⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣
THE WILDS DEPTH 1 — BORDER STATION — HIGH NOON TERMINAL
The rail’s platform at Depth 1 hummed with low heat and softer voices.
This was the shallow edge of the Wilds. The place research teams studied the existence of something they could never fully fathom.
The exploration team gathered near the boarding line.
Colt sat on a crate, ankle sealed in a rigid brace. A medic cinched the final strap and stepped back.
Colt nodded once, grateful.
Mae stayed close, her hand firm on his shoulder.
Aria and Lisa stood nearby sharing a light conversation amongst themselves.
The remaining royal guards spread out across the platform. This time at ease, no longer on duty.
Kit took a seat along the inner rail bench.
Buck sat beside him.
Kit’s posture stayed still. His gaze stayed fixed.
He tracked Buck’s breathing. The spacing of his movements. The way his eyes drifted past people instead of landing on them.
Conversation thinned around them.
The rail arrived with a low vibration that climbed through the platform. Doors slid open. Warm interior light spilled across the stone.
They boarded.
Seats filled in uneven clusters. Space settled where it was needed. Kit remained where he was. Buck remained beside him.
The doors sealed.
The rail glided forward, slipping into the shallow tunnel lines of Depth 1.
Observation windows passed the vast open land at measured intervals before re-entering a tunnel.
The rail slowed again at the Borderlands Union Station.
The doors opened beneath a high arch of steel and sky.
Other travelers stood. Packs shifted. Relief loosened shoulders.
Buck rose.
“I’m stepping off here,” he said.
A few heads turned.
“I’ve always wanted to see Destiny,” Buck added. “Feels like the right time.”
Mae frowned. “What?”
Buck gestured toward the platform beyond the doors. Toward the open sky visible through the station’s high arch.
“Figured… I’m home now. No reason to wait.”
Silence followed.
A couple people exchanged looks. Someone opened their mouth, then closed it again.
No one could remember Buck ever talking about Destiny before.
Not once.
But nothing in his voice sounded wrong.
Kit watched him stand.
Buck paused once, just for a moment. Long enough to look back and smile at the group.
“I’ll catch up.”
Buck adjusted his pack then stepped forward onto the station platform.
The doors closed.
The rail pulled away.
Inside the cabin, conversation settled into a new rhythm.
The return trip continued for another hour before the rail slowed again.
Boots shifted on the deck. A few shoulders dropped. Someone laughed under their breath.
Sunlight filtered through the station awning ahead into soft greens and golds.
The train slid into alignment, metal answering to the station’s Roots with a low, cooperative resonance.
Mae pressed her forehead briefly to the window.
“Never thought I’d miss these trees,” she said.
Colt sat with his leg braced, in visible pain but his grip on the handrail eased.
Someone handed him a canteen without asking. He took it. Drank. Passed it back.
A few of the team stood.
Laughter briefly surfaced again. Low. Reserved.
They had survived.
That truth moved between them without needing words.
The doors hissed open.
Warm air rushed in, carrying pollen, sap, and the clean bite of Sylvanna’s upper winds. Platform officials waited in formation beyond the threshold. Healers. Wardens. Rail overseers. Too many insignias to count.
For one breath. Just one. The expedition and everything these explorers had experienced felt like a distant memory.
They all stepped out together.
Hands clapped shoulders. Someone leaned into someone else for balance and stayed there a second too long. A few smiles cracked and didn’t fully close again.
Kit walked near the center of the geologist group.
He noticed the spacing immediately.
One place empty.
The officials approached. Tablets activated. Voices layered in calm efficiency. Names were logged. Injuries flagged. Transport assignments queued.
The moment ended.
Just like that.
Mae caught Kit’s sleeve as they were separated.
“Later,” she said. Not a question.
Kit nodded once.
Colt was lifted onto a stretcher. He argued. Weakly. His assigned medic ignored him. He didn’t fight it.
The group split along color-coded paths, pulled by different hands, different priorities.
Information had weight now.
Each of them carried pieces that didn’t belong to them anymore.
Kit paused at the edge of the platform and looked back once.
The rail sat quiet now, steam lifting from its seams.
Sylvanna opened around them.
And before anyone could say it out loud, every one of them understood the same thing:
They had made it home but they were not getting their old lives back.
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