ADARA

"It is not unlike sleep," Tara said to her while they sat on the edge of the docks and read the many tales of the Dragon Knight. His adventures; the losses he bore and the dreams he carried upon his mighty wings of hope. "Not unlike a peaceful rest. Some say death is not the end. Some day it is a new beginning, a flourishing flower," Tara read out the passages, with Adara leaning against her to soak in her voice. "That someday, his people will return, and it will be time for him to stop his flight, to finally get the rest he's earned." A poetic ensemble from the way Tara spoke it while stars spread out from her like ash the deeper she sank into the darkness, the Twilight Sea slipping out of her fingertips. Each one showed a bubble of memories, of spoken words to settle on her invisible wings. Voices of people she met. Voices unfamiliar to her. Past, present, with the future forever untold.

A single drop broke apart the bubbles, and she grunted when her back hit grass. Shockwaves of pain ran down her spine, but the tussocks underneath her softened the impact of her fingers, scattered into colors against her fingers. Not a single sharp, cruel edge as she sat herself up to take everything in. The lover moons swept across the twilight sky above, in constant between the start of sunrise and sunset. Her hand stretched outwards to grasp the blanket above her head, the rule of evenfall. Her heart pounded louder in her ears, a sign of her life, easily cut short like the many she once met. Silver rivers wound around her arms, but when she pressed another finger against it, the pressure served another reminder. A softer groan sent the surge of magick through her, straight to the edge of her fingertips, but she turned to investigate.

Fenrer's dark hair took on a deeper hue along his autumn brown skin when he raised himself up to cover his eyes. "I don't remember it hurting this much," he mumbled when Adara crawled her way to him, to grab his hands, warm against hers when she pulled them away from his face. He winced, then tore open his eyelids.

It slammed into her throat with her back against the tree, his hand outstretched to hers in understanding. Hues of green danced along the stars, but within his gaze, it reflected the environment around them, a mirror to the world around them, made of beautiful crystal. Her fingertips traced his cheeks though she failed to see herself within them. "I see you," he stated before the thought could even form on her lips. His finger drew across his brow when with a head shake.

"Your eyes are beautiful," she said dumbly.

Fenrer paused. The tension left his shoulders and a weak smile graced his face. "Thank you, but... this is killing me, aye?"

"Because you do not belong here, Little Wolf," a deeper growl ripped up her spine, sent straight to the marrow of her bones, though there was no anger within the rumble. Only acceptance and concern. "Your eyes show you many truths — with this world the ultimate one many will behold only at the end of their lives. It is not a truth meant for you until it is your time." On the bridge, a massive black wolf with deep green eyes. It took heavy steps between them, and through the reflection in the crystal of Fenrer's eyes, the wolf appeared where she did not. It stood over them, a giant, and she found herself shrinking still when it lowered its snout to them. "But, you have asked for my guidance, and it is my guidance you will get."

Fenrer gawked at the massive wolf. "Kon? Where's the guardian of the bridge? The man I saw when Yuven—"

This is Kon's true form? Adara held onto Fenrer.

"Nay, Little Moon."

"You heard that?"

"There is nothing you can hide in this place," Kon said with a sigh. "Not for long, anyway."

Fenrer found his footing, and Adara followed him. "Well, where's the guardian of the bridge?"

Kon's ears pinned into the crown of his head. "You shall see him when you start the crossing. Follow me. It is imperative that you make the journey quickly, though the dead here bear no resentment to the living. It can be all too easy to fall back into it when one sees what they lost." His nose pointed towards the sky of constantly falling stars and shifting states of sun and moon. "You seek the path of the Traveller. Follow it, and do not tread deeper." His pawsteps weighed down the tussocks, and Adara supported Fenrer. The bridge opened wide for them, the not quite alive but not quite dead pair as Kon motioned for them to go first. Adara pulled Fenrer along, but found her gaze checking on Kon. Small sundrops followed his footsteps. Her limbs numbed with each step she took over the bridge, but she reached the other side with Fenrer, though Kon faltered on the edge of the bank.

"Kon?" Fenrer asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Such is my true name." Kon took a step, but it wasn't a paw that touched the splattered ground.

It was a massive boot.

Stars curled around the wolf when it changed into the shape of not a man, but a giant.

"He wasn't quite a giant, though he stood well over us," Fenrer explained when she sat with him in the tomb of his predecessor.

The statue came to life in front of her when he took the final step down from his throne, no longer the wolf wound around his legs, but the man. His hands the size of both their heads, with Fenrer even forced to peer up at him as his eyes grew wide. His wolven headdress sloped against his shoulders, but he let it fall like a hood. Two, small braids fell against his cheeks, with a metal, wolven pin holding them in place. His own dark hair reflected Fenrer's — the family resemblance almost uncanny were it not for the height and Fenrer's softer facial features.

"Pyren?" Fenrer rasped.

Pyren — no, Kon — shook his head. "Such was my moniker when I yet walked your world, but was not my name," he said, and knelt down, though even with that, his massive shadow enveloped them. Adara clung on tighter to Fenrer, who sat there, flabbergasted at who his Aeoniir had been. "I have always been Konyiiu." On his back, a greatsword of unwieldy proportions to mere man. It glowed with the sun on the edge of rising and setting, but when he raised a hand to Fenrer, his aura glowed with sunlight. Adara drew back when the heat seared her skin. "We mustn't tarry here, Little Wolf."

