"I've... always been here..."

The crimson silhouette kept speaking, yet her words only tangled Aphelia’s thoughts like mist wrapping cold pine.

The urgent thing wasn’t who this figure was, but the endless sea of flame around her, a blazing ocean beating like a red tide.

The figure held the blaze at bay for a breath, but that parched heat rose again inside Aphelia, like desert wind filling a kiln.

It wasn’t killing her yet, but it was growing, a coal nursing itself to a furnace in her chest.

She felt it clearly: if she let that source run wild, she’d be roasted from core to skin, a clay jar turned to ash.

"Hey, can you tell what’s wrong inside me?" Her voice fluttered like a singed moth seeking rain.

The figure looked so like the crimson flame itself that she might be bound to this strange heat, a thread in the same scarlet loom.

At worst, Aphelia thought, she could help name the trouble, a lantern for this smoke-choked path.

The crimson silhouette didn’t disappoint; her words came like embers popping, halting yet whole.

"I... know."

"What is it?"

Aphelia blurted, urgency bubbling like water over a hot pan; the heat surged, and her mood rasped dry.

She was like an ant on a hot wok, desperate for a cool stone to stand on.

"That... isn’t, a problem."

"It’s... your... power. Why... can’t you... control it?"

"Dying... because of your... own power—that’s the strange thing, isn’t it?"

The crimson figure tilted her head, curious as a child staring at morning frost, and asked Aphelia in return.

To her, Aphelia’s lack of control was the true riddle, a knot in red silk.

Wait... I’m failing to control my own power? Her thoughts buzzed like a hive shaken.

But my power was taken, she’d told herself; the World Will said otherwise—she told me to reclaim my power, a promise thrown like a rope from a cliff.

She stopped short, a spark striking flint; she stared at the crimson figure as a possibility flared.

The World Will told her to reclaim power, but never said from where—perhaps the belief that her body held none was a blindfold she tied herself.

Yet that hollow was real, a gourd rung empty; her sense of Arcane Power and Aether was severed like cut strings.

Lilo had checked her thoroughly, like a healer tapping bone and listening for fractures.

Before entering the mind-sea world, Aphelia had been a shell sealed off from strength, ice over a well.

And yet the crimson figure claimed she couldn’t control her own power, tipping the scales like a sudden gust.

"Cough... ah!" The sound tore out like a coal cracking.

Searing force lunged through her body; she hacked blood that turned to mist before it left her skin, steam rising to join the surrounding Crimson Fire.

The sea of crimson flame drank the blood-mist and deepened, dye soaking cloth toward the shade of fresh cut.

Aphelia’s scalp crawled like grass in a cold wind—if this hue came from blood, how many bones had this sea swallowed to glow so lush?

She wanted to ask more, but her body’s bell tolled a hard warning, iron striking iron.

If she didn’t act, she’d die as the crimson figure said, burned alive by her “own power,” a lamp devouring its oil.

"Please, I’m begging you—teach me how to control this power." The plea left her like rain-seeking cranes crying to the sky.

Her throat felt sand-dry and cracked, yet she forced the words out, choosing life over dignity, river over stone.

As she spoke, flame bloomed across her body, a wildfire in summer grass; the Crimson Flame was already reaching to swallow her whole.

"Of course!"

The crimson figure brightened like sunrise over cinders and blurted the words without pause.

She clasped Aphelia’s hands, pinning her like a kite held firm in a sudden gale.

"What are you—"

She didn’t finish. The crimson flame climbed her neck like a tide and drowned her face, turning her into a figure made all of fire.

"Don’t... worry! I’ll... save you, but... you must... burn first!" Her voice beat steady, a drum in storm.

Hands made of flame held Aphelia’s hands; the touch felt unlike the blaze, a cool spring running under lava.

The grip soothed the heart-scorching pain, a balm laid on char, though fire still flowed over her like a river of light.

Skin sloughed from flesh like charred bark, bone powdered in the blaze, blood steamed into mist.

Every part of Aphelia’s body turned to ash under the terrible Crimson Flame, drifting and then melting back into the blaze like snow into a red tide.

From body to soul, it felt burnt, a spirit held in heaven’s kiln.

"I... I’m okay?!" Her breath came back like a small bird returning to a hand.

As the pain dwindled like ebbing surf, Aphelia could move again, and the crimson figure loosened her grip, a chain unclasped.

