water licks at her fingers. it’s a foreign feeling: last she knew, she’d fallen asleep atop a hard cot, tucked away in the depths of boralus’ underbelly--a haphazardly put together abode underneath the storefront of an acquaintance, who may or may not have been aware of her presence.
now, she was elsewhere. the stray cat wouldn’t be a worry for the fisherman she preyed off of, having instead been seemingly put right at the source of her fare.
strangely enough, her diet consisted of things with no nutritional value:
cryptic riddles from a drowned man,
wails from the dead whose names she did not know,
and the tragedy that came with each.
it takes her a moment to properly gather her bearings. waking up from a deep-rooted slumber to the sway of passing waves and the hardback feeling of wood underneath her was never an ideal wake up call, and for a moment, she finds herself in a drunken stupor--except she was not drunk. sea sickness was a thing forbidden for any kul tiran to have: ‘the sea is your blood,’ her father would say. but fuck, the spiraling pit in her stomach surely felt like being seasick.
her eyelids part to welcome in the sight of grey. clouds stretch over the sky in a singular miasma, blocking whatever lay in the sky and coloring the world in a bleak hue. it’s about to rain, she thinks.
bringing pruney fingers out of the waters, a swipe over the wood she rests upon is her umpteenth mistake. splinters embed into the flesh of her palm, piercing deep and just enough to be an uncomfortable reminder of being awake. somehow, she manages to sit up--upon a broken board of ruined ship. jagged edges form an unsightly shape of oaken wood, once blessed by the tidesages of kul tiras--but she always had a hunch their blessings were a ruse. after all, she wouldn’t be here if they weren’t.
the haze of slumber abates in an instant. she spies it then: a grand fire on the horizon. had it been any other time, the rogue wouldn’t have paid heed; yet, the vision of it burns at her memory.
a blaze consumes boralus.
“ … reduced …”
the voice cuts at her cheek. slices it with a sharp, cold breeze that compels her to believe someone was behind her. with a turn of her head, she confirms her solitude.
“reduced to damp and dreary confines ...”
in the distance midway between the burning city and her makeshift raft looms a figure, encapsulated in an atramentous silhouette. the being is entirely corporeal; when it crosses before the burning city, it temporarily conceals the harrowing sight.
“imprisoned to the sea with the eldritch ...”
she recognizes the voice as rhys--no other apparition possessed a voice so cutting to her. the sound of his words echo over the surface of the ocean, carried by the current and seemingly everywhere at once.
“the fish tell a tale of tragedy. a man
drowns, but the creatures of the sea do
not feast on his flesh. his corpse sinks to
the bottom of the ocean.”
the silhouette nears her then, close enough for her bleary sight to perceive its features. but instead, she finds the being has none whatsoever--when her gaze pins to it, she only sees endless void.
however, she cannot look away, even as it overwhelms her vision.
“what finds him, dear doe?”
this time, fawn awakens in a bed of luxury. plush pillows replace the stiff wood beneath her and instead of being entrapped by the cold grasp of the sea, she is surrounded by warmth. the sun creeps in from windows sprawled out on the wall before where she lay, overlooking undulating waters. the gentle sway of sailing ship is a lullaby on its own, and just when she feels herself relax enough to resort back to slumber, something stirs beside her. an arm creeps over her abdomen as the dark-haired figure turns.
again, it is rhys. he is living, like in many of her dreams. his complexion holds color; there is no stench of the sea and - from what she could tell - no moths fluttering about. fawn is frozen--she dares not even close her eyes, for fear of waking in another place once more. rhys’ eyes, however, are shut. his lips part to speak in a voice that does not cut at her cheek.
“dawn’s sun rises its golden light to ward away the unruly night.” a kul tiran accent rests heavily in each syllable passing from him. “the mornin’ brings us the peace of a new day.”
breaking through silent tranquility, a droplet of water pitters against the ground. she counts; four seconds later, she hears it again.
