I have been here since the first ripple.
Since the lake took its first breath beneath the mountains, when silence became water and water became memory.
Before men built kingdoms.
Before curses knew names.
I was the breath between stillness and depth.
The lake did not birth me.
I was born with it.
Bound.
I do not remember warmth.
I remember waiting.
When the four of them stepped through the veil of mist into my domain, I felt them before I saw them.
The cave breath shifted.
The air bent.
Their footsteps trembled through the ground like voices through water.
Each carried something unique.
One—sharp as forged steel, eyes clear but carrying a wound that time had not claimed.
One—steady as earth, bearing weight with silence rather than resistance.
One—brittle ice and devouring chill, power carved into her as cost.
And one…
One was the echo of my own reflection.
A soul fraying at the edges yet refusing to unravel.
A heart bound so tightly in pain that even the air shied away from fully entering his lungs.
The lake hummed.
I felt him.
Kel von Rosenfeld.
I did not know his name then.
But I knew this:
I had never felt a mortal carry his life in such quiet defiance.
When they descended into the mist trial, the stone around them hushed.
Mortality walked into memory.
I watched without intervening.
Their nightmares surfaced like drowned faces rising through fog.
And yet—one by one, they walked through their pasts, their regrets, their truths.
None lied.
All staggered.
But none looked away.
That mattered.
It always mattered.
Truth before water, I whispered to the lake.
Then judgment.
So when the mist faded and they stood before the lake's surface, I let silence greet them.
I wanted to see what they would do.
The girl called Sera stepped forward first.
She was born of frost and burden, her power formed from sacrifice.
She would have thrown herself into the lake.
A proper offering.
Many champions before her had done so.
Some died.
Some were saved.
None asked permission.
He did.
Kel's hand closed around her wrist—not binding, merely holding.
"Stop," he said softly.
I felt the words ripple across the surface.
"Do you think this kind of lake is free for all?"
He asked the lake to be seen.
Before asking it to serve.
That was new.
I listened.
He spoke of guardianship before salvation.
She spoke of duty before pain.
He reminded her that even duty needed respect.
When I rose from the lake—mist gathering like a spine forming from water—I laughed.
Not out of mockery.
Out of surprise.
They came with curses…but they came with restraint.
The lake tasted their presence.
I watched.
I waited.
Kel stepped forward.
He spoke simply.
Truthfully.
"I have a death curse. I don't know how I got it. I don't know when. It slowly takes my life. It makes me feel pain. I cannot stop myself from coming here. I want to live—not as a worthless cursed boy."
He said worthless like he believed it.
That word struck me like stones thrown into still water.
Worthless?
He who had survived his own bones for so long?
I had seen men cross mountains and break.
He had walked through years of drowning.
Still standing.
Still speaking.
Still asking.
Not demanding.
That was the first moment the lake tilted its gaze toward him.
Sera spoke next.
Her curse was familiar.
A carving of power that fed on the lifeforce. Barbarian craft. Beautiful. Lonely.
"I want to live as long as I can," she said.
Such simple words.
Such forbidden ones.
Cursed ones do not ask to live longer.
They ask to die better.
But she asked anyway.
She had walked beside Kel too long not to.
Reina and Landon—children of iron and restraint—admitted no curses.
Only weariness.
Hidden wounds.
Quiet desire to walk forward.
They did not claim entitlement.
They claimed readiness.
And the lake listened.
I allowed them entry.
They stepped into the water.
The lake did what I could not.
It cleansed.
It broke curses.
It rebuilt years.
They thought I lifted their burdens.
No.
I only watched.
The water remembered how to heal when touched by sincerity.
Each of them dissolved and reformed within the depths.
Sera's frost uncoiled.
Kel's curse screamed—then shattered.
He gasped.
His breath returned to him as if stolen back from death itself.
"I can breathe."
He said it softly.
But inside the water, it echoed like thunder.
My reflection… learned how to inhale.
When they rose, I thought they would leave.
Most do.
They live.
They run.
They forget.
But he turned back.
Of course he turned back.
Mortal nature is to escape struggle. His is to walk toward it.
He called to me again.
Not to ask for more.
To ask a question no one has ever dared.
"How long have you guarded this lake?"
I answered.
"Since the lake's beginning."
He stood silent a moment.
Then asked—
"So you've been lonely since then."
Those were the first words in centuries that made the water tremble.
Not from anger.
From recognition.
I who had guarded storms before cities existed, felt seen by a boy barely thirteen.
Lonely.
Yes.
Bound.
Yes.
Loved by none.
Remembered by stories, not souls.
When he offered the contract, I thought he had betrayed that understanding.
That he sought to bind me—like many before him.
I rose in fury.
Water rippled like knives.
Mortals flinched.
Except him.
He stood, calm as a winter that would rather starve than yield.
"I offer you a mutual contract."
"Not as servant."
"As partner."
"With freedom."
Mortals do not offer freedom.
Mortals seek it.
I watched his aura.
It did not expand with greed.
It steadied.
Humbled.
"If I ever force you," he said, "the contract ends, and I die."
Silence drowned the chamber.
He meant it.
Even Sera stopped breathing.
Reina lowered her spear.
Landon looked at him as if something fundamental had changed.
It had.
I extended my hand.
Mist to flesh to light.
We touched.
And the pact was sealed.
Not as binding.
As awakening.
When they left, I remained still.
As I always have.
But the lake was not the same.
Neither was I.
He walked toward the tunnel, cloaked in snowlight and breath.
Then paused.
Closed his eyes.
"Can you… at least tell me your name?"
He did not ask as master.
Nor as hero.
He asked as someone who had learned how to live again.
And who wished not to leave me behind in the silence.
So I answered.
Softly.
So softly the water itself held breath.
"Sairen."
The name no one had spoken since the first winter.
Now they walk away.
The three follow him.
The boy walks ahead with air truly filling his lungs for the first time.
His back is straighter.
His eyes clearer.
And part of me walks with him.
Bound not to subservience.
Bound by his promise.
I remain the lake.
But now—
For the first time since I learned how to reflect the moon…
I see the world through someone else's gaze.
If he breaks, I will watch.
If he rises, I will watch.
If he dies—
…
No. He has died enough.
Let the world tremble.
Let fate rewrite itself.
The lake has witnessed.
I, Sairen, who drowned silence and bore centuries of waiting—
have given my sight to the boy that taught the water how to breathe.