Astiron sat beneath the great tree, its ancient branches shading him as he worked silently among the holographic screens that floated in the air around him. The rumbling that had reverberated through the virtual landscape earlier had mostly subsided, leaving only the faintest tremors in its wake. The Arstra stood as still as it had been twenty minutes ago, untouched, unmoved, waiting.
His eyes drifted to it every few minutes, scanning for any sign of Aedhira's return. Each glance filled him with hope, and each time, he was met with disappointment. The minutes ticked by, slow and heavy, but not much had changed—at least, not on the outside. Internally, Astiron was restless, and the weight of everything unsaid during his conversation with Aedhira sat heavy on his chest.
There had been so much he couldn't share with the boy, and not just because there hadn't been enough time. Astiron had never been one for grand explanations. There were some things he wasn't even sure *how* to explain.
If Donovan were here, things might be easier. He had a way with words.
But Donovan, along with the others, was busy—occupied with the vast preparations that loomed ahead, the ones that Astiron hated even thinking about.
His eyes dulled as he sighed yet again, his grim mood only darkening. As he leaned back against the tree trunk, his thoughts wandered, back to a time when the galaxy looked so much brighter to him. Back when he was a boy, just another starry-eyed dreamer. Back when Quinas—one of his many stepbrothers at the time—would tell him stories of the Argonauts.
The Argonauts...
For trillions, they were legends. Fifty heroes, each marked by Veria herself, each carrying one of her sacred symbols, their power unique to their mark. Fifty to rise, fifty to fight against the 'Enemy'—with a capital E, a threat that Veria had faced since time immemorial. Every batch of Argonauts was chosen to throw themselves at it, to be Veria's weapons.
Astiron's face scrunched up at the thought. 'Weapons'.
That was what they were.
Fifty lambs sent to the slaughter, to be replaced a thousand years later by another fifty. And then another batch, and another, one after the other. The stories had seemed glorious to him once—heroic tales of sacrifice and valor. But now, after everything he had seen, after all the power he had gained himself, those stories tasted bitter.
He had grown, and with that growth came understanding. What had once seemed like a righteous cycle of heroes and valor, Astiron now saw for what it truly was: an endless tragedy. Fifty more lives, offered up by Veria to fight in a battle that never ended.
His hand clenched into a fist as he stared at the Arstra, willing it to move, to give him some sign of Aedhira's emergence. He let out another sigh, deep and heavy. For the boy's sake, for the sake of all that resided on Veria, he hoped that this cycle wouldn't turn out the same way as all the others.
But the doubts gnawed at him, unrelenting.
'NO!'
'Not this time' he told himself. This time would be different.
Astiron's hand slowly unclenched, the tension in his body easing as he took in a long breath, forcing his heart to slow. His fists had tightened so much he hadn't noticed his knuckles turning white, his nails digging into the flesh of his palms. His chest still ached, but that wasn't the worst of it. His thoughts churned like storm clouds threatening to tear the horizon apart.
"This time would be final."
The words echoed in his mind, fierce and defiant. He repeated it like a mantra, trying to shake the lingering shadows of doubt. He wouldn't allow this cycle to continue, wouldn't let Veria cast her hand again, selecting another fifty doomed souls. No, not again. Not this time. This time would be different—this time would be—
A strange warping noise snapped him out of his reverie.
Astiron's eyes darted toward the Arstra, expecting to see Aedhira stepping out, finally finished with whatever task Nornesh had set him. His heart gave a jolt—not from relief, but from a deep, unsettling feeling. The Arstra had changed. The once pitch-black visor now gleamed with a pair of smoldering virtual flames, red and hungry, flickering inside the dark glass. But Aedhira had not returned. Instead, the figure before him was the Arstra's guardian, its avatar.
Astiron's breath caught as he felt his heart pounding again, this time not from the effort of his thoughts, but from a sudden, growing pressure in his chest. His head throbbed, the beat of his pulse too fast, too wild. The realization came to him in a cold rush—he had let slip a fragment of his true self. The aura of a Zirem-ranked being, a power too vast for the mortal body his 'avatar' was currently bound to. That fleeting lapse in control had triggered a reaction, and the Arstra had noticed.
Those red eyes stared at him, burning with a cold intensity, locking onto him like a predator sizing up a threat. For a moment, the world seemed to narrow, as if the space between him and the Arstra had grown tenfold, yet compressed into an agonizingly tight tunnel of tension.
Astiron's heart pounded harder, his mortal shell barely able to withstand the influx of power he had accidentally let slip. He cursed himself inwardly, calming his breath, forcing the pounding in his chest to recede. Slowly, he reined in the energy, pushing it down into the depths of his being. Within seconds, the intensity faded, his pulse steadying, his breath evening out.
He opened his eyes, now under control, and found the Arstra no longer staring at him with those searing red eyes. Instead, it was looking off to the distance—toward the point where Nornesh's head had once been visible before Astiron had activated the sim-hall. A place where a dead god's remnant slumbered, buried deep beneath layers of cosmic history. Those eyes, even virtual, seemed lost, yet calculating—searching for something unseen.
Astiron's brow furrowed, trying to grasp what exactly the Arstra could be doing. The visor—he hadn't designed it like this. When he had helped build the Arstra, he'd been adamant about one thing: expression. Aedhira's face might be protected beneath layers of metal and enchantment, but the visor was supposed to offer others a glimpse into his emotions. The red lights were a byproduct of something else entirely, something far beyond what Astiron had initially imagined. The universe had intervened during Aedhira's creation, altering designs, twisting them to fit a purpose neither he nor his colleagues could fully predict.
