YUVEN

The truth hurts. Of this, I knew better than anybody, Molvisaliz. I had to be told I was to die before my life began through eavesdropping, just like this time. Ironic how Neven was involved both times... Miesero, the truth hurts... you reacted worse than me. I always knew, in a way. Gods, the pity on people's faces. Pity. As if I want or need their pity. Sad frowns. Despairing brows. Each person outside his immediate circle looked upon him with such dismay. In the center of a crowd, all viewed him as a sad fact of life, but he refused to kneel to the idea of helplessness let alone puffed out monarchs with their metal peacock servants in heavy plate mail with no sense to wield the weapons given. Back home, he had only himself and the Warden Echelon to answer to — and his need for wolven absolution.

Galleons lined the harbour at the base of the mountain, ready to move supplies and Wardens where they were needed. Grey flags waved on the mast, stamped with the wyvern sigil, whose claws gripped onto the star of Aztryxer. One of them bound for the continent across the Dark Sea to take Neven Lotayrin away, back to his solemn duty he kept too close to his chest until confronted with it by the one who suffered underneath liars. Yuven sucked in his lips to try and catch Neven before he absconded to who knew where doing who knew what with no direction. Only a single purpose to uproot a cult.

Irimount. Asairai. Azahama... I know not what these places have in common, and Neven is not like to tell me. Yuven puffed out a breath from where he sat on the fence outlined around the hippogryph paddock. Tix'snuv chewed on a bone behind him, carving his beak into the marrow with sharp tugs and cracked splinters. On his feet when he spotted the blonde-haired Avaerilian, he pushed himself into his freefall of spatial distortion, sliding through reality against its own whims until he stopped in front of Neven, who barely looked up until he planted himself on the marble stonework of the path he took.

"It is not like you to not say goodbye." Yuven pushed the accusation of abandonment out of his voice, but his heart squeezed into flayed tangles. "In a rush to get back to work after being bedridden for a moon?" Arm behind him, he swung a golden glaive made out of his icy flow straight for Neven, who side-stepped it and pushed it out of his way. "You're still a little slow on the reaction, Miesero."

"Maria gave me the all clear," Neven said with his fingers on the shaft of the glaive made out of pure magick. "I will be fine." He hoisted a bag over his shoulder with a sigh, and his feathers flicked, where new ones grew to take the place of the ones he lost during the constant torture Naveera put his family through. "I didn't mean to leave without saying goodbye, I simply couldn't find you within the citadel. I was actually coming to check the stables as one last attempt." His lips curled up into a smile, but it refused to touch the sapphire abyss. "Although, I should've known you wouldn't let me leave without saying something to you, so I decided I will get down to the harbour and run into you on the way." Shoulders drawn up against his neck in a protective measure, his smile softened. "It is like you do not expect me to return if you let me leave."

There is always that chance with our line of work. Yuven pushed the thought of his mind. "Did you say goodbye to Fenrer?"

Neven's smile broke. "I did."

"And?"

Neven studied him with a breath. "Yuven, before I leave, I must discuss with you what happened between you and Fenrer," he said. "I said what I could to Fenrer, but the rest will be up to you. I will keep in contact through letters." His hand gripped his forearm, though his expression remained stalwart and lacked the pity the entire world held. "I have no doubt you've come to acknowledge your words have hurt Fenrer in more ways than one, but you need to tell that to him when you next attempt an apology. I don't want you two fighting, biting, tearing each other apart when you two need each other for the coming days." Neven shook his arm a little, and Yuven frowned. "Send me letters as well of any developments on the mainland if you want to help me with mine... and if I ever need your help directly, I will request your presence through the Warden-Commander."

Yuven let his hand fall loose at his side when Neven let him go. Harbor bells tolled the longer he let the silence of his nervousness stretch on. Adara's words tore through his mind, and he questioned, "Have I disappointed you, Neven?" He tried to lock eyes with him, but Neven gazed through him instead. "You once said you were proud of me, so proud of me... and I spit on that too." Stone entered the tips of his feathers and sent shockwaves through his skull when he tried to lift them, to stand strong.

Neven took in a soft inhale and looked towards the edge of the distant caldera. A silent sting left on his heart at his lack of an answer. Icy frost layered over his heart, to protect himself from the cruel sting over and over again. He bit down on his tongue when Neven replied, "Yes." He forced himself to stand strong once more, unwavering, unyielding, though his strength sapped from his body when Neven met his eye and his feathers fluffed out in the mountain breeze. "But it is with myself more than it is with you, Yuven."

"What?" Yuven rasped.

"Many things have a give or take. It is one of the fundamental laws of magick," Neven pointed out. "You have been doing a lot of taking from Fenrer, but little if any giving while on his end he gives too much but takes too little. It is a bad habit you both grew in an unstable environment, and I failed to guide you into better habits." He tapped the golden ice glaive in his hands, and Yuven frowned when it dissipated from his fingers of stability. "So in my own head I was, I failed to recognize the shaky path you two were on, becoming Oathbound without recognizing the foundations of your relationship." He tilted forward into a bow. "I apologise for failing you two on that account as your Guardian. I am disappointed with you and your actions, but I'm especially disappointed with myself and my own shortcomings."

"What-You-What?" Yuven struggled to voice his Navei words. He shivered when Neven knelt on an execution stand, arms cuffed to the railing while droplets slipped off strands of hair. The Naveerans called out for deliverance, and he bolted from their cries. "You didn't—" He pushed his fangs against his lips. "You have no need to apologise to me of all people, Miesero! What is the matter with you?"

