The Night Clan was a strange people, uncanny as moonlight drifting over black water.

Once, like elves, they ringed the roots of the World Tree, a living cordon of blades and prayers.

Then, for reasons no one likes to name, their homeworld was destroyed, like a lantern snuffed by a storm.

Think Lost City, but harsher; their world wasn’t lost—it was ground to dust.

After that cataclysm, the planet cracked like shattered jade and flew apart into a sky of fragments.

It was a nightmare no one wished to reopen, yet unlike the Lost City, the Night Clan’s girls refused to abandon their ashes.

Before the ruin sealed itself, they pooled heart and hands, and forged one of the brightest wonders under the stars: the Night City.

It’s a place where spell and circuit braid together, a hive and a countryside under one roof, with forests and fields kept like pressed flowers.

The name misleads on purpose; compared to a traditional Sky City, Night City is a colossal ship, a mountain that sails the void.

It stacks in layers like terraced hills; each deck mirrors a climate from their lost world, preserving rare beasts and treasured blooms.

Next to it, the Sky Voyager is a dinghy bobbing beside a whale.

Night City slips through space-tunnels strung between worlds, needles of light stitching one star to another.

It can also drive itself through the dark like a migrating whale, opening new tunnels to any planet it seeks.

Because within Night City, a World Tree rises too, a green pillar lit like dawn.

They failed to save the original World Tree, but they rescued its fruits, seeds bright as fallen stars, and sowed them anew.

That trunk became Night City’s heartwood, its pulse and balance, the engine under all its seasons.

Yet perhaps because their planet was gone, the World Tree they planted grew tall but bore no World Tree Maiden.

“So… to keep the World Tree running, the Night Clan elders borrow World Tree Maidens in every way they can… but each world treats them like jewels.”

“Uu… so a World Tree Maiden is really that precious?”

“Yeah! That’s why Xiaoyue is the dearest thing under heaven, and we have to keep her safe.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m an endangered animal.”

“Heh-heh~”

As she spoke of the Night Clan, the silver-haired girl’s mood settled, like snowflakes finding the ground; her blush cooled from a blaze to a glow.

“Then… what about the ‘mission’ LittleSnow mentioned?”

“Mm… That’s a Night Clan tradition, old as the homeworld, kind of like Tisinate’s ways. When a World Tree Maiden tunes life-force, pressure builds like storm-water behind a dam, and living alone is winter-cold. So, as a Night Clan princess, you must stay by the Maiden’s side, and meet her every desire.”

“P–princess!?”

“Eh—ya!?”

The silver-haired girl clapped a hand over her mouth, the truth slipping out like a fish.

“LittleSnow! You’re a Night Clan princess?!”

“Mm… Xiaoyue~ I suddenly need the bathroom.”

“Don’t run when it gets good!”

“Uu… This is all your fault, Xiaoyue! You were too naughty in your sleep earlier! How else would I be this rattled!”

Her calm undone, the silver-haired girl pinked again, a dawn cloud across pale snow; judging by the lingering tingle on her chest, Yue Liuyi hadn’t exactly slept still.

“Was that… me? I’m sorry!”

“No, it’s not you, it’s me… ugh, I can’t even explain.”

Dixue’s head drooped like a rain-bent flower; the words she needed were thorned with shyness.

“Um… I don’t know the details, but if LittleSnow wants to take me away, I’m willing! Being with her is happiness, like sun through leaves.”

“Go back to Night City with me… no, no! That’d be me abducting Xiaoyue! I’ll protect you always, but I won’t take you to Night City.”

“What’s the difference?”

“There is one. I can’t stomach the elders’ method. Renting out World Tree Maidens is a wound wrapped in silk.”

“Eh!?”

“Think of it, Xiaoyue. A soft-hearted girl leaves home, alone, to cross hundreds of light-years—her heart takes the hit like glass in hail.”

“Mm… that does sound rough.”

It took all of Yue Liuyi’s courage just to step onto the New Land; how much harder for other Maidens.

“And the planet she leaves can suffer, during that ‘rental’ span, in ways no tribute can heal.”

“I see…”

The Night Clan has tried every diplomacy to borrow Maidens, and under one ruler, they even bullied a weak world to yield its Maiden.

Dixue despised that path, so she ran from home like a bird slipping its cage.

“As guardians of the World Tree, we should be the umbrella in the rain, not the knife.”

Looking at the cute Xiaoyue in front of her, Dixue wanted to gather her close, like drawing a chilled kitten to the hearth.

But a ticklish ghost still hovered on her chest, making the silver-haired girl shy, poised between step and retreat.

“Since that’s so… Right! What about Breeze! She’s got no home now; she’d fit like a seed to fresh soil!”

“Oh? That’s a good idea! But will Breeze agree? And even if she does, we have to make her whole.”

“Make her whole?”

“Mm. Wan Han stole a portion of her power. We need to defeat him and bring Breeze’s strength back.”

“Oh…”

“But that can wait. Xiaoyue’s hometown comes first. Once Dreamwood Star is whole again, I want to live there with you.”

“Live… together!?”

“Mm. We’ll find a big house, plant a forest of trees and a sea of flowers. We’ll never go back to Night City. Then more trunks will rise, more petals will drift. In spring, I’ll hold your hand and watch the cherry blossoms. In summer, I’ll cuddle you and listen to cicadas sing. In autumn, I’ll ruffle your hair and bring in the harvest. In winter, I’ll topple you into the snow… and keep you warm.”

Smiling sweetly, the silver-haired girl drifted into that painted future like a moth to lamplight.

But reality loves a cold splash.

“Useless Dixue, move it! Crimson Paradise troops caught up!”

Outside the door, Xiang Xiaoyan’s voice cracked like a whip in the wind.