There was once a mortal named Moliones. He was nicknamed ‘Moliones the Unbidden Shield’, because he was known for guarding the realm of Theros for ninety-nine seasons. It wasn’t like he was asked or told to do this. The gods had left it behind for a reason. Theros was two things. One still lives. One, it was once the bridge between gods and mortals. Every single prayer that has ever been spoken was carried there first, following its separate path towards the home of each deity. But when the gods grew tired of mortal pleas, they severed the bridge. The gods called it noise, but Moliones called it hope. Two, Theros held magic that was unwritten. Magic that predated language that was wild, raw, and untamable. That was among the few things that the gods feared. This magic couldn’t be controlled or catalogued to the point where the gods simply abandoned it, with the hope or the idea that it would vanish, but instead, it waited. The magic of Theros did not ask for worship. It asked for will. This still lives. Magic cannot be erased—only ignored. And as long as one eye beholds it, it cannot fade. It resists oblivion. Ironically, during the ninety-ninth season, something dreadful happened. She came. Moliones was doing his non-asked duty until he heard a shattering like the sky had cracked open, echoing through the bones of the realm. He approached the event and watched the empty space, cracked, like an egg was trying to hatch open or someone was trying to come out of the mirror. He saw her gradually step out of the shattered space from the veil between realms, where reality thinned like glass, not with thunder nor with flame. But with the only sounds of something huge trying to break apart above him, echoing, but it was happening in front of him at a fair distance. She walked the broken bridge barefoot, her steps unmaking dust. Moliones stood from his ground, shield in hand, and knew her not by face, but by feeling. This was his first time seeing her. She was not a god. She was not mortal. She was what the gods feared more than magic itself: A will unbound by worship. They called her The Lady in Red.

Why? Because no one remembered her true name. This isn’t her actual form either. There was a famous saying that Moliones remembered so well. **

“She walked through the ruins with bare feet, and where she stepped, the earth forgot its name.”

He always thought she was a myth. Quite an underrated one, but still. He studied her as she approached him, slowly. Her skin looked like it was cracked like an ancient cracked vase, but veined with red light. She has no eyes. Her limbs were too long, her fingers tapered into threads that could simply slice through stone. She wore a gown made of stitched-together offerings from ruined or abandoned temples. And yet, her long dark hair flew behind her back from every step, from every speck of wind naturally passing by. But no matter what, Moliones stood his ground. Matter of fact, he decided to approach her. The Lady in Red halted. As for the man, he couldn’t tell if she was looking down at him or behind his shoulder. It was quiet for a moment until Moliones spoke up.

“What brings you here, ma’am?” he asked her. He spoke to her naturally. As if there was nothing off with her and she comes in daily.

“Do you not know who I am?” she said. Her voice was filled with multiple women’s voices that filled the realm.

Moliones held his shield firmly. “I’ve heard a bit about you. Is that enough?”

“No.”

“No?”

The Lady in Red narrowed her empty sockets. “You are a mortal, guarding what the gods have deemed worthless. And yet you stand, protecting what is left for the vultures.”

“It may be futile to the gods. But it is not to me,” he planted his shield into the ground. “And that is enough.”

The Lady in Red paused. The wind blew her gown slightly against the broken bridge. “You were not sent here,” she said. “You came here of your own accord.”

Moliones nodded once. “This realm mattered. So I came.”

She tilted her head again, slower this time. “You mortals are strange. You guard what no one asked you to protect. You stand where even gods turned away.”

“Then let them turn,” Moliones said. “I’m not here for them.”

A mortal going against someone who was obviously powerful than him told a lot to The Lady in Red. She usually viewed mortals as nothing since they are usually no threat. But this one caught her interest. For some reason, even though she could kill him right on this spot, she hesitated.

“You are not what I expected,” she said as her voice (still layered with echoes) seemed to slightly break character. “You carry the same defiance I once did. Before I became this.”

Moliones didn’t respond. He respected silently by listening.

“But I am not here to admire,” she continued. “I am here to consume.”

She raised one hand. Those threadlike fingers gloomed with ruin as the air around her began to fracture. The bridge groaned beneath her feet as her impact slowly conquered the realm.

“This realm is a wound. And I am the closing.”

Moliones knew his limitations. There was nothing he could do. He was overwhelmed. But the realm of Theros did not care. It did not seek strength; it sought witness. Moliones, who was now broken, was still watching everything unfold. However, this realm remembers everything. It remembered the prayers that once passed through. It remembered its purpose that it once served. It remembered Moliones. As the bridge cracked and the sky folded inward, Theros did what no other realm had done before. It fled. Not outward, but inward, into the only soul that had ever truly listened. It was so powerful that Moliones fell to his knees as the ground beneath him crumbled once, then vanished. The untamed magic rushed into him with no hesitation. What was left of the realm of Theros was now within him as a whole.

