It’s a quiet, cool day in Glacikaldr. The snow falls softly for once, and even as dusk creeps closer, the usually biting cold merely nips at those who walk the open air. Children run about the central city square in warm furs, screaming and laughing as they enjoy one of the rarer nice days in the city. Adults dare to linger in the outdoors, hovering near lanterns to gossip and laugh along the streets. Night crept closer, drawing people to their homes as the Moonguard started to rouse and take to the walls against the winterlands’ other denizens. Queen Cessair Wolf-fanged stalked towards her own home with none of her people’s calm. Her steely expression couldn’t be mistaken for being relaxed, her shoulders set tight as her armored feet clang against the flagstones. Her eyes don’t land upon her people around her as they shift and bow their heads, don’t track the delighted children who pause their game to stare at her passing. She has a destination, and all else is secondary. It’s mechanical, walking through the city to her manor-home, she finds herself seated in her study, writing in quick, yet careful script, manufactured perfection in the curled, looping handwriting, putting the words she'd carried and crafted into black-blue ink.     To the Honorable Queen-Regent Jocelyn Kilvaro of the Emeraldite Empire, It has been some time since I stood before you; in the aftermath of Oakhold’s ruination and terrible grief delivered upon your family, I stood in your castle as you gave title to Sir Richard D. Lion. I would fault you not for remembering me as I was, a soldier of Cerise, but now, I have to honor to address you amongst the finery of a new name: Queen Cessair Wolf-fanged of the Glacikaldr Empire. I only regret it is due to current events and the return of ruination that I must reach out again. Peace is the goal for which I took Glacikaldr’s throne, the very basis upon which I have lived in this world. I will not sit idle while war brews amongst my neighbors and await bloodshed to taint this land again. Thus, I suggest a meeting, that we might converse of these happenings and what may be done. Yet I confess, Your Majesty, that if I am to speak truth, I have concerns of my own. As I’m sure you know, I was working in collaboration with a man in your employ, Von Derk, in attempt to investigate the disappearance of Stag-Point and recovering its abducted peoples. However, in our second meeting, his spell of truth caused repeated harm despite my lack of deceit – I must pray that you did not approve of your underling bringing harm to another of Templehelm’s leadership, but it gives me pause that this is a man you would hold in regard. It is in spite of this reluctance I write to you now: I will not let hesitation stay needed action, and I must hold faith that you will not either. I swear, upon all gods and ancestors, I would do you no harm at this meeting and wish you no ill will. In such tumultuous times, I do not labor under false belief this is a trivial request, but I do labor in hope that you may consider my words. I invoke my actions to speak for me now: defending the Emeraldite saint Giften from Gazan’s forces, the defense of Oakhold against numerous incursions, my repeated aid to Wood’s Edge, my service in investigating a Grastagg official, my defense of Stag-Point from wytches, and my continued inquisition into the disappearance of the same city. Let my deeds speak my intentions, and let your mind be at ease. I eagerly await your reply, and may your gods bless you. Queen Cessair Wolf-fanged Thrice-Dead Soverign of Glacikaldr     It was careful, measured, the words each debated and placed like stones in a wall, her every flourishing line and plumed letter filling in the gaps. It was all truths, all carefully chosen– it had been a hard lesson of her status that information must be given with caution, that certain things couldn’t be written at all where anyone could read them. Black wax fell in gentle waves over the creases of the paper, folded into its careful diamond, the howling wolf head seal pressed into the soft wax. It took a mere brush of her finger over it for frost to gather, a silvery gleam overtaking the surface, the very paper chilled as metal now; it gave a certain extra legitimacy, knowing exactly who and where this came from upon mere touch. Near to her hand, the medal of Stag-Point sits waiting; once a symbol of pride, now an item of bitterness she's happy to send along with the letter as proof of her efforts. The letter set aside, another was penned– the words as carefully chosen, but warmer, shorter.   To the Esteemed Eastlake Guildmaster Mikail, It’s been too long since we spoke– I will utter my regret as to that fact in person, should you be so kind as to grant me conclave with you. Current events are concerning, and I fear for my friends along the Steppe, you included. My thanks and best to you, my friend– may the gods bless you. Queen Cessair Wolf-fanged Thrice-Dead Soverign of Glacikaldr     Mikail was an old friend– an old conspirator, even, given how he’d been so willing to work with herself and Condor against the queen-regent’s wishes against Gol. With any luck, he’d remember that friendship, or at least remember how much coin sat in her purses, at worst. She needed not just allies in this, but information, and he was her best option. Signed. Sealed. Letters sent, feeling like lead in her hands even after her palms lay empty. Her ragged lungs felt like sails, as every jagged breath led her to the balcony, to frozen air and a sliver of sun that remained. People still milled below, though fewer now. Children called in for dinner, soldiers to their posts or their homes after their own shifts. Father Blackfrost standing at the doors of his church with a cigarette in hand. The words in her head still felt heavy, even after being packaged to letters and sent off. Her elbows rested against the balcony rail, leaning forward to watch a dwindling group of children pelt a rough snow golem with icicles, cackling with laughter. All anxiety and fear could come soon, and she had no doubts that it would. For now, just now, she breathed in the peace. It would not last.

