ADARA

So... it's really come, hasn't it? Right when Yuven Traye has decided to abandon me. Right when he's decided to shove his head in the sand. Adara held the neat scrawl of the Elder Convocation's judgment for her right to exist within the magickae world. Fenrer kept a hand on her wrist as she read over it, a horrible invitation to prove the worth of her silver phoenix fire buried in her blood, her soul. Her fireward broke apart when Fenrer came to her instead of the other way around, a tight expression on his face with the thick parchment in his hands. It's come and Gods... I'm not ready for this, not so soon. Notebooks scattered across several, hundred of pages monoliths to try and memorize the contents and replace the fairytales for her wanderlust. "I've barely mastered the fireward," she said and choked on old terror. "I can barely keep it up for longer than what... five seconds if I'm being generous? And I'm expected to pass whatever test without any mistakes?" Her fingers pinched the edges and dug into her skin. "I don't even know what these tests will entail."

"I know, but I have faith you can do it," Fenrer insisted, though his own tormented concern licked down his oceanic accent. "They'll give you a couple days to prepare once we're in Azahama. You'll have a contingent of Storm Wardens around you at all times — Adara, we aren't going to let anything happen to you,' his voice came out strained when he squeezed both her hands with his own. "No matter what the Convocation decides, you are the Order's charge. They made a mistake a hundred turns ago, and the Storm Wardens want to make it right. I have faith that you'll prove to them, and yourself, that your magick is not a curse, not a blight or a plague or whatever you think it is." He shook his head in one wild motion and refused to say the words to himself most of all. "We still have a few days before we have to head for Sivaport to take the Umbral Gate. You'll be okay." He held onto her face as her lungs refused to intake air. "I'll be there, Adara."

"What about Yuven?" she rasped, and his Oathbound's name scrunched his brow. "He's the one that's been teaching me this whole time. He's the one that—"

"Yuven's made his choice, it shouldn't dictate yours," Fenrer said with a sharp edge to the wave. "He made the choice to take himself off the contingent. He made the choice to let you fumble your way through when he was supposed to guide you through this." He lowered his hands to her shoulders. "I can teach you some more things in the few days of preparation that should serve as support if what Yuven's taught you doesn't stick with them." Her panic etched in the galactic swirls of jadeite meadows. "The Warden's will outfit you with some gear to protect yourself. Just remember what we talked about." Fenrer let go of her to stack up the books which failed to give her any comfort behind an Avaerilian's steady, cold tone against cruel odds. Indifference to others' judgment.

"You'll be there?"

"Yes."

Pain bounced in her skull when she shook it. "Fenrer, listen," she began, and a wall formed stone over his sun-kissed features. "I know you and Yuven are having a rough time of it, but I'll tell you what I told him. You need to talk to each-other. I am not—" Adara approached him when he took a step back and dug his fingers into the black velveteen band with Haneka's sigil stamped upon it. "I will never justify what he said to you — what I have always heard in my life due to something I can't control. It wasn't right and just like that Law, is not fair." Her exhale came out tight when she pointed at his forearm.

"The law exists for a reason," Fenrer parroted Yuven.

"Does not make it any less stupid," she bit back. "Or any less cruel. Blackwall did that to him, not you! I want—need you both there. Not one or the other. Both. You two were the ones who spirited me out of Prunal. Finish it."

Fenrer curled his lips in irritation. "Is my faith not enough for you either?"

Not when it's a lie and I'm a giant hypocrite! Adara swung her arms out at the shockwave gathering in her knees for swift kicks into the maw of the void. "You know I did not mean it like that, Fen," she snapped and drowned in the pressure the measly letter created. "The Storm Warden contingent doesn't matter to me. Whoever the Echelon puts in charge of me, do you think they'll have any real idea how it feels when you two do? When you two are the ones who were at my side up until this point? Who almost died for me?" Agitation smacked her spine forward when Fenrer folded his arms in the same, until the fight in his expression died in an instant with the same, defeated haze Yuven created.

"I can't change his mind." Fenrer winced at the wording. "He hates me."

"Fen, I don't think he hates you—"

Fenrer tilted his head at her. "His aura says otherwise, and it's hard to miss." He scowled and drove his hand through the thick dark-brown locks. "I don't want to talk about Yuven right now," he stammered out with a wave at the piles of books. "We need to focus on the immediate problem. If it is defensive glyphs you're struggling with, I can teach you that. Yuven's never been good with defensive based glyphs. You heard him admit it." He unhooked the Runic Expanders off his wrists to hold them out to her. "Here, put these on and we'll go down to the training rooms."

"I'm pretty sure they won't let me use magitek to supplement my magicks," she argued, but put them on all the same. Straps locked around her forearms, her bones vibrated under the strength of the vent's expulsion of access magick, from morning-soaked air to silver pyre's. It weighed down her shoulders as she followed Fenrer out of the Annex, the study material useless to her at the moment of truth. Into the same room Yuven first took them to demonstrate protective weaves upon the flow, she waited for Fenrer to close the door and begin the lesson in earnest while she had the time to waste.

