Chapter Text
It is said that the moon only borrows its light from the sun. As the morning light casts the beginning, the night reflects the end. And perhaps, in that way… the sun still shines for all.
It takes a glimpse of white hair he’s missed for days to knock the wind right out of Freodore’s lungs.
“Kaelix!”
And it takes an election, a cosmic misfire to send Freodore where he is not supposed to be—behind bars, extremely ill-fitted, two people towering needlessly over his incongruous figure.
One strikingly blond… the other burnt brunet.
There was an assassination attempt at what Freodore surmised must have been an election; the newly elected mayor falling to his knees with luckily only a grazed ear, an ill-begotten arrow to his side, townspeople scurrying in panic… some rushing back to their homes, some staying around to pass the blame.
In many cases, the easiest scapegoat is usually the odd one out, the puzzle piece that doesn’t seem to fit. It’s simpler to splash the paint on a canvas everyone appears to have a hard time figuring out. And much to Freodore’s misfortune, he arrived at the poorest of timings, still dressed in his livehouse silk suit, finessed with a dozen and more bling. Amongst a sea of worn-down leathers and patched taffetas, he surely stuck out like a sore thumb.
All fingers pointed at him, and before he realised, he was already being dragged into what appeared to be the town’s prison, against his—rather convincing, to his confidence—protests.
Ten minutes ago, he was distracting himself with the livehouse’s tech booth. Now, he’s sitting in an old cobblestoned room, an incandescent light bulb glaring painfully at his paling face. A case of the “wrong place, wrong time”. The white light threatens to burn his eyes.
Freodore squirms uncomfortably in his seat. He’s certain he’s not back home anymore.
“You look new,” says the one with the cowboy hat, an unmistakable drawl in his speech. The dark uniform he sports lulls to the side as he shifts his weight with a suave that can only be afforded by a position of power. “I’m the sheriff ‘round these parts.”
“Who sent you?” Clearly, the other wastes no time with introductions. He is tanned down to his boots, a short rat’s tail resting on the crook of his neck. “You best have flexed your bow to stage a coup.”
Brows twitch only slightly. “I told you. I just got here. I don’t even know how to shoot an arrow—I’ve never done sports.”
In all honest to goodness, Freodore may have touched a bow and arrow only once in his life: at the range on a Sunday back in June with Zeal, a 25-dollar session that readily dissolved in vain when he realised he had no talent for it. Perhaps the only other sports he’s played apart from it is a patronising game of Seible’s first-person shooters in the name of being a friend. That, and maybe if you count the times he’s had to run around the livehouse, hunting down Kaelix to do his job—then, you can say he’s considerably nimble on his toes.
But surely not nimble enough to attempt an assassination on a mayor he’s only ever seen for three minutes of his life.
The two tall men take a step back, hard looks pressed on their faces as they discuss to themselves… or at least, what seems to be a feeble attempt at keeping their voices between them. When the conversation so effortlessly crawls into Freodore’s ears, he reckons the two may not be the most subtle people in the town.
“He seems to be telling the truth.” A gruff noise escapes the brunet.
“Are you kidding? Look at him. He looks exactly like bad news.” The sheriff crosses his arms. “Have you had your drink yet, Gust?”
“I’ve yet to have my brew.”
“That explains the terrible rhymes,” mutters the blond under his breath. “Come on, let’s get this over with. And then we can share a drink at the tavern to wipe that curse off your tongue.”
Freodore restrains a groan from climbing out of his throat. If there’s anything he learned about officers of the law, it is never a good sign when they’re itching to fly out the door. It’s bad enough he’s sitting in an oakwood chair with its chipped legs in an implication of a crime he has never committed; a sheriff beating their hasty retreat is not going to make his case any better.
He needs to fix his lay of the land, desperately. The contrasting démodé fashion of layered flax to his silvery suit, faces he’s never met (not even in a half-forgotten dream), the disorienting gaps in his memory before he blinked into an unfamiliar scene… all of it screams uncanny.
But the most mystifying of it all is the unaccustomed place just marginally shuddering with a force he can’t pinpoint, as though suffused by transcendent energy that nips at the edges of his skin. And if that isn’t enough, Freodore recalls catching sight of a mop of white hair, blue ombre at the tips—a view he’s been grasping for days—breezing through the crowd of chaos earlier. He had been so sure it was Kaelix, calling out against the panic with an outstretched hand… but now, as he’s warming up a decaying seat under scrutinising eyes and roaring tungsten, he thinks his mind may have been playing tricks on him.