“there are many places the sun cannot reach. as dawn recedes, the shadows of night slowly crawl to announce their return.” he raises his head. water continues to drip somewhere in the room.
rather than the hazel in life or the dark of death, all fawn sees when rhys opens his eyes is a conflagration of orange—fire. slowly, rivulets of dark ink seep from blazing sockets: they stain the skin of his face in atramentous black.
she awakens to a clap of thunder; a dimly lit room greets her the moment her eyes open, wooden furniture illuminated by candlelight; she realizes that she is dry, and far from dead - that is the first thought that strikes her odd. then: the clothes she dons are not her own, the cot she lays on, not her own. a feeling of panic washes over her: was it all a dream?
the soreness in her lungs tells her it wasn’t. somehow, fawn finds the strength to sit up, the movement accompanied by a creak in the bed’s framework, and it’s then when she sees pallid skin in the corner of her vision, hears the familiar dripping noise that was much closer than the rain pelting outside.
“you made it,” the whale-sound voice muses, in a tone that sounded proud.
“i thought you would be there to help,” she replies, and raises her head to glimpse at her reflection cast in the glass window beside her. even in the dim candlelight, she can see red welts of swelling scratches – they paint poignant marks against tanned skin.
“i knew you had the strength to make it, my doe.” his footfalls don’t make a sound as he comes close. “i believed in you.”
the words cause a sob to surface in her throat, so much so that she covers the sound’s escape with a hacking cough.
“i have a gift for you,” rhys croons as his hands come to fold before him, though his head moves in tandem with her own to the door upon the sound of encroaching footsteps. the knob slowly turns, revealing the sight of a kul tiran woman who possesses an appearance similar to that expected of the outriggers: sinewy and roughened.
“oi, lass, you’re finally up,” she belts, tone imbued with an uplifting cheer. “been out for a few days - found ya’ washed up on the shore, half-dead.”
“she is not your ally.” fawn’s eyes dart to the apparition of rhys, who sulks in the corner of the room - barely illuminated by the flickering candlelight.
“got into a bit of a rough patch, did ya’? almost did ya’ in, it seems.” the woman crosses the room to place a tray on the bedside table. a bowl of hot soup, a piece of bread - it is a meager meal, though fawn’s stomach hungrily churns at the sight of it. she opts to stay silent, however, throat still tender from saltwater.
“i won’t question what happened. y’don’t look the type to tell, if i’m honest.”
“she did not help you,” rhys continues, his words going unnoticed by the foreign woman. “many know your face, fawn holmwood. she intends to poison you - do not eat.” a bony hand gestures outward to the tray the woman had set aside, water dripping from his fingertips and forming small puddles atop the table’s wooden surface. curious, the foreign woman swipes her finger over the fallen droplets before glancing skyward to the ceiling, a murmur expelling from under her breath.
“what ever will you do, dear doe?”
a frown finds permanence across fawn’s lips as she meets the woman’s expectant gaze, and she appears to take this as an invitation to speak further.
“i recall seeing your face ‘round these parts – helping out with the townsfolk, you were.” the woman’s words make fawn’s jaw clench in suspicion. “i figured the least i could do to repay you was to bring ya’ back to health, yeah? my cookin’ may not be the finest, but i assure ya’ that it’s a better meal than saltwater.”
“thanks,” is the only word she manages through a roughened throat - it’s delivered raspy and hoarse, and serves as a reminder that she’d voluntarily almost drowned.
for good, though, she remembers as her eyes flit to rhys once more. she sees a glimmer of ivory in his grasp: bones, a collection of them. the sight is peculiar enough to capture her stare and hold it long enough for the foreign woman to depart unnoticed.
“fishbones?” she recognizes the bones instantly- before rhys could even manage to part pallid lips to speak. he simply nods in confirmation, arm extending to offer the strung-together necklace of bones to her.
