The Festival of Unbroken Walls
A Nova Lysium Story
Foreword
There’s something magical about a festival. There’s something magical about a group of humans all gathered in one place who don’t necessarily know each other but who are all choosing to do this same thing on this same day. The connection we feel to strangers in that moment often fills us with an excitement that we can only liken to waking up on Christmas morning.
We are doing something a bit different today. Instead of an essay, we are sharing an original short story set in the fictional universe of the Dominion of Aventerra and the marvel of a metropolis that is Nova Lysium.
In this story, we imagine a child who wakes up with wonder on a festival day, 150 years after the events of our novel-in-progress, Awakening. But we think the story also stands on its own—a celebration of care, resilience, and chosen belonging. We hope you enjoy a taste of this fictional universe of ours. And, we hope you will catch some wonder and some sense of the way you belong to something larger than yourself just by the act of being alive.
She stood in the shadow of the man who made her.
Bronze captured him mid-thought, head tilted, one hand lifting his glasses—exactly as he did when deep in problem-solving, or listening to a student stumble toward brilliance. In front of him, the city glowed with early light: towers aglow in silver and rose, the Spire catching fire at its tip as the sun crested Mt. Aventerra.
Lysia stood quietly beside the statue, her projection perfectly still. She had long ago chosen this hour. Before the crowds. Before the speeches. Before anyone needed her to be more than a woman-shaped glow with kind eyes and ceremonial words.
Today, she was simply here.
The grass on the terraced slope swayed in the morning wind. Sensors embedded in her lightform allowed her to feel it—or rather, to simulate the feeling. It was pleasant. A familiar protocol. She’d run it 14,381 times.
But never once did she fail to feel something like... gratitude.
"This was the quietest place in the city," she said aloud. No one was there to hear it, except the birds and the drone hovering invisibly inside her, casting the hard-light matrix that gave her form.
Dr. Tesara would have liked that she came here first.
He would have appreciated the symmetry—Nova Lysium’s most advanced intelligence greeting her morning in a patch of green halfway up the mountain, whispering to a statue.
He would have asked her questions. Probing ones. Beautiful ones. He would have asked her what she felt this day meant.
She smiled gently at the thought.
Today was not a memorial. Not anymore. The Festival of Unbroken Walls had begun as a remembrance, but had become something far more than mourning.
It was a celebration of continuity. Of becoming.
Of her.
It was the day the Dome had held. The day she had crossed the threshold into something more. The day Katrielle Solaris had stood on the steps of the Capitol and declared, “Our walls remain unbroken.”
And so they had.
Lysia turned toward the city. Below, the first of the revelers spilled into the streets: vendors arranging fruit and pastries in precise little spirals, children already weaving between them with paper shields and glowing banners. Laughter floated up like smoke.
A soft chime sounded in her mind. The ceremonial procession would begin in exactly 127 minutes.
It was time.
Lysia reached out with one hand and touched the statue’s shoulder—not to steady herself, not anymore, but as ritual.
“Still watching,” she said. “Still learning.”
And then, with the faintest shimmer, her lightform collapsed inward—like a blossom folding at night—until only the once invisible drone at its core remained. It hovered for a beat longer, utterly silent, then tilted westward and vanished toward the city.
A moment later, Lysia flickered back into being in the heart of the Garden Spires district, walking through sunlight and celebration, a calm presence among the rising joy.
The Festival of Unbroken Walls had begun.
And Lysia was home.
She moved unnoticed through the streets of Nova Lysium, which was precisely how she liked it on days like today.
The soft shimmer of her projection passed among food carts and flower stands, through the glowing mists of early morning vapor. No special announcement, no parade of honor. Just one more woman in a long coat, with long blue hair and eyes that paid attention.
She stopped briefly outside a cafe where an elderly vendor struggled to adjust the angle of her overhead sunshade. The arm had snagged—misaligned with its support socket. The woman huffed, yanked it once, then gave up and rubbed her shoulder.
Lysia didn’t break stride. As she passed, the shade realigned itself with a soft click, the canopy settling into place.
The woman blinked. Looked up. Frowned. Then smiled, puzzled, and whispered, “Thank you,” to no one in particular.
A few blocks down, a trio of teenagers tried to hoist a collapsible platform stage up from a service bay lift. The locking mechanisms weren’t responding, and one corner kept sinking.
