The world was loud.
Not loud like the choirs of the upper spheres had been, not filled with that perfect harmony in which every sound had carried meaning and every vibration had been part of a greater whole.
This world was different.
Chaotic.
Overlapping.
Alive.
Wind swept through dark forests, stirring leaves in irregular patterns. Water flowed aimlessly over stones, breaking against edges, foaming, seeping away. In the distance, animals called to one another, sometimes softly, sometimes shrill, sometimes full of fear. None of it was perfectly in tune.
And yet…
it was beautiful.
She did not understand the world.
Not really.
The first days—or perhaps weeks; time had taken on weight here, and she hadn’t yet learned to measure it—she spent in a state between wonder and overwhelm.
Everything had a feel to it.
That was the worst part.
And the most wonderful.
The ground beneath her feet wasn’t just a surface. It gave way, was soft or hard, cold or warm. Rain was not just water; it penetrated her clothes, clung to her skin, ran down her neck, and made her shiver. Light was no longer pure revelation, but had warmth, glare, color.
And her body…
was sensitive.
She had never known hunger.
Never fatigue.
Never pain in the mortal sense.
Now she was learning it all at once.
Sometimes she would sit in one place for hours, simply looking at her hands.
They were small compared to what she had once been. Fragile. Finite. The skin beneath was soft, crisscrossed with fine lines that moved when she closed her fingers. When she touched something, pressure arose. When something hurt her, pain arose.
At first, she hadn’t understood why this fascinated her.
Later, she realized:
Because all these things proved that she existed.
Not as a function.
Not as a possibility.
But as herself.
Yet this “self” was still unfinished.
She no longer had a name.
Not really.
Thalerys had been left behind.
Not just in heaven.
But in everything she had been.
She had tried to think of the name.
But every time it felt foreign. Heavy. Like a garment that had been made for someone else and now lay on her shoulders only because she didn’t know how to take it off.
So she stopped using it.
Not consciously.
It just happened.
The world began to change her.
Not quickly.
Not violently.
But in small ways.
She learned to like warmth.
At first she had feared fire, because its light reminded her of something she had lost. But mortal fires were different. They did not judge. They demanded nothing. They simply existed, flickering and imperfect, and when she sat before them, she felt a strange tugging in her chest that was almost peace.
She learned not to hate rain anymore.
She learned that the wind carried scents.
That flowers smelled different.
That nights were dark, but not empty.
Above all, however, she got to know people.
From a distance at first.
She watched small villages from the woods, hidden between trees and mist. She didn’t understand their language right away, but language was easier to grasp than feelings. Feelings were chaotic. Words, on the other hand, had patterns.
So she listened.
For days.
For weeks.
She heard laughter.
Heard arguments.
Heard children crying and mothers soothing them. Heard tired voices in the evening, stories by the fire, names spoken with warmth.
Names.
Something about it hurt.
Because down here…
people gave each other names out of love.
Not out of duty.
The thought wouldn’t leave her.
One night she sat at the edge of a quiet lake. The sky above her was cloudless, dotted with stars that seemed smaller than the lights she had once seen between the spheres, and yet they touched her more deeply.
Perhaps because they were distant.
Perhaps because they were imperfect.
Her reflection lay trembling in the water.
Still foreign.
And yet less so than before.
The black marks beneath her eyes had remained.
Dark as a seared-in memory.
She had tried to wash them away. At first out of instinct, later out of shame. But nothing removed them. They now belonged to her like her new wings, which she usually kept hidden.
The wings…
She didn’t quite understand them yet, either.
They had grown smaller. Not small in the human sense, but no longer that incomprehensible span of light and flame. Black-violet feathers lay densely overlapping, shimmering almost metallically in the moonlight. And in between—
a few white feathers.
Just a few.
Almost lost.
But every time she looked at them, something inside her tightened.
Grief.
No longer just raw emotion.
Something clearer.
She looked down at her reflection.
And for the first time…
she didn’t ask herself what she had been.
But who she wanted to become.
The thought frightened her.
For it was free.
She slowly raised a hand and touched the water’s surface. The image shattered into ripples.
And softly, barely audibly, she spoke:
“I am not… Thalerys.”
The wind did not answer.
No one did.
And that is exactly why it felt true.
She sat there for a long time.
