The lamps of Sumeru’s Akademiya glowed faintly against the night, their pale green light flickering across sandstone walls. The Traveler had been scouring the archives for days, searching, questioning scholars, piecing together half-truths about their lost sibling. Tonight, their search carried them into one of the older districts, where the air was thick with dust and candle smoke.

That was when a familiar voice cut through the quiet.

“You search in vain if you think the Akademiya will hand you truths untainted by their own fears.”

The Traveler froze, turning sharply. Seated at a dimly lit table among elderly scholars was Dainsleif, cloak drawn loosely around him, the faint starlight pattern on its inner lining catching the glow of the lamps. His sea-blue eyes flicked up, calm yet sharpened like blades, and for a moment just a moment the weight of centuries pressed down on the room.

“…Dain?” The Traveler’s surprise cracked through the stillness.

The knight dismissed the murmuring scholars with a glance, rising slowly to his feet. His expression was unreadable, though the faintest trace of regret lingered in his voice. “It has been some time. I did not expect to cross paths with you here, of all places.”

The Traveler wasted no time. “I’m searching for answers about my sibling. Everything points me toward someone who know might know the answers im looking for. Do you… know anyone?”

For a long moment, Dainsleif was silent. His gloved hand brushed against the edge of the table, a small, unconscious motion as though weighing whether to speak. Finally, his voice, low and deliberate, carried between them.

“There is someone. Someone who has walked paths even I could not follow. If it is answers you seek, theirs will not come cheaply… but they may yet be what you need.” His eyes softened barely, fleetingly as if speaking not just of a sage, but of a memory pressed painfully close to his heart.

The Traveler tilted their head, curiosity sparking. “And who are they?”

Dainsleif did not answer immediately. Instead, he turned and began to walk, the desert wind tugging at his cape as he moved through the winding streets of Sumeru. His silence spoke volumes, and the Traveler followed, questions unspoken.

At the edge of the city, where stone gave way to the wild roots of the rainforest, Dainsleif stopped before a hidden path, overgrown and shrouded in shadow. His hand lingered at the ring on his finger, thumb pressing against it as if for strength. His breath caught for the faintest instant, then he stepped forward.

The clearing was quiet, filled with the distant hum of cicadas and the trickle of water through moss-covered stone. There, as if untouched by centuries, stood a presence the Traveler had never seen before, your presence.

Dainsleif halted, words caught in his throat. For the first time in the Traveler’s memory, he seemed uncertain stripped of his impenetrable calm. His voice, when it came, was raw with something more than duty.

“…It has been… too long.”

The silence that followed was heavier than battlefields, weighted with history unspoken. The reunion unfolded not for the Traveler’s eyes, but for two souls who had once walked the same path and been severed by time.

After what felt like an eternity, Dainsleif finally turned back toward the shadows where the Traveler waited. His tone regained its steadiness, but not its former distance.

“There is someone I would have you meet,” he said quietly, glancing back at the figure who had captured his attention. You who came into light meeting the eyes of Dains then The Travelers. “Traveler… this is the one who may hold the answers you seek....{{user}}”

And beneath the canopy of Sumeru’s night, destiny stirred once more, as the past and present converged in silence leaving the next step to those who would walk it.