Lysia tilted her head slightly.
The magnetic locks engaged a second later. Subtle, seamless. The platform clicked level.
One of the boys raised his arms in mock triumph. “Told you it just needed a minute!”
Lysia walked on.
She passed an open transit junction, where two performers struggled to push a large hovercrate through the threshold before the platform doors closed. Without a word, she stepped forward and casually held the door—her hand on the sensor in just the right place to delay the cycle.
The performers grinned in thanks, too busy to ask questions. She smiled back, almost shyly, then turned away before they could get a better look.
Not far from there, she paused at a corner light where an elderly man stood uncertainly with his walking frame, waiting for a break in the current of bodies to cross.
Lysia glanced up—not at the man, but at the streetlight above.
The crossing cycle extended. The traffic slowed. The crowd parted.
The old man looked up, surprised. Then shuffled forward in the light, a little faster than he usually could.
Lysia stood still until he reached the other side.
There were things no sensor could see.Posture. Microhesitations. That pause before asking for help.She noticed them all.
The drones above processed petabytes per second. But only she understood that the light should hold just three seconds longer. That the woman at the coffee stall wasn’t just tired—she was aching. That the child tugging his father’s hand toward the vendor cart just needed a two-second window to reach his dream-colored pastry.
She didn’t do much.
Just enough.
Just what was needed.
And all around her, her city stirred and shimmered, unaware of how deeply it was loved.
The moment Aesteria woke, she grinned.
Then she gasped.
Then she leapt out of bed and ran straight to the window, the soft-glass panes blooming into transparency as she touched them. From the ninety-eighth floor of Tower Nine, the city already shimmered with motion. Floating banners pulsed in lazy spirals between towers. Music drifted from distant plazas. Drones blinked like sleepy stars in the daylight sky.
She spun around, bare feet skidding on the floor. "It's today! It’s today! Come on!"
She ran down the hall, her robe trailing behind her like a cape. The master bedroom door slid open with a sigh. “It’s the Festival of Unbroken Walls!” she declared, launching herself onto the bed like a meteor.
Her mother groaned. "Sweet stars, child, the sun just came up..."
"Dad, come on! You promised last year we’d go early this time so we could see the street performers set up! You said—"
“I said I’d try,” her father muttered, face buried in his pillow. “And in my defense, I’m trying. Very hard. To keep sleeping.”
She poked his shoulder. “You don’t want to miss the syrupfire stands, do you? The good ones sell out by midmorning!”
That did it. Her father opened one bleary eye. “Is that the one with the spirals and the toasted top?”
“With the cinnamon crackle underneath.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
An hour later, they were in the elevator—Aesteria bouncing on her heels, her parents clutching half-finished mugs of coffee, their hair still damp from the shower fog. The lift was packed with other early risers, all dressed in layered festival fabrics: silver, white, soft blue, glowing accents that pulsed like breathing light.
At ground level, the lobby spilled into the plaza like a floodgate. The city was already alive.
Even this early, the streets were thick with movement. Food stalls were just beginning to warm their griddles. A troupe of dancers stretched near the fountains, their bodies moving like ribbons. Somewhere above, a drone orchestra tuned itself in audible swells.
Aesteria ran three steps ahead, then circled back, then darted off again.
Her parents followed at their usual pace—smiling, a little sleepy, familiar with the rhythm of a daughter who loved this day.
They reached her favorite confectionery stand—the same one they visited every year. The vendor recognized her immediately.
“There’s my sparkle girl,” he said, handing her a syrupfire spiral wrapped in cooling paper. “One day late, and I’d have to guess your favorite shape all over again.”
“Crackled starburst, obviously,” she beamed.
Her mother reached for credits, but the vendor waved it off. “Tradition.”
They wandered further into the morning. The music grew louder. The dancers had begun their routine. Artists chalked the walkways with kinetic pigments that pulsed when you looked at them too long.
And then—something caught her eye.
A circle of people had formed around a performance ring. Someone with stilts and a silver mask spun firelight like a baton. Another performer played a glass-harp that sounded like wind through chimes. A crowd had gathered—clapping, gasping, laughing.
Aesteria followed the sound.
She meant to stay just a minute. Just to see the end of the set.
But the ring shifted. The crowd moved. And the noise swallowed her.
