YUVEN

I do not like this itch in my head. Constant. Aggravating. Mud squelched with every step he took in the rain, hands at his sides ready for an attack from the shadows. Greyscale colours gave him a sharper view of what others could not see in the dark. In the center of the ruined town, where the cobbled roads split deeper into the forest, he listened to the clouds rumble with their own agitation. Droplets slicked through his feathers, casting a cold chill over his skull. Wood rotted and carried scorched burns. Foundations broke apart from pointed strikes. Magick on magick. Another squelched step, he hesitated in the mist scattering from the rain. Yuven hopped up onto a broken front porch to peek through the shattered window. One part of the roof collapsed into the fireplace, spreading old charcoal onto the rain-soaked floorboards. He patted the windowsill, listening, waiting.

Nothing.

A piece of glass fell from the added weight of water to shatter on his boot. Head tilted for the sky, he breathed deep of the rain's thick, ancient smell. Off the front porch of the ruined house, he returned to the steps to where Fenrer led them into a half-broken shelter. He stopped on the final step, testing back to look over the desolation. Wind howled along the knolls, but it stifled the air within the walls. Leaves whispered on the canopy, and when he twisted back to the large manor on the hill, a dim fireglow cast along the scaled roofs. Shadows of arrows slammed into the etched posts. He blinked, and the glow dissipated.

No Derelicts on the perimeter... He folded his arms and breathed out, but the chill never escaped him in a thin mist to join the disorienting field of silence. Silver light bloomed from the longhouse, but the itch pushed into the back of his mind with the distant crack of massive towers to fall into bloodwater. Another breath, and he went past the longhouse to climb the rest of the plateau to the manor whose shadow loomed over the town. Stone jaws shattered into tooth pebbles. Huge paws rested on the edge of the platforms, ears forward and alert. Tool marks dug into their empty eye sockets. He rested his hand against the intact statue, where carefully etched fur curled to the base of a tail. He followed the snout until it broke at the nose.

Once bathed in flames.

Itch.

Yuven shook out his head at the curling talons to spread rust through his throat. Up the final stairs, where some of the stones broke and forced him to climb. On the small balcony that twisted around the manor, leading to another stairway straight to the longhouse, to what he assumed was a backyard area, he stood at the giant doors. Two, gilded door knockers hung on the door, a cold invitation when he gripped the curve to feel the touch underneath his skin while their metal gazes bit down with their sharp, wolven teeth. No magick pulsed into a lock, so he tugged them both back, then let them fall against the wood.

It released an echoing bang, stifled only by the thunder.

Yuven waited, but no one came to answer his call.

I suppose I'll let myself in.

He tangled his fingers with the next burst of wind from the flow. Glyphs gathered in misty twirls along his palm, and he stretched it through to open the door without physical contact. Both doors swung with a slight squeak on the hinges before coming to a stop to reveal the dark interior. The foyer stretched into its own giant corridor to reveal the shaded backyard and a metal gate into the hill.

On the threshold, he stepped inside.

The floorboards creaked underneath his boot, and he shook his feathers off the last droplets before thinning out the stems of his down to allow the full grown feathers room to expand around his ears. Two staircases hugged the wall to lead to the upper landing, where walls sank in from age and a lack of maintenance. He turned to the smaller corridor off to the right, where the wind cried through the old, pierced glass.

Itch.

Yuven brushed his forearm when the irritation centralized near his wrist, but headed through the corridor with what little light he gauged. He spread his magick into the sconces, but stopped when one refused to light. It sputtered out embers, and he raised his hand closer to it. White flames danced off his palm to bring to life the old ashes.

Glass cracked.

Yuven twisted around to the long line of windows.

A deep, malevolent glow to send smoke over the hills.

Itch.

He continued his investigation deeper, and he kept his shoulder against the door, to open it with one slow movement, prepared for an attack from the shadows. It struggled on against the ground, leaving a trail of dust when he let it swing open. He scoffed at the four statues looming around a runic center, where no essence flowed through the symbols of the flow. Ancients. Of course. He folded his arms and shook out the tension in his shoulders, but froze when he gazed at Evyriaz, the Traveller, whose wyvern wings stretched to embrace the room over his head, where Pyvansomiir curled around the rafters with the scroll between his teeth. Ugh. Back to the deities, he left them to their distance to the reality of the world to return to the main foyer.

Shadows fluttered.

He brushed his nose when he struggled to peek through the thickness of the dark. He listened for the hiss. He tried to smell decay.

Nothing.

Hm... Floorboards continued to creak underneath his weight as he went for the staircase to leave the howling windows behind. Ice continued to wrap around his feathers, and he reached the second landing. His flesh complained into bumpy rigidity, but he tucked himself closer to his leather armor when the corridors curled from the bannisters. Windows opened to reveal the storm outside and the distant windmills. Doors hung off their hinges. Empty racks scattered along the ground to tear down the same banners from the longhouse. He took a step off the staircase, then stopped.

Teeth drifted over his spine.

His feathers caught a breath.

