… Sophien, the regressor, was born into greatness. From the moment of her first breath, she bore the blood of the Empire’s true sovereign line—its firstborn, its rightful heir. Hers was a legitimacy so absolute, so unshakable, that even in the long history of the Empire, few could match it.0

However, for all the perfection of her sovereign reign, nothing within it gave her life true meaning, as she lived a paradox—shadowed by death, yet forever denied its end.0

Even the notion of dying one day seemed like a distant myth, and she began to wonder if the quiet grace of a natural death would ever be hers. The final page of life—where even Empires must submit—seemed a distant thought, one that might never turn for her.0

If, after growing old and finally reaching her natural death, Sophien were to once more return to the first of January—if death refused to take hold and time merely circled back upon itself—such a life would seem destined to never really end. Perhaps the better truth was that it could never end at all.0

While others lived in quiet fear of a distant death they could only imagine, Sophien reflected on a world where death never came—where her end did not exist. Instead, she bore the weight of a fate that looped forever, trapped in the cycle of dying, only to live again.0

Therefore, Sophien craved ennui. If she learned at a slower pace, allowed her thoughts to wander, and viewed the world through a lens of lethargy—then maybe, just maybe, she could forget that unending loop for a while. Perhaps she could step outside of it, even if only for a breath.0

… However, someone had broken that defense mechanism of hers. From the moment she met him, the instructor mage, through the changing seasons and into the present, he had always pressed her to learn. He demanded she face the world. He encouraged her to learn, to feel. And instead of lethargy, he taught her something else entirely.0

At first, Sophien welcomed it with curiosity—he was merely something new, something strange. But as time...0