Chapter 35: Chapter 34: Journey Through Faylorn

Before the others had experienced that catastrophic failure, Klaire stood at the threshold of the sanctum gate, that led to the shadow realm of Faylorn.

“Enter whenever you’re ready.” Maeb said solemnly, all too aware of what could happen.

Klaire didn’t hesitate, simply stepped through with a confidence no one had ever shown before.

Faylorn was a place like no other, the pitch-black mist that surrounded Klaire made it feel both infinite and cramped at the same time. Klaire was embraced by it, then became the first in history to giggle as it happened.

She couldn’t see them, but there were several pure-blood banshees nearby, each was left stunned by the sound of the teenager’s careless chuckle.

That didn’t concern Klaire though, the sudden embrace of the darkness reminded her of the night she was married. The memory of her pitch black armour enveloping her and the armlet gift from Primordial Chaos.

“Levi, can you lead the way please sweetie? Mama will make some pretty stars… Activate skill starry night.” As she spoke, the tiny specks of starlight that dotted her armour detached and filled the mist.

’Mum I’m okay to lead, but I don’t think the others like the lights.’

“Oh, sorry everyone. I’ll pull them back.” The banshee had no idea how they should react, they struggled to believe a half-banshee, and an ankle-biter at that, could be so calm in this place.

Even the full-blooded ankle-biters howled nervously moving between them.

As Klaire moved forward some even purposely tested her, but she would simply say. “Oh sorry! Hard to see, I didn’t get banshee eyes.”

It didn’t take long for the banshee to disperse, unsure of how to interact with the strange girl.

After what felt like forever of navigating the darkness, Levi stopped. ’Mum there’s something here, like a massive mound of stones.’

“Okay sweetie, we’re here. Now come hug mummy and remember, she is going to hurt me but you can’t interfere just keep hugging me and do your best to look after me.”

’Can I bite her after?’ Levi asked with amusing sincerity, she wasn’t a fan of letting someone hurt her mum after all.

“No baby, you can’t.” Klaire chuckled. “It’s like when I hit Dad for being an idiot, but also it’s like when you said the mutations hurt, just a bit more intense.”

Suddenly a howl rang out that dispersed the lightless mist immediately, followed by a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere and echoed endlessly in the vacuous space.

“Klaire. You return. Why?” The voice spoke in the ancient, almost lyrical language of ancient Ireland, warped into a discordant choir of timeless suffering.

“For punishment. For growth. For strength. Ancestor Faylorn, Lillim aso asked me to say “hello and learn to speak the modern tongue remembering the ancient ones is a bother”. Though she said it playfully in my opinion.” Klaire replied, also in the old language of her forebears, though it sounded less lyrical and more guttural from lack of experience.

“You are calm. Why?”

“I mean no disrespect, but I experienced true terror and you simply can’t inspire it in me.”

Faylorna ceased talking for a moment, then the black mist crashed in to her in a swirling Maelstrom before reforming into her true form.

Most of her body was immeterial mist, though some was shaped to mimic a shredder dress, the only parts that were truly solid were her face, arms and hand all of which were bones both blackened and cracked with more mist loosely packed around them to act as flea.

Her face was partially covered by what appeared to be a mourning veil. Though there were two distinct red lines running from the corner of her eye sockets, lingering scars from her final days of life.

“You do not lie, it seems. Never has a kinswoman stood so boldly before us. Never before has one grown so soon.” As she spoke, Klaire observed the now mistress realm, the innumerable masses of pure banshee.

“I have no need to lie. I need your help. I came ready to accept all pain, penance and sacrifice.”

“Fine, but you must part that boy.”

“Comet. Levi open your eyes and grow.” Levi opened her eyes immediately then swam in spirals once more until almost every banshee was left unable to move or howl.

While that happened Klaire began condensing pure ice and imbuing it with starlight.

“You raise your hand to loved ones again.”

“Sorry Faylorna, I respect you, but I don’t know you well enough to love you. You did teach me my weapons are to defend my love though, so out of respect I’ll raise them now. Please tell Grandma Maeb to pass on the last of it to those who have it.”

With a wave of her hand the glistening ice was snuffed out and she raised the other to halt the elder banshee that were slowly passing through the paralysed procession of those too weak to resist Levi’s gaze.

Klaire hadn’t noticed that though, she was focused on the biggest threat, the progenitor of her family, she who birthed the Bashe clan.

With a thought she willed a rifle into existence, then unloaded nine rounds of focused starlight into what should have been Faylorna’s throat, but once again the ancient entity waved its hand and erased them.

“You’re too weak girl, why fight so fiercely for one who broke your heart?”

“Why cry yourself to death fir people who would have been happy that you at least survived? We do what love drives us to do. We don’t care if it carries rhyme or reason. That is the Bashe way, protect what we hold dear, punish ourselves when we fail, die when our love is taken from us. Why should I stay my hand if I’m dead either way?”

Klaire continued her futile offensive as she spoke, swapping between loadouts with impossible speed, but one by one they were erased by simple hand gestures.

“Lecturing me on the Bashe way is hubris girl. Do as I command.”

“No.” Klaire’s voice carried the balanced weight of blunt fact. The fact being she would not stop, slow or relent until one of them was dead or Faylorna rescinded her order.

“You say you respect me and our way… Did you respect our way when you howled at your love? No, you didn’t

Did you respect me when you came here seeking penance without fully explaining? No, you didn’t.

You did not respect me at all girl, you feared me.”

“Never said I didn’t, but I don’t anymore. The fear I had for you died when I did, in it’s placed was left respect and understanding. At least I know to look to the left when I get to Nergal’s gates this time.”

