Bani

The Bond of Gold and Shadow: The Origin of Bani

Long before Rell bore the name Bleidrell, and before Bani had feathers black as moonless velvet, there was a tree older than language at the heart of the wilds. Its roots touched the bones of forgotten gods, and its canopy stretched across centuries of memory. Beneath that ancient bough, a hawk’s cry once split the silence—a creature not born, but awakened, shaped of dusk, death, and divine sorrow.

Bani was not a hawk in the traditional sense. He was once a sentinel spirit of the forest, a guardian bred of the old pact between sky and shadow, meant to watch over the balance of things that lived and died in the deep green. But as Rell’s childhood waned into terror—after the demon found her and marked her soul—the balance shifted. The pact fractured. The wilds grew restless.

Rell found Bani as a girl—not by chance, but by call. In the throes of a storm-curse, she stumbled into the grove where he roosted, his form molten with golden light, wings stretched wide like a sword of judgment. Wounded and unconscious, Rell’s blood drew the old spirit down, and what passed between them was not a contract, but recognition. She was touched by abyss, but not broken by it. And Bani, cruel and proud, saw something rare in her: defiance tempered by grace. He watched over her from then on—at first from afar, unseen save for shadows and brief flashes of light behind the trees. When her demon stirred, Bani answered. When her nightmares clawed free, his shriek drowned them. In time, he took form, perching beside her, always watching. His eyes, forged of amber and ash, became a mirror for her soul—fierce, cursed, and utterly enduring.

Their bond was not born of spell or ceremony, but of shared solitude and survival. He became her familiar not through force, but invitation. In her quietest moment, Rell reached out—not to tame, but to understand. And Bani, in turn, relinquished his solitude for hers.

Now, he soars above her path like a judgment long delayed, his presence a whisper to those who know: the quiet girl in greyscale leathers does not walk alone. She walks with something ancient, something cruel—but loyal beyond death. When the golden scythe gleams, and the demon stirs beneath her skin, Bani is already in the sky, ready to deliver wrath from above.

To the world, he is her familiar.
To Rell, he is the one truth she never needed to hide.