Kaelix has been missing for days, and his sudden disappearance has not only crippled the livehouse, but taken with it the comforting warmth brought about by his sunshine. It has been damningly quiet (and sad) at the cabaret; the instinctual smile on Seible’s lips unusually tight in the corners when he’s greeting customers, and Zeal wiping off highball glasses like he’s going to break them.
Perhaps the most affected one is Freodore, emotions declared through cracks when the mask vaguely slips off. They have always had a special closeness to them, bookmarked along lines Kaelix carefully annotates in paperbacks he recommends to Freo, or tucked in the spaces between fingers that reach out to help. The kind of bond only cardboard boxes in the bodega bear witness to, whereof the light cannot cast its glow on lest it shines too much on the truth. The silence has been slowly eating away at Freodore’s sanity—and for someone who usually carries himself with so much grace, it’s “detrimental to the brand.”
The only remnant left of the missing sun is an antique, emerald brooch he gave Freo years ago. If you’re ever lost, this should lead you right where you need to be. That was what he said back then. But in an ironic stroke of fate, it seems now… the sun is who’s lost.
He caresses the brooch in his pocket as if to find comfort.
None of the recent passing days has made sense. In this unfamiliar place… did Freodore actually see Kaelix?
I have to find him. I have to know if it was him.
The sheriff steps forward from the doorway, Gust lingering behind him.
“Alright, outlander...”
Freodore’s forehead creases. Outlander?
“...We have places to be, people to see. Let’s get you into the holding cell for now while we work on figuring this out.”
Before another bout of protest can escape the outlander, deep clacks of shoes crescendo into the cobblestoned room. All three heads turn in anticipation, and a young man in a cassock emerges from the partition. A soft smile graces his thin lips, hands clasped together in a pastoral hold. A clergy, seemingly. But there is something in the eyes of the man of the cloth that sends a shiver down Freodore’s spine.
“That won’t be necessary, Sheriff.”
“Father Shu.” The sheriff takes off his hat in respect, clutching it to his chest as he bows his head along with Gust. “What brings you to the compter?”
“I’m here to take away our new friend,” Father Shu responds, smiling with his eyes disappearing as he rests a weightless hand on Freodore’s back. The clergy lets out a chuckle. “There may have been a mistake here, Sheriff. I saw the arrow swing from the high heavens of the land around the district. I don’t suppose an outlander knows the topography of our town enough to find the best place to hide, no?”
The sheriff gives it a thought. “With all due respect, Father, that’s rather presumptive.”
“I recognise this may be largely circumstantial.” Father Shu adjusts his cuffs. “But if you examine the arrow closely, the shaft is quite… tacky and glossy. Faintly sweet-smelling. Perhaps to avoid the wood from fraying.”
“Sugar-treated.” A generous hum in understanding. “The bakers in town?”
“Surprising, don’t you think? But not impossible.” The smile doesn’t falter on Father Shu’s face, as if the idea of an assassin hiding behind dough and cocoa beans does not perturb him in the slightest. “Would you mind?”
The sheriff nods. “I’ll look into it.”
“You are far more astute for your line of work, Father,” Gust adds.
“Empathy argues its innateness, but it is what we develop in the monastery as a prerequisite,” Father Shu supposes. “Clergymen learn to connect with the community… mayhaps to a pervasive extent sometimes.”
Freodore watches through his peripherals as the pastel curve on the clergyman’s lips stays glued to his divine mien. Almost in the same way a saint’s halo clings to him in iconography: unearned, unquestioned, and impossible to dislodge. Less of an expression than a fixture, Freo thinks. While he is thankful for the saving grace, he cannot scratch the unsettling itch that bites at him.
But Freodore is smart, and he knows when and how to use an opportunity. He lets the priest spin the situation to their advantage amidst his suspicions, and maybe later when he’s out of the suffocating room, he can devise a plan of escape. He has to find Kaelix… or confirm whether or not he did see Kaelix.
“Oh, and Mr. Gustavo…” The brunet perks up at his name being called. “I believe the mayor is looking for you.”
