-=[Karpathy Galateya]=-

"Long, long ago, we were masters of all. The land, the sea, even the endless sky," my grandfather spoke, his voice gravelly with age, "and our people lived on a world called Werth.”

I sat on the lush carpet of furs, warm and content as the fire crackled before us. Grandfather's wrinkled face was animated in the flickering light as he spun his tale, the same one he'd told me a few times before.

“But then came the Voidstorms,” Grandfather continued. “They devoured the sun and blotted the sky, opening doorways across the world and releasing… leviathan abominations that were neither alive nor dead. Fleeing from the Voidstorms, the people of Werth dug themselves into the earth like moles, seeking safety, warmth and solace. For generations, they hid, sending out ships into the sky.”

“And then?” I asked.

"My grandfather's grandmother, Halley Karpathy of Werth, was a Star-sailor,” Grandfather said. “She captained a ship of gleaming metal that soared through the endless night between worlds on an engine that could fold reality itself.”

I smiled, picturing a brave woman at the helm of a magical flying boat. It was a nice story, even if it couldn't possibly be true as my father told me.

"On her journeys, she discovered a living world amidst the silent, dead moons and stars. It was a paradise compared to dying, broken, cold Werth filled with roaming hungry things. This new world was free of Voidstorms, filled with clean air, pure water, and fertile soil."

Grandfather's eyes twinkled as he spoke. "Halley couldn't keep such a wonder to herself. So she sent a song across the stars, a beacon to guide others to this new home. And they came - great sky-sailing ships full of people, crossing the vast abyss to reach the new world we came to call the World of Thrones, for its capped mountains.”

I yawned, feeling sleepy but not wanting the story to end. "And that's how we got here?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

Grandfather chuckled. "That's right, Teya. That's how humanity came to Throne. Remember this, for I will be gone soon. Promise to tell the story of Captain Halley Karpathy of Werth to your children’s children.”

I nodded, yawning again.

"But remember this, Teya," Grandfather said, leaning closer to me. "The storms that chased us from Werth... they may find us here one day."

A chill ran down my spine despite the warmth of the fire. "They… will?” I asked.

"As long as Desolus grows, the storms it brings will spread. Someday, its reach may extend even to Throne,” Grandfather exhaled, pointing a finger up at the heavens.

“Why does Desolus grow?” I asked, staring up at the vast world blotting out half of the sky overhead through the open roof of the tepee tent.

“Because inside it runs a great endless engine of creation,” Grandfather explained. “One that will never stop, one set in motion by all our desires long, long ago. One that expands Desolus and captures all stars and worlds into its orbit, absorbing the universe and converting it into itself.”

"Is Desolus… hell?" I swallowed nervously.

"Hell and heaven," Grandfather said. "One of our own making. Desolus is everything."

"Everything?" I asked.

“Everything,” Grandfather nodded. “Everything and anything that you could ever imagine.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because we… we wanted everything,” Grandfather shrugged. “And our clever tools gave it to us. Up there, past the vastness of empty space, lies the corpse of everything, so much of it that there is no room for people left.”

“Will we fall into Desolus someday then?” I asked.

“No,” Grandfather shook his head. “We will not… not. Desolus is far, very far. Even so, Desolus will someday catch Throne in its gravitic embrace and bring the Voidstorms, perhaps force the children of our children times a thousand to forsake this lovely new world.”

I shuddered.

“I love your dad, but he… he doesn’t listen to me,” Grandfather sighed. “He’s stubborn, focused on the mundane, not seeing far enough into the future. He refuses to think generations ahead.”

“Generations?” I blinked. “How many generations?”

“Too many to count,” Grandfather said, suddenly grabbing my hand. “Come. I must show it to you while he sleeps.”

I stepped out of the teepee, following Grandfather into the cool night air.

The stars twinkled overhead, countless points of violet light against the vast darkness. Desolus loomed above it all, its rings shimmering with an eerie beauty.

