The following events unfolded like a dream, slipping past their cognisance more than once. They were like lapping waves that crashed upon the shore, the ice sheets that cracked and gave way upon the weight of their weary hearts. The burden was too much, too great for a few meagre souls who only wished to settle in a new home.

Concord, what was it if not harmony and peace? It was an agreement of mutual coexistence, of mutual benefits, and yet they are defiled so by blood both their own and not. Was it their fault for not wanting to rot? For not wanting to vanish into the darkness of forgettance? The immemorial dictum of their kin was the freedom of the self, the surrender to Oblivion. But what of them who were discarded? What becomes of the essence of who they were, the ones left in the recesses of time?

And so they strove for Eternity, the freedom to exist unbound by the wills of their betters. Yet at the cusp of obtaining that which they sought, it all came crumbling down. They were again at the mercy of their betters who rose among them. The heart of the world that kept them became a grand coffin that sank into a bottomless ocean. The waters swirled around them in a storm of serendipity. They were not supposed to be here, yet here they were.

They stood upon a land that was not their own and still they continued to defile it. Their mere presence was a venomous taint that scars the world for ever moment they breathed. They continued to defile themselves. They trudged onward amidst the shifting landscapes that showed them brief pictures of worlds both familiar and unfamiliar. They were of home and they were not. The stone that surrounded them rose into the sky like blocks that formed a celestial eye. And it gazed upon them with a cold and calculating light.

Were they meant to be here? Were they meant to witness the birth of something far beyond their hopes and dreams? There was an understanding somewhere in the back of their minds. It clawed its way to attention, but it was always drowned by the endlessness of mystery. Even as the frozen lake beneath their feet flowed like raging rapids, they could only accept whatever fate had in store for them. The light that guided them was both warm and cold, leading them onward to a distant shore.

And in the midst of all this, the amorphous world seemed to echo the formless thoughts of the beacon ahead as the trees that stood firm in a miracle lined their paths like a wall of liquid light. It was winding and chaotic, yet it flowed so smoothly and naturally that one would know its nature from that alone. It was a communion of man and world. It was a mixture of two different minds and wills that sought to come to an understanding.

The twists and turns that led them all around was a negotiation, an unspoken deliberation. It was a debate on something beyond their means to comprehend. The only ones who were privy to it were the two engaged in discussion.

Galeon weaved through the winding paths of the labyrinthine lights. These were not his and did not heed his commands. They slithered and writhed in a dance of agony and desperation, seeking an end to the mounting sorrow it has come to know. The threads were the only things that kept him from being lost. This maze was both a cry for help and a scream of rage. He could practically feel the emotions reverberating from the very walls all around him. It shifted and flowed, morphing from one form to another.

It was ice that melted into a tempestuous sea that paved the paths of the labyrinth. The light flowed with the water, yet it was fire that lit up the distant horizon. What is it that lay beyond? Something was being shown to him, but he could not yet see. As he walked closer and closer toward the spark in the distance, the walls of light seemed fade into reflective mirrors, glass shards tinted not by colours, but by an entirely different perspective of reality. And perhaps it was the case of one's own mind being numb to their own quirks as he failed to perceive them.

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But in the kaleidoscopic corridor, the rest saw it... him... them.

What was reflected in the walls was an inconceivable form of the man that was leading them out of this arguably more treacherous place. If the Trustad Plains was dangerous because of the shifting environments, then this labyrinth and the reflection it spawned were just... ineffable.

This was no man. This was a creature amalgamated from many different things. He was rough stone and soft flesh. He was a blazing heat and frigid cold. He was the brightest star and the darkest shadow. He was... death and life. He was no human. He was a monster in human skin, one who sung to them in whispers from the walls. They were so loud amidst the deafening silence, competing with each other to see who could drown the other out. He was the static that would not leave the mind, the tinnitus that assaulted the ears without cause, without end.

He was there.

He was everywhere.

He sung to them a silent hymn that lulled them into the comfort of peace. Whether it be in forgettance or in remembrance, no one knew. Perhaps it was both as each was a side of a coin, reflections separated only by a thin glass mirror. There was a story there somewhere, an intricate weaving of threads that perhaps even he himself could not see, a pattern he had yet to discern. But it will come in time..., all will come in time. For now, the silent choir of whispers sung to them an orchestral piece of yearning, planting a seed of desire within them.

Galeon continued to grasp the threads. With each tug, he felt himself getting closer toward something grand, something that would forever change his perspective of the world. The Trustad Plains was like a buffer zone, a barrier that prevented anyone from reaching the heaven-reaching mountain, but to Galeon, it had become so much more. This was a gateway, a treasure trove of the universe. The threads he witnessed here were not just of Corrin. It was of another world... or perhaps worlds.

But this was not the point of this exhibition. He wanted to move past this place swiftly, to reach his destination in the shortest time possible. According to Vivi, their mother was waiting for them there. He could not dally. Corrin was crying, the heavens were trembling... nothing about this journey seemed positive at all. And that thought only made it even more apparent to Galeon that the prophetic message had given him no time to understand anything whatsoever.

"Crowning glory, greatest shame, the heaven-reaching mountain that rises in my name.

A nail to a coffin, a cancer of worlds, the lives we do not own yet still reap.

The Trial of Ascension that sealed the Seed awakens the Heart in a moment of grief.

Eternity spins as Eternity should the Loom that tells us of the Truth.

The Seed, the Heart, the Spirit and Stars, the final bastion of the universe.

The Crucible burns ever fiercer, awaiting the End to its Eternal purpose."

Even now, most of the message remained a mystery to him. Even as he spoke it out again, trying to will his mind into understanding the words, he could not. All he could hear were the weak and sudden echoes of his voice. They steadily grew louder and louder until they all were uttering the message loud and clear, over and over. And as though it was an incantation for a spell, the labyrinthine walls cleared and opened up to a stretch of land devoid of anything other than the singular mountain of such gargantuan size that made it seem so alien in this world.

It was like a celestial stake that impaled the very flesh of the world, pouring its prismatic blight through every vein. Even as Corrin was wailing in agony, the mountain stood tall with a pillar of light that touched the very stars. Where did it end, he wondered for it seemed to seek something beyond what could be seen. The light seemed both new and ancient. It reminded him of the light of the stars, the past made manifest in the present. They were not his to wield.

As Galeon stepped forward, a tranquil silence greeted him. There was a disconcerting sense of relief in the atmosphere as though the death throes of a tormented world was all but a lie. This was the golden field of reeds, a paradise of Eternal peace.

The heaven-reaching mountain... was now before them.

They have arrived.