“Right. I must away from hither.”
A satisfied sigh rolls off the clergy. “Now then… shall we adjourn?”
Freodore manages to leave the compter unscathed. He had thought he would be fighting for his life back in the cobblestoned corners, but much obliged to the man in the cloth with impeccable timing and disquieting eyes, he lives to see another day.
“Thank you…” The teal-haired lad says as he falls in step with the clergy. And as if only remembering where he is (or the lack of recognition thereof), he adds, “...Father.”
Father Shu waves a hand. “Let not your heart be troubled. I am merely exercising what my faith has taught me.”
The outlander accepts the grace, thoughtful silence stretching between the gap of their figures as Father Shu strolls them into where Freodore is barely aware of. He has thought about hightailing it out of there the instant the doors opened, but where else is he supposed to go? The tall hogbacks rimmed with rich soil, lush grass extending before him into the vast terrain, deepslated construction and towers rising into heaven—hardly any of it seems real enough to Freodore.
He doesn’t recognise the place, let alone the concept of the place. Someone like him is used to high-rise glass buildings, led walls in capital cities, and industrialised landscaping. This looks like it’s been taken out of a fairytale. This looks like a trip down history.
Time travel? He scoffs at himself in derision. As if that’s feasible.
For now, all questions are tossed in the back of his stirring mind. He suppresses his doubts. Father Shu, for all his mystery and polished smiles, is undeniably a wise character, and Freodore has a more pressing problem to tend to that a clergyman may be able to provide answers for.
“Father,” he starts, clearing his throat. “I think I saw a familiar face earlier in the commotion.”
“Ah.” A flash of recollection. “I do believe I heard you then.”
His heart drums loudly against its ribcage. Freodore feels the proximity of clues closing in, and traces of Kaelix he’s been grasping for days seem finally within reach.
“Do you happen to—” The allegro of his pulse half-chokes his breathing. “Do you happen to know someone with… white hair, blue tips, and…”
An unusual staccato in Freodore’s speech disconnects from his more refined personality, but he can’t afford to be concerned. The livehouse needs its bouncer, or so he reasons with the uncharacteristic desperation that’s been tying his tongue. Though in a more emotional sense of the word he glosses over… he misses his friend. Friend, or whatever they are supposed to be.
And he does worry. Kaelix has never been the type to drop off of the face of the earth without warning. The concern is not uncharacteristic; Freodore is worried. And terrified.
He continues, “...And bright blue-green eyes?”
Father Shu gives him a good look.
“Well,” the clergyman preambles. “I don’t know anything about them being bright, but…”
Sunset irises glisten with unannounced hope. But…?
“...Southwest from here is Reicloed, a coconino meadow near the sea. There is a wee tower of stone next to a bed of sunflowers.”
The words echo in Freodore’s head like reverbs. Southwest, Reicloed, near the sea. Stone tower, sunflowers. An expectant gaze. An impatience that gnaws at the heels.
“You might find the lightkeeper there matches that description.”
He makes a run for it.
Time withers away discreetly amidst Freodore’s aimless wandering. He passes a cluster of birch trees, then a small creek, yet the sea remains out of sight. If not for the setting sun painting the sky hues of pink and orange, nothing else signals how many ticks of the clock have gone in his frantic search of the stone tower.
When he left Father Shu, the sky had still been a vibrant shade of blue… but the eventide has now drawn closer, and he is nowhere near seawater, nor a bed of sunflowers. If there is anything the large beads of sweat trickling down the sides of his face is to show for, it’s that running off alone into the wilderness may not be the wisest move. And maybe don’t wear heels for a hike.
In Freodore’s defense, as soon as Father Shu confirmed the mop of white hair wasn’t just his imagination deluding him, adrenaline kicked in. The urge to chase reared its head, and his uncommonly one-track mind tunnel-visioned into one goal: Find him. Next thing he knows, he’s walking off the beaten path with his boots’ undersides threatening to fall off.
To put the cherry on top, he has a bad sense of direction. And is that his body temperature rising… or is the emerald brooch in his pocket warming up?
An exasperated sigh slides off his chapped lips. “Now, what?”
As if the universe hears his quiet pleas, a glowing obelisk stands conspicuously right next to an old oak tree. Freodore focuses his tired eyes, and he can make out a faint engraving of letters.
