Aevor didn't turn toward the presence behind them.
He dismissed it as naturally as someone brushing dust from their shoulder. Whatever arrogant little spark had flared, it wasn't worth his attention—not when Luna stood in front of him, the echoes of his explanation still weaving through her mind like threads shifting into a shape she wasn't born to understand, but was beginning to.
Without warning, his hand slipped into hers.
The world around them didn't shake or blur or fold.
It simply wasn't anymore.
No wind.
No transition.
No sensation of movement.
Aevor and Luna were suddenly standing atop one of the old branches of Eonbark—the kind that stretched like infinite continent-spines into horizons that weren't horizons at all, but concept-lattices so vast they swallowed meaning. Above, below, every direction: universes stacked like reflections of reflections, each one its own nesting of endless veils, each veil holding its own Eryndal-like world, each world containing its own skies, histories, civilizations, dreams—fragile little tapestries pretending they mattered.
Luna blinked once.
There was no feeling of arrival.
No adjustment.
Just existence, now in a different place.
Aevor looked out at one of the universes hovering near the branch like a suspended heart. Its surface shimmered—colorless yet containing every color, an omnipresent dream in a glass sphere.
"Pick that one," he said calmly.
Luna followed his gaze.
The universe pulsed with quiet, distant thunder—storms of newborn stars, veils peeling open into new worlds, layers rearranging themselves like petals trying to remember how flowers work.
Her voice was small.
Not weak—just uncertain.
"…You want me to destroy it, Daddy?"
Aevor nodded once.
"Consider it practice."
Luna inhaled softly.
She lifted her hand—
But something drifted across her nose.
A tiny shape.
Small, delicate.
A flower.
Not growing from anywhere.
Just floating, like the forgotten thought of a vanished dreamer.
It brushed her nose gently.
Luna's eyes widened.
Her breath hitched.
"Oh—"
Aevor's expression sharpened a fraction of a degree. He knew the moment before it happened, but he didn't stop it.
"—ah…"
Luna's shoulders tensed.
And then—
SNNFF—
A quiet sneeze.
Soft.
Almost cute.
The universe in front of her didn't break.
It didn't shatter.
It didn't even have time to understand.
It ceased.
Not just that one.
Not just its veils.
Not just its worlds.
Her sneeze rippled outward across the entire branch like reality exhaling in shock. What started as a breath-sized burst of displaced definition became a widening collapse, a bloom of silent annihilation spilling through creation itself.
One universe vanished—
then ten—
then a thousand—
then a trillion—
then an uncountable infinity.
Whole sequences of veils evaporated.
Histories that stretched far beyond what linear minds could hold—stories of entire cosmologies knitting themselves into myth—snapped in an instant.
The branch didn't shake.
It couldn't.
It simply died.
Not violently.
Not loudly.
But cleanly, like a page being erased rather than torn.
Luna's eyes widened further, horrified and embarrassed at the same time.
"I—I didn't mean—!"
Aevor's hand touched the top of her head.
Her voice caught.
He slid his thumb down just slightly, petting her gently behind the ear the way he knew calmed her.
"Good girl."
The words landed like a shock.
Luna's breath rushed out in a nervous, overwhelmed laugh. Her cheeks warmed. All the fear that she had disappointed him dissolved instantly, replaced by a glow that filled her chest like a blooming dawn.
But the destruction hadn't stopped.
The branch—an endless structure made of world-roots and definition-fibers—folded inward on itself. Not a collapse. Not a failure.
A conclusion.
The entire structure peeled apart, peeling in a direction that wasn't direction, like a curtain dissolving into ash only it wasn't ash—it was the realization that nothing on that branch had ever been more than fiction to her.
Her sneeze had briefly elevated Luna's perspective, just enough to give her a glimpse of the scale Aevor had been describing.
And with that glimpse—
She saw the now-gone universes as flat stories.
As scenery.
As drawings.
And once she saw them as drawings, her sneeze erased the canvas they were painted on.
Luna trembled, staring into the void where infinite worlds had existed moments before.
"It… it all just disappeared…"
Aevor looked at the empty expanse without the slightest change in expression.
"That branch was unremarkable."
His thumb brushed Luna's hair again.
"You reacted. That's good. Instinct is better than technique."
Luna swallowed softly.
Her voice trembled.
"…Aevor… I didn't know I could do—"
"You didn't," he said. "But now you do."
Her heart fluttered.
Not from pride.
From the realization that Aevor wasn't surprised.
This was normal for him.
This was baseline.