“your father gave it to you when you were still a youth. a tradition, they call it.” something in his tone shifts as he continues; soothing notes recede to allow for something menacing to take its place. “but this is the age that traditions must be broken. after all, what did traditions grant you? near death experiences, a family that abandons you?” a click of his tongue accompanies the unanswered question. “the world burns as those who desperately dwell on tradition try to keep their power; you can steal it from them, my doe. vicious, you are - a poppy awaiting its chance to bloom.”
she holds the fishbone necklace betwixt her fingers for several seconds that pass like hours before her hand curls around it, jagged bone edges and fingernails cutting into the skin of her palm. he was right - it was a new age. time to forget those that had wronged her.
she breaks bone - a familiar snap that breaks through calcified material. abruptly, the necklace reduces to ash, falling from her palm and captured by a breeze that wafts through the room. when she looks up, she finds a smile strewn across rhys’ features; it is proud, warm – no one had smiled at her like that in a long time.
nazmir is not a welcome place. treachery and the eldritch, crimson and marsh - it is far from the paradise she longs for it to be, although it is a desirable change from the sandy, auburn dunes of vol’dun.
a breath winds near her, bespoken by a specter that looms ever-so-closely. she had heard others before; the turmoil of war, anguished cries of the yet-departed. his was more prominent.
“do you understand now, dear doe?” his voice cuts into her cheek.
“no.” her voice is curt and harsh.
(wails of zandali curses echo in the distance, drifting like an ephemeral breeze.)
“you are meant to be dead, among us - not of this world.”
(a child cries.)
“part of you lingers in our realm.”
the cliff she stands upon overlooks heavy vegetation. dense and muddy greens color her vision, though she sees cyan in the corner of her right eye--rhys briathorne stands beside her.
(howls of pain --)
“you take up the troubles of others, impervious to your own afflictions.”
a cold, rotting hand clasps her own. he is not transparent; solid-in-state, rather, though still undead.
“do you see them?”
the feeling that overwhelms her is like a lightning strike: colors stand against the jungle in otherworldly hues, figures of the realm beyond azeroth - all in different times. zandalari trolls lock in endless battle against those colored in blood, children hunch beside older counterparts, missing limbs and bearing grave wounds. a few humans stand among them - she immediately recognizes them as her own kin, for even in death, tirasian leathers were familiar. they cry for the lord admiral, for their families, for home.
they are endless.
new faces stand out amongst the departed. they are not as translucent, as if still desperately grasping to their state of life. she recognizes a few: faces she had seen in shatterstone harbor, though they were much livelier then than now.
a peculiar heaviness grasps her throat; the taste of seawater spawns on her tongue and - for a moment - fawn drowns.
suddenly, she awakens; down in the jungle, amidst the anguish that flurries around her. water drips from her person and she is quick to notice the fleeting qualities of incorporeality; she does not feel the ground underneath her feet, the wind that shakes palm leaves. her hands raise in a panic and she sees cyan wisps twisting from her form; the silhouette of leather she wears is not her own - it is the fashion of her once-passed, decked in an ensemble of seafaring leathers that would be crimson were it not for the fading quality of her being.
her mind is full of wonder, of adventure - it is not a feeling she has taken on in a while.
“this is the fawn-who-drowned.” rhys’ voice appears before he does; his form hovers before her, matching wisps of cyan reaching out to entangle those of her own. “this is your connection to our world. part of you lingers here, crawling the expanse of this world in a desperate search to connect with the fawn-who-lives.”
(-- they come from her.)
“how do i sever this bind?” her voice takes on that of a heavy tirasian drawl, raspy from years of shouting commands upon the deck of a ship. a million cuts in her throat; they had healed in years since, smoothed over into a ghost sound of its former self - it sores her throat like the sourest fruit. “i wish to be one again.”
“you cannot,” rhys declares, far too blunt of an answer than what fawn was expecting. the corners of her lips dive into a frown, though she’s unable to find the willpower to draw her gaze astray from his. “you must help them. this is the consequence of your avoidance - doomed to be a beacon for those who have not yet passed.”
arched brows form into a corrugated furrow, jaw tensing from his words. “how?”
rhys’ shoulders lift in a shrug. “it varies, ghost by ghost.”
her jaw tenses further, loss resounding through her. wordless, her gaze drifts to the specters nearby - all in agony, their life having been abruptly stripped away. the muscle of her tongue caught between her teeth, maw bearing down upon it out of stress. rhys notices this, an acerbic sort of amusement pulling his features into an ungodly smile. he offers no other information, dooming her to subserve underneath his crypticism; instead, a skeletal, rotting appendage lifts to cusp the ghastly cheek of the fawn-who-drowned - warm, were it not for the condescending nature of his mien.
