I awoke with a gasp, I can feel the bone chilling winds of the cold against my skin. And yet... I do not shiver in beneath the snow, slowly I rose from where I lay, and relived the moment I came to this place.
Luis... That was my name once, an ill and weak boy born to suffer and wither away. Diagnosed with a genetic condition that made his bones as brittle and fragile as glass.
Luis... A boy that hoped, a boy that wished for something better, to spare his loving parents the burden of caring for a son that would die young and bleed them dry for every cent they have trying to add on a just one more candle on his cake.
Luis... Whose only joy was watching, and playing on a computer, awed by the strength yet delicate hands of master smith. Forging works of wonders, circlets inlaid by gems and works of death, swords and spears to deal mans gift.
Luis... Who asked and prayed, to be free from his bodies bonds, to feel strength, to practice his passion and to create and forge.
Luis... I,now standing steady as an immovable mountain, his once brittle bones now steel, fire is his blood and knowledge of uncountable blades and immaculate treasures bubbling just beneath his mind.
I took a deep breath my lungs filling with the cold air "My prayers... We're answered, now I must do what is asked of me"
Helga POV
'Damn cave humpers' I shambled towards my tribesmen, well what was left that is. Those damn cannibals ate the rest, from 30 strong Free folk reduce to me, old nose bitter, the half wit Sven, and little Merica and Meron.
"Old gods be good... Are we all that's left?" I asked the nose bitter, a grey beard that has seen at least 50 winters, I am not sure though, no one is, the old coot may have been drinking buddies with bran the builder.
I saw him huff, his old but strong arms pointing at the snivelling worm that is Sven, how in the world that idiot survive to be named and to adulthood others know how.
"I- gods, they came out of no where! Ate Sveta before she was even dead! They even started to..." Sven shivered, hells even I would "started to fuck'er, just, what the hell..." Sven collapsed on the snow.
"Helgy..." I turned to Merica... Another odd one, she didn't have a bearing of a free folk, she was a little thing just shy of my hips, soft spoken, kind, naive, refuses to take a life herself, favoring singing and dancing. At least Sven knew how to fire an arrow and hit something.
She should have died, long ago... But then again.
Just besides Merica, Meron stood watch, now that is what a free folk should look. Dangerous, alert, ready to fight to the death for what is his.
The twins are a source of amusement to the tribe, when there was a tribe that is. A twin that sings like birds of the wilds, a balad of warmth in stark contrast to a growing beast in childform in the second twin. One growing like the most beautiful winter rose, the other a sharpening blade.
"Come here Merica, it's alright" I hugged the shivering winter rose. Irked I may be from her refusal in training with a weapon, I cannot deny I am fond of her.
"Mother and father died, they were killed by one of the cannibals, the one with an iron shoulder guard, I stabbed him as he was eating father's eye" Meron said with the tack of a stone.
I feel Merica hold me tighter
"Good job Meron, that was probably one of the leaders, bastards would fight naked if doing that didn't freeze their balls off" I heard someone chuckle from behind me an arm on my shoulder
"Aye, do us good if they all just went ike the others and never returned" Old nose bitter said, and looked at us all his aged face somber but unyielding "we need to get out of here, we are close to the lonely mountain, chances are we find a cave to shelter in"
"W-why go there? We should go to white tree, there's a settlement near there" Sven said getting up and flinching at the sight Nose bitter was giving him.
"Because, a strom is coming, one with winds that will shed flesh from bone and freeze you even with full clothes on, now move you idiot!" Nose bitter ordered.
I watched Sven cower and raced towards the towering mountain. "If he wasn't the best Archer I know I'd gut him myself..." I heard Nose bitter mutter before taking Merica from me and placing her on his shoulder "No more crying little rose, your grandpa is here now, oh and Meron too"
Meron looked at Nose Bitter and cracked a small smile on that ice frozen face of his and we walked. The looming mountain in the distance, snowcapped peaks, jagged clifts and this... I do not know, a feeling, a sensation I do not understand.
I looked to the others and yet I do not see the same tales they are feeling what I feel gazing at that mountain.
The lonely mountain, fitting name considering it's farther east from the frostfangs, its sole visage towering over the Aniva forest. No one has settled near there if I remember, something about a tale of billowing roars and rising ash. About the dweller beneath the mountain, a creature of fire with burning arms and crowned with horns of a goat, skin as red as blood and eyes of fiery orange.
"Pa used to say that the mountain didn't exist when his father was a boy himself, that like a tree it sprouted one day. That a god resides within it's foundation" I heard Nose bitter tell a story to Merica and Meron.
"Really grandfather?" Merica said in wonder "Maybe we can ask the god beneath the mountain for help! We can pray to him and he'll protect us!"
Nose bitter chuckled "Aye, would that be a sight, a living god walking amongst mortals once more, not a face on a tree but one that can take action for their followers. Wouldn't you agree Meron?"
The boy only nodded
"Really Merica, your brother might be a Stark of Winterfell for how much his face looks like ice" Merica giggled
Now that Nose Bitter mentioned it, that was another thing, the twins have steel grey eyes, now there are those with grey eyes beyond the wall and non are even closely related to the wolves of winter.
But the grey in the eyes of the twins are different, Merica has a lighter shade, almost silver in color, but Meron's was darker, like stone granite.
Eve there hair, one a shinning black like the night of a star filled sky, the other darker that a moonless night.
"Pa would say that those that try to venture deep within the mountain for riches to mine would never be heard of again, that the owner of the mountain does not care for thieves taking what is theirs" Nose Bitter continued
"And one day after hundreds of foolish trespassers seeking to enter the cave that led to the heart of the mountain, a great door stood where the entrance once was, adorned with a sigil of a great goat with it's forehead encrusted by a large winter sapphire, it's eyes shone like ice blue as again and again people failed to even move it" I saw Merica's eye shone in awe, hells, even I was listening intently.
"They eve had a four giants try their luck on the door, but once more the door of the goat prevailed and did not have up the entrance"
Nose Bitter continued to regale us with stories passed down to him about the lonely mountain. Making the journey bearable, as each tale told, the mountain slowly neared.