The final sentence made Faylorna hesitate, she knew that name well, the name of Lillim’s acquaintance who shaped her into the being she was. What she didn’t know was how her descendant knew it.

she wondered if Lillim had told her the story, but that distraction was enough to let a starlight round sneak through her defence. The pure light burnt on contact and created a burning circle that spread outward until it was a foot in diameter.

That was the first time anyone had wrung a howl from Faylorna’s desecrated lips for anything other than Howling.

[ SYSTEM NOTICE : ACTIVE SKILL “STARLIGHT BOW” UNLOCKED ]

Faylorna righted herself quickly, but not before Klaire activated that new skill and was already pulling the arrow of light across the bow of primordial chaos she had formed her armlet into…

Then Klaire loosed the arrow, and then it was erased, already having reached within millimetres of her.

“That weapon… I sense them… Primordial Chaos, Artemis, Sagittarius, Skadi and in your armour I sense Kali and Hecate… Do they seek my demise? Did they weaponise my wayward kin?” The discordant choir-like echoes, hummed with fury.

“No Faylorna, they blessed me on my wedding night and had no part in this. Now…. I think Carl said he just thinks about how much he wants to put into it.” Klaire took a deep breath, then pulled the bowstring back once more, this time pouring all the DIV she had into it.

“What!?” The word was the only one Faylorna had time to speak before the arrow was loosed, the massive infusion rending her effortless defence meaningless for the first in the exchange.

Unfortunately for Klaire, her most venerable elder was not restricted by a physical body and the arrow never had the opportunity to reach as the shadows gave way to the light, letting it pass harmlessly through her incorporeal body before reforming in its wake.

“Damn. That was my brand new ace and I can’t use the bow without that stat, so I guess I only have one thing left to try.” Klaire was out of mp after conjuring so many weapons and firing so many high density rounds, the only thing she had left at her disposal was the arm blade that slowly formed just below her elbow and stretched her forearm’s length passed her clenched fist.

“Klaire, you have no idea what you are. Come then, show me the extent of your resolve child.” Klaire couldn’t understand why, but the anger that had appeared in Faylorna a moment before had disappeared and become more lyrical than it had ever been.

“Does killing me really make you so happy?” Klaire muttered to herself before bowing in apology. “I must have caused you more heartache than I realised, I’m sorry for that, truly.” Klaire launched herself from the apology into her final charge.

As she leapt, blade aimed decidedly for the ancient’s throat, the blade disappeared and Faylorna howled with all her might…

Klaires body dropped, cold and lifeless, her soul ripped out and beginning to break apart…

’Klaire Bashe, you have earned your Howling. Child of eyes, kin of my kin, return to your mother.’ The words were spoken directly into Klaire’s and Levi’s souls, not words as such, but pure unerrable understanding.

Faylorna then grabbed every piece of Klaire’s soul one by one as it fell away, taking on her original human form and stitching the loose pieces back together.

Her skin was pale and her hair light orange with deeper highlights that resembled new copper. She was still dressed in the shredded mourning dress but now sang ancient songs as she carefully stitched the pieces back together as though they were some damaged cloth.

Levi did as she was told and coiled Klaire’s body. “I won’t forgive you Great Grandma.” She said as Faylorna stopped stitching.

“So you speak? What exactly is it I won’t be forgiven for, she asked for this, did she not explain?”

“She did. You still hurt my Mum and told her to leave Dad. I won’t forgive you for either…” Levi was unusually adamant and Faylorna’s laugh struck her as mockery.

“Forgive me wee Bec, I meant no offence, I actually thought it very Bashe like, she done well raising you.”

“She did, so get ready, one day I’ll hurt you just as much.” Levi’s words were her last before she refocused on comforting Klaire.

“Well then I’m in for a truly terrible fate, her soul is more solid than any I have seen. We’re far from done, so comfort her well.”

As she worked, she found herself growing curious for the first time in centuries; The power Klaire was using, albeit with clumsy inexperience, the strange creature at her side that called her “Mum”, the recent visit from the celestial fox Kyubi and finally the fact that all of it seemed to be related to the boy she was married to.

’It seems it is time I introduced myself… Forgive my prying child, I’m going to peek into your memories.’

She studied each piece of scrap of soul she stitched, normally they were far more sporadic and random, but every piece of the first set was focused on her family.

When she was done with those she she stood from her shadowy seat and set the stitched pieces down with the most delicate touch, then approached the disembodied soul, inspecting it for any more detached pieces. As soon as she was satisfied she took it by the hand and led it back to its vessel where she lovingly restored it.

As her soul reconnected Klaire gasped back to life, then as soon as she had caught her breath, Faylorna repeated the process…

That is how the Howling progressed, over and over again.

Every piece of soul was the same, dominated by familial ties and then came the time when Klaire turned ten and that changed.

After that, they were dominated by Carl, him and only him, anyone else relegated to an occasional appearance as a background character…

Every tenth time Faylorna had allowed Levi to give her food and drink, continuing the instant she had finished.

Finally, Faylorna had come to the moment she had long-awaited, the moment she howled at the man she loved. She could see the self-loathing in his eyes, the unrelenting force she had seen in the other scraps completely diminished, exhausted after years of not only keeping up with others despite lacking their advantages but leading the pack.

’An admirable man certainly, shame he broke so quickly, that determination would guarantee her future.’ She thought, looking back at the solid remains she knew there weren’t many repetitions left. ’I wonder when she grew so strong though… How did she change so much so soon?’

Then she restored and removed the soul again, gathered the pieces, sat and began to sing. She saw a wyvern, she saw its fire, then she saw the gates of Nergal’s city and then she saw him and he saw her…

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