The Ashen Invitation

The chilly air clung to each breath as though the season itself wished to remind Crederia that autumn had firmly taken hold, the last hints of green clinging stubbornly to the higher branches as if refusing to yield to the inevitable change. Pockets of sunlight slipped through the canopy of leaves, their warmth fleeting and gone before Luce could even lift his head to savor it.

Merchants in the market square called out their wares in hoarse voices over the chatter of customers, fishwives haggled with glassblowers for the price of warming flasks, a boy dodged between stalls with a sheaf of letters for merchants, a copper kettle whistled on a street stove until a paw yanked it off the heat. A few streets over, students trudged toward the schoolhouse with expressions of dread, muttering about a test announced too soon after the start of the term. Down at the harbor, crews hauled heavy nets woven with faint enchantments with thrashing fish from the brisk waters of the northern bay, and further still the armored knights of Crederia patrolled the borders to keep beasts from spilling out from the plains into the villages.

He moved with the steady confidence of one accustomed to battle. His paws left prints in the damp earth as he strode along the main street, the violet-hued Mantibab cut a striking figure among the common folk: tall and lean-muscled with vibrant speckles along his flank and tail muted by the dusty leather plates of his work gear and his long, plumed tail shifted with each step, its feather-like tip catching the low autumn light.

His cold lavender eyes, eyes that once might have held warmth scanned the street vigilantly. He had been hired for another beast-killing job later that day, and though the pay was meager, it was enough to buy medicine for his sister, Mitsuko. That was all that mattered. Not festivals. Not fables.

And certainly not the quiet little figure that had begun shadowing him three days ago.

It was small, reaching only to his knee when it stood upright. Its body composed of a smooth smoky gray, ashen in every sense of the word. Its head had no mouth, only two luminous eyes like twin crescent moons staring up at him with unshakable patience. In its thin hands it carried a single tan-colored letter, secured by a wax seal pressed with the image of a red autumn leaf.

It had not spoken. It had not left.

Luce had tried ignoring it. He had growled at it. He had even hurled a pebble toward it on the second night, not so much as to harm it than to see if it would react.

It hadn’t.

The creature simply held the letter out to him, those glowing eyes fixed on his face, unblinking, unreadable.

Luce’s jaw tightened as he felt the faint crunch of frost-damp leaves under his paws. He did not glance back at the thing. The sight of it stirred something in his chest he’d long trained himself to silence. An unwelcome flutter of unease.

A pair of local hunters passed him on the road, nodding in greeting, and he inclined his head briefly, professional and detached. No one else seemed to notice the creature following at his heels, and that unsettled him most of all.

The morning’s cold bit at his ears as he reached the edge of town where the plains opened in rolling gold and red slopes beneath the autumn sky. The captain of the small mercenary band he sometimes worked with waited there, barking orders while a pair of babs loaded crates of steel-tipped spears onto a cart.

“Luce,” the captain greeted curtly. “We’ve had more sightings near the lower ridge. Might be a pack this time. We’ll need your claws ready.”

Luce nodded once. “How many?”

“Five, maybe six. Big as oxen. We’ll move out by noon.”

“Fine.” He adjusted the strap of his worn satchel. “I’ll be ready.”

A clang and a curse rose from behind the cart as one of the younger recruits fumbled a spear and nearly skewered his own paw. Luce’s gaze flicked toward the commotion just in time to catch a faint ripple at the edge of his vision.

The ashen creature stood there, barely two strides away, still holding the letter as if nothing in the world could disturb it.

Luce turned his back and strode toward the supply tent.

The day’s preparation passed with the usual routine. Checking weapons, reviewing the terrain on a map, exchanging a few clipped words with the others. But every time Luce shifted or turned, he caught the faint presence of the helper at the corner of his sight, silent and waiting as if it waited until he would finally take the letter.

By mid-afternoon the band was on the move, trudging across the reddened plains. The wind rattled dry leaves across the earth and tugged at the edges of their cloaks. The beasts, when they finally encountered them, were vicious but predictable. Massive, tusked creatures with hides of matted fur.

Luce fought at the forefront, claws and curved blades flashing as he ducked under a charging beast and slashed at a vulnerable joint. His movements were sharp and efficient, hardened by years of fighting not for honor but for coin.

A roar split the sky as the largest beast barreled forward, scattering two of the younger babs. Luce lunged in, teeth bared and claws ready. The clash was brief but brutal, ending with the beast’s collapse into the dust and the mercenaries’ ragged cheers.

Breathing hard, Luce wiped a fleck of blood from his cheek and turned to check the line of fighters only to see not twenty steps away, the ashen figure standing unharmed amid the trampled grass, letter extended as calmly as if nothing had transpired.

He swore under his breath and looked away.

By the time they returned to town, the sun was sinking beneath the horizon, painting the clouds in the same shades of red and gold that blazed through the trees. Luce collected his share of the pay, meager as always and headed straight for the modest little house at the edge of the village.

