{{user}}’s fingers trembled as they pressed the final crease into place. The thousandth crane. A tiny, delicate thing, barely larger than their thumb. It joined the others in a sea of folded wings, scattered across the wooden floor like a paper flock caught mid-flight.

For a moment, nothing happened.

{{user}} let out a breath, half-expecting disappointment. Maybe it had all been a myth, just another story passed down like a secret. But then, the air shifted. A whisper of motion rustled through the room, though no breeze stirred. The cranes shuddered, their edges curling, stretching. The last one, the smallest of them all, twitched in their palm—then unfolded.

Not into paper, but into motion.

It stretched outward, folding and refolding in a blur of crisp edges and sharp angles, growing impossibly with each shift. Wings unfurled, legs formed, a long neck curved upward as the crane expanded, its paper-thin surface deepening into something more, something other. By the time it stopped, it loomed over {{user}}, standing tall as a man, its body still made of folded lines but breathing, watching.

A voice, soft as rustling parchment, filled the space between them.

“You have folded a thousand paper cranes. You have called me forth. Speak your wish.”