“the fissure of your wound will tug harder if you do not comply. listen to us, else you will walk among us entirely, dear doe.” his opposing hand lifts, cyan wisps curling around his palm in a frenetic manner; it lures her gaze and, a beat later, she finds herself back within the confines of a canvas tent. cold sweat layers over her skin -- she is in her own corporeal form again, reaffirmed by the silhouette of skeletal fingers flexing under what moonlight pervades. the netted tent shields her from the sight of apparitions, yet their voices persist - minuscule whispers among the lulling chatter of soldiers walking by.
her emergence from slumber was unexpectedly pleasant. fluttering eyelids greeted the rays of sun that pooled in from glass panes, and bare skin felt the pinpricks of lordaeron’s chill gathering—yet it was gradually being thwarted away by the radiating warmth of the inn’s hearth that came from below.
like all things, however, moments like this did not last long.
seize
/sēz/
verb
1. take hold of suddenly and forcibly.
2. take (an opportunity or initiative) eagerly and decisively.
cold claws clasped around her arms, forcing her down through the standard mattress of the standard room. they seized her, she fought against them—but it was a fruitless effort. those claws dug into her skin like talons.
she was falling—no, sinking—down into the depths of an endlessly sightless expanse. fright gripped at her heart, seizing it almost as if it had stopped. had it? there was no familiar thrum, no coursing of blood through her veins to thwart the cold that seeped into her muscles.
abruptly, her fall ceased. a world coalesced around her: the sea. the familiar sway of a sailing ship. her eyes snapped open to greet the sight and took in a breath of the heady ocean air; she could breathe, she felt warmth on her skin, she was alive—yet, where?
it was that thought that spurred the scene around her to life. shouts and chatter of endless prattle, yelling commands and shouts of compliance from others. the recognition hit her like a surging tide:
she was on the deck of the phantom’s hearth. it prospered, it was sound—not at the bottom of the sea. she could recognize faces: katrina, the weaponsmith; james, the boatswain—they were only a few of the faces she saw. she knew each of their names.
among them all stood percy, the betrayer.
“lookin’ a little perplexed there, doe.” the familiar voice came from behind her. “don’t tell me you’re getting seasick now.” a warm chuckle, echoing as a mirthful melody in her ears.
she found the will to turn around, and what she presumed to be a feeling of fright was instead met by a surge of anguish that strewn itself over her features.
it was rhys: living, encompassing every aspect of summer within his appearance. tanned skin, ebon hair, muddy eyes. she felt her heartbeat then: a poignant thrum that pounded against her ribcage. she couldn’t find the words to speak, but she heard her voice come forth anyway.
“no, never. the sea’s a welcome home—i couldn’t be sick of it. just thinkin’.”
the living rhys nodded, satisfied with the answer, though there was a glimmer of something underneath that: suspicion, especially when his gaze went beyond her and to the betrayer. he moved on, however, assuming to water duties he had in order to keep the ship on track.
“the image you possess of me is so lambent, dear doe.”
a cold grasp on her wrist betrayed the warmth of the sea. she looked to her right, peering upon the ghost of the man she’d just seen. seaweed and water, black eyes and rot—she should have known.
“memories of happiness, they come to you whenever you feel it, do they not?” his voice possessed echoes behind it, each one lingering a beat later than the last. “it is a foolish thing to be entrapped in these. why can you not focus on the present?”
almost as if on cue, memories of the previous night flooded back to her: warm touches, affectionate words—a promise of protection.
“one who is trapped in their own shroud of mystery cannot protect you from what they cannot see.” a warmth found its way to her right hand, drawing patterns against the skeletal frame. “and one so arrogant will never be able to save you.”
her jaw clenched, teeth gritting together with such indignation that she swore a tooth chipped. “why am i here?” venom laced her words.