The door creaked softly as he stepped inside where the scent of medicinal herbs hung in the air. On a cot near the window, beneath a quilt patched too many times to count, Mitsuko stirred and looked up with a faint smile.

“Back already?” her voice was soft but weary.

“Work was quick today.” He knelt beside her, placing the pouch of coins on the table nearby. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” she admitted. “But the healer says the new tonic might help. Did you eat?”

“Yes.” He lied, his tone softening. “You just make sure to get some rest.”

Her blind gaze shifted past him to the doorway, sensing something. “Lawrence… there’s something outside.”

He stiffened, following the direction her blind eyes seemed to look. Through the narrow window, beyond the faint reflection of his own face, he glimpsed the gray-hued creature standing just beyond the fence, holding out the same letter.

“It’s nothing,” he said gently. “Just ignore it.”

But as night settled and Mitsuko drifted into an uneasy sleep, Luce found himself sitting by the small hearth, staring into the flames while the faint silhouette of the helper lingered beyond the window.

He thought of the rumors spoken in taverns and market stalls. Old stories of the Autumn King, a mysterious fae lord said to guard the changing of the seasons to autumn. Most treated the tales as half-myth, good for making stories and educating children. But there were some, usually the elders, who still lit lanterns on the first night of fall, murmuring old prayers to the unseen sovereign of the fading summer.

Luce had no patience for it. Life was hard enough without bowing to unseen powers.

And yet the letter remained. And the creature had waited for three days.

The next morning dawned and Luce left before Mitsuko woke, intending to run a few errands for supplies, the sky was pale and the streets were covered in the thin mist of morning. The ashen helper followed, as silent as his own shadow.

A gap in the cobblestone caught his paw and he nearly twisted his ankle. Later, a merchant’s apprentice stumbled into him, spilling a basket of apples that rolled across the street. At the apothecary, a jar he’d picked up slipped from his grasp and shattered onto the floor. Each mishap was small, but together they gnawed at his temper.

By midday he was stalking along the riverside path outside town, tail lashing with irritation. “I don’t care who you serve,” he growled, not turning towards the small figure keeping pace at his side. “I don’t have time for games.”

The helper did not respond. It only tilted its head as if listening to something far away and held the letter out a fraction closer.

The breeze shifted, carrying with it the sharp scent of wet leaves and the distant cry of crows. Luce halted abruptly, staring out at the current where crimson foliage drifted across the water.

Three days.  And now his patience was fraying.

With a low growl he reached out.

The moment his paw brushed the edge of the letter, the helper’s luminous eyes seemed to curve in a silent, gentle smile. A soft rustle rose around them as the creature dissolved into a swirl of gray, white and red-tinged leaves, scattering on the wind.

At Luce’s feet, a small pile of ashen and crimson leaves remained. For a long moment he stood unmoving, the sealed letter resting in his paw.

He broke the wax seal with a claw and unfolded the parchment. The texture was smooth, almost silky, yet the edges bore the faint imprint of pressed autumn leaves. The writing, in a flowing script, read:

My fellow Crederians, it is with great joy that I announce The Autumn King has invited you to celebrate the changing of seasons.
He has so graciously opened his heart and home, for the celebration will be held in his very court.
The festivities will commence upon the 20th, and we do hope you’ll manage to make it.
Until then, ta ta~

Luce exhaled slowly, a faint snort escaping. “Figures,” he muttered. “A festival.”

He turned the parchment over as if expecting more, but there was nothing else. No threats, no demands. Only the invitation, as absurdly polite as any noble’s summons.

The breeze gusted again, tossing a few of the fallen leaves into his face. He brushed them aside with an irritated flick of his paw, though a strange sensation lingered, something like the distant echo of music, like soft strings being plucked beneath the rustling trees.

That evening he returned home in thoughtful silence. Mitsuko noticed that he was distracted but did not press for answers, she merely offered him a tired smile as he set out their supper.

As night deepened and the wind fluttered across the eaves, Luce lay awake longer than usual, staring at the folded letter on the low table near the hearth.

He told himself it was nonsense. A story to distract folk from the bite of the coming winter.
And yet the Ashen helper’s patient gaze lingered in his memory, as did the fleeting peace that had settled in his chest the moment the creature had vanished.

When he finally drifted into sleep, it was the most restful night he could remember in a very long time.

The next morning dawned clear and crisp, sunlight spilling through the thinning canopy of trees in dappled gold.

The letter remained where he had left it.

Luce picked it up, studying the seal once more.
He still had his duties, his sister to care for, and he had no intention of bending the knee to a fae lord.
But he could not shake the sense that the invitation was not a summons of command, but of something older, something that had waited as patiently as the seasons themselves for him to take notice.

He tucked the letter into his satchel before heading out to the day’s work, saying nothing of it to Mitsuko.

Whether he would attend the Autumn King’s celebration or cast the parchment into the hearth, he could not yet say.

But for now, the red leaf pressed into the seal seemed to whisper softly against his paw as he closed his satchel like a promise, or perhaps a warning, borne upon the winds of a world that still remembered its ancient pacts.