In the stillness beyond stars, beyond time, and beyond imagination, there lies a place untouched by chaos or order—a space known only to the god who made it. A realm carved from silence and sealed from the ticking of clocks. There, amidst a cosmic ocean of drifting scrolls and glowing screens, sat Destiny.
He was neither man nor beast, not bound by shape nor shadow. Destiny simply was, draped in flowing robes stitched with threads of constellations and eyes deeper than any sky. He reclined in a throne made of woven timelines, arms resting on curved arms that pulsed with the ebb and flow of fate.
Rows and rows of scrolls, each glowing faintly, floated on invisible winds around him. Every scroll was attached to a small orb-like screen—tiny spheres of ever-shifting images, showing lives as they unfolded across worlds. Babies took their first steps. Soldiers fell on battlefields. Lovers kissed under moons. Each orb was a window into a story already written.
Destiny hummed as he watched a drama unfold on one of the screens—a petty argument between royals in some distant realm. He waved his hand, and the screen dimmed. "Predictable," he murmured, his voice like echoing thunder wrapped in velvet.
His gaze drifted to the far side of the chamber, where an old, crooked shelf stood apart from the rest. Unlike the other shelves that radiated golden light and hovered mid-air, this one sat crooked on the floor, darkened by dust and mystery. Upon it were only a handful of scrolls, worn at the edges, their inscriptions marked not in the common glyphs of fate but in strange, chaotic symbols that danced and shifted when looked upon.
We—yes, we, the silent audience—point to this peculiar shelf. Destiny, sensing the shift in our attention, raises an eyebrow. "Ah," he says, turning toward the shadowed corner. "That shelf."
He stands, robes trailing stardust, and walks to the shelf with reverence and mischief. "These," he begins, brushing a finger over one of the ancient scrolls, "are not regular fates. These are... my private amusements."
He turns back to us, smiling like a man sharing a forbidden joke. "You see, eternity is long. Even for a god. And so I choose fates—my favorite ones, the most unpredictable, the wildest rides—and before I watch them, I remove the knowledge of their outcomes from my mind."
With a dramatic flair, Destiny reaches up to his head and pinches something just above his ear. With a gentle tug, he pulls out a tiny, glowing marble—his memory of the scroll he's about to watch. It pulses with light, then vanishes into a swirling vortex above his throne.
"This way, I can watch them as you mortals do," he says. "With wonder. With suspense. With delight."
We point again, this time to a scroll that sits right in the center of the shelf, pulsing a soft blue. Destiny's eyes light up. "Ah, this one," he says, lifting it from its resting place. "This is the fate I deemed the most fascinating."
He carries it to a broad, crystalline table in the center of the chamber. It looks like glass, but within it swirl galaxies, storms, and dreams. Placing the scroll at the center, he taps the table once.
The room darkens. Stars blink into view above us. Rows of plush seats unfurl behind Destiny's throne, and we take our places beside him. This is no longer a divine chamber—it is a theater. A sacred cinema of fate.
Destiny clears his throat and leans back in his seat. The scroll unwinds slowly, casting beams of light upward into a projection that fills the cosmos above.
The first words echo across the void, whispered like a secret on the wind: "Divided by a lake of lightning… welcome to the Uba Runes."
A landscape blooms into view—strange and beautiful. Mountains suspended in mid-air, chained together by glowing bridges of crystal. Forests with leaves like shards of obsidian. Cities carved into the bones of ancient beasts. And in the very heart of it all, a lake crackling with eternal lightning, splitting the land like a jagged scar of light.
Destiny smiles. "And so it begins," he says.
And we, like him, lean forward, ready to witness a story unlike any other. A tale of a girl seeking belonging. A rogue seeking purpose. And a world teetering on the edge of magical collapse.
When magic breaks, fate rewrites itself. The screen above us glows brighter. Thunder cracks. And the real story begins.
