YUVEN

Humidity glued his feathers closer together and caused the last remnants of his down to fluff out to catch what little cold there was in the air. A singing breeze hushed through the golden-speckled leaves above his head — the Goldwood. He sat at the bank of the creek cupping water to his lips to drain out the constant stale taste layering his tongue. On the other side, a pair of otters slipped inside to tangle into the reeds with a playful splash. He twisted open his food container, marked by the dietary band at each section, and he turned to check on Fenrer and Adara Sazaka. Once again, the Anima found herself stuck on simple manifesting of a magelight — which gave him no confidence that she'd manifest a map for him. Fenrer spun a circle with his hands, a vine-wrapped glyph following the motion. Out of the focal center, a light formed with the rays of the sun piercing through the gold canopy. Yuven shook his head when Adara's brow scrunched and she held out her hand to match Fenrer's, where silver flames danced across her fingertips in an attempt to copy the most basic level of magick learning.

"I'm assuming since you're showing her glyphs that she has primordial shifting mastered?" Yuven called before fiddling around for something to chew on — which he never had a lot of options when it came to things he could eat comfortably. He wrapped a bundle of chickpeas into a portion of flatbread, sending his own white flames through the interior to warm it. "You can't teach someone glyphs if they can't even manifest their magick," he pointed out as he straightened himself out to turn to them, where both met his stare. "Forget a magickae's signature — she needs to learn the basis of writing it first."

"I don't see you helping," Adara bit.

Yuven shoved the wrapped flatbread between his teeth to drive his fangs into it. "We can always use the creek for me to kick you around some more." He tried not to spit out the stale taste over his tongue, his medication failing once more at its base concept. "I still say you need to work on your footing. The flow will just smash into you whenever you try to manifest your magick in any meaningful way." He pointed with his two-pronged fork. "Or you'll get what happened in the marsh. Glyphs are a step above where you're currently at, Sazaka."

"I was demonstrating," Fenrer said.

Yuven ground his teeth against his fork at Fenrer's stilted behaviour. Deeper into the Goldwood, Fenrer's brow crunched and his steps left deep imprints in the dirt trail. Adara, on the other hand, never lost her exhausting sense of wonder, asking inane questions with each little log or bush they passed. Fenrer never failed to answer each and every one — time spent keeping the pace on the road through the Goldwood. "Demonstrating," Yuven echoed and put his fork in the small compartment on the side of his container when they stood side by side. "We'll be doing a lot of that on Euros. Just focus on getting her able to shift the primordial flow before we get there." He adjusted the frog of his crescent blade on his hip. "Let's go, Fenrer, you're the one guiding us, you clearly have somewhere in mind."

Fenrer nodded and stepped onto the trail. "Wolford," he said. "That's where I'm heading for the time being. We'll know we're close when we come across some lumber mills — the wood from the goldtrees are very magically robust building materials," he said to Adara, who beamed. "There should be a tavern and a map of the area. If anything, it'd be a good opportunity to rest and gauge the weather ahead." Fenrer came closer to him. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Yes." Yuven glared at Adara, who rolled her shoulders and sat down on a stump. Golden-speckled rings denoted the age it lasted, though some burned crimson tangled to form bumpy burrs on the imperfect wood. "What is it?" he asked when Fenrer nudged him out of earshot, and Adara took out her book of lies. "Is there something you failed to mention when we took this route, Fenrer? Your brow's been furrowed since we entered it."

On predictable cue, Fenrer's brow furrowed. "The route itself is fine, it's the quickest road I know to Sivaport, so... you have no need to worry there," he said, then shook his head, where the wolven pin bounced on his cheek. "It's your behaviour I want to talk about, Yuven."

Yuven folded his arms. "What about my behaviour, Wolf Boy?"

Fenrer glanced at Adara. "I understand the rush," he began and kept his gaze trained on his boots.

"You don't understand or else we wouldn't be having this conversation," Yuven cut off the conversation. "Fenrer, you've never complained before about something like this." One more check on Adara who pressed her nose into the book, he scowled when Fenrer tore his attention the same direction as before. "Fenrer, we can't afford to be distracted now."

"Distracted?" Fenrer questioned with a twist to his lips. "If anything, Yuven, I think picking fights is what will slow us down in the end. I'm the one having to process your auras clashing to create emotional sludge," he said. "That's what's distracting me."

"Are you sure that's all that's distracting you?" Yuven stood toe to toe with him, and Fenrer blinked a reflective mist through the green auric swirls. "This isn't the first time we journeyed on the road, Fenrer. Only thing different is her." Golden sunlight tore through the canopy to separate him from his Oathbound. "I know she's been complaining to you, and you're compelled to rectify it, but you can't navigate sludge when covered in your own, and you're the bastard who has to see everyone else's. So, I ask once more," Yuven drew the words out over his hissing tongue. "Is that all you're distracted by?"

Fenrer sucked in his cheeks and chewed on his lip. "Forget it, Yuv," he said with a heavy sigh then waved to Adara. "We're heading out, Wolford shouldn't be too far from here."

The dirt trail twisted and turned into cobbled paths to the south wall and the bridge over the splitting Blackwater river which sundered Haneka in two. From the ocean to the tip of Tebora's border. The golden canopy gave carriages and travellers plenty of shade, and Fenrer followed the cobbled path until it veered eastward. He stiffened at the sight of two guards beside a carriage, in the throes of an argument with a group of Hanekan's.

