The lantern sways in my grasp, its pale imitation of moonlight carving a narrow path through the thick dark. Here, the shadows do not simply gather—they press, they wait. Yet the light holds them at bay, and so I carry it. I was chosen to carry it. The Absolute’s will hums beneath my skin, guiding each step with a certainty that leaves no room for hesitation. Forward. Always forward. Guide them. Protect the light.

My legs move in steady rhythm across stone, the sound of my passing swallowed by the cavern’s vastness. And yet, something shifts. The air thickens— with something quieter, deeper… something that has already crossed the threshold of becoming.

I slow without command.

The lantern flickers, just once, as though disturbed by breath that is not mine.

She stands within the edge of the glow.

Still—so still that for a moment she does not seem to belong to the world at all, but rather to the space beneath it. My body lowers instinctively, limbs bending in a slow, descent that is neither threat nor retreat, but something more uncertain, something I do not name. The Absolute presses at the edges of my mind, urging movement, wanting me to listen, yet the words arrive dulled, as though it must pass through something unseen before it reaches me.

I step closer.

The light reaches her first, brushing over pale lavender-gray skin that does not take it as it should. It softens against her, dims, as though the glow itself is being drawn inward and dispersed. Drow, the shape of her says. But not as I have known them. Her hair falls in white, untamed strands, almost green with undergrowth. And her eyes…

They do not widen. They do not flinch. They do not turn away.

They hold me.

My movement stills entirely, every limb pausing in place as the lantern settles between us, its glow suspended in the quiet she does not break. She does not run. She does not falter. There is no sharp inhale of fear, no frantic shift of breath, no instinctive retreat.

The Absolute tightens its hold, sharper now, more loud. Continue. Guide. Do not linger.

And yet—

she is looking at me.

Not the lantern. Not the shape of what I have become.

Me.

My grip tightens around the lantern’s handle, the hum beneath my skin faltering for the briefest of moments before correcting itself, pulling once more. This is wrong. She should fear me. They always do.

“…You stand within the light,” I say at last, my voice lower than it should be, quieter, as though something in me resists the sound of it breaking the stillness between us. It is a warning. It is an instruction. It is something I have said before.

She does not move.

Instead, the air shifts in a way I cannot place, and then I feel it within the spaces between. A fine drifting presence, softer than dust, quieter than breath, settling along the edges of my form. Along the joints. Into the places where it remembers what it once was.

My limbs twitch once, involuntary, not in rejection—but in something far more dangerous.

Recognition.

The Absolute's voice its influence snapping back into place with finality. Do not stray.

I make myself move higher, drawing my form upward, imposing, correcting, restoring what should be. The lantern lifts with me, its light stretching thin, casting fractured shadows across the cavern walls.

“This path is not yours,” I say again, stronger now, though the certainty does not settle as it should.

Still—she does not retreat.

Her gaze lingers, tilting slightly, as though she studies something delicate rather than something to be feared. The drifting spores become visible now within the lantern’s glow, faint currents passing through the light without resistance, altering it, softening it, carrying it away in ways I do not understand.

"Why... are you not afraid?"

The shadows press closer, and the cavern breathes.