You ever have one of those moments where someone tells you a story, and you just know they're leaving out the messy bits? Like when an elder says, "In the old days, we lived in peace," but you find out the peace was just everyone being too hungry to fight?
Yeah. This is not that kind of story. Welcome to the L.O.M.E.—Land of Magical Entities. Sounds fancy, right? Like a place where unicorns serve tea and fairies do your taxes. But let me be clear: the only thing magical about this place is how fast it can go from paradise to hellfire
The world has three countries. Don't bother asking about the other two. If they were important to the start of this story, I'd have remembered their names. All you need to know is this: Uba was the biggest, baddest, most magically blessed kingdom in the land. And that wasn't just bragging. Uba was it.
Why? Seven reasons. Or as we call them, the Natures.
Seven elemental forces, each bound to a core part of life, each nurtured by magicians who wielded them like gods:
1. Oko – Earth and agriculture. The growers. The builders. The ones who made food happen and mountains move.
2. Shango – Lightning. Pure storm fury in magical form. If you heard a crackle in the distance, you either ducked or died.
3. Ogun – Iron. Machinery, weaponry, and metal that bent to your will—if it didn't crush you first.
4. Shàngó – Fire. And yes, it's different from Shango. Think more burning everything in sight than sky-flavored zaps.
5. Oshun – Water. Healing rivers, deadly floods, and waves that sang lullabies or death hymns, depending on their mood.
6. Orisha-Oya – Air. Breezes, gales, and voices that carried secrets between worlds.
7. Ààjà – Animals. Call of the wild. Bonding with beasts. Some could even become animals if they were fancy enough.
Now imagine a country with four of the seven most powerful Nature wielders under its banner. That was Uba.
The World Seven, they called them. Seven magicians who stood above all others—practically gods in mortal skin. Four of them called Uba home. Which meant Uba got the funding. Uba got the fame. Uba got everything.
You couldn't spit in Uba without hitting something enchanted. Floating markets. Rivers that carried your shopping. Trees that whispered bedtime stories. Kids were learning teleportation before they could walk. It was magic on tap.
But we all know how stories like this go. The higher you rise...
One day, out of nowhere—or maybe from somewhere we were too proud to look—something ancient and cruel crawled out from the cracks of the world. A Great Evil. Yeah, capital G, capital E.
It didn't make speeches. Didn't give ultimatums. It just killed.
Six out of the World Seven, gone in a blink. Just like that. No dramatic duels. No "last stands." Just silence. And blood.
Some say the last magician—the seventh—was the only one who faced it and lived. Or maybe she didn't live. Maybe she just... ended it. Or paused it. Or locked it in a cage made of forgotten names
No one really knows. And anyone who says they know is probably selling a book about it.
But here's the part I do know. Whatever the Great Evil was, it didn't go down quietly. Its final curse was a storm. A divine tantrum.
Lightning. Fire. Thunder. A lake exploded into being, right down the middle of Uba, a never-ending crackle of light and rage. Some called it the Lake of Lightning. Others just called it the end.
The magical veins of the land ruptured. Cities collapsed. Forests went up in flames. It rained sparks for a week. The sky itself screamed.
And Uba burned.
But here's the kicker: not all of Uba. No, some of it survived. Or rather, some of them did.
The rich. The powerful. The well-connected. They scrambled up what was left of their magical towers, rebuilt the top of the city into something new and shiny. They called it Uba Rulings—a "fresh start."
Fresh, my boot.
They built walls so high even the birds had to apply for clearance. Magical towers with gates that only opened to fingerprints traced back seven generations. And down here, in the ash and rubble?
Welcome to the Uba Runes.
That's where I live. Where people like me live. The ones who weren't invited up. The ones who scavenged burned bricks and called them homes.
And oh, did I mention the wall? The glorious, shimmering, holier-than-thou monument known as the Sky Toucher?
Yeah. They called it a barrier of peace. Said it kept the "chaos" of the Runes from "infecting" the new order.
We call it a scar. A wound they polished with gold and forgot to bandage.
