FENRER

"Fenrer Pyren,

I hope you read this letter with a clear mind. I will not mince words with you, though I have made strides with the peoples of the Goldwoods, what I told you before holds true still. From Wolford to the knolls of Sungrove, the residents will only ever hear the words of the Pyren's. Words Lord Soren once told me, a young boy who tried to be a mouse instead of the draconic epithet I have been given. Dragon King. Irony. Would that the people knew what type of Dragon King I was when we were boys.

I remember you. You once held yourself as your father did. I saw what you might've become had life been kinder, had the Desecration was nothing more than a nightmare.

'Silver light heralds the dawn.'

Spoken by your vaunted ancestor who wielded the very blade I returned to you. I often wonder what made him say such words. It splattered across your wolven crest and Haneka repeated it forevermore. Is it words of hope as we thought? I know what we've learned may have shaken so many foundations, and have forced us to think back on a history broken by the Echo Obscura. Is history repeating? Is it simply being poetic? I wish I knew.

I make this request cautiously. Now that I know for certain that king's are being targeted and Hirishi passed on, that leaves two. Myself... and King Laucan. I shall explain more on both fronts, but I'd feel more secure in having you around for a time. A Storm Warden at court, and a Pyren, to show the people that your family survived the cruelty and bloodshed — an old tradition cut by the monarchs of precious generations after the Pact of Hundred. You need not break that pact, but if this is the act of a cult, it is in the jurisdiction of the Order. Think about it — and I will need your help with Sungrove.

~ Reyn Kolis."

Fenrer tucked his head in his knees with his back against the obsidian glass of etched names. He sat beside a pale-haired figure, scared of their own shadow with the ambition of an older man. Stuck in an empty shell, he tucked the letter in his leather strap and returned to the darkness, his one solace against the teeth of the flow. Grass beckoned him into its soft embrace, but he pressed himself deeper into his own reflection and lacked the strength to raise his hand to the same pale-haired Avaerilian, who quivered with quiet sniffles, shielded by a stone.

"I'll be your shield instead. I'll show you. You have no reason to be afraid. I promise."

Yuven took his hand and he punched him in the face. Fenrer lifted his head off his knees when a breath caught in his throat. Waves of old crimson overflowed the flow, and he tried to push Yuven down to prevent the broken crack within the flow. People jeered and withdrew from him when they looked upon his eyes and band. Threw up shields to prevent him from treading too deep into their emotions and thoughts as if it were a book. When did it start, Yuven? Fenrer hugged his sides and wiped at his face. Did it truly start when Blackwall tortured you? Or is that a naive hope of mine? He shivered against exhaustion's needles against his spine, unable to lift himself off the ground. I am... treading a line. It would not be the first time.

"What keeps you from losing yourself to that temptation?"

My faith. Fenrer dug his fingers into the dirt to choke at the world for the truth when everyone he loved refused to give it to him. A cold breeze swept through the fields of blooming snowroses tucked between the gardens, the pollen shed into frost to give fertility to the air. Snow hushed in a gentle gale, winter's breath. Fenrer huddled closer to the stone when a shadow moved with the whistled wind. Another person who suffered underneath Aurus' powers. His own. Fingers in his knees, he snapped, "What now?" He glared into the deep sapphires which appeared to glow in the frosty pollen. "Here to complain as well? Here to fault me for what happened to you? I've already gotten into your mind once, remember? I showed you your worst memories. Aurus are all the same right? Go on. It's nothing I haven't heard before."

The sapphires came closer through the dark, shaped into vertical slits. "You were seven and didn't know how to control your powers — and had you not set yourself in my mind... you would have perished that day on the Sivaport docks. It was for survival, I do not hold it against you." Sunlight shed across his golden hair when Neven got on his knees to come closer to him. "Little Wolf—" Father's voice rumbled from within the manor, within the necrotic snarl. "I won't ask what happened in Azahama, I will not pry nor press. But you cannot blame yourself for the actions of a few — nor should anyone else, including Yuven." His hand touched his shoulder, and Fenrer drew away to block out the influx of aura. "I was not tortured by an Aurus — I do not even think there was one during my imprisonment. It was politics, Fenrer. Politics and bought off Iceshards, which I know you have experience with." His fingers clutched into his collar.

"You said you'd come back," Fenrer stifled a sob. "You promised."

"And for a mercy... I could keep it," Neven whispered. "I am glad." A soft hiss followed his inhale. "Yuven... does not hate you though his words have confused you. I will not make excuses for him, nor tell you what you should do. You need to give yourself time. Listen. Feel. Sing," Neven repeated Naveera's convictions. "You are my family, and I would never hold someone else's actions against you simply because you share a unique ability upon the flow. Within your eyes." Neven shuffled to grip onto his other shoulder. "Magick does not give you a darkened heart..."

"Actions do..." Fenrer repeated the same words he told Adara, so long ago. Your magick does not make you a blight, a plague. It is simply your magick. He drove his teeth into his lips and rasped, "I don't know why they lied to me." He dug the palm of his heel into his eyes to try and shake away the dampness developing underneath them. "Why couldn't they have just told me from the start? I would not hide such a thing from them." Anger dug deeper with the molten sunlight burning into his hip when he tread through Azahama's blood-splattered streets. "I should've known something was wrong, their auras were all murky..."