"I know they won't let you use magitek, but those will give you a foundation to work off of even if it's not the same as the fireweave." He flicked a couple of jade-studded embers into the air, and she frowned at the odd shift in his magick to whisper out to her own. "Its core concept is the same. Protection. Defense. Internal instinct. External focus." He swiped his hands through the glyphs and sent them into the ground in turn. "You don't know it, Adara, but you've always done protective magicks, just not through the use of glyphs. Your inner flow protects you all the time. It can create an unseen shield around you. Glyphs bring it to bear around an external area instead of an internal one." He held out his hands. "Runic Expanders do half the job for you. You just need to push the strength of your magick through them, from which the circuitry will spread it outwards. The only downside is that it is considered an anchor and you won't be able to move once it is formed. You will have to break it or pass the shield to someone else." His hands clapped together in demonstration, and the glyphs gathered around him in a circular sphere.

Adara nodded. Fire spun around her wrists when she slammed her hands together to create a pulse through the touched flow. Circuitry sparked out silver embers, but refused to release the vent of protection. It vibrated her bones to the marrow, and she scowled at its refusal to bend to her need. It fluttered with force, but died in an instant with her faltering faith and Fenrer's disbelief. Bones trembled, she dropped her arms to her sides and shook her head. "It's not working." One more clap for added measure, she sighed when it vibrated her entire body instead.

Fenrer opened his mouth, but closed it with a snap when his gaze trailed over her shoulder and shifted into cold steel. Adara frowned then turned, but no one stood in the doorframe or behind her. Until Fenrer snapped his fingers together, and Yuven widened his eyes when his spatial distortion fell away for her. Out of the Oathbound's way, she frowned when Fenrer angled himself back around to keep distance. "What do you want, Yuven?"

"Wrong."

"What?" Fenrer frowned.

"Wrong. You aren't explaining it right in a way she'll be able to understand," Yuven argued, though from the way his melody trembled, he fought to keep it even and steady. "Footwork. Again, Adara, we've talked about this. You yourself must be strong for a Runic Expander to work, and not just physical. Mental." Yuven tapped his temples. "Defensive Glyphs require a target, an area of external focus. You are not focusing. You are too focused on what's about to happen to be an efficient shield to a shrub let alone yourself."

"I don't think berating her is the right way either," Fenrer pointed out, then stumbled when Yuven threw another pair of Runic Expanders into his arms. "What do you want?"

Yuven raised a nimble finger to point at him. "Easy. Demonstrate. I found she responds more to that than trying to explain it to her."

"I am right here, Yuven," she grunted, but sighed when both men ignored her for each-other. Fenrer wrapped the Runic Expanders around his wrists, which sucked in his glyphs to form them into a flow of steam through the vents. Fists clenched, Fenrer brought his arms out. It rippled with jade electricity as it gathered deeper into the circuits, and he clapped his hands together.

Sparks of the dawn fell from the vents in response. Beautiful, suntouched embers instead of spring's vines.

Yuven folded his arms when Fenrer gave it another try, his breath coming in slow, irritated huffs when he snapped his attention to Yuven. "Happy that your point has been proven?" He ripped off the Runic Expanders and tossed them to his feet, still steaming from their ports. "Sorry having a lot on my mind, Yuven. Guess I can't demonstrate."

Yuven picked up the Runic Expanders and slipped them over his own forearms without taking his gaze off Fenrer. "You two waste so much time thinking and not enough time doing." He held out his arms, and Fenrer's disbelief heightened into annoyance. "Instinct and focus. External and Internal. You think that matters? You have to balance both." Beads formed into his pupils when he swung his arms back against each-other, and a plume of a maelstrom slipped out of the ports and expanded into a golden shield between him and Fenrer, leaving her on the sidelines as he held his position. "If you can't tear yourself out of your own head, Sazaka... the Elder Convocation will do it for you. Or need I remind you what happened hundreds of Turns prior?"

Adara shrank into her shoulders, but Fenrer broke the shield with ease with his fist instead and a wolven scowl. Yuven's nostrils flared, feathers fluffed out in readiness. Golden stars full of tension fell upon her shoulders and burned her heart. "I'm not happy, Fenrer," Yuven said and tucked his forearms against his sides once his excess magick released itself through the vents. "I'm no happier about this than either of you — but I tried to do something. You two are just now seeing why I was so hellsbent on getting it through her thick skull — and yours." Yuven pointed at Fenrer again, and the flow cracked in her ears when the two stiffened as they stared each other down. "What do you want me to say, Molvei'saliz? Want me to be gentle? Be soft? When we both know this world isn't? At that rate... you're just asking for it. Or are you going to spout 'Kindness will always prevail' at me?"

