Wapun Meadow Across Dimming Asterisms

knockknock

He was slowly growing accustomed to his new home—the one Drøugr had granted him entry to: the Stone Circle. He had only been there a few days, and he was tending to the wounds he could reach with his tongue. The others, one could only hope, would close with time.

Àskell found his thoughts drifting often to his brothers, to his father—or rather, it was the reverse: he rarely managed to think of anything else. Those moments of forgetfulness were rare. That wound, raw and gaping, would only be soothed by vengeance.

He had left the Stone Circle behind, seeking the gentler fields of Wapun—lands free from the rumblings and the fiery spirits of the northern colossi. It was there he encountered a woman so small he could have stepped on her without noticing—a stark contrast to the towering figures of the camp, and to the colossus he was himself. Caught off guard, he had stood in silence, sheepish before his own astonishment.

She did not wear the flame-wrought mantle of steel and ice, the signature of the northern tribes. Like the cunning assassins of the East, she was clad in the exotic hues of distant lands Àskell could only dream of.

His lips curled. She stirred old memories within him—bitter ones, lingering like the fresh wounds that still marred his flesh.