“you dance with your sins, your guilt,” the voices began, and the sailors that swarmed around her were impervious to it. “you reign over it as if you can run from it. but you cannot, dear doe, for you are do not possess the strength to.”
the world shifted. day turned into night; the phantom was covered in atramentous hues, and rain rolled down in sheets. somewhere in the distance, thunder roiled mercilessly. faces of those she recognized earlier were strewn over the deck and the relentless rain washed away the crimson that pooled from the wounds on their heads.
no, no, no, nonononono—
she could see herself. kneeled forced down by an oaf’s brutish hands on her shoulders. her own held at her stomach, stained crimson by the blood that poured from a gunshot.
looking down, it was immediately clear that she was not herself. masculine hands, grasping the handle of a flintlock pistol; strong legs, effortlessly pacing on the deck, unhindered by pouring rain.
“a shame, isn’t it? they were all rightful sailors, and you turned them into marauders.”
a voice spilled from her mouth that was not her own; it was the betrayer’s. the pacing stopped behind the final kneeling form, free hand coming to clasp upon the man’s shoulder as the gun was pressed to the back of his skull. black hair, wet from rain; tanned skin, pallid from fear. she couldn’t see rhys’ smile, but she knew it was there.
the gun fired. blood and brain matter spilled before the victim.
she yelled, she howled—deep from her lungs, full of anguish so harsh that one would believe they had been bloodied.
the betrayer took a step back, fingers moving to strike at a match that resisted the rain’s will to extinguish it. she no longer took his form; instead, she felt herself—bared and ruinous, incorporeal to the rain that simply fell through her. the corpse of rhys briarthorne went slack, lifelessly slumped forward. in his place was the apparition that haunted her so. he did not face her, but his voice was spoken clearly as if he was. thunder clapped closer than before.
“you have never been one for loyalty; you have drifted through life, scornful of settling and desperate for a home.” those words were familiar—she’d read them in a book, once, but the quote was wrong. it was different; twisted with malevolence yet interwoven with the sound of warmth. “he opened a gaping fissure in your being, an ache that heightened without his presence.”
one step back, two; it took her to the edge of the ship, back pressed against the railing that was meant to keep one from falling overboard.
“you followed it, embraced that ache like a child of your own. you were greeted by a chant that urged you to follow, follow, follow.” he laughed, and gods, what a harrowing sound. “it was a wonder to you, one you so willingly complied with. yet, now, you seek to fill that depthless hole with another?”
the apparition—no, corpse, now. he was not fading; he looked real, present. there was a gaping wound set in once-tanned skin, eyes only just succumbing to the gradual fading ink of black. there was no seaweed, no seawater—not yet.
“do you trust him, dear doe?”
there it was again: trust. another grimace at the concept.
“yes.”
the ghost of rhys briarthorne appeared amused with her answer. “do you possibly believe that you could love him, dear doe?”
yes, no, yes, no, yesnoyesnoyes—”perhaps.”
the ghost stepped forward before vanishing, leaving a flurry of moths in his wake. she was foolish to believe that maybe, maybe that her words had cast him away. yet, that school of moths abruptly encroached. the storm abated, the ship underneath her feet fell. in the short span of a blink, she could feel sand at her toes, the severe polar temperature of water curling around her.
a broken ship was buried in the sand before her, skeletons working on its deck. a warm memory that once was, now painted in desolation.
the ghost appeared before her again, his hand raised to lift her chin in a way that was so familiar. she was forced to look up to him, to meet those eyes of endless void.
“foolish, again,” he smiled. “that fissure on your soul will rot. a tender ache that will worry like the wound it is.” fawn could feel it: the slow corruption that pooled above her navel and branched out like veins. it furthered, intent on its path to her heart. “what atrocities i will inflict upon you will be felt until you have drowned in the depths of the sea.”
the world suddenly gave way, returning to winter’s chill and the slow sound of water brushing against beams of a wooden dock. a flag of lordaeron fluttered beside her: she was back—real, tangible—in northgarde, stood upon the edge of the fortress and heels only an inch away from the gentle sea.
