Morning light slanted through the Ether-laced vines of Ellowyn's window, but today, it carried no warmth. It fell pale and strained, as though the sky itself was holding its breath. The city stirred to life beyond her walls with familiar rhythms, the distant chimes, the quiet murmur of artisans opening their workshops, yet everything felt subtly wrong.
Ellowyn sat on the edge of her bed, her fingers absently tugging at a loose thread in her sleeve. A quiet unease had settled in her chest like mist, curling tighter with each passing breath. The memory of last night's laughter, the glow of firelight and music, seemed strangely fragile in the cool hush of morning, like something dreamt.
In the market square, as she made her way toward the Ether fields, the usual gentle bustle was threaded with hushed voices. Snatches of conversation drifted past:
"Taken in the night, they say."
"Re-education. Just temporary… surely."
"Talanar. Poor boy. Should have kept his mouth shut."
Ellowyn stopped. The name hit her like a stone dropped in still water. Talanar.
She remembered his voice by the fire, both reckless and searching. She remembered the look in Aeryn's eyes when he had rested a hand on his friend's shoulder. That look held weight.
Without thinking, she turned and walked in the direction of the patrol barracks.
As she arrives she notices Aeryn standing outside, speaking quietly with another guardian. His armor caught the morning light, though his expression looked dimmed by weariness. When he noticed her, he straightened and gave a strained smile.
"Ellie. Shouldn't you be with the herbalist team?" Aeryn said.
"I heard," she said. Ellowyn's voice faltered. "About Talanar."
The smile faded. Aeryn rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes shifting away.
"He'll be fine," he said too quickly. "Just re-education. A misunderstanding. They'll set him straight and send him home in no time."
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 and teasing, had closed like a gate. Some doors, she realized, not even a brother would open.
She nodded, then turned away back to her duties as herbalist. However, The silence between them left a weight that words couldn't lift.
-break-
The Blue Forest should have soothed her. It always had. The trees still shimmered with flowing Ether, and the blossoms still leaned toward the morning light. But today, the forest felt quieter than usual, still alive, but subdued, as if holding something back.
The wind rustled through the leaves with strange murmurs she couldn't quite decipher. Even the Ether currents beneath her hands hummed lower, heavier.
Ellowyn joined the herbalist team, her body moving through the routine without thought. She plucked blooms and sealed their energy into the woven satchels, but her mind drifted elsewhere.
Then, like a ripple across still water, she felt it. A presence. Familiar. Intimate. A pull through the Ether itself, as if her name had been spoken without sound. She straightened and turned, her eyes scanning the trees.
There. A flicker of copper fur. Just a flash, quickly hidden. Rikuin. Here? She thought in surprised and concerned.
It was far too early, their meeting wasn't until twilight, and he rarely approached during working hours. She placed a steadying hand against her satchel, heart pounding. She couldn't leave, not with so many eyes watching. Catching his gaze through the trees, she gave the smallest shake of her head and mouthed, Wait.
On that Rikuin's golden eyes disappeared into the shadows.
Ellowyn forced herself to finish the morning's work, handed her satchel to Ysilwen with a quiet apology, and turned to leave.
"Tell the others I... I've got a call to deliver," she said, already stepping away before the confusion behind her could become a question.
She slipped into the hidden trails, moving swiftly toward the glade where the Ether softened and the wild light never dimmed.
As she rushed to their common meeting place, she found him in a hollow shrouded by weeping vines and trembling light. In the clearing beneath the veil of vines, the air felt wrong. It carried the usual scent of crushed leaves, but underneath it lingered something metallic and sharp, something that made her throat tighten.
Rikuin stepped forward from the shadows.
Ellowyn gasped tumbling back on what she saw. Rikuin's 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 torn, his breathing ragged as he leaned against a gnarled trunk.
Yet even wounded, his golden eyes found hers.
"Ellie..." His voice was barely more than a whisper.
Ellowyn rushed forward instinctively. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she reached toward him, then hesitated, afraid to make it worse.
"Rikuin, what happened?" she asked, her voice catching.