When Aphelia raised her hands, she saw the change like a mirror flashed at dawn.

"I’ve become like you? What’s going on?"

She stared at the body of Crimson Fire and blinked, astonishment fluttering like a banner in wind.

More than the change of form, joy flooded in—within this new heart, power spread like a galaxy, stars pouring down a river.

Since her tendons were plucked and her bones pulled, she hadn’t felt power; now, as Crimson Fire, a force like Aether filled her wholly, constellations in every vein.

If she met Sigdrifa again, she felt she could stand against her, storm against storm on an open sea.

"I can’t thank you enough, uh—"

She turned to offer gratitude, but the crimson figure vanished like a lantern snuffed, leaving no shadow.

The sea of fire remained, yet the heat no longer bit; her skin felt like night air after a long drought.

In its place came power from that endless sea, a flood matching the Crimson Fire of her body.

It seemed she could beckon, and the blaze would answer, like wind rushing to fill a sail.

And yet it didn’t delight her; the sudden absence carved a hollow in her chest, a courtyard emptied after festival.

She looked for that figure in the crimson blaze, a crane searching its mate in fog.

But the sea of fire turned at once into vast ash, whoosh—gray wings lifting, scattering on the wind.

The scene peeled away rapidly, light twisting like silk in a whirlpool, colors bending into chaos.

Everything around her shifted like time snapping its fingers, world overturned in a breath.

The kaleidoscopic churn nearly knocked her out; she hadn’t even adapted to this new body, and the sight was a mouth without a name.

When the world calmed, Aphelia jolted awake like a sparrow off a branch.

She stood in a city built of giant stones, a forest of monoliths under hard sky.

"Ah... you’ve come, Aphelia?"

She turned toward the voice and saw a gentle woman in white robes, moonlight made human.

The woman sat in a pavilion, holding a clay tablet, dignified and elegant like lotus at dusk.

As if she’d been waiting through long seasons, the woman breathed out a long sigh, relief rustling like bamboo.

She gathered her green hair, jade strands flowing, and walked from the pavilion toward Aphelia with the ease of a soft breeze.

"W-wait... who are you? Do we know each other, ma’am?" Her caution rose like a hand shielding candle flame.

Seeing the woman approach, Aphelia stepped back by instinct, a deer edging from a path.

One, this aura wasn’t ordinary, mountain fragrance rather than market smoke.

Two, she herself was a body of Crimson Flame, a torch wary of silk; she didn’t want to hurt a harmless passerby.

"Of course, I do know you." The white-robed woman laughed softly, rain tapping eaves.

She stopped a step away, a boundary set like a garden gate, to ease Aphelia’s heart.

"No need to be so tense. In a sense, this is our first meeting. Allow me to introduce myself." Her words rose like tea steam.

She smiled and bowed slightly; her voice was a spring wind, lowering Aphelia’s guard like branches settling.

"I don’t have a precise name. If you use the name people of this era gave me, please call me Enkidu."

The green-haired woman named Enkidu smiled and looked into Aphelia’s eyes—if she still had such a shape, stars behind the fire.

She waited quietly, a harbor holding its calm, and Aphelia felt a strange peace settle like cool moss.

"Enkidu... Miss Enkidu, sorry—I don’t fully grasp your language’s sounds. If I said it wrong, forgive me." Her words dipped like a ladle tasting broth.

"Since you say this is our first meeting, why did you look so... relieved, like you’ve been waiting a long time?" A thaw after long winter, a door opened to spring.

Aphelia hesitated, testing the air like a toe to river, and, once sure her Crimson Flame wouldn’t scorch the green-haired woman, she voiced her doubt.

So many things had happened in a cascade, a waterfall over slick stone, that confusion pooled in her chest.

Everyone seemed to know, while she alone was kept in the dark, a moth in a lidded jar.

At least, she needed to know why, and for whom, she had been led here, a thread to follow in the loom.

"Mm, your pronunciation is very accurate, Miss Aphelia." Enkidu nodded, a leaf agreeing with wind, and smiled.

"Because you were bound to appear here, Aphelia. Waiting for you here is my mission." Her tone set a watchfire on a cliff.

"Fortunately, before my next sleep, you’ve already come to stand before me." Her smile was dusk before winter, gentle and sure.