Felix is stuck in a never-ending cycle of job applications, rejection letters, and the crushing weight of existential dread. When a job offer magically appears in his inbox with a salary so ridiculously high it could pay off his student loans and bu...
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It was the middle of the night, and Felix found himself in the quiet stillness of his room, shoving clothes into a bag. His movements were quick, but not frantic—just efficient. He wasn't sure where he'd be going, only that Cain would teleport them somewhere soon.
He glanced out of the window. The moon hung high, its pale light spilling across the floor in strange angles, making everything seem slightly off. The end of the week had come too fast, blurring into a mess of strange appointments with Isme, Cain's impromptu "try-not-to-die" lessons within the healer's domain, and that constant undercurrent of unease he couldn't shake whenever he interacted with the expanse that was his core.
Felix rubbed at his temples. His head still ached sometimes, but it was different now. Quieter. The pulse of magic from his core had dulled, but there was something deeper—something he hadn't realized until just now.
He felt it, lurching deeper.
Something ancient, something raw, simmered beneath the surface. Like the weight of the earth shifting beneath him, like the roots of trees stretching, and something far older staring back at him. It pressed in on him, silent but heavy, like the whisper of nature itself. And then it clicked.
Felix inhaled sharply, his grip tightening on the edge of the bag as his surroundings shifted in a way that was hard to put into words. The air became thicker, denser, and he could feel the world itself thrumming beneath his feet.
The heartbeat of the earth.
The sensation washed over him like a wave, not just in his mind but in his bones. You've been quiet, he thought, though even his own voice felt like it was echoing back, grasping at the magic in his soles, at his feet, spreading like the roots of a thousand-year-old tree.
Suddenly, Nix's presence bloomed in his consciousness like a wild, untamed flame, but more than that—a rushing stream, the wind howling through a forest, the warmth of the sun spilling over the horizon. It was everything natural and raw, and it was alive.
Nix.
Their connection, which had been distant for the past few days, snapped open. It wasn't subtle; it hit Felix all at once. The flood of sensations, the warmth of life, the hum of something far larger than himself. Felix inhaled sharply, gripping the edge of his bag.
You've been quiet, he thought.
He felt Nix's presence coil around his mind like a gentle flame, the fox's voice carrying a weight Felix wasn't used to; it carried a gravity that Felix hadn't felt before. It wasn't just a conversation—it was an awareness, a tether that tied them to the very pulse of the earth itself. I had to distance myself. Your wish core was frazzled, yes, but there was something worse happening.
Felix could feel the earth shift beneath him again, the hum growing louder. Trees, vines, rivers—it was all there, intertwining with him, pulling him toward something vast and ancient. A part of him felt like he could reach out and touch it—like he was standing at the edge of a great precipice, looking into a world where the lines between nature and magic blurred until they became one.
