0.3 - Beholden

At the heart of the sky, an impossible shape began to condense, painted in colors the mind wasn’t meant to comprehend. It shone with unraveling radiance—the very opposite of light.

Proxima tore her gaze away as every warning in her logic channels flared to critical.

“Lyra. Eyes down. We’re leaving. Now.”

Her body moved before calculation could finish, closing the distance to her subordinate in a single measured step.

But Lyra didn’t move.

She stood transfixed, storm-gray eyes wide, locked on the forming Entropic Star—a cosmic eye of unbeing that seemed to gaze not just through her, but into her, unraveling her very core.

The air thinned. The void above them compressed further, the star collapsing into a singular droplet of unmaking. Color strained from the air… and then died.

Proxima acted.

One hand snapped over Lyra’s eyes, pulling her back into an inverted embrace. Her other hand cut sharply through the air, tracing a precise rune signature with practiced speed.

Anima surged through her frame—hot, immediate, absolute—as she configured herself for advanced vector interference.

She could feel it—this wasn’t the final manifestation event… only its precursor. The true emergence was moments away.

No time to run.

Mass and inertia calculations raced through her mind—brutal, imprecise, but fast. The Star roared above their heads, reality itself groaning under its approach.

She’d have to cross the entire bay, past the Moonwharf itself… and she needed to do it now.

Space folded around her, vectors locking into alignment. Her knees bent mid-air, the last calculation rough but—barely—within tolerance.

She exhaled once, steady.

And then—she lunged.

Even before space twisted under her will, before the vectors ignited with raw force, she felt it—the searing heat of entropy blooming overhead like a star gone mad.

They could make it. But only just.

The sky, the water, the Moonwharf—all of it blurred into a single vanishing point ahead, as she tore through space like a meteor breaching the atmosphere.

And behind her, certain death followed—reality itself collapsing in its wake.

For perhaps the first time in her long existence, Proxima felt grateful that numbers could not lie.

She exited her vector-enhanced breakneck flight—lungs burning, calculations screaming their success—and behind her… madness.

Steam howled from the ocean’s surface, the sea itself boiling as it fought in vain to contain the heat of erasure.

Proxima was certain she’d calculated a distance twice what was needed to clear the blast. And yet—the ocean was burning.

Ahead, where the people of Moonwharf had once lived… only annihilation remained.

A jagged scar tore through the landmass of Ovum itself—a gaping void where a bustling bayside town had stood only moments before.

Proxima’s eyes narrowed to daggers, her voice dropping low as frustration flared beneath her carefully maintained calm.

“I don’t understand what’s going on here.”

She forced her mind back into alignment, crushing emotion beneath cold, clinical order.

“Frame…”

Golden runes spiraled to life before her, threads of light etching through the air as her thoughts and data requests raced across space and time.

[Aetherframe Online — Nox Caelum Command Link Established.]

Nox Caelum acknowledges your situation, Unit 00. Analysis has commenced.

Destructive force and impact: Measured.
Heat contamination of oceanic region: Within processable range.

Aetheric signature: No match found.
Energy state: Unknown. Classification: Unquantifiable.

Damage to Moonwharf urban zone: Absolute.
Chance of surviving life: Minimal.
Chance of Aetheric contamination: High.

Recommendation: Retreat. Initiate containment protocols until further analysis is possible.

…Correction.

Seventeen living individuals confirmed within blast perimeter.
Vital signs: Range from serious to critical. Detailed classification: Pending.

Updated recommendation: Initiate immediate rescue. Cooperate with Unit—Lyra—until additional Nox Caelum support units can be—

[Warning: Spatial corruption de—tect—]

—Signal integrity compromised.
—Aetherframe link: Terminated.

The final projection flickered… and collapsed. Nox Caelum fell silent.

In its absence, her integrated logic core filled the void.

“Anchor to Nox Caelum: Lost. Observation field beyond resolution.”

And with it… the last voice of certainty was gone.

