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The warrior of light has no shadow. When they lost it, they can’t quite remember- surely it was still there before traversing to the first, and they think it was around while exploring Kholusia for the first time. Later on, they can’t quite remember, memories bleeding into blinding white as the burden of the light wardens took its toll.
It wasn’t just memories, it burnt out the color in their hair and hollowed out everything else. There wasn’t much to drag to the bottom of the ocean after the light ate everything. An empty husk full of light, dragging their claymore across the tile of a ghost city. Moving through the motions of saving the world because it was what they all expected.
They wondered, once, what the ghostly illusions of the ancients saw. If they saw the spectre that the hero of the world had become. Fuel for a fire that burned so bright it couldn’t even cast a shadow.
But looking down at the grassy paths of the Lavender Beds, there is certainly a dark mirror across the cobblestone. A moment later, their shadow lifted a hand and waved, while their hands were still firmly at the sides.
They paused in the middle of their usual jog from their house to the summoning bell. They blink once, twice. “Fray.”
“What.” A sullen voice sounds, half audible and half echoing through their head. There’s irritation in their heart. It isn’t their name, just as much as Esteem isn’t. But their shadow always answered despite it.
Well, no.
Despite the fading of their memories, they could remember laying the fairy king to rest and desperately calling out for Fray when the light aether first grew searingly hot in their body. And then the silence and panic that followed.
It was never that Fray was gone but not being able to hear them was just as bad. Not being able to feel them nestled next to their heart was worse.
Without realizing, their breath starts coming quicker. Their hands shake. They grind the heel of their palm against their eye, trying to rub away the static overtaking their head. Everything burns white, white, white.
The armored hands soothing over their fingers pulls them back. A solid presence. The same one who guided them through forms the first time the soulstone was passed over. A wave of worry rakes over their thoughts, undercut with a scrap of embarrassment.
Their heart is sulking, like a child who played a prank and realized it wasn’t as funny as they thought. “It doesn’t take that much aether to manifest that way. You kept thinking about it. I thought it would make us happy.”
There’s silence, filled with the raspy sound of the warrior’s own breathing.
“I never left,” Fray says, never loosening their grip. “I will always be here, right at your feet.”
The warrior of light has a shadow. But sometimes, if one looks closely, the shadow seems to move on its own. In the blur of a battle, the warrior may wield a bow but the shadow always carries a greatsword.