A white dragon.
Vast and ancient, crouched at the pond's edge, its scales catching the moonlight like polished bones. Jagged spines ran the length of its back, each one sharp and deliberate.
Its long snout dipped slowly toward the algae-covered water and its reflection moved beneath it, pale and enormous.
The air around it had a quality that the air elsewhere in the forest did not, something quieter, something that made the trees feel like they were leaning inward. As if the forest itself understood what was standing in it and had chosen to be respectful.
Time held still for one complete moment.
Then Elina said, trembling, "I thought those things only existed in fairy tales."
"The Recast created this," Toviro said quietly, not looking away from it. "I can't believe it created even such things."
"We have to move," Mayo said. His voice was tight. "Right now. Before it decides we look like a meal, we need to move."
They began to crawl backward, all of them, eyes fixed on the dragon, fear visible in every face. Mina's hand came out behind her, feeling the ground without looking at it.
"Don't make a sound," she said. "Don't give it a reason to notice us."
That was when Mayo's hand came down on a piece of deadwood.
It snapped.
The sound was small. It was barely anything. But in the silence of that forest, beside that pond, with that creature drinking six meters away, it was the loudest thing any of them had ever heard in their lives.
The dragon raised its head.
It turned and looked directly at them with its gold eyes.
For one frozen second nobody breathed.
Then Toviro shouted, "Run."
They ran.
Not gracefully, not even in a clear direction, just forward. Straight through the undergrowth and between the trees, branches snagging at their clothes while uneven ground threatened to throw them off their feet every few seconds.
None of them looked back.
Looking back cost time, and right now, even a single second felt too expensive to waste.
Elina was whispering to herself as she ran, a rapid quiet loop: "Don't look around, don't look around, don't look around—"
They ran until their lungs burned and then kept going before anyone finally spoke.
When Toviro finally slowed and the others slowed with him, they were all breathing in the urgent way of people whose bodies had committed fully to the idea that death was immediately behind them.
Toviro put his hands on his knees. "I think we're safe now."
"You think," Ozair said between breaths.
"I'm reasonably confident."
"That's the same as thinking."
Aryan was looking back the way they'd come, scanning the gaps between the trees. His breathing was controlled. After a moment he said, "She didn't follow us."
Mayo turned on him. "She?"
"It was clearly female."
"I don't know how you can tell that and I don't know why you sound calm about it."
Aryan looked at him. "The beauty on her face proved she was female. Besides that, beauty doesn't ask for permission."
Mayo opened and closed his mouth.
Ozair, meanwhile, was grinning. Not the shaky grin of someone who had just escaped death, but a real one, bright with pure excitement.
He raised both hands above his head and looked up through the canopy at the moons.
"I saw a real dragon," he said breathlessly. "An actual dragon." He turned to the others, looking genuinely offended that they did not seem equally amazed.
"Do you understand what just happened? I got to see a real dragon with my own two eyes."
There was absolute wonder in his voice, like this had instantly become one of the greatest moments of his life.
"I am unbelievably lucky."
"You are," Elina said, "completely insane."
"Maybe." Ozair grinned up at the sky again. "But I got to witness the real art of God."
For a few seconds, nobody said anything.
Then they started moving again.
The forest no longer sounded the same after the dragon.
Before, the noises had just been forest noises, rustling leaves, snapping twigs, distant movement in the dark. Now every sound carried meaning. Every shift in the bushes felt like the beginning of something enormous.
Then something moved to their left.
All of them bolted instantly.
No discussion, no hesitation, just pure instinct.
They ran through the forest again, branches whipping against their clothes as their feet pounded uneven ground. Nobody looked back. Nobody wanted to see what might be behind them.
Elina had started whispering again under her breath, the same quiet string of repeated words, over and over, like it was the only thing keeping her calm.
They kept running for several minutes before it slowly became clear that nothing was chasing them.
No crashing trees. No thunderous footsteps. No dragon.
Gradually, their pace slowed from a sprint to a fast walk, though none of them relaxed completely. They still moved like people ready to run again at any second.
