a child this small could read. No one believed he could walk this far.
He stared at the handles—taller than he was—and reached for the gap between them. With effort, he squeezed through.
His breath caught.
The room beyond was cathedral-like, circular, its walls lined with rising bookshelves, spiral ladders, and hanging chains with dimly flickering lanterns. The air smelled of paper and age.
And—yes—threads.
The golden strands danced here like fireflies. Thick, slow, heavy. Denser than anywhere else he had ever been. They moved lazily between pages, circling titles. Lingering over open tomes. Some seemed to pulse in time with his own heartbeat.
Arthur stood in the center of the room, tiny fists clenched, wide-eyed.
This is it, he thought. If anything will tell me what these are... it's here.
He climbed first.
Not far—just the first shelf.
The lower level held children's books, simple scripture, and family ledgers. But Arthur wasn't looking for storybooks. He opened a thin volume bound in green leather.
The text inside: flawless script, formal and narrow. He read it immediately.
He had spent months listening. Watching lips. Observing syntax. The Light tongue was close enough to old English that it hadn't taken him long to decipher.
But reading wasn't enough anymore.
He needed to write.
He needed a way to preserve theories, ideas, models of how the threads moved. Mental structure could only hold so much.
He found a loose scrap of parchment in a side drawer. Then a quill.
He stared at it.
His fingers shook. The hand was too small. Too weak. But he placed the feather in his grip as he'd done years ago on Earth and began dragging it across the page.
The result was miserable. A smudge. A broken curve.
He grit his teeth and tried again.
Letter by letter, he thought. You did this once. You'll do it again.
He spent the rest of the afternoon etching single letters into the page—shaky, imprecise, but improving with each stroke.
That night, during his bath, the maids noticed the ink-stained fingers.
"You've been touching the inkstones, haven't you?" one tutted. "Curious little thing."
Arthur didn't respond. He merely looked at her with quiet eyes.
She hesitated—then quickly looked away.
The next morning, the estate began to buzz with movement.
His first birthday was approaching. A minor but respectable event in noble households. An occasion for gifts, prayers, and noble appearances—especially with a child as "special" as Arthur Light.
Guards polished their breastplates. Tapestries were dusted. The bishop arrived early to bless the boy again. Darian, Arthur's older brother, sulked at the added attention, though he never said a word to Arthur directly.
And Gaunder?
He gave the order for the preparations, attended two meetings, signed a dozen writs, and retired to his study.
He had not touched his son since the day of his birth.
Arthur did not care.
The birthday celebration came and went in polite efficiency.
He was dressed in gold-trimmed silk. Held by his mother for a formal audience with a visiting knight. Handed a ceremonial token of the Light house: a small lion-shaped pendant carved from sunstone.
He did not smile.
He watched the people instead—the way their eyes slid away from his. The way their laughter dimmed in his presence. Even when the bishop declared his eyes a "blessing from the Firmament," the crowd's applause had a rehearsed quality.
They didn't understand him.
Couldn't.
And one day, he thought coldly, they'll realize what that means.
That night, back in the library, Arthur stared down at the half-inked parchment he had hidden beneath a false bottom drawer in a side cabinet.
The writing had improved.
He could now scrawl several characters without his hand trembling. Slowly. Awkwardly. But clear enough to read.
He opened a book titled Cosmic Patterns and Their Philosophies. It was mostly nonsense—religious speculation on celestial movement—but it gave him terminology.
"Thread"
"Channel"
"Pulse"
"Spiritual Current"
He copied the terms and attached them to his own ideas.
Then drew.
His first diagram: a childlike sketch of the manor, annotated with where the threads were strongest.
They move with us, he wrote in shaky letters. But they do not touch us. Not unless I make them.
Outside, the moon rose again.
Arthur's starry eyes reflected the light like a mirror.
He smiled faintly.
Tomorrow, he would start forming hypotheses. Try again to pull the threads. Shape them. Provoke reaction.
But not yet.
Tonight, he was simply Arthur Light.
