ADARA

Stories unfolded in a beautiful collection of language, a bloom of ascension into a truth in understanding — the lines on the map revealing themselves on trails of ink and careful description. Places with names, held in their parchment existence, adjusted for time's changes as she examined the map of their continent, from the farthest, northern reaches and suspected sky islands of Naveera, to the desert stretch of the southern half, with Haneka tucked itself with a thin strip of road which wound along the blackmetal river. Her finger traced the wall which connected the Warden citadel in Tebora to the other piece along Haneka's border. Lakes followed the ocean's intent as rivers swirled, and she found the dawnroad, connecting at a middle point with the duskpath.

Sungrove, the town which hid itself in thick woods and natural, rocky knolls, and yet it hadn't stopped the terror which befell it. In the end, the world wasn't that small, as Jisa predicted, dreamed and imagined. Bigger than we ever could comprehend, full of dangers like Derelicts, like people — with incredible amounts of magick but no less of people's judgment on what they don't understand. Adara gathered her chosen books, along with the notes she made to get started on Hanekan the next chance she got; to speak his first tongue on a level of connection. Books clasped into her bag, she left the map behind to head for the western wing.

Water dripped into a continuous, cyclic fountain in the small courtyard, the heart of the shrine which set its roots around the wall and spread leaves across the swirled windows. Her footsteps faltered at the clatter of a bowl and a soft hiss of frustration when she came closer to Fenrer's door. Phoenix fire jolted into her knees and spurred her closer and through the entrance.

Neven Lotayrin sprayed his knees in awkward angles as he held on tight to Fenrer, pushing him back into bed as he mumbled, "Aiya... shoot." His feathers fluffed out as he twisted on his hip as he threw a thin blanket over Fenrer, whose eyes remained closed from the commotion, his bare chest rising and falling in tortured waves. Neven put a hand on his hip with a grunt before pushing a glyph of thick water through the spilled soup seeping into the rock, then turned to her with wide eyes as he picked up the bowl. "Ah! Miss Sazaka!" He threw his attention back on Fenrer. "Kah..." He drove his fingers into his scalp before coming closer to clutch Fenrer's shoulders. "Molvei'saliz?"

His lack of a response sent a jolt of terror through her heart. "What's wrong with him?" She tossed her bag underneath his desk to come closer, with no ability to be of any use.

Neven lowered his slender fingers to Fenrer's brow. Icy mist sprinkled into woven threads, but burst into rain. He went silent with no words of assurance, a wave of Naveeran cold filling the silent space between them as he rubbed the bridge of his nose and revealed the tips of his fangs. "I do not know," he said after a momentary emptiness. "It is his fever. It is beyond what is normal, Maria warned me that something like this might happen, that his body would shut down to fight off what plagues Yuven on the other side." Neven squeezed his lips together with no small amount of concerned dismay, then faced her. "He was asking after you before he ended up in this state." His entire body stiffened, and she found herself swallowed in the intensity of yet another Avaerilian. "I will have to go get Maria once I have cleaned up my mess..."

"He was asking for me? Why?" she whispered as Neven shuffled around her to gather the dirtied soup.

"He did not get a chance to say," Neven mumbled and slid a covering over the bowl. "He stopped responding afterwards."

Does this mean Yuven...? Adara shoved her teeth against the tip of her fingers and tried not to chew the quicks of her own hand. No. Fenrer was exhausted and his fever was draining him. No, we do not think that way until we hear anything from Maria. Rosa's bones crunched underneath her heel in the light of a crimson dusk. Adara chewed on her lower lip and came closer, causing Neven to examine her, once more reminded of the terrifying beauty of the Avaerilian people — their movements intentful, the motion cautious, lost in deadly delicacy. "I'm here now." Adara scooted onto the edge of Fenrer's bed, sinking deeper in the sapphire study when Neven's pupils thinned. This world keeps reminding me of that one simple fact. I can be there, but I change nothing. Hesitation drew her hands into her lap when Neven sat on the edge beside Fenrer's legs. In the silence, she squeezed her knees then shifted her attention to Fenrer's face, whose breathing remained ragged and weak — weaker than the trek across the frostlands.