And if it was baseline for Aevor…
then it was baseline for anything that stood close to him.
Even unintentionally.
Luna looked down at her hands—and for a moment, they didn't look like hands anymore. They looked like permissions waiting to be exercised. Like the right to destroy, shaping itself into soft fingers.
She exhaled shakily.
"…Daddy… the universes—"
"They'll be replaced," Aevor said simply. "Or not. It doesn't matter."
He wasn't being cruel.
He simply didn't register them on a scale where their disappearance had weight.
And Luna realized—
that was what he meant earlier when he said Apexes didn't grow by negating limits.
They didn't try to be above anything.
Things simply didn't register unless Aevor chose to acknowledge them.
Luna stared into the void where an infinite stack of realities had been erased like a breath on glass.
Then she sensed it:
The drift.
The tiny movement.
She turned her head slightly.
The flower was returning.
Floating delicately, naïve, unaware it had just indirectly annihilated more than any deity in all of Eryndal's histories could comprehend.
It bobbed in the air, as if trying to apologize with its softness.
Aevor watched it.
He didn't smile.
He didn't frown.
He simply observed.
And Luna realized—
the flower wasn't moving through air.
It wasn't moving through space.
It wasn't moving through time.
It was drifting through attention—appearing only where someone chose to notice it.
Slow, weightless, harmless.
Yet it had been the catalyst for apocalypse.
Luna exhaled, calming, her heartbeat slowing as Aevor's presence steadied her. The embarrassment of the sneeze faded, leaving behind only awe—and a faint confusion.
Why was the flower coming back?
Why did it linger?
What was it?
Aevor's eyes narrowed slightly.
Not in concern.
In recognition.
Luna noticed.
"Aevor…?"
He didn't answer.
The flower floated closer.
Slowly.
Softly.
Inevitably.
The flower drifted closer.
Its petals fluttered despite the absence of wind. Its glow softened, dimmed, then brightened again like a heartbeat learning how to beat. Luna watched it with wide, uncertain eyes, still reeling from her earlier sneeze—the annihilation of a branch, the erasure of countless universes, the gentle praise that had steadied her.
But Aevor's gaze had sharpened.
The weight of it was subtle, almost lazy, yet layered with an understanding deeper than what the moment deserved. He tilted his head slightly, watching the little blossom turn in the empty expanse like a dancer spinning on the edge of a thought.
Luna felt the shift in him.
"…Aevor?" she whispered.
The petals folded.
The stem dissolved.
The glow brightened—too bright for its size—then compressed.
Reality around the flower bent inward in the smallest, most delicate curvature Luna had ever seen. Not forceful. Not violent. Not cosmic.
It was… elegant.
The little glow swelled, expanding without expanding, unfolding into dimensions that didn't belong on the branch or in the void where the branch had been. Something emerged from inside it, as though the flower had always been hiding a shape far too large for its form.
The petals peeled back one last time.
And a girl stepped out.
Her bare feet touched the conceptual bark like she'd walked this place for centuries. Long waves of soft pink hair spilled down her back, shimmering with delicate glints of rose and lavender. Her fox ears twitched as she surveyed the surroundings—one flick, then another, as if catching sounds that Eonbark itself couldn't produce.
Luna took a small step back, breath catching.
Aevor didn't move.
The girl opened her eyes.
Amethyst. Sharp. Alive with mischief that didn't bother pretending to hide.
She blinked once, and her expression shifted instantly—playful curiosity melting into a sultry, delighted smile the moment her gaze landed on Aevor.
"Oh…" her voice chimed, light and sweet yet carrying an undertone like a hook beneath silk. "So that's what pulled me."
She stepped forward.
Not walked.
Glided.
Her hips swayed with a natural confidence that felt engineered to draw attention. A faint blush warmed her skin as if excitement alone made her glow. The ribbons around her waist fluttered behind her like playful tails.
One step. Two. Three.
Luna moved instinctively, placing a hand on Aevor's arm—not in defense, but in ownership.
The new girl didn't stop.
She reached Aevor.
Her fingers curled into his collar.
And she pressed herself against him in one fluid, possessive motion—shoulder against his chest, cheek brushing his jaw, her lithe body fitting against his like she'd been sculpted for this exact purpose.
Luna froze.
Aevor's expression didn't change.
Not even slightly.
The fox-eared girl inhaled him, an audible little sigh escaping her lips before she spoke again, voice dripping with delighted satisfaction.
"Mmm… yes. You'll do perfectly."