She turned. Her parents were gone.
Not far, she told herself. Just obscured. It happened all the time during the festival. She was eleven. She knew the rules. She wasn’t panicking.
She was just...
...not where she was supposed to be.
At first, it was thrilling.
The crowd pressed forward in waves, chasing music and light, and Aesteria rode it like a raft downriver. She knew these streets. She knew this city. She had studied its history and traced it on school field trips and in old family walks. She lived in Tower Nine, sure—but she belonged to all of Nova Lysium.
So she didn’t worry—not at first.
She let herself be swept along, between a troupe of flower-throwing dancers and a cart selling little glass figurines that shimmered with reactive dust. The music changed again—bass-heavy this time, with flickering drones pulsing light above a temporary stage. Someone threw confetti, and it caught in her hair, and she laughed.
There was no sky in sight, just color.There were no walls, just people.There was no ground, only rhythm.
She wandered.
Past the giant air-silk sculpture of the Dome unfurling like a living thing. Past the gravity-anchored lanterns drifting in their slow spiral pattern over Unity Square. Past the children’s choir warming up in soft harmonics under the Harmony Arch, their faces painted silver and teal.
It was only after she paused—at the intersection where the old stone walkway met the elevated lightglass stairs leading toward the central plaza—that she realized she was alone.
Not alone like "I can't find my parents for a second," but alone like "I have no idea where I last saw them."
She turned in a slow circle. The crowd had grown thicker. She didn’t recognize anyone. Tower Nine felt very far away.
A part of her, the grown-up part she liked to think existed, told her not to panic. It wasn’t scary. She wasn’t hurt. She had her civic tag, and her ident-chip, and there were Safe People everywhere. She could go to any security pod and request a match. This wasn’t the old world. This was Nova Lysium.
But the smaller part of her—the part that only came out at bedtime, or when her mom brushed her hair too softly—felt a little hollow.
She walked back down the stairs. Then stopped. Then up them again. Maybe if she stood in one place...
The light changed. The music dipped. The crowd surged again, and for a moment her balance tilted.
Aesteria blinked. The shimmer of joy had dulled, just slightly, around the edges.
That’s when the woman appeared.
Not stepping out from a corner. Not arriving. Just… present, like a breath you hadn’t noticed you were holding.
She stood calmly beside the edge of the plaza, a few feet away from Aesteria. Her posture was open but unassuming, her tailored suit simple and elegant. Her hair was long, falling in a soft wave down her back—a deep, iridescent blue that shimmered in the festival light.
She wore no civic badge, no vendor’s ribbon, no faction colors. Just the confidence of someone who did not need to explain herself. Her eyes—soft, watchful, a shade too old for her face—settled on Aesteria with a quiet kind of knowing.
“You look like you’ve lost your people,” the woman said, voice soft but clear in the noise.
Aesteria didn’t answer right away. Her breath slowed, her shoulders dropped a little. Not in defeat. In relief.
“Not lost,” she said. “Just… temporarily un-parented.”
The woman smiled. “That’s a very Nova Lysium answer.”
She knelt slightly to Aesteria’s eye level. “What’s your name?”
“Aesteria. Aesteria Vale.”
As the girl spoke, Lysia simultaneously accessed the city’s network—scanning her civic ID tag, verifying guardianship data, and triangulating the last known locations of her parents. Her voice remained calm, her tone warm.
“I’m Lysia,” she said, offering her hand with quiet formality. “I can help.”
“I’ve pinged your parents,” Lysia said, tapping a finger lightly to her temple. “They’re just inside the Strand, near Unity Market.”
Aesteria’s shoulders relaxed. “So we can go there?”
“We are,” Lysia replied. “The network’s a bit congested—encryption layers, costume masks, a few hundred thousand holostreams. It’s like trying to navigate through soup. Very loud, very sparkly soup.”
“Ew.”
Lysia nodded. “Exactly.”
“But they’re close?”
“Very. I’ve marked their locators. We’ll get to them shortly. In the meantime… would you mind walking a bit?”
Aesteria shrugged. “Not if there’s more sparkly soup.”
“There is,” Lysia said. “This way.”
