FENRER

Again and again, he'd try.

It kept the empty shells away.

If he focused on helping others — on protecting the light, the ash would leave him alone.

Notebook in hand and books tucked under his arm, he shuffled to the garden at the crack of dawn — confident in his sleepless nights studying Navei; the song of the Avaerilians. Yuven stopped coming out to play auric cards... and I'm running out of ideas.

He dropped his pile of books at the foot of the standing stone. "Yuven?"

The lack of response sent a wave of frustration through his throat, but he bit down on the hot anger. It wouldn't help Yuven Traye. Kindness would always prevail. Fenrer sat down to sort through Neven's notes, and waited for Yuven's next move. He lifted his head when the icy maelstrom fluttered, and Yuven twisted around the standing stone.

"Fen...rer." Yuven sank to his knees, cheek pressed against the obsidian of etched names, never forgotten. Blues dimmed the sharp ice into weathered disbelief.

"Look, I brought some books." Fenrer held a Naveeran storybook out to him. "I got one in Navei!"

Yuven frowned.

I have to try, I have to take the leap. Fenrer nodded and sidled closer to Yuven, to teach him another version of his name — the nickname Father gave him. Little Wolf.

"Molvisaliz!"

Yuven's brow cracked as he lifted then tipped his head. Misty confusion pulsed through the crimson tinted violets. Pearls of bouncing thoughts skittered across the river of amusement. "Molvei'saliz," Yuven chittered. "Molvei'saliz." A snort left his nose into a scoff, and a grin crawled on his lips to reveal sharp canines. "Molvisaliz?

He giggled.

Sunlight dripped through the blizzard, heralded by his word to reveal the reality of the other boy's huge aura. A sparkle of winter's haze. Wolves pranced over each pearl, and Fenrer frowned when a crimson lightning strike destroyed one into nothing but mist and stained the snow-touched colour. A mangled thorn grew out of the pearl, and dragged it down into the depths of the bright moment.

Yuven stopped laughing. He shook his head. "Molvisaliz... u'lo nex'kapas Navei..."

"I-I'm sorry, I'm still trying to learn," Fenrer insisted. "I know I can't understand it that well, and I know I must sound awful, but I'll keep trying."

Yuven blinked. "Fenrer."

Seconds of painstaking silence filled the air. Yuven shuffled out of the shadowed safety of the standing stone to take one of Fenrer's other books. Fenrer winced when the thorn bloomed with gnarled teeth to consume other retreating pearls, deeper into the aura too big for the little boy. What's happening to him?

Pain shattered the river to the ocean of a soul. Deep to flay his skin to his bones. Fenrer resisted the sudden urge to throw his own flimsy might into the monstrous thorn, to rip it out of the aura before it consumed it all and left it a shell. He stopped when Yuven sighed and held the book out to him, and the rest of the fear in the shimmering river dissipated into dewdrops.

Fenrer took it back. "Do you... want me to read it?" He tested the strength of the pearls, then opened the book to read its stories. Uncertainty filled his own heart, but Yuven appeared not to mind, or didn't notice as he sat cross-legged with his hands in his lap.

He's not an Aurus... he can't see it...

Fenrer lost track of the sun the longer he sat there in the garden of snowroses with Yuven, and when he ran out of tales, he put the book to the side to tell the stories Mother and Father once carried. It scratched against his throat as he tried to recall them with perfect clarity, but all he heard were their voices, lulling him into sleep with bedtime stories.

Yuven stopped him short. "Fenrer."

"Yuven."

Yuven inhaled. "I..." He tangled his fingers together, then squished his cheeks in sharp annoyance. "Common difficult." His voice of broken bells quieted with the subtle switch to a different language, thickened from the freezing blizzard. "d'lo nex'kapas Common... nice?"

"I mean... if you can understand that's okay, I can work with it," Fenrer assured. "I get what you're trying to say, though."

Yuven shrugged. Books filled giant stacks of words which twisted into pearls. Common words he recognized — but the brightest books reveled in their advanced magick. Wow, how does he keep it all in his head? I can barely remember the most basic glyph... Fenrer studied the strange thoughts, but returned to reality when Yuven tipped his head at him.

