FENRER

Little Wolf.

Weights pressed against his chest as he tried to breathe from underneath the cover of his blankets. His clothes stuck to his skin with the veracity of ooze. "Kon," he tore out the name of his Aeoniir through the hazy field of view left to him, wriggling in the dark. Before he left, Neven sent a burst of sapphire touched flames into the lamp by his washing bin — a flimsy idea to cool off the wildfire underneath his skin. Energy slipped past his lips with each breath he took, and he squirmed and threw off the blankets, suffocated still. Ancients... what is Yuven feeling...? He tore open his eyes and slid his head in the other direction to check on his closed door.

Kon released a sad sigh in the distance. This... is not Yuven, at least, not in the way you think it is. It is our blood, Fenrer. That, I know. He winced when Kon's mirage stepped from the veil of magick which split the world of the living to the bridge of the dead, lifting his muzzle over him. Do you remember much of your fall into the sea?

Fenrer shook his head and it sent a shockwave of heat down his spine, straight to his tailbone. "You were incanting something," he rasped, dragging brown strands off his brow and out of the sweat.

You understand our covenant. I would see you survive, though I cannot intervene past that one single promise I made. Kon sat beside him, a huff leaving his nose. I had to give you some of my essence to ensure that you are given a chance, to activate the latent magick of our bloodline so that someone — anyone, could see it... and I know not quite what it did past what I knew it would do. I am so sorry, Little Wolf.

Fenrer groaned. "Kon, this isn't your fault," he insisted. "It's okay..."

Kon's blank green eyes remained torn and conflicted. He squirmed when Kon lifted a giant paw then rested it on his brow, scooting closer on his hindlimbs. It is burning something that is not inside... you must rest, Little Wolf. Rest and recuperate, this is not something you wish to test. His paw slid off his brow with ease. If there is something you would have of me—

"Yuven..." his Oathbound's name slipped past his lips. "Don't worry about me... you can hold onto the starlit connection, can you not?" He twisted his attention to Kon, who molded into a blurry mirage. "Even if you can't affect it... do you think you could keep it from dissipating entirely on my end?" Tears dripped down his cheeks. "He needs me..." Darkness cascaded over his eyes, but when he next opened them, Kon was gone, and in his place, Neven stood with a small cup full of ice cubes with a crease to his brow and a tired, weary frown on his face. He tried to lift his hand to grab onto the cup, but found enough strength to wiggle his fingers instead. "Yuven?" he asked once more when Neven went to hand him the cubes.

"No change. I have told Maria your fever has spiked, and she will send someone up with a tonic that should quell some symptoms that might be slipping through the Oathbound connection—"

"I'm fine." Fenrer shivered underneath sandblasted desert suns. "This is probably nothing compared to what he's experiencing." He wiped his brow once more and took the cup to press the ice cubes against his lips. Each one sparked and melted at his fingertips. Waves of frustration slammed into his chest, a circle of flames as he faced down a draugr which wore his dad's rotted face. In a surge of light, he punted the cup across the room, where it smashed into his weapon stand and the remaining ice cubes clattered onto the floor. On his hips, he rasped into his hands, "I'm fine. I just need something..." He used Neven as a crutch before his Guardian could think to keep him in the confines of the warmth. He hobbled over to the washing basin, dipping his fingers, then his hands, and then his entire face into it. It bubbled in his ears, a swallowed chokehold of the sea. Neven's golden aura spiked against his temples and dug its teeth in deep as he came from the surface, dragged by a pillar of sunlight at the tip of a statue's hands. Water cupped in his hands, he wiped it down his face with a cloth, stumbling past Neven when he got off his bed, hands outstretched. "I need to get to the bathhouses, cool myself off..."

"Fenrer, you are riling yourself into a panicked state," Neven pleaded. "You are unwell, you are not fine. Maria suspected that the Expulsion Event would affect you across the Oathbound connection — she made preparations if that was the case, it is just your fever isn't what she expected."