Yuven twisted around to check on the lower landing, half-expecting for a Derelict to manifest from the air and lick at the world in hunger and depravity. Air drew into his nose, sharp, with a cold, metallic sting. He rested his hand on the hilt of his crescent blade before approaching into the thick cloud inside the manor. It creaked underneath his boot. One step. Creak. Two steps. Another.

He stopped.

Another, heavy creak, dissonant to his own careful footsteps.

He turned to the other corridor he left behind.

The clouds outside lost their will to rumble the thunder.

Now... that is interesting. Yuven checked for his two seaxs, thumbing the edges before sending a whisk of ice into the hilts.

Three more steps for the closest door.

A heavy step, and a tugging drag along wood.

Another turn.

The storm did him no favours for the vision he had while in the dark. It coated a dense, misty atmosphere in the air, too thick to be rain. Yuven shuddered with his feathers at the silence, the emptiness, the loneliness. He brushed his fingers against his lips, to draw them back for blood, but it never came off his tongue. He stuck it out, but tasted no mold or decay.

No... there's no Derelicts here. I don't think there has been in a while... He rolled his neck and checked behind him again. "Fenrer?" he whispered before taking one side step. A floorboard creaked underneath his boot, but it never let out a dissonant echo to not match his own weight. ... that was too heavy to be me. He brushed his arms before using his foot to open the door at the end of the corridor.

Through the threshold, he frowned at an overturned crib, where moth-eaten blankets spread over old, torn stuffies. Posts cut with a blade, he knelt down to the abandoned pile of childhood innocence. He grasped the old tangles of a ruined blanket to draw it over his arms.

It stung on its exit through his mouth and nose, into a plume of white fog through his nostrils, carrying none of his magick.

Pinpricks dug into his spine and his feathers tightened to catch the malevolence.

He drew his hands across his body to his seax's, where the ice answered his previous call. It tangled into thin sinew around his fingers, and he braced his heels against the floorboards, ready to fall into his spatial distortion to avoid the pulse of bloodthirsty intent, stalked through the grass like a deer lost to the husk.

Onto his feet, he readied for his own lunge when he turned.

No one stood at the door.

It dragged.

Floorboards went quiet.

Another breath left his lips in a cold plume.

Yuven dragged himself out of the room and twisted down the thick corridor. Blades in his hands, he wandered out to face the darkness over and over again. Footwork loose and light, he returned to the staircase, where the blanket of thick fog oozed out of every part of the building. Every step he took, something followed with a different taste of hunger — of fury and wrath.

No wraith extruded such hatred.

Lost in their own anger, unable to affect the world of the living.

It crushed his bones, and he listened closely when he descended the staircase. Around it to head deeper into the building, to turn the hunt inside out, he kept himself against every corner to check around them. None of the sconces lit up when he tried to force his white flames to light up the shadows. It refused to bend when he peeked closer, blocking him from gauging the intensity of the greyscale world the flow revealed. Free of an enemy, he swung around a bend with his back to cover. Ice caught between his ribcage and he fought to calm his breath when the plumes from his nose filled with ice. He inched for the broken back doors to peek out into the garden.

No flowers filled the garden beds, and a catwalk led to the center of a pond with more statues of the Ancients.

The metal gate into the hill swung open, the braziers alight with flames.

Though the rain stopped, the mist persisted. He leaned to check the sky, where the clouds thinned with their release of the moisture they held inside. The storm cleared, but the overcast sent a shadow of night through the silver breaks. He scowled and whipped around to the front door. He kept a brisk pace to the entrance, but froze at the shadowy peripheral on the upper landing. Jade. Gone with the wind and another distant, metallic drag.

Stalked like the prey he was.

Yuven rushed off the front porch into the quiet over the ruins of the grove. "Fenrer!" he snapped as he raced down the stone stairs to the broken longhouse. "Fenrer Pyren!" He scrambled across the wet stones and kept one seax in his hand as he kicked open the door.

Silver embers died in the hearth.

Yuven stepped outside.

I know this place.

It's not my memory. How could it be? I remember nothing.

Yuven headed to the slope to stare down at the town set to the torch.

Knockers echoed.

He twisted back to the manor.

Wispy jade tendrils slipped underneath to tug it back to its previous state, and the connection of magick rumbled through his ears. "Fenrer," he whispered and rushed to the steps when the doors closed and pulsed.

I know this place... because it's his memory.

Emotion drained out of his heart when Fenrer refused to speak of his pain. He dug his fingers into his palms, and teeth into his lips.

We're in Sungrove. And whatever is here... doesn't want us to be. Gods, where are they? Yuven scrambled for the front door, and reached for the knockers. He drew his hand back when it refused to budge, twisted on a lock.

No, he didn't... Fenrer had to have sensed this before I did... this doesn't make sense.

Yuven inched backwards, dragged by his useless disbelief.

Old fear dug into his throat and exploded rust over his tongue when he tried to find his song, but it came out a soft gasp as he leaped into his spatial distortion, to fly past the boundary and back into the flames.