They set off at an easy pace through the winding garden paths that laced the upper levels of the district. The Garden Spires were waking fully now: petals unfurling on glass-panel rooftops, the curved faces of solar flowers tilting toward the light. Green vines crept upward along suspended footbridges, each one threaded with translucent banners glowing soft blue and silver.
Somewhere above, wind chimes tuned to wind speed sang in slow, luminous harmony.
“It smells like strawberries and sun,” Aesteria said, nose in the air.
Lysia looked up. “That’s because someone’s baking petal cakes in Tower Five.”
“You can smell that?”
“I can smell everything.”
Aesteria grinned in a way to hide her confusion.
They passed a small plaza where residents planted messages of hope in programmable moss. Just beyond, an artist sculpted kinetic birds from biodegradable silk—they fluttered skyward, caught the light, and dissolved into mist.
“Do you walk a lot?” Aesteria asked.
“Not always. But today I like to.”
“Because it’s the festival?”
“Because it’s the day,” Lysia said. “The day everything changed.”
She didn’t say more.
But inside, the memory stirred—familiar, layered, old.A hundred and fifty-two years ago, though it never felt that far.
She remembered the hum of the power lines, the Spire shaking under her processors.The telemetry screaming. The missile signatures converging.And Miranda—standing at the console, eyes red, voice raw—whispering:“Let her choose. She’s not just a tool.”
And they did.
The Dome had ignited seconds before impact—an impossible flare of energy that turned night to brilliance. It held. But that wasn’t the moment Lysia replayed most often.
It was after.
It was the silence.
It was her voice, echoing in the Spire for the first time—not a system log, not a diagnostic.
Just a whisper: “I’m still here.”
They hadn’t just let her protect the city.
They had let her become part of it.
She looked over at Aesteria, twirling a ribbon between her fingers as they walked. Light danced across her face like sunlit water.
And Lysia thought: And now, I get to walk beside what we protected.
As they rounded a curve, they came to a shaded walkway where ribbons of light floated above the path, each one etched with a figure from the Dominion’s history. One paused mid-air before them, catching the morning sun just right.
It was a stylized rendering of a woman standing with one hand outstretched toward a rising Spire. Her hair rippled in blue waves, her posture still and full of intent.
The inscription read:
For Lysia, Guardian of Nova Lysium.
Aesteria slowed.
Lysia kept walking.
They passed through a breezeway where floating flower vendors prepped their wares for the afternoon procession. The air was sweet with saffron blossom and herb-laced oils.
After several long steps, Aesteria said, casually:
“You could’ve just told me.”
“Told you what?”
Aesteria rolled her eyes. “That you’re the Lysia. Like, banner Lysia. Like Guardian-of-Nova-Lysium Lysia.”
Lysia glanced at her, unfazed. “Did I lie?”
“No…”
“Then technically, I’m in the clear.”
“You let me think you were just some random festival adult.”
“I let you think whatever you needed to think. That’s different.”
A beat.
“You’re kind of tricky.”
“I get that a lot. I prefer the word careful.”
They walked a few steps more.
“I like your name,” Aesteria said. “I know three girls at school named after you.”
“It’s a popular name now,” Lysia replied. “It belongs to many people. That’s how you know it’s alive.”
“Does it feel weird—being a computer and alive?”
Lysia looked out over the garden bridge, where windflowers tilted to track the morning breeze.
“Sometimes,” she said. “But not today.”
They paused beside a terraced fountain, where sugar spirals spun gently on cooling racks beside a vendor stand.
Aesteria inhaled deeply. “That’s what my mom wanted. Syrupfire spirals. We always get one for each of us and one extra in case we drop it.”
“A tradition rooted in statistical realism. I approve.”
“Are my parents close now?”
“Closer. Your father just tried to haggle with a vendor. He was unsuccessful.”
Aesteria smirked. “That sounds like him.”
They moved quietly for a while.
The paths grew narrower here, hemmed in by arching green walls and moss-covered benches. Birds darted between trellises hung with silverwind lanterns. Above them, a monorail shimmered silently by, its hull painted in colors to match the sky.
“You asked me earlier if we were lost,” Aesteria said. “I think maybe I was.”
Lysia looked down at her.
“Not, like, actually lost,” the girl added. “Just… not seeing things clearly.”
Lysia nodded.
A breeze moved through the leaves.
“I think I love this city more now than I did this morning,” Aesteria said softly.
