YUVEN

'My promised song, I fear its shaken foundations,

'I have done my best along the sparkled days, though the end begins,

'Yesterday's song dreamt of beautiful peace,

'Yonder's voice calls out for the word of the promise I gave,

'Though I might find myself wrong, I shall fly into the dark.'

The stories about the ice sirens had to come from somewhere.

He saw him in the darkness, surrounded by snowroses sprinkled with pollen frost, his back against the obsidian names which provided temporary security, but no warmth to it. The flowers appeared to reply to the twirled notes in the air which gave birth from his voice, creating glyphs to add to the tonality of air; magick from art. His slender fingers drifted along the strings of the white-laquered lute with no wasted sound. His golden feathers weaved against the pressure of the breeze as he swayed and sang for an unknown, heart-felt reprieve. Lost in his thoughts, alone in the marble garden while he hid in his distortion, a ghost to time. Underneath the harsh Navei of the cloaked figures, his voice came out gentle, yet strong and certain; welcome and warm. a purposeful wave as he delivered the melodic passages and pierced space itself.

'Sing with me one time, for the out of reach melody,

'In my endless dream, I embraced the realm's cold light,

'Naught but a whisper on the breeze.'

Rust gathered in his throat when he left the ancient dream and found the one thing in his life unchanged. Neven's voice disappeared in the intense, crimson ringing when he drew his sapphire irides in his direction, lowering the lute against his lap. His fingers hooked the pegs when he leaned closer with a quiet huff of mist out of his nose. Magick in excess, released back into the world itself. "I am sorry if I disturbed you," he said in the tense silence, unbroken, and no 'siren' compared to the reality found in a single voice. "Maria will be here soon, I have offered to sit and observe you until she does."

"Fenrer," Yuven croaked out, and he chewed on his worthless, weak tongue when blood foam stuck it to the back of his teeth.

Neven's feathers twitched in response to the power of a name, and set the lute at his feet instead. "I will be going back to him soon," he said, and the foam burst into relieved bubbles. He scooped up one of the medicinal tinctures from Maria's desk and held it out to him, but he found the strength to shake his head, rueful when Neven placed it back with the rest, though his fingers faltered around its stout neck. A heavy sigh left his nose with another ruffle of the gold-shade feathers when he released it once more and turned back to him.

You weren't disturbing me, he wanted the will to cry it out in his own voice with the remnants of his strength, whatever it meant. "How is he?" he mumbled and raked his fingers against the puffs in the mattress. "I know he can't come down here... he is unable to." He sucked in his splattered lips and drank his own life to its clogged dregs. "I know Maria wishes to preserve my concern, but all I can think about is how I should have never agreed to become Oathbound. In that, at least I'd be the only one suffering this thrice-damned obscura hell." He hacked up a blood-soaked piece of lung, and Neven reached his hand forward to put it on his shoulder as he pressed a new cloth against his mouth to try and rid himself of the ceaseless taste, but no core as Evyriaz spat out his with ease. He slipped his fangs against the back of his lips when Neven squeezed his shoulder. "I am sorry if I puke blood on you, Miesero. I may have mistaken you for a bucket."

"Clothes can be washed, and I've been splattered plenty by Derelicts, and they are leagues more smelly," Neven quipped a shared humor in a dark song, but his brow creased with concern, though Yuven squeezed out a laugh past the coagulation in his throat. "In my seriousness, Yuven... I just want you to rest and not worry further. I am keeping an eye on Fenrer." His gaze swept over his weak, shaking body splayed across the bed in the room of ink walls.

"I know, I look like death." Yuven sniffed and tried to find the strength in a smile instead. Except it brought a nauseating wave of infernal heat, and he chewed on his tongue for rust as he released a pitiful whimper against his logical calmness he held onto for his life. Neven leaned closer as he tried to reach for the bucket and it tickled the back of his throat and convulsed his lungs. It came with a jolt, a rush of movement into the dark as he drove his fingers into the edges and wasted away with each black-stained drop of crimson rainwater. Neven came closer to his torment and plight, and though he tried to push him away, he found his free hand digging into his shirt instead. Words rang out into a scream as the door opened to reveal a golden-haired shadow with umber eyes. Her shape floated in quick succession to the blurry ledger as Neven's lips moved, but no noise came out except the screeching in his ears, the multitude of the dead he left in Irimount, under the cracked spires of wonder.

Tears sprung to his eyes when some of it missed the bucket and splattered across the lute of the endless dream, of the golden-haired Avaerilian who sang a different, softer song than the cloaked figures of cold focus. Neven gave it nothing more than a glance before using a foot to nudge it to the side with careful, but deft precision. "Aiya, Miesero." A thicker glob slid over his tongue as the scream turned into a song, bubbly and fading in and out. Endless. The rainwater shifted into a downpour, and subsided into a drizzle as he tried to straighten himself out. Straight back into the darkness with a crack of a broken note and a shattered glaive against marble, tied with sapphire studded ribbons.

The warmth again.

