Chapter Text
In Noah’s eyes, everything stills for an eternal split-second before the world moves again.
Two brilliant blue and green lights melt into the evening dark and evaporate from sight. Amongst the bustling streets of Alcamoth, he stands in a daze, utterly confused. How had no one seen it but him? He was sure it was part of a light show, still unsure for a short moment before friends snapped him out of his absentminded staring.
Eunie, Lanz, and Joran call out for him. Noah sees the three of them together, and something in his heart warms and aches. He tells them he’ll join them, fireworks lighting the sky, not a moment sooner.
Then, Noah begins to hear the faint sounds of a flute that pulls his attention away from the festival and toward an archway leading down another street in Alcamoth.
The noise of the bustling festival tunes out, and only the flute remains; it doesn’t occur to him that only he can hear it. Noah vaguely recalls the sound that beckons him forth, a distinctly different tune from what Crys taught him, yet it resonates with him as if he’d forgotten something long ago.
The contradiction intrigues Noah, his chest growing as warm as the smile on his face as he passes by the fountain.
And in the blink of an eye, he vanishes.
Noah first notices the sun beaming past open doors and into the hallway, realising he stood inside a building.
Noah squints, caught off guard by the sudden sunlight and trying to piece together what happened. His confusion became forgotten, his attention transfixed on the sound echoing down the hallway.
Mesmerised by the sound that resonated with his heart, Noah marches forward as someone comes into view. Facing away from Noah on the balcony is a lone girl with long white hair and what he assumed was an instrument raised to her lips that played the melody that pulled Noah away from Alcamoth.
Noah takes a step into the light shining down on the balcony, and it’s the moment his admiration backfires on him as Noah trips on a loose shoelace, throwing out his hands to grab onto the tall glass doors. He catches himself successfully, but the weight of his body against the door makes it rattle, the girl flinching in shock.
“Who’s there…?!” the girl squeaks, turning back, a flute clutched in her hands. The girl’s golden eyes bore into Noah, forcing his eyes to flick up to a pair of… cat ears? Strange. He’d never seen that before. He looks down at the black flute the girl clutches tightly, one that looks just like the one his tutor, Crys, owns.
Something tugs at the back of his mind; Noah knows it’s different, somehow.
“I miss you,” he blurts out as if on instinct.
“H-Huh?” the girl squeaks, making Noah jolt. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh! I’m sorry. H-hello,” Noah stutters.
The girl takes a step back. “W-who are you?”
Right. Introductions. Noah holds out a hand, a respectful greeting, as taught by his caretaker. “I-I’m Noah. What’s your name?”
The girl’s guard lowers, her lips parting. “...Mio.”
Mio.
Noah runs the name through his mind repeatedly, the giddiness and warmth that flows through his entire being to put him on cloud nine— temporarily, at least. Mio shakes her head and steps back, planting herself against the guard rail.
“My Tad taught me stranger danger, you know.”
“Oh. My folks taught me that strangers are friends you haven’t met yet. And I’d like to be your friend.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Mio glowers at him, and Noah panics. “O-OK, we won’t be friends,” he concedes quickly and steps back.
He thinks of turning back, yet Noah can’t resist staring at her cat ears. Was there some land full of people with cat ears he’d never seen or heard before? Or perhaps this was all a dream. Surely it was, yet cat ears seemed somewhat out there to his young mind.
The girl notices quickly. “What? What is it?”
“That flute. Is that yours?”
Mio grasps it tighter. “Yeah. It is. I don’t remember where I got it, but it’s something I treasure. Now go away before I— huh?”
Deja vu hits Noah like a truck as he reaches for his side and pulls a white flute from a bag that awkwardly sticks out of his pocket. The girl gasps, eyes wide as saucers, giving away her recognition. “It’s the same for me, you know. I’ve always had this flute. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s precious to me, too.”
“But how? That looks like the one Miyabi uses!”
Miyabi. He knows that name.
“And yours looks like the one that belongs to my friend, Crys.”
And by the silence, Noah knows that Mio recognises Crys’s name. An awkward silence quickly blankets the balcony, Noah and Mio standing around, unsure of what to say; to fill the silence, Noah says the first thing that comes to mind.
“You have cat ears.”
Mio blinks at him, covering their ears with her hands as if self-consciousness took hold. “Yeah? So what?” Mio pouts.
“I-It’s just, I’ve never seen someone with cat ears before.”
The girl stares in disbelief. “How? We’re in Gormott.”
“Gor…mott? I’ve never heard of that, either. I was just in Alcamoth, and then I suddenly ended up here,” Noah explains, convinced he was dreaming.
She scrunches her nose. “Acla-what? You’re weird.”