AWESOME! It's so cool to see the ways you flesh out the Dream as its own biome and the weird ways things would evolve there! I really want to see your vision of a winged mirage-- they sound absolutely trippy and I love the vibe!

we did it, buddy, we learned a language and cured cancer for sure

AMAZING! Welcome back to both you and Jay!

A Winter That Kills   Tyrmrdis was a bleak kind of freezing. This was a fact utterly unchanged, whether one was walking the streets or wandering the crypt, deep below the church. Honestly, Cessair was missing the frostbite-inducing wind from above.   Her cloak tucked carefully around her shoulders, a gently clacking bundle under arm as she descended to the stale, frigid air of the crypt; it was almost enough to feel just chilly. The cold had always been less effective, since she'd died; she felt less pain, less sensation, and cold was among them. Still, after the Styx, she always hid from the cold, shied from the sharp bite that had sunk teeth into her fingers and never let go. For someone with limited sensation in her body, her hands were always a little worse, though it never stopped her. If anything could slow her, it was the oppressive dread of the hallway she descended; a dank, cold tunnel of darkness lit only by the torch she held, the sconces on the wall dead. She'd lit the near-frozen oil of each as she passed, leaving a trail of wavering flames behind her like fireflies, each disappearing behind her as she went deeper. She didn't know her way. There was no one to guide her, either. She'd come, armed with the bones of a dead king and prepared for difficult questions of "how do you have these?" and "are they truly Tyr's bones?" and "where are his teeth?" and had been faced with not a soul. The single priest remaining in the church above saw her enter with bones and simply directed her towards the crypt, no questions asked and leaving her with a dozen. This was turning out to be more of a commitment than she'd intended it to be. First, it had been digging through months of notices from the criers, finding the actual announcement of Tyr's rise to power (and another reminder of what disaster he'd wrought; declaring martial law instantly, stifling protest with the Teeth mercenaries, gods, she should've twisted the sword in his leg more-) for what she needed. And it wasn't long until she reached the proper level of the crypt to use it. Loose in a tight maze of frosted marble, she started walking, looking for a name-- and it wasn't hard to find.   Remus Raewyn Son of King Drogo Raewyn Second King of Glacikaldr   Tyr's brother. Dead in some elder war, back when Winterlings hailed from Glacikaldr and they had a king of noble blood blessed by their goddess to lead them.    "Ty-soho-pin munnai sawabi," her people would call him. "The sapling before the cedar." The death of the young before their time and the old left to grieve with a life too near to finished. She'd heard some mortals call it vilomah; "against the natural order," the black-haired buried by the silver-haired. Tyr didn't even get that. He got Cessair, his murderer, wandering her way into his ancestral burial ground to lay him to rest. No family to witness, no friends to mourn (where was Hazel, gods damn it all, where was anyone-), and not even someone of his faith to guide him. For as much as she despised the man, as many people as she knew who hated him alive and dead, how many were left to mourn? And how many had not even heard yet? ... No one could find Drogo still, could they? Missing, like the rest of the leadership here. He didn't know another son was dead. How much longer would he live, thinking he had a son left? Had he even learned Tyr took the throne? Or was he just as dead as his children? Did Tyr still have a mother? Any kind to kneel here and cry and care?   Like a door had opened, the still, chilling air of the crypt shifted, not with a breeze but a sweeping sense of cold, cold as the Styx. Her shuddering shoulders made the brand-new teeth, carved with swirling designs and sharp script, jangle like chimes from her hair.   No more waiting, then.   Remus was one in a row of wall niches; an order was clearly intended, already disrupted with one son being placed where a father should be. She carefully settled the bundle on the ground beside her, torch set into an empty sconce, hands wrapping around the stone cap, tugging it towards herself, the marble dragging along at her demands. The empty stone box exposed was meant to hold a body; it would be roomy for a pile of bones. This was still the best she could do. It was all she could do. And do, she would.   She gathered the bundle from the ground, unwrapping it; 206 bones were scattered amongst the leather wrappings, a few small pouches for the smallest among them. And she set to work. It should be noted that putting a skeleton together is a difficult puzzle; too many small pieces and too many pieces in general, so many that could fit a few too many places. It should also be noted that Cessair had practice.   It didn't take near as long as it should've to put a body in place, laid out on cold stone, tiny finger bones plucked from a bag and laid out carefully in place, until finally... a complete skeleton laid before her.   Now, the real job began.   