FENRER

Kon burst into crystalline mist, touched by the break of day. It fell onto him as dew. It flushed his skin straight to his bones, and he groaned, led on a gentle string to stand on his feet. Fullness swelled in his head he had no strength to shake off, but when it embraced him in a fiery, but comfortable touch, he allowed it to slip into the forefront of his mind. Auras dulled with someone else's sight of the world, but it twirled into smoking mist and overlapped views of memories. He walked, but not at his own thought. Kon...

He stopped before he approached Sivaport, and nausea spun into his temples when he shook his head with a slight grimace. "Your condition is worse than I thought, Little Wolf. Bear with me."

But how are we going to get into the city?

Fenrer found himself examining the walls. Architecture of stone embedded with granite. Mortar and plaster filled the cracks and twisted into runes at the foundation, half-hidden in the dirt. Sweat slid down his neck when he turned to the jagged rock sticking out of the water, interconnected by a bridge with protected steps leading down to several watermills. Underneath the bridge, a gate into the harbor for small fishing boats. Kon?

"That might be our best bet into the city."

Why not the front gate?

Fenrer turned his back on one of the entrances to the curvature of the city digging deep into the gulf, but saw nothing on the other side of the city walls save for the beacon on top of the lighthouse on the edge of the cliffs. Another wave of dizziness spun the light, and Fenrer sank into stone, but found himself continuing to stand on trembling knees. "I do not want attention drawn to you until I know the situation at hand." He mouthed the words with his own tongue, but it never left with his voice. His body moved with someone else's intention as Kon guided him from within to follow the breadth of the giant wall of laced granite. Carts rolled out of the smaller part of the gate which held up the bridge. Bubbles bounced in his chest, but Kon walked with a sense of purpose, drive, and endless strength in his shaky body.

Still, he wasn't tall.

His hand wound around his arm and he grimaced at the flash of pain. Kon... It wormed into his vision, but he scooted behind a barrel full of stinky fish as a fisherman threw another bunch into the waiting hands of the harbor worker. On the hoops of the barrel, runes pressed deep into the wood to preserve the contents within, though the smell swallowed his nose. Fenrer crawled along the shadows, and frowned at a guard standing inside the gatehouse, directing fishing boats back into port. From dinghies to karves. He crawled over onto the street when a group of people passed.

"You saw the Storm Wardens?"

Fenrer, or Kon, stopped at the drifting conversation.

"Yep," the harbor worker tossed a batch of line into a box. "Don't think they're going to be coming back anytime soon. We better get ready to stock. I won't be surprised if Derelicts start swimming along the pillars..."

No... they couldn't have left... they're golden warriors meant to go where they're needed... Fenrer settled a hand on his stomach, and stifled the urge to choke on hopelessness. He breathed out the flames off his brow as he dragged himself through the small crevices before the gate closed, with the guard not giving him the time of day. Buildings followed a respectful distance around the cleft, upwards into the cliffs and to the castle which loomed and spread a giant shadow over the city. It lowered into a slope and into the massive harbor boasting longships to mighty galleons. Shipwrights worked at fresh lumber and at long worktables.

His stomach growled, but the thought and distant taste of smoked salmon made him nauseous.

"We're in, Little Wolf." He rested his arm on the wall of a tall house. Wooden rafters stretched into shingles and protected him from the elements. Lampposts hung on the corners with signs posted on the stone framework to guide deeper into the city proper. Metal weighed down his ankles as he drew to the corner of the street, avoiding the confrontation with people who walked them. One person tossed their fist into a door. Voices rose in the air with a level of passion and energy to suffocate him.

You heard those people... the Storm Wardens...

"I am not giving up yet."

I can't swim all the way to Euros...

"It will not come to that." Kon drove him to the other side of the street as a cart rolled into an outside market stall. As he reached the shadows of the alley, a pulse of lightning went through his mind, and he gasped out in pain when it centered over his arm. Digging his fingers into the bandage, he whimpered and rested the side of his head against the damp, but cool stone to chase away the heat gathering along his neck. He slipped to the ground, among the cobblestone as people walked past him and never gave him any attention. Framed by the house foundations, the lighthouse which pierced its beacon into the greatest storm. Another twisted pulse sent a wave of pain through his heart, and he scrunched his brow to choke it. Auras glimmered, and the fullness stretched with effort. Kon...

"I am here." Kon's voice spurred him to lift his head up to the next street along, which sloped downwards. He tugged himself up with the empty box beside a wooden door before entering the large street. It swelled into his senses with noises, sights, and smells. Stalls sat outside with their only entrance behind the table. A fishmonger beside one cut into fish with expert precision with a filet knife. Nearest him, rune trinkets hawked by the owner. Up the road it expanded outwards into the front gate, but his destination, the last of his hope, went downwards into the formed hill. Kids ran past and tossed a ball from around the adults, and he whimpered at the joy, the laughter, and the way it dug into his brow with jagged teeth and hidden terror.

The colours... "It's too much..." he whined, but bit on his tongue to keep himself alive. His feet continued on, ignoring his complaints. Kon... it's starting to hurt...

"I know..." It ground his own jaw into nothing with Kon's worried relentlessness, and he swore it slipped off his own tongue, with his own voice. It grew worse on his shaking knees with each step he took to balance himself on the slope, but the harbor was in sight. Ships pulled into the harbor, and a burst of energy returned to him as he sped past the harbormaster's office. Horns blew for departures. Harbor bells tolled to alert the rest.

