Acryl opened his eyes. Catching breath that did not smell like blood. He then felt the warmth on his shoulder, the color around him, the bronze of the wall, the violet of the mist, the blue of the sky outside the compartment’s window…and…the pink of Neon. He felt Neon weeping. Everywhere hurt, he took many deep breaths with the oxygen mask he was put on.

  “…I thought that this might be the end…” Neon said as she sat next to Acryl and wiped her tears. Acryl could not hear her clearly through her oxygen mask.

  “What…happened?” he asked.

  “The ticket inspector came over…he checked your pulse and things.”

  “Did he say anything?” Acryl asked.

  “He did. He said the brotherhood should help each other.”

  The Lily’s Brotherhood. Acryl had not attended any of their meetings lately.

  They both sat on the half-soft-half-hard double bunk bed and did not talk for a few seconds. Neon leaned onto Acryl’s shoulder. Acryl saw Neon’s worries through her face, but Neon spoke first.

  “You know, sometimes I have nightmares of you getting into trouble you can’t get out of.”

  “…Me too…Neon…sometimes I have nightmares like that…I…just don’t know…” Acryl answered, taking a deep breath, swallowing the words back before they fled from his mouth.

  “Speaking of dreams, I once had a dream that you were my dad.”

  Acryl laughed. After some good laughs and jokes, he retold Neon what had happened when he fainted.

  They chatted with their mask-blocked voices for a while, laughing at each other for relief. Acryl felt better, although his mind felt like he just pulled up an all-nighter. Though the feeling of escaping the danger felt relieving, Acryl still had a hint of fear and doubt. Fear that what he encountered in the world of Realm-art could end his journey before he even meets Canvas.

  As the node was being repaired, the aircraft continued flying. The rest of the journey was smooth sailing as they flew out of the Prolonged Mist.

  Soon, under the aircraft was the green of the plains and the partly golden forests, with some unnoticeable grey and other colors. It was the remnant tide. The buildings and ruins re-emerged from the past, standing with the legacy of history and danger.

  As an Euthian Acryl is no stranger to the legends, tales, and folklore of the remnant tide. He grew up listening to the stories of it, some more famous like the origin of the School of Faust, and more obscure like the Carpenter who brings death, the woman in amber clothes.

  “Acryl…speaking of remnant tides, have you heard about the recent urban legends?” Neon suddenly brought up as she stood up and stretched her arm towards Acryl.

  “…The one about the ruins becoming older and older?” Acryl said, taking Neon’s arm and slowly standing up. His bones cracked.

  “Hm, that one…don’t you think it’s a bit odd? Usually, the ruins are from the beginning of nations…but this year…it seems that they broke history itself.”

  They walked out of the compartment towards the deck. The runes of the hallway shone brighter than before as if they were trying their best to burn. At the same time, the broken nodes were being repaired by the runes on the aircraft. It was a process that looked surreal. Materials grew like plants, fixing the holes like aiding wounds, healing as if the aircraft were a living, breathing metal whale.

  As the node was repaired, the aircraft continued flying. The rest of the journey was smooth sailing as they flew out of the Prolonged Mist.

  “…Perhaps , Neon , perhaps…the scholars were wrong? And so were the messengers?”

  “I think so… ‘The world is a small giant’ like Dame Tasmin said in her manuscript… self-contradicting,” Neon answered as she held her hand on her chin. She is also a lover of folklore and urban legend, partially because of her father’s influence as a former actor and screenwriter.

  As they stopped by a half-open door, Acryl smelled a somewhat familiar smell. The smell of iron and burnt matches…and burnt papers.

  “There’s the second part of that saying,” a voice said. Acryl and Neon looked towards the master of that voice.

  “‘The world is a small giant, except we don’t know if it is a giant and if it is small’, I didn’t know you guys fancied the scholars from two thousand years before Starseeker’s descent,” Suiming said playfully, clothes broken and torn blue waistcoat stained red, arms folded against his chest with something written on his hand as if his hand was a manuscript.

  “Or should I say…Thyme?” he said as he pulled one of his sleeves lower, covering the letters.

  “I reckon I should reintroduce myself,” Suiming said as he stretched his arm towards Acryl. “The name’s Suiming, member of Lily’s brotherhood Forget-me-not, abnormality. Some may call me by other names, but please ignore them…if it is possible, I would be more than happy to travel with you.”

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  Hearing the word ‘abnormality,’ Acryl trembled a little like he saw something foul and unpleasant. Neon, however, looked more natural as if Suiming was no different than her. Growing up in Siyue meant crossing paths with abnormalities, or as people call ‘spirits’ or Yao. On the other hand, in Euth, abnormality is something that makes messengers knock on people’s front door.

  With a slight confusion and trembling hand, Acryl shook Suiming’s hand. It was not as cold as he imagined, instead, it was warm and slightly skinny.

  Acryl swallowed, urban legend and memories ran through his head, looked into Suiming’s keyhole-shaped iris, and said:

  “…Then…”

  “I am Acryl, an apprentice of Canvas, Thyme…uhhh … human…about traveling. I don’t think that’d be a problem, but I think you should ask Neon about it.”

