The Winds of Change

The Parcatia Mountains were far from the painted gardens and ballrooms of inner Rolan, and yet here she was—saddled up, sweating under polished leather, her heart racing faster than her mare's hooves.

Lady Virelle d’Arvant, fourteen years old, daughter of the Duke of Glassmere, prospective future consort to the Crown Prince himself.

That was what they all whispered, anyway.

She gripped her reins tighter. The path ahead narrowed into thorny undergrowth and scattered stone. Somewhere beyond, the alpha-class monster their scouts had tracked was nesting. The kind of beast you only hunted if you were mad—or royal.

Or trying to impress someone mad or royal.

She glanced sideways. Prince Lucien Rolan rode a few paces ahead, his bluish hair untouched by sweat or wind. His golden eyes pierced the road ahead or the woods to the sides, yet his gaze was nowhere near her.

"S-so, my prince," she said, running her fingers across her silver-violet, long hair," the mountain pass is not as narrow as depicted on maps, it is huge."

She wiggled her spear as if to clean some dust off the tip, forcing him to notice.

"It is, indeed," he said, "maps are practical, they don't focus on the real scale of things."

"I-I see."

He hadn’t even noticed the flower charm she had tied to her spear.

"A-and... how often do you come to the Parcatia Pass?"

He turned to see a small bird fly away into the woods.

"Y-your grace?" she called.

"Hmm, apologies, Lady d'Arvant, you were saying?"

"I-it's all right, it was not something important... a-and by the way, you can call me—"

"Tracker! Have we found our quarry?" he yelled.

"—Vi."

He wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t seeing her.

She hated how much it mattered.

Virelle was supposed to be more than this—more than silks and study and the dull, gilded games her mother played at court. She wanted to change something, to matter to the world she would one day help rule. Her father was one of the three viceroys in the kingdom, the closest to the throne and the royal family after the queen's passing. 

Of course, it mattered that his firstborn daughter would be set to marry the crown prince. Of course, Duke d'Arvant wasn't doing it for sentimental effect only.

Of course, Virelle understood all of this. If Lucien wouldn’t even look, then she would force him to.

They crested a ridge, the wind sharper now, the trees thinning. The tracker raised his hand, and the knight beside her did the same, signaling for quiet.

It was close.

As the tracker moved closer to the bushes and the trees, scanning the surroundings, his gaze finally locked in, and he directed the nobles with a pointing hand.

That’s when she saw it—the Fungal Wolf—at the edge of the clearing, massive and unnatural, its fur crawling with glowing spores.

Lucien tensed.

"Marcus, please get into position."

Virelle saw as everyone readied their weapons. Spears, crossbows, even mages had come to deal with the beast. 

"Is this enchanted Earth Spear enough?" she said, wondering if she should look more prepared.

Lucien looked at the clearing one more time, and his eyes widened.

"Where's the Fungal Wolf?" he said, concerned.

The tracker looked and stepped back into the larger group.

"I-it spotted us, your grace! It might be unto us now!"

Marcus, the prince's royal guard at only seventeen, rode in front of the two nobles, "Take defensive positions! Protect the prince and the duke's daughter at all costs."

The air grew colder as they formed up. Mist curled around the roots of jagged pines, and the sun narrowed between the peaks like a fading torch. Virelle’s heart beat in time with the clatter of hooves and armor. Around her, the royal retinue shifted into formation as they watched the mist around them.

Then, without warning, the forest screamed.

Birds exploded from the canopy. Branches cracked like splintering bone. And from between the trees came a blur of motion and rot.

The Alpha Fungal Wolf struck with no howl, no warning. Just spores and speed.

It launched itself at the first knight—an armored lancer atop a white destrier—and shattered the man’s shoulder with a swipe of its paw, sending him sprawling. The horse reared and bolted. The wolf didn’t chase it. It turned, low and deliberate, toward the heart of the formation.

“Form ranks!” barked Sir Harvel, the captain of the guard. “Mages, containment rings! Keep the spores clear!”

Two knights dismounted and moved to flank. A court mage began to chant a purifying air incantation, his staff glowing blue-white.

The wolf responded with horrifying grace. It spun, scattering fungal matter into the air—glowing motes that clung to the trees, armor, and skin like fireflies. One knight staggered back, coughing violently.

“Don’t breathe it in!” someone cried.

The beast lunged again.

Steel clanged. A blade bit shallow into its hide, but it hardly flinched. Its fungal tissue had calcified over its muscle—armor of living mold. A knight was pinned beneath a root that the wolf kicked loose in its rampage. Another was knocked out cold.

Virelle watched from the back of the line, rage clawing in her chest.

They were trained. They were armed. And still they stumbled, still they hesitated. And Lucien…

The Prince sat still atop his black courser, eyes fixed on the beast, but distant. Not afraid. Not awed. Just—elsewhere. His hand wasn’t even on his sword.

“Your Highness?” a knight called out, panicked.

Lucien blinked. “...watch me, father, this time I'll make you look!”

The wolf lunged again.

And Virelle moved.

No more watching. No more waiting. If she couldn’t impress him with her words, then she’d do it with action.

She spurred her horse forward and vaulted off the saddle mid-motion, her feet slamming into the mossy slope. Magic gathered in her palm—earth energy, raw and hungry, curling into a sigil of stone and light.

“I’ve got this!” she shouted.

Someone screamed her name—maybe a knight, maybe her steward. It didn’t matter.

This was her moment.

She thrust her hand forward and unleashed the spell.

Magic rose fast in her palm—earth essence, dense and wild, churning into a spike of stone. She darted past the guards before they could stop her, breath catching in her throat. This was it. This was her moment. He’d see her now.

“Virelle—wait!” someone shouted.

