The teleportation was not a fade, but a violent jerk of reality. One moment, the dry,
sun-baked scent of the Desert Biome was filling Rosalind's lungs; the next, a dizzying
explosion of hot pink light swallowed her vision. The world felt like it had been put through a
blender before slamming back into place with a thumping sound. They were standing
squarely in the middle of a bustling, cobblestone plaza. A chorus of gasps erupted from the
crowd of people nearby as the nearly invisible "pink blur" deposited the group directly in front
of the entrance of the raven black theatre.
"Jocelyn!" Vesper's voice was like ice cracking, her eyes darting around the public square.
"We are supposed to be in the VIP lounge. Why are we standing in the middle of people?
We are already late!"
Viera descended slowly, her feet hovering inches above the stones, her already slightly
terrifying nearly faceless expression intensifying. "You've really done it now. You best pray
Adejare or Augusta doesn't call this out when we are reporting, Jocelyn. Do you know how
burnt rubber jester smells?" Viera threatened, staring Jocelyn down, her flames burning
sinisterly, her form nearly abandoning any of the warmth she was once giving.
Jocelyn didn't look bothered. She leaned back, tapping her fingers against her chin as if
counting. "Whoops! Guess that's strike two for the pilot. Good thing I'm the one swinging the
bat, right? Keeps things spicy!" She gave a wink toward the crowd, which was already
whispering, confused at the ruckus that just spawned in.
Rosalind, however, wasn't listening to the banter. She took a step forward, and her breath
hitched.
The air around her was... wrong. It wasn't just cold; it was heavy. It felt like walking through a
thick, invisible curtain of cold silk that clung to her skin. The trees of the surrounding woods
twisted upward like skeletal fingers reaching for a moon that wasn't there.
"Is the... is the air supposed to taste like iron?" Rosalind whispered, her knees beginning to
shake. She instinctively reached out, her hand hovering near Vesper's cloth for a sense of
grounding.
"It's the Shroudwoods Vim," Mod said, stepping up beside her. His voice was calm, but his
eyes were scanning the shadows of the theater's eaves. "This is Shroudwoods Reach, the
largest grounds in Glen Hearthstone and also one of the most dangerous. The woods over
there," Mod pointed, "that's Shroudwoods, the dark forest that bears its fangs at maps,
distance, and compasses."
"Widerlich!!" Rosalind screamed as she reached for her fan and began fanning away the air
surrounding her. "So this is Shroudwoods or should I say the Grimm forest? It's quite sinister,
at least this part is," Rosalind spat as she began fanning the air more violently.
"The Vim here is eerie by nature, and funny you call it Grimm forest," Mod chuckled.
"Though as a scholar I beg to differ, but that's for another day. The forest—it isn't hostile,
Rosalind. It's just dramatic. You'll find your rhythm soon as you can't be a student of Glen
Hearthstone without overcoming the eerie humour of these massive, scattered forest
Shroudwoods," Mod said with a slight excitement.
"So this is Grim Theaters. It's actually one of the best places for all sorts of visual
entertainment, from physical stage plays to cinema, to holograms, to immersion," Vesper
explained, pointing at different posters around the building as they moved toward the
entrance.
A sudden blare of colours and light—sharper than the ambient cold—cut through the plaza.
"Look at this," a high, melodic voice drifted down from above. "The 'great' evil Queen and her Floating cross-legged ten feet in the air was a huge girl, domineering in the air on a rainbow
cloud. Though domineering, she looked like she had stepped out of an ancient scroll with
bright skin that seemed to reflect light and match the rainbow cloud she was riding. She
wore vibrant, silken robes that seemed to flow upward as if she were underwater. In her lap
lay a long, glowing paintbook, and on her shoulders a massive paintbrush, its bristles
dripping with ink that never hit the ground. This was Raina Hua Xiamira, the inheritor of The
Painter—Inheritor of Ma Liang and the Magic Brush.
