The Narrative Current had no rails. No barriers. No warning signs.
It was a road built from floating glass panels—each etched with memories Ren barely remembered making. There he was, clumsily tripping over Crimpet's spoon-catapult. There, him mid-air, shouting about "jam physics" before landing in a loaf cart. Each step forward replayed a story he'd lived, a little warped and watercolor-washed, like dreams half-remembered after a nap.
Ren didn't walk so much as glide. The Current carried him with gentle pulses, like a moving sidewalk built on forgotten songs. His boots left behind smudges of color—orange laughter, streaks of green hesitation, and once, a dot of blue confusion that splashed like ink and turned into a miniature Ren yelling, "What even is this world!?"
He tried to ignore that one.
Somewhere above, brushstroke creatures passed overhead like flying jellyfish, trailing ribbons of thought and dreamstuff. One of them blinked a single enormous eye made of swirling words.
Ren waved. It winked back, somehow.
Then the wind changed.
And so did the Current.
What had once been a smooth glide became a spiral. The panels twisted sideways, curling upward like a rollercoaster drawn by a mad architect. The memories in the panels below flickered and fractured, scenes blurring and warping—his past refracted through someone else's brush.
Ren's foot hit one panel that sparked red-hot—a memory that wasn't his.
A crumbling tower. A screaming crowd. A shadowed figure reaching toward the sky, paint bleeding from their fingers. Ren's name echoed—but distorted.
He pulled his foot back, heart thudding.
"That wasn't mine," he whispered.
A voice answered, soft as fog and echoing behind his ear.
"Not yet."
Ren whirled, but no one was there.
The Skyroad straightened again. But it no longer felt neutral. It watched him now.
Ahead, an island hovered—small, almost shy. A quiet alcove painted in greyscale. No music, no movement. Just a giant easel, half-broken, and a dozen empty canvases hung on invisible strings.
The Current stopped at its edge.
Ren stepped off.
And the moment he did, gravity returned, hard and sudden. He stumbled, caught himself, and stared around.
No signs of life.
Except—on the far side of the island—a girl sat, back turned, sketching on a floating canvas. Her strokes were sharp, angry. Her clothes were patchy, her braid long and streaked with crimson pigment.
She didn't turn around.
But she spoke.
"You're painting crooked."
Ren blinked. "I haven't even started painting."
"You have," she said. "You just don't know what color your truth is yet."
He approached slowly.
"Name's Ren," he offered.
"Don't care," she muttered. "Not until your brushstroke earns a name."
Another stroke. Hard. Violent.
"You're an Artist too?" Ren asked.
She paused. Then:
"No. I'm a Remixer. I take broken stories and twist them until they bleed new endings."
Finally, she turned.
And Ren saw her face.
One eye normal. The other? A swirling spiral of color, like a miniaturized storm of paint and memory. Her gaze was tired. Haunted. Brilliant.
"I'm Saph," she said. "And you're about to learn that not every world wants to evolve. Some want to stay broken."
A wind rose. The canvases around her began to twitch—rippling with unfinished images, blackened outlines, stories half-erased.
Ren felt Balladbrand hum.
He'd barely entered Miralune.
And already, he'd stepped into something deeply personal.
Saph stood and held out a paintbrush that glowed like a blade.
"Help me fix this island," she said, "or leave it to rot. But either way—paint something that matters."
◇
Far above them, unseen in the cloud layers of the Painted Skies, a Watcher of Echoes shifted its massive form.
And whispered a single word across the currents of creation:
"Catalyst."