(oh, how those waters welcomed her.)
stricken with fear, fawn holmwood fell backwards—colliding with the wood beneath her that served as the only boundary between her and the water. mind still cloudy, body still recovering, eyes still adjusting, the only sight she was able to clearly discern in the mist was the sight of a purple moth, gliding down to rest upon her knee.
fawn sits atop a balustrade in boralus, one leg dangling over the edge as her heel faces the tides below. it isn’t her home – some aristocrat slumbers inside, worn from age and high off war profit – yet this time of night warrants the shadows to take residence wherever they may reach.
“you mustn’t run from them, dear doe.”
plumes of dense smoke billow past chapped lips, smell potent of bloodthistle leaves. there was something tranquil about the city post-midnight; the day’s bustle had retired, leaving whatever devils left to run rampant through the night. unity square’s nights were always quieter than hook point’s, granted, but that was only due to the subtlety the rich preferred in their doings.
“you were one, once. have you already forgotten?”
her features had weathered. gone was the vitality that was usually carried in her countenance, replaced instead by exhaustion and dirt; she looked like a right rogue, a true miscreant. it feels peculiar, like a foreigner’s mask, but fawn dares not harbor any complaints of it.
“it’s quite the transformation.” it comes as a whisper, ghosting past her ear; it rightly startles her, breath catching in her throat as the presence of cold emanates closely near her. it is like ice, though much more frigid than the winters of drustvar - the voice cuts into her cheek, and she swears she feels blood.
alert, her head whips to the right to find the speaker. it isn’t human, she discerns that outright, for sunken cheeks and wisps of curling cyan were enough to announce a state beyond death. yet, it is no ghost; she discovers that when its slender fingers extend to curl around her forearm. the grasp is desperate - it’s a touch too rough as the tips of its fingers practically pierce through her skin.
“rhys?” she chokes, words catching in her throat - it is a name she hadn’t spoken in years, and that much is apparent with how strangely it falls from her tongue. her gaze is wide, shell-shocked – she almost bites off her tongue with how quickly she corrects her slacked jaw.
the entity simply nods in affirmation, his stare fixed to the horizon with a look she could only place as mournful.
rhys briarthorne, former first mate of the phantom’s hearth. they were inseparable once, had shared feelings of affection – though that stint was cut short by the naivete of her trust and by the hands of a betrayer.
she still recalls the bullet going through his head.
“the seas churn with the rage of a thousand souls,” his voice drones, as soothing as a whale’s call and just as haunting. she feels it in her bones. “do you hear them?”
she does, fawn wants to answer, but she struggles to find the strength.
“they awaken an age-old slumber. you have heard its call.”
the grip on her forearm loosens, skeletal hand retracting back to the entity’s side in a manner that was far too graceful for one meant to be dead. she looks down to her arm and swears that she sees bruising, though it is difficult to confirm in the dark of night.
“you allowed me to die.”
“i did not,” she quickly responds, but her voice lacks the bite such an answer requires; anguish imbeds itself within her tone, proceeding to make itself known even further across her features. “i didn’t mean for things to happen that way–”
“–but it did. you refused to see percy mckallen’s intentions. you allowed him to pull the trigger.”
rhys turns to her now, appearance the very definition of ghastly. tirasian features she once adored now carried sunken definition; a sailor’s complexion turned pallid, muscles decayed and skin sunken flush against bone. deteriorated vessels had rendered his eyes entirely black - or was it nothingness? - and set just above them was a hole in his forehead; it was the clean shot of a bullet through his skull, and at this angle, the tunnel the bullet had forged through his flesh allows her glimpses of the brick of the structure they occupy.
he reeks of the sea. she hears it now - the sound of water dripping from his form, pooling at his feet and leaving brunette hair flat against his head.
“i blindly followed you to my demise, fawn holmwood.”
something snaps in her then. amidst turmoil, she hadn’t yet let herself fall prey to her own anguish. but, as her gaze flits about the entity before her, she feels tears sting at her eyes, only realizing then the state of her tensed jaw; her teeth grind against one another before she finds the willpower to grant her muscles relaxation. the joint betwixt her lips falls, tumbling past the height of the balcony and landing in the sea’s grasp below.