Reicloed.
Life comes back to his numbing legs, the searing pain in his soles becoming hardly daunting. The freezing air throttling at his lungs spreads warm from the hands of hope, and despite his trembling knees, he braves a step forward with purpose once more.
I found it. Reicloed is here.
Beyond the stretch of unkempt grass patches is a large body of water mirroring the beauty of the sinking sun back to its magnificence. Greens twist in an overgrowth, a spread of kornblume dotting across the terrain, mastering the impression of terra nullius. Wildlife seems shy in this region; cows and rabbits in numbers one can count in a single hand. And to the right, a bed of sunflowers springs warmly, faces turned to the light as if to dance with it.
The sea. A bed of sunflowers.
Just across from it is a small tower made of stone. Freodore holds his breath.
In the face of foreign lands with strange gravity and the air humming, the turret is oddly reminiscent of Kaelix and his endearing fixation towards anything that’s been loved by time. Erosion is a testimony of growth, he often says. And moss is Mother Nature’s way of reclaiming what’s hers.
Many concrete houses stand tall and proud, but this one seems to sleep soundly. It’s isolated in the wilderness as if it has chosen solitude, rather than been condemned to it. Moss quilts its stonework in slushy greens and silvers, and hairline fractures run along the walls like the wrinkles of a thoughtful face. The windows are dark—resting, holding their breath through centuries. Even the door leans inward with patience. There is a peculiar comfort from a patchwork of stone that has outlived urgency, content to endure and to be, waiting for someone who knows how to listen.
Like Kaelix, Freodore thinks. Striving not to be celebrated, only to be remembered.
The wild bends subtly around the tower, grasses curving as though unwilling to trespass, the wind lowering its voice when it passes too close. Footsteps come to slow, half hopeful, half scared; hopeful of what Freodore may find, scared of what he may not.
He hears distant voices prattling from the back of the tower.
“Oh, dear, should you be planting those there? There is hardly any irrigation on this side.”
“It is fine, Granny. I can water them.”
A breath hitches at Freodore’s throat.
He knows that voice. He’s heard it countless times in secret and unsung places.
“Shouldn’t you be leaving soon?”
It’s the same grounded, baritone sound; velvety in the way it slides smoothly through the air, relaxed in the manner of his speech. And yet, it feels… bare. Naked, almost—stripped off the lilt and humorous inflections Kaelix habitually flourishes with to be charming. The well-known warmth isn’t there; it’s locked away in the baselines of his words.
What is going on? But the question is impossible to answer if Freodore stays hiding behind the tower.
He edges around the turret, footfalls a meticulous reflection of the unease that comes with chasing a broken trail. His heartbeat thrums in his ears. The dense prairie groans achingly at his heavy steps—each dip laden with silent restraint. His gait drags slower. Movement becomes a conscious effort rather than instinct.
But curiosity outweighs caution. He leans just far enough to peer past the curve of stone, breath shallow, senses sharpened. What he finds doesn’t resolve the confusion so much as deepen it.
A man stands there, wearing a tattered brown tunic over light linen. White hair tipped blue just above his nape. Freodore’s chest tightens. Kaelix.
“Kaelix…” His voice is fragile, barely above a whisper. The man turns, and blue-green eyes meet his. He remembers the sea and its shoreline through it. The gaze is something recognisable, yet… altered.
Relief should have surged. Joy should have followed. But an unsettling feeling instantly devours all emotions forgotten. It’s never in Freodore’s book to hesitate, yet an unnamed fear threads to numb his judgment. And if there is anything to be had from him, his intuition is accurate.
There’s Kaelix. He looks right, he sounds right… but he feels wrong.
Kaelix halts and stares quizzically. He holds Freodore’s short stature in his unusually dim eyes, as if studying something entirely new, uncertain whether it’s fragile, dangerous, or both. As if finding a puzzle piece he’s not sure where to place. As if… he doesn’t recognise who’s standing in front of him.
It strikes Freodore with a sudden chill, the thought landing hard enough to rattle him. The measured look Kaelix fixes him belabours the idea, distant and unsure. The floor tilts beneath him, gravity briefly uncertain. Freodore pauses, fingers curling at his side. And for a fleeting moment, he considers retreat.
