OOC: This is a closed Solo.
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A winter storm blotted out the sky and sun. Steady crunching sounds echoed, then drowned in the wind. The brilliant snow danced through a tundra at the whim of some unseen conductor. Blood marked a trail where the wind covered a set of tracks. The white plane seemed endless; stretching out farther than the eye could see. Imposing himself on the dark white nothing walked a lone soldier. His body did not shiver or shudder, it only swayed. Trees and rocks alike were frozen, final proof that nothing but ice could thrive in the cold north. Tattered clothes hung off his body, having long since lost their sheen and integrity. Gusts lifted snow off the ground, sending twirling forms dancing into the white void. Dark bruises riddled his body, like blotches of paint on a canvas. Ice tipped the end of jet-black hair which stood out against an all-white backdrop. Out of the white, like a mirage, a dark gray monolith took shape.
His scarred feet, stained red, moved instinctively towards the stone walls. The wind called like a siren, leading the wanderer towards his fate. Starving face and sunken eyes showed no emotion. As the cold froze more than skin and bone, even his heart began to frost over, and the fire in his soul began to die.
A hard thump signaled a stop. Blood quickly froze on the old gray stone where he collided with it. Without looking up, he slumped one shoulder against the wall, to use it as a guide.
As the wind died down, the rumbling of his stomach rose. It never stopped but had merely been muffled by the north's endless roar. Now his roaring belly reached his ears. The sound caused a stir. It was faint at first; Salvar's cold took a long time to thaw. But it came again, the rumbling from his core. Hunger had been eating away at him for days.
When one wanders, life passes like a blur. A man without a place can be any place. Overlooking a man without a presence is easy. He could get into the very heart of a city, passed the modest timber houses and mead halls. Around the old castle standing lonely in the center of the city, no more than a memory of the past. He could avoid a great old church, a history of pain and oppression reflected in its ornate windows. He could find a resting place. He could reach the end of his journey like so many before him. Snow made way when the man hit the ground. His feet could no longer support him. He struggled up, propping himself against the back of a relatively new tombstone. Surrounded by the dead, brothers and sisters in arms, most likely from the War of Flesh.
Clouds of white rose slowly from his chapped lips with his heavy breaths. Time passed by and a blanket of snow formed precariously atop him. He lacked the strength to open his eyes. The clouds rose slower and slower with each breath. It became impossible to tell where snow stopped and skin began. He could almost hear death calling.
Maybe Richard'll get to write my name in his book, after all, the thought came, with a wave of nostalgia and bitter regret.
Thick winter boots carved through snow, slowly climbing a narrow ascent. Heaps of snow shifted little by little on the old cobblestone stairs which led to the graveyard. An old woman, tall and thin strode through the snow with the grace of someone much younger. Traversing snow capped hills was an easy feat for those born and raised in the Salvaran north. A long black coat sheathed her, thick enough to keep out even the strongest wind. White fur encircled the collar, like a crown of silver. She held a sack tenderly in her hands as she walked. A soft stare moved from grave to grave, with distinct sadness in her eye, as she evoked a different face on each tombstone.
With a repeating, crisp crunching sound she made her way through old friends and loved ones. Stopping at a black headstone, she set to work cleaning it. With a considerate hand, she swept snow off its top and face, revealing a name: Roland Freeborn. The old woman set a candle atop the stone. In moments it was lit, despite the wind.
The sight was almost laughable. A tiny yellow flame, barely a whisper of a thing, burned weakly. But despite its size, neither wind nor snow could snuff it out. All the terrible cold and storms of Salvar could not take the candle's light, it seemed. Standing alone in stark defiance, a faint beacon of hope.
The snow fell slower now; as though the storm had met defeat at the hands of a tiny candle. The old lady unwrapped the sack and laid out offerings of food and mead on a plate, at the foot of the grave. She knelt, closing her eyes and reminisced. As she thought of the one, she'd lost a faint smile crossed her face. Drinking nostalgia in like a sweet dessert, she straightened her back and reached into her coat. She removed a long thin cigarette and lit it using the candle.
"Hey, old lady," a harsh but quiet voice called from behind the tombstone. The woman might have been surprised, but her face did not show it. "I think I'm starving to death," the voice continued, although the man's body stayed, the shroud of snow undisturbed. "Can I have some of that?"
"I don't know," the old woman answered with the voice of a seasoned smoker, but a gentle tone. "It belongs to my husband; you will have to ask him."
Without another word, the man began to move. The snow fell from his shoulders and back as he turned and crawled around the grave. The man devoured the home cooked dumplings and bread in moments; mead swallowed in gulps between bites. The moment seemed to freeze in time like the cold winter wished it preserved. An exposed forearm set to work wiping smears of grease and crumbs from his face.
The widow waited patiently, the amber glow of her cigarette sinking dangerously close to her fingertips. His body resembled a field of black and purple flowers, poking out from beneath a blanket of snow. Straightening his back, he met the gaze of the old woman for the first time. Their eyes locked, her dark violet stare evaluated the sunken features of the strange man. His eyes, the color of a crimson rose, held more tales of woe and pain than his body could ever show.
"Well?" the widow asked, finally, "what did he say?"
Silence fell with the last snowflake, and the woman had already made up her mind. A final wind roared, a defiant cry against an oncoming peace. His words drowned, so only those two could make them out. She recognized a soldier. A man of loyalty and honor. A man any town would be lucky to call citizen. And she knew, a man like this would hardly be accepted by a city as mistrusting as Archen.
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