Arc I: Forest of Wolves

-Aether's P.O.V-

"That's a bad idea," called out Lumine. "You're going to hurt yourself."

Aether scoffed at the comment, instead focusing on his ascent up the gnarled tree. "You worry too much!" he shouted back down. "Once I'm up there, we'll know where to go!"

"The tree isn't tall enough to serve as a vantage point." Aether glanced down and saw his twin sister crossing her arms as she explained. "Didn't you see those cliff faces back there? Chances are you won't be able to see past the canopy. And even if you did, we're not at the top of the hill yet, so you're just wasting your energy."

Aether glanced back up the tree, where his goal resided, so close and yet so far away, then back down to the ground where Lumine stared at him with the all-too-familiar face of "I told ya so." A fate he didn't want to accept just yet.

"Well, we still need to know how high and far away the hill is, right?"

Silence.

"Lumine?"

More silence.

"Lumine."

Lumine remained quiet.

"Lumi, come on! We've been lost since we woke up!"

His sister stared back at him, familiar golden eyes boring holes right into him.

Aether's first instinct was to accept the challenge, to continue climbing up the tree and prove his sister wrong.

But in the back of his mind, he knew his twin was right. Between the two of them, Lumine had always been the more level headed one. He'd always been the adventurous type, willing to test his skills, to push himself to his limits, to learn from both success and failure, but he'd never been particularly great at restraint or planning ahead. She, on the other hand, was always cognisant of their limitations and danced around obstacles while he preferred to charge through them.

They played the game in different ways, but where one failed to meet the quota, the other would pick up the slack. They only had to trust each other.

"Fine. We'll do it your way." He dropped to a lower branch, making sure to pluck a few of the juicy red apples on his way back.

Lumine flashed him an ever so subtle grin. She pointed up the hill, and muttered about how their trek was going to be a long one. "Also, fork over an apple." And her hand was held out expectantly.

Aether tossed her a particularly ripe looking apple before taking a bite out of his own. "So, are your memories… fuzzy too?"

She bit into her apple, clearly savoring the crunch. Her brows furrowed. "Now that you mentioned it… Yes. Why did we come to this world?"

Aether opened his mouth to answer, only for his mind to draw blanks. Not like a hazy memory he half remembered but wasn't sure of the details of, but a completely empty void. Feelings, sensations, images, all blank.

All gone.

He locked eyes with his sister, her equally blank expression basically begging for an explanation.

But he didn't have an explanation. Instead, he had a question. "What happened…?"

"Didn't a god-?"

Before they could continue down, a roar echoed from further down the heavily forested area.

On instinct, Aether stepped in front of his sister and reached out, a sword materializing from light within his grasp. The familiar weight of a blade settling in his hand was comforting, but something felt off. Something was wrong, he could feel something wrong, that a part of himself was missing but there was also something else. Something just out of reach, familiar yet alien.

There was a gasp from behind him. "Brother, your sword."

Aether glanced down at his blade and gasped. Instead of the golden glimmer and bold white blade, he held a royal blue and silver sword. The guard on the hilt was curved, not straight like he remembered, and an unfamiliar gold diamond-like symbol rested on the blade right above the guard.

He knew the blade was made out of a silver alloy, not pure silver; but how did he know that? He'd never seen this blade before, its appearance unfamiliar, but it felt right in his hands, like it was his, that it belonged to him, that it was an extension of himself.

But why did a part of him feel missing as well ?

He spun around to face his sister. "Where is yours?"

Lumine flicked her wrist to summon forth her blade, and the golden-white blade with the crescent hilt failed to appear. In its place was a blade not unlike his, but light teal and silver, a white handle offering the most difference. The dual symbols were mere white outlines expending from the hilt. Her face scrunched up in confusion. "These aren't our weapons…"

"Where are…" Aether struggled to recall the names of their beloved blades. What were their names? He should've known, he'd carried that blade with him for…

For…

For…

His eyes locked with Lumine's and the two knew something was deeply wrong.

"What did you think-" Aether is cut off by the expression his sister made. She froze up, her eyes widened in shock? Fear?

He quickly realized it was both.

He turned around to face whatever thing that came before them, but what came out of the trees gave him pause. What the…

Before them was a massive hulking beast. Tall as the two of them put together, it was a bulky thing of matted fur and black skin. It had a stark white face, or perhaps it was a mask. Red angry horns protruded from the dark black mane. Gripped in a vice was an equally massive axe. One that seemingly pulsed with the colors of lava.

"Oh." Aether intelligently voices.

To his utter amusement (or horror, quite frankly) Lumine chucked the remainder of her apple at the thing, impaling itself on one of the creature's horns.

There was a moment of silence where the three stared each other down.

Then the thing roared.

Aether readied his stance and balanced to his center, ready to hack and slash at it until it would fall.