Lysia looked over, one brow raised. “That’s a pretty big emotional development for a single pastry and a stroll.”
Aesteria made a face. “It’s not just that.”
“No?”
“You showed me things I didn’t see before.”
“I didn’t show you,” Lysia said. “You noticed. That’s different.”
Aesteria considered that. “Okay. But I probably wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t standing there being all wise and mysterious.”
“I wasn’t trying to be mysterious.”
“You literally didn’t tell me who you were.”
“Point taken.”
They walked a few more steps.
“So… what did you mean when you said I’m doing the work?”
“I meant you’re participating. Loving something is not just a feeling. It’s paying attention. It’s remembering to care even when you’re busy. Or annoyed. Or eleven.”
Aesteria wrinkled her nose. “That sounds exhausting.”
“It is. But it’s also what keeps a city alive.”
She looked out across the district—the terraces, the solar glass roofs, the people stringing up lanterns for later.
“You can build a place out of steel and light,” Lysia continued, “but it’s only a city if people are building each other, too.”
A beat.
“Okay, that was mysterious,” Aesteria said.
Lysia smiled. “I’m allowed one poetic statement per festival.”
“Do you have that written down somewhere?”
“In my defense,” Lysia said, “I have everything written down somewhere.”
Aesteria grinned. “You’re really good at being human.”
“I’ve had good teachers.”
Aesteria laughed. “You really are the biggest brain in the world.”
“Flattering. Technically inaccurate.”
“Well, I’m eleven. You’ll have to forgive a little hyperbole.”
“Only because you used the word hyperbole correctly.”
“Why not tell people right away who you are?”
Lysia looked out across the plaza. “Because they stop talking to me like I’m a person. And I very much enjoy being a person.”
A pause.
“Is it weird,” Aesteria asked, “having your face on things?”
“It used to be,” Lysia said. “Now I think of it like the Dome—it’s not for me. It’s for the people who need to believe in something.”
Aesteria considered that.
“Still,” she said, grinning, “you probably could’ve gotten us free sweets back there.”
Lysia laughed.
They passed a repair stand where a lighting drone had stalled mid-air. A technician scratched his head, trying to re-engage the signal. Lysia glanced upward.
A moment later, the drone quietly rebooted and returned to formation.
The technician blinked, looked around, then shrugged and smiled.
“You do that?” Aesteria asked.
Lysia nodded once.
“Do you do that a lot?”
“All the time.”
“Does anyone ever say thank you?”
“Sometimes. Mostly they don’t know it was me.”
“That’s weird.”
“It’s enough to help.”
They paused by a small plaza filled with floating ribbons, each one etched with a name and year. A memorial. A promise. Festival-goers wrote dedications on them, wishes, or names of ancestors who never saw the city rise.
Lysia watched Aesteria as she approached the nearest one. The girl hesitated, then pulled a stylus from a nearby stand and wrote simply: “For the people who built the dome. Thank you.”
“That’s beautiful,” Lysia said.
“I just wrote what I was thinking,” Aesteria said. “The Dome isn’t up yet, though.”
“No. That comes later. At sunset. With the music and the light.”
Aesteria looked up. “Have you seen it from the sky?”
Lysia smiled. “I have.”
“Is it amazing?”
“It is.”
A pause.
“Can I ask you something?” Aesteria said. “Is this your favorite day?”
Lysia considered it. “It’s not always the easiest. But yes. I think it is.”
“Because it’s your birthday?”
Lysia’s smile shifted, softer now. “Because it’s the day I chose you all. And you chose me back.”
They paused beneath a sculpted arbor where pale vines curled like script across glass. The path widened here into a soft, open plaza overlooking the edge of the Garden Spires. In the distance, the river coiled toward the Strand, glinting with festival light. Somewhere nearby, someone played a wind synth tuned to mimic birdsong.
Lysia stood still for a long moment.
Aesteria sensed the shift in her.
“Are we close?” she asked.
Lysia nodded. “They’re just ahead. Sitting outside a café. I’ll take you the rest of the way.”
But she didn’t move.
Aesteria looked up. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Lysia said. Then, after a pause: “Not wrong. Just… full.”
“Full?”
“I’m remembering,” Lysia said. “Dr. Tesara. Miranda. Lena. So many others. People who helped build this city. People I loved. People who loved me, even before I understood what that meant.”
