MARIA

Father's forge clanged out in her childhood days. A young girl who sat on the steps to his workspace as his hammer struck against the anvil. He treated blades with care, carving the runes with a deft, artistic hand. Sparks bounced onto the cobbled ground and bloomed with fiery flowers. Mother told her the story of their meeting — her, an out of place Avaerilian surrounded by boisterous, loud Hanekans, trying to find her way through the waves of change; until she met an auburn-haired runesmith apprentice working behind the stall of his master, focused and gentle with his work. Measured and precise. Mother ran away from control, and made the first, hardest choice and found the truth.

Then Father took a large commission from the mystical Warden Orders, nothing more than a distant band of golden-cloaked heroes from stories and given a temporary home on the confines of the mountain, and the mysticism fell away to another, no less inspirational truth. Her curiosity brought her into the Warden gardens, making art as Father did with metal, memorizing the facets of life, using a children's cauldron to test little mixtures in the relative safety and supervision of Yuo. It set her alight with a newfound goal, and she took the oath with a bloodied crescent blade in hand, following the light.

In the throes of Mother's misery, she stood out in the middle of the snow-caked streets, underneath a flickering lamp as she waited for Neven to return. Up the walkway, the Lord's estate glowed with newfound power, the first signal of his well-being, but uncertainty gripped her throat of his sense of duty and resolve clashing against nostalgic agony. There is nothing wrong with caring, Neven... Her own words slipped through her teeth the longer she watched the Avaerilians dance, sing, and bounce around with hope. Children slipped out of their houses and swung their bells. It is like Neven's arrival brought them back to life... Maybe it would be easier to move all these people into Irimount once we've cleared the place out and fixed most of the debris... if they'd even move, which I doubt. Back against the metal post, she tapped her boot and mist rose from her lips. I'd have to ask Neven if that's an option, at least temporarily...

Her train of thought faltered at the sight of the same two masked individuals in the tavern at the entrance they took, hovering around the Snowshear. Off the post, she went to investigate, but slammed to a stop at the crinkled song of black ice. Magick whispered across the flow, and Maria let out a gasp when the largest window at the Lord's estate exploded with glittered golden shards and studded sapphires. Glass splattered across the walkways and caused any nearby Avaerilians to rush out of the way as a shape flew down the slope, caught by a glyph of ice when they hopped to their feet, dark gold hair flyaway as they held their seax's up to bring the glyph as a shield.

Through the sapphire mist, Neven leaped on billowed mist, golden glaive in hand. It struck the center of the dark-haired Avaerilian's glyph. It sparked. Leashes of magick crinkled and electrified the snow. Maria opened her mouth, a slew of questions on the edge of her mind, but she froze when the masked figures by the Snowshear slammed ice into the ropes and sails. Shit. Fists clenched, she snapped, "Nev! They're destroying the Snowshear!"

Their only way to cross the Frozen Wastelands.

Neven flicked his beaded sapphire pupils to her, full of ice-cold rage as he drove his glaive deeper, until he pushed his feet into their glyph and bounced off it. The force of his jump pushed them further back down the street. A deep hiss left Neven's nose when he swung upwards and sent snow across the walkways to block the entrances into the houses as the townsfolk screamed and bolted for shelter. His gaze tightened into draconic fury at a child's screech.

Maria brought up her flames, though the constant wind from the blizzard stifled them as Neven snarled with another unsettling hiss. His knuckles turned white from the pressure he put on his glaive as he stepped forward. From the icy mist, glaives came to life and slammed towards the dark-haired enemy. Glyphs caught some, but others forced him to leap out of the way as the other two masked assailants approached from around the fight, towards her. Blade in her hands when she found her flames wanting, she jumped when a glaive of magick rolled across the snow and smashed into one, pinning them to the wall of snow Neven created to protect the townsfolk. "Nev!" she screamed at him. "We can't fight here! People will get hurt!"

Neven kicked off the cloaked figure once more, and her fist went into the jaw of her own opponent as she broke into a run for the edge of the town. Into the white abyss, her boots scrunched, slipped, and sank, but she fought on. Dutybound with her life, she trudged forward and tried to create a magelight of fire, but coughed when the breeze turned into a cruel howl in her ears. It tore through her scarf and hat, chewing at her earlobes. Gods... if we stay out here, we'll get frostbite... Maria twisted around. Her heart stopped when she failed to spot the lights of the town. What? I didn't get very far.

