everest vale

The office was too quiet. Even the soft hum of the holoprojector felt sharp in the air. Piles of datapads surrounded her like a barricade — reports, requisitions, briefings — and still, Eve couldn’t make herself see any of them. Her eye traced the words, but they blurred. Numbers, names...

[Part 1] The house had quieted to a tender stillness. Beyond the windows, the meadows whispered under a veil of moonlight, and the cicadas sang their slow, rhythmic lullaby to the night. Inside, the hearth burned low and golden, the light flickering softly over the old wooden beams and the worn...

The air was softer here. Getting colder this time of year, but nowhere near biting like the kind that clung to the high ridges around Snowpeak Sanctuary. Here, the chill carried the scent of loam and grass, the quiet rhythm of the meadows breathing under an open sky. Eve walked with her hood...

[Following: Fire And Flame] The storm had swallowed the enclave. Wind howled across the cliffs like a wounded thing, dragging veils of snow in furious spirals that battered against the windows of Eve's office. The scent of old wood and incense lingered faintly in the air, mixing with the dry...

Tigris slept heavy against her, leg hooked over Eve's thigh, arm pressed tight around her ribs. Isari was curled at their feet, ears twitching with dream-sounds only she could hear. The chamber was steeped in quiet, but Eve lay wide awake, her gaze fixed on the ceiling beams. Her body was still...

Night lay heavy over the mountains, the world outside washed in silver light. The office was quiet but for the faint scratch of pen on parchment, and the occasional soft clink as she set her teacup down. Isari slept at her feet, the slow rise and fall of her breathing matching the hush in the...