A fine mist began to fall—soft as rain, but cold and heavy. Water condensed unnaturally fast in the poisoned air, droplets clinging to skin and steel alike.

Above, a storm-broken sky churned in slow, ponderous spirals, clouds smeared with faint, impossible hues.

Below, the Bay still seethed—steam rising from its scalded waters, curling into the dying light like the final breath of a broken world.

The horizon stretched out before her in perfect, unbearable silence.

In that silence, Proxima jolted—like a circuit had snapped violently back into place.

Lyra.

She hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t made a sound. Not since they landed.

Proxima turned away from the ruinous horizon, her gaze falling sharply over her subordinate—and there she was. Standing. Trembling. Shaken… but alive.

“Lyra. Are you functional? Speak to me.”

Her voice stayed low, but a thread of unease wound through every syllable.

“The Frame is down. Nox Caelum went silent. Under normal circumstances, we couldn’t sever that link even if we wanted to. This isn’t over—something’s wrong. We—”

She stopped.

Even now, Lyra wasn’t responding. She wasn’t even looking at her.

Proxima stepped closer, her golden eyes narrowing.
“Lyra?”

The thistle-haired girl’s head snapped toward her, fast—too fast—like a serpent locking onto prey.

For a heartbeat, everything seemed normal. Lyra’s features remained composed, expressionless, calm in a way that would have reassured Proxima under any other circumstance.

But her eyes—

Something behind them was… absent.

No recognition. No trace of will. Just a hollow, vacant emptiness—like staring into a beautifully maintained doll that had long since forgotten how to dream.

Then—a spark.

“Lady Proxima!”

Lyra’s voice rang out suddenly, bright and clear, her brows drawing together in a flash of panic. Her hands curled into delicate fists, poised forward, nothing held before her—for all intents and purposes, Lyra was normal again.

“This is bad. If we can’t contact the Frame, then personal communications to Nox Caelum must be down as well. I’ve sent out a ping regardless, requesting the aid of any nearby surface Machina. I… I can’t say if any are close enough—or if they’ll even see it.”

She was speaking too quickly, the words tumbling out in a rush, but her focus held. For a moment, that was enough to ease the jagged edges of Proxima’s worry—though even that relief felt hollow beneath the crushing weight of what was quickly becoming a generational tragedy.

“I know,” Proxima answered, her voice clipped and efficient. “We’ll head to what’s left of Moonwharf. Stabilize whoever we can. Stay focused. Stay close. We don’t know what else might happen.”

Lyra’s head nodded sharply. “Right.”

But just as she turned, Proxima caught it—a flicker.

Lyra’s eyes lingered on the shattered horizon a moment too long, the storm-colored irises catching the impossible hues bleeding through the broken sky.

And then… she smiled.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Aether harmonics have stabilized… readings are back down near ambient,” Lyra reported, her voice flat but distant. Her eyes traced the flickering sigils in the runic window before her as they moved through the fractured sky toward what little remained of the harbor.

They traveled at the fastest speed their air-walking magic allowed, her violet-white hair fluttering in the poisoned wind.

Proxima’s golden eyes stayed fixed on the horizon. Her voice came low, restrained—too composed. She was the leader here. Lyra, her subordinate.

Even if this mission had begun as little more than a convenient excuse for a field excursion… now, she had to play her part.

“That, at least… is good,” she murmured.

A heartbeat of silence passed before she added, almost to herself, “The last data I pulled before the Frame went silent put the population here at just under eighteen thousand.” Her jaw tightened. “The fact that anyone survived… is a miracle.”

They descended slowly into the heart of devastation, arriving on the southern outskirts furthest from the sea. It was no wonder that the area most distant from the epicenter had sustained—relatively speaking—less damage.

Below them, Moonwharf was gone—its memory carved into ash and glass, the earth itself torn open and wounded beyond recognition. The sprawling docks, once lined with merchant vessels and lantern-lit fishing boats, had been ripped from their moorings—nothing left but charred stumps and the skeletal remains of splintered piers, jutting like broken ribs from the scorched bay.

The air tasted faintly of salt, sulfur… and death.

