(Third-Person Limited — Lysera, Age 7)
Morning came quietly, without the usual precision. Lysera woke later than she meant to—no more than a handful of minutes, yet enough to make the air feel misaligned. Her eyelashes fluttered once, twice, and the unfamiliar weight of her own sleep clung to her cheek like the last trace of dream-warmth.
She sat up slowly. The blankets resisted in a soft tangle, as though even the bed refused to follow the rhythm she expected. A stray lock of her wavy hair slid across her shoulder, catching the morning light. Normally it fell neatly; today it twisted on itself, a delicate disobedience. When she reached for the brush, the bristles snagged—not painfully, just insistently—as if her hair had its own opinion about how mornings should begin.
She breathed out, a small white sigh in the half-lit room. Nothing was wrong. But nothing aligned either. The world felt like a song played half a beat too slow.
I. Walk Through a Misaligned Morning
The corridor outside her room hummed with the usual quiet bustle—maids carrying linens, the faint clatter of breakfast trays, the murmured prayers drifting from the household shrine alcove. All of it familiar, yet somehow... not.
As Lysera stepped into the hall, she noticed it: The servants' movements bent subtly around her. Not avoidance. Not fear. Just a shift in rhythm.
Steps shortened, long strides softened, the weight distribution of passing bodies adjusted without conscious thought. It was as if the entire hallway made room for her without knowing why. They were physically accommodating an absence of presence.
Lysera paused, her frost-grey eyes narrowing slightly. The air brushed her cheek, cool and inquisitive. She didn't mind the space, but she felt it. Space that had not been requested. Space that had not existed yesterday.
When she resumed walking, the corridor seemed to correct itself in her wake—objects settling, the light on the wall softening its tone, footsteps returning to their prior cadence. But only after she passed.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing supernatural. Just... a world that had momentarily forgotten its own choreography.
II. Maiden's Academy — A New Pulse Beneath the Routine
The Academy's courtyard tasted faintly of dew and late winter. Lysera's breath formed a thin mist as she crossed the stone path, her posture quiet, shoulders slightly angled inward the way she had been taught.
Small groups of girls stood scattered across the courtyard, tying veils, warming their hands near ember-lamps, or practicing the morning bow.
Something strange happened as Lysera neared them. Their circle didn't open for her—nor did it close. It simply reshaped.
As though the geometry of the group bent subtly to maintain a perfect arc around her presence. A few girls blinked, confused at their own legs shifting without intention. Others tilted their heads minutely, trying to understand why their spacing felt off for a heartbeat.
One girl—older, sharp-eyed—watched Lysera walk by with the expression of someone studying a page of script whose letters kept rearranging. Not fear in her gaze. Not disdain. But a kind of academic curiosity, too intense for children their age. She was measuring the anomaly.
Lysera kept her eyes forward. Her face remained passive, save for the faint pink tint rising along her cheekbones—the delicate flush that visited her whenever she became aware of too many eyes at once. Her fingers tightened around her satchel strap, knuckles pale. Still, she did not falter.
III. Sister Thyren — A New Instructor, A New Kind of Scrutiny
The morning lesson began in the lower practice hall, where sunlight filtered through latticed panels, scattering geometric patterns across the polished floor.
Sister Thyren stood at the center—new to the Academy, her presence crisp and measured. She was young compared to the other instructors, her robe a clean silver-grey tied with practical knots. Her hair, braided tightly, barely moved when she turned.
"Today," she said, her voice clear and without unnecessary warmth,
"we begin Disciplinary Movement: the study of rhythm, posture, and unspoken communication."
A few girls groaned softly. This was a noblewoman's version of military drill—precision, grace, and endless corrections.
Lysera, however, felt something settle inside her. A quiet alignment. Movement made sense to her. Space made sense.
Sister Thyren demonstrated a simple sequence: One step forward. Diagonal shift. Turn of the shoulder. Controlled breath.
The class followed with stumbling attempts. Lysera's turn came. Her feet moved as though listening to an internal grid. Her shoulders sloped with natural calibration. Even her breathing matched the fractional pauses between steps.
The room seemed to inhale. Sister Thyren approached, her expression unreadable.
"Again," she said softly.
Lysera repeated the sequence. This time more slowly, revealing the subtleties—tiny shifts in balance that no one had taught her, a nearly invisible adjustment of weight to prevent unnecessary noise, a precision that felt almost instinctual.
Sister Thyren's eyes narrowed—not in suspicion, but in appreciation tinged with bewilderment. "You read the room," she murmured. "Not the pattern."
A strange compliment. It implied the world was a flexible thing, not a fixed chart.
Lysera dipped her head, unsure how to respond.
