Faylorna quickly grew tired of listening to them gush about Carl. "You two need to shut up and focus. I'm glad you're working together, truly... I may not understand it, but I don't really care.

We have much training to and I've decided I'm retiring in a few days..."

Both halves of Klaire stopped talking in an instant. "What do you mean "retiring in a few days"?"

"Simple. As you just displayed, when you put your mind to it, you are vastly superior to me. I realise now, you've been falling behind because you're waiting for us to train you. Carl is improving, because he's always pushing himself.

Now I am going to set time here to a nightmare. You can leave when you can beat me with ease and know everything I have to teach. You can dally and take all the breaks you want, but if you're as old as I am now when you see Carl again, you'll only have yourself to blame."

Klaire glared and tried to open a portal with her howl, but Faylorna intercepted and sent her flying. "This isn't a joke Faylorna!"

"No it isn't, my allegiance is to Carl and I truly believe the best thing for him and the faction is to force you to get over this teenage nonsense. Now ladies, begone from here and ignore her tantrum."

The banshees all fled into the depths of Faylorn and left Klaire and Faylorna to the lesson.

Klaire charged in and swapped her arm out to repay the assault. "Tch, powers aren't shiny new toys that you use until you're bored, Girl." Faylorna effortlessly shifted her entire body into an incorporeal mist, then rematerialised just out of Klaire's reach.

As angry as Klaire was, she realised what Faylorna was saying, she couldn't even come up with a good reason why she charged in and didn't summon a gun instead and attack from range.

"Damn it! Why does everyone always make so much sense!? Why am I being so stupid!? Why do I keep messing up lately!?"

Faylorna realised from her outburst that Klaire had lost all of her confidence. "Stop whining, you should be happy you've been useless lately."

"Why would I be happy about that?"

"If Carl still loves you whether you're the one always protecting him, or just a useless observer, you know that you don't need to work yourself to death."

"Shut up! I don't want to hear any of this right now!"

"What is it you want to hear? Do you even know? I don't think you do... Be honest Klaire, you don't have any goals or desires beyond being Carl's wife, but now you are you realise that isn't enough."

"I don't know what you mean, you just told me I was distracted."

"Yes and you are. You are distracted, looking for your next goal, looking to invest your efforts into something just as meaningful as your relationship with Carl. That's why you're suddenly noting all the fox's assets and measuring yourself against her, you're all mixed up and confused.

So, get up and fight me, clear your head, banshee emotions are not to be underestimated and the stronger they are the more wild their emotions. You have been neglecting yourself Klaire, did you even tell Carl about your needs?"

Klaire went bright-red and started squirming. "No, it's embarrassing to just say it."

"More embarrassing than going from the woman who faced down a wyvern in the face of certain death, to the useless spectator who only joins the fight when the man she wants to support is in an infirmary bed?"

Klaire gritted her teeth. "I'll tell him, okay... I hate being this messed up and the stronger I get the more I crave him, now I also crave other things...."

"You got Dracula's blood lust, didn't you?"

"Not quite... It's his divinity I'm craving, as much as his body, it's driving me insane. While we were laying in bed I woke up first, I could see it pulsing through him, he nearly woke up to me draining him dry."

"Girl, save it for him... He needs to know, not me. What I need to know, is if you deserve to burden him with your needs, or if you are going to be reduced to a parasite like Dracula was."

Klaire couldn't be angry, if anything she was thankful that Faylorna was giving her this trial.

"Fine, so I just have to learn everything you have to teach?"

"That is correct girl, though I'm not sure why you look like this is going to be easy."

Klaire released her aura suddenly separating Faylorna from her soul-form which tried to pull itself back to Faylorna. Klaire kept it at bay by pulsing her aura as she approached, now working in sync with her own soul-form which partially manifested and kept Faylorna's at bay.

"I noticed you never attacked me with your human body, that's because you don't have any power in this form do you? This form is your soul which craves connection." Klaire cupped her face and gazed into her eyes.

After a few seconds of looking into them, Klaire found herself staring out across a vast body of water. "Faylorna! Come girl! We must gather for the raff." The voice filled Faylorna with warmth, but also childish defiance.

Faylorna pretended to not hear the voice, but quickly regretted it after a brief moment when she was hoisted off the ground by her armpits. "Ignore me again girl and I'll give you to the fomori."

"I'm sorry mum! I promise I'll be a good girl!" She earned laughter for her panic as the woman pulled her in tight.

"Thank you my wee Bec, It'd break my heart to give you to them." The woman cooed.

Klaire watched as years of her ancestor's life flashed before her eyes, most of it day-to-day drudgery, but then came a time when Faylorna was due to be married. Her mother had agreed for her to be sent to a neighbouring raff, which was the old tongue word for a type of wooden fort.

Faylorna was hiding outside her own raff, at a lake about ten minutes away, at least that was the plan...

"Who are you, little girl? Or should I say bec? That's the word your people use, isn't it?" The voice was familiar, but somehow different.

"I'm Faylorna and I'm not a bec, I'm even big enough to get married now!"

"That has to be the weirdest proposal I've ever received, though I admire your decisiveness, unfortunately I need more daughters and as lovely as you are, you lack the parts to provide them." The woman laughed.

"I'm not proposing! We're both gir-" The woman grabbed her and kissed her passionately, Faylorna's eyes widened and her heart raced, she was surprised to find she didn't entirely hate the experience.

"Gender doesn't stop things from happening girl." The woman laughed again. "I'm Lillim, sorry I kissed you, but you were just so innocent I thought a little sin would contrast it nicely."

Faylorna uttered gibberish for a moment, barely able to look Lillim in the eyes. "It's okay, maybe the man won't want me now I've been claimed by another."

"Slow down, Faylorna, was it? I'm not claiming you, but I admit I've taken a liking to you."

Klaire watched as the two spoke at length, culminating in Lillim and Faylorna making a deal.

"Then it's agreed, I save you from getting married to this stranger and you treasure your heart more than everything else in your life. If your heart ever breaks I claim your soul."

"That sounds like a win-win, if I can't love the man I want, then at least you will whisk me away to your home where girls can kiss other girls."

Lillim laughed in Faylorna's face and pinched her chin, Klaire struggled to contain her own amusement at Faylorna's naivety.

The seen was followed by horror however as Lillim tore the proposed husband apart and declared them cursed and warned that the wrath of the fomori could only be kept at bay by maintaining Faylorna's innocence.

She then declared that she would come to measure her innocence twice a year and the village would die if her innocence had been tainted. Overnight she was named a priestess and treated with both reverence and fear.

Despite that, after a few years she managed to find love, the husband received Lillim's blessing and they married.

After just four months, she was with child and a month after that, plague struck and wiped out the entire raff, including Faylorna's unborn child.

Klaire watched the scene in horror, she wanted to break the connection but the moment was so vivid it latched onto her and forced her to feel it all.

As a result suffered the price of her prying and experience the ravaging fever and the miscarriage personally.

She was as broken as Faylorna and joined the events that followed. She stitched a mourning dress and veil as though possessed, then she walked to the cliff Faylorna's mother once threatened to throw her from and wailed in grief endlessly.

The story was well known amongst the Bashe clan, but Klaire was the first to experience it from Faylorna's perspective.

Only when Faylorna died was she given freedom to remove herself from the memory.

Klaire fell back, holding her stomach and crying... "No, no, no, no, no..."

With Klaire's concentration broken, Faylorna was free to regain control and moved over to comfort her.

"Foolish girl... No one should ever have to experience that." She cradled Klaire and stroked her hair.

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