Löthían is the youngest of the gods of the Elvenhan. He is also the only child of the royal family to have never been married, as the son of No'alan and Rúloaña. He is the god of records, literature and knowledge. Each and every library, courthouse and archive of the elves contains a shrine to him. He and his twin sister Talmara are often used as examples to elven youth for why one must find balance.

Shadow Bryan

Primary just is not ready for the job he was given. He wasn’t even silencing his steps or checking a room before he enters so, when he takes a trio of crossbow bolts to the chest after walking unprepared into one of the rooms I just grin.

I can’t push him out of control today but if he dropped the reins by dying? “My turn” I find our body saying before my laughter follows.

I glance at our bleeding chest, noting how what little power we are currently deriving from the moon is not healing the injury. Silver tipped bolts, good choice to use against lycanthropes but we are ever so much more.

I allow our body to fall into the shadows cast by the window, the world shifting to dark greys before pulling the bolts out of our chest, barely feeling the dull throw of pain that Primary did as they entered, dropping them with a smirk as our blood evaporates into shadowy smoke that drifts back into the rapidly healing injuries.

It is too bad that we cannot recover this way outside of the Shadow Realms, but I am vulnerable until he recovers, and it is here that he will revive. Seconds pass before I hear Primary’s scream in our mind.

[What happened?]

You died, it’s my turn now.

[How?]

Crossbow bolt to the heart. Now if you would be quiet I’ve some fools to play with.

[No, I said no to you going on a rampage.]

I smirk as I resist Primary's grab for control. I can’t take it myself most days but holding onto control is easier regardless to what I told him.

I take a step forward, walking back through the film that separates the physical world from the world of shadows and smile as color returns. Ragnan, giver of the Gift to my Primary, stands barely holding his own against the three and only because their hand-fangs are not silvered as the bolts were.

Following my intent to harm, shadows wrap around my hands forming claws similar to the hybrid state between man and beast some of the pack can take under the full moon. Silent as the shadow, I take one of the soldiers unawares and sink the mostly substantial claws into his throat from behind.

A shiver of pleasurable warmth races up my arm as blood flows through the shadowstuff of my claws. In that moment however, my hold on control lapses and Primary takes the reigns.

He jumps away from the dying man just in time to dodge bring skewered and I can see the confusion on not just the knights faces but alas on Ragnan’s. My laughter fills our head and I don’t catch the words they speak as one of them manages to disarm Primary of his hand-fang shortly after he pulls it from his changeable furs.

You lose again I chant into his thoughts as one of my prey pushes his hand-fang into our chest. Again, I seize control as we drop into the Shadow Realms to heal.

[Don’t, give me back control.]

Nope, just stay there. I’ll give it back to you later.

With that I return to the physical realm ignoring once more the confusion on everyone’s face. Too bad I can’t just assassinate one of them again. . .

Wisps of shadowy smoke billow forth as I allow a hand-fang to pass through me.

“Steel has no bite, silver does not not burn” I say while standing as insubstantial shadowstuff before the knight's flurry of attacks.

Oh, how I want to simply claw out his throat, but I’d have to return to tangibility for that.

[How are you doing this?]

Eh, why not. Easy we are a shade of some sort. We are both living flesh and made of the shadowstuff of another plane.

[How do you know how to shift between the two?]

I already told you, I am an inner beast. Instinct guides me to know all that we have the innate ability to do.

[I want you to teach me]

No.

[Why?]

The more often you fail, the more often I get extra turns to go and play.

Primary does not respond to my last thought, but I can feel him watching me closely. An action that I approve, my Primary does need to learn and become more skillful even if I do want to take advantage of it. Remaining as pure shadowstuff I walk through the man who is trying and failing to harm me with his hand-fang, before turning around and plunging my shadowy claws into his neck from behind as I return to physical form. Once more washing me in waves of pleasurable warmth.

For a moment, I feel my Primary touch the reigns of control in the moment that I relax enjoying the warm lifeblood flowing through my claws. I then grin as he does not take control, deciding on leaving me as the dominant consciousness.

Good choice, I’ll make sure to show you some good stuff.

[. . .]

“Yearling, how are you still here?” the voice of Ragnan draws my attention as his single foe joins mine in staining the floor red.

“I don’t answer to you hunter” I say with a smirk as I walk back into the hallway.

“Yearling, answer me!”

I roll my eyes and step into the Shadow Realms. I have funner things to do than deal with him

[Is it a good idea to ignore him?]

Your problem not mine.

A few seconds later I return to the material plane in another hallway. No one is there to see me as I turn back, the fun stuff will be downstairs not upwards.