Thinking of the people who gave each other names.
Of the warmth in their voices.
Of the feeling when someone was seen… not as a task, but as a person.
Something inside her began to search.
Not for a label.
For a sound that fit.
Many seemed foreign to her.
Some too harsh.
Some too light.
Some felt like masks.
But one remained.
Not suddenly.
Not like a revelation.
More like something that slowly emerged from deep darkness.
Melloryia.
When she thought it, nothing momentous happened.
The sky didn’t open up.
The world didn’t pause.
But inside her…
it grew still.
Not empty.
Still.
Like a room that had finally stopped sounding wrong.
Melloryia.
The name was soft.
And sad.
And beautiful.
But above all
it was chosen.
For the first time in her existence, she carried something that no one had given her.
And that thought alone brought tears to her eyes.
She cried often now.
No longer just out of pain.
Sometimes out of being overwhelmed.
Sometimes out of beauty.
Sometimes without understanding why.
Emotions rarely came in order. They overlapped, contradicted each other, crashed over one another like waves. There were days when she laughed, only to be struck moments later by a sadness that took her breath away.
But even that…
felt more real than any perfection of the higher realms.
Melloryia.
She spoke the name again.
Louder this time.
And even though no one was there, she felt heard.
She continued to carry the shard with her.
Always.
The consciousness within it was still unfinished. Formless. Sleeping, perhaps. Yet sometimes she thought she sensed stirrings within it. Small resonances. As if something were responding to her voice.
She often spoke to it.
Or to her.
Or simply… to it.
Not because she received answers.
But because she no longer wanted to be alone.
The world grew larger the farther she traveled.
Forests gave way to mountains. Mountains to plains. Small settlements became cities full of smoke, voices, and lights. People hurried through streets, lived short, intense lives, and left traces everywhere.
Melloryia didn’t understand much of it.
But she learned.
Slowly.
She learned to wear clothes that hid her wings.
Learned how strangely people reacted to prolonged silence.
Learned to eat, even though some flavors overwhelmed her.
Sweetness was almost painful at first.
And she learned fear.
Not her own at first.
The others’.
People often sensed instinctively that something about her was different. Some avoided her. Some stared too long. Animals reacted even more strongly; dogs sometimes growled softly, birds fell silent when she passed by.
She tried to make herself smaller.
Less conspicuous.
But some things couldn’t be hidden.
Her eyes, for example.
Or the way she spoke, as if every word had to be fully understood before she uttered it.
Or the sadness that constantly clung to her like fog.
It was raining the day she met the two witches.
A cold, heavy rain that bathed the forest in gray and softened the ground beneath her feet.
Melloryia was exhausted.
Not just physically.
Inside.
The world was beautiful, but it was also loud, chaotic, and full of things she didn’t understand. Sometimes she wondered if she could ever truly belong.
She noticed the trap too late.
A circle of runes flared up beneath her, violet and silver at once. Magic shot through the ground and wrapped around her legs like chains of light.
Instinctively, her wings unfolded halfway.
The forest trembled.
“Don’t move!”
The voice came from the left.
Young. Nervous.
Melloryia turned around.
Standing between the trees were two girls.
No
young women.
Witches.
She sensed it immediately.
One had dark, curly hair and was clutching a staff so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. The other was smaller, with a silver braid and freckles above her nose, and looked both frightened and determined.
“Do you see that?!” the smaller one whispered frantically.
“Yes, I’M not blind!”
“Her wings-”
“I SEE THE WINGS!”
Melloryia said nothing.
She didn’t know whether to fight.
Or flee.
Or explain.
The two witches scrutinized her.
Then their gaze fell on the black marks beneath Melloryia’s eyes.
And something in their demeanor changed.
“…You’re hurt,” the smaller witch said quietly.
Melloryia understood the words.
But not the reaction behind them.
Concern.
“I… fell.”
The truth slipped out before she could hold it back.
The two looked at each other.
Then back at her.
“That explains absolutely nothing,” muttered the dark-haired one.
“Selia-”
“No, seriously, what is that supposed to mean?!”
And despite everything
Melloryia suddenly had to laugh.
It was small.
Fragile.
Surprised.
But real.
The two witches stared at her.
And for the first time since her fall-
the world felt…
not quite so lonely.
End of Chapter VI