He gave a weak smile. "My home. Caelarion Glade... it's under attack." swallowing hard, as if even speaking cost him strength.
She stilled. Her fingers hovered near his scarf, trembling. "By what?"
Rikuin's gaze darkened, flickering toward the distant trees beyond the dome.
"Shadows," he said. His voice lost its softness. "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, so I could heal you?"
"No, 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 eyes held no blame. Only 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." Holding out his hand to her.
For a moment, her hand lifted,
Her fingers hovered close, just barely touching the air between them. The faint, pulsing shimmer of the dome in the distance suddenly felt suffocating.
Then she pulled away.
Her heart cried yes.
But the fear to 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. But, I can heal you.. Let me treat you, please" Urging in thoughts as tears continued to run down her delicate cheeks.
Rikuin watched her with quiet sadness, and nodded as it this was an expected answer.
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 within the shadows. "Just don't let fear be the only voice you hear."
And then, he vanished into the mist, leaving Ellowyn alone beneath the whispering trees, her heart heavy with something she didn't know how to name.
-break-
That night, Ellowyn had not slept. A constant, terrifying memory of Rikuin's wounded figure stayed with her, sharper than any dream. She kept on staring 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 bed.
Morning brought no relief. The streets of Yal Elunore buzzed softly as always, tradesmen setting out their goods, scholars bent over scrolls as usual routine, but beneath the practiced smiles and measured steps, a tremor of unease lingered. And so did the constant 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:
"Talanar Vaelwyn hasn't been seen since."
"They'll set him straight, if they haven't already."
"Young minds need guidance before they turn dangerous."
Ellowyn's stomach twisted painfully as 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 bending, sigil crafting, and record-keeping, hoping to find Talanar among the students. In here, the halls were so quiet that her footsteps echoed against the polished floor.
On that, 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... for re-education."
The tutor gave a small smile, too controlled to be kind.
"You need not concern yourself, child. Talanar Vaelwyn is receiving the guidance he needs elsewhere. Focus on your own duties." She said without even meeting Ellowyn's eyes
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 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 her fabric as her footsteps echoed against the floor as the final answer.
Leaving Ellowyn alone in the vaulted corridor, where she stood frozen for a moment as the polished tiles gleamed 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 she departed from the Academy, 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 would always meet.
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."
But only the sighing leaves answered her.
"I should have trusted you," she pressed on. "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 again. And again.
Each time, she waited and called the same words while bringing small offerings for her dear friend, moonberry tarts, still warm from the kitchens, knowing they had once made him laugh and curse at their stickiness.
She kept on waiting every single day for over a week, constantly repeating her pleas.
"Please... come back.
Please be safe." as tears continued flooding her eyes.
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 misty evening, when the first stars were just beginning to bleed through the sky, a coppery figure slipped through the trees' shade.
At first, Ellowyn's heart soared. "Rikuin!" she gasped, rising from the moss.
But as the figure stepped into the half-light, she saw it was not Rikuin. It was another Kinitu, female, slightly smaller, her copper fur darker, her golden eyes harder, colder, carrying a strange aura, cloaked in dusk and grief.
The Kinitu held up a hand in front of her. "Stop calling," she said sharply, voice rough with exhaustion. "The forest can't bear your cries anymore."
Ellowyn's heart twisted painfully, moving forward to this new face.
"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 in Ellowyn's hands without a word. Ellowyn stared down at it, tears slipping past her lashes. The cloth still held the sun's warmth, but it felt cold in her grip. Something felt wrong in her hands, a familiar touch of the cloth nearly broke her.
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, collapsing headlong 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.
As the Kinitu was leaving, she paused for one final moment. Her voice softened, almost like a lullaby meant for a child long gone.
"In the end, you were all he called for," she said.
Without waiting for an answer, the Kinitu stepped into the mist and vanished from sight.
After hearing those final words, Ellowyn felt the world collapsing around her, haunted by the thought that she had left him with nothing but silence, not even a goodbye. The tiny red scarf pressed desperately to her heart, while the towering forest stood silent, indifferent, around the small, broken shape of her grief.
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 to grieve beside her. 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 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.