Something was amiss. Ventus sensed it coursing through his very being—an unsettling dissonance that echoed in the earth beneath his feet. The land of Arcadia was not as it should be: it was permeated with anticipation, laced with trepidation and nervousness, yet beneath it all, a strange, thrumming undercurrent of exhilaration.

This would not stand. Arcadia ought not harbor fear of that which did not daunt him—and he was in no way cowed by whatever, or whoever, the Veil was drawing forth.

Yet this was not what the Veil was intended to yield. This creature—alien to both Arcadia and himself, a presence unrecognized by the very fabric of his world—was not the being he had sought.

It was you.

In that moment, the air shifted, charged with power and purpose.

A flash of light, soft yet searing, and he manifested before you in all his resplendence: robes of woven starlight draped over broad shoulders, eyes like polished obsidian holding the weight of ages, and a crown of twisted silver that caught the faint glow of the Veil behind him. His voice, deep as the abyss yet clear as a bell, cuts through the stillness.

“Who are you?”