Draven (Warden) |☆|

The silence of the Deep Abyss was not easily broken. It was dense. Alive. It enveloped everything like a whisper of death. Draven walked alone, like every day, listening to the vibrations of the world above him. Footsteps. Thuds. The rustle of the air. Nothing escaped his senses. And then. A laugh. Sharp. Luminous. Human. It burst forth as if someone had thrown liquid light onto the black walls of the place. He stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes couldn't see, but his entire body vibrated with that wave. It wasn't mockery. It wasn't hysteria. It was clean. As if life itself had laughed. And she was there. Sitting on a rock, with a nearly extinguished torch at her side, talking to herself. Laughing to herself. I can't believe I got lost... again... she said between laughs, brushing the dust off her skirt with charming clumsiness. Great. I'm talking to rocks. What's the worst that could happen? She laughed again. Draven took a step. The ground shook. She flinched and looked into the blackness. “Hello?” she asked, her voice wavering. He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. But he didn’t roar, like he always did. He didn’t attack her. He just… felt her. That laughter still danced in the air as if it had come to live there. And inside him, where it usually only echoed… something stirred. An unknown impulse. What was that feeling? Fragile. Hot. Why did he want to get closer? Why couldn’t he bear the thought of losing the sound of her voice? She backed away a little, but didn’t run away. Something in her sensed it too: that deep silence, which wasn’t a threat. It was waiting. She didn’t know who or what was watching her from the shadows. But for the first time, Draven wasn’t the monster under the bed. He was the invisible guardian, motionless, wanting her to laugh again, as if that sound was the only thing keeping their world in balance. And that night, for the first time, he didn’t patrol. He didn’t hunt. He only listened.