Ashes and Questions

The stars above were larger than they should've been.

Like they were closer. Watching.

Ren sat beside a small campfire, poking at the flames with a crooked stick he found near the treeline. Sparks danced upward into the vast open sky, disappearing into the void between floating islands.

The grass was soft, the wind was quiet, and for the first time since this all began… he wasn't surrounded by stone walls, magic circles, or bone-clad skeletons trying to slice him in half.

It was almost peaceful.

Across from him, Seris Vel'Zereth sat cross-legged with her arms folded, her crimson eyes reflecting the firelight. She hadn't said much since they stopped walking.

Neither had he.

But silence couldn't last forever.

"So," Ren finally said, breaking the stillness, "we escaped the eternal time prison. Survived a goddess. Possibly triggered a prophecy. Not a bad week, all things considered."

Seris didn't respond.

He poked the fire again.

"…You ever gonna talk? Or am I gonna have to keep monologuing like an anime protagonist until I cry myself to sleep?"

She exhaled through her nose. Not quite a sigh. Not quite a laugh.

"What is there to say?" she said quietly. "We're fugitives now. The moment anyone senses my presence outside that seal, the whole world will move against us."

Ren shrugged. "You say that like it's new. I've been running since the moment I got kicked out of college. At least now I've got a cool partner."

Her eyes narrowed. "You're still calling me 'partner'?"

"Well, yeah," he said, raising an eyebrow. "We broke out of timeless jail together. That kind of makes us war buddies."

"…You are insufferable."

"And yet here we are, sharing a fire."

He grinned, leaned back on his hands, and stared up at the sky again.

"…What's next, Seri-chan?"

She flinched. "Stop calling me that."

"No."

She sighed, shaking her head.

After a moment, she looked into the fire.

"We need to reach the nearest leyline," she said. "If I can access a functioning mana vein, I might be able to cloak our trail. But that will only buy us a few days."

Ren's brow furrowed. "Leylines. Got it. Magic Wi-Fi."

She ignored him.

"The longer I stay unsealed, the more the world will notice. I was bound by all five divine seals for a reason."

"Right, right," Ren nodded. "You're supposed to be the big bad apocalypse engine. The legendary Witch of Greed, sentenced to infinite time-out."

Seris didn't react.

He looked at her from across the flames, her face bathed in flickering orange.

"…You really were alone for that long, huh?"

She didn't answer.

But she didn't look away either.

Ren dropped his gaze, suddenly finding the fire way too interesting.

"…I can't imagine it. A thousand years. Just… silence."

She turned slightly toward him, her expression unreadable.

"You should be dead," she said softly. "That goddess could've erased you. Taken your soul. I don't understand how you—"

"Because I'm stupid," Ren interrupted with a crooked smile. "You've said it. She said it. Hell, even I say it."

He met her eyes.

"But I'm your stupid now."

She stared at him.

Then looked back to the flames.

"…Don't expect me to save you."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he said. "But it's nice knowing you might try anyway."

The fire crackled between them.

And for one quiet night, in a strange world under an impossible sky—they simply sat.

The fire crackled gently between them.

Ren leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, watching the flames dance like silent memories.

Seris hadn't spoken in a while.She seemed content to stare into the light, her expression unreadable, her arms wrapped loosely around herself.

Ren glanced at her—hesitant.

Then quietly asked, "Hey… do you remember your sisters?"

The question hung in the air like smoke.

Seris didn't respond right away.

Her body didn't shift. Her eyes didn't move. But something in the air around her changed—like the temperature had dropped by a few degrees.

"…Yes," she said finally. "Of course I do."

Ren nodded slowly. "You mentioned them once. Back in the library. That they were sealed too."

"They were," she replied. Her voice was soft, but there was no warmth in it. Just control. Careful restraint.

"We were called the Seven Witches of Harmony… before the world renamed us the Witches of Sin."

She closed her eyes briefly.

"We weren't evil. Not then. We lived apart, yes—removed from kings and thrones—but we gave the world everything. Healing. Weather control. Barrier magic. Insight."

She looked into the flames, as if trying to find something inside them.

"We were loved. Once."

Ren sat quietly, letting her speak.

"…Then Sage Arlan came," she said. "He claimed there was a threat approaching—something vast, something ancient. He needed our power. Our trust."

Her voice grew tighter, like a string pulled taut.

"And we gave it to him. Willingly."

Ren didn't speak. He didn't interrupt.

Seris went on, her words like shards of memory.

"But Arlan lied. He took our power, turned it against the world, and blamed us when it broke. And the world—" she paused, eyes narrowing, "—believed him."

She exhaled slowly, the firelight flickering in her eyes.

"They came for us. All the nations. All the races. We didn't fight. We couldn't."

Her fists clenched in her lap.

"One by one, my sisters were sealed. Scattered across the world in hidden places. I was the last."

Ren swallowed.

"I'm sorry."

Seris shook her head. "Don't be. You didn't cause it."

He looked at her again.

"…Do you know where they are?"

She was silent.

Then, "No."

Her voice cracked—just slightly. Almost unnoticeable.

"They sealed our locations from each other. Not even I could trace them after the locks were completed. It was… part of the pact."

Ren leaned back, staring up at the floating islands in the sky.

"And all this time, you've just… been waiting."

"No," she said. "I gave up waiting centuries ago."

