I’M ALL YOURS

☁️ Scene: The Ashfall Fields – Late Morning

FX: The world is gray here. The sky is a pale, unmoving sheet. Ash floats like snow, but heavier—darker. There's no wind. Only the sound of crunching boots over cinders.

[Visual: Riven walks alone now, Ashcrown tied across her back, its crescent blade faintly pulsing.]

Riven (thinking):

"This place smells like burnt roots and broken promises."

"Why did my feet bring me here?"

🏚️ Scene: The Lost Village of Emberlow

[Visual: The ruins appear over a rise—wooden homes reduced to skeletal beams, fire-charred and sun-bleached. A broken wind chime hangs crooked from a lone beam, clinking in still air.]

[FX: Riven stops in the center. The wind finally returns—just enough to stir the ash into a soft spiral around her.]

[Kaelith (in memory)]:

"There are places where Soulforged were not born—but buried."

[Riven (whispering)]:

"This… was my village."

[FX: Sudden whisper — not in her head, but in the air:]

"You left us in fire…"

"…but the fire never left you."

🧱 Scene: The Burnt House

[Visual: Riven finds a half-collapsed home with a metal plaque on the stone frame: "For R." It's scorched, but still legible.]

She pushes the door open. It groans like a dying beast.

Inside is a single room:

A cot, long rotted.

A small chest.

And a book… somehow untouched by fire, resting on a low table.

[FX: Her fingers brush the cover. It hums—alive with memory.]

📖 Scene: The Journal

[Cover reads: "Riven's Fifth Winter – Notes for After"]

[Riven (thinking, stunned)]:

"They kept a journal… of me?"

[She opens it. The ink is clean. The pages smell of ash and lavender.]

Entry 1:

"Riven smiled again today. A real one. I caught her humming while she stacked stones outside. She's trying to make towers. I think she believes they'll protect us."

"She doesn't remember the raid. That's a blessing."

Entry 2:

"They came again last night. They want her. They know what she is. But she's not ready. Flameborn? Maybe. But she's just a girl who lost too many yesterdays."

[Riven stares at the ink, frozen.]

Riven (thinking):

"I… had a guardian. Someone who kept me from them."

"Why can't I remember this?"

Entry 6 (written with shaky lines):

"If I don't survive the next raid, and she finds this—Riven, listen to me: YOU ARE NOT A WEAPON. You were not made to obey. You were born in fire, yes, but you are not the fire."

"You are the silence that follows after."

😔 Scene: Grief and Flame

[FX: The room starts to shimmer. The journal glows faintly with soulheat — the kind only truth can leave behind.]

[Riven clutches it to her chest. Her knees buckle. She sinks to the ash-covered floor.]

[Tears fall — silent, heavy, lost.]

Riven (thinking):

"Why did no one tell me I was loved?"

"Why did they erase her?"

⚔️ Scene: Interruption – The Soulcallers Arrive

[FX: Footsteps outside — slow, metallic. Not Kaelith.]

[Voice (calm, almost polite)]:

"Flameborn."

[Riven stands slowly. Her fingers wrap Ashcrown's hilt. Her fire doesn't flare — it tightens.]

[Visual: A group of three Soulcallers enter — robed figures, their faces covered in bone-white masks. Each carries a hooked staff.]

[Soulcaller 1]:

"You've awakened the forbidden forge."

"The Highborn sends greetings… and a warning."

[Riven]:

"Let me guess. Stop or die?"

[Soulcaller 2]:

"No. We are to escort you. To him."

Riven (coldly):

"I don't go with people who wear faces they didn't earn."

[FX: One Soulcaller lunges. Riven draws Ashcrown — the crescent blade gleams and SCREAMS with golden fire.]

[FX: CLANG — Ashcrown meets staff. A burst of heat knocks the first Soulcaller into the wall.]

Riven:

"You want me to go quietly?"

"Then speak to the ashes that raised me."

[She lifts the journal. Tucks it into her belt. Her voice is steady now — the grief replaced by purpose.]

[Riven]:

"You erased my mother once."

"You won't erase me."

🔥 Scene: Flames Return

[FX: Riven sweeps Ashcrown in a wide arc. Fire bursts from the ground in a perfect ring — cutting her off from the Soulcallers.]

[Soulcaller 3]:

"She remembers…"

[Soulcaller 1 (backing away)]:

"She's becoming what he feared."

[Riven (quietly, to the wind)]:

"I'll remember her name soon."

"And when I do… this blade will carry it."

[Final Visual: Riven walks away from Emberlow, the village crumbling quietly behind her. The journal glows against her hip like a heartbeat.]

Somewhere far to the north, Mordaviel watches a map burn at its edges.

He frowns.

"The ash remembers her too."