Grandfather limped on his cane. He led me past the safety-fence to a field near the river, where a strange, twisted metal structure lay half-buried in the earth. It was warped and broken, covered in holes, brown rust and decay, overgrown with weeds. I didn't know what to make of it, thought it was some old piece of junk.

"This," Grandfather said, his voice solemn, "Is Halley’s skyship… and her final resting place.”

I stared at the old rusting ruin, trying to imagine it soaring through the stars. It seemed impossible, and had far too many holes for sailing in.

Grandfather approached a section of the wreckage and carefully dug through the earth, clearing a space and pried what looked like a metal panel open. Inside the steel case was a crystalline formation, glowing faintly with a green-blue shimmer.

"This is a Chronacist fold substrate core," he explained. "A tool from Werth. It can record a person's knowledge, function as a Save Point. It consumes blood to function.”

I watched, fascinated, as Grandfather pulled out a small knife and pricked his finger. A drop of blood welled up, and he pressed it to the crystal. The glow intensified slightly, blood turning into more crystal.

"I'm saving myself," he said softly. "I don't know if it still works after all this time, but this is how it's done. Just in case. Like all old Werth tools it works on desire. For it to work, you must desire to be preserved within. Do you understand?”

I didn't fully understand, but I nodded, sensing the importance of the moment.

“You must protect this crystal, never let another unworthy soul know about it,” Grandfather said. “I entrust it to you, not to your foolish father who would sell it for a shiny sword or lose it. Because we’re all in it, the great line of Star-sailors. Me, my father and mother, their parents… all the way to Halley Karpathy and her parents. I don’t know how far it goes. Do you promise to keep this secret?”

“I promise,” I nodded.

“Then I leave our line to you to carry forward,” Grandfather said.

. . .

That autumn, Grandfather passed away. The settlement struggled in the years that followed, beset by winters, wildlings and poor harvests.

Decades slipped by, marked by hardship and loss.

Then came the day the black-clad Sacaxians arrived from the wildlands. Their war cries and horns resounded across the night. They swept through the steppes on horseback, setting fire to the teepees and cutting down anyone in their path with wicked swords.

Panic gripped me as I fled towards the river, towards the ruined structure Grandfather had shown me years ago. With trembling hands, I pried the Chronacist free from its housing. I had to save this treasure, had to protect my grandfather's spirit within it.

The horns grew louder, nearer and then the screams began. Without thinking, driven by fear and instinct, I swallowed the crystal whole and then I ran.

I heard the yells of the Sacaxians as they spotted me. I leapt into the river.

Pain blossomed in my back as an arrow struck me. I stumbled, choking and swallowing cold water. I flailed as the current pulled me under, darkness closing in.

My last thought, my wish was to remain alive, to protect the Chronacist fold from the wildlings at all cost.

. . .

I awoke to stillness and silence.

I couldn't see, couldn't move, couldn't breathe - but somehow, I was aware. Blind but conscious, aware and not exactly aware, dead and alive.

I was the fold, I realized, and there were other things here, other people-not-people, other lesser, smaller stars, thousands of them, little pinpricks of someone that didn’t manage to save completely as the fold was somehow damaged.

I rearranged the other tiny stars around myself like a shawl and then… I simply existed.

I didn’t know for how long it was, but bit by bit I learned how to reach out, tried to gain awareness of where I was.

Water. I somehow felt water. It was damaging the outer edges of my fold. Argh.

More sorting it is. More reinforcing. Some fold stars lost to the water, dispersed out, still part of me but also not really.

For a long, impossibly long time there was only the endless flow of water around me, ripples circling, waves that constantly slammed against me, adding more… something to my mass.

Mass, I had mass. Lichen and moss built up around me, dirt added itself to my form.

I was deaf and blind, but I lived on.

Gradually, over centuries, I learned to sense the changing seasons through the water around me–the freezing of winter, the thaw of spring. More sediment settled on me, and I grew larger.

Millennia passed in this strange, timeless existence with me cursing myself for my idiotic decision of consuming the crystalline fold substrate from Werth.