"You'd rather be reading magick books," Fenrer said.

Yuven's face broke into a smile, but the thorn lodged deeper, slavering over his small happiness. Unable to resist the urge, Fenrer reached his fingers through the pearls. Each one pressed against his skin and bubbled to burst, as if trying to stop him. I have to pull the thorn out. I have to pull it out before it leaves nothing but dark.

Rust filled his nostrils.

Crimson shapes seared into his eyelids. Meat rotted underneath his nose. Towers of spires made of flesh brought down from the heavens, crumbling to blood ash with the scattered bones of people. A twisted bubble raised around the giant city, and everything went black.

He screamed at the pain and noises both, drowning in the opal flames, and power exploded from the pearls in his hands, braced by the same spatial bubble surrounding the garden which flayed the city with crimson might.

Yuven cried in the distance.

Fenrer sat up from the grass to investigate.

Kon leaped out of him, full of protective fury with his haunches raised and teeth bared.

Why? Yuven didn't do anything! That thorn is doing something! I did it! I'm the one who hurt him! Fenrer raced around the direwolf and grasped for something to snap Kon out of his own torment.

He cracked his skull against Kon's muzzle.

"Stop it!" he snapped, and Kon backed off with a flick of his tail. "I didn't summon you!"

"Little Wolf?" Clarity returned to Kon's misty eyes. "Did you not see it?"

Anger bubbled into his fists. "It wasn't him! He didn't do anything! Leave him alone." He checked on Yuven when he scrambled to his feet to wipe tears off his cheeks. The thorn coiled itself around his neck and choked him among shells. Fenrer frowned when he stepped away with a sniff.

Monstrous shapes filled the gaps between the river, most of them the shape of Yuven himself. Tears slipped down his cheeks when the shapes shifted to shadowed faces of horrific, sneering judgment. One of them, Fenrer's own shape with the same horrible face.

"Yuven... wait—"

Reality warped before he could grab Yuven's arm.

He found himself tossed out of the garden, with Kon whipping around in confusion when he manifested beside him.

"Kon!" Fenrer snarled at him before trying to push through the wall of the blizzard. "Why did you do that?"

"I thought I sensed the beasts of shadow," Kon admitted and bowed his head low. "I sensed the crippling despair and the stench of death which follows them. I thought it was your despair."

"What..." Fenrer relaxed. "What do you mean?"

"Do you not sense what is within that child?"

"It's a thorn, Kon," Fenrer insisted. "It's a thorn and it's hurting him." Fenrer choked on his own tears. "I just wanted to pull it out."

Kon's emerald gaze broke into one of sadness. "I suppose that is one way of putting it, Little Wolf," he said. "I am sorry for acting out of line." Mist embraced Fenrer, and Kon dissipated into the morning dew along the fields.

Fenrer rested against the magick barrier. "Yuven, please," he said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. Please let me back in?"

"Fenrer? What is going on?"

Faehariel headed up to him with a frown on her face.

"Something's hurting Yuven!" he exclaimed, unable to steady his quick words. "It's a thorn of crimson! I tugged on it, but then my Aeoniir came—"

"Hold," Faehariel interrupted him. "You... tugged on the core?"

"Huh?"

Faehariel knelt down in front of him. "When you reached into his aura, what happened when you grabbed the thorn?"

"I pulled on it."

Disbelief replaced the confusion. "Did it hurt you?"

"No?" Fenrer shook his head. "Why would it hurt me when it's too busy eating Yuven?" Nothing made sense anymore, but he relaxed at the glimmered beacon of sunlit hope in the opals. "He... He thinks that he's a monster," he pressed on. "He thinks everyone sees him as one, and he believes them. Why does he feel that way?"

"Yuven isn't a monster," Faehariel said, gaze hard. "Give me a few moments, Fenrer."

