Chapter 1: The Magi Eats a Dragonfruit

The mountain didn't mind being lectured. Not really. It had heard worse.

Currently, Dee Megus was standing on its shoulder—barefoot, robe half-buttoned, hair dancing like it hadn't decided what direction to live in—scolding a fruit tree that, quite unfairly, had grown upside down.

"You are not a metaphor," he declared, wagging a single, glowing finger at the inverted branches. "You're just being difficult."

The tree, being a tree, responded with the deep silence of arboreal smugness. It was bearing exactly one fruit—a large, pulsing dragonfruit with pink skin and subtle veins of golden thread running across it like stubborn embroidery.

Dee Megus squinted at it.

"Right," he muttered. "Either that's ripe, or sentient. Which would be a lovely change from the soup Hiro made last week."

He reached into the air and twisted—not at the fruit, but at the threads of reality itself. A shimmer passed over his fingers as he plucked an invisible strand, twisted it into a loop, and flicked it toward the tree.

The branch twitched, rippled, and gently lowered the fruit down to him.

"See?" he told the tree. "Consent. That's how we do it."

The mountain rumbled under his feet. Not in anger. Just amusement.

Dee grinned, bit into the fruit, and immediately forgot his name for three full seconds.

Somewhere far below, in a lazy green valley where the rivers sang off-key and the clouds occasionally made jokes in the sky, a boy with sugarcane in one hand and a pan in the other was setting something on fire. On purpose.

Meanwhile, in a tomb-like manor carved from red obsidian and filled with bats who preferred musicals, Vampher Darquez was dramatically sighing on a fainting couch, ignoring twelve letters from his self-declared children begging him to attend a royal blood festival.

"I should have raised turnips," he muttered. "They don't write poetry about you when you abandon them."

A bat squeaked in agreement. It wore a tiny hat.

Back on the mountain, Dee Megus lay on his back, chewing dragonfruit and staring at the sky.

He wasn't sure why the threads had been twitching lately. Like something beneath the weave was snoring. Or dreaming. Or worse—remembering.

But for now, it was just a lovely afternoon.

And tomorrow, Hiro would burn rice again. And Vampher would pretend not to care. And Dee?

He would argue with more trees.

Because that's how legends begin in Laphyzel: not with war, or prophecy, or doom.

But with nonsense, shared between brothers who weren't born that way, and threads that didn't know where they were headed yet.

And a fruit that was definitely sentient.

Maybe.

"Right," Dee mumbled through another bite, "note to self: never thread-braid flavor and existential perception again. Tastes like revelation and ink."

The dragonfruit, perhaps insulted, emitted a soft chime from its half-eaten pulp. Dee blinked.

"Did you just judge me?" He stared at the fruit. "You're a snack, not a critic."

He tossed the fruit core off the mountain. A few seconds later, he winced. "That better not have hit someone."

He rose, brushed himself off, and tugged at the weave of his robe. It shimmered and shifted to clean itself, like it always did. After all, what good is being the First Threadweaver if your outfit doesn't self-launder?

Then the wind whispered to him.

Not in words.

But in a tug. A pulse. A gentle ripple in the threads of reality that only Dee could sense.

"Ah," he said aloud. "He's cooking again."

Down in the Valley

Hiro Brihrest stood in front of a cauldron the size of a cow and twice as suspicious. He stirred it with a stick.

"What do you think?" he asked the goat.

The goat, understandably, chose not to answer.

"Right, you're a goat. But you've got honest eyes." Hiro wiped his forehead and peered into the bubbling chaos of purple, green, and something that looked like nostalgia.

He'd meant to make stew. Or soup. Possibly sugarcane curry. But the moment he'd looked away to chase off a bandit stealing bananas (who turned out to be a parrot), his ingredients had done... something.

He poked it.

It giggled.

He frowned.

"Well, I'm not feeding this to the villagers," he decided. "I'll give it to Dee. He eats anything."

Near the Sky

Dee Megus arrived in a fold of light and dust, stepping sideways through reality and emerging beside Hiro with only a small sonic pop. It smelled faintly of cinnamon.

"By all the threads," Dee said, holding his nose, "what is that?"

"Lunch," Hiro said proudly.

"I'd rather eat a rebelling metaphor. Wait. I already did that once." Dee pointed to the cauldron. "That soup's alive, Hiro. I can hear it planning a political uprising."

The soup blorped in agreement.

"I call it—'Sugarcane Stew of Surprising Sentience.'" Hiro beamed.

"You named it?" Dee asked, backing up slowly. "Never name your food. That's how rebellions start."

"It blinked at me. I had to respect it."

Before Dee could deliver a five-minute lecture on the socio-moral consequences of sapient soup, the wind shifted again.

Both men stopped.

There it was: a thread twitch.

Small. Almost imperceptible.

But it wasn't random.

In a Cave, Drenched in Red

Vampher Darquez opened one eye.

He'd felt it too.

A twitch. A thread, pulled slightly too tight.

"Troublesome," he whispered.

A bat landed gently on his shoulder. "Squeek?"

"No, don't get the cloak," he muttered. "This isn't a 'cloak' kind of situation. Yet."

He stood and walked to the edge of his manor, where the air rippled slightly—one of the scars. A tear in the weave sealed long ago.

It was humming.

The Severed Loom's hum.

"...You're still asleep," Vampher said to the darkness. "But dreaming again, are you?"

He sighed. "Fine. If you wake, I'll tell Dee it was Hiro's cooking that did it. That always makes him mad enough to invent a new color."

The bat clapped with its wings. Vampher allowed himself a smile.

Later, Around a Fire

The trio sat together under a lantern tree. It glowed with threadlight, casting soft golds across their faces.

Dee stared at the soup Hiro had brought.

Vampher stared at Dee.

Hiro stared at the soup.

The soup stared at everyone.

"I vote we don't eat it," Vampher said.

"I vote we ban Hiro from kitchens," Dee added.

"I vote we name it Harold," Hiro offered.

They sat in silence.

Then they laughed.

For a moment, the world was still.

The threads settled.

Whatever that twitch had been… it passed.

Far Away, in a Place No One Knew

A man who wasn't there stood beside a loom that didn't exist.

He held a thread between his fingers — bright red, humming with untold potential.

He watched three men laugh under a lantern tree.

Then, smiling faintly, he tugged the thread ever so slightly.

A branch fell behind Dee.

He turned.

No one was there.

"Hmm," Dee said, narrowing his eyes. "Too early for ghosts."

He paused.

Then shrugged.

And smiled.