[It’s never good to split the party.]

We’re a shade lich, we can never be permanently killed while the other lives. Just make sure not to die before I reform if one of these fools gets lucky with their holy light bullshit.

Ria

No matter how much I argued earlier I did not get to ride he-who-makes-my-tails-wag into battle, so here I am following my den sister as she follows the trail of our mate’s scent into the lower levels of the Althaen complex.

“Fox, can you keep them form defending themselves?” my den sister asks.

“Unless they’re an Inquisitor I could confuse them with illusions” I answer before sending a set of illusionary duplicates down the hall and around the next corner.

Both of us smile as a pair of crossbow bolts kit the wall after passing through my illusions.

As we ourselves rush around the corner, the voice of some man in plate shouts “in the name of the Holy One you shall die!” before the pair of soldiers in leather release a second volley at us. Somehow both of them miss us but I know what the man in plate is.

He is an inquisitor, a knight that specializes in killing mages and breaking illusions. Beyond that he is also holding a silver blade in his hand. The werewolf charges him with as much disregard as she had for the grunts she fought before. The knight blocks her first strike with his shield as I run around to get an opening on the two crossbowmen that will soon finish reloading.

A jet of foxfire lights them on fire for a single moment before the knight banishes my flames with a wave of his blade in their direction. But it is enough, the crossbows were already destroyed. The werewolf uses that moment to slam the knight towards a wall, limiting his mobility before unleashing a barrage of Magic Missiles that are deflected by the man’s armor. She growls as I turn to focus on the two who are now drawing silver blades as they approach me.

I growl, panicking in my knowledge that the inquisitor can and will negate any illusion and spell I use on these two. I don’t have any chance to win in this fight as long as the inquisitor is here. All I can do is dodge and survive long enough for my den sister to save me by . . .

Why is Bryan walking out of the shadow of a wall? He looks at me and smiles but his eyes are wrong, darker than they should be and has the cruel smile of his wolf. He charges one of the soldiers as I dodge one of the blades while the other cuts into my arm in a glancing blow.

Bryan, or his beast?, slams the one he charged into a wall before he is noticed by any of our foes; a pair of shadowy claws extending from him hands before they like my own magics are dispelled under the antimagic wave the inquisitor throws in our direction.

Still the force beyond what I am capable of crushes the air tube in the man’s neck as Bryan frowns.

“Who stopped my [email protected]#ow$?” he asks himself, though I do not know one of the words, while turning to the other soldier. Who knowing I am not particularly dangerous stabs him only for the blade to pass through him.

I look around, needing a weapon but I am no good with the only thing I find. Still I pick up the silver blade, knowing if it wasn’t two on one I would have already lost. Swinging widely I find myself disarmed in seconds by the Althaen soldier.

But I was a sufficient distraction to give my ally an opening. I don’t see what it is that he did but the man is on the floor in the fetal position holding the space between his legs.

His blade now in Bryan’s hands is quickly plunged into the man’s chest and left there as he mutters, “hand-fangs aren’t as fun.”

“You aren’t Bryan are you?” I ask.

“Nope, he died so it’s my turn for now. So. . .” he begins to answer before the werewolf shouts, “shut up and help me.”

I pass Not-Bryan the sword in my hand before throwing a tongue of foxfire swiftly negated by the Inquisitor. It doesn’t harm him but it does cost him some resources and attention so I continue to toss small bursts of foxfire making sure not to have a pattern the knight could pick up on. As I do this Not-Bryan and the werewolf attack in melee with the blades being used as a club; hitting the knight with the pommel rather than the blade.

Soon enough we succeed even if it is only getting the knight in plate on his back after knocking him to the ground.

“So, Ria mind burning him slowly?” Not-Bryan asks as he kicks the knights sword away.

“Why? We should just kill him and move on” the werewolf says before I answer.

“For fun, but you might be right there could be something more fun further down.”

“Just kill the man. There are still enemies that need to be dealt with.”

I nod in agreement with my den sister, though Not-Bryan seems to have wanted a different answer and waits a moment before actually doing so as he grumbles to himself below any of our hearing. My den sister however demands my attention as she walks up to me and asks, “which direction is our mate in?”

I point back towards the stairs and say “heading away from us. Why?”

“No reason.”

I smirk as she turns away, considering if I should tease her about it for the barest of instances before saying “is someone lonely?”

“There’s nothing wrong with. . .”

“Sshh, don’t worry I’m here for you” I whisper in her ear before getting shoved away.

“Let’s just get back to work” my den sister says before walking in the opposite direction of our mate.