Vesper stopped dead in her tracks.
Raina. The name echoed in Vesper's mind like a recurring fever dream. The girl who never
learned the meaning of 'no.'
Rosalind watched in horror as Vesper's Vim began to change. It didn't just glow; it started to
ooze. Dark, shadow-like tendrils began to leak from Vesper's silhouette, staining the
cobblestones beneath her. It looked like spilled oil, thick and suffocating.
Deep inside Vesper, a memory clawed its way to the surface. She remembered a private
garden in the Valory estate, years ago. She had been practicing her "Royal Poise," standing
still for hours until her legs went numb, desperate to be the perfect heir. And then there was
Raina—a daughter of a guest of her mother—who had sat on the garden wall and painted a
pair of wings onto Vesper's shadow. The wings actually manifested on Vesper's shadow,
completely breaking the laws of reality, a shadow of a person without wings having wings.
"You look so heavy, Amelie," Raina had whispered back then, her eyes dancing with malice.
"Why carry the weight of a kingdom when you can just fly away? Oh, wait... you can't. You're
just a drawing someone else hasn't finished yet."
Vesper's jaw tightened until it ached. To Raina, the world was a canvas, and people were
merely sketches to be altered or erased. Raina didn't respect the "Order" of stories; she
believed she could rewrite them with a flick of her wrist. And Vesper, who lived and breathed
by the rules of the Household, hated her for it. She hated how Raina's ink felt more "real"
than Vesper's own inherited bloodline.
Raina didn't seem impressed by Vesper's leaking Vim. She looked down and yawned. "Zhi
laohu," she muttered, a smirk playing on her lips. "All that new darkness but still just a paper
tiger."
She turned her gaze to Rosalind, her eyes twinkling with a cruel sort of curiosity. "So, you're
the one. The new Snow White, the dwarf snow white. I heard about you from one of the
Seven Dwarfs earlier today. She said the Princess was a bit... underwhelming."
Rosalind's eyes lit up despite the tension. "You've met one of them? Which Dwarf? Where?
Is she here? I haven't been able to find any of my companions yet!"
Raina burst into a sharp, mocking peal of laughter. She flicked her paintbrush, her huge size
shrinking. Like paint washing down a drain, her towering form condensed into a smaller,
denser, and far more sharply defined figure. "How pathetic! A Princess who doesn't even
have her own servants' contact information? You really are just bland, aren't you? A Longtao
in your own legend."
The insult stung, but Raina wasn't finished. She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a
condescending purr. "Tell me, Amelie, Aurora... how did it feel meeting after so long? My
friend told me that you guys have talked for like over a decade and here you are in
Shroudwoods clinging so close to each other. Why did you separate in the first place? I
wonder, your subjects and story companions definitely do too, I think?"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Rosalind felt a jolt of confusion. Amelie? Aurora? Those were their household names, the
ones that start their names within their legal documents but they never use. At Glen Hearthstone, with people only at home, everyone used their Second Names—Vesper and
Rosalind. To use their "household" names was a breach of the highest order, not an insult
but a cry for conflict, that could leave heads rolling along newly crimson grounds.
Vesper's vision blurred. Amelie. The name felt like a brand. It was the name the head of the
Valory household used when he was disappointed, or needed something from her. It was the
name that once he used, Vesper was at his knees, the name used to cast her out of her
home and trapped in Glen Hearthstone Atheneum.
Raina knew exactly which nerve to strike. She wanted Vesper to remember that underneath
the darkness she covers herself with, she was still just a child under the Valory thumb.
Mod stepped forward.
The air around him didn't just turn cold; it died. A murderous, suffocating intent radiated from
him as he raised his wand, pointing the tip directly at Raina's throat. His usual stoic
expression had shifted into something terrifyingly sharp.
