Temoshí stepped out of his room into the soft warmth of morning light filtering through the tea shop's open windows. At the counter, Livia was already steeping fresh leaves, her movements slow and practiced.
"Oh, look at you, raring to go," she said with a smile, carefully pouring steaming tea into a ceramic cup. She placed it on the table before him with gentle hands, then clasped them lightly in front of her waist. "Where are you off to, if I may ask?"
"Thank you," Temoshí replied, nodding as he took a seat and set his duffel bag down beside him. "I can't afford to rest too long while everyone else is out there. Who knows what could've happened to them. I just hope Yuka found Chiaki, and that she's been holding things together."
"Going after your friends, then?" Livia smiled warmly, her voice steeped with age and kindness. "You've got a noble heart, Temoshí. I hope Cinder's treating you well."
He nearly choked on his tea. Coughing lightly, he looked up at her, wide-eyed. "What—how do you know about her?"
Livia gave a soft chuckle, tapping a finger against her lip. "Did I startle you with that?"
Temoshí's confusion deepened as a bead of sweat trailed down his temple. "I thought… she was—"
"Oh, don't worry yourself," Livia interrupted, her tone light, but her eyes glinting with quiet knowledge. "Cinder was once a guest here. Just like you. Spent a few days under this roof. Told me stories—about herself, the world, the weight she carried. She mentioned her plan… sealing her consciousness into another spirit."
Temoshí's expression turned serious, brow furrowing. "Why? Why would she do that?"
Livia's gaze drifted to the window, where the morning sun lit the leaves outside in soft gold. "She never told me," she said quietly. "Only that it was something she had to do. A choice she made, not for survival—but to become something more. Or perhaps… to protect something important."
The silence that followed carried a strange stillness, as if the air itself was holding its breath.
"She was kind," Livia added after a moment. "Tired… but kind. And terribly burdened."
Temoshí looked down into his cup, the tea now cooling between his fingers. Somehow, it tasted heavier than before.
"I do recall," Livia mused, folding her hands on the table, "Cinder once saying she wanted to protect someone… someone she cared for more than herself. She was your age then—young, beautiful, full of warmth, and sharp as a sword when it mattered. Much like you, really. A kind, handsome young man." She gave a soft, nostalgic giggle and lowered herself onto the seat across from him.
Temoshí studied her face for a moment, then lowered his gaze, the question forming almost before he could stop it. "Do you think she was talking about me, Livia? Is that why she did it? Why she sealed herself away?" His voice lowered. "How old was I… when she told you that?"
Livia's smile faded slightly, replaced by a pensive look as she glanced toward the soft light slipping through the window. "She never said your name. But there was a tenderness in the way she spoke—like every word carried weight from some deep, unspoken promise. I remember thinking… whoever she meant, it must've been someone precious. Someone she couldn't reach without giving something up."
She paused, eyes narrowing slightly in thought. "As for your age back then? Hm… I'd say you must've been a child. No more than four or five summers old. She didn't say it aloud, but… the way she watched the village children playing outside my window, with that far-off sadness in her eyes—I knew."
Temoshí sat still, staring into the cooling tea, his reflection fractured across its surface.
"Maybe it was you," Livia said gently. "Maybe not. But the kind of love she spoke of… it wasn't casual. It was the kind that survives separation, loss, even time itself."
Temoshí's hand clenched slightly around the cup. "And now she's part of me," he murmured. "But I don't even understand why."
Livia reached across the table, her old fingers resting lightly atop his. "Then perhaps it's time to find out."
"So, Cinder chose to seal herself within my spirit?" Temoshí asked quietly, his brow furrowed in thought. "But why? Why would she do something so extreme… for me? If I was just a child—maybe even a newborn—what could she possibly need from me? What was there to protect?"
Livia watched him closely, her gaze softening with a quiet knowing. She folded her hands in her lap before speaking again.
"She never said exactly," she murmured. "But sometimes, the most selfless choices are made without expecting anything in return. Cinder spoke of something... fragile. Something that hadn't yet awakened in this world, but would carry great weight when it did. Maybe it wasn't what you were—but what you'd become."
Temoshí looked down again, as if trying to read the answers in the grain of the wooden table.