Instead of getting the opportunity to strike as the beast raised up its weapon, a firm grip found purchase on his arm. A hard 'no' came from his sister, who proceeded to book it out of the clearing they were in.

She forced him to not only keep up with her, but to also maneuver through the trees. Behind them, the beast roared, a primal, guttural scream and the sound of heavy footfalls thundered behind them.

Heels were an unfortunate footwear to don on when in the woods. As fate would have it, Lumine's heel snagged on a root. An expletive in another tongue slipped from her mouth as she crashed into the forest floor. Aether nearly tripped himself trying to stop and pick her back up.

The creature roared again, causing the both of them to jump. He dared to look back, seeing the thing slam the head of the axe into the ground mere feet from them, and with it three rows of flames exploded from the earth.

The twins shrieked at the suddenness of it all. Something about that power struck a chord in Aether. It felt familiar but distant, something that he should've known but couldn't recall.

Aether broke into a much faster pace.

He heard a growl from behind him, but it wasn't the beast who made the noise. "My wings won't open!" Frustration laced Lumine's voice. "Can you open yours?!"

Aether reached out into himself, attempting to summon his wings, only to be met by the same void from before. There should have been some feeling, a brief but hot tension bubbling underneath the surface of his skin until he drew enough energy to manifest his wings.

But there was nothing. No energy to grasp, no sensation on his back.

Nothing.

The numbness, the lack thereof , scared him, scared him even more than the horrible beast charging after the two of them.

"No." And it was the terrible truth. "I can't."

Instead of a proper response, he heard a whimper. Lumine's face, while hard to read at the best of times, was that of absolute terror. Their wings had been a part of them for so long, so familiar,

How could this be? How could their memories be so… empty? Their powers so… distorted?

They need answers, but they wouldn't find any with that beast chasing them down.

So they ran. And ran and ran they did.

The duo didn't stop until the sound of the beast faded away before catching their breaths amongst densely packed trees.

"That...thing…" His sister's legs gave out and she plotted herself onto the ground. "Had really ugly hands."

Aether let out a dry chuckle, trying his best to ignore the intense soreness coursing throughout his body. Of course she said that. His sister tended to notice and fixate on weird little details like that.

"The axe it carried? It looked somewhat crude, but it was clearly crafted. That denotes some level of intelligence." Aether gestured for his sister to elaborate. "If they are at least somewhat intelligent, then it confirms the possibility of civilization. They're not hunting with those weapons, they're fighting something. Either they're monsters or people."

"Well, it can't be any worse than the… the…"

She raised an eyebrow. "The what?" she prompted.

"You know, the thing from the time we went to the… from when we were at the… from the…"

Golden eyes locked with golden eyes.

"Brother, we need to find civilization."

Aether deflated. "But then what? We don't know if anyone here has powers! Or even knows anything about us or those like us!"

"It doesn't matter. It's better than dying out here from exposure to the elements. Or worse, whatever that creature was."

"So what's the plan, walk to the nearest town and ask 'do you happen to have ancient texts about celestial travelers?'"

"Don't quip at me." She flicked him in the forehead. "First we should secure food and lodging. Maybe even see if we can obtain some of this world's currency, if they even have one to begin with. Afterwards, we can proceed with your plan."

And with that, Lumine marched forward.

It was time for Aether to be the stubborn one. "No, we can't do that! Get back here!'

"Why not?" She didn't bother to stop or turn around.

"We're not sure if there're human people around here!" He paused, hearing his stomach growl. "And we haven't had a proper meal in, how long?"

"You had an apple already."

"Which I didn't get to finish!"

Lumine stopped in her tracks, lips pressed into an unamused frown. "Then what do you propose we do? We're in the middle of a forest seemingly inhabited by axe wielding monsters, with no memories, no powers aside from our blades, which are different mind you ," she poked him in the chest at this, "but yes. Let's continue to pick fruit."

"Lumi-"

"No! Don't you 'Lumi' me!" She stomped her foot on the ground. "This is ridiculous! All of this is-" her face scrunched up in indignation, " sacrilege! "

Aether sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose to find his patience. His sister was understandably freaked out and he couldn't afford to join in the hysterics. One of them had to keep their head about this. It was an unspoken rule between them.

"I know, but we need to take this one step at a time."

She didn't say anything for a long minute; wouldn't look at him. "I'm scared." Another whisper.

"I am too." He admitted and he pulled her in for a hug. They stayed there for a while, finding comfort in each other's warmth. Even on their worst days, just knowing the other was there, was present was enough to quell any anxieties.

"We'll take it one step at a time. Let's just find food first, okay?"

"Hmph." She hummed into his shoulder.

"Then we should make a fire…" He trailed off, thinking about how their sleeping arrangement would be made, should they need it.

