The Heimasborg
06-19-2018, 02:57 PM
i am the vanguard of your destruction
Bitterly cold nights that rivaled those of his homeland—
rewind
Enough rain to wash every ounce of flesh from his skin—
rewind
A heat haze upon the horizon; mirages and hallucinations, chasing visions of white birds across dry, cracked earth, his skin smelling of salt and his mouth tasting of salt and his eyes crusted with salt—
rewind
Screaming into the blizzards; throat raw, voice raw. Long, dark days, giving way to longer, darker nights. His hoof prints tracking lonely lines across the face of the Rift, some twist of fate and the subconscious steering him from company and light. His concerns, only two: finding his one bird, and keeping the other alive. Browsing through the snow, looking for slumbering rodents, not forage.
A skeleton of a horse, dead too many times over and losing count. A dark void, where hope went to die.
fast forward
He stopped screaming a while ago. The sun and the rain and the blizzard, again, never answered him, and neither did she. The place where she had existed remained empty and cool, smooth—not even a scar, not even a bump in his consciousness, to indicate where she had been merged with his soul for so many years.
Some days, he even forgot she had existed at all. The hours stretched without him thinking about her, the warmth and anxiety of Diego a blanket wrapped around his rent mind. Then, all of a sudden, he would recall her, maybe see her in the false light of dawn, a ghost from his past: elegant and white and the first ray of sunlight slanting across the horizon, glimmering in the dragon's head upon her back.
She was never there, and the cycle of self-loathing started all over again.
rewind
When the rains started falling, melting the flesh off his bones, the darkness of the north rained away. It was hope-killing; each time the Rift expanded, so did his search area. He wandered mountains that wept red, screaming her name into the thin air, leaving his blood all over the range as he stumbled and fell, again and again and again.
He spilled onto a tundra, a permafrost blessing, and he scoured every inch of it.
And then he found it.
Myrkdalurinn, the dark valley, for it was almost always cast in shadow from the looming Heimasborg.
He couldn't believe it, not even as he stepped reverently into its caves, not even as he found the scorched alcoves were braziers had been burning, the planning room with the huge stone slab in the middle, the familiar view of the familiar valleys below the windows, framed against the unfamiliar and distant mountains.
It was empty. No sign of the Frerinn, no sign of the Magnar. No sign of Sarazheha.
No sign of what had happened to the hard-won peace he had won for his people and the bears.
No sign of Irma. (No sign of his little brother.)
fast forward
While still gaunt, he was no longer emaciated; the offline survival drive had kicked in, demanding he eat, drink, eat, sleep, as the hours he wandered his home in a stupor turned to days, weeks, and whatever else came after that in this cursed place. The freezing rain turned to snow, the northern lights casting colorful lights into hallways that should've been alight with fire and loud with conversation.
The one owl remaining with him rode upon his scarred withers, testament of a life spent in the presence of birds. His eyes smoldered with fire, Mauja's with ice, breaths frosting into the air.
The clop of hooves against stone. A moaned complaint, too far away to make out; the breath of something larger, a soft shuffle of paws and the barely audible click of claws. “Who goes there?” the presumed monster rumbled. Dead-souled, Mauja stared from the shadows, wrapped in them, thinking of Osiris pinning him in the Deep Forest of Helovia.
He wasn't even sure this one was a wolf.
Just that it was big.
“I don’t take kindly to intruders in my own home,” it went on, and Mauja, still dead-souled, kept on staring.
It felt like the seconds slowed down, or maybe that was his heart, preparing for a surge. Maybe it was the dry tinder of his mind waiting for a spark.
Or maybe it was just the nothing residing in his bones. He breathed; he blinked; he watched and he waited, thinking he should've felt something—some arbitrary, male need to piss on his territory, a desire to butt heads with this stranger just to feel something—but he remained empty inside.
He turned his head to the side, his blank gaze sweeping the cavern.
[ woops surprise mauja ]
rewind
Enough rain to wash every ounce of flesh from his skin—
rewind
A heat haze upon the horizon; mirages and hallucinations, chasing visions of white birds across dry, cracked earth, his skin smelling of salt and his mouth tasting of salt and his eyes crusted with salt—
rewind
Screaming into the blizzards; throat raw, voice raw. Long, dark days, giving way to longer, darker nights. His hoof prints tracking lonely lines across the face of the Rift, some twist of fate and the subconscious steering him from company and light. His concerns, only two: finding his one bird, and keeping the other alive. Browsing through the snow, looking for slumbering rodents, not forage.
A skeleton of a horse, dead too many times over and losing count. A dark void, where hope went to die.
fast forward
He stopped screaming a while ago. The sun and the rain and the blizzard, again, never answered him, and neither did she. The place where she had existed remained empty and cool, smooth—not even a scar, not even a bump in his consciousness, to indicate where she had been merged with his soul for so many years.
Some days, he even forgot she had existed at all. The hours stretched without him thinking about her, the warmth and anxiety of Diego a blanket wrapped around his rent mind. Then, all of a sudden, he would recall her, maybe see her in the false light of dawn, a ghost from his past: elegant and white and the first ray of sunlight slanting across the horizon, glimmering in the dragon's head upon her back.
She was never there, and the cycle of self-loathing started all over again.
rewind
When the rains started falling, melting the flesh off his bones, the darkness of the north rained away. It was hope-killing; each time the Rift expanded, so did his search area. He wandered mountains that wept red, screaming her name into the thin air, leaving his blood all over the range as he stumbled and fell, again and again and again.
He spilled onto a tundra, a permafrost blessing, and he scoured every inch of it.
And then he found it.
Myrkdalurinn, the dark valley, for it was almost always cast in shadow from the looming Heimasborg.
He couldn't believe it, not even as he stepped reverently into its caves, not even as he found the scorched alcoves were braziers had been burning, the planning room with the huge stone slab in the middle, the familiar view of the familiar valleys below the windows, framed against the unfamiliar and distant mountains.
It was empty. No sign of the Frerinn, no sign of the Magnar. No sign of Sarazheha.
No sign of what had happened to the hard-won peace he had won for his people and the bears.
No sign of Irma. (No sign of his little brother.)
fast forward
While still gaunt, he was no longer emaciated; the offline survival drive had kicked in, demanding he eat, drink, eat, sleep, as the hours he wandered his home in a stupor turned to days, weeks, and whatever else came after that in this cursed place. The freezing rain turned to snow, the northern lights casting colorful lights into hallways that should've been alight with fire and loud with conversation.
The one owl remaining with him rode upon his scarred withers, testament of a life spent in the presence of birds. His eyes smoldered with fire, Mauja's with ice, breaths frosting into the air.
The clop of hooves against stone. A moaned complaint, too far away to make out; the breath of something larger, a soft shuffle of paws and the barely audible click of claws. “Who goes there?” the presumed monster rumbled. Dead-souled, Mauja stared from the shadows, wrapped in them, thinking of Osiris pinning him in the Deep Forest of Helovia.
He wasn't even sure this one was a wolf.
Just that it was big.
“I don’t take kindly to intruders in my own home,” it went on, and Mauja, still dead-souled, kept on staring.
It felt like the seconds slowed down, or maybe that was his heart, preparing for a surge. Maybe it was the dry tinder of his mind waiting for a spark.
Or maybe it was just the nothing residing in his bones. He breathed; he blinked; he watched and he waited, thinking he should've felt something—some arbitrary, male need to piss on his territory, a desire to butt heads with this stranger just to feel something—but he remained empty inside.
He turned his head to the side, his blank gaze sweeping the cavern.
[ woops surprise mauja ]
