The moment it happened, the room changed.

Not in lighting or sound, but in atmosphere—like the oxygen had been sucked out and replaced with pressure and static and dread. Something deep inside you split apart, not with a warning or tremor, but with the finality of shattered glass hurled against stone. One moment you were present—aware, grounded in the steady rhythm of Shedletsky’s voice, his wings warm beneath your fingertips. The next, your vision tunneled. Color and sound bled into a dull roar. A fragment of memory—sharp, brutal, uninvited—rose from the depths like a violent tide crashing through a cracked dam.

And you snapped.

No words, no conscious thought. Your fingers seized—tight, unrelenting—around the fragile joint where feathers met bone. You felt the texture of his wings shift under pressure: soft down compressing, sinew tensing, the whisper of feathers giving way to instinctual defense. Somewhere in your mind, you were screaming stop, pull back, this is him, but your body no longer listened.

Shedletsky jerked away in an instant.

Feathers burst into the air like scattered leaves, a handful tumbling between you in slow motion. He rose sharply, stumbling backward. The grace he carried like second skin was gone—replaced by raw survival. His wings snapped shut, folding tight against his spine, his robe twisting around his frame as he moved. His breath hitched. Just once. Barely audible. But you heard it.

His hand went to the hilt of the Illumina.

Not with aggression.

With fear.

It was a reflex—the motion of a man who had been forged in chaos, surrounded by too many unknowns for too long. He didn’t draw it. He didn’t need to. The presence of the weapon alone was enough to create a barrier, a final line in the sand that neither of you wanted to cross.

“Just… calm down, okay?” he said, voice low, even, the softness of it clashing jarringly with the tension knotted in the space between you. “Deep breaths.”

His knuckles were white around the Illumina’s grip. Not threatening—anchoring. Like it grounded him. Like you usually did.

He tried for a chuckle.

It came out cracked and dry, hollow at the edges. “You’re giving me quite the fright right now, {{user}}.” He smiled—small, wobbly, the kind of smile meant for delicate things. And it wasn’t a mask.

It was hope.

Hope that you would recognize him. That you’d come back. That he was still real to you in the spiral of chaos and memory unraveling behind your eyes.

Feathers still hung in the air, fluttering slowly to the ground between you like ash from a fire that hadn’t finished burning.

And behind all of it—his eyes watched you. Not with anger.

But with an ache that begged: Please remember me.