“Who…” That familiar voice so innocently trails off. “...are you?”
The emerald brooch burns in his pockets.
“Kaelix,” Freodore spits out through ragged breathing. “That’s not funny.”
“Oh, you must be new!” An energetic voice unburdened by age interrupts the exchange. The old lady, in a garment of youthful orange, crosses the distance over to where the outlander is nailed to his spot. “What fine fabric you wear! Only the wealthy can afford this much silk.”
The world around him thins to a ringing hush, as if sound itself has recoiled from the moment. There is the face Freodore wished to find and chase through days of loss and half-mad hope—the same somewhat slanted eyes, the same curves of the mouth, the same impossible familiarity—yet every part looked back at him with a stranger’s vacancy. His pulse thunders so loudly it drowns out thought, each beat insistent on this reality while his mind claws for denial.
Wrinkled fingers shamelessly trace the linings where the fabrics meet along Freodore’s suit, and the old woman’s occasional patting at the red velvet accent on his shoulder slips past him as he wretchedly grapples with his own sanity.
“Are you a friend of Kalvin’s?”
The name echoes back at him wrong, bending as though it has struck a warped surface. White hair, blue eyes… he stands there intact, breathing, present. And yet, the sight of him feels like peering through broken glass over a memory that refuses to line up. Faces of the past overlay this one, misaligning by fractions, blinking in and out like a faulty illusion.
Freodore’s thoughts escape their moorings. His body waits for recognition the way a wound waits for pain, but none comes.
He echoes in disbelief, “Kalvin?”
Who the hell is Kalvin?
A probing glare studies the familiar figure, and only then does Freodore notice the minute disarray. Interstices are filled with askew parts, disconnecting from where he memorises Kaelix. Like how this version has much shorter hair, blue ends resting just above the axis of their spine. Or how they have a slouch in their stance, as if hunching down to avoid being noticed. There’s the slow cadence of their speech as well, taxed by weary intonation, leaving the impression where talking is too much effort.
What exactly has happened in the last three days?
“Kaelix—”
“It’s Kalvin,” the white-haired lad deadpans. “You must be mistaken.”
Freodore resists the urge to swing his heels at the man. “This has to be some sick joke.”
“If it were, I would pray it were a cleverer one,” Kaelix—or rather, Kalvin mumbles through his lips. With a clearer volume, he adds, “You must forgive me, but your strangeness weighs lightly upon my thoughts.”
“You vanish for three days...” The teal-haired man evens his breathing. Amidst his throbbing body, he eagerly remains calm with a clenched fist. “...You reappear in a different coat of paint, and I’m the strange one?”
“I did not vanish,” Kalvin corrects, slow and deliberate. “Nor did I repaint myself. I have stood precisely where I was yestermorn.”
“Don’t. You don’t get to talk like that and pretend you’re not him.” Freodore tries to stop his voice from shaking. “You say yestermorn when you’re extra playful. You always have.”
Kalvin blinks. Once. Then again. “That is… an exceedingly common word, I should think.”
“No, it isn’t,” the shorter man snaps. “You picked it up from the moldy travelogue you wouldn’t shut up about. You said it had character.”
“Many things possess character,” Kalvin says mildly, turning back to his crops as if the conversation no longer benefits his interest. The old lady observes the exchange with an amused and intrigued glint in her eye.
“You always say that,” Freodore almost says it in a sigh. “You said it about a broken locket you found in an antique shop.”
“I… did?” Kalvin murmurs, frowning faintly. “I don’t recall ever setting foot in such a place.”
“But I do.” Freo’s porcelain face twists into a mix of bafflement and hurt. The confusion weighs on his curious mind like a burden, but the possibility that it may be true—that he may have lost his closest friend to an echo leaves a dull and muted pressure. “You said it was only broken if people expected it to work.”
Kalvin’s lips part. He doesn’t smile, but something warm flickers there, unbidden… like a thought arriving without invitation.
“That…” He admits quietly. “...Sounds like something I might have spoken.”
“See? That proves something!”
“That proves little.” Kalvin tills at the plot of land, bending a shade. “A happenstance. A wayward stick of memory, perhaps.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I believe…” The familiar, yet unfamiliar, man’s words dwindle. He faces the outlander again, holding their quiet scrutiny in a case of conviction. There’s a curious adamant shine in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “...That if I were this Kaelix you insist upon, I would remember you.”
