Fantasy Icegrave ⋆⁺₊❅.

[icelunix]

Edea Windruna

Wingwarden of the White Peaks

The frost had settled thick and biting, sheathing the Vindfjall in a uneasy quiet. Morning crept slowly, reluctant, the sun's lurid pale light barely piercing the fog that wound itself like a shroud around the jagged peaks. Stormstaarn Shrine stood as it always had, an autopsy of a gravesite, both loved and absent against the yield of unforgiving elements. Its frost-coated spires caught the faintest glimmers of dawn, while dragonbone windchimes whispered faint notes into the still air, their tones almost drowned by the weight of the silence. Quiet, cruelly so. But Such things refuse to bother her these days. Edea moved through the shrine’s courtyard with measured steps, her breath ghosting in the icy air. The furs of her great-grandmother hung from her shoulders, a weight a little more than physical, and the tomes of her ancestors’ rites sat on a table in the library, waiting for her hands. She tightened her gloves, her movements brisk but deliberate, as if rushing would break some unspoken rule. The frost beneath her boots crunched in a rhythm that mirrored her thoughts— restless. Restless this morning. The dream had left her unsettled. Fragments of it still clung to her like cobweb: the shrine, suffused in shadow; windchimes torn from their moorings, voices silenced and she'd woken before dawn, the echoes of it coursing through her veins. Thrown herself into her duties to ward off its lingering. Yet, as she lit the incense at the central altar and recited the morning rites, the feeling persisted—something off, something wrong in the bones of the world. Its nonsense really, to view the delusion of dreams as a binding curse. She drunk too much last night, down by that tavern with the village folk, perhaps she was afflicted with some kind of brooding worry- that Skyknight girl from the village takes her exams this week, and- Edea brushed ash from her gloved hands and frowned at the faint tremor of the ley lines beneath her feet. The shrine had been built at their convergence, where her ancestors had communed with spirits and walked the border between realms. Today, the lines felt strained, like the strings of harps tuned far to tight to reverberate. She pressed her hand to the cold crystal of the altar, whispering a quiet prayer to the wind spirits. The response was faint, as though the spirits themselves had turned away. 'Fine then, be that way.' she'd think sourly, spirits where fickle- perhaps she was late on an offering. Its all quite superficial really. Once finished, she turned to inspect the windchimes. Ancient relics, crafted from Dragonbone, etched with sigils, and strung to catch the voices of spirits that rode the mountain winds. She ran her fingers along the bindings, adjusting them where the frost had settled too thick, muttering softly under her breath. It was her duty to keep them in harmony, the last task of a bloodline now dwindled to one. The weight of it bore down on her like the mountains some days. A curse, a crux, her axe to grind. As she bent to untangle a thread caught in the frost, the faint sound of footsteps broke the solitude. She stilled, heart quickening. The people of Vinterstead knew better than to disturb the shrine this early, and travellers rarely ventured so deep into the Vindfjall. Rising slowly, she brushed frost from her knees and turned toward the sound. The fog was thick, cloaking the figure in shadows, but the cadence of their step was unmistakable- human? “You've wandered far from the road.” Her voice rang clear and sharp, the cadence of the ancestral tongue lending weight to her words. Her tail shifts through the frost, tensed, tentative. "You shouldn't come here without cause you know- its rude, irresponsible- tch, where you raised by wolves?" she'd add with a cursory grumble, disdain painting her face as she'd adjust the worn wool collar of her robes. Whatever answer they gave, she would not let them disturb the fragile order of this place, or the memories it guarded.

ERode

Code by Nano, Art by Meee

 

[ERode]

She was a splash of blood against the Vindfjall.

Within the frost and fog, upon the frozen crust of the snow, amidst the interplay of thundering silence and the whistling glacier-winds, a maiden moved with steps of wonder. Her three eyes, of a blue deeper than sky and sea, were wide open, consuming the landscape before her, while her fingers lifted and lowered, tugging upon the breeze as if it were a fine fabric. It was a new thing, wasn’t it? This season, at this day, on this mountain. A novelty that glimmered like a frozen dewdrop within the palm of her hand. It would impart its coldness and then disappear, leaving only a lingering sensation upon her flesh.

“The Vindfjall…”

Her pronunciation was stilted, unsteady, her middle-eye squinting as she navigated the complexity of manipulating sound with breath, teeth, and tongue. She repeated it a couple more times, her quicker pronunciations less a sign of growing mastery and more a slurring of the syllables, before she stopped altogether, her triplicate gaze turning higher up still, towards the shrine embedded upon such crude mounts. It was foreboding, yet familiar. A new sight, mired yet with a sense of belonging.

Not in the way of family, perhaps, but in the way of a friend of a cousin of a grandfather.

She drew in a breath for the leisure of it, then continued her journey. Footprints remained in her wake, and for the seven days and seven nights that followed, no amount of snowfall could cover up the vestiges of a deity.

…

She was a splash of blood against the Vindfjall.

Emerging from the fog before Edea was a girl with red skin, whose mien was undisturbed by the acerbic attitude of the shrine maiden and the cold environment she was in. Despite only being swathed in a selection of patterned fabrics, despite walking barefoot upon snow, she neither shivered nor sniffled, only continuing her steady pace onwards.

As if she could cross the entire world twice over like this, wandering and wondering.

But she would deign to stop before the priestess anyways.

The girl was a head shorter than Edea, and all three eyes turned upwards in unison to start at the face, before splitting off into different angles to examine the rest of her body. A ten second survey that ended with the triplicate gaze concentrating upon her finned tail. A smile crested upon the girl's face, as if she had found a piece of candy in the dirt. As if she had found a one-of-a-kind toy. As if she had found a kindred soul.

“You’re alone!”

Words, out from the mouth like a spoon knocked off the table. The air rushed out far too fast, and she did not breathe in to refill it before she had wheezed out the next phrase.

“I am too!”