  “And you? Daughter of Xihua, won’t you say something?”

  Neon stood there like a stone lion in front of a park, eyes wide open. Then she remembered the man who stayed over at her father’s before they returned three years ago. She could not believe that she had not connected the dots and come to the conclusion, not even when he mentioned her name before. Her answer was only out of politeness.

  “You… you were him.”

  “I don’t see any issue,” Neon answered.

  “Great. I don’t either…I’ll pay my bills by the way.” Suiming answered as he smiled.

  “Aside from that, can you two show your Realm-arts?”

  “I don’t have one yet, c’mon, Acryl, do your thing!” Neon said as she patted Acryl on the shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, but…my back really hurts, I don’t thin-”

  “Rest, you’ve over-cast your Realm-art, drink some peppermint tea, and you’ll be fine.”

  Suiming sounded like a doctor for a second, perhaps he is-Acryl thought. He had some questions about Realm-art; he usually doesn’t ask, but he would rather search things by himself, although this time it was urgent. The things he experienced broke everything he knew about Realm-art. How did that thing transport his mind to that space? How did he turn blood into colors?

  “Mister Suiming, does blood count as living matter?”

  Suiming looked at Acryl in silence as if he had just asked a personal and offensive question.

  “Err, first, cut the ‘mister’, I stopped teaching a long time ago, second, depends on where the blood is, is it real blood? Is it blood from the Furnace archetype, the Realm-art, or Key, Gate type? Kindling usually doesn’t make blood, but in some specific cases, they do.”

  “Blood from…” Acryl said, but he couldn’t find the word. From abnormality? What Realm-art archetype was that abnormality? Or is it, as some people say, that the archetype only applies to humans?

  “Furnace…I assume.”

  “Then it isn’t…but why’d you ask such a question?”

  Acryl described what happened as he was lost in the strange space, hearing it, Suiming said:

  “…It is an exception…but usually, as long as the blood leaves its master far enough, far away from which the livingness protects the caster, it isn’t considered living.”

  “Oh, and I assume you know this, but-”

  “Just as a reminder, the Furnace archetype cannot override the matter created by another Furnace…but there are a lot of exceptions when it comes to Realmlore and Realm-arts, don’t rely on the archetypes too much, it ain’t an aged theory. Like you being able to control your globs, the archetype can’t explain that well.”

  “How about that I was transported to that…place?”

  “…You can understand it as a gate archetype, if that’s more digestible for ya…Like…it summoned your mind into it.”

  As they spoke, they arrived at the border of Auderheim and Treisaules. It was not hard to tell. The barrier of Treisaules shone brightly, following the pre-existing border of Auderheim. No one knew how it appeared, only that it suddenly emerged at the end of the war two centuries ago. Calling it a prison wall was not precise. It is ornamented with sigils and symbols, stretching to the sky and coming back to the earth.

  Suiming, Neon, and Acryl all silenced and gazed in that direction. When his eyes met the golden, shining belt decorated like a delicate rug, his mind was silenced. It was a beauty he could never capture on paper. Its golden and tender light felt like a summer night of him walking in the starlight-showered Euth.

  “The true name of it is not wall…it’s called the Belt of the Fatherland,” Suiming said out of nowhere.

  “…Do you think…will it ever go away?” Acryl asked.

  “It will. Nothing lasts forever. Existences and their abominations may be an exception, but who knows?”

  “Oh, and the help I mentioned. If you need information about anything, go to this inn, tavern, bar, whatever you call it in the Cambric streets called Blue Box. Order a fizzy drink with ice in it and give the bartender a tip.” Suiming said.

  …

  Suiming

  When was the last time he had been in Treisaules? Around the time of the not-so-great war. Suiming vividly remembered the powerful casters he once faced on the battlefield, the soldiers who died, and the town sacrificed to call the Starseeker to descend upon This World as the Existence bled under the wrath of the Existence-Moon of Nature. Terrible memories that even in his countless years of traveling, he couldn’t forget, the blurry, bloody past that gave him a chance to see the greater world.

  The melody of zithers echoed in his memory as he stared at the Belt of Fatherland. Dim light and sharp edges only brought him a sense of sorrow- a cold, unmoved pin on this land that seals the world away from the only being he felt his hand on that he considered sacred in this world.

  In the corner of his eyes, he read the runes on the nodes-

  The metal whale bleeds, its cells heal the wound…

  The runes were written strangely, somewhat between prose and commands, statements. Though not many knew it, those who could read runes could also read the long-dead language of Yel. He looked at Acryl and Neon, two people so deeply bonded that it only made Suiming more eager to find her and find out what he had forgotten from his past.

  In Acryl, Suiming saw an emotion and drive he once saw in an old friend, and in Neon, he saw a heart so pure and brave, full of companionship, that Suiming, only for a brief second, hoped that he had been like that.

  I can’t be mistaken about this…I am a teacher, right? A good teacher. At least…I think so.