Fenrer choked out a stuttered gasp and threw a burst of hot heat waves into the lamp beside his desk, which broke the wick into shimmering, morning embers. Ancients, have mercy upon an innocent soul. He brought a hand up to shield his eyes to their gazes when he invoked their epithets. Ivara. Ojain. Pyon. Evyriaz. You, who brought your power to bear against the tear the ancient Anima created and gave us life though the Derelicts would seek to swallow it. "Seek to swallow us." He stumbled over to his personal shrine. "Light up the bridge of Velteraiia. Shepherd the wayward ones on your hunting path. Howl to them and guide them to the next life..."

"Fenrer." Neven gripped onto his shoulders. "Fenrer, you need to lie back down."

Remember the names... His lungs stuck to the inside of his ribcage and made webs of molten, caustic flows. For they are the fury of the light... He drove his teeth into his sleeve, and let the pressure escape out of his jaw when Neven approached his side with caution.

"If you wish to have a bath, I will go see if there's an empty room and cool the runes in the basin. I know not if that will help, but at least lie down until I do so." Neven turned to the door when someone knocked on it.

Fenrer pressed his hand into his brow with a shake of his head as the spread of silver lilies bloomed along the shimmered, hot flow. "You can come in, Adara." It expanded past the door with the might of the moon, and he tried to keep himself upright when she stepped through the threshold, carrying a cup of her own. Her gaze trailed over to Neven, who stared at her in smooth, golden uncertainty when their auras clashed. Fenrer waved his shaky hand between them. "Adara. Neven—"

"We kind of met already," Adara explained.

"Oh. Very well." Fenrer pressed his hand into the crook of his elbow once more to catch his breaths from his fervent prayer for resolution before indicating to the cup with his free hand. "What's that you brought?"

"Herbal remedy that Garren taught me when I got sick," she said. "It might be from Haneka, so I thought... the taste of home would help." Her hand clutched it close to her chest and heart. "Even if it doesn't help your fever." He took it from her, and Neven sucked in his lips and left the room without another word. "I hope I wasn't interrupting something."

"You weren't." Fenrer breathed in the smoky scent of the herbal remedy, before downing it in one motion to force it down his boiled throat. It crackled against the stuck embers, and he squeezed his lips together as he put the cup down on his bed stand.

"You look like shit," Adara whispered.

"I feel worse, and it's probably nothing compared to what Yuven is going through." His knees quivered. "Thank you for the remedy. We'll see if it helps. I'll take anything at this rate."

"I haven't gotten to see Yuven, yet," Adara whispered as he dragged himself off the wall, and shook himself from head to toe to try and spread the warmth of the silver flames to clash against the crimson blaze in his skin. "You shouldn't be moving around like this, Fen."

"So I've heard." Fenrer went to make his way over to the half-melted ice cubes on the floor to clean up the mess he made of Neven's kindness, but he found himself in her hands instead. Her fingers trailed against his cheeks when her thumbs pressed against them. He tried not to fall into the blanket of lilies, stumbling to keep himself upright instead of flattening her with his miniscule issues. "Adara—"

"Gods, Fenrer, I could cook an egg on your brow."

Fenrer nodded against her palm, though the quickness sent a new wave of flames into a battled aurora in his sight. He waved his hand in the air before setting it on the wall with a hasty flail when his knees threatened to cave in. "So much for doing the Gauntlet." He winced and pressed his free hand into his side in an effort to push himself into a proper standing position instead of the lop-sided tilt he found himself stuck in. Embers ripped through his spine. His hip hit the end of his end table, and he bit down a sharp oceanic curse from slipping past his teeth when Adara supported him with her own strength, when his own found in the giants failed him when it mattered the most. Downwards, Adara put her hands on his shoulders before bringing them up to his cheeks. Her aura lit up the entire room against the inferno, a moonlit night with a cold touch against the silver fire at its core.

"Fenrer?" her voice came out a thick bubble once again. Her fingers trailed against loose strands.

"I can see you," he rasped.