Noah blinks, unsure of how to respond. “Uh… sorry?”
“Mio?” a voice echoes from the hallway where Noah emerges a figure stepping into the light.
“M-Mam! There’s some weirdo here!” the girl calls out behind him. Noah panics and looks back.
“W-wait, I’m not trying to be weird!” Noah sputters as a concerned woman in regal clothing befitting royalty rounds the corner with cat ears larger than the young girl.
“Mio?! Is there something… wrong?”
The woman stops and stares at Noah, and he freezes in place; Noah can’t tell if he’s in trouble or he’s going to be. Moments pass in silence before the woman says the last thing he expects to hear.
“Noah?” she says, almost in a whisper.
“You know him?”
“You know me?” Noah and Mio ask simultaneously, equally baffled.
“How are you here? You shouldn’t have… Oh, Melia’ll need to see this. Both of you, come with me,” she says urgently; her tone has shifted from fearful to grim.
“Mam, how do you know him?” Mio asks, looking at Noah suspiciously.
“It’s… a long story, my dear. Just know that Noah is not a weirdo, and everything will be alright,” Mio’s mother reassures her. The girl looks at him, then ahead, unconvinced.
Noah’s unsure how this woman knows who he is, but he’s seemingly not in trouble— yet— so he’s not complaining.
What does concern Noah was casually namedropping Melia. Who was this mysterious woman that knew the Queen on a first-name basis? Where on Bionis was he?
Questions plague his mind as Noah and Mio stop in a lavish bedroom.
“There. That’ll afford us some privacy,” Mio’s mother mumbles, manifesting a holographic screen from nowhere. It remains dark until Queen Melia appears on it.
“Queen Nia.”
“Queen Melia,” Mio’s mother, Nia, greets in turn.
Noah’s eyes widen, and his mouth drops in awe. Not only was Queen Melia herself on the other side of the screen, but the woman with the cat ears was also a Queen. He glances back at Mio, who stares back at him stoically.
Mio is a Princess, Noah realises.
“I wasn’t expecting correspondence so soon.”
Nia laughs awkwardly and scratches her cheek— far from the sort of behaviour Noah envisioned for a Queen. “Yes, well, it is an urgent matter.”
“What a coincidence. I, too, have urgent news I wish to discuss.”
“Very well then, allow me to keep this brief. Introduce yourself now, would you?” Queen Nia motions for Noah to step forward, and he obeys.
“U-Um, hello, Your Majesty. My name is Noah. It’s an honour to meet you,” he greets Melia, bowing awkwardly. He hears a small gasp that makes his gaze snap back up to the woman, whose lips part in shock before she quickly composes herself.
“Well, this is certainly a surprise.”
“Very. Given that our efforts have evidently succeeded, this should be impossible.”
Noah glances up at Queen Nia, confused, then at Melia. “Um… Your Majesty? Do you know who I am?” There’s something about Melia’s expression that Noah can’t quite decipher.
“You could say that, I suppose. You are… the one Crys is tutoring, yes?” Melia inquires with a slight pause. “I am friends with his father and visit on occasion. I have heard you two practising before.”
“Oh. Yeah, Crys teaches me,” Noah confirms, trying to process the fact that the Telethian Queen has undoubtedly heard his music at its worst, much less that he could’ve met her before today.
Nia clears her throat. “Frankly, I’m not sure what we can do. Origin should’ve completed the reboot without a hiccup, yet here we are.”
Melia’s expression shifts, and Noah can’t quite tell what she could be feeling. “What I wished to speak to you about pertains to this.”
“Oh? Now this I got to hear.”
“As you know, Origin’s directive has completed itself in its entirety, yet perhaps it has done more than what either of us thought possible,” Melia says as a small image appears in the corner of the holographic screen. “I received this from one of my most trusted maritime contacts mere minutes ago. I trust you know where this is, yes?”
Nia silently taps the hologram to enlarge the picture to reveal a distant shot of an unknown port.
“That’s one of Mor Ardain’s ports,” Mio says matter-of-factly.
“Moradin?” Noah incorrectly repeats aloud.
“Mor Ardain,” Mio corrects.
“Hold on a moment,” Nia interjects. “One of your maritime contacts sent this?”
“That is correct.”
Moments of eerie silence pass before Nia suddenly erupts with a sharp gasp. “W-wait. Mor Ardain?! Impossible! But Origin shouldn’t— how?!” Nia exclaims, almost comically tripping on her dress from sheer shock. Melia’s expression is uncertain, Mio is utterly embarrassed by her mother, and Noah’s confused, neither of the children realising the gravitas of the situation the adults understood.
Because in the blink of an eye, Noah and Mio’s worlds, their world, has changed forever.