"You call an Inheritor by the name they beckon, Raina," Mod said, his voice a low, dangerous
rumble. "Using a name they don't recommend to you without permission is an offense
against the soul. It is a sanctioned breach of Standard worldly principles agreed upon by all."
Raina didn't flinch, even as the tip of Mod's wand began to glow with a pale, ghostly light.
She just twirled her brush. "Oh? And what is the astronomer of 'KHM 129' going to do about
it?"
"We will settle this," Mod stated, his vim silently flaring. "A Pawn & Knight Duel. At the Arena,
immediately following the play. I will expect you there to answer for your tongue."
Raina laughed again, but this time she stood up on her floating cloud as she had shrunk to a
size that was quite smaller than the cloud a moment ago; the cloud barely contained her.
"Fine. A duel it is. Taiyuanmuole—I was getting bored anyway."
She flicked her wrist, and a canvas made of pure white Vim materialized in front of her. She
turned it around to show the group. Rosalind gasped. It was a portrait of her—Rosalind—but
painted in a style that made her look fragile, like a porcelain doll with tiny, invisible cracks
running through her skin.
"You're quite the masterpiece, Aurora," Raina said, her eyes fixed on Rosalind, who was
standing, resolute, the anger in her eyes and vim very noticeable, steering reactions from the
already nervous crowd observing the confrontation. "Hualóng-dianjing—I think I've captured
your 'cracked' nature perfectly. I'll have this sent to your room so you can admire it. Consider
it a gift from a real artist."
With a final, mocking wave, Raina painted herself a path opening like a mouth in space. She
went in finally, and when it cleared, she was gone, leaving only the faint scent of charcoal
and a lingering sense of dread.
As the group stood in the settling silence, the Narrators began to speak in the void of silence
Raina left behind.
"Did you catch that? The way she spat those names out? Amelie. Aurora," the Male Narrator
asked the Female Narrator.
"It felt like a slap. Why did everyone react so violently to a couple of names, it's their name
right and their first one at that?" the Female Narrator begged the question the Male Narrator
asked.
"Because they aren't just names, my dear. Those are 'Household Names.' In the high-power
lineages like the Valory family, those names are collars. They are the names used by the
patriarchs and matriarchs at the very top of the hierarchy to refer to the children they
consider..." the Male Narrator coughed, "...property."
"A collar? Why would a household like the Valory's need to collar their own children?" "Perhaps they are afraid. Afraid that if they let them just be 'Vesper' or 'Rosalind,' they might
become legends... and I guess legends don't take orders from a Household," the Male
Narrator explained.
"Hmm, also this Shroudwoods is quite eerie. Are they sure it's safe for Rosalind? It may be
steaming with bad luck, why else will the ray of afternoon sunshine 'Raina' show up," the
Female Narrator mocked.
"Hmm, not to worry Partner, I'm sure it's safe, and Shroudwoods is one of the 13 Dark
Forests in Hiraeth."
"Ughhh, the unlucky devilish '13'. I cross my chest, though I have no arms or chest sadly,"
the Female Narrator shrieked, her voice shaking in disgust.
"Ah, your superstitions comrade," the Male Narrator teased.
Rosalind subconsciously reached up, her fingers grazing the skin of her neck. She felt a
phantom pressure there, a cold weight she hadn't noticed before. She looked at Vesper,
whose dark Vim was slowly receding. She looked paler than usual—in anger, fear, or
sadness, Rosalind couldn't tell.
"Vesper?" Rosalind whispered.
Vesper didn't look at her. Her eyes were fixed on the theater doors, but her mind was still in
that garden, watching Raina paint wings on a shadow that couldn't fly.
"Don't say those names again, Lynn," Vesper said, her voice sounding hollow. "Not ever. We
have a play to watch."
The Shroudwoods seemed to grow darker as they entered the theater, the heavy Vim
swallowing them whole. Tonight wasn't just about the end of the tour or a battle. It was the
beginning of the cracks in this story—and the people who were waiting to widen them.