EndlessReverie
Chapter 16: Return
Moonlight Behind Fog (2)
𝚉𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚗
06/04/2025
A/N: character development 3. i need him powerful enough.
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The black gates of the compound stood silent beneath the dusk, their ironwood beams steaked with salt and lingering snow. The outer sentries, cloaked in the winter hue of the weather, snapped to readiness as the sigil of the outpost's wardstone flickered.
Alert! Alert!
A small beep signalled the nearby sentry of an approaching individual.
"Thread signature active—
Person of interest approaching."
"Thread signature detected—irregular."
"Unstable… but matched. It's him. It's—"
The final gate creaked open, slow and reluctant. Steam hissed against frost-lined stone as he stepped through.
Zairon walked with a slight limp, one hand resting against the curve of the fox's back. Snow clung to his boots in heavy clumps. His cloak—ripped. Armor—half-gone. Essence signature—muted, unreadable.
One of the younger guards, barely older than fifteen, reached for the fox's fur with a look of concern. "Prince Zairon… that creature—"
The boy's hand stopped midair. Zairon didn't say a word. He just looked at him. Calm. Cold.
The air trembled slightly.
The fox's nine tails rose in silence like plumes of smoke before settling once more.
The older sentry immediately went into action to support the young prince that's no more than the age of ten while the young guard immediately called out for help.
"Hey! Get the clerics nearby! The Prince is injured! Contact the Sovereign!"
∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗
At the master quarters of the household, there was Aidelie who remained sat in the bed. She couldn't move far away from the room—ever since the disappearance of her young son. She could've never imagined that he would disappear in this time and age wherein the frost bites harder.
Tap!
Tap!
Tap!
"Madame!"
The voice beyond the door cracked through the silent stillness of her chamber. Aidelie didn't respond at first. Her hands were clasped tightly on her lap, ivory fingers clenched over the hem of a silken shawl that hadn't been washed since he vanished. Her eyes remained fixed on the window—on the drifting snowfall beyond the frost-glazed panes.
Another knock. Urgent. The essence wards on the door shimmered in response.
"Madame Aidelie, it's your son—Prince Zairon—he's returned."
The world held its breath.
For a moment, she thought the words were another hallucination. One of many that had begun creeping in the longer she sat waiting. But then the seal on the chamber door flickered, and she heard the second voice—this one belonged to Ethereth.
"It's real, Mother. He's back. Wounded."
The shawl dropped from her hands.
Aidelie rose—barefoot, slow, as if time no longer applied to her limbs.
Her heartbeat thundered beneath her ribs. She crossed the room, the hem of her pale robes sweeping like quiet snowfall over the floor.
The door opened not with force, but with recognition—the essence lock attuning to her pulse.
Ethereth stood waiting, half-armored, her expression unreadable but her eyes… her eyes were different.
"He's in the southern wing," she said. "They're stabilizing him now. He didn't speak much."
Aidelie's eyes were about to burst as she stood up. She couldn't collect her thoughts—save for her youngest son. She immediately went through the halls with her dress flowing on the floor.
"... Let's go to your brother."
Ethereth calmly walked with her mother yet her eyes also remained erratic. She couldn't imagine Zairon to disappear for more than a day, it's almost been a week—and he returned to a battered state. What made him go like this?
Ethereth's thoughts spiraled, each step echoing too loud in the corridors lined with frost-veined tapestries. The silence was heavy, but not empty—it pressed down with meaning, with questions unspoken. As if the halls themselves remembered the absence of the boy now returned.
They reached the southern wing.
The air was warmer here—barely—but tinged with the sharp scent of sterilizing herbs and something deeper beneath: burnt essence and blood. Healers murmured from beyond the curtains, their threads aglow with muted golds and greens, weaving through incantations and physical care alike.
Aidelie didn't pause.
The moment the healer-in-charge bowed to speak, she brushed past him. Her steps were soft, but resolute, and Ethereth followed just behind.
Zairon lay on the stone-sunken cot, his frame small beneath the heavy fur throws. His features were paler than snow, eyelashes dark against too-cold cheeks, and the soft rise and fall of his chest—barely perceptible—was all that confirmed he was still here. Still alive.