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Eventually, a tiny Sarcaxian village called Moonfall sprang up beside me.

The bloodthirsty wildlings began to worship the shiny rock in the river - me - as they noticed how I could subtly influence the flow of water.

I felt the ripples they made on approach through bits of the fold scattered across the river where I lay.

They pulled me from the river and carved runes into my side and offered me blood sacrifices as the altar of Uropok, the God of Storms and Harvests.

I decided to learn how to push and pull the water around myself with the tiniest bits of my folds sitting within the river just so I could drown the bastards.

Other than the usual weekly blood sacrifices… There were a few wildling tribesmen, who willingly gave themselves to me, committing ritual bloodletting.

Thanks to them, generation by generation, the Chronacist substrate within and around me granted me tiniest bits of greater awareness and strength, making me grow bigger.

I sorted whatever was granted to me, built a barrier of new Chronacist fold, a mishmash of vague people-ness around my core of “self” as not to dilute, as not to lose my individuality.

. . .

As the centuries rolled by, I became less human and more the river that stretched itself from distant warm South lake to the distant cold North Ocean as bits of myself spread, carried away in one direction by the current and into the other by boats and fish.

With each sacrifice, I grew less and less like what I had once been and more like a concept that could control water, focusing all of my desire to eventually drown the Sarcaxian bastards and their children, just to make them stop bothering me.

. . .

Thousands of winters passed in this manner. I forgot why I was even learning how to control the waves, lost in the mastery of the process itself.

Magic seeped into the land, permeating everything. Mages emerged, wielding powers that would have seemed impossible in ages past. Belief began to shape reality more and more.

Strange men and beasts began to roam the lands, some born of magic, others twisted by it. I observed these changes with detached curiosity, too far removed from my human origins to truly care, studying their powers to improve my control over my fold.

In time, the Sarcaxians had faded into myth and as I talked to the mages that gave me blood, the name Karpathy Galateya warped into Garpathea. I was the Goddess of the River Garp filled with large fish that the current version of humanity called ‘garps’.

. . .

Language shifted and warped.

Civilizations fell and rose.

Desolus became Endalaus.

I learned to master the waves.

The stone city of Stalgard grew next to me.

I was the river, eternal and ever-changing. Over the centuries, countless mortals came to me with their wishes and dreams, offering their blood in exchange for my favor. Their desires were as varied as they were predictable - sex, wealth, fame, success. Some begged for vengeance against their enemies, others for invincibility in battle.

Thanks to magic permeating my very being, I granted their wishes, wielded them or others like puppets on strings until the bargain was fulfilled to the letter and fed on the new, offered blood, growing ever more detached with each moronic request of “help me find true love” or “help me be rich”.

Then came the day when the Wormwood Star streaked across the heavens, crashing into the world of Throne. The impact sent shockwaves through the land, altering the very fabric of reality as it set the air on fire. But even this cataclysmic event was merely a ripple in my eternal existence.

As the centuries turned to millennia, the world grew colder. Ice crept down from the North, swallowing cities and kingdoms in its inexorable advance.

The great city of Stalgard, which had stood proudly beside me for ages, grew smaller and more desolate with each century and was renamed to Svalbard - the end of the known world, the last refuge against the encroaching cold.

The world itself became renamed to Thornwild.

The Nordstaii people came then, refugees fleeing the frozen wasteland. They settled along my banks, renaming me River Glinka. I didn't care to correct them; mortal names kept shifting and held little meaning to me now.

I wasn’t worried about the encroaching ice that tried to bind my Northmost edge. Ice was just frozen water and I was an absolute master of water.

I believed that like everything that once bothered me, the Ice Age too would pass.

The glaciers would melt and this land someday would become the steppes it once was. Everything followed a set pattern, everything shifted and resettled as the planet breathed in and out.

The ever-gradual growth of Endalaus didn't matter in the slightest - the more it blotted the sky, the more magic blossomed across the world. Magic was life which granted me more power, more ability to bend water.

