Farren Lóthlindor
Wildshaping Dusker
Davina snatched the knife from Faramund's outstretched hand with a flick of her wrist, her expression a scowl carved in stone. She didn’t thank him.
His callous levity, his snarling jabs at her choices— he had no right to throw her sacrifices at her like stones. All of it rankled more than she cared to admit. She was already stretched thin from finally waking from this nightmare— and now she was trying not to let fear hollow her. She had to stay strong for Etan, for Farren. And continue to pray that her husband wasn't dead and lost to the mist.
Davina stared at the knight, spine ramrod straight, as if sheer spite alone kept her upright. Her exhaustion clung to her, but her posture refused to falter. He would not have the last word.
“I know what I must beg forgiveness for,” she hissed coldly. “I know my sins far better than some half-eviscerated knight trying to cheapen my efforts to save him with paltry, self-inflicted tragedy. Do you really think throwing your life away will somehow absolve you of the false guilt you’re clinging to? Make you a champion to those you lie to?”
She stepped closer, voice lower now.
“Farren may see you through honey-colored shroud,” she bit, “but I don’t. I know what it is to raise a child, Syr Faramund. I know what it is to see boys who refuse to grow up, and it's always because they're afraid. You wear your humor like armor, but it doesn’t keep the fear off your face. Don’t insult me by pretending it does.”
She huffed into the suddenly too quiet air, sharp and angry, then gave a disdainful sniff as her cold temper began to slip back beneath the surface. Her movements were brisk, professional, as she flipped up his gambeson again with unceremonious fingers to check the dressing beneath. Her jaw was tight. She didn’t look at him.
“Unfortunately for you,” she muttered, “you will not die under my care. At least not today.”
Satisfied that the wound wasn’t bleeding through, she straightened with stiff grace and stepped away.
“Since you don’t need an antidote, I’ll still brew you a tonic. You’ve lost a great deal of blood—it’ll help replenish what you’ve spent. In the meantime, try to rest the best you can.”
She turned, her words curt as she walked back toward her workbench.
“All we can do now is wait."
And then, without ceremony, she stabbed the knife into the boards of her workbench with a solid, satisfying thunk—
"And pray they overcome what I couldn’t.”
She began pulling jars from her shelves, one after another.
And as she measured powdered roots into her mortar, she hummed a cheerful tune about a hanged man softly under her breath.
As if Davina hadn’t just sunk a knife into the wood to keep herself from stabbing it into something else.
Farren was lost in the tempest of her mind.
Her white-knuckled fingers clung for dear life to the single tether she had left, but her grip was slipping. She ached. She hurt. The drone of anguish crushed her skull from the inside out—pounding, spiraling—dragging her deeper toward a place of nothingness. And that lack of feeling, of pain, of struggling to be good enough, of being made to swim with leadened limbs—it sang to her like a siren. Music known only in peaceful oblivion.
Her sense of self frayed, bleeding away into the dark like spilled ink. Part of her knew she was supposed to care, that she should be valiant and selfless and find hope in the hopeless. But this tiredness… it was bone-deep. The very marrow of stillness seducing her. And her strength to keep treading that black water was waning.
Maybe if she sank to the bottom, where it was quiet, and no one needed greatness from her, maybe— maybe then she could rest.
But, as she began to sink, there came a voice.
Distant. Commanding.
Someone was calling.
Was that voice saying a name?
Her name?
Were they here for her?
Why did they sound so afraid?
Was it for her, was her name Farren?
That name stirred something in her. A shape. A sound. A memory. The faint warmth of it pushed into her mind like sunlight through cracks. It made her realize how cold she had become—cold like a drifting star swallowed by the void of space.
Then a hand closed over her shoulder.
And fire returned to her veins.
Her spirit snapped back into itself, like a thread suddenly pulled taut, the searing heat of that hand anchoring her in place. And in that instant, she remembered.
Her name.
Farren Lóthlindor.
Knight of Dusk.
Sworn of the Anathaeum.
Bell Keeper of the Fell People.
She was stag. Owl. Cat. Wolf. Woman.
A daughter borne of mighty daughters, and the mightier before them.