Now, life in the Runes isn't all bad. I mean, you learn to survive. To adapt. To lie really well. You get a lot of protein from rats and weird fungi. You learn which magical ruins aren't cursed (hint: none of them).
I don't have parents. I barely have a name. Just Arya. I gave myself that name because it sounded like someone who would punch lightning in the face.
Some say I was born the day the sky split. Others say I crawled out of a forgotten spellbook. Personally, I think I was just the kind of kid the world couldn't kill fast enough, so it gave up.
But lately? Lately, the wind's been talking. The lightning's been twitching. The Lake's been glowing a little brighter at night.
Something's coming. Something... old. And I've got a feeling that whatever it is—it starts here, in the cracks. In the Runes. In me.
So yeah. That's Uba. That's the world. And that's the opening scene of whatever this mess is.
Let the storm roll in. Let the magic break. Because this time, I'm watching it fall—and maybe, just maybe, I'll be the one to break it first.
Ever walk with an empty bowl and feel like a philosopher? No? Just me? Cool.
So there I was, bowl in hand, eyes half-shut, feet shuffling through the ash-kissed streets of the Uba Runes. Not begging, not hoping—just holding the bowl like it was part of me. A bowl. That's what I'd become. Hollow. Waiting. Maybe even ceramic inside. Don't judge.
Thing is, the bowl started to feel... heavier.
The magical veins of the land ruptured. Cities collapsed. Forests went up in flames. It rained sparks for a week. The sky itself screamed.
And Uba burned.
But here's the kicker: not all of Uba. No, some of it survived. Or rather, some of them did.
The rich. The powerful. The well-connected. They scrambled up what was left of their magical towers, rebuilt the top of the city into something new and shiny. They called it Uba Rulings—a "fresh start."
Fresh, my boot.
They built walls so high even the birds had to apply for clearance. Magical towers with gates that only opened to fingerprints traced back seven generations. And down here, in the ash and rubble?
Welcome to the Uba Runes.
That's where I live. Where people like me live. The ones who weren't invited up. The ones who scavenged burned bricks and called them homes.
And oh, did I mention the wall? The glorious, shimmering, holier-than-thou monument known as the Sky Toucher?
Yeah. They called it a barrier of peace. Said it kept the "chaos" of the Runes from "infecting" the new order.
We call it a scar. A wound they polished with gold and forgot to bandage.
Now, life in the Runes isn't all bad. I mean, you learn to survive. To adapt. To lie really well. You get a lot of protein from rats and weird fungi. You learn which magical ruins aren't cursed (hint: none of them).
I don't have parents. I barely have a name. Just Arya. I gave myself that name because it sounded like someone who would punch lightning in the face.
Some say I was born the day the sky split. Others say I crawled out of a forgotten spellbook. Personally, I think I was just the kind of kid the world couldn't kill fast enough, so it gave up.
But lately? Lately, the wind's been talking. The lightning's been twitching. The Lake's been glowing a little brighter at night.
Something's coming. Something... old.
And I've got a feeling that whatever it is—it starts here, in the cracks. In the Runes. In me.
So yeah. That's Uba. That's the world. And that's the opening scene of whatever this mess is.
Let the storm roll in.
Let the magic break.
Because this time, I'm watching it fall—and maybe, just maybe, I'll be the one to break it first.
Ever walk with an empty bowl and feel like a philosopher? No? Just me? Cool.
So there I was, bowl in hand, eyes half-shut, feet shuffling through the ash-kissed streets of the Uba Runes. Not begging, not hoping—just holding the bowl like it was part of me. A bowl. That's what I'd become. Hollow. Waiting. Maybe even ceramic inside. Don't judge.
Thing is, the bowl started to feel... heavier.
Like Hope decided to drop a surprise visit and forgot to knock. I blinked. And there he was.