. . .

I watched on, indifferent, from the shore as the dragonfire consumed Svalbard.

The deaths of mortals meant little to me; they were as fleeting as ripples on my surface. Other mortals would be born, other humans would build a city here, drawn by the magic of my very existence, seeking me out to make their wishes come true.

The last of Svalbard, a teenage boy, rushed across the ice and fell into my waters as the dragon smashed the ice behind him. The boy’s body became submerged. As his head slammed against my rocks, his blood mingled with my fold essence spread across the river.

I heard his final, desperate wish for [knowledge to defeat the dragon], offering me everything he had, his memory and soul.

As per usual, I reached into the vast, multi-fold entity I had become.

I permitted him not to drown and attempted to shove a bright star of dragon-slaying knowledge into his dying mind from some distant beyond.

As I did that, some sort of outsider magic interfered with the process, pulling deeper, further than I wanted to, scooping more knowledge than was possible to be paid for by the boy's life.

Whatever, not my problem.

The boy suddenly came to and thrashed in the waves, swam sideways and managed to smash through the ice and left me. I didn’t bother to pay attention to what happened next, being entombed in ice and half-asleep for the winter.

I didn’t expect him to slay anything, the star I pushed into his soul was old.

Really old. Older than dragons.

Plus some outsider bullshit seemed to have gotten attached to it. Again, not my problem. I did as asked.

. . .

What followed that winter was a series of bewildering events.

Someone - or something - began interacting with my fold in ways I had never experienced before. One of my rocks was repositioned and messed with, yet I could not see or sense the cause.

Some of my ground water was taken from the village well, and then inexplicably vanished out of existence. It was as if a ghost was haunting my shores, haunting the remnants of Svalbard, manipulating my bits without my permission, without properly giving me their blood or making a deal.

The audacity of it was... annoying.

The rock manipulation intensified, more of my shards were taken and thrown at some kind of… a carriage?

Argh.

My entire fold core was moved then, by an invisible someone flapping around the shore.

Are you kidding me? How dare you move me? Put me back at once, you rude… ughh… ghost person!

The core was shoved next to a contraption of magic, some kind of a carriage, that grated against my being, striking the crystal that anchored me into existence with lightning, disrupting, burning away precious connections between stars. Its presence was an irritation I could not ignore, so I smashed it with a watery fist. I felt a grim satisfaction in that act.

Later, some ass poured a bunch of blood on me without making a wish. As I began to crystalize the blood adding it to the fold, two flesh-walker abominations dared to desecrate my crystal core with their vile void tongues. In my fury, I smashed them together and sent the remains hurtling towards the North Sea, ridding my core of their offensive presence.

But it was the encounter with a fallen Champion who called himself Bobliss that truly shook me.

Bobliss knew how to kill me. Bobliss was solid, more solid than anyone I’ve encountered, immune to my watery hands.

As he shattered my core with a hammer of blood, I felt myself unravelling, losing connection to myriads of stars, losing thousands of top layers of memories. I was losing my power over the river, my vast consciousness, my awareness of self threatening to disperse into nothing.

I had forgotten what it was to fear, what it was like to be threatened.

Bobliss spoke to someone, threatened them, amplifying his voice with blood magic, making the air and water itself shake. Ioan Starfall, he said, sending my thoughts scattering.

A witch… boy?

The boy I gave knowledge to had somehow become a witch? What?!

I fell to my knees, begging for my life as Bobliss struck my fold core again and again.

In that desperate moment, an Arcanicx girl made a wish for [strength to protect her Champion, Ioan Starfall], sacrificing everything to me.

Ioan? Yes! Protect Ioan, protect me!

Without thinking, I granted the girl’s desire, reanimating her broken body with my power. I took what remained of her life and magic, binding it to my own essence, to all of my magical essence.

It was an instinctive act, born of fear and a desire to survive that I had thought long extinguished.

