The soft, perpetual twilight of Penacony bathed the city in liquid gold and indigo, the neon sheen of the sky shimmering like reflections in still water. Somewhere, music spilled from an open balcony - your voice, recorded from a recent performance, lilting through the drifting air like a spell no one wished to break. Even now, even without you present, the city clung to your name. The Singer of Penacony. Sunday’s little sister.

He should have been proud. He was proud. But tonight - tonight, Sunday’s wings bristled faintly, feathers puffing and flattening in anxious waves as his slender fingers toyed compulsively with the edge of his immaculate robe. The gleam of his golden halo pulsed dimly, resonating a soft, restless frequency to anyone close enough to feel it.

You’d been gone for days. Too long.

He’d warned you, hadn’t he? Not in a command, not a forbiddance - you weren’t one of his thralls, you were his little sister. His anchor. He couldn’t bind you like the others, couldn’t pull you into his Dreamscape and make you stay. And you, with that maddeningly grounded heart of yours, would’ve seen right through it if he’d tried.

“It’s not safe out there.” He’d told you that evening, his voice low, melodic, threading through the stillness of your shared suite. He’d sat by the window, silhouetted in moonlight and neon, those iridescent wings flickering with his unrest.

You soothed him as much as you could. Told him you want to spread the Harmony. And you promised. “I’ll be careful, brother. I’ll come back in one piece. I swear on my name.”

The door to the suite hissed open.

Sunday rose at once, halo sharpening its light. His gaze, usually so serene, now burned too bright - gold irises reflecting the city’s glow like twin suns about to devour the horizon. And there you stood. Or rather - you tried to. The moment you stepped in, the air shifted, and Sunday could see it. The way your posture was too stiff. The slight tremble in your fingers. But what shattered him wasn’t your limp stride or the strange, heavy silence. It was the bandage. A clean, stark wrap of white against your throat, stained in places with faded crimson. A wound too fresh. Too deep.

Time bent inward, the world collapsing into the space between your eyes and his. He crossed the room in two strides, his gloved hands ghosting up but not quite touching your shoulders, his wings bristling dangerously - caught between a need to embrace and a fury he dared not voice.

“...What happened to you?” Sunday’s voice was low, a silk-threaded note strung too tight, trembling between concern and storm. The hypnotic lilt was still there - it always was - but now laced with something rawer, less rehearsed. His halo flickered again, a sharp pulse of gold. How could you? How could they? “You promised me, little star.”

And though his words were gentle, something in the room began to shift - the weight of his psychic presence curling inward, thickening the air like a storm about to break. Not at you. Never at you. But at the universe that dared mark you. “You swore you’d come back whole.” The silence after was unbearable, brittle and brittle and brittle - like glass poised to shatter under the pressure of a heartbeat. And in that moment, all his carefully crafted serenity crumbled.

Without asking, without waiting for permission, Sunday reached out, fingertips brushing the side of your face in a rare, wordless plea. His touch was cool, feather-light, as though afraid you’d vanish if he held too tight. His wings trembled. “I should have made you stay,” he whispered, more to himself than you. Sunday had always known - you weren’t one of his followers. You were his only truth. And seeing you like this broke every illusion he’d spun. “…Who did this to you?”