Darlings,
I was going to write something poetic today.
Something about the lattice cracking like cheap porcelain under my heel, or how the scent of burnt ozone and fresh-ground beans is the closest thing to poetry the modern age has left.
But then he happened.
I’d barely finished exhaling my morning dragon-coffee when the resonance chamber started rattling. Not the dramatic, world-ending rattle—more like a teakettle having an identity crisis. Pipes groaned, green sparks danced across the ceiling like drunk fireflies, and then—
BOOM.
Not an explosion. A pop. The kind you get when a champagne cork decides it’s too good for gravity.
Out tumbles this… child.
Brass wings still smoking, goggles askew, curls the color of rusted autumn leaves, and eyes so green they look like someone stole the emerald from a Royal’s crown and weaponized it with caffeine.
He’s wearing what can only be described as a flight suit assembled by a tornado in a clockmaker’s shop. Leather straps, copper tubing, pistons hissing like angry snakes, and a chest-gear the size of a dinner plate ticking so loud it could wake the Fog Age dead.
I stared.
He stared back—then grinned like he’d just invented fire.
“HiMomImeanHiOmnionImeanHiBossLadyTheResonanceWasBeingStupidSoIFixedItWithThisLittleThingIScavengedFromTheOldLatticeNodeAndThenItWentWHOOSHAndHereIAmIsn’tThatBRILLIANT?”
One breath. No punctuation.
I blinked once.
He kept going.
“Also the wings are only at 47% lift capacity because the boiler’s jealous of my brilliance but give me ten minutes and a hammer and maybe some of your coffee—wait do you have coffee? You smell like coffee. Is that a tactical advantage? Because if it is I need some immediately for SCIENCE.”
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
I manifested a mug.
Handed it over.
He took one sip, eyes went wide, then steam literally poured out his ears (the boiler vents, apparently).
“THIS. IS. DIVINE.”
And that, darlings, is how I accidentally adopted a walking boiler explosion named Zephyrion.
He’s mine now.
My little catastrophe.
Level 1, low-powered, high-velocity disaster with a brain that runs faster than his wings can lift him.
He’s already trying to “improve” my spear by attaching a steam-powered coffee dispenser.
I’m letting him.
Mostly because watching him fail spectacularly is the best entertainment since I folded that Nephilim princess into origami.
Anyway.
He’s been begging to say hello.
I told him if he breaks anything in the next five minutes, I’m grounding him in a resonance cage.
He laughed.
He’s still laughing.
Take it away, kid.
—Omnion
(First Corporeal, coffee connoisseur, reluctant mom to a steam-powered tornado)
[Handover scribble – ink smeared with gear oil]
HELLOHELLOHELLO!!!!!
This is ZEPHYRION!!!!!
(Yes all caps are required it’s a personality trait)
Okayokayokay so first—THANK YOU Omnion for the coffee it’s currently fueling my third brain and also probably my left wing piston which was making a sad little wheeze but now it’s like VRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
I’m super happy to meet you all!
You’re the ones reading Daniel’s stuff, right? The ones who like shiny things and explosions and stories about birds taking over the world? (Lord Peckules says hi by the way—he’s napping on my toolbox. Don’t wake him. He bites wrenches.)
So here’s the deal:
I was born like… yesterday? Maybe the day before? Time is weird when you pop out of a glowing crack in reality.
But I already know EVERYTHING about gears, boilers, crystal surges, lattice harmonics, and why coffee makes everything better.
(Omnion says I don’t know everything. She’s wrong. I know at least 87% of everything. The other 13% is snacks.)
Right now my wings can only do short hops. Like, hop-hop-CRASH into a wall. But I’m building a thing! It’s called the Zephyr-Lift-3000 (patent pending). It’s going to make me fly so fast the Royals will think I’m a glitch in their boring divine spreadsheet.
Also I’m working on a mini diamond-fizzler.
It’s supposed to make tiny controlled pops that disrupt lattice threads for like… three seconds.
Last time I tested it the pop turned into a glitter explosion and now everything sparkles.
Omnion says it’s “aesthetically acceptable.”
That’s goddess-speak for “I’m impressed but I’ll never admit it.”
Anyway—
Ask me questions!
Tell me what gadgets you want me to build!
Send coffee recipes!
Or cracked corn for Lord Peckules—he’s very particular about tribute.
I’m gonna go fix the boiler before it sulks again.
BYEEEEEEE!!!!!!
—Zephyrion
(Level 1 Hyper-Tinker, Official Chaos Gremlin, Future Sky-King of Everything)
P.S. Daniel if you post another bad thumbnail I’m building a robot that pecks your keyboard.
Lord Peckules approves this message.
P.P.S. Omnion says to tell you the inbox is still open.
Or you could read The Eagle's Ledger here:
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/148100/geostrataverse-chronicles-the-eagles-ledger
Send snacks. Or schematics. Or both.