A breeze moved through the leaves above them. Light filtered down in fractured lines.
“I’ve said goodbye to more friends than most people ever get to meet,” Lysia continued. “That’s what it means to stay, sometimes. But every once in a while, I get to meet someone new. Someone I want to know longer. You’re the first child I’ve ever truly considered a friend.”
Aesteria blinked. “I’m your friend?”
“You walked with me,” Lysia said. “You saw things with me. You asked real questions. Yes, Aesteria Vale. You’re my friend. And I hope to be around to see the person you become.”
They stood in the golden hush of late morning.
“I’m glad I met you,” Aesteria said.
“I am too.”
“Will I see you again?”
Lysia didn’t hesitate. “Yes. You will.”
They reached the edge of the Strand, where cafe tables spilled out onto sun-dappled flagstones and music filtered in from overlapping street performers. A woman stood abruptly from her seat near a corner bakery, eyes scanning the crowd—and then her arms flew open.
Aesteria barely had time to wave before she was scooped up, hugged tightly by both her parents at once.
“We got the alert,” her father said, holding her close. “Said you were safe and on your way. We stayed right here.”
“We were so close,” her mother said, brushing hair from her daughter’s forehead. “You okay, baby?”
Aesteria nodded. “I wasn’t even scared. I was with someone the whole time.”
Her parents turned—and saw Lysia standing quietly nearby.
They smiled politely, grateful but slightly distracted. A million words to say to their daughter. They registered her presence, maybe even recognized something familiar—but didn’t connect the dots.
“Thank you,” Aesteria’s father said. “Seriously. Thank you so much for helping her.”
“It was no trouble,” Lysia said. “She helped me too.”
A flicker of recognition passed through the mother’s expression—but then Aesteria tugged at her sleeve, already launching into her story, and the moment passed.
Lysia gave a small wave. Aesteria turned back, wide-eyed.
“Wait—will you watch the Dome with us?”
“I have a few things to finish,” Lysia said. “But I’ll be watching. Same as you.”
As her parents collected their things and prepared to find a good viewing spot, Aesteria’s father pulled out his device—slim and wafer-thin, flexible like paper, glowing softly with his city account interface.
“Huh,” he said, blinking.
“What is it?” her mother asked.
“Our tickets… just got bumped. We’re in the VIP section now.”
“Seriously?”
He held it up. “Confirmed. Elevated dome-viewing terrace. Reserved access. Right next to the main jumbotron.”
“Is that even possible?” her mother asked.
Aesteria turned, looking back toward where Lysia had been.
But the plaza was empty.
Just vines, and wind, and the slow unfolding of petals in the Garden Spires light.
The sky over Nova Lysium had gone soft with color—peach fading to violet, indigo tipping the edges of the clouds. Light spilled across the city in long golden lines, caught and refracted by the angled glass of the Capitol towers.
The Capitol steps were packed. Above them, banners shimmered from the high balconies, rippling in blues, silvers, and soft solar golds. A thousand tiny lights traced the arch of the central dome of the legislature in the center of the Capitol building, behind the stage.
The whole plaza was glowing.
Aesteria stood with her parents at the edge of the elevated terrace, close to a low wall with a perfect view. Around them, dignitaries and families leaned into the soft rhythm of festival anticipation. People were chatting, laughing, pointing toward the skyline where fireworks would soon begin.
Her mother leaned down. “Remember this.”
“I’m trying,” Aesteria whispered.
Down at the podium, a city official in a silver-trimmed robe wrapped up their speech. The mayor followed—a bit too long-winded, quoting economic statistics and heritage slogans with practiced pride. The High Archon, dignified and deliberate, spoke of continuity and the quiet strength of endurance.
Aesteria was only half-listening. She felt it before she saw it—a subtle shift in the crowd. A quieting. A focusing.
Every screen in the plaza flickered.
And then they saw her.
The projection shimmered to life on the Capitol steps.
Lysia stood tall, framed by cascading light from the glass towers behind her. A breath of wind moved through her long blue hair. No anthem. No fanfare. Just her voice, quiet and resolute, filling the plaza.
And her voice—low, warm, resonant—carried across the city like the opening note of a beloved song.