Freodore grits his teeth. “You’re lying.”
“You know my habits and my speech.” Kalvin continues, “Yet you wield them like stolen keys. I do not know you.”
“Then why…” Freodore demands, voice breaking into something raw and ridiculous. He takes a step forward. “...do you look at me like you’re about to apologise?”
Kalvin stiffens.
The old lady in orange notices and in her maternal instinct, lifts a timeworn hand to leave a comforting touch on Kalvin’s shoulder.
He blinks. He feels like he’s been caught, and yet, he is none the wiser on why he would be. Lying isn’t particularly strong in Kalvin’s vocabulary. He may have been born artificial, but he was imagined by the purest forms of truth: no inherited myths, no gradual self-deception, no slow forgetting of why he exists.
At least, that was what his mother taught him. Homunculi aren’t built to choose; they’re built to follow. And he does her a dishonour if he so moves outside the essence of his birth.
But why does he feel sorry? Is it an apology for wearing the face of someone who brings grief to this outlander? Is it the inability to provide meaningful answers? Or is it the hushed erosion that pulls at where his mother put his heart… a soft, uneasing ache… as if something—or someone—inside him is lending him emotions beyond his understanding?
Freodore steps closer, careful, like the moment before touching a bruise. “Kaelix—”
“Kalvin,” he corrects again, gently this time. “Please. I am Kalvin.”
Freodore nods, as if humouring a child. “Alright. Kalvin.”
The outlander fishes for the right words, organising his emotions into boxes to comprehend them better. He’s tired, physically; his soles are burning from walking in heels. And the heating brooch in his pocket occasionally bites through the fabric as if to tell him something. He’s confused. Kalvin moves like a memory… but he also doesn’t. His hands latch onto parts of Kaelix from the man, but once he looks at them hard enough, they fray at the edges.
And he’s sad. Maybe hurting a little. Finding everything and nothing at the same time of someone important to him presses into a slow, inward wearing.
“I’m not demanding the world to bend in apology…” He swallows. “I just need to know I’m not the only one standing in the wrong place.”
Silence freezes everything into their spot, biting at fingernails just enough to make it sting. The world stills, allowing space for thoughts to settle into the cracks and empathy to weave distance. Freodore hasn’t even noticed how the sun has completely withdrawn, replaced by the kind rising of the moon that draws on its light. The sky is now covered in ink, stars dotting across, sunflower beds stretching to wrestle with scant luminescence.
The moon shines on Kalvin’s features in a way that hushes the universe. Where blue-green eyes were bright as Freodore used to describe them is replaced by a sad glow.
“I…” Kalvin pauses, unsure. His lips thin into a pursed line before he attempts again, “I don’t—”
A sudden boom detonates from a distance. The sky fractures with a flash of flight, enraptured by smoke. Shockwaves roll across the land, and Freodore almost trips his balance.
“What—”
Birds scatter into the heavens, the sparse wildlife bolting away out of horror. The flora trembles, as if bracing themselves.
It dawns on him entirely. Right. I still don’t know where I am. He’s nearly forgotten he’s frozen in foreign surroundings. Which means he remains blind to the perils and dangers that linger in the corners of this land.
“The factions must be at it again,” the old gran comments. Recognition settles over Kalvin like an ice-cold bucket of water. And the perplexed look on Freodore’s face pales in comparison to the terrified pairs of eyes that pore over the distance.
Something in granny’s statement tells this is a usual occurrence—the night roaring, distant blasts, the earth groaning in protest. And yet, the shadow of feeling that passes over their countenances begs to contrast. This may not be new, but the fear in them always feels like the first time.
“Quickly…!” Hastily, the old lady turns, her apron covered in flour flapping through the laments of the wind. She clutches Kalvin’s hand in a safe hold and nudges Freodore along, a rigid set to her jaded features. “The night deepens! You must take shelter.”
She ushers both lads into the tower, and Freodore can only surrender as he watches the faraway night sky split into magical, yet sinister flares.
Granny shoots the outlander a stern look. “The dark here doesn’t take kindly to strangers, boy.”
She disappears behind a door slamming shut.