He didn’t rise immediately. He was listening carefully to the silence after Theros’ collapse. It wasn’t peace, but recalibration. The unwritten magic that was part of the realm had not yet settled in him. It felt like his body wasn’t his own anymore—more like part of someone’s story. He knew whatever had happened, it had changed him forever. He was more than just a man. He was a vessel. A witness. A keeper of a realm that had chosen him not for strength, but for resolute attention.

He knew his way out of the now destroyed realm. Once he stepped out of the portal that led to the once realm of Theros to the open vast world, he took in the beauty of it. After all, he was in that realm for ninety-nine seasons. There was something in him that told him that he wasn’t done yet. His other half seemed to yearn. And so, an unfamiliar will guided Moliones towards the sea. He did not know what he sought, but the answer for that lay behind the vast sea in front of him. Once he managed to get himself a small boat with the help of an old friend, he sailed off to the vast sea.

Many hours later, something was off, and Moliones could feel it. He halted the boat and listened. Only the sea responded. He tested the wind. Studied the waters. Everything seemed fine. So, why did his gut twist like a warning? He scanned the horizon. The water around the boat shifted unnaturally, not so violently nor loudly, but wrong. He took a closer look and realized, farther out, the sea began to circle itself. Slow, then faster. A whirlpool at its finest, forming like a mouth preparing to speak. Charybdis, the devourer of ships, the drowned daughter of Poseidon and Gaea, watched as Moliones didn’t flee, but stood there, glaring—not at her, the event. He couldn’t see Charybdis exactly, because what lurked beneath that massive vortex defied comprehension. A maw of ancient teeth like broken shipwrecks, arranged in concentric rings that stretched endlessly inward. Her mouth could dilate beyond physical limits, a cold void that remembered every human-made creation unmade. Despite who she was, Moliones approached her with his boat, but kept a good distance from the whirlpool that she had created. He stood firm as the sea moved around him strongly. Beneath the waves, Charybdis seemed to let curiosity take a role for that day. She had devoured many things before. Kings, fleets, anything that crosses the sea. But this mortal carried something unwritten.

“You are not whole,” she said, her voice was raspy, but layered like the waters rushing through. “Yet, you are not a man.”

Moliones nodded. “I guess you can say that I am part of a history of what remains. Crossing the sea for what I might seek.”

“Dominance?” she asked. “Or purpose?”

“Both,” he answered. “I will be my own force. Not someone’s steed.”

Charybdis stayed silent. This was her first time listening to someone’s story. She usually devoured her victims with no remorse. But this ‘half’ mortal seemed to catch her attention. First time feeling admiration for someone.

“Then you must pass through the Dual Sea,” she said. “There, you will find Kudos. He guards what you are not yet ready to touch.”

The whirlpool widened with its center darkening. From its heart, an aqua portal bloomed open as water folded inward, exposing a realm beneath realms. There was the Dual Sea.

“Go,” she whispered (or at least she tried to whisper), “Let me put this in your head: Kudos does not serve anyone.”

Moliones stepped forward as his boat creaked with the weight of fate. He crossed the threshold, the sea closing up behind him with silence.

After Moliones entered the portal, the Dual Sea wasn’t a place, but more of a sacred ground. What he saw in front of him was endless, layered water currents, moving in opposed directions. The surface silently glowed with the weight of submerged stars. He didn’t sail here; he drifted with no control. The realm itself carried him, despite apologizing for the rough ride there. Moliones held on tight as the force halted his boat. He took a breather and stepped out of the now ruined boat. He did not know someone was approaching him. A water serpentine dragon emerged slowly from the darkness with its dark navy coils slicing through the sea like ink through parchment. His shadowy horn glinted, solid and sharp. Golden eyes locked onto Moliones with a calculating gaze. Spikes lined his back, tail, and snout. His scales flowed like a living current with that majestic flow. When he felt the strong presence of the unwritten magic in him, his scales clicked outward, a sound like a thousand blades being readied. Moliones didn’t flinch. He held his shield and his sword firmly.

Kudos narrowed his gaze. “I don’t get visitors often,” he said, with his deep, but smooth voice. “Especially a visitor who carries something that does not belong to them.”

Moliones met his eyes. “It chose me. And I chose not to let it die.”

Kudos circled him once, very slowly and silently. “Then you are either a fool,” he said, “Or something new.”

“I came for dominance. To learn to get stronger than I was before, to never let something go ever again because of my limitations. I want to go beyond.”

Kudos’ scales clicked inward. “You entertain me. I guess I could consider it to be your mentor.”

Moliones didn’t speak. He simply bowed his head, not in submission, but in respect.

For a decade, Moliones trained beneath the currents of the Dual Sea. Kudos taught him the dragon ways: how to wield breath without flame, how to speak in silence, and how to bend water without breaking it. They sparred, studied, and endured. Somewhere between the trials and the tides, they fell in love. It was not planned in any way. From that bond, the unwritten magic stirred. One night, as Moliones meditated beneath the stars submerged in the sea’s surface, he felt a pressure in his chest. He opened his mouth, and from within, two small forms emerged. Scaled, clawed, and golden-eyed. The two twins. Rassu and his sister, Vasso. Born from unwritten magic.