What has become of you?

Neven's feathers slumped, and Yuven choked on his Avaerilian pride, "I should be the one saying sorry," he bit. "To you and to Fenrer. I just..." It tore through his lungs at his pitiful admittance, "I just wanted to give you a reason to be proud of me." He drew his arms around himself, stuck in the shadows of a standing stone all over again, with no little Hanekan boy to reach his hand out and drag him into the light, kicking and screaming. "You deserve to have a reason to be proud of me, instead of simply being proud because you are obligated. So you... don't feel like you suffered underneath the Traye Loyalist's for no real reason save for my bloodline instead of me being a disappointment." He stretched out his spatial distortion, ready to retreat, no better than Fenrer Pyren when faced with reality. His first step almost stole him into its consistent embrace.

The next trapped him in Neven's.

Stability wrapped itself closer when he latched onto Neven. Confused, he looked around for an answer to Neven's sudden urge for affection. "What?" He froze when Neven clasped onto both sides of his face to look him straight in the eye. "Why? I don't—"

I don't deserve this.

"I never needed a reason to be proud of you, Yuven, though there's plenty," Neven pointed out. "Look at how far you've come from that little Avaerilian who used to hide behind bookcases, both insatiably curious but so afraid that the world would hurt him... because it has." Feathers stiff, Neven's expression softened. "I don't need a reason, Yuven. Disappointment is but a temporary pain if you are willing to grow from that too as you have done so many times before. You are twenty-one turns to our twice century lifespan and now have a chance to grow further." Neven set his hands on his shoulders when the bells tolled, a call to action, dissonant against the depravity of the world. "Do not turn away from it, Yuven. You've never turned from anything else." He indicated with his head back at the citadel. "You have a chance to show to yourself what type of Storm Warden you'll really become." Neven beamed at him, and the light touched the abyss. "Do you not want to be the best?"

A wish made on the throes of his inevitable death. I wanted to be the best, to leave a mark when I am stolen from this life, but... I will never be as good as... Yuven let the thought drift again. "Yes." He scowled when Neven patted his cheek. "You would have that spot filled already if you weren't a napper." Fists clenched, he drew out of Neven's grip, no more a fearful child who needed the sense of stability. "All I can ask of you is to at least... look back this time around and if you need me or Fenrer, to tell the Warden-Commander and to be careful. We aren't children anymore." Yuven wrapped his hand around his Oath. "We're Storm Wardens too."

Neven gave a slow nod. "I will."

"Thank you." Yuven got out of his way but swept himself to his side. "I shall walk you down, to make sure you are not lacking in physical wellness." Ignoring the side-eye Neven gave him, he took charge all the way to the runelift against the senior captain. Inside, he studied Neven while the older Avaerilian leaned beside the open slot and enjoyed the coursing flow of the wind. Uncertainty tore through his knees with the auric barbs Blackwall stuck to his mind, a slow drag, a shamble of murk splattered across a crimson wolven pin's reflection. No, get out of my head. I will not... do this ever again. He chewed on the corner of his lip, rubbing along it with his fang until the lift stopped at the base of the mountain and the activity intensified.

Sanctuary seekers milled about the markets to retrieve fresh supplies, but he followed Neven to the port proper. A few Wardens carried boxes onto the ship meant to cross the lacerating teeth of the Dark Sea. Golden chains hung off the side of its hull, with its keel strengthened with the same steel crescent blades were forged with. A spike of a figurehead kept large Derelicts at bay, rammed through head on. Neven faced him once more when the ship's bells tolled with his arrival. "I know you will fix this." His hand found his shoulder again, and Yuven resisted the urge to cry. "Hofva'eri, Yuven. I will someday return again when my job is finished."

"Bye, Miesero." Yuven followed him as far as the gangplank where another Warden barked an order to the helmsman. He readied himself for Neven to keep his back to him once again when they raised anchor after a couple minutes of further loading and Neven's own orders to the crew. Yuven followed along its departure until there was nowhere left to go but the sea's embrace. Foam curdled at the ship's movements and created waves of change to lap at the marble pier.

A sharp whistled melody dragged him out of his dismay, a siren on the rocks in the middle of the sea. Head lifted, he widened his eyes when Neven stood on the back railing, one hand around the support shrouds to keep him from going overboard. Feathers expanded, Yuven forced himself to smile when he brought two fingers up to his brow, then tapped them off with a wave. Yuven went to step back, but he raised a brow when Neven's nostrils flared with a plume of mist. Oh for... fine. Just because it's you.

Feet planted, he drowned out the voices of distraction to listen to the song of the world and the whistle on the breeze. Fangs wedged on either side of his tongue, he curled it and let the melody rumble in his vocal chords. It sparked through the air, and he brought his fingers up to the tip of his tongue as Neven straightened his hand over his brow with a dumb smile on his face. Tilted forward into the reflection, a bubbled, white-scaled wyvern hissed onto his face, but it disappeared with his blink, and his song when he released the pressure in his lungs. It whistled a sharper melody in the air when he raised it, louder than a bird's cry, meant for something much larger and mightier than he with wings which shadowed entire landscapes.

He met Neven's gaze when he let the song drift.

Neven's smile softened until he disappeared through the barrier of mist.

Hofva'eri, Miesero... I shall see you home. He turned around to face the mountain of his mistakes and shortcomings. Murk blocked his path, but he dragged up his convictions and waded through it to make right his own foolish pride.

It stuck to his feathers, dug underneath scales, but his footsteps clanged with claws.