The child who watched.
The ink dried slowly on the parchment. Arthur blew on it softly, careful not to smear the characters.
They were shaky, sure. Uneven. But they were legible.
He sat cross-legged on the floor of the far corner of the library, surrounded by pillows he'd dragged from the nursery, hidden under a tapestry of sun lions and holy emblems. The librarians rarely came this far—only once every few days to dust.
It was his spot now.
His little lab.
A scratched-up board served as his desk. One candle. One inkwell. A few salvaged pages from discarded books. That was all he had.
But he was building something.
Or trying to.
"Alright," he whispered, glancing around.
No one. Good.
He stared at the thread hovering just above the page—thin, golden, slow-moving. It had drifted in when he opened the book on spiritual harmony. Like it was attracted to the topic.
"Do you… react to ideas?" he asked under his breath. "Or is it just coincidence?"
The thread didn't move.
Arthur frowned. "Okay, maybe you don't like being talked to."
He reached a tiny finger upward, slowly, gently, almost reverently—
The thread twitched.
Arthur jerked back, heart pounding. His breath caught in his throat.
Wait… that wasn't the wind. That was real.
He leaned in again, calmer this time. Focused. It was like… trying to make a butterfly land on your finger. Don't force it. Just invite it.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he murmured, voice soft and strange in the candlelight. "I just want to know what you are."
He held his breath.
The thread moved closer—just a bit. It pulsed. Almost like it shimmered at his thoughts.
Then it vanished.
Gone in an instant.
Arthur stared at the empty air for a long time, eyes wide.
"…You're alive," he whispered. "Or… kinda. Maybe."
It wasn't scientific. It wasn't certain.
But it was something.
The next hour passed in silence, broken only by the scratch of quill on parchment.
He drew a line across the page and labeled it drifter.
Not very original, but it worked.
Then a rough sketch of the corner where the thread had vanished.
"Disappears near books," he wrote slowly, words forming like bricks in his mind. "Moves more when I focus on it. Might be reacting to thought… or maybe intent? I dunno."
He tapped the quill to his lip.
"…So you're not just random, huh?"
He looked up at the ceiling. No more threads at the moment. They came and went. He hadn't figured out the pattern yet.
"They're like… not ghosts. Not wind. But not light either." His brows furrowed. "They're like... smoke that wants something."
He paused.
Then smirked to himself.
"…God, I sound insane."
He leaned back against the wall, one hand resting across his knee. His small fingers twitched occasionally—out of boredom, out of nervous energy.
Why me? he thought. Why give me this skill? Why give me these eyes?
The god had called it "Magic Eyes", hadn't he?
So that had to be what this was. Right?
But if I have the eyes… where's the magic?
His gaze drifted to the bookshelves. So many volumes. So much wasted writing. Philosophy. Theology. Strategy. Not a single mention of mana. Not even as folklore.
"This place is so blind," he muttered. "It's like no one even noticed the sky's the wrong color."
He hugged his knees to his chest, suddenly small.
"I don't even know if I'm the first… or the only."
Footsteps.
Arthur froze.
His tiny body stiffened like a statue. He tucked the parchment under the pillow and grabbed the candle—snuffed it instantly. Silence. Darkness.
He stayed like that for nearly a minute, heart pounding in his ears.
Then the sound faded. Just a patrolling maid, maybe.
But he stayed hidden for another hour, just in case.
When he finally emerged, the halls were quiet.
He kept one hand on the wall as he walked—barefoot, shaky steps—but steadier now. The walking was getting easier.
"Still not fast," he muttered to himself. "But I'll get there."
His eyes scanned the corridor.
The threads were light tonight. Only a few. Curling softly near the ceiling, as if they were resting.
Arthur exhaled.
"I'll learn how to touch you one day," he said to the air. "Not just watch. Not just hope."
He stopped at the doorway to his nursery and looked back toward the library.
"I'm gonna make magic real," he whispered.
"And I don't care if I have to do it alone."