"The king can go piss himself for all we care," the man at the front of the pack heckled the two knights when they drew closer. "You think we'd blindly follow a Kolis again after what happened to the stewards of the Goldwood?" He spat at the feet of the knight, who gave a weary shrug. "Go and try your luck in the swamps. Maybe the Derelicts will be more accommodating — but we aren't. We won't let you pass into the heart of this forest."

"If only," the knight mumbled. "We just want to get these supplies to the capitol as fast as possible. There's no need for the roadblock."

"What are they saying?" Adara asked, stuck with her grip of Common — and never understood anything else in her life.

"Not our problem," Yuven said and stomped them past the carriage and the arguing Hanekan's, with Fenrer far more focused on them than he liked. "Nope." He pinched the top of Fenrer's ear to tug him along, causing Fenrer to instinctively drive himself into his shoulders and stumble along with him. "We have one goal in mind — I do not want to get involved with petty king conflicts. I had enough of that at the Summit." It sent a bitter taste of blood at his defeat to King Reyn, but he'd never kneel to another king ever again. Around the group who followed their every move, he patted his crescent blade in show when some appeared to itch for a continuous fight. Out of range of the rising argument, he released the tension in his shoulders and pushed Fenrer ahead, who rubbed the ear he pinched. "Go. Go."

"We could've asked what the issue was."

"If it's not a Storm Warden issue, we don't have to," Yuven argued. "I saw no Derelict chomping at them — they can handle themselves."

"What were they arguing about?" Adara insisted.

"The people of the Goldwood are blocking supplies... probably forcing anyone connected to the king to take longer routes," Fenrer muttered and pinched his cheek, a self-soothing gesture whenever his Oathbound thought too hard on anything when he needed to be focused on their destination. "Why are they doing that?" He dropped his hand to his side, and Yuven scowled when stone entered his expression.

"Fenrer, I don't like it when you make that look," Yuven complained.

"Sorry," Fenrer said with a smile that never reached his eyes. "It's just strange."

"Well, it can be strange on its own time and not ours. Wolford, remember?"

Exhaustion fluttered down Fenrer's cheeks to accentuate the shadows underneath his eyes. "It might be our problem if we ignore it for too long," Fenrer whispered with a shake of his shoulders. "But, you're right... let's go."

Birds chirped in the canopy — a small reminder of a flimsy sense of security of the world, for when it went silent, Derelicts crashed in and sucked the life from the flow. Yuven rubbed his throat when it bubbled blood inside him, never burnt by the sun's healing touch. It shattered into his eardrums and broke the music he constantly heard wherever he went; in the flowing breeze to the oceanic voices of the Hanekan's. A constant song he wanted to drive out of his mind, but compelled him to fill in the silence with his own vocal note. Yuven drove his teeth together when Adara sped past him to catch up with Fenrer.

Distractions. We can't afford them. I can't afford them. He tried to peek into the darkness of his memories, but it never revealed anything more than a sense of melancholy. But there's nothing worth remembering...

"Yuven?" Adara asked.

"Sazaka," he muttered, and scowled when Fenrer glanced back at him. "Adara."

Fenrer grinned and his gait took on a springy jaunt.

"I was reading more of those Navei tales—"

"I don't hear you singing them as I told you was necessary, I need laugh," Yuven said and tucked his hands on his belt. "What about them?" He knew her end goal for her direction of the conversation — to fill the musical silence, and if he made gold for every question she asked, he'd make more money then he ever had in his lifetime.

"Is there any semblance of reality to the myth that the ice fae—Avaerilians can enrapture and hypnotise people with their voice?" Adara corrected herself with a tap of the music notes in the Navei poems. "The idea has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?

"Fenrer, have I ever sung and compelled you to do whatever I wanted — or possibly rip out your throat?" Yuven glanced at Adara who squicked. "That's what the Teboran tales say, right?"

Her lack of response said more than her words.

"You've never had to sing to get that result from anyone, Yuven," Fenrer muttered under his breath.

Yuven placed a hand on his chest. "Well, I beg to differ," he said, then humoured Adara Sazaka. "I'm sure it does come from somewhere, but once more you have to understand the flow of magick. Avaerilians have a penchant to make it manifest through art, not just voices. Song and dance create magick and ripple the flow — or so Neven's told me," he said with a shrug. "It could be hogwash... but if you heard my Misoro sing or play the Navei lute, you feel it in your soul and magick. I don't think that's hypnotising someone, though. I think that is an exaggeration."

Adara nodded and examined the useless notes with an appraising eye. "So... can you sing?"

"No, and I'm not going to. If you don't listen to me the first time around, I'll just drag you kicking and screaming. I find that more effective than singing at you."

Adara snapped the book closed and gave him a toothy grin. "You know what, Yuven? I think I'm starting to like you. I think we would get along great if you'd take that stick out of your arse."

"Gods, and here I was trying to make you hate me with every fiber of your being." Yuven snorted. "We have places to be, Sazaka." He leaned closer to her when Fenrer left their range of hearing. "So don't get too close to Fenrer, yes?"

"What?" Her playful expression ripped apart in an instant.

"You are having an irritating effect on him," Yuven said. "We can't afford distractions. Neither of you. You need to focus on your training — he needs to be able to think clearly." He stomped through the brush to catch up with Fenrer. "And I want to get home without delay."

She's the difference. Fenrer never behaved like this before. Sweeping pinpricks of molten lava boiled his blood as he reached Fenrer, leaving Adara in the dust to catch up, coming closer to his Oathbound when Adara jogged behind him. And if we start to have problems now, it's hard to say what will happen next — and I need things in order.

He glared at her, and she no longer met him head on with a sense of confidence and bravado with her storybooks clutched to her chest.

It broke in an instant, and she kept her gaze trained on the ground, never saying another word.