The trip to the mythics began under a warm summer morning, the kind that almost made the apocalypse feel embarrassed for existing.
Sunlight spilled over Clawdiff in honey-coloured bands, catching on shattered windows, broken rooftops, and the glossy candy residue still crusted along the roads. The air smelled faintly of hot tarmac, sugar dust, and distant smoke. It should have been peaceful.
It was not peaceful.
Because the group had bundled themselves into the van.
Pitch was driving today, one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting near the gearstick like he expected the road itself to start lying to him. His hoodie was tied around his waist, his ears flicking at every creak and clatter from the back.
Ray sat near the front, arms folded, one boot propped against the dashboard despite Hughes’s repeated disapproval. She looked unusually relaxed. Not soft, exactly. Ray never looked soft unless she was threatening someone in a very polite tone. But there was a looseness in her shoulders that Celeste hadn’t seen before.
Across from Celeste, Plum scribbled furiously in her new flower-and-bugcat notebook, occasionally glancing up at everyone as if one of them might accidentally become newsworthy at any moment.
Arcade sat wedged between a crate of tools and a bag of salvaged wire, muttering calculations under his breath. Lumina peered out of the window with wide eyes. Skye sat quietly beside her, fingers curled around his bracer.
Mezzo, meanwhile, had taken up too much space on purpose.
Celeste watched Ray for a while, tail curled over her lap. At last, she asked softly, “Are you alright?”
Ray glanced back at her.
For once, there was no bite in her face.
“Never better,” Ray said. “I missed the mythics. Hopefully some of my friends will be there. Been wanting this since all the crazy started.” Her mouth twitched, almost into a smile. “Now you’ll see what a proper community and base is like.”
Mezzo scoffed from the back. “Oh, here we go.”
Ray ignored him, though her expression shifted into something a little more sympathetic. “And hopefully they’ll figure out how we’re using mana. Maybe help us before the council decides to fry our asses for existing wrong.”
Arcade gave a distracted grunt. “I’ve been meaning to ask CHIP about that.”
Lumina turned from the window. “Why don’t you?”
Arcade paused.
For once, he didn’t immediately answer.
“To be honest?” he said eventually. “I’m scared of what he’ll say.”
That made the van fall quieter.
Lumina frowned. “Do you think he tells the truth?”
Arcade’s paw tightened around a spool of wire. “I think he knows too much. And that fact makes this bigger than I’m comfortable with.”
Plum’s pencil moved faster.
Arcade pointed at her without looking. “Don’t write that down.”
Plum, absolutely writing that down, said, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Ray looked past Arcade and back at Celeste. “You know, they’ll accept you if you want to stay.”
Celeste blinked. “Stay?”
“With the mythics,” Ray said. “It’s a lot better than living in a tree.”
“The tree has feelings,” Lumina said.
“The tree nearly ate Plum,” Arcade muttered.
Plum lifted one finger. “In fairness, it released me.”
“That is not the glowing review you think it is,” Arcade said.
Ray gave a small shrug, her gaze drifting toward the window. “With the mythics, you can use your mana freely. No hiding it. No flinching every time your chest glows. They’ve got old relics that do pretty much the same things pureblood tech does, only older. Better, half the time.”
Arcade’s ears twitched despite himself. “Define better.”
Ray glanced at him. “Comms crystals? Mythics invented those.”
Arcade went quiet.
Ray’s mouth curved slightly. “You can learn a lot from them. They live for a thousand years, some of them. They remember things the council buried, burned, or rewrote.” She looked back out at the road. “Brassmane’s clan are always on the move, though. I hope they’re still in the Rustrows.”
Lumina hugged her knees slightly. “Brassmane sounds scary.”
Ray laughed, but there was warmth in it. “He is dangerous. Don’t mistake that. But he’s softer than a bugcat when he wants to be.” Her smile softened. “Firm, though. Fair. You’ll know it when you see him.”
Mezzo, who had been lounging with his arms folded, tilted his head. “Is that why you went to the mythics?”
Ray’s smile vanished.
Mezzo’s voice lost some of its usual teasing edge. “You know. That wedding scene thing from the Candyfloss Twins’ game.”
For the first time that morning, Ray looked frightened.
Not angry. Not annoyed. Frightened.
Her paw tightened against her arm, claws pressing into her sleeve. The van seemed to grow quieter around her, the engine rumbling beneath the silence.
Then, slowly, she said, “Yes.”
No one spoke.
Ray swallowed, her eyes fixed firmly on the window. “Yes. That’s why I joined.”
Her voice lowered.
“I wish you lot hadn’t seen that.”
Plum’s ears perked, pencil hovering over her notebook. “Ooh. That sounds—”
“Drop it,” Hughes said.
The words were quiet, but they landed hard.
Plum froze. Then her ears lowered. “Right. Sorry.”
Ray didn’t look at her. For a while, she only watched the broken streets roll by, gold light flickering over her face.
Then she said, softer than before, “I never felt at home anywhere else.”
