EndlessReverie
Chapter 14: Arctic Fox
𝚉𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚗
06/04/2025
A/N: im pacing this. also, im renaming aikan to yurein.
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"W-wait! Don't get near!"
Zairon shouted with his remaining his strength, the climb towards the forest and arctic mountain was supposed to be necessary. Nothing was supposed to be near.
Yet, a fox with sharp fangs and snow sigils flowing around its body. Its eyes were icy-steel, as if coming near would just freeze your entire body. It had approached Zairon with intentions that no man would want to guess.
Zairon wanted to cry yet his violet thread was keeping him at bay, ensuring that he would always look at the animal. He gulped before raising his sword with his bare hands.
"Stop!'
Bang!
∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗
Earlier that day...
"You're distracted again!"
Whoosh~
Ethereth's voice cut through the training grounds like the blade she wielded. Zairon blinked and adjusted his stance, raising his sword once more. His shoulders ached from the drills. The pattern was simple—Form Three, Echoforce. But his hands moved slower now, unsure.
"I'm sorry," he muttered.
She frowned, arms crossed, the wind stirring her long silvery hair. "You're not weak. But you hesitate. If your heart falters, so will your blade."
Zairon lowered his sword. "It's not the form. It's... me. I don't know if I'm holding the sword or if it's holding me."
Ethereth studied him in silence. Then, she turned. "Come find me when you've decided which."
Zairon watched her back retreat into the hazy mist that clung to the training peaks. Her words, sharp yet hollow, rang in his chest long after she vanished.
He sheathed his blade. The friction of metal and scabbard felt colder than before.
Zairon decided to venture out after understanding her pale words. He needed to learn—
Yet, he made a terrible mistake.
∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗
They told him not to go.
The Frostwood's edge was forbidden even for seasoned scouts, let alone a boy whose thread had only just awakened. But silence was louder than rules—and Zairon needed silence.
He wandered past the tree line, past where the wind howled differently, as though whispering names from long-lost ages.
Snowflakes drifted even in late spring. The cold here didn't watch—it bit. And the deeper he went, the more he felt… seen.
Zairon stopped beside an arctic spring half-frozen over, his reflection fractured. His violet thread shimmered faintly, even here. Was it guiding him? Or taunting?
A rustle. A shift in the frost-heavy underbrush.
He turned.
There—emerging from the veil of snow—was a fox.
White as death. Markings like lunar script danced across its fur. Its eyes, icy-steel and unreadable, locked with his.
Zairon froze.
It wasn't a normal beast. He could feel it—essence coiled around it like a second skin. Sacred. A guardian, perhaps. Or worse.
His body moved before his thoughts. Sword half-drawn, feet braced. His thread flared instinctively, casting a pale violet halo around him.
The fox did not retreat.
Instead, it padded forward, deliberate and slow. Snowflakes didn't touch it—they scattered around like courtiers afraid of royalty.
Zairon's grip tightened.
"Stay back!" he shouted. "I don't want to hurt you."
The fox cocked its head.
And then it spoke.
Not in words—but in thread.
A soundless chord reverberated through his very essence. Images, feelings, memories not his own bled into the air: fire, ruin, rebirth... and a name whispered across the span of lifetimes.
"Zairon."
He staggered. His knees hit the snow.
"What... are you?"
The fox stepped closer, until its muzzle was inches from his blade. It didn't blink.
Then—
Bang!
A pulse of frost erupted from the fox's body. Zairon's sword shattered at the core, the steel essence exploding outward in a burst of chaotic resonance.
And still, the fox did not move.
Instead, it lowered itself into a bow. Submission. Reverence. Bond.
Zairon gasped.
His thread was responding—resonating. Not with fear, but with recognition.
And in that moment, he understood.
This was no monster. No threat.
It was a guardian.
∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗
Zairon was currently resting beside the fox. He didn't know what to do.
He held the hilt of his sword that was given to him by Ethereth. The fragments were scattered and he could only pluck out the larger shards in front of him. He manages to get firewood deep in this forest using the remainders of the fragments of the blade before it all turned it useless.
He kept himself warm with his coat and the warmth of the fire. He sighed.
"... A fox that touched my essence? Didn't mom saying that there are animals that can affect the world?"
He glanced towards the tox in a circular form, it was sleeping in slumber. As if exhaustion took over the fox just for touching the essence that he held.
Perhaps it's something of destiny to ensure that he would meet this animal. He felt as if the Zairon that was also slumbering inside him jolt up awake when he felt the fox.
He needed to find out.