Luna's eyes widened, fury lighting inside them like a blade being unsheathed.
"Get off him."
The girl didn't even glance her way.
She nuzzled into Aevor's neck, pink hair brushing his skin, her fox ears twitching with a pleased little tremor.
"Mmm… no."
Luna's hand snapped out to grab her shoulder.
It didn't move.
Not a fraction.
Luna pushed harder, her fingers digging in, her power instinctively reaching for annihilation.
Still nothing.
The pink-haired fox merely giggled, the sound airy and bright like bells chiming from a distant shrine. "Oh sweetie… you're adorable."
Luna bared her teeth.
She tried again—this time with actual force.
The kind of force that could accidentally melt a world.
Still nothing.
The fox girl finally turned her head. Only slightly. Just enough for Luna to see the glint in her violet eyes, a small predatory sparkle that said she wasn't ignoring Luna—
She simply didn't care.
Luna's voice shook with possessive rage. "I said get off him—"
"Shh," the fox murmured, placing a single finger lightly against Luna's forehead. "You'll wrinkle your pretty face."
Luna slapped her hand away.
Or tried to.
Her arm stopped halfway, like she'd been caught in honey.
But Aevor…
Aevor wasn't confused. Wasn't surprised. Wasn't amused.
He was observing.
Quietly.
Like he was evaluating a new phenomenon.
The fox girl felt his gaze and melted even further into him, her arms sliding around his waist as though she was claiming territory. "My name," she said softly, breath brushing his ear, "is Lyxaria."
Luna stiffened.
Lyxaria's smile widened at the reaction—as if Luna's anger was a sweet perfume she enjoyed breathing in.
"And you," Lyxaria continued, her voice sweet but dangerously confident, "are going to be my husband."
The declaration hit the void like a thrown blade.
Luna surged forward. "He's—"
Aevor raised a hand.
Just slightly.
Luna froze mid-lunge.
Her chest rose and fell, her breath shaking with fury she couldn't release—not because Aevor forced her to stop, but because Aevor merely gestured, and her instinct obeyed before thought could intervene.
Lyxaria laughed softly, turning her face into his chest like a cat settling into a favorite place. "Mmm… see? He already keeps his women in check. I like that."
Luna's entire body trembled.
But something else was happening—
Aevor's eyes narrowed. Not at Lyxaria's clinginess. Not at her declaration.
But at the transformation he'd witnessed.
The shift from flower to girl hadn't been a physical metamorphosis. It had been a conceptual realignment—an identity sliding along layers of existence effortlessly, without resistance, without cost.
A self-rewrite.
A translation of form through pure definition.
Aevor had watched it once.
And once was enough.
His pupils dilated with the faintest glow—barely noticeable to anyone but him.
A new thread snapped into place within his being.
He copied the ability.
Not crudely. Not incompletely.
Perfectly.
Lyxaria felt it.
She lifted her head from his chest, her expression flickering from smug confidence to stunned delight.
"Oh. You learned it already?"
Aevor met her gaze.
She shivered visibly, her ears twitching so sharply the tips quivered. "Hah… ah… you're even better than I thought…"
Luna saw the exchange—saw the strange, intimate recognition between them—and her possessiveness flared so violently the branchless void around them quivered.
"Stop touching him," Luna hissed through clenched teeth.
Lyxaria ignored her completely.
Instead, she reached up, sliding a hand to Aevor's cheek with a tenderness that contrasted her predatory grin. "You're mine now," she whispered. "I found you. That means you belong to me."
Luna snapped.
"NO HE DOESN'T!"
The void trembled.
A ripple of destructive instinct spread outward from Luna's body, a pulse sharp enough to erase a cluster of universe-threads if anything existed near them.
Lyxaria glanced back for the first time, her expression briefly shifting—still amused, but now with an edge of warning.
"You're loud."
Luna stepped forward, snarling. "Let—go—of—him."
Lyxaria tilted her head like a fox hearing an amusing but unimportant sound. "Why would I?" She pressed herself against Aevor even more, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder with a soft, pleased hum. "He's perfect. And claimed."
Luna's voice broke with fury. "By WHO?"
Lyxaria's lips curved into a slow, wicked smile.
"By me."
The temperature of the void seemed to drop.
Even Eonbark's distant conceptual roots felt tension.
Luna's hands hovered at her sides, fingers trembling—not with fear, but with the desperate, obsessive possessiveness of someone who knew exactly what Aevor meant to her. The idea of someone else touching him, leaning on him, claiming him—
It was intolerable.