And she would not fail them.
Farren opened her eyes, the effort like breaking through ice. Her chest clenched tight with a grateful sob when she saw who had salvaged her from oblivion.
Aarno.
Here.
Beside her.
There was a secondary panic that he was here in the lighthouse, but Farren buried that under the relief that she was no longer alone. He was real, he was here. And his declaration pulled a tightness in her chest so great that she gripped a hand to the one he laid on her shoulder, squeezing his fingers with an unnamed emotion.
Then she saw it.
The glimmering glass of the armonium whistle in his other hand.
It shone in the dark like a beacon, and for the first time since she had vaulted off of Svala, brilliant hope surged through Farren’s thundering heart. She had forgotten. Forgotten that Davina had been gifted such a thing—
Her resolve burned bright once more and renewed strength flooded her limbs. Determination steeling her spine as Farren turned back to the fractious form of the Urbos.
Just as Aarno brought the whistle to his lips and blew.
Golden-orange light, like the burning coals of a blacksmith’s forge, poured from the whistle in a radiant torrent. It roared through the chamber, shaking stone and that black hungry mist. Her teeth rattled. The silver flames of her circle erupted, answering the call.
In blurs of fire and spirit, they exploded into the chamber like gods returning to war.
A wolf, relentless and wild.
A stag, crowned in flame and pounding earth.
A scorpion, gleaming and poised, its sting alight.
The dark mist of the Urbos howled, streaked with black and red. Wind churned. Smoke cracked. A cyclone of violence swallowed the room. Shroudspirit clashed against corrupted shadow, searing streaks of orange winding through the snapping void.
But it was enough.
Farren pressed the bell to her chest and dove back into her mind.
She found again the thread of Urbos—straining, snapping, buried in knots of choking dark. She seized and ripped at them savagely. Black tendrils fought her, snarls answering her in the fighting winds around them. But she clung to the thread, the whole time calling to it, speaking to Urbos, soothing its rage and feeding it peace.
Farren told them of the woods she grew up in, of the fell deer her people loved so, of the stories they told under every phase of the moon, and the ineffable joy she felt when she ran with the sun on her pelt and the wind in her feathers. And how she would share that joy, that love only known to the wild folk. Because the spirit of Urbos could finally rest. Its villagers would be safe. The monsters that had risen from the depth of the ocean had retreated. Urbos' people needed their protection no longer. "Rest," She would whisper into the void. "Rest and I will promise you solace from your pain."
The sea in her mind paused, quieted. The waves no longer trying to drown and lure her to the bottom. And even though the corrupted form of Urbos fought outside her circle. She could feel the core of it turn now to look at her. A soft presence that came to the call of her outstretched hand. And that final thread, golden-bright, sank into her hands, free of darkness.
And she bound it.
The silver flames erupted once around her, cleansed as all fire did. Farren took the bright soul-threads of the Urbos and braided it neatly into a clean plait, one by one, alongside Davina’s four spirits. No corruption, no fear, only memories of a good people that cared as deeply for the land as these spirits were borne from.
And then—
A clang.
A loud crystal clear toll from the bell shattered the room.
The black mist froze in place. Then, like a tidal wind reversed, it funneled toward her and into the bell.
Farren held fast as the typhoon whipped her hair back. The breath shook in her lungs and the winds threatened to deafen them, and just when she thought her bell would steal all the air in the world, the last tendril vanished under its metal surface.
And the lighthouse, stood silent.
The great curved windows, clear once more.
And beyond them, the first light of dawn arrived.
The horizon was devoid of mist and burned gold and soft across a peaceful sea. It was the promise of a beautiful day.
Behind her, the giant shroud crystal hummed gently as it began to absorb the morning sun.
Stunned as Farren was in the moment, she realized with a slow wonder, that it was now just her and Aarno on the top floor of the lighthouse.
Her silver flames had disappeared and at last, exhaustion swept through Farren like a relieving tide. But even that couldn't stop the watery smile she turned to Aarno.
She lifted the black bell cradled in her hands, its surface now etched with a blue rune.
URBOS.
“We did it,” she breathed.
@Aarno @Faramund
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