The Five Realms

Chapter 49: Fate VIII

Chapter 49: Orientation

The plaza shimmered beneath morning light, heat curling off the stone in waves that never quite became warmth. It looked like the kind of place myth chose to wake up in—high towers in the distance, banners fluttering from silver spires, dragons wheeling lazily overhead like they had nowhere better to be.

Fate stood still in the crowd of 208 new Riders.

Her gold-colored training shirt hugged her shoulders like sunlight spun into cloth, trimmed with copper runes that pulsed faintly in rhythm with her heartbeat. She brushed a hand down the fabric, half-conscious, like checking for dirt on armor. She didn't feel like a warrior. Not yet. But the uniform insisted she was becoming one.

Color was everywhere.

Not random—never random in Dragon City. Steven's crimson. Joey's white. Chyna in a violet so deep it looked like twilight wrapped in silk. Beanca's forest green, darker than pine bark, lighter than shadow. Others wore hues she couldn't name—silver-glass, storm-gold, river-stone blue.

Not decoration, she thought. Declaration.

Each shade mirrored a dragon's scale—an echo of something deeper than fashion. A bond. A promise. A future no one had fully explained to her yet.

She shifted her gaze and caught threads of conversation weaving through the air. A tall Urgal youth was leaning toward an elven girl in robes that shimmered like woven mercury. Two dwarves were trading jokes in gravel-choked tones, one slapping his knee mid-cackle. A Metalliindran boy with chrome cuffs was flirting openly with a Varden-born girl who didn't seem opposed.

So many accents. So many worlds. But every word landed in her ears perfectly clear.

No barrier. No confusion.

Just... understanding.

The realization settled into her chest again, like it had the moment she first crossed the gate into the city:

Everyone could understand everyone.

Not because they tried. But because Dragon City made it so.

"Language enchantment," Beanca had explained the night before, perched cross-legged in their common room with an open scroll half as wide as her wingspan. "Built into the foundational stones. Passive lexicon syncing. Every sentient who crosses the perimeter gets folded into the core spell web."

"So we're being auto-translated?" Steven had asked, chewing on a biscuit that looked like it might also be a weapon.

"Basically," Beanca said. "Don't try to speak backward, though. Scrambles the whole thing."

Fate hadn't laughed then. She didn't now. She just listened. Observed. Let the details stack and spiral in her mind like glyphs waiting for a shape.

She wondered if anyone else felt it.

This hum under the stone.

This weight to the light.

Like the city wasn't just enchanted—it was watching.

Above them, the Watchtower of Flame slowly turned, casting spectral fire in blue, red, and silver arcs across the plaza tiles. The heat from its revolving core never touched them. It was more symbol than sun.

Fate tucked her hands behind her back and breathed in deep. Salt and lavender. Dragon oil and wind.

The world didn't feel like Earth anymore.

It didn't feel like Florida, or airports, or the dream of normal.

This was a new grammar. A new physics.