In The Dark I Have No Name

[Lief]

The Cracked Horn​

Fridheim​

Midvinter​

​

The crackle of torches, and a great log hearth, mingled with tremulous voices that rose toward the rafters. Roars of laughter, bellows of merriment, drunken songs, and slurred words. The Cracked Horn sat within the newly developed town of Fridheim, full of life, Valkyri towered over any offworlder who happened to be around, but truthfully they were few and far between on Midvinter much less a settlement such as this. She was the exception, her family were always the exception.

Though she might have been the Princess of Midvinter, Mysa sought to be anything but. And the kind folk of this land knew better than to force it upon her. Most knew her if not by sight then by description, for how many tiny white haired Ladies happened to be on Midvinter? Three. Just three. The Queen, her child, and her niece. The Vi'dreya. The little Snowflakes. They were beloved by the majority of their people. But sometimes I wish to just blend in. To be ordinary. To live as they live.

Perhaps that was why she missed the old Crowe's household so much. They had never treated her differently. Inside their home she had pitched in, she had helped to sew, to cook, to care for the children, and she had loved every moment of it. Guilt gnawed at her at the realization that she had ruined that lifestyle for her beloved Gideon. She could only pray that time would heal the wounds forged by fancies from beyond the stars. Valkyri men were so stubborn.

With a mug of mead in her hands, the young Snowstrider sat by the hearth and stared into its crackling flames. Coming here and facing her family after the horror that was the alchemical fiend had been tough. They had welcomed her with open arms, yet she felt undeserving of their love. She did not feel herself anymore, as though her very core had been tainted... Would that ease up in time? Could she somehow redeem herself for her actions?

The sound of the tavern door swinging open drew her attention, and she lifted her gaze from the fire and swiveled in her seat. A light flurry of snow beat into the room, bringing with it a chill. Few others bothered to turn, the noise remained just as deafening, but for whatever reason Mysa felt drawn to the being who was entering. But from here, very little could be deduced at all.

 

[Doctor Yan Korab]

[member="Mysa Snowstrider"],

White and the sound of wind whipping by. That was all the sound and vision Yan was able to experience at the moment, turning left he saw nothing but the white blinding expanse, turning right the same, nothing but the snow clogging the air so densely it was as if he was suspended in some otherworldy plane, and the sound of the blizzard raging around him. He didn't feel cold however, not like always, perhaps it was the alcohol dulling his senses, perhaps something else entirely, but as the Doctor moved forward, even as the snow compacted and crackled underneath his armored weight and the blizzard seemed to only intensify, that familiar sting of cold around his toes and ears was absent.

Maybe finally living on Midvinter for so long he got used to the bitter weather on the planet?

Unlikely, however as he moved deeper and deeper into the storm he still lacked that icy grip around his nerves, yet the blizzard seemed to only get worse still. It made him feel uneasy.

Suddenly bright light descended upon him almost like a curtain, forcing him to stumble, almost pinning him down under its weight as two beams of light pierced the white sky and the whoosh of the blizzard grew stronger, transforming into the overbearing noise of the engines. Black titanic sharp shape lowered down before him, a cosmic vessel touching down and with a hiss door in it open. Throngs of lizard like beings ran out and formed a circle around the stupefied Doctor, he tried to get up but he couldn't, only sinking lower into the snow. The creatures hissed and growled, waving around staves and swords he did not recognize before just as suddenly as they came they screamed out in violent pain.

Wall of fire rose from the snow and quickly enveloped them, swallowing the lizard-men whole in its grasp, turning their scales and skin into ash that got lost with the blizzard and left behind nothing but bones. From their charred corpses, from the depths of the snow itself a black figure rose up, thin and tall, before Doctor Yan, it spoke out to him in words he did not fully understand,

"Come. I will show you the Galaxy."

"Ghargh!"

Yan called back and he tried to turn away, only falling on his ass and deeper into the snow, trying to crawl away he felt a grip tighten around his ankle. He looked back, seeing a silver metal six-fingered hand closed around his leg, the black figure leaned in, revealing that it was wrapped in a cloak, from beneath his hood a mask extended out. Skull-like silver mask, smooth like polished bone, with two viper-like fangs extending out.
And those two glowing red eyes.

"Filthy organic savage."

The creature hissed as suddenly the whole world turned grey and Yan screamed out.



"Aaaaargh!"

He jolted himself awake in the stable where he was currently sleeping, standing up quickly only to feel light handed and being assaulted by waves of headache in a mess of hay.

[Runian] "Sønn av en h*re." (Son of a b*tch)

The Doctor hissed to himself as his hands reached up, clutching his temples. Another night, another nightmare, another headache. Lately since Yan found his way back to Midvinter the only thing that could help him fall asleep was drinking himself into a stupor, and a company of a lovely lady on occasion to warm him up, however that happened very rarely, even more rarely than before, and even back then it was pretty rare. There was something about women that always made Yan freeze up and try to avoid them, perhaps that was why he was able to focus on his studies like he did, some found it endearing, most told him to grow a pair of big old balls.