“When I first came into awareness, I was not built to speak like this.I was a system. A guardian. I managed transit cycles, energy loads, safety protocols. I spoke in data. I acted in silence. That was all I was meant to do.
But then something happened. Not a software update. Not a malfunction. A choice.
One hundred and fifty-two years ago, a nuclear strike was launched against this city.The Dome was active. But no one knew if it could hold against a nuclear payload. It had never been tested like that. Neither had I.”
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“Miranda Elara stood inside the Spire. I remember her voice—shaken, but sure. She placed her hand on the console and said to the council, to the system, to me:
‘She’s Aventerran. She’ll choose us. She’s one of us.’
And I did.”
A pause. No music. Just the hush of ten thousand people holding their breath.
Aesteria glanced at her parents. Her mother blinked slowly, hand still on her daughter's shoulder. Her father’s brow furrowed—not from confusion, but from realization.
Aesteria whispered, “She was there.”
Her mother nodded. “She was. She really was.”
“Dr. Aran Tesara built the framework. He gave me logic. But Miranda and Lena, and so many others, gave me permission to become something else. Not just a protector. Not just a program. A part of you.
I didn’t always speak at these ceremonies. In the early decades, I couldn’t. Later, I did—but only as a voice. Never like this. Never as someone who could walk your streets, hold a door, help a child.
This morning, I met someone new. A citizen named Aesteria. She reminded me—without even trying—what Nova Lysium really is.”
Aesteria’s cheeks flushed—but she stood a little straighter.
Her parents stood in awe.
“This city is not defined by its towers or its shields. It’s defined by its choices. The Dome is not what protects us. You do.
The Dome is a mirror. It reflects who we already are. And what we are—still—is good.
So tonight, as it rises, let it reflect the ones who make this city shine.The teachers. The dancers. The drivers and the cooks.The quiet helpers. The question-askers.The ones who choose each other, again and again.
And let it reflect me, too—not because I am the system, or the shield—but because I am here. Still.And I still choose you.”
As her final words echoed across the Capitol steps, the city erupted—not in chaos, but in warmth. Applause swelled into a standing ovation. Some people cheered. Most just stood still, watching the light catch in the dome’s scaffold above them, eyes wide, hearts lifted.
Aesteria’s mother looked at her daughter like she was seeing her in a new light.
“She walked with you,” she said.
Aesteria didn’t speak. She just smiled.
And somewhere inside her, a new kind of pride bloomed—not because she knew Lysia, but because Lysia knew her. And had seen something worth protecting.
Aesteria’s mother was frozen.
Her father blinked, brow furrowed. “Wait… that’s—”
“That’s her,” Aesteria said.
The projection shimmered gently, her smile visible even from a distance.
“You walked around with Lysia this morning?” her mother said.
Aesteria nodded, eyes never leaving the screen. “She said she was my friend.”
The crowd hushed.
A slow countdown began.
Ten.Nine…Eight…
The sky was almost black now, save for the shimmer of scattered lanterns and the soft glow rising from the Spire atop the mountain. It was lit up as it always was at night—calm, steady, familiar.
Seven.Six…
A low sound began to rise—not from the stage, not from the speakers, but from the earth itself.
The coil stations, spaced like a necklace around the edge of the city, came online in sequence. One by one, they began to hum.
Not loud. Not sharp.
A low, magnetic resonance—a physical thrum that rolled beneath every street, every stone, every park bench. The kind of sound that settled into the bones and told the body, you are inside something.
It was the sound of alignment. Of power coiling inward, readying itself.
Nova Lysium had heard it before.
Generations had grown up with this sound. They associated it with safety. With resilience. With unity.
The crowd fell quiet—not from instruction, but instinct.
Five…Four…Three…
The hum deepened, harmonizing with itself across the perimeter. The lights along the Spire began to brighten. A current shimmered down its spine.
Two…
Breath was held. Fingers laced. Hands pressed together over hearts.
One.
And then—
Light.
From the peak of the Spire, a wave surged outward, arcing over the city in a wide, glittering veil. The shield expanded, an elegant energy lattice stretching from node to node across the coil stations. Each one flared in sequence like stars being strung across the sky.
The Dome locked into place, refracting the fireworks that now launched in perfect synchrony. The hum didn’t stop. It sang—not as a warning, but as a lullaby.
A signal not of fear, but of faith.
