Autumn had settled heavily over Mythris that night the warmth of the day disappearing with the sun, leaving the forest cool and damp beneath a mostly clear sky. A thin mist gathered between the trees, curling low across fallen leaves while the occasional breeze stirred the canopy overhead.

Eidola had not intended to wander far, sleep had simply refused to find her, and eventually the quiet of the night had seemed preferable to lying awake. She moved without any particular destination, following familiar paths until something strange flickered at the edge of her vision.

A tiny blue white light hovered between the trees made Eidola stop. At first she thought it was moonlight catching upon something wet, but then the light moved. Delicate wings opened and closed around a body no larger than an ordinary butterfly, its glow bright enough to illuminate the leaves beneath it.

Her ears slowly folded backward as she had seen it before. Not here, but somewhere buried within dreams and visions she had never been able to fully understand. The same delicate wings, the same ethereal glow. Eidola had always thought of them as spirit butterflies, little fragments of whatever strange place her visions came from.

Except those belonged inside her head. You're not real... the butterfly continued to hover before another light appeared behind it. And another.

Eidola's breath caught as pale glimmers slowly emerged throughout the mist until what she had mistaken for distant moonlight became dozens of tiny glowing wings scattered between the trees.