Everywhere he looked there was a different color, buildings climbed high and small shapes moved between them

  . And above it all…

  The sun. He.

  Could truly see it, feel it. The air cooled him, and the sun’s warmth heated him simultaneously. It was grand and beautiful.

  He felt pressure build under his eyes a foreign feeling, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  His mind tried to bring forth the many concerns this world brought.

  But they were feeble compared to the weight of his heart.

  “mother, father…

  i-i see it”

  The words fumbled from him as the pressures buildup fell from his eyes in streams. The numbered memories of his mother and father telling him stories of the sun, the light in the sky. They raced through his heart, he'd given up on the wonder of reaching that light after their deaths.

  But now…

  He could see it and feel it fully. There was no conjured image in his mind from childhood dreams, no sense altering priests to deter his attention. It was there in front of him He could feel his mother's voice vibrating through his being as he looked up to the sky, her voice telling that story.

  His breathing was fast and unintentional

  Standing from the chair, he felt the cold marble below his feet and the air hit his bare chest, standing atop this vast and different world.

  He’d understood something about the dream he had when he absorbed the shard, and about his time alone in the destruction of his world.

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  That water came and sought to drink the night's last life. But the night had protected him, it had lifted him up, gave him buildings to climb, Ruble to ride.

  He wasn’t wrong when he’d thought of himself as its ruler because that’s how it saw him itself.

  It led him to the shard, to his crowns inside that shard, the city, the world that raised him, that sanctioned his birth The Night had crowned him.

  And not only for the dark but for the light as well, so that light in the sky was his, and it was his right to climb this world and wear his crowns at its top.

  Snow smiled,

  “Fine then, I’ll climb here as well. I'll make them tell me everything, the truth.”

  Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned to look, The white cathedral stood tall in his vision.

  And…

  something a person was headed towards him, dressed in stark white robes with silver accents, most likely armor.

  It was a smooth material unknown to him; they wore a helmet completely silver all around. When the person was within 5 feet, Snow spoke out to them.

  “Don’t come any closer who are you?”

  There was no answer

  Instead, the person outstretched their right hand, producing a gold rectangular box and 2 cards to him

  It was a storage device, a high class one he could tell just from the material. One of the cards was an ID possessing a picture of his face and some other card that was unfamiliar.

  He studied the device Snow had never seen a storage device past 1st class those could hold barely a 3rd of what something like a class 2 could.

  There was a circular grove in the middle of the box with the face of an unfamiliar woman. He knew she was the priestess of the sun sky. Or at least a depiction of her.

  Hesitating, he took the device Pressing the circular grove golden dust sprawled from it. Creating an image.

  It was clothes.

  He didn’t waste a second selecting a set , when he pressed the grove again the golden dust started to surround his body, shaping into the clothes and settling in color.

  Now,

  He was dressed in black pants, plain glossy black dress shoes, a white shirt that folded over itself across his chest, and a cloth buttoned overcoat that hung past his knees.

  Turing, he thought about asking what all this was but decided not. That was a useless question.

  This person had already ignored his previous advance for conversation.

  Instead, he tilted his head slightly as a sign of thanks, a common jester in places of business.

  Where he was from anyways.

  The knight made no gesture or comment back, instead they spoke.

  Making Snow instantly regret his decision not to push for information.

  “In Year 9,973 Month 12 Day 25, by the church’s order you shall not speak of your origin to anyone or use your publicly or unjustly to the knowledge of others until you have graduated to the church’s military.”

  “Should this decree be broken it is punishable by… death.”

  Their voice was purely sound and made no connection to a gender

  After stating their decree, they did not wait any longer and simply turned on their heel, pacing back to the cathedral.

  Following suit, Snow turned and began down the long, wide stairs.

  “Limits and regulations, no matter what world…

  But even so, this is too much freedom.”

  Just sending him out into this world like this could be unsettling or liberating, and that was the point, but either or was an illusion.

  He knew they were keeping tabs on him?. That was made obvious by that decree.

  They held truths of the true reality of everything he thought he knew.

  And his mere existence, him still being alive, held some truths he didn’t know.

  This place is completely foreign, and so is he, and his first duty of action he decided would be to study…everything.

  As he knew they were studying him as well.