Every age of progress is celebrated by those who live through it, but rarely questioned by those who remember what came before. Across Earth and the Witching Hour, people were still adjusting to what Luna had changed, along with everything that followed after it, as the line between magic and science quietly stopped meaning what it used to. To most, it was the dawn of a new era filled with hope, discovery, and endless possibility. Yet far from the celebrations, hidden beneath forests protected by ancient magic and untouched by the modern world, there existed a civilization that watched those same triumphs with growing unease. Where others saw progress, the Fae saw familiarity, and in the echoes of humanity's greatest accomplishments, they believed they could hear the footsteps of a history they had sworn would never repeat itself.
Deep within the Fae territories, far beyond the reach of the cities and nations that had embraced magic as part of daily life, unease began to spread among those who still carried the oldest memories.
The forests remained unchanged.
The trees still whispered with the wind.
Rivers still cut through those lands the same way they always had, untouched by the changes spreading across the rest of the world.
The ancient sanctuaries hidden beneath layers of protective magic remained exactly as they had for generations.Yet inside those sanctuaries, the Fae were no longer peaceful.
They were watching.
Unlike the Barebloods and many other supernatural races, the Fae had never fully followed the path of rapid magical advancement that other races had begun to embrace. They were not ignorant of it. They understood it better than most.
Perhaps that was why they feared it.
The Fae carried memories that stretched far beyond the history of most civilizations. Stories passed down through countless generations. Warnings spoken by ancestors whose names had long been forgotten.
Stories of a civilization that had once believed itself unstoppable.
A civilization that reached beyond the limits of nature.
A civilization that believed magic had no boundaries and that knowledge itself could solve every problem.
They had built wonders that reshaped the world. They had reached heights recorded in the oldest surviving Fae accounts, mastering magic to a point where it seemed nothing lay beyond their reach. Then the heavens responded. The records describe what followed as a battle, though even that word feels generous. It was a purge. The sky itself opened, and beings of overwhelming light descended. Against them, even the greatest spells, artifacts, and civilizations meant nothing. Cities fell in silence. Towers burned without resistance. Entire bodies of knowledge vanished as if they had never existed. When the light finally faded, nothing remained of that civilization except fragments preserved in fear. The oldest Fae texts do not call it a tragedy. They call it a consequence. A warning passed down through generations: that magic, no matter how great, was never meant to be without limits.
For thousands of years, those stories remained exactly that.
Stories.
Until Luna.
The transformation of a lifeless celestial body into a living world was supposed to be impossible. Even among witches and the greatest magical scholars, the scale of what had been achieved defied what anyone thought was possible.
But the Fae elders did not see a miracle.
They saw a pattern.
They saw the same pattern their ancestors had recorded thousands of years ago: a civilization reaching beyond its natural limits, a world remade through overwhelming magic, and people who believed nothing lay beyond their reach. It was the same arrogance, the same ambition, and the same road that had once ended in ruin.
Within the oldest Fae councils, fierce debates erupted. Some argued that the world had changed, that humanity and the Witching Hour had entered an era where cooperation had become not only possible but necessary. They believed the Fae should continue observing from the shadows, learning from these new developments while maintaining peaceful coexistence. Others, however, saw only the warnings of their ancestors unfolding before their eyes. To them, those ancient records had survived for a reason, and every new miracle brought the world one step closer to repeating the same mistake. Luna was not the beginning of a golden age, but the first sign of another catastrophe.
As debate within the oldest Fae councils continued, one conclusion slowly began to take hold among the more radical elders: waiting was no longer an option. If history truly was beginning to repeat itself, then it had to be stopped before it reached its end again.
Far beneath the oldest forests, in a sanctuary most of their own kind had long forgotten, preparations quietly began.
The chamber had not been opened for thousands of years. Its walls carried markings older than recorded history. The air itself felt heavy, as if the place remembered every ritual ever performed within it.
At the center of the chamber stood an ancient altar and upon it rested the body of an Aelaris woman. Her elegant features remained untouched, but her life had already been offered to something far older than any modern spell. Her blood flowed through the ancient formation carved into the stone, awakening a ritual that had been preserved through generations of fear and desperation.
The elders stood around the altar, not as rulers or creators, but as people trying to reach something they no longer fully understood. Ancient words filled the chamber, spoken in a language that predated kingdoms, predated modern magic itself, a tongue from a time when the world had not yet defined its own boundaries. The formation slowly lit up as the carvings along the chamber walls responded one after another, feeding the ritual's rising power. The air grew heavier with every passing moment, until even the forest above fell completely silent. Deep within the Fae lands, every living thing seemed to stop, as if the world itself had gone still.
Something was coming.
The light grew stronger until it swallowed everything, so bright that looking at it became impossible. The elders lowered their heads, enduring the pressure as they waited, each second stretching longer than it should have. And then something changed. A figure began to form within the light. At first only a shadow, then wings—vast wings that filled the chamber, carrying a presence that felt older than anything present in the room. It wasn't just power. It felt like something that existed outside of understanding itself. The elders trembled under its presence, not only from fear, but from the certainty that whatever had answered their call was not something they fully controlled anymore.
One by one, they lowered themselves before the being they had summoned.
The chamber that had remained silent for thousands of years finally heard a voice again. A voice that echoed through stone, through forest, and through the forgotten depths of the Fae territories.
Calm.
Powerful.
Unfamiliar.
"BE NOT AFRAID."