A man—no, a boy (but let's be honest, he looked like someone sculpted by gods with great taste)—stood in front of me. Dark hair, lukewarm blue eyes that felt like spring rain and sword steel at the same time. I didn't clock the rest of his features. Couldn't. My eyes got stuck somewhere between his jawline and cheekbones and refused to budge.
He reached out and dropped something into my bowl. Bread. The bowl shifted in my hands like it was now carrying diamonds. I could barely speak.
"You use that to feed yourself till the next handsome man comes to do the same," he said, as casual as a breeze.
I opened my mouth. Nothing. My tongue was on strike. I forced out the words like a dying goat attempting opera.
"Th... tha... thank... thank y... yo... you, sir."
"Sir?" He raised an eyebrow, amused. "Don't be so formal. In the Runes, respect is an illusion only the well-fed can afford. And besides, I'm probably your age."
Well, now I was confused and flustered.
I cleared my throat, trying to sound less like a sputtering kettle. "...Can I get your name?"
He smiled like someone who knew he was interesting. "That's classified. But if we see each other again, I'll not only tell you my name—I might even toss in my address as a bonus. For now, enjoy the bread."
He turned and began walking away, as mysterious and elegant as someone who didn't live three feet from a rat nest.
"Hey! Sir—sorry, boy!"
He stopped, glancing over his shoulder. "Yes?"
"The bread is... cold."
His lips curved into a smirk. "You seem like a good person. The bread'll probably warm up to you."
And just like that, he vanished into the winding alleyways of the Runes, leaving me stunned, bread-bowled, and 12% more in love than I was five minutes ago.
Now, you'd think the next logical step would be eating the bread, right? Right?
Wrong.
Enter: The Ducks.
Where did they come from? Who summoned them? Why did they look like they were one missed meal away from pecking a toddler into dust?
I don't know. All I know is, they saw the bread.
And they wanted it.
Cue the chase sequence.
I ran, bowl clutched to my chest like it was a newborn. The ducks—there were fourteen of them, I counted—charged after me with the kind of energy only starvation and bird rage can grant.
I darted between carts, leaped over debris, and even tried to toss a decoy loaf of imaginary bread. Didn't work. These ducks had PhDs in vengeance.
Then I tripped.
One moment, I was Arya the Brave Breadkeeper. The next, I was face-planting into cracked concrete and tasting ash.
I groaned, blinking through the dizziness. Something warm trickled down my forehead. Blood. My blood. Cool.
I tried to sit up, and that's when I heard it—low, guttural grunts. Painful. Human.
Not duck.
I turned my head, vision still spinning, and there he was.
A body.
A man slumped against a half-fallen wall. Dark cloak soaked in red, shredded around the edges like he'd danced with blades. Beneath it, ragged gray clothes peeked out, barely holding together. His face was hidden behind an ice mask—literal ice, sculpted and cracked, clinging to his skin like it belonged there.
There were holes in him. Not metaphorical. Actual punctures. Like someone had tried to turn him into a flute.
He was bleeding. A lot. Not dead, but maybe halfway to it.
I stared, stunned. A thousand thoughts flew through my head.
But only one stuck:
"Did the ducks get him too?"
That was the moment I realized I might not be okay in the head. But hey, trauma makes comedians of us all.
I crawled closer, half-curious, half-panicked, bread still clutched in one hand, blood pouring from my face like I was auditioning for a tragic play.
The man—this stranger, this bleeding mystery—groaned again. The ice around his mask began to melt just slightly. Not from heat. From something... else.
Magic? Fear? Dramatic flair?
I didn't know yet. But what I did know was this:
My day had just gotten a lot weirder.
And something told me, this was only the beginning.
So there I was face to ice-mask with a dying legend. And what did I do?
Walked away.
Yeah, yeah. Pause your judgmental inner monologue.
Look, I'm not heartless. I just... I don't have the luxury of heroism. Not here. Not in the Runes.
I turned away, the stale bread still in my hand, the blood still dripping from my head. As I walked, I said to him, not turning back:
"I'm truly sorry... but kindness is an illusion only the well-fed can afford."
