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🌙 '''The Gift on the Docks'''
Night air curls around the Crossing docks, damp and salted, as Deatly slips into a shadowed corner where only the gulls are unwise enough to witness him. The war hammer — heavy, real, impossible — hangs from his trembling hands. He stares at it as if it might vanish.

His breath rattles out in thin, uneven bursts.

The Gift

They had gathered in the tavern — the raucous laughter, the clatter of mugs, the storm-ready eyes of the ones he fights beside.<br>

A hammer pressed into his palms.<br>
Words said.<br>
Support offered.<br>
Even Davrion’s steady presence weighing the moment with quiet conviction.<br>

And in the corner, Nvalia watching with that soft, patient look — the kind she gives the Loony Moonie when he starts muttering to shadows. She said nothing… but she heard everything.

The others too — each leaning in, each offering something: a nod, a smile, a joke sharp enough to cut tension, a shoulder pressed closer than before. A circle tightening around him without touching.

Together.<br>
For him.<br>
For what he’s done.<br>
For what he is.<br>

Deatly exhales — too hard, too fast — as the old instinct claws up his ribs.

“I don’t deserve this,” he whispers to no one.<br>
“I’m just… just me. Just a moon mage. Mad. Broken. Not… worthy.”<br>

His fingers curl until knuckles whiten.

That’s when the moons arrive.

'''The Whispers'''

A rush of cold-black shadow, a silver edge of laughter, a deep crimson surge — the three voices slamming into him like waves hitting a cliff.

Katamba curls behind his spine, purring like a beast too big to see.<br>
Xibar flicks silver sparks through his hair, whispering riddles too fast to catch.<br>
Yavash booms like a heartbeat felt through the bones of the world.<br>

“They chose you.”

The words aren’t spoken — they thrum inside him, pulling his head back, stretching his jaw in a gasp.

“They gathered. They saw. They lifted the weight into your hands.”

Deatly staggers back, hitting the wooden post of the pier. The hammer thumps against his leg. His breath stutters.

“Because they need something from me,” he argues, voice sharp, rising.<br>
“Because people leave, they always leave—my family did, they locked me away—why would this be different? Why would the FOE stay?”

A gust slams across the water. The waves slap the pilings like impatient hands.

Katamba coils tighter.<br>
Xibar hisses.<br>
Yavash roars.<br>

'''The Vision'''

The moons abandon words altogether.<br>
They pry him open with sensation, not sound.<br>

A ship formed of shadows and steel.<br>
A storm spiraling around its mast.<br>
Figures standing along the railing — some laughing, some shouting, some sharpening blades, some simply watching the horizon.<br>
Faces blurring, shifting, reforming — not individuals, but roles, strengths, devotions.<br>

A breaker of shields.<br>
A singer of tides.<br>
A keeper of secrets.<br>
A silent blade.<br>
A walking flame.<br>
A stormcaller.<br>
A guardian.<br>
A shadow-walker.<br>
A tear-catcher.<br>
A voice-binder.<br>
A soul who sees.<br>
A soul who listens.<br>
A soul who never turns away.<br>

The FOE, not as people — but as a whole, a force, a family forged in chaos, bound not by blood but by mission.

The moons slam the vision into his chest like a hammer blow.

“Not them,” they whisper, all three at once.<br>
“Not the ones who locked you away. These are the ones who stood with you in fire and steel. These are the ones who handed you the hammer.”

Pain ripples through him — sharp, bright, breaking him open.

He drops to his knees on the planks.

The war hammer rests beside him like an anchor.

'''Acceptance''' (the shaky kind)

He presses his forehead to the handle, breath ragged.

“I’m scared,” he admits to the moons.<br>
“But… maybe… maybe this time… I stay.<br>
Maybe… the FOE is real.<br>
Maybe… they’re mine.”<br>

The waves hush.<br>
The moons dim.<br>
The whispers soften.<br>

And the last thing they breathe into him before fading is a tide-soft command:

“Rise, Deatly.<br>
Hammer-bearer.<br>
Moon-touched.<br>
Family-bound.”<br>

He laughs — quiet, fractured — and rises.

Not whole.<br>
Not healed.<br>
But held.<br>