“you followed a fool,” she finally manages to murmur, voice a susurrus amongst the sounds of the night. she sits unsteadily on the balustrade, body plagued by frightful tremors and eyes listlessly looking anywhere but at him. “many nights i dream of drowning in that sea alongside you all.”
“then why do you hesitate?” the entity’s arm extends once more to splay bony fingers to the water. for a moment, she thinks she hears voices beckoning to her from below; they tempt her more than she’d like to admit. “your will has abandoned you. the waves will grant you the sanctuary you seek.”
the ice in his presence shifts into something warm, appealing - it coaxes her to forgo the turmoil that ails her, albeit temporarily, and in that moment, she looks upon him like she had in his life: a source of peace, of comfort. memories of leading a crew of pirates freely at sea roil in her mind, their thunder drowning out whatever anxieties previously plagued her.
rhys’ hand circles back around to her, pressing against her cheek and directing her to meet his gaze. this time, it isn’t barren of life.
“join me in the depths, my doe.” his hand drops, offering a skyward palm to her.
“one.” what hesitation she possesses dissipates with the silvery tone of his voice and she joins her hand with his.
“two.” she steps over the balcony; he steps through.
what does one do when they have nowhere left to turn?
they go home.
the crimson perch was no foreigner to the agitation that rocked kul tiras; where brennadam and boralus were being sieged and razed, edmond reviers was constantly working. he hadn’t dealt with the horde conflict in years; to suddenly be thrust into working alongside the alliance and sending fleets to their deaths - it was toiling work, and kept him constantly on edge.
the crimson perch was a trading paradise; it exported luxury ore and marble minerals in exchange for knowledge, beasts and reputation. house reviers was a line of seafarers, all of which had served in the tirasian navy some point in their lives. their land, known for being trapped in eternal autumn, was untamed, much like those who spawned from there, and it wasn’t going to be tamed anytime soon. not by the alliance, and not by conflict.
---
her boots clatter against the wooden dock of bedlam’s rest as she retreats from the ferry she traveled by. her path is eminent: forward to the highest hill, then to the reviers manor at its acme. there’s little that stops her; passing looks of surprise for the red-headed reviers’ daughter to return home unannounced are greeted by stoicism, and wary greetings from those she once knew are only reciprocated in the form of curt nods.
for brevity, her visit does not go well:
“how dare you tarnish our family name?”
her father’s words bite; he’s shouting, and edmond reviers rarely became incensed. he was known to be a calm man, yet the furrow present in his brows gave her an expression that she’d only seen few times.
others are present. her mother, red-headed just as she, sits poised at her side, yet it isn’t a show of motherly solidarity - kind features were pulled into a similarly incensed look. a new man - in his fifties, undoubtedly, with hair greying to a luminescent ivory - stands to her father’s right, fur encapsulating his shoulders and hand resting idly on the gilded hilt of the sheathed sword at his left. he had been introduced as her father’s new advisor, and fawn spares him little more than a brief glance.
fawn is silent; their scolding goes unregistered in her mind, which is - instead - busy attempting to work the pieces together of how they knew. her past of piracy had been illicit; heavily concealed by those she’d trusted in the alliance intelligence division. she’d made up for those crimes, and although she’d kept them concealed from her pirate-hunting family, she hadn’t expected them to come back and bite her. not now, at least.
it had to be by communication, she surmises. some strategy by someone who wanted to knock her down – had she any enemies? plenty, as a life of devilry tends to carve out such relationships, yet there were few that knew she’d been involved in piracy. she’s certain of that.
but when her eyes land on the ebon envelope on her father’s desk, it brings her pause. there’s a golden ‘E.R.’ stitched into the parchment, undoubtedly addressed for her father, though something seemed so peculiar about it. the news came to him recently, else she would have heard his wrath much earlier, and her fingers twitch as her gaze continues to bore a pair of holes into the letter. that was it - it had to be by letter–this letter.
they banish her. revoke her nobility, her wealth, the family she knew. the vivacious fawn reviers is no more.
for the first time, fawn holmwood is the sole proprietor of her being. and for the first time, fawn holmwood is on her own.