Adara jerked forward to try and stop the tide when Fenrer jolted forward to grab onto Yuven, though Fenrer's rage died into shock at Yuven's solidity. Yuven released a plume of mist through his nose without much reaction to the force. "Going to hit me, Fen?" he whispered. "You're only human."

"I don't think—" Adara scowled when the two ignored her.

Fenrer shoved Yuven out of the way and stomped out of the room.

"Great apology," Adara bit at Yuven when he turned to her. "You've downgraded your emotional capacity from a mushroom to a spoon."

"Any apology I'd say upon the words of my soul would be disingenuous," he said, tone empty. "I had come down here to apologise. Again."

"But instead you went for being an asshole?" Adara argued.

Yuven's brow scrunched in despair, but he remained silent right when she needed him to say something. Anything to quell the terror a single letter gave her. Alone. Lost. Confused. Adara scoffed and bumped her shoulder into his to go chasing after Fenrer if his Oathbound wanted to freeze in place. Whatever. I don't need him. Lies dripped off her tongue as she ran through the light of evening to head back to Fenrer's room, slamming her fist against it. Only for it to open mid-swing, and her hand went straight into Fenrer's outstretched one, stopping the misaimed punch short. Dark shadows fell down his cheeks.

"My door didn't do anything, Adara," he said, tone as empty as his Oathbound's. "Now you see why I don't want to talk about Yuven, or to him?" He shook his head at her, but let her inside his room. Chills swept down her arms at the fireplace full of dead soot as he shut the door behind her, looming by his desk. "I don't want to talk right now."

You two are so stupid. "I can't do this, Fen."

"Yes, you can," he said with a sigh. "Don't say that."

"Yuven's right. I overthink," she rasped. "The times my magick worked is when I stopped thinking too much about it." Embers fell off her fingertips when she waved them to demonstrate. "How am I going to be able to show that I'm not a threat if I'm too worried that's exactly what they'll perceive me as?"

Fenrer brought his fingers up to his brow to tug some strands off it. "I don't know, but just try and get some sleep, Adara," he said, gazing through her instead of at her. "You're going to need it. I will be there, and it'll turn out alright. You just need to believe. Have faith." He turned for his bed, basked in the golden dusk.

I can't. Her thoughts trembled worlds and Fenrer's entire body when he stiffened. "I don't want to be alone," she murmured, swallowing tears of hopeless despair. "I know you want to be alone, Fenrer... but I can't be right now."

His shoulders slacked and he faced her in truth. "Very well," he replied. "I won't turn you away, Adara... you should know that by now." Back to her, he undid the wolven pin and the small braid with ease, brushing it out before tossing the mark onto his endtable. "You're just not going to be comfortable."

"What makes you say that?"

"Funny feeling." Fenrer fell into the bed, all his strength long gone due to his own despair. He rolled over in full to lock the blinds in place before driving his face into his pillow with a deep sigh.

"Are you not going to take—" Adara indicated to the hazebulbs.

"Nope."

I don't think I'm the only one that needs Yuven. Adara sat in the bed instead. Awkward claws stung into her lungs at Fenrer's defeated silence. Gods, is this how Fenrer feels every night? Being exhausted as he is... but unable to fall asleep anyway? "Um... I can always come back later, Fen. Don't you usually pray in the shrine around this time before you go to bed?"

Fenrer shook his head. "Just lie down, Adara." He stuffed his face in the pillow again and hid the jadeite swirls.

Adara tucked herself in the mattress with a small gap between them. Arms around her sides, she burrowed into the other pillow for warm comfort he brought. Shut away from the world, two stars fell past her. Emerald and violets. One sank deeper into darkness. The other skipped across crimson waves and shattered with the force into the starlight binds. Wings turned to silver ash around her, and she snapped herself back awake into moonshed shadows and the soft shiver close to her. Blankets fell off her when she sat up. Huh? "Fenrer...?" On her swiveled hips, she looked upon the shape beside her.

In the clutches of a nightmare, he shook with every soft exhale as he laid on his side, back to her without any blankets of his own. Oh. Adara released the tension for comfort, drawing her hand over his shoulder to touch his face. Her finger followed his jawline, and she closed the gap to brush back his hair. I'll talk to Yuven tomorrow... you two need to wake up. One hand on his waist, she focused on him and allowed the silver flames to melt over him. It's just a nightmare, Fen. You're home. You're safe.

Adara held onto the top of his head when his eyelids fluttered and glowed with the same silver ashes born from her wings, and when he turned with a confused, tired noise, freeing himself from his agony for a precious moment, she leaned closer and held him close instead through the night.

Though it took her too long to fall back into the beautiful twilight sea, it took Fenrer a few minutes to stop trembling and breathe an even, oceanic tempo.