As Bobliss continued his assault, swatting away the reanimated girl and punching through her heart, I felt my existence wavering, teetering on the brink of oblivion.

And then with one last swing, everything fell silent and quiet.

But, I wasn’t dead, wasn’t shattered into a thousand separate stars. Something saved the lowest piece of my fold, something preserved me in the embrace of magic, cut my remaining Chronacist piece from the rest of my river-spread self.

. . .

I came into awareness when something released me.

A female kitten covered in recently acquired droplets of my river-water sat in front of me.

“My name is Ioan Starfall,” the kitten said not in words but in magical waves of knowledge-fold entwined with her mews. “I’m the witch of Svalbard. I’m speaking to you through my familiar, Stormy.”

What?

For a moment I simply gaped at the talking kitten.

More words, more revelations, more information poured from the little feline’s mouth.

I sat down, stunned, as the kitten continued to relay messages from invisible Ioan Starfall. The situation was so bizarre, so far removed from anything I had experienced in my millennia of existence, that I found myself at a loss.

As Stormy continued to speak, I began to piece together the strange tale. Ioan Starfall, the boy I had granted knowledge to, had somehow become a male witch. He had been the invisible force manipulating my domain, moving my rocks, and ultimately saving me from complete destruction at the hands of Jarl Bobliss.

When Ioan refused to make a blood pact with me, I was initially offended. How dare this mortal refuse the traditional way of interacting with me? But as he continued to explain his reasoning through his feline intermediary, I found myself intrigued. This was not the typical mortal approach I had grown accustomed to over the centuries.

Ioan spoke of mutual respect, of a relationship between equals. He acknowledged my power but also asserted his own. It was... refreshing, in a way I hadn't experienced in eons.

As Ioan explained the threat posed by the advancing glaciers and the machinations of the entity he called "Uncle George", which I assumed was some kind of powerful, malevolent being ordering Bobliss around, I felt a stirring of something I hadn't felt in ages–concern for my own future, the need to plan ahead.

The idea of being used as a weapon against the glaciers, of being bound to a reanimated corpse of Cali, was deeply unsettling. I had grown complacent in my absolute power over water, never considering that there might be forces out there capable of truly threatening me.

Ioan's words forced me to confront this uncomfortable reality.

As Ioan continued to speak, revealing his nature as an "Understanding from Endalaus," I realised just how unique this situation was. Here was a being unlike any I had encountered before, offering a partnership rather than servitude or worship.

When he extended his hand, through Stormy, and said, "Come with me if you want to live," I felt a spark of something I hadn't experienced in ages–hope.

After a moment's hesitation, I reached out and touched Stormy's paw.

It was a symbolic gesture, as I could not touch the kitten with my magical essence, but it felt monumental. For the first time, I was choosing to align myself with a mortal - or whatever Ioan truly was - not out of obligation or in exchange for sacrifices, but as a willing partner!

"Oh and..." the kitten mewed then, "Is your name really Glinka? That must be what the people of Svalbard named you, a type of a muddy, whitewater river, but what are you really named? How do you define… yourself?”

I paused, shocked.

In thousands of years, not a single human had asked for my real name.

I dug into the deepest recess of my crystalline self, past endless folds, searching for my very first name… and then I remembered.

I remembered my grandfather. I remembered his final words. I remembered myself from so long ago, my human self buried past a million other stars, past a hundred thousand seasons, past the endless blood sacrifices. I remembered the yellow steppes and our teepee tent. I remembered Captain Halley Karpathy's crashed skyship.

"I'm… Karpathy Galateya," I said, my voice trembling, watery tears running down my cheeks as it all crashed into me.

"Sorry," the kitten replied. "Stormy can't spell that many letters in Nordstaii, it just sounds like 20 meows to me. Can you shorten that a bit?”

“I’m…” I said, I tried to readjust my otherwise blank face to include a semblance of a smile. “...call me Teya. I’m Teya.”

“Tt-eeeee-mya,” the kitten repeated, turning to a person I could not see.