The place beyond the sky

Crunket rises like a bolt loosened from the very bones of the earth. His body, bound tightly to the polished capsule, cuts a trail through the clouded skies.

Behind him, the stunned silence of the crowd remains frozen in place: soldiers, citizens, even the king that he once admired, all staring upward with mouths agape and wings still.

Wind screams past him. He puts on the glasses to protect against the damage of the air speed.

The pressure builds, the sky dims and the atmosphere grows thin.

Around him, the atmosphere peels back into a blur of blue and white. For the first time in half a decade, a krow breaks free of the visible dome and enters the upper sky.

Every inch higher feels lighter, yet more uncomfortable. Crunket knows this isn’t just about maps - it’s about his legacy. More than showing the world the truth, he wants to reshape the history of the krows.

Frost clings to the metal, and Crunket’s feathers begin to shudder. The altitude is harsh, cruel even. But this is where the map ends, and where his truth begins.

He detaches from the seat and opens his wings like a true krow.

The final explosive pressure of the launcher fades into silence, leaving him in a slow arc at the edge of the stratosphere. The sky around him is no longer blue - it has turned black, vast, and deep.

Around him, there are white dots twinkle with a stillness he has never seen before. There is absolutely no sound, only the undeniable pain from his chest. The curvature of the world reveals itself beneath him, slowly rotating, like a living jewel catching the light.

And then he looks back.

There, beneath him, is not just an island, not just mountains and rivers and borders. It is the world they are living in - a breathtaking, living world.

And it is whole.

Crunket gasps, not just from the lack of air, but from the overwhelming realization of beauty. The kind of beauty no map can ever define.

Below, the land unfurls like a painting without a frame.

Green stretches of forest cradle dark mountain ridges.

Rivers carve elegant patterns across open plains.

Ocean waves shimmer like glass threads, unaware and unconcerned with the struggles of those who named them.

There are no red lines here. There are no kingdoms, no dominions, no flags.

Just one magnificent, singular world.

Tears start dropping and scatter in space.

Crunket murmurs aloud, though no one can hear:

“Marvelous.”

Every tree, every stone, every creature is part of something grander. The concept of ownership feels absurd now.

How arrogant? Just to believe that borders made by claw or ink mean anything to the cosmic being that is their all natural mother.

“Making up things to make our great life pitiful? Funny,” he whispers, finally remembering his motive.

For a fleeting moment, he exists outside of society, beyond politics, beyond mere ambition. He is just a being, born of a planet he barely understood even when looking at it as a whole.

Then, the capsule begins to shift. The descent begins.

His breath catches. The return is planned to be harsh.

Gravity reclaims its power, tugging hard at the small krow. Wind shrieks again, with a sharper, fiercer noise.

The edges of his wings start to heat up, then burn. The pain is immediate and blinding. His eyes sting, unable to see the landing spot, while his scream is silent in the wind.

But Crunket grits his beak.

He channels every ounce of mana through his feathers, reinforcing them, thickening them with flame-resistant magic. Purple lines of energy flicker along his wings as he stabilizes, his body contorts into a gliding arc.

Flames lick at his sides. The capsule breaks apart around him.

His talons scrape against the remnants of the machine as he hurls himself into a flat dive, gliding toward the valley floor.

Below, the citizens watch in horror and awe.

With a final flap of scorched wings, he roughly lands, skidding across the stone. His feathers are blackened, his breathing is ragged.

But he is alive.

And in his talon, he still clutches the brush.

Behind him, Vellithar has laid out a canvas - a vast square of woven web, stretched tightly across polished wood. Crunket leans toward it, dragging his aching body forward.

No one speaks a word.

Crunket raises the brush, dips it in ink, and begins to draw.

He begins with the sea, arcing graceful lines that reflect the shimmer he saw from above. Then come the cliffs, the high peaks of the island - Drak’s Maw, the Ridge of Cinders, the Spiral Caves.

Next will be the forests. He tries his best to illustrate the dense, alive, crawling with tangled life.

And the rivers, threading through the valleys like veins through a hand.

Last comes the mountains, which bend into soft hills that fade into plains, then the beaches outside the coast of krows.

But there are no sharp lines, no names of nations, no claims of ownership over any parts of the landscape. The map feels alive, and it arouses a sense of freedom that the krows have forgotten long ago.

Gasps spread through the crowd.

Even those who expected cartography are transfixed.

The elders see home.

The children see possibilities.

The soldiers, for the first time, see the world not as land to defend against outside forces - but as something to live with in harmony.

By the time Crunket finishes, the island is reborn through a shared, instinct-driven miracle.

He lets the brush fall.

His knees tremble. And finally, with every ounce of mana and body spent, he collapses onto the edge of the canvas.

Silence follows.

Then a slow, collective breath.

Somewhere, the king lowers his head in respect.

He believes he doesn't have to order.

Behind him, one by one, soldiers sheathe their blades. Their wings lower, some fly to Crunket to help him before the jealers come.

When healers rush to lift Crunket’s body, their actions feel much more from the bottom of their honour than just responsibility.

The revolution began and succeeded in no more than half a day.