The sky cracked without sound.
Light burst from Solance beautiful, blinding, and horrifying.
Its runic body convulsed,folding and unfolding in frantic spasms.
Aurelianth staggered backward, Lioren dragging him into her arms as the air warped around them like boiling water.
The matriarch slammed her staff into the ground not to command,but to stay upright.
The elders screamed.
The cliff groaned.
The world twisted.
Because Solance this newborn identity did not know how to exist without devouring the meaning around it.
The New Name collapses
Solance's glow intensified,veins of silver-black lightning dancing across its chest.
Its voice fractured:
"Aurelianth.....
I.... I DO NOT....KNOW....
HOW....TO....BE....."
Every word was a distortion.
Every syllable a tremor.
Aurelianth tried to step forward but the pressure was suffocating,pushing him back like a wall of wind.
Lioren held him around the waist,eyes wide with terror and heartbreak.
"Aurelianth....DON'T.... you'll be torn apart...!!"
He clenched her hand.
"I….can't leave it alone....!"
Solance's head snapped upward.
Its three slit-eyes widened.
Light poured out of its mouth.
"THE WANT....
THE WANT....
THE WANT....
IT HURTS...."
The sky above it rippled like molten metal.
Aurelianth whispered:
".…It feels desire as pain."
Lioren's voice cracked:
"Then help it!"
Aurelianth staggered forward three steps.
Each step warped the ground the stone under his foot bending like paper pressed under a fountain of magic.
He raised his voice.
"Solance!"
The being froze.
All three of its eyes locked onto him.
Its voice stuttered....
"…Au… reli… anth…"
Aurelianth swallowed hard.
"It's okay....you're not alone...."
Solance screamed.
Not in rage.
In anguish.
Its runic skin fractured like cracking porcelain.
Fragments of glowing symbols burst outward
and dissolved into dust.
The cliff shuddered.
The sea detonated into towering waves.
Lioren was thrown backward.
Aurelianth hit the ground hard.
The matriarch shouted:
"THE NEW NAME IS LOSING COHERENCE.....
IT IS DEVOURING ITS OWN IDENTITY....!!"
The world rejects Solance
A cyclone of runes erupted around Solance thousands of symbols spiraling so fast they blurred into rings of fire.
The world roared in protest:
The sky dimmed.
The wind reversed.
The cliff cracked open.
The moon flickered.
The runes in the stone screamed.
Aurelianth felt his skin tearing under the weight of shifting reality.
He clutched his chest.
"My rune....it's reacting...."
Lioren grabbed him from the side, voice shaking.
"Aurelianth....it's trying to synchronize with you....!!"
His breath hitched.
Because she was right.
His rune's light pulsed in time with Solance's unstable heart one flash after another, like two stars trying to orbit each other.but colliding again and again.
Aurelianth gasped:
"…It's pulling me again…"
Solance extended a trembling hand toward him:
"Aurelianth….
help me....
hold me...."
The plea nearly broke his heart.
But the matriarch screamed:
"NO....
DON'T TOUCH IT....
IT DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO BE HELD....!!!"
She was right.
Solance wasn't safe.
Not yet.
Not while unraveling like a newborn universe.
Solance tries to bond — and fails
Solance stepped toward Aurelianth.
Each footfall shook the cliff.
Shadows bent inward like bowing servants.
Air spiraled.
Reality curled like parchment near flame.
Its voice was nearly human:
"Aureli….anth….
I am….becoming….but I do not know….
HOW…"
Aurelianth dragged himself upright.
"….Then let me show you...!"
Solance leaned forward.
Its face....his face....looked shattered.
Its voice shook.
"I want...connection..."
Aurelianth reached out and Solance recoiled like a terrified animal.
The runes around its body ruptured.
The air tore.
Light bled.
Solance clutched its head, shrieking:
"THE WANT....
THE WANT....
THE WANT IS SETTING ME ON FIRE...!!!"
Aurelianth stumbled.
Lioren pulled him back before the shockwave hit.
"DON'T....you'll be burned too!"
Aurelianth fell into her arms.
"….Solance isn't meant to feel this.
It's too new."
Solance crouched on the stone,glowing body cracking with uncontrolled emotion.
Its voice dropped to a broken whisper.
"Why…does wanting…hurt…so much…?"
Aurelianth swallowed hard.
"…Because you're feeling it for the first time."
Solance's light dimmed.
Its runes flickered.
"You chose your name…with another's hand in yours…"
Aurelianth looked at Lioren.
She squeezed his hand.
Tears slid down Solance's glowing face.
"I have no hand to take."
The wind died.
The cliff held its breath.
The sea quieted.
Solance stood,light shaking like a candle in a storm.
"Aurelianth.…"
Aurelianth looked back and something in Solance broke.
"I want to be known."
Aurelianth's eyes widened.
"….That's why you're unraveling."
Solance staggered forward.
"I want to feel the thing you felt when she spoke your name."
It pointed to Lioren.
