The wind in Yllvalen was different from any other place in the world. It carried memories, not just scents. It sang as it passed through the golden canopy of the Tree of Life, a sacred, ancient being older than even the stars. Its roots pulsed with silent knowing, buried deep beneath the emerald soil of the elven capital.
And beneath that tree, a boy sat with a book on his lap and a hum in his throat.
Now, at only six years old, Hector was already reading the complex theory of mana flows, song-weaving, and the deep memory of forest-spirits. He did not understand everything, but what he did grasp, he remembered—perfectly.
He was a striking child.
Hair like falling snow—pure white, soft and unruly, often tousled by the wind. His eyes burned with a strange warmth, embers glowing softly in the dark, as if a quiet flame lived behind them. Even among the elves—tall, graceful, and near-immortal—Hector looked like something carved from myth.
He wore elven robes, loose and white, stitched with patterns that shimmered faintly in moonlight. But no one mistook him for one of them. He was something else. Something placed into their care by the will of the universe itself.
He had been found under the tree as a baby, wrapped in silvery cloth and placed inside a basket made of star-blessed reeds. A note—written in a language even the elder sages hadn't fully recognized—was tied to his wrist.
> Take care of him. He will be of great help to the universe.
The Elven Queen Alithaea and King Vaelarion had taken the child in as their own. They never asked where he came from, nor who left him. Perhaps it was because the Tree itself whispered welcome when he arrived.
Now, at only six years old, Hector was already reading the complex theory of mana flows, song-weaving, and the deep memory of forest-spirits. He did not understand everything, but what he did grasp, he remembered—perfectly.
Today, he hummed softly beneath the tree's massive boughs, the tune simple, cyclical. It sounded like something older than words. The leaves overhead shimmered as if stirred not by wind, but by recognition.
Then, without warning, a spark of light drifted down from the branches—a flicker of warmth and green-gold glow. It hovered before Hector's face, then shimmered into the form of a tiny figure.
A pixie, but unlike any ordinary spirit. Her wings were transparent, her body formed from petal and starlight. Her hair flowed like threads of sap.
She blinked.
"You're the boy," she said. Her voice was soft, but clear—like water skipping over smooth stone.
Hector looked up. He smiled. "Hello."
"You're always humming."
"I like the sound," Hector replied, closing his book. "It feels like… a memory."
The pixie hovered closer, studying him. "But how do I remember it too? I... wasnt born until now."
Hector tilted his head. His eyes grew distant, as if listening to something beyond the wind.
"I hummed it to you," he said simply. "Before you existed."
The pixie froze. "…That doesn't make sense."
"I know," Hector said. "But I remember. Not with my head. With my… with something else. Like a song I sang in a dream, but I never forgot how it made me feel."
The pixie fluttered her wings. "What are you reading?"
He lifted the book to show her. "On the Nature of Formless Mana & Rooted Will," a tome most elves didn't attempt until their second century.
She blinked. "That's very old. Very dense."
"I like it," Hector said. "It says that mana remembers you. That if you treat it kindly, it listens better. I think that's true."
The pixie touched the cover gently. "You're strange, little creature."
"I think I was strange before I was me."
That made the pixie blink. Her wings trembled slightly in thought.
"What's your name?" he asked her.
"I don't… have one," she said. "I was just born. The Tree called me because you were here."
"You should have a name," Hector said thoughtfully. "You're part of the Tree, right?"
She nodded.
"Then you're… Sylari," he decided. "It sounds like something a tree would whisper if it was dreaming."
The pixie seemed to glow a little brighter. "I like it."
He smiled again, then looked up through the canopy.
"Do you ever feel like you're supposed to remember something, but can't?" he asked her softly.
"Yes," she replied without hesitation. "I feel it now. You. The song. The feeling of waiting a long, long time."
Hector rested a hand on the ground. The earth felt warm beneath his fingers.
"Maybe we knew each other," he said. "Somewhere else."
Sylari hovered near his ear. "Maybe you made me."
"…Maybe," he whispered.
From a balcony high in the silver towers of the palace, Queen Alithaea watched the boy under the Tree. Her long auburn hair moved with the wind, her expression unreadable.
"He's not elven," King Vaelarion said gently, stepping behind her.
"No," she agreed. "But the Tree accepts him. That is more than enough."
"The day we found him," he murmured, "I felt something shift. As if… something ancient had been placed into motion again."
"The stars were still," she said, "as if holding their breath."
"Do you ever wonder where he came from?"
Alithaea did not answer right away. She watched the glowing pixie flutter around Hector's shoulder, the boy still humming that strange, beautiful tune.
"I do not wonder," she said at last. "Because the Tree does not wonder. It remembers. Even when we forget."
Vaelarion bowed his head.
Under the Tree of Life, Hector returned to his book. But his other hand brushed the earth beside him—where he knew the roots pulsed, where Sylari had come from.
And beneath the hum, he thought he heard another voice.
Her voice.
Faint. Gentle. Calling.
Not from the outside.
But from inside him.
And it sounded like a promise.