Aevor remained silent.
Not passive. Not indecisive.
He was letting the scene unfold, watching the clash of instincts like one observes weather patterns forming.
Lyxaria noticed.
She leaned up, brushing her lips lightly against Aevor's jaw—soft enough to be teasing, bold enough to be intentional.
Luna lunged.
Her body became a streak of white-blue force, powered by instinct, fury, love, and the kind of possessiveness that didn't care about balance or scale or consequence. She wasn't thinking. She wasn't aiming. She was claiming.
But before she crossed even a finger's width of space, another voice sliced through the void.
A single word.
Soft.
Unhurried.
Commanding in a way that transcended obedience and touched something deeper—something closer to the architecture of being.
"Sit, apexe."
Lyxaria didn't raise her voice.
She didn't posture.
She didn't look at Luna.
She just spoke.
And the universe obeyed.
Luna's entire body halted mid-air.
Not stopped.
Not paused.
Held.
Every atom, every fragment of magic, every conceptual layer, every instinct that made up her existence—
frozen.
Not by force.
By hierarchy.
By superiority.
By a gap so immense it couldn't be measured or crossed or questioned.
It simply was.
Luna hovered a heartbeat away from Aevor's shoulder, her fingers curled like claws, her lips parted in a snarl she could no longer voice.
Her wings flickered once—
And went still.
Even her thoughts stuttered.
Lyxaria finally turned her head.
Slowly.
As if acknowledging Luna only when she felt like it.
Her pink hair slid over Aevor's shoulder, her fox ears tilting downward in a gesture too delicate to be mocking and too confident not to be.
Her amethyst eyes met Luna's frozen, furious ones.
And Lyxaria smiled.
Not wide.
Not cruel.
Just… knowing.
"Good girl," Lyxaria murmured, "you stopped."
Luna's soul screamed in silence.
Aevor watched, his face unreadable, his presence steady enough to contain the entire emotional storm without reacting.
Lyxaria didn't move away from him.
She leaned closer, her cheek brushing his jaw again, as though claiming each inch of him with an intimate, proprietary ease.
Her voice dipped to a whisper meant only for him—
But Luna heard it anyway.
"You attract such adorable little things."
A tremor pulsed through Luna's trapped form.
Not movement.
Frustration.
Rage.
Desperation.
And then—
A shift.
A soft vibration in the air.
A fluttering weightlessness.
A glow.
The flower returned.
It drifted into the scene like nothing was wrong—like infinite universes hadn't been erased minutes ago, like Luna wasn't frozen mid-attack, like Lyxaria wasn't wrapped around Aevor like a possessive shadow.
The same delicate petals.
The same gentle sway.
It bobbed in the air between Luna and Lyxaria, almost touching Luna's cheek before drifting toward Aevor.
Lyxaria narrowed her eyes.
"Hm. Persistent."
Aevor lifted his gaze, following the flower's lazy spiral.
Behind him, Luna's frozen breath trembled. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't cry. But her eyes—wide, frantic, furious—watched the flower's return with something close to dread.
Aevor extended a hand slightly.
Not reaching.
Just acknowledging.
The flower paused.
It hovered above his palm—
Glowing.
Throbbing.
As if waiting for something.
As if responding to him.
Luna felt something in her chest tighten painfully.
Not because of the flower.
But because Lyxaria's fingers curled gently against Aevor's waist, her nails ghosting across his side with possessive affection.
The gesture wasn't large.
It wasn't bold.
It was worse:
It was natural.
The flower drifted lower, brushing Aevor's fingertips—
And everything around them softened.
The void dimmed.
Conceptual dust fell like snow.
Aevor's eyes narrowed.
Not in concern.
In recognition.
"…So that's what you are," he murmured.
Lyxaria's tail of ribbon flicked once behind her, her voice low with a pleased purr.
"You see it too, darling?"
Aevor didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The flower pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Slowly unfolding into light—
And Luna felt the space behind her shiver.
Something watching.
Something arriving.
Something ancient.
Something territorial.
Something that knew Aevor's scent like scripture.
Lyxaria's smile sharpened, her lips brushing Aevor's cheek as she whispered:
"Seems the little toy wasn't sent just for her."
Her eyes flicked upward.
Toward the presence settling behind Luna's frozen form.
A presence whose attention burned hotter, sharper, more violently jealous than Luna's fury ever could.
A presence only Aevor—and Lyxaria—perceived fully.
The void tightened.
A shadow curled behind Luna.
A slow inhale.
A possessive tremor.