"Honesty is hard when you fear the consequences of the truth," Neven said with a rattle of his pale gold feathers. "Lying comes across as the merciful, easier option." He frowned with a sigh, then pried him off the ground and away from the obsidian glass stone, where a white-haired Avaerilian pointed up at the names with a shield of ambition. Violet determination breathed to life within a shattered skeletal figure.

"I will be remembered, Molvisaliz. Let's be a sword and shield for those names."

Fenrer clung onto Neven for stability, security stolen from him on the mere word of a tyrant. "I'm sorry," he failed to stop the sobs of a child. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have hit him, and then I sensed the beginnings of a flash and I shouldn't have left him—"

"Yuven is fine," Neven assured. "I saw him at the citadel before I came here looking ruffled but on his two feet. You need to rest. You have not slept since you returned, and do not think to deny it. You are overwhelmed with all that has happened and have not been given a chance to process it." A hand pushed into his brow, and Fenrer drove his teeth deeper into his lips. "Come." Neven nudged him in the back, a large hand rested on top of his head as he dragged himself out of the garden. Old Hanekan and Navei entangled along the marble walls, a song carved into the waves and wyvern flames. Bells tolled within the spires of the citadel as he clung onto Neven, refusing to let him go when he took him to his room in the western wing. Bile crawled up his throat the sight of the prayer rooms, the incense burning into his nostrils, though Neven dragged him inside.

"Rest," Neven ordered and let him go, though Fenrer found himself glued to his sleeves, seven again.

"I can't — I'll just see all of it again and I can't—"

Neven squeezed his shoulders. "What would you have me do? Ask."

"Sing."

Neven quirked an eyebrow, then said, "I can sing, yes, what song would you like me to—?"

"No." Fenrer shook his head and tasted the dangerous voice across the sea. "Use your magicks, Neven. I know you can. I know you're capable." He dug his fingers deeper into his Guardian's arms when his curiosity died into uncertainty. It spiked the flow with shimmered air and flaked snow. "I won't be able to sleep any other way. I know it is ironic for me to ask that of you, but please," he pleaded for his broken faith. "I want to sleep, Neven."

"Oh, Molvei'saliz..." Neven's lips parted with a stuttered shake of his head. "I could not do that to you, what you ask it's—"

"I know it's dangerous," Fenrer whispered. "I know once you commit to the song you will not be able to stop until it is complete. I know my mind will be lost for a time, but there is no other way. Maria's hazebulbs stopped working. It is not like how Aurus cast the mind into the flow for temporary release, I know it is different. I know." Fenrer resisted the urge to shake Neven, who winced. "Please."

Neven's hand wrapped around his shoulders. "Lie down... I shall return."

Fenrer let him go and did not believe his words when Neven stumbled out of the room with a quick pace. He stood there with no other recourse, refusing to rest with the truth on his mind and everyone's split lies. He readied himself to leave, but Neven returned after too long, a white lacquered lute in his hands as he sucked in his lips and nodded at Fenrer. "Give unto me your voiced desire," his Navei came out on the whispered breeze when Fenrer crawled into bed, his tone not reflecting the pain and nervousness in his aura. Glyphic sapphires fluttered in the air.

"I just want to sleep," Fenrer whispered.

Neven's fangs drove into the corner of his lips as he shook his head then sent a pulsating glyph into his door. "I should not do this..."

"Please?"

His gaze softened when he dug his fingers into the strings on the lute. Neven approached him. Winter intensified into a blizzard when he looked him in the eyes. Beads broke the vertical perfection with a deep, growl to rumble the room. Neven nodded with one slow, reptilian movement, but a bird's grace when he slunk to the center of his room.

Fenrer squeezed himself between his blankets to keep him in place, ready for the song.

Neven drew his fingers down the board then plucked at the strings. It blurred the aura of the mountain, a fuzz of beauty to hide sharp claws of his chosen desire of rest, and every one of the lies when Neven began to sing. Magick came from the flow and his own heart, and he found his body seizing up the longer the passage continued. Music glimmered the glyphs at his feet when he spun along with it, shedding it off the lute. A deep, quiet melody carrying his lullaby. It pushed into his mind with a tug in his body, but he fought to keep himself in place. Neven slowed the tune, the beads studying him with a layer of worry though he continued the beautiful song with the voice of warmth. Another layer of the glyph raised upwards into his room to touch the ceiling, spinning with reflective sapphires when Neven finally closed his eyes and sang. His candle whisked out with the birth of the flow, dancing along to the Avaerilian's voice.

His mind screamed and blood splattered bubbles. Emotions dug into his throat, the worst crushing into his rib-cage when Neven reached the final crescendo of his music. His body stiffened in time with Neven's, but he came closer, his voice softening, and moonlight shed across his face. He went quiet, plucking at the last notes of his glyph. His thumb pressed against the board, while his fingers hesitated into a beat, hooked underneath the strings. One last line of plucks, he whispered, "Rest, Molvei'saliz, for the song is eternal."

Neven let out a low whistle, the wind answering, and Fenrer floated deeper into the darkness and embrace of Sungrove. In the comfort of his old bed of furs and cotton until it disappeared with his thoughts, lost and untouched by the cruelty of the world and the worthlessness of his beliefs.