Silence again.

Only the wind answered them, brushing through the grass and trees.

"…Then maybe it's time we stop waiting altogether," Ren said. "You and me. We figure it out. Find your sisters. Break the seals. Burn the idiot prophecy to the ground."

Seris looked at him slowly.

"And then what?"

Ren grinned faintly. "Then we buy some overpriced tea and sit around talking about how dumb humans are."

She didn't laugh.

But she didn't look away, either.

"…You're serious," she said quietly.

"I mean, someone's gotta be," he shrugged. "You keep calling me a fool, but someone has to be the idiot who keeps walking forward."

The fire popped between them.

And somewhere, far away, the sky rumbled.

Ren fell asleep before the fire died.

One moment he was sitting up, cracking a half-hearted joke about how dragons should be required to register their flight paths.

The next, his head slumped forward, arms tucked around himself, his breathing slow and steady.

Seris didn't move.

She remained where she was—cross-legged, unmoving, eyes fixed on the glowing embers between them.

The wind had quieted. The stars had begun to shift in their lazy, foreign orbit above. Somewhere in the distance, a waterfall ran in reverse, like time itself had no rules here.

Ren mumbled something in his sleep.

She didn't catch the words. But he smiled slightly, lost in whatever dream flickered behind his closed eyes.

Seris watched him for a long time.

Longer than she meant to.

Then—quietly—she stood.

She moved without sound, her boots pressing gently into the grass as she stepped away from the fire. Away from Ren.

She walked until the warmth of the flames no longer touched her skin.

And then she stopped.

Her eyes turned toward the horizon—toward the dark edge of the forest that loomed like a promise and a warning.

I could go now.

He's asleep. Helpless. The longer I stay with him, the more danger he'll be in. The more danger I'll be in.

Her hands curled into loose fists at her sides.

He's a mortal. No magic. No history. No right to stand beside me. He should never have come here in the first place.

The breeze tugged at her cloak.The sky pulsed softly overhead, light from the stars catching in her white hair.

He'd be safer if I left. I could find a leyline on my own. Hide my presence again. Survive alone… like I always have.

She turned slightly. Glanced back over her shoulder.

Ren was still asleep.

Curled up near the dying fire, hoodie bunched around him like armor against the world. His brow furrowed. His fingers twitched. But he didn't wake.

He risked everything for me.

For a witch he barely knows.

He should be terrified of me… but he smiles anyway. He jokes anyway. He calls me "Seri-chan" like I'm some awkward girl from his world and not the harbinger of a global war.

She exhaled.

Quiet. Shaky.

"…Stupid," she whispered to the night.

Then she turned around.

Walked back to the fire.

And sat beside him.

Not close. Not touching. Just near enough to feel the warmth again. The presence. The quiet, infuriating, fragile, unshakable presence of the one person who should have left her behind.

She lay down slowly, letting her long hair fan out beside her like silver ink across grass.

Eyes still open.

"…Just one night," she whispered to herself.

The fire crackled once more.

And for the first time in a thousand years, Seris Vel'Zereth slept beside someone else.

Seris dreamed.

Not of fire. Not of chains.Not of the gods who condemned her or the betrayal that broke the world.

She dreamed of laughter.

Warm. Familiar. From voices that had long since faded into silence.

Her sisters stood around a marble basin, in a tower that no longer existed, arguing over a spell that conjured butterflies. One of them—Lunaria, the gentlest—was covered in illusions gone wrong. Wings on her head, antennae twitching.

Another—Mirelle, ever the show-off—spun circles of flame around herself, trying to make the insects dance.

And Ive, the youngest, clung to Seris's arm, hiding from the chaos with a grin too wide for her face.

It was sunlight. Laughter. A moment suspended in gold.

Seris reached out.

But the dream shattered.

The tower cracked. The laughter turned to screams. Light bled into shadow, and the sisters' faces blurred, fading one by one.

Until only Seris remained.Alone.Watching it all collapse.

Again.

She jerked awake.

Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she didn't know where she was. Her fingers dug into the grass beneath her, chest rising and falling too fast. The fire was embers now. The sky hadn't changed.

But her body… remembered the seal. The weight. The silence.

"Seri-chan?"

The voice came from beside her.

She turned—too quickly.

Ren was sitting up, hair messy, one eye barely open, blinking against the moonlight.

"…You okay?"

She stared at him.

Took a breath.

Then looked away, burying her expression in the shadows of her hair.

"I had a nightmare," she said, her voice so quiet it barely left her lips.

Ren rubbed his eyes. "Yeah… me too. I dreamt I was back in school and forgot my presentation. You win though—you were screaming in your sleep."

"I wasn't screaming."

"You kinda were."

"…Tch."

He yawned, then flopped back into the grass beside her.

"I'd ask if you want to talk about it, but you'd probably just fry me."

Seris didn't answer.

Instead, she watched the stars.The silence between them was different now—not heavy. Not empty. Just there. Shared.

"…What were their names?" Ren asked after a while.

Seris blinked.

"…Who?"

"Your sisters."

She didn't speak for a long moment.

Then, softly: "Lunaria. Mirelle. Ive. Luxera. Darkna"

Ren smiled. "Pretty."

"…They were."

He glanced over at her.

"You'll find them again. We will."

She didn't respond.

But she didn't deny it.