Her hand rested against his arm, his skin clashing with the phoenix fire underneath her own. Silver tendrils coiled and sprung forward, a dull wave of heat as she studied his face. His hair stuck to his brow, with the long strands which held his wolven pin more often than not clamped against his cheek. It left a sickly sheen across the autumn bronze undertones. Her finger traced it, and she frowned at the lack of response he gave. Is this what being Oathbound entails? Adara raised her hand and set it back in her lap, before whispering, "Were they always like this?"

Neven gave her a beady side-eye, but his shoulders relaxed and opened with none of Yuven's ferocity. "Willful, yes. Both. In different ways." Neven turned his head in full to her. Golden feathers weaved out of the tangles of his blond, windswept hair. "I apologize for my... iciness, Miss Sazaka. You must be worried about Fenrer."

"You can just call me Adara, and you don't have to apologise. I would be to, considering." Adara stretched out her boots and nuzzled into her mother's crimson shawl. "I am worried. About them both," she added on and kept her attention on Neven. "They helped me, saved my life though I was often resentful towards them. I could say thank you for the rest of my life and that still wouldn't measure the things they've done for me when I was ready to give up." Head against her shoulder, she sighed and rested her hand back on Fenrer's arm for the steady comfort he gave when she longed to lose herself in a fairytale.

"I do not think they want your gratitude," Neven whispered. "Appreciative, but that is not why they did those things." He brought a hand to the necklace of swirled, snowy hearths, protected by the wings of a wyvern ancestor. "I have known both since they were little." His attention drew back down to Fenrer, and he reached forward to send an airy, misty wisp into Fenrer's brow, whose lips coles with a deeper, heavier breath.

"What were they like?"

"Well..." Neven folded his arms. "It is easier to say that Fenrer was the one who changed the most. Yuven has not changed much since he was eight. Fenrer built a mask of childish innocence when he carried the weight many adults before him barely comprehended. Maybe he believes that his giant's strength goes beyond physical aptitude, but everything has a limit, and I just hope this isn't it. For either of them." Neven took in a weaker, scattered breath. His feathers spiked out past the tangles. "Many apologies for this, Miss Adara. I am not much of a conversationalist, my Oathbound has an easier time with finding words."

"I've handled Yuven, you're a breath of fresh air." Adara chewed on her tongue.

"I am sorry on his behalf if he caused you some grief."

Adara broke out into a fit of giggles at his steady seriousness in the melodic accent which drew out his tongue of a bird's call. "You don't have to apologise for him, I've come to realise that... that's the only way he feels safe in caring about others." Her attention wavered back to Fenrer, who appeared to curl closer to her and Neven. "I don't think I can fault him. First, Prunal, then the Summit... everything when we tried getting here. But, um..." She twisted on her hips to face him. "I might say this wrong, but, kah-my."

Neven stared at her, unblinking.

"I butchered it, didn't I?" she said. At least with Hanekan some of the words... make sense. "Sorry."

"Oh, no, you said it correctly." Neven fluffed out his feathers, and his cheeks squeezed into what appeared to be an attempt at a smile, but with his fangs, turned into more of a snarl, unmatched with the amusement in his eyes. "That is one of the easier word groups to pronounce, who taught you that one?"

"Yuven."

"And what does it mean?" Neven pressed.

"Thank you? That's what he said it meant." Neven's lips parted, but he drew his hand to the back of his head to shake it. Adara's heart dropped at the silent declination. "What does it mean?"

"It is not something one would say in polite, proper, company," Neven said with a soft laugh. "I suppose my apology will still stand. The proper expression of formal gratitude, at least in the Irimountain dialect — Gratuo'vol." He raised his finger to slide it past his lips with a deep, hypnotizing song, but her enchantment came in the form of irritation at a certain white-haired mushroom getting the last laugh as she squeezed her knees and dug her broken, near bitten nails in. "Thank you." He unfurled his palm. "And not... that word I shall not repeat in full, and if you were to speak that out to an Avaerilian, depending on their standing, you will get chittered at. Pray that you do not say it in front of a Nava'shka, they may pinch your ears."

"Next time I see Yuven standing up he's getting more than his ears pinched." Adara dragged her fingers through the air, but her hope dwindled at seeing her friend upright ever again. "I hate this. Not being able to do anything." Tears welled up into her eyes, but she pushed them away to spare Neven of her old torment. And I lost all my friends.

