I scooped him up. His star-patch was dim, barely a flicker. "You crazy, stupid, brave little fluffball," I whispered, pressing him to my chest.

We crept forward. The "bad hum" grew stronger, a low thrum that vibrated in my ribcage. Everkyun started to make his warning sound: a soft "brrrrrrr" like a motor about to seize.

The air in the Whispering Woods had that sharp, electric taste that only came right before a total Myto Eclipse. Everkyun, my fluffy-eared, perpetually anxious hunting partner, tugged at the hem of my leather jerkin with a shivering paw. "Kyuuu," he whimpered, his large, opalescent eyes scanning the purple gloom of the overgrowth. "Bad hum. The sparkle-boars are hiding."

But it didn't see what happened next.

I knelt down, scratching the exact spot behind his left ear that made his back leg kick. "That's why we're here, buddy. No sparkle-boar tusks, no new engine for the Sky-Sled. And no Sky-Sled means no racing in the Lumina Falls Derby."

The Glimmer-Maw recoiled. Its obsidian skin crackled. The silver ribbons of stolen future snapped and retracted into the boar, which bolted, leaving behind one loose tusk on the forest floor.

"Kyun," he said, and this time it wasn't a whimper. It was a command. Stay back.

Everkyun puffed out his cheeks, a soft, bioluminescent glow emanating from the star-shaped patch on his forehead. He wasn't just a pet; he was a Kyun—a rare creature attuned to the emotional and magical resonance of the forest. When he said "bad hum," you listened.

Then I saw it. But it wasn't a sparkle-boar.

I grabbed the discarded sparkle-boar tusk, shoved the Glimmer-Maw pearl into my pouch, and carried Everkyun all the way home through the now-quiet woods. The Sky-Sled engine could wait. Right now, my hunting adventure had given me something better than a trophy.

And Everkyun slept for three days straight, dreaming of giant, biteable moons made of cheese.

But the Maw was furious. It lunged—not at Everkyun, but at me. It knew I was the anchor. Without me, the Kyun was just a lost creature.

We were deep in the Thornveil, a section of the woods where the trees grew bone-white and the moss glowed a sickly chartreuse. My crossbow, "Grudge-Holder," was loaded with a sleep bolt dipped in Dreamroot extract. I didn't want to kill a sparkle-boar; I just needed a tusk. They grew back, like antlers.