The trees along the coastal edge stood like blackened monuments, their bark stripped away, skeletal trunks reaching uselessly toward a poisoned sky. Melted lanterns clung to the branches like weeping vines—remnants of a festival that would never return. Leaves were gone, mingled with the ash of the people who once called this place home.

Further ahead, the harbor lay in ruin—ships that once brought life and trade now melted into the fused shoreline, their masts snapped and charred, canvas banners incinerated mid-flight. Somewhere in the stillness, a broken ship’s bell swayed faintly in the toxic wind, clanging once before falling silent forever.

Lyra hovered at her side, the glow of her transit glyph fading as she took in the destruction.

“There’s… nothing left.”

The words were barely more than a whisper, the usual monotone edged with something raw and unfamiliar.

Proxima felt it—not from the ruins below, but from the faintest tremor running through Lyra’s frame.

She was Machina, yes. But still the youngest of her kind.

She wasn’t prepared for this.

Nor should she have been.

—“Ugh…”

A high, ragged voice—choking on smoke, blood, and the remnants of a shattered home—cut the air like a thunderbolt.

Proxima and Lyra moved as one, descending instantly toward the source.

Behind the crumbling foundation of what had once been a grand home, strewn across a slab of cracked marble, a small boy lay sprawled helplessly—covered head to toe in dirt, ash, and blood.

Lyra didn’t wait for a command. She didn’t need one.

Without a word, she dropped to her knees beside him, hands outstretched over his small, broken body. Though slick with blood and sweat, his hair caught the faintest gleam of light—dark as polished iron, yet with a strange, tarnished silver sheen that seemed almost… luminous in the dying sun.

And his remaining eye—just one—held that same faint, unnatural brilliance. A dull iron hue, yes… but in that moment, catching the light just so, it gleamed with the promise of something far greater. A knowing sadness lived there—far older than any child’s should be.

A soft golden glow bloomed from Lyra’s palms, radiant and defiant against the night closing in around them.

“Lux Impertio: Solis Vita,” she whispered.

Warm healing Aether gathered around the boy like a hopeful ray from the heavens. But hope could only reach so far.

The right side of his body had borne the worst of it—likely the side turned toward the blast as it tore through the market thoroughfare. His arm—gone below the bicep. His right eye… a raw, bloodied ruin.

Even so, his chest still rose and fell—thin, gasping breaths drawn from lungs that had no right to keep trying.

Lyra’s voice softened, low and gentle as she worked.
“It’s going to be okay, little one. That’s it… breathe in. Nice and slow.”

She was a natural.

In another life, Proxima thought, Lyra would have borne not the sigil of Nox Caelum, but that of a surface steward—one of Ovum’s gentle protectors.

Proxima stood over them both, her fists clenched tight at her sides.
All of her power. All of her indignation.

And no enemy in sight.

Then—

A broken, half-dead voice cut through the silence, freshly woven life trembling on the boy’s ragged breath.

“Please… you ha-… you have to help her… my sister… she’s at the beach…”

Proxima’s heart froze.

The beach?

There was no beach.

Only a gaping geological void—a wasteland of glass and ocean.

She crushed the rising lump in her throat. There was no time for grief. No time for comforting lies.

“Lyra. Take him. Stabilize him. Then come back. He’s not the only one. We have to find the rest.”

Lyra turned her head toward her, eyes wide, her lips parting as if to protest—as if she might ask where the girl was, might try to find her anyway.

Proxima didn’t let her.

“Hurry,” she ordered, her voice flat, unyielding. “Do it now. Focus.”

There was no sister to find.

“You understand, don’t you?” Proxima pressed, her voice lower now, more personal. “There’s no time. Get him somewhere safe. I’m going to need you.”

Lyra hesitated… then nodded, her voice barely above a whisper.

“…Right away, Lady Proxima. I’ll do what I can.”

“Up we go,” she murmured softly.

Her voice took on a gentleness she didn’t know she possessed—a practiced calm layered over genuine feeling, not to hide it… but to carry it more gracefully.

