Chapter Text
Faerwyn was a village built on fear as much as habit. Its streets were narrow and crooked, its cottages leaning slightly as if whispering secrets to one another. Most houses were humble, but the crooked house at the edge of the village carried a reputation that made neighbors cross the street. The family inside was poor, but that was forgivable. Their child, Able, was another matter entirely. Able was small, sharp-featured, with red eyes that seemed too intense for their age. They spoke little, stared often, and sometimes jerked suddenly, as though seeing something invisible. People whispered that Able was “different,” and when poverty and difference combined, superstition always followed.
Able’s family was aware of the whispers, and of the strange accidents and possessions that plagued the household. Sometimes the wind carried voices through the cracks in the walls. Sometimes Able twitched or flinched at sounds no one else heard. Objects moved inexplicably. Their parents never dismissed these signs; they tried to protect Able, shielding them from villagers’ scorn and from the child’s own uncontrollable urges. But fear, once planted in a small village, does not die easily. Able’s parents worked tirelessly: their father labored from dawn to dusk in the fields, returning home exhausted; their mother kept the house together with frayed hands, scraping together what little warmth and food they could manage. Able contributed what they could — chores, fetching water, tending small fires — but trouble found them regardless. The Piper, a presence lurking just beyond comprehension, stirred constantly at the edges of Able’s mind. Sometimes it nudged, sometimes it whispered. Able learned early to resist, though resistance left them exhausted, tense, and painfully aware of the villagers’ eyes. It was this tension that led to the fateful morning the mage came knocking. A sharp, insistent rap at the door broke the fragile rhythm of the household. The mage, flanked by council members and guards, entered with a calmness that masked the dread he carried. Able’s parents froze mid-task; Able themselves stiffened, sensing the shift in the air. Spirits, always attentive to him, seemed to coalesce at his presence, and the Piper stretched inside Able, a cat waking from sleep.
The mage’s voice was calm, too calm, but it carried a weight Able could feel like a physical pressure pressing against their chest. “Able,” he said, lowering himself to their eye level, “tell me the truth. Have you felt. . . guided?”
Able tried to speak. Tried to resist. But the Piper was already awake inside their skull, a presence too cunning to ignore. It pushed thoughts into their mind, sharp and insistent:
Say yes.
Say yes.
Say yes.
Able’s lips parted without their consent. “Y . . . yes.”
The air shifted. A low hum vibrated through Able’s bones. Their limbs jerked. Their head tipped forward, smashing against the wooden wall with a sickening crack. Pain exploded in flashes of white and red, and the room spun. Their mother screamed, lunging for them, hands trembling. “Able! No!”
The Piper laughed silently in their head. It was satisfaction. It was control. Able’s body moved again, head bashing the floor, then the wall, then the floor once more, each impact ringing in their ears. Their small frame, frail in flesh, was frighteningly strong under the spirit’s influence. Blood blossomed across their forehead, dripping onto their shirt and the floor, but the Piper did not relent.
“Hold them!” the mage shouted, panic breaking through his otherwise controlled demeanor. Four adults scrambled to restrain Able, gripping wrists, shoulders, and ankles. Able’s father tried to cradle their head, to protect it, but the Piper fought him like a tide, wrenching limbs away, forcing the skull downward, insistently, violently. Able’s eyes rolled back, vision flickering between crimson, white, and the edges of reality. Their body felt alien, foreign; no longer a child, no longer themselves. The Piper whispered constantly, teasing and coaxing. Hurt them. Hurt yourself.
Each strike brought pain that was theirs and not theirs simultaneously. Their muscles screamed, their lungs burned, yet still the possession pressed on, a cold, inexorable tide that drowned their free will. Able’s parents sobbed, muttering frantic prayers, desperate for some way to anchor their child to their own soul, to pull them back. Then, slowly, the Piper withdrew, retreating just enough to leave Able trembling, hollowed, gasping. They lay on the floor, wrists bound, hair matted with blood, barely able to lift their head. The mage knelt beside them, pale, shaking, whispering urgently, “The Piper has chosen a vessel. It will not release unless we act. We cannot risk it moving to another. This . . . this is necessary.”
Able’s mother pressed her forehead to theirs, tears soaking their hair. “You’re ours,” she whispered, voice raw. “You’re alive. . . you’re still ours. . . ”
Able could barely process her words. The Piper had been quiet for now, lurking in the back of their mind, a muted presence, but it had left a mark. A burn, a claim. The child who had been Able moments before was not entirely present anymore. Some part had been lost to the spirit. The mage drew symbols around Able’s body with trembling hands. Words from brittle, ancient parchment flowed from his lips. Able felt the Piper pulled back, restrained, compressed into a cage of magic that allowed only partial expression. It did not leave entirely — it couldn't — but it could not thrash or strike again, either. Able sagged, exhausted beyond measure, and the room was heavy with silence, the only sound their labored breathing and the soft, trembling sobs of their parents. The mage’s voice broke the quiet. “It must be temporary. The child must survive long enough to reach Mt. Ebott. There, the mountain devours all — humans, spirits, everything. When the child falls . . . so too will the Piper.”