But something was wrong.
His thread signature—the one a mother could always feel, even before a child was born—was frayed. It shimmered faintly, yes, but it felt… muted. Like someone had taken a blade to the essence of who he was and left behind a torn veil.
And curled at his side, head resting on the cot's edge, was the fox. Still. Watching. Its tails draped protectively around the boy's body, as if to say, No closer unless you mean no harm.
Aidelie fell to her knees.
Her fingers trembled as they brushed back the hair from his forehead. Her breath hitched.
"Zairon…" she whispered, as though his name might shatter if spoken too loud.
For a long moment, he didn't move.
Then—his eyelids fluttered, slow, like someone stirring from a dream too long endured. His lips parted, dry and cracked, and he exhaled her name in a voice that barely existed.
"…Mother."
Tears slipped down her cheeks before she even realized they had formed. She leaned forward, pulling him gently into her arms, careful not to jostle the injuries the healers had bound.
Ethereth stood behind, unmoving, her fists clenched at her sides. She watched the reunion in silence, a dozen questions behind her eyes.
Then she noticed it.
One of the fox's tails had changed.
No longer pure white—it shimmered faintly violet, threaded with gold.
It pulsed, slowly, in rhythm with Zairon's breath.
She narrowed her gaze. Something had followed him back from wherever he'd gone. Something new.
"Where did you go…?" she whispered, barely audible.
Zairon stirred again. His voice, this time stronger—though laced with something deeper, older.
"I found myself..." he murmured. "I feel the world is changing, mother..."
And then he closed his eyes.
∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗
Ethereth stood in stillness, watching Zairon.
She merely had no other thought than staying by his side. Heizen was currently out with their father in an expedition to explore north, Sofia and Yve were currently studying unbeknownst their brother returning, and their mother was beside her.
Then she turned his eyes against the fox.
Its head rested against Zairon's side, the soft rise and fall of his chest matched by the quiet rhythm of the creature's breath. Its fur shimmered faintly under the lamplight—pale as new snow, except for one tail. That one now glowed faintly violet, threaded through with gold, and pulsed like the heartbeat of something not entirely bound to this world.
She finally spoke, her voice a hushed murmur. "What… is that thing?"
Aidelie didn't respond at first. Her hand was still cradling Zairon's, and her gaze had softened with a faraway look—as if memory and reality had begun to blur.
"The sentries told me that the fox came with Zairon," Ethereth continued. "Or followed him. Either way, it hasn't left his side since he returned. It didn't allow anyone too close to him, even our senior clerics flinched when they reached near."
Aidelie let out a slow breath, her voice trembling. "There was a tale I told you all, once. About a fox… with nine tails."
Ethereth turned her head. "The Guardian?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
"The one said to have turned the tide during the first winter approached the world, where frostmourne hungers. When the void rose and nearly devoured everything."
"But it's just a story." Ethereth said, though even she could hear the doubt in her tone.
"Maybe," Aidelie said quietly. "Maybe not. The truth tends to hide in stories because people forget the weight of remembering."
She finally looked up at Ethereth. "I never said the Guardian disappeared. Only that no one saw it again. No one remembered what it looked like."
Ethereth looked at the fox again. The way it curled around Zairon wasn't just protective—it was deliberate. Measured.
A presence ancient enough not to fear men or wards or power. A being that moved with purpose beyond their understanding.
"No one could know if it waited," Aidelie said, her voice steadier now, thoughtful. "No one saw it after the Reckoning. But it's in all the old stories. Watching. Waiting for the world to fray again."
Aidelie's gaze dropped to her son.
"Then perhaps… this was no accident."
Ethereth nodded slowly, eyes narrowing.
"Zairon didn't just survive something," she said. "He came back… changed."
A low flicker of light pulsed from the fox's tail again, and both women instinctively looked at the boy on the cot—his breath shallower now, his expression calm, but unreadable.
Ethereth stepped closer and lowered her voice, not to disturb him.
"Mother… what are the chances that the Guardian chose Zairon?"
Aidelie's hand tightened gently around Zairon's.
"I think it already did."
Outside, snow fell in gentle silence—drifting past the wardlights and over the roofs of a world slowly shifting beneath their feet.