It was a tiny spark of fire, pure in a faint rainbow as it breathed against the crimson, pulsating heartbeat. Tendrils reached out to touch it, pushed back by the searing flame. He raised both hands out to cup it into his translucent palms. Thunderous beams pierced into the thick fog around his life with a second of nothing. Continuous. Unwavering. Every time the tendrils stretched out teeth closer, another thunderous beam of piercing light struck into it, scattering into nothing. Over and over again without cease, as relentless as the shard of the Derelict inside him — if not more so. Conviction which knew no terror but the one it spread. Yuven brushed his finger against it, then found himself with a tangle of golden in the shadows. Maria stepped through it with a frown, tipping a phial against his lips. His gaze darted around for reality, with Neven quietly wiping down the spots of blood on the lute with a soft hum thrumming with the thunderous beat of a soul's war.

"Yuven?" Maria asked.

"I still feel unclean," he complained.

Maria nodded and rounded his bed to pull the washing basin closer. "Do you want some help?" she asked, an option for control.

"Just getting up." Yuven reached his hand out to hers, spurred on by the sunlight all around him as his shaky fingers wrapped around hers, his nails sunken to the bones. Neven set the lute down and came closer. He leaned over the basin to check on himself. Heavy shadows wrapped itself around his eyes and brought up the veins in his face and jaw. He slipped his fingers into the warm water, and tried to feel the flow of magick all around him. It refused to answer the call of a half-dead half-Derelict. Tongue out, itself pale, he pulled his fingers out and let the streams of water slip off the tips. Pinpricks swept up his elbow when he brought his fingers to his feathers and lined each one with the droplets, ignoring the ones which fell through the gentle pressure, and Neven followed each one when they floated to their feet. He rubbed the base of them, once more to the tips to quell the nausea gathering in his temples. He flicked his feathers for good measure and tickled his own ears, then sighed when yet another followed the wind instead.

Maria handed him a facecloth, which he took from her, but found himself at a loss as he tucked his cheek against it and examined the necklace he gave her. One made out of the jewels of remembrance and memory. He brushed his lips against the fluffy fabric, once more entranced by the light catching against the silver. It lacked a true centerpiece. One made out of his magick, his own promise of a future he found himself without. He tucked his nose into the fabric instead and breathed deep into the memory of warmth. His fingers wrapped around it, and Maria frowned at him before raising her hand to his forearm with a gentle, unassuming squeeze.

Though the abyss seeks to swallow me... I am a sword in the dark; a shield of the light. He loosened his grip and let the necklace tangle in his fingers. Infernals damned hells, Yuven Traye... is this what I amount to? I can't have these things, I know this. He let it slip out of his grasp when Maria came closer to him with a quick, noiseless word at Neven, who bowed his head, and Yuven bit down on a sob when Neven brushed a hand through his hair. A gesture of comfort through loss. I'm going to disappoint you, I told you. Neven pinched a feather, and Yuven resisted the urge to scoff when he wandered out of the room with the self-same resolute strength and focus of their impromptu duel.

What goals did I really meet at the end of my life? He set his hand down against the edge of the bed with a stifled cough into the fabric, and he scowled at the sticky touch he left. What future do I think I'm going to get? It's just a dream in the end, a dream that'll soon disappear. Myl'la... I meant it when I said I'd give what remains of my life to you, if you would have it — but in these last days... all I want for you is to be happy, and gods, I want to be a part of that. He nodded at her when she nudged him back into the confines of the bed, and threw the blankets over him before pushing the washing basin back into the corner and underneath the tap, connecting it back into place to drain out the dirty water he left. She bustled around the room and slipped back into a chair with a smile in his direction, indicating at the crucible cooking the only food he found himself able to stomach, stale all the same. Stale, rusty, and full of mold the moment it touched his mouth.

Darkness quivered at the edges when the door opened once more, where another Healer came over with a whispered word to Maria, who scooted out of the way for them to switch out the buckets by his bedside, taking the rack of dirty towels with them to fold them on a cart and replace them with new ones, with his room a personalized battlefield from the endless, decaying stench stuck in his nose. Stop their advance, he repeated the mantra everyone was too afraid to stick to, but in the end, all he had was his principles. Stop their advance, or else all is lost...

I knew you'd understand my meaning. He opened his eyes once more to the young Hanekan boy who sat in front of him, not quite smiling as arrows built from the flames skidded through the inky fog with formless teeth and moving mass. You would understand... and you are the only person I know whose conviction outpaces mine own, Molvisaliz. Gentle, unassuming spirit that you are, there is still... a sense of resolution that both inspires and scares me, but I will say what you do not. For when I start to doubt... you are there, dragging yourself through viscera and mud, no matter the cost. How can I say caution when you are the definition of my principle?

Stop their advance.

He held his crescent blade in the silver fields of flames.

I don't care what you have to do! he snapped out Fenrer's voice against the crowds of uncertainty. Stop their advance, even if you have to throw rotting viscera!

Stop their advance!

Thunderous beams of light which formed cracks in the chains in his soul.

It coiled and screeched in his ears.

Stop their advance!

He faced down the legions of the Derelict horde and raised his crescent blade against the end all feared, but none wanted to fight to their last day.

For if the end was assured, there was only one answer to give.