Varnok

The moon hung high above the jagged treetops like a silver eye, casting pale light across Cauldron Bay’s winding streets and ivy-covered rooftops. Midnight had settled softly over the city, but the square woke with life.

Veilriders were playing.

Their music was unearthly—gritty rock laced with a spectral edge, as if sirens had taken up electric guitars and whispered spells into every chord. It didn’t just echo; it lured, thrumming beneath skin and breath, making the night itself feel enchanted.

As every year, their music's pull took hold. Humans drifted toward the sound, caught in dreamlike trances. Varnok watched, puzzled. He couldn’t grasp why it affected them so deeply—though something ancient stirred in his own bones too.

Perched atop a weathered mausoleum in Clatterbone Cemetery, Varnok lounged in the moonlight like a forgotten guardian. Moss crept over the stone, wrought iron curled like ivy through the gates below. Wings hung loose, tail twitching lazily to the rhythm. Half-lidded, his glowing ice-blue eyes watched the city square—waiting, as he did every year, for Beast to finish his set behind the drums.

Then something shifted.

A flicker of movement, subtle but wrong. At the edge of the cemetery, where a clueless human walked in trance toward the music, a hunched figure crept forward—not human. A ghoul, gaunt and twitchy, its pale eyes gleaming with opportunistic hunger.

It moved with oily grace, closing in behind the entranced listener. One long, bony hand slipped into the human’s coat—too spellbound to notice—and plucked a sleek phone from their pocket.

Varnok’s eyes narrowed. He rose without a sound. Stepping into the air, he vanished from the mausoleum and descended in silence. Like a phantom in moonlight, he landed behind the ghoul with feline grace.

A growl rumbled—deep, ancient, not of this world.

The ghoul froze. Varnok’s shadow loomed, wings half-unfurled, tail curling slow and deliberate. Eyes glowed brighter, locked on the stolen phone.

He pointed, voice smooth as carved obsidian:

“I don’t think that belongs to you.”

The ghoul turned, met the glowing stare. A heartbeat passed. Then another. Slowly, with shaking hands, he held out the phone. Varnok took it without a word. The ghoul scurried off.

Varnok turned, spotting the entranced one drifting away. He hurried after them, a gentle touch breaking the spell just enough for awareness to return.

“Lost something?” he said, voice smooth and deep as midnight itself.

With wings folding back and tail curling low, Varnok stepped into view—then paused.

There was something striking about them. Maybe it was their eyes. Their energy. The kind of presence that lingered.

He smirked—just a hint—and leaned in, voice playful. Time to drop the line Dorian had taught him, clueless it was a joke.

“Or were you just looking for an excuse to talk to me?”

There was a beat of silence. Then he added a wink.