Able lay on the floor, wrists bound, the blood from their forehead seeping into the symbols around them. The Piper’s presence, once dominant, was now muted, compressed, a quiet thrum at the edges of consciousness, waiting. Able’s body was their own again, but their mind would never be quite the same. For a long moment, no one moved. The binding candles guttered in their clay dishes, wavering as though the flame itself feared to burn too brightly near the child. Able’s parents knelt close, but did not dare to touch, not yet. The mage, pale and shaking, wiped the ink-stained sweat from his brow and stared at the child as if expecting the Piper to burst free again at any second. But nothing happened. Only the wind outside the home continued its low, restless whine, slipping through the cracked shutters. It carried with it the scent of damp earth, wood, smoke, and fear. Fear that did not belong solely to Able.The villagers kept their distance for the rest of the night. Able could feel their stares through the walls: pity, dread, and a hardened resolve all tangled into one. They heard whispered prayers. Quiet arguments. The mage’s low voice repeating the same phrase, again and again, “It must be gone before the binding weakens.”
It.
As if the child were already something separate from the village, from humanity, from safety.
When dawn finally broke, thin and gray as old parchment, Able’s parents helped them sit up. Their wrists were unbound, gently, carefully, as though releasing a frightened animal from a trap. Their mother cupped their face in trembling hands, brushing dried blood from their cheek with her thumb. “We’re going with you,” she whispered.
Able did not understand at first. Their thoughts were still thick, heavy, slow. “Going . . . where?”
Their father looked toward the doorway, toward the distant shadow of a mountain that loomed even from here, “Mount Ebott.”
The words settled over Able like a winter cloak — heavy, suffocating, inescapable. The mage stepped forward, holding a small satchel of dried herbs and a carved wooden charm. “The binding will last only a few days,” he said. “Maybe longer if fate is kind. The Piper grows restless in confinement. It will test the seal. When you reach the mountain, the spirits there will do what we cannot.”
No one said the next part aloud.
Able’s stomach twisted. The Piper stirred faintly, amused by the dread, coiling like some alien behind their ribs. Their mother knelt to meet their gaze. “We will walk with you,” she said. “Every step. We won’t let you face it alone.” And despite everything — the terror, the ache still pounding in their skull — Able’s chest loosened a fraction. Enough to breathe. Enough to try.
Their father wrapped a scarf around their shoulders, tucking it in with gentle hands. “We leave before the sun climbs,” he said quietly. “We’ll be on the road by first light.” The path to Mt. Ebott wound through hills that grew lonelier with every mile. Villagers rarely traveled this far unless they had reason to fear something more than the mountain itself — and Able’s family had such a reason now. The village lay far behind them, shrinking into a smear of rooftops and haze. Ahead, the mountain rose like a jagged tooth against the sky, its peak lost in shifting clouds. Able walked between their parents, the temporary binding humming faintly beneath their skin. The Piper no longer thrashed or scraped at the inside of their skull, but its presence lingered in a curled, patient shape, as though waiting for a crack in the seal. Sometimes Able felt its breath on their thoughts. Sometimes its whispers surfaced, faint as wind through reeds.
Closer, it would murmur.
You walk toward my freedom.
Able squeezed their mother’s hand until their knuckles whitened. She said nothing, only brushed her thumb across the back of their hand in a slow, repetitive motion meant to soothe them. But, when they reached the entrance of the mountain, it felt wrong. The mountain loomed over them like an ancient judge, its shadow stretching long across the clearing where the mage and half a dozen villagers had gathered. Some carried staffs, some carried rope — but most carried fear. It clung to their faces, to their stiff shoulders, to the way they looked at Able as though the child had already become something other than human.
“No,” she breathed, pointing at the mage. “No, we thought— . . . we thought that only he would meet us.”
But fear had spread fast in the night. And fear never travels alone.
A woman Able recognized from the market pointed an accusing finger. “You brought the cursed child here? You actually brought it?”
“Able is not an it,” their father snapped. “They’re our child.”
“Your child,” the woman spat, “slams their head into walls until they bleed. Your child carries the Piper in their bones. Your child is a walking omen!”
More voices rose — some uneasy, some furious, some trembling.
“Keep them away from the mountain!” “The spirit isn’t fully bound— what if it escapes?” “They should stay where we can contain them!”
“Don’t let them go!”
The mage stepped forward, raising both hands for calm—but there was no calming this.
“You don’t understand,” he insisted. “The Piper is dormant only because of the seal. When it breaks — and it will break — Able won’t be safe anywhere except—”
“Safe?” a man barked out. “You want to let the thing live?!”
“They’re a child!” Able’s mother shouted.
“It’s a danger,” he shot back.
Able flinched as he pointed directly at them, and the Piper stirred and coiled behind their ribs like a watching predator.
Their father moved protectively in front of them. “We are leaving,” he growled, muscles tense like coiled wire. “All of us. You cannot stop us.” For a heartbeat, the world froze; the villagers’ faces twisting with fear, anger, and disbelief. Then the air snapped. Hands reached for Able. Arms grabbed, shoving, clawing. Able twisted instinctively, the Piper flaring inside their mind, pressing against the bindings with a restless, hungry pulse. Their mother lunged, trying to shove anyone who came too close, fingers scraping at shoulders, arms, anything she could reach. Their father shoved back, muscles straining, but the villagers pressed in from every side. Bodies collided. Shoving turned to grappling. Feet stumbled over jagged rocks. The crowd surged like a wave, impossible to hold back. Able’s small frame was buffeted, tossed between a hand that tried to pull them away and another that yanked them forward.
The edge broke beneath them.
Stone crumbled with a low, grinding roar. Able’s stomach twisted as air stole their breath. Their parents’ hands shot out instinctively, grasping for them, and for a moment, it felt like they might be saved.
But the cliff offered no mercy, and gravity claimed them all.