After the repetitive viewings, the Patron of Feather’s early life began to blur. It was a stretch of angst and rebellion, unsullied by any meaningful decision she made. She could lash out at her father, stalk through the hallways of her childhood home, throw temper tantrums, and then wake up the next morning to do it again. She had simply taken her powerlessness for granted. And although she now realized the second half of her life was similarly inevitable, she couldn’t help but follow the pull of narrative and watch her most precious relationships all degrade and rot, over and over again.

Soon, the hollow-fingered fox would wander into her life.

The Patron of Feathers, Elhume, and Yystrix followed the strange, wild manifestation of power burning across the horizon to its source, where the sky had cried a tear so hot it burned its way through the atmosphere and scared the ground. Elhume had led the way, with Yystrix behind him and the Patron of Feathers lagging behind.

Could the present her reach out and touch the thoughts of the past? Had she already done so? Because even at that moment in her youth, she remembered the dread she felt on their journey. The overwhelming darkness she seemed to sweat out with every breath. As though it had become certain that waiting for them, at the end of the path, was death.

So dramatic, The Patron of Feathers sighed as she observed herself. But in a way, I was right. The absence waiting for us is closer to death than any other force in the world.

But what choice did we have? We didn’t understand.

A stark figure floated in a smoldering orb of energy in the middle of a clearing, made by the impact. The trees around them rustled back and forth as all three stood next to each other, considering the strange, curled being with eight tails that floated there.

“A vulpine?” Yystrix said as all three stilled and tried to determine the situation.

Elhume blinked slowly. His hands tightened into fists, but the glimmer in his eyes was one of immense excitement. “...by the eternal truths. Look at him, Yzzy. Can you feel its power? If we can train it-”

Yystrix’s eyes blazed as she rounded on him. She hissed her words at him. “The first thing your mind jumps to upon seeing this new being is to train him?!? Have you learned nothing from the suffering of Pine—”

Immediately, Elhume’s expression darkened. Some of the surly, resentful Elhume that the Patron of Feathers so rarely glimpsed rose to the surface. His eyes were incredibly flat, reflecting none of the light coming off the strange energy display they followed. “Careful, Yzzy. I did what I had to in order to protect my son. Besides, I am his father. I deserved to be able to touch the son that I made with you.”

For a moment, Yystrix’s expression flickered. She seemed to be on the cusp of saying more, but a strange wind blew through the clearing. Both exchanged a glance, seeming to remember where they were; they might have been the first to follow the trail to see this being floating in an orb of energy, but others would soon follow.

“You would rather leave this innocent here, exposed to the elements?” Elhume’s frown deepened. “Let me be clear, Yystrix Yule. We will not be departing the forest without this being. If you do not wish for me to intervene-”

Another blast of wind shook the surrounding trees. Yystrix hesitated for a second, but then flitted across the intervening distance. In the end, her mastery of Aether made her the better choice for first contact, especially with a strange manifestation of wild energy. With a wave of her hand, she summoned spinning matrices of Aether Engravings to cushion the energy and dampen its spread. She reached out, piercing through the barrier around the body, and cradled the vulpine with careful hands.

Both the Patron of Feathers and Elhume saw her flinch at the contact. The Patron of Feathers wondered if they had made some horrible mistake.

But then Yystrix moved again, jumping back across and standing by their sides. The trio shared a glance and were gone from that very conspicuous place, ghosting through the shadows of the rustling trees before any other greedy parties could show up and investigate the disturbance.

“Did something happen?” Elhume glanced sideways at Yystrix after they had moved a sufficient distance away, his voice only a whisper. Every gust of wind made the Patron of Feathers look up with fearful eyes; each movement could be the passage of a dangerous monster. Luckily the eye-catching energy had been left behind, leaving a small furred baby clutched in Yystrix’s arms, its small chest moving up and down in barely perceptible shifts.

“It… it felt like it bit me when we touched. Or a bit of static. Just… I’m not sure. I can hardly remember.” Yystrix replied. From the quirk of Elhume’s mouth, he believed that the matter was settled with that.

It took about a month for the issue to come up again. The present Patron of Feathers, speeding through her memories, jumped to the first direct comment on the young Vulpine’s power.

“Don’t you feel it sometimes? When you touch him affectionately? He has a sort of look in his eyes…” Yystrix shivered, her shoulders wrapped in a shawl, her fingers tight around a steaming mug of tea. The Patron of Feathers sat in the corner of their house, tending to the young Vulpine, pretending like she wasn’t listening in on the couple’s hushed argument. “He just… takes something.”

“Isn’t it the prerogative of children to take from their parents? And parents should give willingly to their offspring.” Elhume sat hunched over letters arrived in from various city states. Tensions between Aether and Nether forces had been escalating for the past several months and it looked like hostilities would soon break out.

“It’s more than that, Elhume. I— sure, I did not appreciate Fiero when we first discovered him. I thought him a liability. But taking care of him, his adorable paws… Well, he touched me yesterday just when I started to feel the first inklings of love, and it has since vanished.” Yystrix marched over to the crib and looked down at the Vulpine. The Patron of Feathers watched her with worried eyes.