"Fire?" Lumine questioned, pulling away from the hug to look quizzically at him.

"Yeah, we don't know how long we'll be out here. We should make a fire to get through the night."

"This world might not have a night."

She could be right, there have been places where there was only ever day. He just...can't recall the names of them. "Well," he gazed into the blue sky, shielding his eyes with a hand, "I don't see a binary star system in the sky, so I'll take a guess that they just have a normal sun and moon."

"Or maybe no moon…" his sister mumbled.

He nodded at her. "All the more reason to make that fire."

"Right."

Aether reached out on his tippy toes to pluck another apple. So far that's all he's managed to collect. The only other thing he seems to find is this plant that smells like mint. Though he couldn't be certain if it was this world's mint, since many other plants can give off a similar smell. Also, he had to admit it was either suspicious it only seemed to be one stock of the plant instead of a cluster like they tend to grow in.

Oh and those yellow berries were all over. But it's typically accepted that oddly colored fruit is probably poisonous. Sure they smelt nice, but he'd rather not get food poisoning in the middle of nowhere. He wasn't willing to risk it.

Ugh, it would be so much easier if we could find a native that could tell we what was edible… Unfortunately the only sentient thing around seemed to be that monster they had encountered earlier.

He turned around to walk back down the slope he was on when he saw it.

A fox? Probably?

The warm toned little thing took one glance at him and dashed away.

"Huh, so we can get meat…" He spoke to no one in particular and hurried down so he could put down the apples and try to hunt one of those things. He may not have his sword but he did have a sword to hunt with.

When he arrived he saw that his sister was already waiting for him, a pile of fruit at her feet. She had a hand behind her back, probably waiting to show him something.

"Lumine!" he started in excitement, "guess what I just—"

"Aether, look." She interrupted him and shoved an object up to his face.

"What-" In front of him was an orange bulbous fruit. It had a faint sweet scent of something he couldn't place his nose on.

"It's very sweet. Like, a cross between apples and tangerines."

"It looks like a pear."

"That's what I thought." She bite into the unnamed fruit. "Do you want one? I found a cluster of trees that grew them."

"No thanks. But I just saw a fox or something like that run by not too long ago." He kept himself from salivating at the thought of a meat dish. "We can have meat tonight."

"Oh yeah, I saw these lizards earlier. But…" She looked off to the side, as if to deliver bad news. "They were really colorful. I saw one a red with black stripes, a white one with blacks stripes, and a green one with-"

"Let me guess, black stripes?"

"No. Black dots."

He sighs. "Yeah, okay. Lizards are off the table. They're probably venomous."

"Yup."

"And we go hunt down some foxes… Are those berries?"

Lumine looked down to where she left her harvest. "Uh...yes?"

He placed his goods onto the plie and gave her a questioning look. "Lumi…these are clearly poisonous. They're bright yellow!" He insisted.

Another bite into the pear-ish shaped fruit. "Well," munch munch "I saw a fox eat from a berry stock, so if a mammal can eat it it's not an unreasonable assumption to assume it's safe for us to eat."

"We don't know that!" He threw his arms into the air. When he didn't get a response back, a feeling of apprehension curled in the pit of his stomach. "Sister, did you eat some of the berries?"

She looked away. "I said I saw a fox eat one so…"

"Lumi, why!?"

"We can't just eat apples! And we've eaten all sorts of weird things from various places!"

"And we've come across fruit that could've killed us if we had eaten it. Remember that heart shaped one?! I think it was purple."

"Lavender."

"Whatever, point it is, it took out our…" Friend? Teammate? Companion? He couldn't remember. "One of our kin, so food from other worlds can clearly still kill us."

She finished her snack and threw the core a bit aways from them. "In that case, if I die," she knocked the back of her hand into his midriff for comedic effect, "you know what to avoid."

He pinched her exposed shoulder.

"Ow!"

"Don't talk like that."

All that effort and tracking was for nothing. Not only had they not managed to catch a single fox, but they couldn't seem to find their previous location of where they had left the rewards of their fruit picking.

So luck was obviously on their side today.

"I almost got that last one you know."

Aether gave his sister some side-eye, opting not to respond.

Lumine took the silence as a prompt to continue. "I would've gotten it if you hadn't tugged on my scarf."

"Hey! I was tripping!"

"Planning to take me down too?"

He flustered up in embarrassment. "No, I just grabbed the first thing in front of me."

"Ah, so you wanted to choke me out."

He pouted. "Now you're just being mean."

"You almost choked me!"

"By accident!"

She just huffed and turned away from him, walking further up ahead.

He jogged to catch up with her and looked beyond the trees only to notice that there seemed to be a cleaning nearby. And amongst the clearing laid… "Is that a lake?!" He ran up to the large body of water, staring at his crisp reflection. He smiled. Ah heck yeah! Fish!