"She didn't need anything from you," Livia added. "She only needed to be near you. To shield you until the time came when you'd need her most. Maybe it was foresight… or just faith."
"Faith in what?"
Livia smiled faintly. "In your spirit. In the kind of man you'd grow into. She didn't leave behind her power. She gave you her trust."
Temoshí sat in silence, the weight of Livia's words slowly settling over him like a mantle he hadn't realized he'd always carried. He glanced at the steam curling from his cup, watching it vanish into the morning light.
"Trust, huh…" he whispered. "She believed I'd become someone worth protecting… even before I had the chance to prove it."
Livia nodded gently, her eyes thoughtful and warm. "Sometimes we plant seeds in soil we'll never see bloom. That was the kind of soul she had. Quietly powerful. Willing to disappear if it meant someone else could rise."
Temoshí leaned back in his chair, one hand brushing lightly over his chest, as if hoping to feel her presence—Cinder's memory—beneath the surface of his skin. "And now she's a part of me. All this time, she's been there."
"She still is," Livia replied. "Not as a burden… but as a guide. She chose you not out of desperation, but belief. She must have seen something in your soul even then."
He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of tea and the quiet serenity of the room. The uncertainty, the doubt—those hadn't vanished. But a strange calm settled within him, like the slow glow of embers beneath ash. Cinder wasn't gone. She had simply been waiting.
"…Then I won't waste it," he said finally, opening his eyes with quiet resolve. "If she gave up herself to protect me, then I'll live up to that faith. I'll protect others. I'll protect them all—no matter what."
Livia smiled and reached across the table, placing her wrinkled hand gently over his.
"I'm sure she'd be proud," she whispered. "Now go. The world won't wait forever."
Livia's smile softened as she withdrew her hand, her gaze drifting upward—as if watching some long-forgotten moment flicker to life again.
"She left behind a message, you know," she said gently. "A parting gift, wrapped in words. I didn't understand it back then, but I remembered it all the same. She said…"
"When ash forgets the fire, and fire forgets the sky,
a bird with no nest will burn itself to fly.
But if it finds a mirror in the soul of a child,
it may rise not alone, but with the dawn—revived."
Temoshí's breath caught. The riddle danced on the edge of understanding—beautiful, cryptic, but oddly familiar.
Livia met his eyes with a knowing look. "That's what she said to me before she left. That one day, someone would come carrying not just her power, but her will. I think… that someone is you."
Livia reached beneath the folds of her sleeve and drew out something small, wrapped in a strip of deep violet cloth. She unfolded it gently, revealing a single black feather—long, sleek, and faintly iridescent. It shimmered in the light like ink catching flame.
"For you," she said, offering it across the table. "A little keepsake. I'd nearly forgotten I had it, but… I think you're meant to carry it now."
Temoshí accepted the feather carefully, turning it in his hand. It was far heavier than it looked—its weight subtle but undeniable, like it held a memory.
"What is this?" he asked, glancing back up at her.
"Just a gift," Livia said with a mischievous smile, though something deeper stirred in her tone. "A token of this little tea house. So you won't forget the quiet places when the road turns loud."
Temoshí's brow furrowed. "It doesn't look ordinary."
"Neither are you," she replied softly.
Before he could ask further, Livia stood and moved to the doorway, gesturing for him to follow. "Come now. If you're going to find your answers, best you get moving before the sun's too high."
She led him through a narrow passage at the back of the shop, past dusty shelves and faded wind chimes. At the end was a small wooden door, almost hidden behind a curtain of ivy. She pushed it open to reveal a narrow path winding upward through sheer stone and scrub, leading into the mountain's embrace.
"At the summit," she said, pointing toward the distant peak, "lives a woman named Avenya. You'll know her when you see her. If you earn her trust, she might just help you understand what you are—and what she once was."
Temoshí stared up at the winding trail. A breeze caught the feather in his hand, tugging it gently toward the slope.
"Will she know about Cinder?"
Livia's expression grew unreadable. "She knows about many things. But you'll have to ask her yourself."
Temoshí gave one last glance to the tea house behind him, then tucked the feather safely into his bag.
"Thank you, Livia."
She only nodded, hands folded behind her back, her voice drifting after him like incense on the wind.
"Walk with purpose, young phoenix. The mountain doesn't yield to the unsure."
To be continued...