His heart stuttered at the distant shape of a magnificent galleon floating farther from the pier. Wyverns flew along the masts and flags, and his heart stuttered at their departing horn, almost out of range. "No..." He shambled along the one pier empty of people, ignoring the housecarls arguing with the sailors nearby. "No..."

Happiness, hope, and strength drained out of him as he slumped onto the last plank of the dock. Water lapped at the legs keeping the pier stable.

"Little Wolf..."

Fenrer groaned with his weakness as the darkness flashed, but he shook his head, and the fullness dissipated, though Kon's presence remained, an unseen, but steady hand on his back. Thank you for trying, Kon...

Fist clenched, he bit down the numbness to sort through the auras for something warm and recognizable, even in the harshest winter days.

"Little Wolf, what are you doing?"

I don't want to die.

Neven.

The sea roared with the gulls flying in groups, tangling into a dance to land and trying to pluck food out of the hands of unsuspecting people.

Neven, no... hear me...

It floated farther out of reach, but the golden wind remained.

It expanded and swallowed the rest of the colours. His voice failed to rise into a scream, so he lifted his hand into the fading pearls in the river of winter. He grabbed onto the images of sails, willing them to change. Winter's warmth replaced the fullness between his ears, beckoned, needing only the power of a name. Flurries of confusion, of terror, but he shoved it beneath his heel and poured his torment to replace it instead. Warden Neven. Warden Neven. Warden Neven Lotayrin. Help me. Help me. It screamed with an echo though his throat refused to follow his command and sent embers deeper into the cracks at the back of his tongue.

Pain dug itself into his arm, but he refused to let go of the golden river of frosty pearls. He tugged it closer, following the line of a mind. Closer. Closer. He dug his fingers in at the frayed end, and held on for his life.

Glyphs of air pressed into the sails of the boat, and Fenrer frowned when tendrils of dark slithered over the pier he sat on. He guided the movements, filling another soul. In the distance, riding on the push of a wave, Neven Lotayrin surfed towards him. Emeralds left shards of sapphires along the thin pupils. Old colours bled into the water with hate and fear to match the ones he left behind in Sungrove.

Ice whispered and froze the pain.

Neven hopped onto the pier, and Fenrer fell into his arms. He blinked twice, and the sapphires returned with horrified confusion, but Fenrer held on tight to his armor.

"Fenrer?" he mused with another fearful glance around the harbor, but set a nimble hand on his bandage. "Ancients, you're hurt."

"There was an attack," Fenrer begged as his strength escaped him inch by inch, and he swore Kon gasped in the back of his head. "Sungrove—Everyone is—Help me." He sobbed and burrowed into Neven's body for one last support. He whimpered when Neven scooped him into his arms with a steady nod, and he lost himself in the cold of winter's embrace.

"Of course," he whispered. "Hold on."

Fenrer slumped into his hold, and Neven leaped off the pier without fear of the swallowing abyss below. Waves carried Neven, obeying the movement of the glyphs at his boots. He slid down crescents, or parted them out of his way. Balance never wavered, no more than a lulling rock in a crib. Another road full of twists and turns. Fenrer lost his grip on the golden field, but Neven never hesitated. Neven's glyph expanded, and drew the water into a spout to lift them to the railing of the boat. Vomit swirled at the tip of his tongue when Neven landed with grace, his feathers flicking off the last droplets of magick.

"Kemal!" he snapped over the clamor of Wardens. "I need you to take him!"

Glyphs released the sails, and the maelstrom of darkness dripped down his view when Neven passed him into another pair of large arms. He gazed into the deep brown, yet gentle aura he found himself in as Neven rushed to another Warden at the rigging. "Get Warden-Commander Faehariel! We have an extremely ill child!"

Safety embraced him. Kon?

"You're safe now." Kon sighed in relief. "I must rest, and you as well. I shall be here."

He borrowed into the warmth with a sigh and closed his eyes. Voices shouted, clamored, but the colours never caused him pain again. It quieted into gentle whispers and pearly thoughts. Wetness rested on his brow as the pain ebbed off his arm with only sharp tugs of numbness. Different voices filled the bubbling darkness.

"—I don't know how I heard him," Neven's melodic accent formed bubbled notes along the river.

"You didn't hear him," a woman's voice, powerful and certain, interjected. "He is... remarkably powerful at his age, Warden Neven, to have overtaken and controlled your mind at that distance, and in his condition."

Huh... but I screamed real loud... he had to have heard me...

Neven sighed. "I suppose it doesn't matter, does it, Warden Commander? I mean... look at him. Who knows what would have happened to him if he didn't. As long as he's safe, I don't care. If it was for his own well-being, then..."

I must look pretty awful...

Both auras swirled and mixed with the void.

"Are you well, then, Warden Lotayrin?"

"I'm fine. Mild headache, but that is minimal."

Why wouldn't he be? Did I scream too loud?

"Sorry," he rasped out in the dark.

It went quiet.

"We should let him rest. We'll get him proper care back at the citadel," the woman responded. "We have a long way to go to reach Euros. He'll be kept an eye on."

Euros... the home of the Storm Wardens...