"He would not want you to cry over him."

Adara looked at Neven, who shrugged. "He..." his melody wavered of an ancient, parental despair much deeper than her own. "He has hated nothing more than sympathy. Pity. He knows he did not deserve this, though he may say otherwise, for it is the injustice which makes him angry. Injustice for something he wouldn't be able to control at his age." Neven looked away from her, and sucked in his lips to slip his fangs over the bottom, his feathers tightening. "This... is the cruelty of what our Order fights. Moreso than Derelicts, but cultists in service for the dark they bring about. Derelicts are simple in their way. They seek one thing, and they will feast and form parasitic bonds to feed." His pupils thinned into beads once more. "He knows, Miss Adara. I know not if that helps, but he knows of your concern, but he is like to reject it because you are concerned. He does not want to worry people, to be a burden when he is not." Neven closed his eyes, and he clenched his jaw and the fangs slid back into his mouth. "He puts up a strong front so none can have room to doubt."

Adara frowned and they fell into the quiet once more. "I hope he makes it out of this."

"I do too." Neven sank into his shoulders and doubled over. He brought his hands against each other and up to his nose as he sucked in a tighter, clogged breath. "All we can do is hope, this is not a battle I can fight, no matter how much I want to." He patted Fenrer's bed and hauled himself to his feet and grabbed the bowl he discarded to the side in their conversation. "I shall leave you with him. Keep him company, for it is a small comfort in the darkest days of the toll."

Adara swept her gaze down his shaky, but stiff body. "Are you going to be okay? I know Yuven and Fenrer care a lot about you, and you seem to have made a difference in their life." Compassion reigned once more, and she left Fenrer's side to go to the tired Storm Warden who guided them on the unseen, uncertain path as he turned to her with droopy feathers. "That's probably a dumb question, considering—"

"Not dumb, I appreciate your voiced concern," he said, hiding underneath miles of ice. "I shall answer it. I am not okay, and I am not so prideful to fear admitting it. Though it is not the first time I've lost my family due to a cult... it is the first that I bear witness to it. Up close, with nothing else to give but my presence." He shut his eyes tight and his expression contorted into shaken grief. "Worse, that it is my own wyve'la. I just simply... don't have the strength to cry right now."

Adara drew her hands close to his chest, then turned to the door when hard footsteps stomped towards it. Maria threw open the door, her chest bursting for air. "Nev," she hissed. "It's starting. Adara, I want you to come down as well. You need not watch the entire thing, but I must ask you if you can use your magick to fill the essence."

"Oh!" Adara stumbled. "Of course. Anything, Maria. But, what about—" She motioned at Fenrer.

Maria scowled in determination and headed to his side. "First, shirt, it's going to be cold down there." She picked up the fresh linens and hauled Fenrer up with ease, and with Neven's quick assistance, they slipped it over his shoulders and tied it. "Second... Fenrer's not the only one with giant's strength." Feet planted, she tucked into her own body. Ripples of energy bounced across the air, and she breathed once, heading for Fenrer once more. Adara gaped when Maria lifted him up and over her shoulders with only a slight quake to her knees. "That is, I still won't be able to do this forever, so... we must hurry down to the lower levels. Follow."

Adara nodded and trailed behind, grabbing her book bag as she went for something to read, whether to them or herself, she would cross the bridge. Neven faltered behind. As Maria rushed along as if not burdened by deadweight, Adara faltered at the distinct lack of a third pair of footsteps. Back in the corridor, Neven stared at the windows, a hand on his mouth as he squeezed his eyes shut. Full of grief on her own throat as Tara, Rosa, Jisa, all disappeared at her fingertips with nothing but their dreams, names, and memories made. Adara bit on her own dam when a couple of tears slipped down his cheeks, and he nuzzled deeper into his own hand.

Adara went through the woods of pain, treading the corpses the Derelicts left behind on the roads of Prunal, a mountain to the castle of a king's genocide of magick. All for the crime of their existence.

For the crime of Yuven's when a Husk chose him as a host.

If there is any way I can repay him for what he's done, I will do it. I just want to see them again. Hale and whole.