IV. Serin, A Ribbon, and an Unsteady Kindness
After the lesson, Lysera lingered near the practice mats, collecting her things with careful, deliberate gestures. Her hands shook faintly—residual tremors from pushing herself to match a rhythm she didn't fully understand.
A small voice broke through: "Lysera?"
Serin stood there, clutching something between her fingers. Her hand trembled slightly, not from cold, but from making a choice against the tide. A ribbon—faded rose-red, edges damp from the morning dew.
"I... found this on the terrace. I think it might be yours."
Lysera blinked. The soft flush dusted her cheeks again. She accepted the ribbon with both hands, her fingertips brushing Serin's by accident. Serin flinched—not from fear, but from surprise at the intrinsic coldness of Lysera's skin.
"Thank you," Lysera said, her voice low, controlled.
Serin offered a shy half-smile before retreating. Mirelle, who stood behind her, tugged her sleeve nervously and whispered something. Lysera wasn't close enough to hear—but she saw Mirelle looking at her with eyes that weren't hostile, merely overwhelmed by not knowing which rules applied to her.
Lysera tied the ribbon loosely at her wrist. For a moment, the world felt warmer. A small, quiet anchor against the creeping miscalculation.
V. The Mirror That Lost Its Timing
The corridor leading to the upper terrace held a tall ritual mirror—used to teach girls how posture reflected nobility.
When Lysera stepped before it, the glass trembled. A soft breath of fog crept along its bottom edge, thin as frost on morning windows. The glass was protesting the thermal exchange.
The mirror's surface lagged a heartbeat before forming her reflection: Hair slightly undone from movement. Ribbon loose around her wrist. Eyes too still for a child.
Then the reflection blinked— a moment too late.
Lysera stiffened. The delay was tiny—half a second, no more—and yet it struck her more deeply than the flame-lamps ever had. Flame had always responded to lineage, to metaphysics, to things she didn't understand. But a mirror was just glass. Just light.
She lifted a hand toward her chin. Her reflection followed—late again. Her pulse fluttered high in her throat.
Someone behind her whispered, "Did you see that?"
Another girl murmured, "It's just the lighting... isn't it?"
Sister Thyren stepped closer, squinting at the mirror. But when she reached it, the surface steadied—perfect, obedient, utterly ordinary.
"Reflections are unreliable in cross-light," she said calmly. A practiced dismissal of the anomaly.
It was meant to reassure the girls. But her gaze flicked once toward Lysera— sharp, speculative.
VI. Evening — The Letter That Smelled of Cold Wind
Lysera returned home in the late afternoon, the sky already dimming into the blue-grey of early dusk. Her steps were soft along the carved hallway that led to her room.
A sealed envelope awaited her on the desk. The paper felt thin and brittle.
Pressed wax carried the crest of House Asterion—a stag crossed with a downward flame. Her breath caught. She broke the seal carefully.
The Letter
My dearest Lysera,
Forgive my absence tonight. The northern watchposts reported unusual winds—too early, too cold for this season. Nothing dangerous, only irregular. But a lord should see such things for himself. I suspect this irregularity is simply a matter of resource allocation and miscalculation by the border Priests, but my caution dictates a physical inspection.
I will be traveling between the outer villages and the small fort at Arinwell Ridge. I expect to return in two or three days, before the first frost settles.
I hope your lessons have not wearied you, and that you do not feel alone in them. Even when I am far, my thoughts return to the estate, and to you. You are more often in my thoughts than you know.
If the world feels uneven at your feet, do not be troubled. It happened to me today, too. The greatest strength of the Asterion line is not the Flame, but the ability to observe the world without demanding that it conform to expectations.
Auremis Asterion
Lysera lowered the page slowly. Her chest ached—not sharply, but with a diffuse heaviness that spread like bruising under the skin. She imagined her father standing on some cold ridge, cloak snapping in the wind, eyes narrowed toward a horizon she had never seen.
He sounded tired. He sounded worried. And he did not want her to know the extent of his fear.
She folded the letter along its original crease, smoothing it with a fingertip. The paper warmed slightly beneath her touch—but only slightly. A gust of wind slipped through the window lattice, brushing her hair back. The air smelled of stone, pine, and something faintly metallic drifting from the direction of the northern borders.
Lysera closed her eyes. The world had a rhythm. She could sense it now— a quiet pulse beneath the surface.
Today, it had missed a step. And somewhere along the distant ridges of Asterion, something else had missed it too.
She placed the letter against her chest, steadying her breath in the fading light. For the first time, she wondered: What happens to a world when its rhythm and mine refuse to match?
The question hung in the dark like a suspended note— weightless, waiting, inevitable.