X’OMNERA — THE PULSE DISTRICT — STREET MARKET
The Pulse was loud in layers.
Music bled from storefronts and open crates. Loops overlapped. Live strings snapped and reset. Vendors tested speakers at half volume, nudging levels higher every few minutes.
Triple Kill moved with the crowd.
Talla stopped often, lifting fabric, checking seams, letting the cut tell her what it was worth. She laughed once when she found something that surprised her and bought it on the spot. She kept going until she had more bags than she could carry.
Set carried a few bags for her, watching hands, eyes. He wasn’t in the mood to shop. His mind lingered on the memory he shared with Vei but being out with his friends eased his tension. A little.
Riven drifted into a music stall.
Wav-Pods lined the front table. Compact, polished, stacked by model and year. He picked one up, scrolled through its interface, nodded to himself. Solid. Clean output.
Then he noticed the shelf.
Behind the vendor’s shoulder, half-shadowed, sat a drumstick.
Long. Thick through the grip. Dark wood worn smooth where hands had held it again and again. Jade threading ran unevenly through the grain, dulled by age.
Riven’s eyes paused.
The vendor caught it immediately.
He leaned back, casual. “That one’s hard to miss.”
Riven set the music player down slowly. He reached for the stick, rolled it once in his hand. Weight felt right. Balance too.
“How much,” Riven asked.
The vendor smiled. “Three times market.”
Riven chuckled like he expected that.
He set the stick back on the shelf. Calm.
“That’s a Choir piece,” Riven said. “Green Haven work. Older workmanship. You got it from a secondhand haul.”
The vendor’s smile thinned.
Riven met his eyes. Friendly. Present.
“I’ll pay fair,” Riven continued. “Or I could just take it.”
A beat passed.
The vendor exhaled, rubbed his jaw, named a number closer to truth.
Riven paid without comment. He purchased the Wav-Pod too.
When he stepped back into the lane, Set glanced at the stick. “Find something good?”
“Yeah,” Riven said. He turned it once in his palm. “Just learned something too.” Reflecting back on the interaction with the vendor.
Talla leaned over to look. “From home?”
“Yup,” Riven joked. “Made to be wielded by the most rock on elf ever.”
They shared a brief laughter then moved on.
Riven slid his earbuds in and tapped the stick lightly against his leg as they walked. Once. Then twice.
Aether took the form of aura around the stick, warmed, contained, precise.
He smiled to himself.
The Pulse carried on.
For a few minutes, this moment felt ok.
Then the crowd shifted.
A ripple moved sideways through bodies. Voices lifted. Someone bumped Talla hard enough to knock a bag from her arm. It hit the ground. YoYos skittered.
She turned.
Hands closed in fast. Three of them at first, then more filling space behind. Their sigils glimmered low and ready, colors sharp against the night.
“Careful,” one said, already smiling.
Riven pulled his earbud free. The music stopped.
Set stepped forward.
The street kept moving around them, unaware of the line that had just been crossed.
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