"Is there fish in it?" Lumine quickly scuttered over to his side, sitting down next to him.

"Seems like it. We can have fish today if we can make a fishing rod."

Lumine scanned the treeline. "Hmmm, we could probably use a tree branch."

He nodded in agreement. "Yeah, do you have any rope?"

She held out her hands, summoning the blues and purples of a miniature star chart. Dots connected to one another by lines that glimmered in the sunlight. Her eyebrows furrowed.

Oh no. Now what? "What's wrong?"

"It's empty."

"What."

She stood up to look at him. "I said, it's empty, Brother."

Aether blinked.

"There's nothing in my pocket space except that stupid sword!" She tugged on the long strands of her hair. "All of my dresses are gone!"

Aether focused on summoning his own pocket space in his hand and saw the same to be true for him as well. All of his items he had been accumulating over his numerous trips were suspiciously absent. The sole resident of his pocket space was that silver alloyed sword from before. "Is it bad to say that I'm not even surprised at this point. I feel like we're in some battle royale that we signed up for but can't remember." He looked up at his sister. "Hey, stop tugging on your hair, you're going to go bald."

He pried her finger out of curled fists only leading to her growling at him.

"Aether, my clothes are all gone."

"So?"

"I've been collecting those dresses from countless worlds! It's priceless. How could I possibly replicate that?"

"It's just clothes, you can get more."

Lumine scoffed. "Bold words of a man that collects wooden carving of ponies. "

"H-hey!" he sputtered. "I collect other things too! And you don't understand the beauty of horses."

"They're smelly."

" You're smelly."

The blonde grumbled something under her breath and paced back and front, tugging her hair as she did so.

"Don't tug your hair!"

She dropped her arms but made no action to quit her pacing.

Aether looked out glumly at the lake. So as it stood neither of them had any rope. At this point they would either need to drive into the water and catch fish with their bare hands or craft a makeshift spear from a tree branch. He decided it would be better not to get soaked to the bone and risk hypothermia. "Lumine, let's just find a good branch to make a spear out of. We could," he inclined his head to the water, "spear the fish or something."

She nodded while still pacing. "Hmm-hm. We can use our swords to make a sharp edge."

He brightened up, finally seeing an opportunity to distract themselves from the cruel reality that they had literally been stripped of all their possessions besides the clothes on their back.

Even their memories had been forfeit.

At least they still had each other.

They decided to walk straight ahead together to avoid losing track of the lake and one another. He had decided to look into a hollowed out tree for the sheer curiosity of it. But it turned out to be a little gift from above.

Perhaps someone felt sorry about them after all.

"Look, a fishing rod." He pulled out the crudely made fishing instrument. It quite literally was a stock of flexible wood with thin rope attached to it. At the end of the white rope was a rusted hook, but he also extracted a small box from within the tree truck. Lumine took the box from his grasp and pried it out. Inside laid more hooks, these not rusted like it's brethren.

"So human people must exist in this world." His sister proclaimed. "This is much too small and intricate for that creature we encountered earlier."

"I mean, there could be smaller versions of them."

She looked at him with a dead gaze.

He sweatdropped and handed the pole to her. "Hold it still, I'm going to cut it." He summoned that familiar-yet-not sword and nipped the end of the rope tied around the rusty hook. He looped a fresh hook onto the fishing line and smiled at his work. "While I fish, can you get a fire going?"

"Sure."

Aether sat down on a nearby rock and threw the line into the water, knowing full well he should've probably dug up a worm and hooked it up, but he was starving and already sat down so…

Tug Tug

"I already got something?" That was awfully quick, and with no bait too. He pulled and pulled, feeling something heavy drag in the water. "Lumine! My line caught something!"

"Okay!" He heard from farther behind him, the sound of rustling brushes told him she was making her way back.

The momentum he used to rip the fish out of the lake nearly caused him to slip off the rock. He barely caught a glimpse of a flailing white blur emerging from the lake as his face was splashed with water.

Aether wiped his eyes to stare at his catch. It was…

"Is that a child!?" Lumine shrieked.

Aether's jaw hit the floor.

SigmaSeven here, I'm the co-author of this story alongside BlackDevilWhiteDemon.

In regards to the author's note, I'll be the one using italics while BlackDevilWhiteDemon will be using bold.

Only thing to note really is that Aether POV focused chapters will usually mostly be written by me while BDWD will write the majority of Lumine POV focused chapters with tradeoffs for other POVs.

Once more gets written, we'll start leaving more commentary explaining our reasonings for certain things/events, but that's a problem for the future.

Until then enjoy!

Next Time On The Light, The Void, and Everything In-Between: everyone's favorite character/emergency food!

Alright, thanks ya'll for reading! :D See ya next chapter! Playable characters will finally show up in ch 2. So look forward to that!