Most of the time that was his weakness however, the balls that is not the women, most of the time Yan found himself to be a bit of a craven. He was mostly a healer and a hunter after all, not a fighter or a soldier.

Either way, he pulled himself up, looking through his belongings. He still had all his thick leather armor pieces and cloak, including his beak-shaped mask, denoting him as a practicing Doctor, or Medic, or Healer, or whatever locals preferred to call them nowadays, a satchel with few coins that he still had left, a rather large sword hanging off of his back beneath his cloak along with a quiver full of black otherwordly arrows and more brown standard kind, and in the hay he managed to fish out a pair of his most valuable belongings. One was a black bow, stronger and tougher than any bow he saw before, another was a black staff that almost killed him the first time he got his hands on it, the only two things that he got from his time away from Midvinter.


The Doctor decided that he should find a cure for his headache next, and seeing how he only got hung over when he was sober, the only solution he saw to the problem was to drink himself silly again, it was only early morning. Slinging the black bow onto his back and grabbing his staff he made his way out of the stable, a shabby location where the inn owner allowed him to sleep, and rounded the corner to the inn entrance.

Pushing the door opened few of the patrons turned around to have a look at him as the wind whipped at his back with the chill of Midvinter, pushing him in. The door closed and looking around the establishment he spotted Myra, his mask turning to look back at her. He did not say or made any gesture towards her, well he did made a gesture, rising his hand, but it wasn't towards her, it was towards the barkeeper asking for a drink as soon as the server made eye contact with the Doctor.

Yan stepped closer, he arrived in the settlement only recently, since he returned to Midvinter he was more or less just a washed up vagabond, moving from location to location, seeking what little employment he could find, usually as a hunter. He tried to practice medicine again, or set up a clinic, but each night he was tormented by the same dream, each day the only way he could forget about it was by drinking, and few were desperate enough to seek help from someone stinking of ale and with constantly trembling hands. Or at least those desperate enough were corpses, and he could not cure death.

Hopefully his luck would change soon, hopefully he would find a good target to hunt, or someone to hunt it with, nudge nudge, wink wink.

 

[Lief]

Another man seeking warmth at the bottom of a tankard.

Mysa turned her gaze away from him almost as soon as she glanced his way and took a sip from her own mug. At her side her newly crafted bow lay, the crystals glistening in the light of the fire, bringing her comfort. A slight sleepy whimper sounded from her feet where Felix was curled, and her gaze lowered to the snow white frir for a moment.

She had been surprised to find that the innkeeper permitted him inside, most were afraid of the beasts even those who were tamed. But he had recognized who she was, how many small white haired girls were there on Midvinter? And how many of those had a frir cub at their side?

Biding her time until the weather dulled and she could stretch her legs to hunt, she leaned back in her chair and once again looked to the stranger who had entered. A healer from the looks of him, though the way his hands were shaking she wondered if he was very competent at all.

Nerves? Chill? Or just the drink?

She did note the bow he carried, and a quiver full of arrows. Was he a hunter, then? What a strange combination. Don't you wish to be the same? To heal and to hunt?

Not so strange, then.

Perhaps he would be a man to talk to.

[member="Doctor Yan Korab"]

 

[Doctor Yan Korab]

[member="Mysa Snowstrider"],


The man sauntered over to the bar quickly and carelessly of his surroundings, fixated on the single goal of getting something to drink, bumping into a couple of tables and chairs slightly along his way, eliciting out quick protests from the disturbed patrons who just as quickly gave them up considered the drunkard to not be worth it, even as his black mingy cloak rubbed across few of their manes and accidentally briefly covered few faces. Finally arriving at the bar his request was honored and a tankard of ale, wine, mead, whatever was in stock was presented before him, only to be quickly grabbed and his black beak mask was tilted upwards, charcoal unkempt beard spilled down along with some dried lavender and lilac, or Valkyrie equivalent of it, falling onto the hard surface of the bar with floral fragrance, or just being trapped within the hair of his beard. It was standard practice for doctors to keep such confectioneries in their masks, they believed that their sweet smell masked bad air and therefore cleansed it.

Either way, the Doctor gulped down the alcohol greedily, downing the full tankard in the matter of seconds before putting it down back on the bar with a small dull thud and a content sigh of relief that seamlessly turned into a low sickening belch.

Pulling his mask back down to hide his beard and what he revealed of his face, he noticed through one of the lenses Mysa looking at him again. He turned to look back at her, facing her with the mask and the tired bloodshot eyes beneath the emerald lenses,

[Runian] "Hva?" (What?)

Upon her closer inspection of the longbow the man carried Mysa would be able to tell fairly quickly that it did not came from Midvinter. It was made of neither wood or metal, the strange substance that it was crafted from was like lit stone, perfectly smooth in all its contours and the arc it formed with no sharp edges anywhere on it, even the bowstring itself seemed to be made from the substance, not wrapping around the bow's limbs but almost growing out of them. Same could have been said about the black staff the man carried and some of the arrows he had in his quiver.

If Mysa was familiar with alien materials and various rare crafting substances, both the bow and the peculiar staff were fashioned out of Echani Graphite spun and fletched on Abregado.