Taking a step back, she was back to rummaging through her pockets and satchels, eventually tugging out a bundle of candles and sage. It was a simple matter to set them about the edge of the family crypt, lit from the torch, and to set the dried sage to slowly smoke and burn as she sets it about on the floor around her. Settling onto the cold tiles of the floor, legs crossing as she shuddered against the chill, she steeled herself for... however long this may take. She tried to do research, learn how to do this right. She could find no straight answers, or at least none that seemed fitting for a man like Tyr. So... it was time to do her best. "Mother of Ice, I return your son to your bare, bone hands, restore him to his ancestral halls. Rimecrowned Maiden of the tundra and the taiga, your howling son rejoins your pack, runs free on your shores once more, if your grace be given." The air grew tighter, as if honing to an edge, something sharper in the chill now. Or was it in her head? The cold had never been kind, after the Styx. She pressed on. "Mother the Cold: Mother to guide; Mother to bide, and Mother to hold." She was out of words prewritten by Winterlings; nothing more to guide her.   “... I hate you.” The words fell, heavy and sharp with honesty, because yes, she hated Tyr Raewyn. He had been a menace since the day they’d met, since before she’d even arrived in Templehelm.  “You weren’t a monster for the wolf inside, but the man you were.” He’d desecrated a child’s body with his cannibalism, killed Dennis for sport, had kidnapped her fiancée.  “You were an impulsive, money-grubbing drunkard who never helped someone unless there was something in it for you.” That wasn’t even to mention what she’d learned of Tyrmrdis’ state under his hands– some things maintained as the rest of the city was left to fight against the terrors of winter as it seems it always had. Tyr was never a man to be lauded, never one to be admired.   "And I hope that she is kind to you, where you reside. I hope your family, any you'd call your own, are waiting to embrace you past the veil. I hope something that looks like peace awaits.”   Because there were a sparse few in this world who did not deserve respect, down to the grave. Because Cessair had died thrice now, and twice, she'd had nothing. She had rotted and broken down to nothing on an altar until the day that she'd risen again on that same spot. No one had been left alive to bury her properly; no one to say the Rites of the Resting Spirit, no one to plant a new tree above her body that flesh might feed life once more. The second time, no one had even known; she'd vanished in the night to the Styx, where she wouldn't even be able to decay; just freeze and become yet another corpse on the shores, if Svarog hadn't answered her call. The third... she'd been cared for. Spirits above, had Beroe cared. She had been laid in mossy, dark earth, flowers braided into her hair as her fiancée desperately prayed she would return again. She woke up to loving eyes that made the hole in her chest feel small. And she would never say it to her partner's face, not for all her life, but it was wrong. It was rotting slowly on the surface, not descending into the earth again. It was being waited for, when waiting was for the living.  They'd had the hard conversation, after that. Of how when death finally set claws into her and willpower finally failed and whatever bound her to this unliving state at last relented, how she needed Beroe to lay her to rest. Because-   "You deserve to rest now."   He'd been firm in his beliefs from the beginning, held to his hatred of Emeraldites. She struggled still to keep hold of the furious anger in her chest every time she saw venomous green eyes; she hardly could denounce the man's despisal of an empire that ruined his people when she'd outright hurt Richard, chasing the anger over her own kindred's demise. They were enemies, for the last day of his life when everything went wrong all at once. He'd made a terrible mistake, taking Beroe, and she'd raised her allies to get her back, to kill him in retribution. But she had to look him in the eyes, bloody and weary but still so very alive, fighting to stay alive, just as any man or beast with sense fights the end.   “Death has followed me everywhere. It's the curse. Just… hunting… surviving.”   He didn't beg. Didn't run. Raised his fists and a shield.   “Now it's… my… turn?”   Just. Knew it was his day and fought anyway. Was she supposed to spite a dead man for that?   So she solemnly stood from the ground, eyes still set upon the dark stone. "I hope she's kind to you, you jackass."   The chill to the air wasn't so sharp anymore. It wasn't approval. It probably wasn't even acceptance. But she wasn't freezing to death, so she had to assume it was enough as she turned her back on a tomb newly etched with another dead king's name.         It wasn't uncommon for the undead to walk the streets of Tyrmrdis, but a foreigner returned to the surface, frost and spores clinging to skin as she returned to the wind-bitten surface. Standing at the mouth of the tomb, Cessair looked out to the expanse of the town once more; sparse streets, its few people huddled and cold, a quiet fear to their eyes. The handful of city guard visible were on the wall, huddled in a tight knot, furiously discussing with frantic motion. Her foot was beside a frozen puddle of blood, graffiti visible along the edges of alleyways, shadows shifting quickly in their depths. Something howled in the distance.      Tyr was laid to rest because rest is for the truly dead. Her work here wasn't done.