But those eyes. They weren't just cold indicators. They weren't blank, like the simple AI framework or tertiary aides they had incorporated into the Arstra's systems. No. These eyes were *thinking*. They were processing, calculating.
Astiron's thoughts raced as he tried to piece together the reasoning. Calculating what?
Then it struck him. The Arstra was calculating odds.
A deep chuckle escaped Astiron's throat as realization washed over him. Of course—that was exactly what he himself would have done in such a situation. The Arstra's systems, imbued with Aedhira's spirit and now influenced by Nornesh's meddling, were assessing the threat. Just as Astiron had once stood against Nornesh, calculating the chances of success, the Arstra was doing the same.
"Ha... figures," Astiron muttered, his voice thick with dark amusement. "Even after everything, some parts of the core never change."
That instinct, that need to measure one's enemy, to calculate the paths to victory or failure—it was a trait Astiron knew well. It had shaped him in his rise to power, and now, it seemed to echo in the very systems he had helped create. There was no escaping it. Whether in the Arstra, in Aedhira, or in Astiron himself, that core would remain constant.
His eyes drifted back to the Arstra, watching as the flames in its visor flickered, dimming slightly as the guardian's attention shifted elsewhere. Astiron could only wonder what odds it had come up with—and if, deep down, it had reached the same conclusion he had all those years ago when he had first faced down the titanic being that was Nornesh.
A victory earned too early could be just as disastrous as a victory earned too late.
Astiron let out yet another sigh, a deep, frustrated exhale that seemed to carry the weight of the galaxies he had long fought for and against. With a tired wave of his hand, the holographic panels blinked out of existence one by one, leaving the air empty and still around him. He clenched and unclenched his fist, watching his arm as if it were an alien thing. The stiffness had settled deep into his bones—or what passed for bones in this mortal shell of an *Avatar*.
His slip-up earlier had cost him more than he wanted to admit. A brief surge of his true power, a fleeting loss of control. Astiron cursed himself silently for his lapse. He had grown careless, too caught up in old memories, letting the emotions of a past life stir too close to the surface. He had forgotten his limitations here, forgotten the fragility of this temporary body.
Closing his eyes, he began the process of making quick repairs. The strain on his form was apparent; the resonance of his true essence had left fractures in this vessel. He needed to patch it up, to hold it together for a little while longer.
*Thirteen hours.* He calculated as he worked. *Thirteen more hours until this body breaks down completely.*
It was enough. The body was a temporary construct anyway, never meant to contain the vastness of what he was. But for now, it would do. He would last the necessary time, long enough to complete the tasks ahead.
The wind blew past him, cool and gentle, as he finished the repairs. He opened his eyes, marginally satisfied with his work, and allowed himself a moment to look around, taking in the scenery of the Sim-hall. A simulation of a world that no longer existed—at least, not for him.
The hills stretched out into the distance, covered in waving grass and dotted with flowers of every color imaginable. The sky was painted in soft hues of blue and white, clouds drifting lazily across it. The sunlight filtered through the canopy of the great tree he sat beneath, casting warm patches of light on the ground around him. The breeze carried with it the scent of earth and flowers, something so simple, yet so meaningful.
Astiron leaned back against the tree, feeling the rough bark press into his back, grounding him in the moment. He closed his eyes briefly, letting the coolness of the air and the warmth of the sun lull him into a rare state of relaxation. It had been so long since he had allowed himself to simply *be*. The pressure of his growing strength, the weight of the responsibilities he carried, had long since stripped him of these simple pleasures.
When his true body had begun to change, to evolve in ways he hadn't anticipated, it had become harder to appreciate these things. His senses had sharpened to the point where every sensation was overwhelming. The cool breeze had felt like ice, the sunlight too harsh, the smells too intense. The world he had once known had slipped away, replaced by the vast, incomprehensible expanse of his ever-increasing power.
But here, in this body, in this simulation, he could still grasp at the echoes of that simpler time. He could feel the wind without flinching, could bask in the sun without being blinded by its heat. For a moment, Astiron allowed himself to feel content.
Perhaps, with all the preparations he had been making, he had lost sight of things. He had been so focused on the broader picture, on the monumental task before him, that he had forgotten what it was like to see the world through a mortal's eyes.
"A perspective too broad is as dangerous as one too narrow," he mumbled to himself, recalling an old sorcerer's adage. One of the first lessons a sorcerer learned was balance—between power and restraint, between the vastness of knowledge and the simplicity of understanding. Strength, he knew, became broader, more complicated, as one ascended. But it was important to remember the roots, to remember why one sought power in the first place.
Perhaps that had been his mistake. He had let his view of the universe stretch too far, become too grand. He had forgotten to look down, to see the ground beneath his feet.
He lay fully back against the tree, letting his body relax into the earth beneath him. His eyes drifted across the endless fields of flowers and grass, a horizon stretching out into infinity. The only blemish in the perfect landscape was the Arstra, standing still and awkward in the midst of it all, like a monument to another world, another time.
Astiron sighed and turned his gaze in the opposite direction, away from the Arstra. This was his break, his moment to breathe. He had earned it, hadn't he?
For a few minutes, maybe more, he simply stared at the sky, watching the clouds drift and merge, watching the way the sunlight danced on the edges of the horizon. The world here was quiet, peaceful. It was a far cry from the storm of thoughts and plans that usually filled his mind.
He wasn't sure how long he could hold onto this feeling—this fleeting sense of calm. He knew that soon enough, he would have to rise, to return to the tasks at hand, to face the consequences of what was coming. But for now, for these few moments, he allowed himself to enjoy the world around him.
The wind, the grass, the sun. The small things that made life worth living.
Even for someone like him.