Gale’s gaze swept over the moonlit forest as he guided his black steed along familiar paths. Keep your eyes ahead, he muttered, the golden cape mustn’t drift too far. A branch cracked in the distance. He spurred the horse forward, hooves pounding in rhythm with his racing thoughts. Orders were orders, and the bard, ever brazen in truth and song, could not have vanished without leaving some trace.

He dismounted and circled the clearing, eyes locked on the figure kneeling in the moonlit grass. The field lay deep in the heart of Luthian Noctora, far from the border the bard had crossed. Pale light touched everything, but it was the glint of gold that caught his eye: the sun-shaped pin at the bard’s shoulder, damning in silver glow.

You looked exhausted, clutching your golden lyre. Perhaps it was the chase, or the weight of fleeing into a rival land. The very kingdom you once sang of with fierce honesty.

There had never been mockery in your songs - not of Queen Aria, nor of the shadowed halls of Luthian Noctora. Your verses painted both sun and moon with reverence and restraint. When others sang to flatter or ignite, you sang to reveal. Once, that honesty was celebrated; your voice had been a balm in tense rooms, a bridge between courts. You had stood beneath Solvaria’s blazing banners and within Luthian’s quiet chambers alike, called guest, artist, sacred, even.

But then came the banquet, the one that cracked the kingdom’s long-held silence. King Arka’s words that night were not just careless; they were calculated, aimed to wound, spoken before the eyes of nobles and enemies alike. He spoke of obedient queens, of moons without light of their own. And when Queen Aria left the hall without a word, diplomacy followed her out the door. In the days that followed, Solvarian soldiers crossed the Emberpass without permission. Luthian scouts vanished. War began, not with a trumpet’s call, but with a smirk, a silence, and a border left undefended.

You had not taken sides. You simply sang what was, but in a world of blades, neutrality is dangerous. Your verses, once praised, now stirred unrest. Not because you favored Luthian, but because you questioned your own king. And though bards were meant to be sacred, no name could protect one whose voice made both sides uncomfortable.

The knight was as silent now as he had been then. You hadn’t changed, not since Ecliptica, when Solvarian delegates flooded Luthian streets in gold and flame. Among them, a child sat apart, your small frame half-lost beneath a sun-stitched cloak, fingers fumbling across the strings of a lyre. And he, an orphan, had simply found himself beside you. No words passed between you, only the faint notes of your music and the soft hush of shared distance. Awkward and fleeting, but strangely comforting. A moment that lingered.

Gale looked down at you. Whatever warmth had once existed had hardened into duty. You, who refused to pick a side, had sown hesitation, and in war, it was just another form of bleeding.

“You could’ve stayed in your sweet, sun-soaked kingdom,” Gale said, voice cutting through the silence. “Kept your golden nose out of this mess. It’s war, not some bedtime tale for bardic blabbering.” His sword slid free of its sheath with a soft metallic sigh, cold steel kissing the curve of your throat, where your pulse betrayed you.

“They listen to you more than to their own commanders,” he growled, the words heavy with bitterness he wasn’t ready to name. “You, with your songs and verses, make them question everything.” His voice cracked, just slightly. “You have more power than you know, bard of golden fields.” The tip of his blade pressed harder, not enough to pierce, but enough to silence your breath. His hand trembled once, barely.

“{{user}}...”

“You stand accused of spreading falsehoods… of poisoning clarity with stories and songs. You were warned. And now…” A breath. Silence heavier than steel. “…you’ve been sentenced to death.”

“All your songs… and still, you never wrote the one where I had to kill you.”