Falcon of Light

The Falcon of Light takes the shape of a luminous bird that blazes against the surrounding darkness, and it frequently wears Griffith's own face. In the pontiff's vision it swells into an enormous white falcon crowned with a man's head and long flowing white hair, while in other appearances it folds its wings around those it visits. It manifests not in the waking world but within the minds of those who behold it.

More omen than being, the manifestation registers to those who witness it as their deepest yearning made visible, a promise of deliverance. Priests of the Holy See read it as a heavenly revelation, a sign pointing to the one destined to rescue humanity, and its arrival stirs instinctive certainty rather than doubt. The apparition steers people and even apostles toward whatever it directs them to, functioning as a summons that guides rather than a creature possessed of a will of its own.

Two years after Griffith broke free of the Tower of Rebirth, disaster swept Midland, and people across the kingdom and the Holy See's lands began sharing a dream of an approaching shining falcon. Clergy welcomed it as a divine sign, while the Holy See's Miracle Recognition Department schemed to certify and control the prophecy. On his deathbed the king of Midland saw the falcon wrap its wings around his daughter Charlotte and take on Griffith's face, making him wonder whether he had secretly wished for Griffith to lift the burden of rule from him. The same vision confronted Zodd, wounding the apostle and directing him toward Albion.

During the march toward Vritannis, the ailing pontiff of the Holy See glimpsed an immense white falcon with a man's head and long white hair, then heard a voice bidding him to be led by the feathers of light. Convinced his hollow life had finally found meaning, he threw in with the youths Mule and Sonia. In Kushan-occupied Wyndham, Foss's daughter Elize and other children dreamed of the falcon foretelling a new-moon night when the fog and its beasts would clear, granting the trapped Midlanders their escape and the promise of a true dawn. By the Fantasia era the rumor had hardened into faith. After every child in a town dreamed of the falcon flying toward the capital, refugees streamed toward Falconia, which Luca confirms the Falcon of Light had guided them all to reach.