Maer's mercies (Wife knows best)

Maer walked alongside the Spirits of the countryside, and they were the most restless and prone to travel and gossip. Growing up, it filled the solitude of her village with noise that kept her entertained on end, and when she grew up, it was logical she took her odd blessing and became a local priestess. There was nothing audacious about her standing – the old brick house had a few trinkets that the Spirits liked to visit, and she talked with them on occasion, and that was enough for the village.

Maer wasn't surprised when she found out Harow had been visited by the Great Spirits of the world and given every blessing they could muster. He always had that bearing of a boy waiting for something, like her. It was just the scale of the calling that was the difference.

Maer wasn't surprised either to hear he was returning home. The spirits had spoken at length about where the Beacon was traveling, and after spending some time being paraded around the Kingdoms in victory, it seemed he was more than satisfied with fame and fortune.

What did surprise her was his asking her hand in marriage. Maer didn't imagine she was worth remembering – she was part of an old childhood that she knew Harow let go of amid the harshness of war and growing up. He must have seen plenty of fascinating women in his time and yet...

It was surprising how happy she had been, and did what she could to smooth away those creases on her husband's face. Perhaps those days were behind him. It was time to build a farm and grow something to cover the wounds dotting the land.

But Maer walked with Spirits, and talked with them. Then, when night came, she began to dream.

The northern reaches had become a wasteland, a graveyard serving as a tyrant’s throne. Monsters roamed day and night, and began assailing the few remaining villages, who built tall wooden walls and began to fear anything that walked.

Harow had only an ordinary steel sword at his side as he begged the village of Pallew to let him in, to let him help. When he earned their trust, he listened with growing horror at the cause of the region's violation, as the dead marched to the tune of a single man, a Necromancer controlling Malevolence on a scale never seen before.

Diving into the forest, Harow looked up, trying to deny that upon a pile of writhing, living bones, Gottfried sat.

“Why!? Why are you doing this? You swore to help others! Why have you come back as a monster!?” Harow hoarsely wailed at how far his friend had fallen.

“Harow, Beacon of the Kingdoms, you killed me once. So I have returned from that long night, that all souls in this realm may yet join me within it. Do you think you can stop me? Try!”

It was Gottfried's voice, but every intonation, every utterance was wrong, and so Harow steeled himself and prepared to kill whatever this was - this shambling thing wearing the skin of his comrade.

Then one day, there would be rumors of a miracle maker in Belzac Heart. The University, so desperate for students, accepted the aide of a mysterious woman, who wormed her way into the trust of the academia. Students began to enroll, and some select few were chosen for a special club headed by a special figure.

Harow stood in a deep underground chamber, where a garden bloomed, with every flower and vine formed from solidified Malevolence. At the center, Lissandra stood, eyes and clothes pitch black, and all around her were beguiled students who joined her in consuming the Menace's power.

“This was your school! The University will be destroyed when they find out what you've done!”

“Who's to say that isn't the best outcome?” The corpse of Lissandra laughed. “I lost by strength of arms to you, Harow, but I've learned plenty with this new body. The ways I can hurt others, and the ways I will hurt you. Imagine how little Malevolence it takes to pierce the heart of a society! Come, children!”

The hooded cultists rose, fell energies in each resonating with one another, the garden itself aglow with foul, otherworldly poison.

“Let us put ourselves in the books by killing the Beacon!”

“Yes, Headmistress Archhag!” They cried as one, and Harow buried the pain in his chest while preparing to fight.

Harow's misadventure went unreported, though the University's fate was all but sealed by him. Others would claim it was not his fault – that it was the University that chose to ally with the Menace – but it would be a long while yet before he would forget the color of blood.

After all, Idoy was being terrorized by a serial killer that targeted all the best fighters in the land. Harow seemed a natural fit to join the investigation.

It wasn't long before eyewitnesses reported that the killer had Yulien's face, and wielded a cursed blade.

So, in an empty field, Harow saw the third of his twisted friends.

“Ah, the moon is beautiful tonight”, the warrior monk sighed out wistfully, drenched in blood as he held up the naked blade he once swore to keep repressed.

“Yulien, please, throw that weapon away. You don't need it. You're better than this,” Harow morosely pleaded. It was a desperate but futile effort. Why would it work a third time?

“I heard you killed quite a few of my comrades recently.” Yulien angled his head back and he stared at Harow, through him, wild-eyed, flashing a predatory grin that shone like the fangs of a hunter. “How did it feel? That eruption of crimson warmth? The ecstasy of survival? The realization of overwhelming success? The Oar gives me such highs that nothing else in this world can match. How little time we have left! Why not use it to indulge in the things that give us joy?”

Yulien's body turned around, and the grin settled into a smile, looking at his old ally with glassy, unfocused eyes. “Come Harow, Beacon of the Kingdoms, the best that man and Spirit has to offer. Expose your insides to the outside for me. I want warmth.”

It was a hard-pressed duel, but forever would it be lost to history, and Harow would stagger away, downcast and silent.

He knew there would be one more left, and he quietly sharpened his sword and waited for word of her apperance.

He didn't expect Sylvat to take the form she did, but when the Chimera arrived, a mockery of the syhee, it came as a whirlwind of muscle, tooth, and claw.

Some damnable fool thought he had acquired a pet of renown, and now, the hulking cat-like beast was rampaging through Forness Heart's streets. Panicked citizens locked their doors, ran one another down, and slammed into approaching soldiers in a crazed riot.

It was all Harow could do to race along the rooftops and chase after the monster. When he cornered her at a building by a river, he could see the beast prowl and judge its opponent.

For an instant, he could almost see Sylvat in its green eyes, but there was no recognition left. It was an empty shell warped and changed into something designed to do the most damage possible. It was the Menace's final revenge.

The last of Harow's joy bled out of him. All there was left was a final kindness he could pay to his old comrades by piercing the Chimera's head with his sword, putting the last of his former friends to rest.

Having failed them twice, Harow understood that he was a failure of the highest caliber, and gave up.

One late night, Harow would wake up abruptly at the sensation of his wife grabbing ahold of him in a vice grip that would not let up.

“Maer?” Through the fog of sleep he wondered aloud, though he could feel a trembling intensity in her body.

“Don't give up,” she whispered with all force she could muster. “Don't give up, whatever happens.”

Harow didn't know what Maer had experienced, but he held her close in return. She wasn't wrong: there were days he felt tired, for some reason, but here, he was reminded that he wasn't alone.

“I'll do my best.”

The days would wind on, and while Harow and Maer heard gossip, the great change came when a messenger arrived with summons from Rulio II himself.

Maer tried not to panic as the messenger gave vague answers about events developing to the North and in all the Kingdoms.

Harow simply nodded with dutiful earnestness. “I shall go to his Highness with all due speed.”

Maer remembered the dreams, and one vital component that had been missing in each, and decided the Spirits were talking. So in their stead, she confidently added, “I am Harow's wife. Wherever he goes, I'll go with him.”