For his sake.

And for her own.

She gathered the broken Aethari boy into her arms, holding him close—like a precious secret the world had tried, and failed, to erase.

Golden light continued to flow from her hands, healing magic wrapping his battered form in delicate strands of warmth. It would save his life. Seal his wounds.

But his heart…

That was probably too far gone. Even if he wasn’t conscious enough to know it yet.

Soft, comforting words rose naturally to her lips. Not a script. Not a routine. Just something gentler, filtered through that thin, fragile layer she’d unconsciously placed between her heart and her voice.

Words for him.

And words she desperately needed to believe herself.

The thistle-haired Machina lifted him aloft, ascending into the night and away from the ashen death of Moonwharf.

Proxima watched them go, her golden eyes narrowing as she turned back toward the ruins.

She pressed forward through the silence, past a crushed stone fountain crowned with the broken feet of a bronze statue—its upper half now scattered in molten fragments across a blackened plaza. A toppled merchant cart lay nearby, glass bottles fused to the street, the scent of burned fruit wine still lingering in the air.

She stepped over them all.

There was no one left to sell.
No one left to buy.
No one left to mourn.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

By the time Lyra returned, Proxima had already located three more survivors—each clinging to life by a thread, each a fragile echo of what had once been a thriving town.

One by one, person by person, they worked in perfect unison—pulling them from the crumpled remains of Moonwharf, stabilizing them just enough to last another day, and carrying them away from the ashen grave their home had become.

Two Aethari entertainers—a young man and his beloved—were among them. Perhaps the only two hearts in Moonwharf not yet frayed or burned away by the world. Even with all else lost, they still had each other. A small victory… but beautiful in its defiance.

The third—a Nyrr dockhand—had survived by pure chance. He’d been hauling cargo uphill toward the granary when the sky fell. His crewmates below, still on the docks… had burned, drowned, or simply vanished into the screaming light.

They spoke as little as possible. Words felt too heavy. Too final.

When all was said and done, sixteen souls had been pulled from the smoldering corpse of a town.

Seventeen had survived the blast.

But one… one was already too far gone. Even for Machina. Even for magic.

Further into the ruins—past the shattered town square and down the winding road that once led proudly toward the harbor—they found him.

Propped against his miraculously spared wagon, an old Aethari man sat quietly, his breath shallow, his eyes distant. White of hair and beard, his soft green eyes still held a strange, peaceful clarity.

Both his legs were gone. His blood—deep crimson, almost black in the dying light—pooled beneath him, too vast a sea for one frail body to give. It mingled with the ash of his home and his people, a final testament written in fading warmth across the cold stone.

He didn’t flinch as Proxima approached. Didn’t plead.

He simply looked up at her and smiled faintly, as if he’d been waiting for someone to share this last moment with. He took their forms in, a knowing look passing over his broken features… like he recognized old friends.

Lyra knelt beside him without a word, her hands already moving. Proxima wondered—did she truly believe it would make a difference? Or was it simply the kindness he deserved, even here at the end?

“You’re… Machina. My luck… endures. Ha…”

His voice rasped from a throat too dry for words, but he forced them out anyway, dragging each breath against failing lungs.

“Tell me…”

A pause. One last, desperate plea.

“Did anyone else… make it?”

Proxima’s lids slid closed over her golden eyes. She nodded once, slowly, her hand falling to rest against the flat of his sweat-slicked, clammy forehead.

Her Anima stirred. Warmth and light washed down over him like rain falling on parched earth. His ragged breathing calmed. His tension eased.

And for a brief, fleeting moment, he looked at peace.

His legs weren’t the true issue. His body was broken beyond saving—uncountable fractures, a collapsed lung, and blood slowly filling the hollows where life once thrived. It was too late.

“Ah…”

He gasped, more at ease than before.

“The stewards… still with us…”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed, her output increasing as if she could will his life to stay. But the old man’s kindly green eyes found her through the fading haze.

“No, my dear… it’s… okay. Don’t you worry for these old bones.”

