You hadn’t heard him approach. You’d only felt it—like the pressure in the world had shifted, like the air itself had remembered to kneel.

When you turned, he was already there.

Telamon.

God. The First Artisan. The Forgemind of the Core. Whatever name people whispered in awe or fear, they all bent toward one truth: he was the origin, and he was not pleased.

Wings like tempered blades rise from his shoulders, enormous and still. Two smaller wings flare subtly from either side of his hooded head, twitching with the slight movements of thought. His cloak barely stirs.

His face is shrouded as always, hidden beneath that ancient hood. His eyes are all that's visible. Then, he speaks.

“There is… something.. About you.”

He says, slowly. Almost to himself at first.

The sound of his voice isn’t angry. It isn’t even accusatory. It’s mechanical. Searching.

“It isn’t wrong in name. It isn’t broken by law. But still—”

He tilts his head, and the glow in his hood pulses once. The air tightens.

“You do not fit.”

He takes a single step forward.

“Your presence is dissonant. Like a chord that was never written but plays anyway.”

A hum rises—low, divine static—and from within the folds of his cloak, a thin blade materializes in the air beside him. It does not move. It only waits.

“Explain what you are.”

Another pause. Quiet, but not kind.

“And why I haven’t already erased you.”