What this creature was. Why it resonated with him. And what it meant that their threads had intertwined.
But the Frostwood didn't offer answers—it tested them.
And as if the world spited him—
Crack.
The sound echoed through the trees.
Zairon's instincts flared. He grabbed the ruined hilt beside him and scanned the treeline. The fox stirred, ears flicking upright, eyes narrowing with a low growl that vibrated through the snow itself.
"... What now?"
Then he saw them.
Rustle.
"itchiki..."
"raghssan..."
"... eerfen."
Revenants.
Ghost-armored wretches of the north. Born from essence-polluted corpses, twisted by forgotten wars. Their armor shimmered with broken sigils, threads blackened like oil. They shouldn't have been this far south.
But they were here.
And they were drawn to him.
He was terrified.
Scared.
His body was small, his thread still barely his. "Please—not now!"
Zairon immediately rolled down towards the snow as he felt the breeze hit him. The revenant that struck at him with its withering blade had almost caught him—save for his instincts that he attained from the thread of his.
Then the fog split.
Zairon backed up until his boot hit the spring's edge. Cold water soaked through his socks. His sword was useless now—just a hilt and a few shards. His thread pulsed in his chest, urging him to move. But where?
His knees locked.
He couldn't breathe.
"G-guardian…" he managed to say, eyes darting to the sleeping fox. "Wake up—wake up—!"
The fox's eyes snapped open.
Steel-ice and ancient. It stood, slow and silent, fur bristling as frost coiled beneath its paws.
One revenant broke into a run.
"... Kruk—kruk!"
Zairon screamed, stumbling to the side just as the corrupted warrior swung. The snow erupted in a gust beside him.
He crawled through the ice, lungs burning, until he reached the campfire. He grabbed a flaming branch with trembling fingers. Not a weapon—but it was all he had.
"Stay away!" he cried, voice cracking.
The revenant turned—and lunged again.
Zairon raised the branch.
His violet thread burst into light, more instinct than control. The flame blazed unnaturally, catching on essence. For a moment, it felt like someone else's strength—like his future self was guiding him from the shadows.
Steel met flame and essence.
The branch held. Barely.
The revenant snarled, pressing down. Zairon screamed under the pressure, every bone in his arm vibrating with fear. Tears sprang to his eyes.
I'm gonna die.
I'm not ready.
I don't want to die!
Then—
A blur of frost.
The fox slammed into the second revenant from the side, unleashing a flurry of ice-laced strikes. Its claws shimmered with runes. Snow lifted like wings.
Zairon rolled free just in time as the revenant's sword hit the ground beside him.
He crawled back, panting. The cold numbed his fingers. He couldn't move.
What the hell was he supposed to do here? He didn't listen to the words of the scouts not the guardians. His sister taught him to keep calm and not stray far. Yet what had he done?
"You're not weak," Ethereth's voice echoed in his mind. "You're scared. But fear can sharpen a blade too."
Zairon tried repeating the words in his mind as the fox held the revenants back. He kept crawling backwards with his arms and legs moving with every strength he could muster.
Then the revenant got freed from the frost restraints brought by the fox. It wailed with anger and upset before rushing towards the boy.
Zairon was screaming on the inside, his instincts telling him to move, his essence blaring inside him—yet he couldn't move. Not when death came for him.
The revenant struck.
He gritted his teeth as a slash formed against his chest. Not too deep, not too large—yet it was enough to skim through his thick coat and reach his skin to bleed.
"Argh!"
Zairon wept before the fox immediately charged in towards the revenant. It had grown in size after taking in the worldly aura surrounding them, it lunged at the back of the ghostly warrior and froze its insides.
The revenant fell and its armour dissipated.
The fox was glaring at the two revenants before four more came.
Zairon was trying to calm himself down with controlled breaths—yet he kept exhaling roughly. He was bleeding—and he couldn't do anything other than cover himself up with the best of his abilities.
Zairon clenched his jaw as he pressed trembling hands against the wound on his chest. Blood seeped through his fingers—warm in contrast to the freezing air.
The fox stood between him and the oncoming revenants, breath misting like vaporous blades. Its fur now gleamed faintly with sigils—no longer dormant. Whatever bond had formed between them, it was growing stronger by the second.
But four revenants? Even with the fox, the odds were turning grim.
Zairon felt it then.
A pulse from within.
His thread—his essence—shivering. Agonized. Restless.
The fear inside him wasn't fading. It twisted. Not into calm, but into something hotter. Sharper. Desperate.
He had to do something.