Do not seek forgiveness, for it will not ease the burden.

"...Is there aught amiss?"

[ for in-person private goofing or messages sent through the murmur, etc ]

1. heckling
[ The voice that echoes in your ear may or may not be familiar to you. It may or may not sound much like your own. ]

Off on another ill-advised journey, are we?

2. surprise! (dubious brain ghost edition)
[ A moment of boredom, inattention, injury, restless sleep...and the spectre on the edge of your thoughts is there. They perch on the nearest piece of furniture for what's probably show; the way they rest against it, they could fall right through without a single disturbance. ]

You? Idle? That's a surprise. I would have thought you'd be busy, as usual.

3. surprise! (yes, YES, THE TIGER IS OUT edition)
[ Perhaps you're simply passing time. Perhaps you're on another adventure. You could be doing one of half a dozen other things.

But one thing you know for certain is that Fray definitely should not be looking over your shoulder, or lounging at the bar, or sitting and reading, or simply Doing Anything in your vicinity away from you, manifested - made more than manifest, their existence has weight. Solid and real.

Should not - could not. But here they are anyway, in all their dubious glory. ]

3a. surprise! variant (for people who do not have fray attached to their brain)
[ It's strange to be separate, after so long...subsumed isn't the right word. They have plenty of space. But the tie that binds their existence to the person who had once picked up a job stone from a corpse, listened to his drifting words, is looser than usual.

So Fray wanders, enjoying the novelty. The touch of the wind, the sun. Hard to feel, but not impossible, if they try.

It's not so bad to have a day like this, every once in a while. Maybe they can drop in on all those friends their gracious host has, wouldn't that be funny...

Death, manifestation, all that they've been through, it's not made them any less curious. If there's a vice they share with the Warrior of Light, it's being a busybody. So they can show up simply...anywhere, far more silent than someone in full armor with a claymore has any right to be. To watch? To intervene? Simply to snoop? Fray can do all of that, it sure is fun having a physical separate form! ]

4. idk anything else i'm not your mom/dad/parent

[ This is kinda set up to be wol/xiv centric but seriously you can throw whoever the fuck at them, i'll roll with it ]

Note: I am not claiming this is what Fray's deal is in the game, but it is how I play them!

- does a xion-style 'changes depending on who's looking at them' but they wear full plate all the time so mostly the voice changes and you've got no fucking idea why

- but only when they're thinking of themselves as fray who lives in the wol's brain rent-free and not Fray, The Real Guy Whose Corpse You Touched

- they're read as 'more alive' when they're a mirror to whoever they're speaking to, and extremely dead when they're not (ie observing themselves as the ghost of a dead man)

- if you had any actual opportunity to cut them open for whatever godforsaken reason, there would be a drk jobstone where a human heart would be

- their body situation is Nevermind Don't Worry About It (they are literally the armor, the armor cannot be removed, but there is Flesh In There. The armor is essentially skin.)

- also they have the wol's memories from like, when dark knight starts onwards, but anything they weren't actually 'present' for like the DRK quests is strictly as an outside observer, like they're watching it in a movie theater third person and heckling you about your bad decisions

- they know the broad strokes of every expac past heavensward but they had NO input in the shit you did, whatever you did. they were napping in the theater

They have a WoL's memories up to current content, and also a second set of memories from their life as Fray.

Pronouns: He/she/they, Yours Specifically.
Fray's pronouns are 'whoever they're threading with in any given thread', unless they're thinking of themselves as 'Fray who traveled with Sidurgu and Rielle and died'.

- In Japanese translations, it's made more clear that Fray is Separate From You. The way I personally want to interpret this is that Fray can be a convenient corpse (ie they can possess an empty body), or they can just be an aetherial construct when no body is available.

- For any given WoL, i can roll with "this is Your Fray Who Has Your Memories" or "this is a fray who has Meteor's memories", whatever works. Trust me when I say I do not mind AT ALL which way it goes, a certain degree of identityfuckery is Fray's entire thing anyway.