The stars were sharp and brilliant above the Enclave ruins, scattered like silver shards across the dark velvet of the sky. A cool wind brushed across the broken stones, carrying with it the scents of smoke, dust, and the faint, distant promise of rain.
In the heart of the old fortress, four young figures gathered around a low-burning fire. Their shadows danced long and thin against the crumbling walls as they sat close, the last warmth of the day soaking into their tired bodies.
Cael, Fen, Iris, and Sidney.
Four strangers once.Now something more — although none of them yet dared to name it.
Fen was the first to break the comfortable silence, tossing a small stick into the fire and watching it crackle.
"You know," he said, stretching out his legs and leaning back on his elbows, "I've been thinking."
"That's dangerous," Iris murmured, smirking faintly.
Fen laughed, unbothered.
"I mean it," he said. "I don't just want to fix up the old house anymore. Not really."
He stared up at the stars, something raw and aching in his voice.
"I want to do something great. Something... that matters."
The fire popped, and for a moment none of them spoke.
Then Iris leaned forward, elbows on her knees, green eyes gleaming.
"What does 'great' mean to you?"
Fen shrugged, but his smile was lopsided and sincere.
"I don't know yet," he admitted. "Something more than just surviving, you know? I don't wanna wake up forty years from now and realize all I did was scrape by. I wanna leave something behind."
"Like a legacy," Cael said quietly.
Fen nodded.
"Yeah. Exactly."
They sat with that thought for a while, each chewing it over in their own way.
Finally, Iris spoke.
"I just want to be strong enough that no one can ever take anything from me again."
Her voice was steady, but her hands were clenched into fists on her knees.
"I don't care about glory or fame or whatever. I just... I want freedom."
Fen nodded solemnly, respecting that.
Cael poked at the fire with a stick, watching the embers flare.
"I want strength too," he said, voice low and intense. "But not just any strength."
He looked up, his pale eyes catching the firelight like twin shards of ice.
"I need to understand what real strength is. Not just power. Not just cores and Awakening stages. The kind of strength that no one — not gods, not kings — can tear down."
He paused, breathing out slowly.
"And I think the only way to find it is to travel. To see the world. To learn from it."
For a long moment, the only sound was the crackle of the flames and the sigh of the wind.
Then Sidney stirred.
He was sitting a little apart from the others, wrapped in a heavy cloak against the chill. His face was pale, but there was a spark of life in his dark eyes that hadn't been there when he'd first awoken.
"You'll need to start somewhere," he said, his voice smooth and measured.
All three turned to look at him.
Sidney smiled slightly, as if amused by their unspoken suspicion.
"And if you're looking for a place where the world comes to you... there's no better starting point than the Capital."
He shifted, wincing slightly as he adjusted his position.
"The biggest port in the country is there. Ships from every corner of the continent. Merchants, adventurers, scholars, mercenaries... even foreign royalty, sometimes."
He glanced around at them.
"You could learn more just sitting in one of the taverns near the docks than you would wandering these dead hills for a year."
Fen whistled low.
"Sounds like a lot of trouble in one place."
Sidney laughed quietly.
"It is," he said. "But it's the kind of trouble that shapes you."
Iris narrowed her eyes slightly.
"You want to go back to the Capital anyway," she said.
Sidney nodded without hesitation.
"My family is there. And my path... leads through it."
Cael sat back, folding his arms.
He was quiet for a moment, weighing Sidney's words.
The idea of leaving the Enclave — of leaving the familiar shattered world he'd known — filled him with equal parts excitement and dread.
But deep down, he knew the truth.
He couldn't find what he was looking for here.
He had to move forward.
"He's right," Cael said finally. "We need to move."
Fen grinned broadly, excitement lighting up his face.
"Well, damn," he said. "Looks like we're going on an adventure after all."
Iris gave a small, wry smile.
"Figures," she said. "Nothing good ever happens standing still."
Sidney inclined his head slightly, a gesture both respectful and strangely calculating.
"The journey won't be easy," he said. "The lands between here and the Capital aren't exactly peaceful these days. Bandits, beasts, worse."
"We can handle it," Fen said confidently, thumping his chest.
"Maybe," Sidney said, smiling thinly. "But be careful. Confidence can be a blade that cuts both ways."
They lapsed into silence again, each lost in thought.
The fire burned lower, throwing long shadows against the ruined walls.
Above them, the stars wheeled slowly across the sky, ancient and indifferent.
And somewhere, far beyond the hills, the Capital waited — glittering, dangerous, full of promise and peril in equal measure.
A place where destinies could be made... or destroyed.
Later that night, as the fire faded to glowing embers, Cael sat awake, staring into the darkness.
He thought of Korr's words earlier.
"This is a road you must walk alone."
He hadn't understood it then.
He still didn't, not really.
But as he listened to Fen's quiet snoring, Iris's steady breathing, and the occasional restless shift of Sidney against the stone, he began to suspect the truth.
They were all walking alone.
Even together.
Each carrying their own wounds, their own hopes, their own secret wars.
And yet, for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel entirely adrift.
The future was a vast, terrifying thing.
But it was theirs.
Waiting to be carved, one step, one fight, one heartbeat at a time.
Cael closed his eyes and let the darkness take him, dreaming of ships and swords, of stars reflected in foreign seas, and of the long, hard road that stretched out before them.
A road to strength.
A road to vengeance.
A road to something more.