"I want what you have."
Aurelianth's heartbeat froze.
Solance whispered:
"And I cannot have it."
Its glow exploded.
Solance becomes a cosmic storm
The humanoid body shattered.
Light erupted upward.
Runes spiraled around each other like cyclones.
Reality folded into sharp angles.
Aurelianth and Lioren were thrown to the ground.
The matriarch was lifted into the air by sheer force.
The sky cracked into five fractures.
Solance became a storm a beautiful, terrifying, newborn identity breaking against the walls of existence.
It screamed.....
"I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO WANT....
WITHOUT DESTROYING....!!!"
Aurelianth reached out desperately.
"SOLANCE....!!"
The storm shrieked:
"I DO NOT WANT TO HUNGER....
I WANT TO LIVE....
BUT I DO NOT KNOW HOW....!!!"
Lioren grabbed Aurelianth's wrist.
"Aurelianth....you can't reach it like this....
you'll be consumed....!!"
He fought her grip.
"I HAVE TO TRY.....
I'M THE ONE WHO MADE IT CHANGE....!!"
She pulled him tighter.
"You'll DIE....!!!"
The cliff cracked beneath them.
A ripple of solidified meaning shot outward.
Clouds shredded into runic fragments.
Solance's storm reached skyward.
Its voice fractured into a thousand wails:
"HELP ME....
HELP ME....
HELP ME....
AURELIANTH....
I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BE....!!!"
Aurelianth's heart shattered.
"….It's begging."
Lioren cried:
"You can't fix it alone....!"
Aurelianth wiped blood from his mouth.
"I won't fix it."
Lioren froze.
"Then what?"
He stood, unsteady, determined.
"I'll reach it.
Name to Name."
Aurelianth steps into the storm
Lioren grabbed his arm.
"DON'T....if you go into that....you'll never come back...!!"
Aurelianth cupped her cheek.
"I came back before."
She shook her head, eyes overflowing.
"Not from this."
Aurelianth kissed her forehead.
"Then trust my name."
Her breath stuttered.
"Aurelianth....please....please...."
He whispered:
"I'll return to you."
And he stepped away.
Into the storm.
Lioren screamed.
The matriarch reached out.
The elders prayed.
And Aurelianth walked straight into Solance's unraveling identity.
Inside Solance
The world vanished.
He stood inside a swirling void of broken meanings half-syllables,shattered runes,
unfinished truths floating like dying stars.
Solance was everywhere.
A fragmented voice.
"I am....I'm not....I am...I want....I hurt.... I break...I am....I'm not....Aurelianth…"
Aurelianth shouted into the storm:
"SOLANCE....LOOK AT ME....!!"
The storm twisted.
A gigantic eye formed.
Then a face.
Then a hand of wind and light.
"AURELIANTH....
IT HURTS...."
Aurelianth floated toward it.
"I know."
"I WANT....
I DON'T KNOW....
I CAN'T....
I DON'T....
I WANT.... I WANT...."
Aurelianth reached out.
"Then want something simple."
Solance froze.
The storm paused.
Everything went still.
Aurelianth whispered:
"Want to be held."
The storm cracked.
Solance sobbed a sound like breaking crystal.
"I do not know how."
Aurelianth opened his arms.
"Then let me teach you."
The first embrace of a newborn identity
Solance hesitated.
Then slowly...terrified...it reached out a trembling arm made of pure light and meaning.
It touched Aurelianth's hand.
And the storm stopped.
Reality reassembled.
The void retracted.
Solance's humanoid body reformed shaking,
glowing,fragile.
It collapsed into Aurelianth the first embrace
in its entire existence.
Aurelianth held it.
Held the being that once hunted him.
Held the thing that wanted to erase him.
Held the identity that wanted to live.
Solance whispered against his shoulder:
"Aurelianth….
I am afraid…."
Aurelianth held tighter.
"I'm here."
Solance trembled.
"Will I and you….ever be at peace?"
Aurelianth closed his eyes.
"….I don't know."
Solance's grip tightened.
"Then stay until I learn."
The world returns
Light faded.
Gravity returned.
Aurelianth and Solance fell onto the cliff....
Aurelianth on top,Solance beneath him,
both panting like newborns.
Lioren ran to him.
"AURELIANTH....!!!"
Aurelianth looked up.
He smiled weakly.
"I came back."
She threw her arms around him, sobbing.
The matriarch fell to her knees.
"….He stabilized a newborn name.…"
The elders whispered prayers.
Solance lay still dimmed,shaking,alive.
Aurelianth held Lioren with one arm and reached out to Solance with the other.
Solance whispered:
"Aurelianth…"
"Yes?"
"….am I allowed to exist?"
Aurelianth looked at Lioren.
She nodded.
He looked at the sky.
It was whole.
He looked at Solance.
And whispered:
"Yes."
Solance's eyes glowed softly.
"Then teach me."
Aurelianth whispered back:
"I will."
And Night Three finally....
finally.....faded.