Beneath the Starbound Fur

From the pages of Serren Valheir's hidden writings

It was always the quiet ones who carried the weight of truth.

I had watched Lyxra for days now—not the towering beast of silver and shadow that ravaged enemies like falling stars—but the small, flickering version of himself. No larger than a housecat. No louder than the breath of wind through broken leaves.

He slept beside Naia most nights. Curled like a question that feared its answer.

But I had seen it. Once. The way his gaze burned through the dark like something ageless. Not old—ancient. Older than the ruins we passed. Older than the hymns Ivyra sometimes whispered when she thought no one was listening.

Tonight, the forest was wrapped in silence. The kind that pressed against your lungs and made your heart beat too loudly. Moonlight glazed the camp. Ivyra lay still. Naia dreamt with a furrowed brow. And Lyxra… wasn't sleeping.

He was watching the stars.

I stepped softly, the damp moss muffling my approach. Still, his voice met me before I got too close.

"You're not as stealthy as you think, Serren."

A pause. Then a lazy flick of his tail. "Though I admire the attempt."

I should've turned back. But something inside me had been pulling toward him for days, a whisper buried in bone, in blood. Something that said: He knows more than he lets on.

"You don't sleep much," I murmured, settling beside him.

"Neither do you."

"Because I dream of flames."

His head tilted. "And I dream of stars screaming."

The silence between us thickened.

I studied him now—really studied. His fur shimmered like constellations caught in motion. Not just light, but stories. Movements. Symbols. I could swear one of them mirrored the runes we found etched into the walls at Velthren.

"You weren't always a beast," I said. Not a question.

Lyxra's ears twitched. "Neither were you always afraid."

That stung. I lowered my gaze.

"Sorry," he said, and for once, his voice lost its mischief. "Old instincts. I forget how to be soft sometimes."

"So do I," I whispered.

For a while, we just sat there. Two creatures caught between what we were and what the world demanded we become.

Then I asked what I'd carried for nights.

"What are you, Lyxra? Really."

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he turned his gaze skyward, where the stars pulsed like wounds in the heavens.

"I am... the memory of a promise," he said finally. "A fragment of something vast and broken. Bound in flesh, fur, and fate."

I blinked. "You speak like a poem."

"I was born from one."

That made me stare.

He continued, voice distant, like a dream trying not to forget itself. "Long before this world knew gods or kings, there were Celestials who didn't rule—but remembered. I was... created by one. Not a servant. Not a pet. A shard. A companion. The last remnant of a dying oath."

"And Ivyra?"

His voice softened. "She is the echo the world tried to silence. And I am the roar hidden inside that echo."

A breeze stirred the leaves. Somewhere, an owl hooted low and long.

I thought of Ivyra's eyes when she fought. That terrifying calm. That precision. And Lyxra—always there. Not protecting her. Completing her.

"You're not just bonded to her," I said. "You were made for her."

A nod.

"But not by her."

His silence confirmed it.

"You've seen things," I whispered, chills crawling across my skin. "You've lived before."

"I've died before, too."

My throat tightened.

"And Naia?" I asked.

That stirred him.

"She's not ready," he said. "But the stars remember her. And when the stars remember... the world changes."

There was more. I could feel it curled behind his tongue. But he wouldn't say it yet.

"I keep getting this feeling," I said. "Like there's something beneath all this. Beneath Ivyra's rage. Naia's light. Even my own secrets. Something old and unfinished."

"There is," he said simply.

"And?"

He turned to me, eyes glowing like twin novas. "The world is a wound, Serren. You're just now remembering how deep the blade went."

My breath caught. A gust of wind blew through the trees, scattering dry leaves in wild spirals. For a heartbeat, I saw symbols flare across his back—sigils too intricate for this age. A celestial map written in fur and starlight.

Then, like embers dying, they faded.

"Will Ivyra win?" I asked quietly.

Lyxra tilted his head. "She must. Or nothing else will matter."

I swallowed. "And me?"

"You're the blade that chooses its master."

I didn't understand. Not fully. But something deep inside me shifted—like a lock turning.

I rose then, my limbs cold, my heart full of cracks.

Lyxra spoke one last time, so softly I barely heard him.

"There are truths coming, Serren. Some will break you. Others will beg you to forget them. But hold tight to the girl you were before the world taught you to hide. She's the one who'll survive what's coming."

I walked back to the camp with those words tucked against my ribs like a secret I hadn't earned.

The stars blinked above.

And Lyxra, the creature born from a poem, remained alone in the dark.

Listening.

---

The night deepened.

Velthren slept in a hush that even the wind dared not disturb. Crimson leaves curled inward on their branches, the trees holding their breath like old sentinels. Only Lyxra remained awake, curled atop a rise of silvered rock just beyond the village, his star-speckled body glowing faintly like a breathing constellation.

He did not often sleep when the others did. Sleep, to him, was a gate. And gates opened to places he'd rather leave closed.

So instead, he watched.

The moon drifted overhead, partially veiled in clouds. In its light, the world seemed to forget itself—softened, stilled. But Lyxra could feel the tension still lingering, taut and electric, beneath the stillness of the soil. The air smelled of things that didn't belong—celestial dust, ash, memory.

He shifted slightly, claws sliding against the stone. His eyes, vast and golden, reflected stars that no longer existed.

A war raged behind his calm—memories buried too deep, voices he ignored. But tonight, his heart drummed differently. Restless. Remembering.

He missed Ivyra.

Though he'd remained behind at her command to guard Naia and the others, his soul twitched at the distance between them. She was more than bond, more than oath—she was anchor. And yet… he'd watched her unravel lately. Piece by piece. Each memory she dared not speak etched itself on her silence.

Still, Lyxra stayed behind.

Because she needed him to.

Because Naia needed watching.

Because something in that girl thrummed with a light Lyxra hadn't seen in millennia—not since the skies cracked and the Celestial War bled across all the realms.

He lowered his head, letting a sigh roll out in a breath thick with starlight.

And then—

A flicker.

The hair along his spine rose. His pupils narrowed.

Something shifted.

Not in the forest. Not in the village.

But beyond.

Above.

He stood slowly, every inch of his body going still, elegant and terrible.

The stars blinked overhead, but one didn't.

One watched.

A whisper, old as time and folded in a voice he hadn't heard since the old world shattered, curled through the night.

> "I found you, Viking."

Lyxra froze.

His tail flicked. His breath hitched. The stars on his body went dim for half a second—then shimmered violently.

That voice. That name.

He had not heard it since before Ivyra had even been born.

Viking.

Only one being had ever called him that.

Only one.

And far away—deep within the village temple where the rest of the group lay asleep—Serren stirred in her bedroll.

Her eyes flew open. Wide. Panicked.

A cold sweat broke across her neck, and her breath left her lungs like she'd been struck.

She sat up, clutching her throat.

Her pupils were dilated. Her mind screamed without words.

Because somehow, impossibly, she had heard it too.

That same voice. That same name.

It hadn't been spoken in her ears—but in her soul.

> "I found you, Viking."

The words echoed across a memory she didn't recognize. A cavern of light. A scream without sound. A war of wings and fire.

She gasped again, knuckles white around her cloak.

The others slept. The wind had returned.

But Serren couldn't shake it.

Something had found Lyxra.

And it had found her too.

---