Adara's brow scrunched in heavy concern which filled the silver lilies with thick pollen. Shadows opened the door and caused her to turn as Neven slipped through. Words fluttered the auras and the rivers of thought. Rustic ooze filled his throat, but when he tried to cough it out, nothing came of it except a jolt of searing pain and blinding light. Neven came closer to him when Adara nodded and stepped out of his way. Ice smoothed and separated the flow Neven brought to bear against his cheeks, his eyes nothing more than vertical beads as he shook his head and noiseless music came out when he glanced at Adara, who stiffened. He found himself in the crook of Neven's arm when he knelt closer, wrapped in Father's large, welcoming embrace when Neven nodded once more at Adara, who retreated from the room with a mission crackling the moon with intent.

"'m fine..." Fenrer waved through his home language and tried to squeeze the air. "Yuven needs me..."

"You are not, Molvei'saliz." Neven patted the side of his head with his attention focused on the door. "And you are Oathbound, you are tied together where distance no longer exists for the two of you. You must let yourself rest. It not only helps you but also Yuven."

Molvasolevu.

Princess Hayvala's warning rang out clear and concise, the line between the burden of knowledge and the entrapment of his band. "He needs..." he found his ability to mouth words failing. "... faith that he can make it through this." He hooked his fingers into the back of Neven's shirt when a sweep of heat drove itself into his nose. "Where did you send Adara?"

"To go retrieve medication from Maria if you are not keen on joining them in the lower wards.."

"She needs to stay by Yuven..."

"She is not leaving Yuven's side," Neven assured and he closed his eyes at the pure truth in the sapphire studded golds. He opened them once again to find himself in the arms of an unfamiliar giant where thick clouds of smoke lifted from the canopy of trees. It seared through his arm with a sharpened metal point, and he allowed himself to slip further into the dark heat waves. It fluttered between two memories. One, where the misty giant carried him through forests without cease and rest. The next, Neven in a chair beside him, softly picking the strings of a lute with his back to him. Into the last, where he found himself once more in Dad's large shadow which protected him from the first barrage. He tried to reach out for him, but a strangled choke left his throat instead when an arrow slammed into his back.

Dad!

"I will return, my son," he pleaded and pushed him through the flames which kept him from the truth.

A broken promise, twisted from its original source as he shoved his blade through the throat of the draugr and set him free of his chains.

"It seems whenever Yuven has the expulsions Fenrer has reactions," Maria's voice broke the blurry field, but when he tried to peek through the darkness, he knew not where it came from. "At least, that's my theory, anyway, from what I understand of Oathbinding souls together. I wish I could do more to help Fenrer, but... my only way of doing that is helping Yuven. I can throw every tonic on fevers I have, but I don't want to overload his body with different herbs even with our natural resistance to poison. It will only end up making things worse."

Yuven...?

Drums pounded through war, a formative beat in his ears on the highest seas. His knuckles cracked against a cliff face and emerald twine exploded outwards. Mist caught his fall, but it cracked his barrier and sent a shockwave of pain straight into his throat and let the water slip past. Lost in the dark, until a beam of light pierced his lungs and filled his blood with a tearing scream of alarm. Flashfire fluttered into the currents. Pieces of a keel, rotted with crimson tangles, and Kon's voice rang out and the same mist from before wrapped around his arms, shining with the dawn underneath his skin. It expanded his lungs and burnt the water within as he tried to breath, but found himself losing his grip on life, the bridge inviting him closer and closer as he put one foot on it.

Until the sudden intake of air brought him back to the harsh reality of his failure. He came face to face with Reyn, soaked as brine and saltwater swilled into his nose instead.

He squirmed and drove his fingers into his chest, tearing at his soaked clothes stuck to his skin.

Harken the dawn, Kon called out. For the love I bore a dragon — bring upon me the truth in the center of the sun. For in my fury of the light, bear upon this ode of love, innocence, this young world — and cast my blood to the pyre and forge the dawn's fire.

It sparked in the darkness, and the sun exploded outwards from underneath the storm of waves upon his chest.

Neven hummed out a soft, sleepy tune, and the noises, the water, washed out and left a twinkle of ice.