⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣
SYLVANNA — SPECIALIZED RESEARCH FACILITY, HOLDING SHELTER
COMMON LOUNGE — MORNING
The officials left on schedule.
The door sealed. The room stayed quiet.
Ten minutes.
Sunlight cut through the upper panels and settled across the lounge floor in clean geometry.
The night’s weight still lingered.
They had stayed up too late.
Stories had spilled out in layers, unplanned and unfinished. Places they’d come from. People they’d loved. Jobs they’d sworn they’d never take again. Regrets shared without ceremony. Laughter that surprised them by still existing.
It felt like a last night.
Kit sat on the arm of the couch, feet on the floor.
“My sisters are older,” Kit said. “Both of them. But I have a twin too.”
Mae smiled faintly. She knew that tone.
Colt chuckled. “They ever let you forget you’re the baby?”
“Never,” Kit said. “Except Kilo. He’s younger than me.”
Aria looked up. “What’s he like?”
Kit’s grin softened. “He fights monsters all day. Doesn’t lose once.”
Lisa tilted her head. “Sounds like a real beast.”
“Real to him,” Kit replied.
Mae laughed quietly.
“He’s gonna be the strongest one,” Kit said, certain. “He’s my little brother, he’s suppose to be.”
Kit spoke those words proudly.
The room held that for a moment.
The memory of his siblings stayed with him after the officials returned.
They arrived in pairs, then more. Tablets. Soft steps. Smiles measured for morning.
Director Halbert didn’t come with them.
A Sylvannan woman took the lead, voice smooth, practiced.
“Good morning. As discussed, today begins reintegration.”
She gestured and screens bloomed to life along the far wall.
Names aligned beside assignments.
Wellness. Transition. Oversight.
Mae scanned the list once.
She raised a hand.
“I decline.”
The room paused.
The woman turned. “Pardon?”
Mae stood, calm and precise. “I’m invoking expedition autonomy under Sylvannan research ethics. Survivor consent applies. Document the refusal.”
The attendant hesitated, then tapped her slate.
Mae watched her do it.
Lisa accepted her assignment with a nod and immediately began asking questions. Many. Information that overlapped. Reports that contradicted each other. Aria joined in, voice soft, details sharp. The officer assigned to them started taking notes, then stopped in confusion then started again.
Colt’s officer stepped forward wearing High Noon insignia.
Colt looked at it. Then at the man.
“Wrong one,” Colt said.
The officer blinked. “Sir?”
“You don’t report to this facility,” Colt replied. “You report to my father.”
Silence rippled.
Colt smiled politely. “I’ll handle my own reintegration and let my dad know you did a good job.”
The officer swallowed and stepped back.
Kit watched all of it.
When his name appeared, the assignment read: Escort Home — Protective Detail.
The woman addressed him directly. “General Asher has requested—”
The room shifted.
Footsteps echoed from beyond the hall.
Heavy. Disciplined. Cadenced.
The doors at the far end opened.
Heat rolled in with them.
Armor marked with Nardoxian insignias filled the corridor beyond. Perfect spacing. Controlled stillness.
At their center walked General Kofi Asher.
He didn’t look around.
He walked straight to his son and stopped.
The room felt smaller with him in it.
Kofi rested a hand on Kit’s shoulder. Once.
“Time,” he said.
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