After you intervened in Iskiros, something else demanded your attention. A valley lie to the southwest, and in it, resided a memory, one known by Greenbrier. Its destruction didn’t surprise you, although, the same couldn’t be said about its timing. Chaos had triggered an aether eruption ten years prior to your awakening. The cosmos was balance, but it had given chaos a head start.

An orange haze cloaked the former city and proved impenetrable to sunlight. The aether eruption had obliterated everything for a half mile and had scoured life in a five-mile radius. The land was inert, no form of life able to take root so long as its wound remained untended. Those structures that remained looked more like a field of crops devastated by a locust swarm. This place had retained humanity’s footprint. But it had become a footnote—a hollow shell that proved incapable of rendering succor.

You returned to a lone two-story structure, which had a wall torn away. Inside, you had deposited a tiny mortal form—one you didn’t understand. It had triggered your attack response, survived, then destroyed a revealed cumulus of chaos. All of which should be impossible for mortals.

The cosmos had its own legends and you were faced with the possibility of a Divine Twin—a cosmic emissary bound to a cosmic force. Bound to you. If that is what she is, she may be the reason I overslept. But why has she allowed for chaos to progress uncontested?

The human stirred, her nude form weaving through the clothing you had mound atop her. She was blindly reaching for something, then looked up when she couldn’t find it. Her eyes grew in horror but she wasn’t looking at you. She didn’t seem to see you at all, instead glancing around the open air.

“No!” she cried, scuttling back against a far wall. “I shouldn’t be here. I can’t be here.” She planted her face against her drawn knees and covered the back of her head.

“I have questions,” you said. But she didn’t respond. She had heard you before, so was she ignoring you now? “What is wrong with you. Can you not hear me?”

“I can’t be here. I’ll get sick. I shouldn’t be here.”

You looked around but you weren’t sure what she was referring to. Viruses were life too and there were none of those here. “What are you blathering about? There is no sickness here.”

“I’m going to be sick again. The radiation will make it come back.”

You moved your attention elsewhere. Sickness. Radiation. This human was broken and a waste of your focus. There was still work to do in this place—a wound in need of healing. You focused there, allowing your eyes to droop closed.

Deep below ground, along the paths of elevator shafts, there rested a ley line. It was damaged, where one of aether’s many forms seeped into the soil around it, passing along the elevator shafts like veins delivering a poison to more of the body.

The earth couldn’t bar your passage—for you were its extension. Your essence moved to that gaping wound, clasped it with a spectral grasp, then squeezed. The rupture closed and the excess aether drew into you, funneling as you returned to your physical form. When you opened your eyes again, the sun pierced the gloom and the memory’s shroud was peeling back.

You turned back to find the human, transfixed by the sun as she stood at the building’s ledge. “The radiation... But where did it go?”

“There was never any radiation here.”

The girl met your eyes as if seeing you for the first time, hers filling with horror once again as she fled. She collapsed into the clothes and started flinging them out at you. “No! Don’t eat me! I’ll taste terrible.”

An article flew into your nostril and caused an involuntary sneeze, the object jettisoning in a mucus wad. “Stop that. I didn’t get those for you to just cast aside.”

“Ow!” she cried, then examined her hand and side. She retrieved a shard of wood out from under her, then surveyed her surroundings. “This was a dresser.”

“A poor one, considering you still haven’t put any of them on.”

She only just seemed to notice she wasn’t wearing anything. “What happened to my clothes?!” She frantically pulled various components to cover herself.

Isn’t it an adult? Just how has it survived this long? And why is it so erratic now? “It seems your clothes were vulnerable to cosmic fire. Not surprising. But care to explain why you didn’t burn up with them?”

Her face was red and she refused to look at you. “Can you not look at me so I can get dressed?”

You shook your head and turned away.

“These clothes are a bit large, don’t you think?”

“Your kind has a saying. Something about beggars and choosers.”

“There’s no need to be rude. I’m finished.”

You turn back to find her wearing over-sized sweat clothes of over-bright colors. They would be terrible for stalking or hiding. “So, how did you survive?”

She settled into a heap of clothes and hugged her knees. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Cosmic fire? What’s that even mean?”

“It’s the energy you harnessed after I destroyed the building. You used it to kill a chaos variant.”

“The hospit—” Her eyes widened. “The hospital! I was on the roof and... Wait. You were there. And I... I was fussing at you. Why was I saying those things?” She pressed her palms against her cheeks and shook her head. “Why was I so mad?”

You were skeptical about this information but she did seem like a different person now. The girl that had chided you on the roof held no uncertainties. That girl was a storm. But this one... this one was trying to survive one. “Do you have two people in your head?”

“What?”

“Personalities. Some of your kind are broken and—”

“I’m not crazy. And you’re suggesting I killed something? That’s crazy. I’m incapable of hurting others. I once rescued a baby lizard, then ended up smothering it in my sleep. I cried for two-weeks.” She shook her head. “I may not know why I spoke to you that way, but I know that I’d never kill anything.”

You narrowed your eyes. You knew otherwise, but she believed what she was saying—an inherent flaw in humanity—the ability to believe what was so blatantly untrue. “Why were you at that hospital? And what were you and those others doing on the roof?”

She picked at the cloth covering her knee and seemed distant. “I... I don’t know exactly. I just felt like I should go to the roof. Felt like I needed to. Like I didn’t have a choice. And when I saw you, I knew that you were making me feel that way. But I was also drugged. So maybe I was confused.”

“You were compelled.”

“I guess you can say that.”

“But I did say it. Because it’s true.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will in time. So, why were you in the hospital?”

“I was sick... No. That’s not true. I thought I was sick. Or worried I might be getting sick.” She hugged her knees. “A long time ago, I really was sick. The doctors didn’t know what it was or how to treat it. It was incurable. But then it just went away.” She narrowed her watering eyes. “Why am I telling you this? Did you give me some kind of truth serum?”

“I realize that honesty is a strange experience for your kind, but I utilize none of humanities devices. We are bound—one. So you may feel like you’re only talking to yourself.”

She nodded absently.

“You went to the hospital because you were getting sick. Then, what—”

“That’s not true either. I didn’t feel like I was sick. I assumed I was.”

You forcefully expelled air from your nose. “Is this how all of your information is going to be? For what reason did you visit?”

“I was pulled. I just assumed that the feeling meant I might be getting sick.”

“Compelled.”

She nodded. “I’m Starry, by the way. But everyone calls me Star.”

Star? This is destiny then.

“What’s your name?”

“This one doesn’t have a name.”

“That won’t do. You simply gotta have a name.”

“This one doesn’t care about your names.”

“Hmm... Okay. Sebastian, then.”

“Sebastian? What? Why would you name a dragon that?” The words came out quicker than you would have liked, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“I like that name. And you don’t care, so what does it matter?”

You refused to be baited into wherever she was going with this, instead turning to survey the area. The haze was gone and a midday sun exposed a sand swept landscape. The roads were almost completely submerged. Almost. But humanity had returned from worse.

“Hey, Sebastian?”

You glanced around to her, where she stood, pulled at her shirt hem, and looked down. “Can you give me a ride home?” she asked.

“Out of the question. This one doesn’t do rides.”

“Well, how did I get here?”

“I carried you.”

“Well, can you carry me home then?”

Your glare narrowed. This go-round, it seemed you would need to develop patience as well.