They called him Vane Dream, Rank Six dream-path cultivator. He preferred no titles. The dreams spoke more clearly without them.
He lived behind vision-scrolls, reading echoes that had never touched the ground. He rarely acted. But when a nameless girl lit the edge of the Starlight Vault, he woke.
"A forgotten myth," he murmured. "Or one that never agreed to be remembered."
He let the dream unravel slowly.
The girl walked the edge of a boundary she did not see. The Gu on her spine pulsed. With each beat, one more thread blinked from the sky.
Vane did not interfere. But he dreamed more deliberately.
A mirror shattered in a sect far away. A prophet lost their voice.
He wrote nothing down. But he listened.
"She is being watched," he whispered. "By things that do not yet know they are watching."
And then he vanished from his dream — just in case it wasn't his anymore.