And with that, I walked.
Now, if you were writing my story, you'd probably end the scene right there. Make me a monster. Fade to black.
But fate—bless its dramatic timing—had other plans.
Not ten steps from the bleeding Frost, I heard voices. Male. Armed. Cocky.
"Where did he go?" one said.
"Come on out, Frost. The bounty says 'alive,' so we wouldn't kill you... even if we wanted to."
Frost.
That name hit me like lightning—again. You'd think I'd have had enough of that.
"Frost?" I whispered. "Wait a damn minute..."
I stopped mid-step and turned to look at the guy who I thought was just another corpse-to-be.
"Oh my gods," I muttered. "How could I forget about the Robin Hood of the Runes... Frost."
Let me explain.
In the Uba Runes, there are two kinds of water: the kind you don't have, and the kind you dream about. Water's controlled by Oshun mages—those born with the nature of water. Sounds useful, right? Wrong.
Because the second an Oshun mage pops up in the Runes, they get a one-way ticket out. Every week, the Rulings—the shiny, golden side of Uba with its sky-touching walls and sparkling toilets—send guard squads into the Runes. Officially? They're looking for criminals. Unofficially? They're Oshun-mage poachers.
The mages get 'invited' to the Rulings. Their families too. It's a package deal. They pack their bags, kiss the dirt goodbye, and ghost the rest of us.
The ones who don't leave? They're as shriveled and dry as the rest of us. See, to make water, Oshun mages need Aye—that's the lifeforce-y, magic-y stuff inside us. But in the Runes, you spend all your Aye just staying alive. So making water? Luxury spellcasting. Not an option.
And growing food? Don't even get me started.
See, way back when that lightning bolt split Uba in half, it did more than make a pretty crater. The ground in the Runes—our ground—is cursed. Or, well, 'electrically saturated' is the technical term. The soil still pulses with leftover current, like the land itself is twitching in pain. That means plants grow slowly. If they grow at all. Sometimes they pop up warped and half-alive, like vegetables made of nightmares.
And as for animals?
Well, that's where the Ààjà mages come in.
Ààjà mages are born with the nature of animals. Sounds cool, right? Communing with beasts, whispering to birds, being the ultimate pet whisperer. Except it's not.
The Rulings don't want Ààjà mages. They say their magic's 'unrefined,' 'unpredictable,' 'a nuisance.' So those mages stay stuck in the Runes, broke and broken like the rest of us.
And here's the kicker: Ààjà mages can't just let animals be mass slaughtered. Their nature—literally the law of their magic—makes them sick when that balance is broken. They're the eco-warriors no one asked for. So mass hunting? Off the table. If we kill too many animals, the Ààjà mages start puking blood and passing out. Nature's watchdogs, shackled by instincts they can't ignore.
So what do we eat?
Not much.
Whatever we can scavenge. Whatever the Ààjà mages don't keel over from. Whatever plants don't scream in pain as they sprout sideways and rot mid-growth.
So yeah—Frost is a big deal.
Because while the rest of us are rationing tears and chewing air, he's out there stealing salvation.
That guy? He broke the sky.
The Rulings have this massive wall—like, obscenely tall. Meant to keep us out and them in. No one gets past it. No one.
Except him.
No one knows how. No one sees him go. But he disappears into the upper world, and he returns with what we need most—water.
He steals it. Turns it into ice.
Then climbs—or maybe flies—up to the sky, breaks a hole in the clouds, and melts it all backdown.
Rain.
We call it the Showers of Frost.
It doesn't come often. Maybe once a month. Maybe twice. But when it does, it's a festival of buckets and bowls and open mouths. Kids laugh. Adults cry. Plants breathe. Even the ducks stop being assholes for five minutes.
It's not much. It's never enough.
But it's hope.
And that bleeding body back there? That's the guy who gave it to us.
No wonder the Rulings want him.