Then Toviro stopped. His hands went to his knees again, not from fear this time, just exhaustion working its way back to the surface now that the adrenaline was spent.
"We need food," he said between breaths.
"Agreed," Ozair answered immediately.
"And a plan."
"Also yes but food first."
Aryan said, "We don't know what's safe to eat here. The animals—"
"I know, I know," Ozair said. He was already looking around the forest as he walked, scanning the shapes of things in the moonlight with the particular focus of a hungry person.
Then he suddenly stopped.
Between two massive trees, half-hidden behind thick undergrowth, stood another tree.
Compared to everything else in the forest, it looked almost ordinary, which in this place still made it look strange enough to belong in a dream. And hanging from its branches, glowing softly under the moonlight, were apples.
Red and gold. Bright enough to make every single one of them stare.
Not alien apples. Not glowing, floating, or shaped too perfectly to trust. Nothing about them screamed danger.
Round, familiar, red and gold beneath the moonlight, carrying the clean scent of fruit that instantly reminded them of home and food and normal life.
For the first time since arriving in this world, they were looking at something that didn't feel impossible.
"I don't know what animals are safe," Ozair said, moving toward the tree, "but I know what apples are."
Nobody could argue with that.
He stepped through the undergrowth toward the tree and his foot connected with something low to the ground.
He looked down.
A small wooden border, barely knee-height, the kind people put around garden beds.
He registered it vaguely and stepped over it, landing on the other side, and reached up toward the nearest branch.
A sound rang out.
Small bells, several of them, the kind tied to a thin fiber cord that runs along the ground as a perimeter alarm.
Ozair looked down at his feet and found the wire. He looked at the bells still swinging.
He looked up at the others.
Before anyone could say anything, a sound like opening a door came.
Light came out of it first, warm and yellow, the light of a fire inside a structure.
Then two figures emerged. A broad-shouldered man moved with the purposeful energy of someone who had dealt with this particular problem before, carrying a thick length of wood across his body like a weapon, because that was exactly what it was.
Beside him walked a child, a boy of perhaps ten or eleven, carrying a shorter piece of the same material and matching his father's stride with complete commitment.
"Glimmers," the man said, loudly, moving toward Ozair. "Even at night. Even at night you don't leave us alone."
Ozair took a step back. "I can explain—"
The man reached him and the wood came down. Not enough to cause serious damage but enough to make the point with significant emphasis.
The child hit from the other side with equal enthusiasm.
"You thief," the man said, each word punctuated by another swing. "Tonight I'll teach you what real robbery means."
"Why are you hitting me?" Ozair said, covering his head with both arms and backing toward the garden border.
"You're asking me this? After standing in my garden?"
Ozair went down onto the ground and the man stood over him, still going, the child circling to find angles.
The others watched this from outside the garden border.
Elina leaned toward Mina. "Are we seeing the same thing?"
"We appear to be," Mina said.
Aryan said slowly, "Those are humans." He looked from the man to the child and back. "Actual humans. People live here."
Toviro was already moving. He stepped over the border and came forward with both hands raised. "Sir. Sir, please, calm down. We were not trying to steal. We didn't know this was your property. We just saw the tree and we've been without food all day and we—"
The man looked at him. Then he looked at the child. "Yami. Get this one too."
"Roger, Father," the boy said, and redirected immediately.
Toviro covered himself with his arms while the boy hit him with dedicated precision and he kept talking through it. "Please listen to us. We are telling the truth. We're not thieves. We just arrived here with nothing and we were hungry, then we saw the apples—"
"Father," the boy Yami said, pausing mid-swing. He had noticed the others standing at the border. "There are more of them."
The man stopped. He turned and counted. His expression moved through surprise into outrage.
"A whole gang," he said. "You brought a whole gang just to rob my apples?"
"We're not a gang, we're a team," Ozair said.
"That makes no difference," the man snapped, raising the piece of wood again.