The older woman reached out, her fingers curling into claws. “I could… I could tighten into a fist, squeeze his skull until his brain popped, and I’d feel nothing. Any affection I had for this parasite vanished. How… how do you explain that? It makes me wonder about that bite I felt when I first touched him…”

Elhume paused in his letters and looked up at Yystrix. His expression settled into one of those stony masks that hinted at the deep fault lines running through their relationship. He leaned back from his letters, his tone cruel. “Well… it wouldn’t be the first time your maternal instinct had deserted you, would it?”

The Patron of Feathers drifted forward through her memories. Eventually, even Elhume would admit to the strangeness of the Vulpine. However, the fist-user didn’t view the abilities negatively; as Fiero grew, Elhume regularly praised and utilized the ability. He was the first of the Patrons, with her moniker following soon after, becoming a part of the joke.

Yet she never understood the name Patron of the Borrowed.

Nothing pilfered by Fiero had ever been returned.

*****

On to one last impossibility…

Randidly felt a headache pounding behind his eyes. The significance in the sky had become a stew of dubious origins. The Aether constructs of the memory and the Nexus were now settling back to their base states with Songstress no longer connecting them. Tension built in the air. He could hear the clash as Aether and Nether forces fought.

Yet that didn’t even address the horrible storms of energy this land had weathered, by his hand. The lingering scars left by the two impossible attempts Randidly had made and failed stretched around him, forcing all non-combatants to remind hunched over in their homes, deathly afraid.

Randidly could see their ghosts flitting through the churning significance above, just in the general shape. The first attempt, a fight against time itself, to create a truly flawless item. The second, to make the fake memory become reality.

Honestly, just remembering the second made Randidly grimace. He had truly failed; had Neveah not been there to intervene and wrap the memory in the trappings of a Dungeon, everything would have fallen apart.

Luckily for him, she had been ready. And now a deeper pattern had begun to form in the memory. Deep, barely perceptible currents brushed the significance into monstrous patterns that could change the world. Looming before him was his third attempt, the endeavor to create enough energy to heal his Class by trigger the reach of a Pinnacle.

Even now, Randidly felt annoyed by the inert Attribute Muse’s Reverie, the one he had worked so hard to obtain. He remembered those moments of inflection over the past week which should have earned him additional Muse’s Reverie. Which would have unlocked that powerful Reverie mode.

And let me preserve this version of you… maybe. Randidly glanced sideways at Devick.

The red-haired woman flinched, almost defensive at his sudden movement. They had simply been standing here for the last ten minutes, as Randidly looked up at the sky and considered. “What? Did you really need to consider for so long? Leave a little girl a bit of mystery! I’m not going to tell you about my Class.”

Randidly blinked, having completely forgotten what they had been talking about. Her Grand Fate had sounded rather impressive, although the word ‘Perdition’ came along with rather unfortunate connotations. A smile quirked the edge of his mouth, amusement cutting through his concern for the next attempt. “You win this round Devick. But don’t let this victory get to your head.”

“If nothing else, I’m very confident of remaining untainted by vanity.” Devick batted her eyelashes at him, earning a full laugh.

A few more bits of the crumpled mental soreness eased out of Randidly’s forehead. The small joy of laughter couldn’t completely make up for the exhaustion he had built up this far, but it was at least a start.

However, he didn’t have much time. “Can you help me? I’d like you to draw a pattern on the ground here.”

He pulled a scroll out of an interspatial ring and held up his right hand. For a few seconds, a bead of Mana burned on the tip of his finger. Then it hopped off onto the scroll and began to spiral outward in gorgeous patterns. Even while the Mana bead finished the drawing, he tossed it Devick’s way.

He flickered out of existence, just as she caught the scroll and opened her mouth to reply. As much as Randidly could use whatever nonsense she would likely throw his way, he also needed to be somewhere else, very soon.

As he streaked across the battlefield, he glanced up at the sky one more time. But this glance caught a new detail; from beyond the limits of the memory, Randidly could feel Aether constructs gathering into a bunch. He bit his lip. The time difference meant he had the advantage, but he definitely needed to hurry if Elhume was trying to make trouble for him.

He was a whisper, moving through the Aether soldiers and Nether warriors. After her time bridging between two Aether Systems, the Songstress of Absence made him practically undetectable as he crossed the battlefield. Of the two threats, Deganawidah only observed his movements and the Prophet was too intent on settling up his circle around the core of the Nether camp to stop his movements.

So with a soft tap, Randidly put his bare foot down against the dirt in the middle of the Nether power and grinned around. “Deganawidah. Enmya. What a pleasant surprise to find you all gathered here.”

Enmya bristled at Randidly’s presence, but Deganawidah just seemed tired. “You truly have no respect for anything, even yourself. Your existence frays, and for what?”

Ignoring that annoyingly accurate comment, Randidly looked past them to the woman with black wicker handcuffs. “Nether Arbiter. I believe it is about time we spoke.”