No wonder he's got bounty squads sniffing around like hungry dogs.
No wonder I turned around.
Because suddenly, that ice-masked stranger wasn't just another victim of the Runes.
He was the Runes.
And I couldn't walk away this time.
Have you ever seen someone dying with a price tag on their head so big it could buy you three meals, a house, and a golden bathtub? Yeah. Me neither—until today.
Let me explain.
The man bleeding into the dust beside me—Frost, the Robin Hood of the Runes—is worth Ů10,000,000. That's ten million ubies. That's so much money it doesn't even sound real. Like, that's rich rich. "Buy-a-new-identity-and-move-to-a-different-country" rich.
But the most haunting part? They want him alive.
Not dead. Not even maimed. Alive.
And if that doesn't sound suspicious to you, you're either too young, too stupid, or too desperate to care.
Destiny—the cosmic couch potato who's supposed to know how all this plays out—pauses the show, wide-eyed like he just saw a plot twist no one warned him about. He leans toward us, the audience, smirking with both disappointment and intrigue.
"I guess kindness really is an illusion only the well-fed can afford."
Then he unpauses us. And we're back in my shoes. Which, by the way, are soaked in blood and duck drool.
Frost is wanted by everyone.
The ruling class? Of course. He embarrasses them weekly with his little sky drip stunts.
The guard squads? Well, they've been chasing his shadow for so long they might as well marry it.
But the real threat? The people of the Runes.
My people.
Because of that ten million bounty? It's enough to lift half of us out of here. We're talking gated community life, endless water, three square meals, and a job that doesn't involve watching someone die in a gutter.
So yes, they want him alive. And no, they don't care why he did what he did. Survival has a funny way of strangling sympathy.
And Frost? He knows this. He knows that every face in the Runes could be the one to turn him in. Every helping hand might be a trap. And yet, the idiot still keeps helping us. Still sneaks water through cracks no one else can reach. Still risks his life so some child doesn't go to bed choking on sand.
And now here I am, holding the damn bread he gave me, dragging his bloody carcass through a back alley while being hunted by:
1. Three bounty hunters,
2. Thirty reasons to leave him behind, and
3. A squad of psychotic ducks.
Seriously. The ducks are still following me.
They know.
They remember.
But no. I can't let him die here. Not just because he's Frost. But because... I saw his eyes.
They looked like lukewarm water. Not cold, not hot. Just enough.
And anyone who looks at a stranger and gives them bread—without asking their name, their background, or their "usefulness"—is probably too rare to waste.
Still, this doesn't mean I'm not mad.
"Out of all the heroics you could've done," I mumble as I hoist him up and he groans like a dying buffalo, "why did you have to do the one that makes me carry your body like an unpaid intern?"
My arms are burning. My stomach is screaming. And the bread is still in my hand.
Did I mention the bread? Because I haven't eaten it yet.
Yup.
Still warm-ish.
Still whole.
Still mine.
I hear shouts behind me. Closer now.
"Check the alley—he was bleeding badly!"
"We want him breathing, not broken!"
Oh shut up, I think. You're only going to chain him anyway. And worse, sell the story like you're heroes. But who am I to judge? If I hadn't just seen him fall apart at my feet, maybe I'd be chasing the money too.
But now... I know. I've seen.
Frost isn't just a myth or a mask. He's just... a boy in rags. With ice in his veins and hope in his fists. Dumb enough to believe the Runes deserve better.
I glance at him. He's barely conscious, wheezing like the wind lost its rhythm. His ice mask is cracked. His cloak stained in shades of red I didn't know existed. I've never seen someone so... fragile. And so full of danger.
And that's when it hits me:
"I guess he's well-fed."
I sprint again. The ducks flap behind me like winged demons from a low-budget horror film. I'm holding one half-dead legend, one loaf of untouched bread, and the growing fear that I may have just stepped into someone else's story.
But that's the thing about fate.
Sometimes, you're not the hero.
You're just the girl with the bowl.