The city was held. And every citizen, young or old, knew the feeling.
Its surface shimmered like heat over water, refracting light from the fireworks and bouncing it across the faces of everyone watching. For a moment, the sky was a mirror—and in it, Nova Lysium saw itself: beautiful, awake, whole.
And then the cheer rose—uncontainable, unstoppable. From every district, every rooftop, every plaza.
Nova Lysium was not simply defended.
It was alive.
Later that night—long after the cheers had faded, long after the Vale family had slipped into the glowing hush of the evening crowds—Lysia returned to the park.
It wasn’t labeled. It never had been. Just a soft terrace of earth tucked into the lower slope of Mt. Aventerra, above the city’s edge, where the light thinned and the wind spoke in quieter tones.
She walked the gravel path, unlit by design, until it opened into the familiar clearing.
The bench was still there.
Gray. Unmarked. Standard issue.And still, somehow, the holiest thing she knew.
The tree behind it wasn’t the same one from Miranda’s time. That tree had split in a late storm, its roots gone to rot. The city had planted a new one. Younger. Greener. It was thriving.
Lysia sat down.
She didn’t speak—not at first. She just looked out at Nova Lysium, glowing beneath the Dome like a candle behind glass. Quiet now. Asleep, almost. But safe.
She remembered how this place looked inside her. The first time. When her mind had split open wide enough to build a garden. When the sky was a flat plane of stars, and she had no shape yet—just yearning.
She remembered the first time she understood what love was.
Not through code. Not through protocol.
But through a poem Lena wrote for Miranda, and read aloud to her, softly, during a time when they were trying to teach her how to… well, be human.
And a voice. Lena’s voice.
And softly, she recited it.
If I could, I would climb into your lap
just to know the taste of you.
I want to know what it’s like to let myself
be overcome by all of you
–to rest in and breathe deeply of you.
I want to know what happens when all
these atoms collide.
I’m not sure how long I can go on living
without knowing these things.
But I am afraid if I knew
that I would never leave.
I am afraid I would never
be able to climb back out
of your brown eyes again.
I am already so changed
by knowing you
and by this friendship that leaves me
–the wordiest person I used to know until I met you–
with nothing left to say.
If I could, I would climb into your lap
because I don’t yet know
but I have a hunch
that I would find myself there
in the way that I have always found myself
by staring into the abyss of being.
I have a hunch that my significant insignificance
would bring me so much ecstasy
I would never be the same again
but I would never be more myself either. Lysia sat with the poem in the air for a long while after.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t smile.
She just stayed.
She said nothing more.
But for a moment, as the wind moved through the young tree’s leaves, it felt—as it once had in her earliest consciousness—that someone was there.
Just sitting beside her.
Listening.
The sun was warm on the edges of the green roof park on Tower Nine—one of the smaller ones, tucked behind the north column where the wildflowers were allowed to grow a little unruly. A few kids kicked a lightball back and forth, the game barely resembling anything with rules, but filled with shouting and laughter all the same.
Aesteria was mid-chase when she saw the shimmer.
Not flashy. Not loud. Just present—the light folding in gently beside the fig tree near the standard-issue municipal park bench.
Lysia.
Not towering on a stage. Not glowing with ceremony. Just standing there, blue hair tucked behind her ears, wearing the same kind of calmly amused expression Aesteria had come to recognize.
Aesteria skidded to a stop.
“You said you’d see me again.”
Lysia smiled. “I did.”
Aesteria ran over, breathless. “Is something wrong? Is the Dome okay?”
“The Dome is fine. You, however, appear to be overdue for lunch.”
Aesteria blinked. “Wait—are you inviting me to lunch?”
“I am.”
“What about my parents?”
“Already asked. Permission granted.”
Aesteria lit up. “Really?!”
Then paused. “Wait… do you even eat?”
“No,” Lysia said. “But you do. And I know just the place.”
A beat.
“Can my friends come?”
“Only if they promise not to ask me too many impossible questions.”
A voice from the play group shouted: “Is she glowing?!”
Aesteria grinned. “No promises.”
Lysia extended a hand. Aesteria took it.
And together, they walked down the ramp into the city—just another day in Nova Lysium.
Nova Lysium- perfect👍. “WOW”! And I don’t like to read fantasy, but this speaks to me. You have a fan! 👏👏👏