The dream always began the same way: endless sky, the sensation of falling, and six wings burning away to ash.
Arashi Kageyama woke with a gasp, his hand instinctively clutching at his back where phantom pain lingered between his shoulder blades. Dawn light filtered through the worn fabric covering his window, casting dappled patterns across the small room he called home. The patterns reminded him of the archives' illuminated manuscripts, light finding shape in darkness. For several moments, he simply breathed, waiting for the echoes of the dream to fade, feeling his heart gradually slow its frantic rhythm.
"Just a dream," he whispered, though the words felt hollow in the quiet room. These nightmares had plagued him with increasing frequency as the Harmonic Convergence festival approached, each one more vivid than the last. The burning sensation never quite left him upon waking, like an echo of something once possessed and lost.
Arashi rolled his shoulders, trying to dispel the lingering discomfort. His fingers traced the edges of the journal beside his bed, its spine cracked from years of use, pages filled with careful sketches of his recurring dreams. He'd never shown it to anyone, not even Elder Takuma. Something about the images felt too private, too revealing of a part of himself he couldn't explain.
With practiced efficiency, Arashi dressed in the simple clothes of a Vesper border villager, sturdy trousers the color of wet earth, a faded blue tunic with careful patches at the elbows, and the fingerless gloves that marked him as an apprentice archivist. The gloves had been a gift from Elder Takuma on his fifteenth birthday, the soft leather worn to suppleness from two years of handling delicate scrolls and dusty tomes. At seventeen, he was old enough that the villagers of Meirōmura had stopped openly referring to him as "the orphan boy," but young enough that everyone still felt entitled to offer him guidance, whether solicited or not.
Arashi splashed cold water from the ceramic basin onto his face, the shock helping to clear the last cobwebs of sleep from his mind. Through the thin walls, he could hear the archives coming to life, the soft shuffling of Elder Takuma moving between shelves, the creak of old wooden ladders being positioned. There was comfort in these familiar sounds, a rhythm to existence that had defined his life for as long as he could remember.
As he stepped outside his modest dwelling, a converted storage room attached to the village archives, Meirōmura was already humming with activity. The air carried the mingled scents of woodsmoke, baking bread, and the peculiar metallic tang that always seemed stronger near the eastern wall. Located at the very edge of Vesper territory, the village existed in a perpetual state of twilight thanks to the massive wall to the east that protected them from Hollow Ones roaming the wastelands. The wall cast long shadows across the collection of stone and wooden buildings that made up the settlement, giving rise to its nickname: the Village of Twilight.
Arashi paused to observe the play of light and shadow across the cobblestones. He'd developed a habit of cataloging these patterns, another kind of archive, stored only in his memory. The contrast between light and dark fascinated him in a way he couldn't articulate, as if something fundamental about existence could be understood in that interplay.
"Arashi! There you are," called a familiar voice, breaking his reverie.
He turned to see Kira, the baker's daughter, balancing a tray of freshly baked bread. With her brown hair pulled into a practical bun and flour smudging her cheek, she embodied the practical industriousness of Vesper's people. But there was something else about her too, a spark in her hazel eyes that suggested curiosity beyond the village boundaries, though she rarely spoke of it directly.
"Elder Takuma has been asking for you since sunrise," she said, offering him a small loaf. Steam rose from the bread, carrying the comforting scent of caraway seeds, her specialty. "Said something about needing your help with the festival archives."
Arashi accepted the bread with a grateful nod, breathing in its warm aroma. "Thanks for letting me know. And for this."
As he tore off a piece, the crust crackled pleasantly between his fingers. The contrast between the crusty exterior and soft interior always reminded him of Kira herself, practical on the outside, but with a hidden softness for those she cared about.
"You look terrible," she observed bluntly, brushing a strand of hair from her face with a flour-dusted hand. Her eyes narrowed as they studied his face. "The dreams again?"
The way she asked, direct, without preamble, was so characteristic of her that it almost made him smile despite his fatigue. Kira had never been one for social niceties when something more important was at stake.
He nodded, tearing off another piece of the still-warm bread. "They're getting more... vivid." The taste of caraway filled his mouth, grounding him in the present. "This time I could feel the heat from the burning wings. Almost smell the feathers turning to ash."
Kira's expression softened with concern. They had grown up together, and while not exactly close friends, they shared the bond of two outsiders, she for her foreign mother from beyond Vesper's borders, he for his mysterious origins. When they were younger, this shared difference had drawn them together; as they grew older, their paths had diverged but never truly separated.
"You should talk to the Elder about them," she suggested, shifting the weight of her tray to her other hip. A light breeze caught her loose hair, dancing it across her face. "He knows more about Resonance than anyone else in the village."
"They're just dreams, Kira," Arashi insisted, though the words sounded unconvincing even to his own ears. He brushed crumbs from his fingers, watching a nearby sparrow dart in to claim them. "Not everything is related to Divine Fragments or Resonance."
"If you say so," she replied, clearly unconvinced. Her eyes lingered on his face a moment longer than necessary, seeing more than he was comfortable revealing. Then she straightened, professional duty reasserting itself. "Anyway, you'd better not keep him waiting. You know how he gets when the archives are disorganized."
That earned a genuine smile from Arashi. Elder Takuma's obsession with proper organization was legendary in Meirōmura. "Heaven forbid a scroll be placed on the wrong shelf."
"Exactly." The corner of Kira's mouth quirked upward. "The Silent God himself would come down to witness such a catastrophe."
With a wave, she continued her deliveries, leaving Arashi to make his way through the gradually filling streets. The bread's warmth seeped through his fingers as he ate, the simple pleasure momentarily pushing back the lingering unease from his dreams.