Toviro said quickly, "We swear we didn't mean any harm. If we'd known this was your place, we never would've taken anything without permission. We're just lost and hungry, that's all. We don't even know where we are."
The man looked at him. The wood stayed raised. He seemed to be running some kind of internal calculation.
"If you were hungry," he said finally, the wood lowering slightly, "you come to my door and you ask. That's how it works. You don't help yourself."
"You are completely right," Toviro said. "I apologize."
The man looked at him for another moment and then hit him once more anyway, apparently on principle, and turned to look at the group standing at the border.
His eyes landed on Mina and Elina.
Something in his expression changed instantly. The outrage vanished, replaced by something far more welcoming.
He walked over to them with a smile, and the moment he smiled, he looked like a completely different person.
"Ah," he said warmly. "Beautiful ladies. Forgive the misunderstanding. How may I help you this evening?"
The others stared.
Behind his father, Yami had locked onto Elina and gone completely still, the wooden weapon hanging forgotten at his side. Color rose to his face. He glanced at the ground, looked back at her, then quickly looked away again.
"Could we stay the night, sir?" Mina asked.
The man's eyes went wide. Then he smiled again, wider. A small something appeared at one nostril that he wiped away quickly. "Of course. Of course. For as long as you need. My home is your home."
"Just like that?" Ozair said from the ground, still holding his head.
"You got a problem, kid?" the man said, staring down at him.
Ozair forced a smile. "Nah, nah. Not at all."
"And what about the rest of us?" Toviro asked.
The man looked at him. Then at Aryan. Then at Ozair on the ground. The warmth remained on his face, though noticeably weaker now.
"I was talking to the ladies," he said.
"If they're not staying," Elina said, "then we aren't staying."
The man looked at her. The calculation ran again. He sighed through his nose.
"Yami," he said.
The boy snapped to attention, still slightly pink in the face. "Yes, father."
"Welcome our guests."
"Of course," Yami said eagerly.
He crossed the garden in three quick steps, pulled his leg back, and kicked Toviro cleanly in the side of the head.
Then, without missing a beat, he turned to Elina and extended his hand with a bow far more formal than anything he had done in the past five minutes.
"This way, my ladies."
Elina looked at the hand. Then she took it, mostly because there was nothing else to do.
Aryan crouched down to Yami's level. "Watch your actions," he said quietly, "little one."
Yami didn't even look at him. Instead, he turned and walked off with Elina and Mina toward the house.
Ozair pushed himself to his feet and watched them go. Then he looked at Aryan and started laughing. "He got you too."
"Don't."
"He literally kicked Toviro in the head and then bowed to her like a servant."
"I said don't."
"I'm just observing, man, that's all—"
"If you keep observing, I'm going to introduce my fist to your face."
"Okay, okay." Ozair turned to follow the others toward the house. Then quietly, just for himself: "He got you though."
Aryan's jaw moved.
Ozair had barely taken three steps before a hand caught his shoulder and pulled him back.
He turned, only to find Aryan already standing close, shoulder against shoulder, their foreheads nearly touching.
The air between them tightened instantly.
"You really wanna do this?" Ozair asked, the grin still sitting on his face.
Aryan's expression didn't change. "You started it."
Ozair slowly smirked. "As you wish." He leaned in just a little closer. "Cooked by a kid, though. That's a rough one."
Aryan's eye twitched.
Ozair saw it immediately, and his grin widened. "Oh, there it is."
Aryan grabbed the front of his shirt. "Say one more word."
"You seem emotional."
Toviro pulled himself up from the garden floor, stood with his staff, and looked at the moons above the canopy for a moment, gathering himself.
Then he looked at the group heading toward the house. He looked at Aryan and Ozair, still bickering at high volume.
He looked at Mina and Elina disappearing through the lit doorway.
He counted.
He counted again.
"Hey," he said.
Ozair and Aryan stopped.
"Where's Mayo?"
The argument stopped. They looked at each other. Then at Toviro. Then at the forest behind them.
The three of them stood in the garden in the moonlight and looked at the dark between the trees and said nothing.