Dismay, and a layer of defeat, clouded the eyes of green crystal. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Kon set his elbow on his knee. "It mattered not who I had been in life — only that in your dire need, you awakened me within my tomb," he explained, his voice rattling her bones. A gentle smile graced his features, and the family resemblance became far too hard to ignore. "You were but seven, Little Wolf. Seven and dying. I made a vow to you. Call to me in your deepest despair, and I will come. You will survive. Such is what I promised. You showed me that hope remained in the world." Back on his feet, Adara moved out of the way for him, pulling Fenrer with her when he tilted his neck forward to study them. "There is no Guardian of this bridge, Fenrer, but with how much you toe the line as an Aurus, I settled myself in that role so you may not cross it until your time has come." Both hands outstretched to help them, Adara took it, his entire hand enveloping her arm. On her feet with Fenrer, who staggered, Kon shook his head. "But as we linger, your lifeforce will be drained. Come."

"Are we—" Fenrer stumbled behind him, and Adara put a hand on his back. "Am I going to see them?"

"You may see many things," Kon warned. "Not all those things wish to be seen by even an Aurus such as yourself. Stay upon my path. Follow my footsteps as you are in life. I know you seek those you have lost, but someday, you will reunite with them." He pointed upwards into the evenfall sky, where a starlit scar pointed in the direction of Kon's heading, where a piercing mountain surrounded by an endless storm struck the rocks with leashes of lightning and left thick, black scars along the rockface. Roars sounded from within the clouds. Wings of shadow moved the downbursts of rain before disappearing into the torrent. Arcs smote deep within the core of the clouds before going quiet.

Adara tread behind him, the lands everchanging, a reflection of the world of which she belonged. Star-speckled grass weaved with an untouched, gentle wind and far ahead, a river, clean of debris and mud which separated them from the scarred mountain. Faltered footsteps behind her made her turn straight into Fenrer when he stumbled into her open arms. "Fen?" Her hands cupped his face, with his eyes missing her reflection, though he claimed to see her. "Pyre—Kon, I think something's wrong with him?"

Kon turned on his heel, and in no time at all his shadow engulfed them again as he knelt down beside his descendent, who sank deeper into her. "Why'd you lie to me all this time?" Fenrer rasped. It bit down on her heart with the memories of her own duplicity, lies and hypocrisy. His gaze raised to his ancestor, his reflection clear compared to her own. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it is not Pyren that you needed," Kon explained, his voice soft for a man of giant proportions. "You needed someone to guide you, to carry you out of the darkness. I was who I was in life, I am who I am in death. There are many things you do not know, Little Wolf." Kon motioned at her to pass him over.

Hesitation crept through her throat, but she relinquished. Besides, if Fenrer can't even take a couple steps... I can only drag him so far. So, with Fenrer out of her grip, she got back onto her feet when Kon lifted him with ease, barely burdened by the extra weight. His hand slipped out of hers when Kon continued to walk the path, and she was alone in her steps. Until he led them to a small outcrop with a shimmering pond nearby to set Fenrer down on the ground, his eyes closed. Kon took in a heavy breath, then turned to her. "What's wrong with him?"

"It is as I said earlier, this echo holds many truths not meant for the eyes of the living, let alone whose eyes are like Little Wolf's," Kon said with a nod at Fenrer's slumbering shape. Deathless sleep. "It is a risk, to behold such truths, and to be lost within them, unable to wake up." His gaze drew to the distant mountain. "We head there, to speak with the King of Dragons. He will take you to the destination you long for — where I cannot tread. I can only guide you so far, but I trust him. He will fly you there."

"The King of Dragons lives in the world of the dead?"

Kon smiled, the expression warm. "We all end one day," he told her. "It is a fleeting comfort when the malformations of the Echo Obscura have taken hold like an infection left to fester."

"Oh... right, you're a thousand Turns old." Adara approached the giant of a man, craning her neck to meet him in the eye. "Which means you saw the Great Crimson Dusk."

"If you seek answers... I cannot give them, because I do not remember them." Kon sighed. "I cannot tell why it is so. Parts of my memory remain to me. Others are burnt away, cauterized by ice." His lips parted in confusion, his brow furrowing in thought. "There is a chance the Traveler will remember aught of that time."

Adara swallowed her dwindled hope. "How... did you die, if you don't mind me asking? Was it by Derelicts?"

He paused, then shook his head. "I gave my life, that much I know, for a sun I never thought I'd get to see. When one sun sets, another rises," he said, as vague as only a spirit could be. "But it is because of Little Wolf that I got my second chance to behold it, to know that my sacrifice, and the sacrifices of others might not yet be in vain. I am sorry I cannot give you more than that. I faced down the tide of crimson, and brought the sun to life with my own." He sat down beside Fenrer, who slept in discomfort with a point at the dawnblade, which shone against the environment, breathing out a pulse against her skin. "Would that I did not curse my entire bloodline with the forged covenant of our name. Of our pyre. Of those who carry my blood... carry the will of the sun."

"...but isn't the sun a good thing?"

Kon smiled. "As darkness tears, light burns. Tell me, Adara, what is a world without light, or without shadow?" He looked up at her this time, barely having to inch his neck. "If you stare at the sun too long, it blinds you. If you stumble in the darkness too much, things await the feast. Light. Dark. Neither are forces of malice or benevolence. They simply are." He set his hands in his lap. "Forces of nature that many take for granted and do not respect, and when you wield their strength... you meddle with forces beyond one's ken. Beyond even Anima magick, the silver flames." He released a breath. "The sun is the sun, and nothing more. Nothing malicious. Nothing benevolent. It is just the sun as it exists, as you exist as you are." He put a hand on Fenrer's temple. "Take heed of my warning, little phoenix. Though my memories are gone, burnt and cauterized, I sense an unease in the air even now. Echoes are starting to resound against each other, and the infection is about to burst. And when it comes, the sun shows no mercy. For it is the resplendent fury of the light."