Too late.

She launched the spellIt cracked the forest floor, missed the wolf’s legs, and hit a rock outcrop instead.

The ground gave.

So did her footing.

She pitched forward—off the ledge—a scream tearing loose from her throat as the world tilted and vanished beneath her.

She hit the slope hard. Rolled. Rocks bit into her side. She splashed into the creek flowing at the lowest level of the pass. And then, just the sound of running water in the gorge below.

Breathing hurt. Her shoulder was twisted wrong. 

She heard loud voices calling to her atop the cliff, however, they were too far to make sense of the words, and quite frankly, Virelle could not raise her voice either. She barely managed to stand up and walk towards her spear, thrust downwards into the ground. Moving her legs into the creek's shoreline never felt so heavy.

As she picked it up through the haze of pain, she saw it.

The wolf.

It had jumped after her.

It landed lightly, too lightly for its size, and stalked forward, spores lighting up the gloom like floating lanterns. A line of blood tickled down her cheek.

Virelle stared at it, her heart pounding, and felt the last edge of her pride slip away.

She had failed. Again. Just like always. Too loud. Too reckless. Too desperate. She hadn’t impressed him. She hadn’t saved anyone. And no one was coming.

“I really thought I could make a difference,” she whispered aloud, as if wanting the wolf to listen, “But no one ever listens. I was never enough.”

The beast growled and licked its teeth as its back began spurting spores into the thick air of the forest, as if it wanted privacy with its little meal.

Virelle tightened her grip, rage overflowing through her mind.

"You want me?" she said, the fungal poison beginning to take effect, weakening her frail footing, "I'll pierce this thing unto your mouth!"

The wolf lunged with a roar, and the air suddenly... collapsed.

It was as if the world folded inward. The beast froze mid-leap, suspended by something unseen. Its growls turned to a choking whine—and then it crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.

Virelle’s breath caught.

A shadow stepped forward through the fog.

Then, a voice.

Not loud. Not triumphant. Just… measured.

“Too light.”

A figure stepped from the mist between the trees, cloak trailing behind him in soft arcs, drawn by the ripple of his own spell.

Timothy Taranis.

No insignia. No crest. Just a dark travel coat and a half-gloved hand raised at the shoulder, fingers curled like he was plucking something from the air. The moment he stepped into view, everything else seemed to tilt around him.

The wolf thrashed again. Its fungal growths expanded, releasing a cloud of spores into the air. In another fight, that would’ve turned the tide.

Timothy didn't flinch.

He turned his wrist slightly, and the spores froze. Suspended. Caught in an invisible drag field, they hovered like ash caught in syrup. He stepped through them as if walking through a beaded curtain.

The wolf made one last desperate snap of its jaws.

Timothy extended two fingers. Pointed at its chest.

“Fall.”

The air shattered.

Not with sound—but pressure. The wolf imploded downward into the earth like a puppet yanked into the floor. The ground cracked. Fungal growths ruptured. It didn’t even have time to yelp before the spell crushed its ribcage like paper.

A puff of black spores belched from its mouth. Then silence.

The Alpha Fungal Wolf was dead.

Timothy exhaled through his nose. His hand relaxed.

It was over in seconds.

He stepped forward, approaching the broken body by the creek without hesitation. The water beneath his boots didn’t break or bend — it seemed to sink around his footsteps, guided gently downward by threads of magic.

Only then did he glance at Virelle.

She was staring up at him, bloodied, eyes wide, chest rising and falling.

He could see it — the tremble in her hands, the tears she refused to shed, the pain she had no one to give to.

“W-who…” she breathed. “Who are you?”

Timothy didn’t answer right away. He just looked down at her—at the mess, the recklessness, the desperation that reminded him, strangely, of himself.

Only not sharpened.

Not yet.

“Call me,” He hesitated, almost as if the name tasted ridiculous in his mouth. Then he smirked. “Gravitax.”

The look she gave him was somewhere between disbelief and exhaustion.

But something flickered in her eyes then—not awe, not gratitude exactly. Recognition.

She didn’t know who he was.

But she knew this moment mattered.

He extended a hand. “Come with me if you want to live.”

She looked at his hand. Then she locked eyes with him.

Kind, gentle eyes, a smile so sweet that it melted something inside her—it pulled her towards him.

She’d never felt smaller. Never felt more seen.

He rippled with excitement, but concealed it beneath his smile.

"Yes! I've been wanting to say that line for ages now!" he thought.

Virelle took it.

"And... what's your name?" he asked.

She closed her eyes, as if those words were medicine to her beat-up heart.

"Call me," she said, unsure of the outcome of even speaking it, "Vi..."

"Vi? Vi... simple and stylish, perfect... yes, it's perfect!"

Virelle heard that, and for the first time in her life, her heart beat with warmth. It felt like stepping forward meant something.

Then she realized her feet now floated above the water, too. 

"It'll feel rough at first, but trust me, you'll like it."

"Eh?"

With that, they darted upward into the clouds.

Back on the cliff, Marcus was spouting orders.

"I want everyone on that creek now! Search for the duke's daughter!"

The prince was watching the fog below, unable to spot anything. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth with frustration.

"Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!" he said, "This is a disaster!"

If only he meant about the noblewoman who had just fallen over the ledge.

BOOM.

"Kyaaaaaaaah!"

His troubled mind was interrupted when something launched from the creek, breaking the fog and losing itself in the shrouded sky above while shrieking in panic. It blew his hair and cape away, but Lucien was unable to see what it was.

"What was that?" Marcus yelled, "My prince! Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine! I'm fine!"

He looked at the clouds above him, and the fog was still present. Lucien's eyes furrowed, but he gave up almost immediately afterwards.