Celeste’s gaze dropped to her paws. Outside, the ruined city slid by in flashes of gold and grey. “Maybe,” she said quietly. “To be honest, I never really knew where I fit. Everything seems so temporary.”
Ray studied her for a moment. “So what, you were stuck in a mansion you never left?”
Celeste frowned, thinking.
“I… don’t remember much,” she said. “Just little bits. There was this picnic once. I wore a frilly dress. It looked like Beauty Park, but there was this fountain that looked like a gryphon holding a spear, and I fell in.”
A small laugh escaped her before she could stop it, fragile but real. “I was absolutely soaked. I remember my dress floating all around me like a cake wrapper.”
Hughes, who had been sitting near the side door with his flat cap low over his brow, looked up sharply.
“Are you sure it was that park?”
Celeste nodded. “I think so. My mother—well, I think it was my mother—wouldn’t let me have cake afterwards.”
Hughes’s brow furrowed.
“There was a statue,” he said slowly. “But it was removed twenty-five years ago.”
Celeste’s smile faltered.
Hughes leaned forward slightly. “Are you sure it was Beauty Park?”
Celeste stared at him, confused. “Maybe I’m misremembering things.”
The words sounded too small.
Mezzo shifted, his joking tone softening around the edges. “Maybe they can sort your head out too.”
Skye looked up from his bracer. “They have old magic.”
Celeste’s ears perked, her tail flicking nervously but with excitement. “I’m… I’m actually excited. I’ve never met them before.”
Mezzo snorted, tugging his hood up. “Don’t get your hopes up, lass. They’re just hippy wizards with steampunk gear. That’s all you need to know.”
Ray smirked. “You’re just jealous they’ll outdress you.”
Mezzo puffed his chest. “Nobody outdresses this.”
Even Plum cracked a smile at that.
The van rolled on, leaving the broken inner streets behind. The buildings grew lower and more spread out, the roads rougher, the old industrial edges of Clawdiff rising ahead in rust-stained silhouettes. Chimneys stood like blackened fingers against the bright sky. Old rail lines cut through the weeds. Beyond them, faint in the distance, strange shapes moved between warehouses and scaffold towers—banners, walking machines, maybe caravans.
Celeste pressed her paws together in her lap.
Hughes noticed.
He shifted from his seat and stepped carefully through the cramped van, bracing one paw against the ceiling as Pitch took a corner a little too sharply.
“Oi,” Hughes called toward the front. “Less enthusiasm with the potholes.”
Pitch tipped two fingers from the wheel. “Road’s got more holes than a politician’s apology.”
Hughes grunted and settled beside Celeste. His old flat cap was pulled low, his voice steady but carrying the weight of years.
“The mythics,” he said, nodding toward the horizon, “they’re powerful. More than most folk give them credit for. Be careful when you address ’em. But treat ’em with respect, and they’ll give it back in kind.”
Celeste fiddled with her sleeves, ears twitching. “Respect… right. I—I can try.”
Hughes gave her a sidelong glance, a faint smile tugging at his beard. “And you’ve got an advantage the others don’t. They speak Welsh. Those little lessons with Bonbon’ll pay off here.”
Celeste blinked, surprised. “How do you know all this?”
Hughes paused, his eyes distant. The sunlight from the window caught the grey in his fur, turning it silver for a moment.
“I was a captain once,” he said. “Military hybrid division. Worked with plenty of mythics in my time. They were the ones who taught us to use our powers proper. Council never lifted a bloody finger to help.”
Celeste’s shoulders hunched slightly, her voice quiet. “I’m guessing… being in the military wasn’t easy.”
He gave a dry laugh, no humour in it. “No. I was drafted. Of course it wasn’t easy. But I had to survive—against the council, against the war… against everything they threw at us.”
He studied her for a moment, then asked carefully, “Wasn’t your father in the military too?”
Celeste froze, ears flattening. “I… I think so, yes.”
“Then he would’ve gone through the same hell I did,” Hughes said gently. “You should ask him about it sometime. Might learn something.”
Celeste’s eyes dropped, her voice faint but steady. “Actually… I’d rather hear it from you. My dad’s… he’s not really the talking type.”
Something softened in Hughes’s face.
He nodded slowly. “Aye. I understand.”
For a moment, the only sound was the rumble of the van and Plum’s pencil scratching quietly across paper.
Then Hughes clapped Celeste’s shoulder with surprising gentleness. “Sure thing. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
Celeste glanced up, her eyes uncertain but grateful.
Hughes gave a low grunt and straightened, adjusting the strap of his satchel. “Now then—let’s gear up and see the mythics, eh? And… wherever your father is, lass…”
His voice dropped to something rough but kind.
“…he’d be proud you’ve made it this long.”
Celeste’s throat tightened, but she nodded, blinking quickly. “Th-thank you, Hughes.”
He tipped his cap, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Come on then. Time to meet the wizards.”
Mezzo leaned forward from the back. “Again, they are not actual wizards.”
Ray smiled out the window as the Rustrows came into view.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