Without any of his difficulty she moved through the solid illusion, but when he tried to follow, it pushed him back. He paced a circle, and he swallowed dread. I know I hurt him when I pulled on it. Every image not his own, drowning in the pain and terror — it was Reyn all over again. Thoughts of another life, another past. Yuven pushed him subconsciously, and startled both of them.

But this time... I'm still awake, and Kon heard Yuven's despair through me...

Fenrer jolted when Faehariel returned to nudge him back into the garden.

"Fenrer?" she asked. "Do you remember when you asked me if you want to be a Storm Warden?"

"Yes."

"Are you still interested in that path?"

A Storm Warden. Me. Someone to protect the light — the Pyren's are the dawn's harbingers. We are always called to serve the dawn. I can help people who lost their families, like I have... I can be like Neven. Kindness went forward in time and always prevailed.

"I'm sure, Miss."

"Well, see how you feel when you're old enough," Faehariel said. "For now, you have to find the light within. You can consider it a little taste test of your conviction, and the conviction shared in this Order."

"A test?" Fenrer frowned. "What if I fail?"

"You learn, then you survive," Faehariel said and smiled. "Then you try again."

Fenrer nodded and rushed through the field, but the layers of aura tried to strangle him out of the flowerbeds. He came back to the standing stone, where his books rested untouched by the torrent of snow. Frost licked the grass and spread the pollen. "Yuven?" he asked. "Can you come out?"

Harbingers of light.

It poured from the midday sun and bathed the garden in gold frost falling through the distortion. Snow buried the crimson thorn deep in giant dunes of white. He pressed himself against the standing stone. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tugged on your aura so hard. It just—I noticed something was hurting you, and you couldn't breathe." He wiped his tears and rounded the standing stone to check on Yuven.

Yuven sat against it with his head in his arms and knees. Fenrer came closer, and got a violet side-eye in return when Yuven lifted his head out of his arms. Confusion danced with fear. "Not... scared?" He whimpered with a point at Fenrer.

"You're the one that's scared of me." Fenrer frowned. "Why would I be scared of you?"

Tears fell through the blizzard into spring rain. Shadows swallowed Yuven in cruel judgment. Red-eyed shapes beat against the pearls of thoughts and turned them to nothing but dark mist.

Fenrer sighed, then held his hand out — not to the aura, but to the reality in front of him. "Yuven?" Yuven raised his head again with wide-eyed disbelief. Fenrer kept his hand out for him to take, but never forced it. "I-I want to be your friend."

"Why?"

"Because I can see that you're lonely and sad," Fenrer faltered.

"You know? How know?" Questions sharpened into pointed suspicion which drowned the fear.

"I-I can see it, Yuven," he explained and kept his hand outstretched. "Let me help."

Yuven scowled and tucked back into his knees. "No help..."

Patience. Kindness. "Please?" Fenrer asked, causing Yuven to raise his head again. "I'm... I'm lost too, you know? Maybe we can help each other? That stone can't protect you forever... so maybe I can be your shield instead?"

Hesitation crawled through the violet shock when Yuven gaped. It stretched into the blizzard, but his heart expanded with relief when Yuven took his hand.

"Molvei'saliz..." Yuven mumbled and tightened his grip. "Little Wolf?" He blinked, and Fenrer beamed when sunlight from an unknown source broke apart the endless blizzard. "Molvisaliz means Wolf Boy."

"Hey, I never said I was good at it. That's another thing you can help me with! I can help you with Common and you can help me with Navei!" Fenrer hauled the other boy to his feet and kept a firm grip on his forearm to meet Yuven on equal ground.

Little by little.

Small things.

Small warmth made the difference.

Right now... I can help.

Yuven returned his smile with a shy one. "Do you mean it?" His brow creased in fear. "Are you... Are you going to leave me?"

Mother would be proud of me. Father would smile and clap me on the back for my conviction. "Yes," he insisted. "I mean it, Yuven. And... and I promise I won't leave you behind."

He jumped when Yuven hugged him, his downy feathers tickling his own ears. He squirmed at the sensation, but returned the gesture.

I'll be your shield instead...