Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game

Time passed strangely in the memory.

Miles stood in the silence of it, an echo that was more than sight and sound. It was feeling, vibration, intention. He watched the boy and the girl, still so young, and yet so changed, walk side by side out of the temple.

The sword rested in the boy’s hands, wrapped in cloth, and the crown shimmered faintly atop the girl’s head, like a thing half-real, dreamt more than forged.

The forest parted for them, not with reverence, but with a kind of watchful tension, as though the world held its breath.

Neither child spoke much on the way back. They didn’t need to, they walked slowly, steadily, the rhythm of their footsteps in sync. Miles followed, unnoticed by the memory, but drawn to the boy in particular. There was something in the way the kid carried himself now, like he’d grown into the edges of something vast.

But he still smiled, from time to time, when the girl made a joke or when a strange bird flew overhead.

The boy had silver eyes now. Not glowing, not marked by power, but filled with a reflective depth. It was the eyes that nagged at Miles. They were familiar to an extent that bordered nostalgia.

The journey ended at a high citadel, its towers spiraling like storybook castles, its gates wide open with waiting guards and watching nobles. And there, atop the stairs, stood a woman draped in emerald robes and a circlet of thorns, the kingdom’s regent.

The moment her eyes saw the crown on the girl’s brow, her expression changed. She descended in smooth, perfect steps, a smile blooming that did not touch her eyes.

"You return with odd trinkets from a playtime in the woods, princes..." She said, with arms extended, but there was a glint of suspicion laced with something else in her eyes. "Maybe you can explain where you got these, after you dispose of this... Hatter-boy."

The girl hesitated, and the boy lowered his gaze.