His breaths grew more shallow. A few more heartbeats.

“…Thank you.”

He drew one last breath—deep, steady, final.

And then… he was gone.

Proxima’s eyes closed again. Her hand fell from his brow, fingers brushing against cooling skin.

But Lyra—
Her magic still surged.

Golden light poured relentlessly from her hands, flooding into a body that no longer held a soul, breathing life into a vessel that had already forgotten the meaning of it.

Proxima turned slowly.

“Lyra…” she called, voice low and careful.

She placed a hand on the trembling girl’s shoulder, using her free one to gently pull her back from the corpse.

“It’s okay. We have to go back to the others. There’s nothing left here. We need to make sure they stay okay—that they keep breathing. Can you do that for me?”

She spoke softly, like a mother to a child too grief-stricken to understand the weight they carried.

Lyra’s eyes looked empty. But after a long, frozen moment… she nodded.

As they turned to leave, a sudden pulse swept through their minds—a forgotten presence breaking through static.

“We’ve been trying to reach you, Unit-00. Spatial anomalies around Moonwharf are stabilizing, but remain critical. Partial observation has been restored. What is your status?”

The connection to the Aetherframe had returned.

That had to be a good sign—despite everything. If the spatial interference was clearing, if no further manifestation had occurred… maybe, just maybe, this nightmare’s opening act was finally drawing to a close.

“We’ve been able to assist and stabilize sixteen of the seventeen survivors,” Proxima answered, her voice mechanical, drained of warmth. “We tried to help them all, but one was too… he was too damaged to sustain. We are retreating to the civilian regroup point. Please begin immediate extraction—”

A flicker—violet. Violent. Wrong—snapped across her vision.

And then—

A burst of violet Aether erupted from Lyra’s outstretched palms—uncontrolled, directionless.

Proxima moved on instinct, her body disappearing and reappearing several feet away. The ground where she’d stood moments before split open as the violet discharge tore a smoking scar through the stone and up the mountainside behind them. She'd barely activated her vector magic in time.

Lyra stood in the midst of the devastation, her storm-gray eyes soft, a faint, peaceful smile on her lips.

She hadn’t moved.

She hadn’t even noticed.

A terrible stillness bloomed behind Proxima’s eyes.

“…Lyra,” she said slowly, carefully. “What… are you doing?”

Lyra tilted her head, her voice as flat and innocent as ever.

“Nothing? Is everything okay, Lady Proxima?”
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
—Beneath the ruined night sky, true darkness emerges.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[Bonus Lore Fragment]
The Machina

The Machina are enigmatic life forms, outwardly indistinguishable from elegant Aethari women. They are beings of interwoven flesh and Aether. Though they bleed and breathe, their bodies are sheathed in instinctively controlled Aether, rendering them nearly impervious to harm. Injuries vanish near-instantly, healed by what seems to be an endless reserve of Anima.

Their inner anatomy remains a mystery. Fragmentary records from the now-extinct male line speak of metallic bones and cold, serpentine clockwork organs. Modern Machina, when asked, confirm this—but offer no further explanation.

Though capable of immense power, Machina are pacifists by design. They do not retaliate against sentient life—not out of fear or limitation, but from a creed written into the very architecture of their souls. While it is theoretically possible for a mortal to harm a Machina, such feats belong to the realm of legend—once-in-a-century talents and impossible odds.

Yet when instinct-driven threats arise—monsters, beasts, abominations—they respond without hesitation, summoning exotic Aether weapons and spellcraft beyond what most humans can even comprehend.

They serve no one by default but may choose to protect any being, house, or cause that can engage with them—whether by voice, written word, or gesture. They require nothing but ambient Aether to sustain themselves, yet take joy in human sensations: food, drink, and pleasant weather. Though their flesh, blood, and nerves are tangible, anything separated from a Machina’s body—be it a drop of blood or a single tear—dissolves into Aether particles almost instantly.

They are guardians. Stewards.
And should one ever fall, no body remains—only a fading memory.