Neverwinter Forest the void of a world

Stark’s single eye shifted warily between Sólhárr’s broad frame and the forest beyond, noting the pack presence that drifted along the edges of his senses. He managed to rise enough to sit, though his muscles quivered from the effort. The dull ache in his side flared beneath the bandages of root mulch and aloe.

A surge of—not quite anger, no, for he felt gratitude for the man, but perhaps agitation—flickered to flame. The man—King of this land or something similar, he assumed—spoke almost patronizing. But he swallowed his irritation, felt the ragged pang of protest in his throat. He wasn’t in a position to push back. He would not push back. For all of his smiting bite, he knew the art of decorum. Of policy.

Stark finds the strength to speak. His voice is hoarse with disuse. “You have me at a disadvantage,” painful admittance. He, nontheless, eyeballed the man of reds. Waging the price of the scars that similarly decorated his hide. The missing eye he, too, wore. A flicker of grudging respect coiled in Stark’s chest. “I owe you, and your wife, for sparing my life. I am indebted.” He mumbles.

A dip of his head. His muzzle tenses at the mention of Needle. His heart twitched beneath his ribs at her name. "I vow you my service. But once I’m on my feet again, I must go. It is no question—I must find her." Sólhárr would come to know the worth of that. A man studied in diplomacy, history, and the art of war. A scholar first, a warrior second. Stark would prove himself invaluable. The inquiry of Needle was not ignored. A bittersweet murmur upon his northern tongue, a tongue Sólhárr would recognize for what it was. “Needle is a young girl under my care. A daughter, in some ways.” He exhales a shaky breath. It was the first time he had admitted such feelings for her. “We were separated.”

He looked up from his paws, a hardness overtaking his one good eye now. “We happened upon a band of passing rogues,” he began, his voice clipped, “Stupid girl thought to stand and fight. Told her to run instead—only way she would've lived. I stood and fought. They saw fit to leave me for dead. She returned, as I knew she would, tried to mend my wounds. But she had to eat eventually—I was right in teaching her to hunt. I suppose that’s when you found me. Had she any other choice, I doubt she’d have left me at all.”