Sheets of ice-rain slammed into her eyes as she tried to wander back, but the fog continued. Eyes narrowed, she took a small step back at a flap of golden wings through the mist, and raised her fist as a shape landed beside her. Before she could throw her fist into their face, Neven grabbed her wrist. "No." He kept his glaive close to himself as he looked around.

"What is going on?" she demanded.

"If you thought escaping into the blizzard would help you, Neven Lotayrin, you're sorely mistaken," a cold voice responded in flat Navei, lacking the melody of both Yuven and Neven.

Neven let out a plume of mist through his nose as he got into a firm stance. "I didn't want to involve innocent people in whatever your client wants from me," he growled. "Maria." He motioned at the three cloaked figures who joined them in the abyssal field of shifting whites. "These are Iceshards, and they're one of the people responsible for what happened to Yuven and Fenrer in Sivaport! They're one of the reasons they almost died!"

Rage licked at her heels. Yuven's horrific condition when he threw himself, Fenrer and Adara through the Umbral Sea. Fenrer's as his breathing faltered, bubbled, and brought undue misery as he fought for his life.

"It was just business, Lotayrin," the dark-haired Avaerilian said. "We were paid."

"Yes, because some can put a price on someone else's life on a whim!" Neven took a step forward, and Maria shuddered at the pressure folding over itself. Golden scales grew from the mist, around Neven Lotayrin as he raised his glaive to the three. A cloak of mist formed into wings to push the snow away from them both. Horns crawled across notes as his feathers extended with a beautiful hum underneath the guttural hissing of a wyvern's anger. 

Two of the Iceshards took an uncertain step back. "Master Mazril... that's—"

Neven?

"Odd that a Naveeran who abandoned their home can call upon their wyvern soul," the one named Mazril commented.

"You wanted to fight as wyverns." Neven slammed his glaive down into the snow. "Maria. Run." An argument raised in her throat, but Neven leaped into the air, before slamming back down into the glyph he left behind to scatter the snow upwards into the sky. It clumped onto her clothes as her knees hit the white sand. Onto her feet again, she scowled when a shape burst through, a whip created of crystals swinging for her. Flames up, she caught the sharp edges and sent them downwards. Ice gripped her lungs when she tried to keep herself warm with each pulse she sent towards their barrier.

Shit! I can't fight in these conditions! Maria snapped forward before the Iceshard got a chance to notice his advantage. Her hands latched onto his forearms. Shoulder against his chest, she scowled then drove her heel into an orange glyph to toss him back into the mist. As he rolled away, she lunged back when Neven and Mazril blasted away the cover. Two against one, but Neven held his own with ease as one glaive came up from underneath the surface when one of the Iceshards sent an arrow of ice forward. It slammed against it and shattered both.

Her fingers stiffened against her palms and her magick refused to breathe. Home, the volcano and its constant thermal energy which gave her strength. What is wrong with this place? Panic set in as she tried to draw up flames, but it was as if the blizzard froze the flow around her. Ice hummed and screamed against itself when Neven tossed ferocious waves towards the head Iceshard. His anger rippled the air, but her own refused to come to life.

Maria sent up her own whip of fire when the Iceshard came in for another attack. Godsdamnit! Her foot smashed into his chest, but her bones shivered. Shit! At this rate— She caught Neven's eye. The beads thinned when he snapped his face to his enemy, and he drove his glaive deeper. Others joined in on the clash, and Maria took her chance as the singularity ripped through her ears. Hand against her brow to try and block out the windshear, she gasped when the explosion sent her face-first into a snowbank. Overturned, she scrambled back to her feet as golden stars fell.

In a sprint, Neven raced to haul her to her feet. "Run, Maria!" he snapped. "We cannot fight here! You can't fight here! Keep moving!"

It hurt to hear the truth from Neven, but she stepped on her own pride and broke into a run, melting her own path to the best of her ability. Neven kept pace with ease, and she chewed at the next truth. He's choosing to keep pace with me... he can go much faster. Their footsteps crunched, and the howl from the blizzard covered the noises from their opponents, though Neven sent pulsating waves through the mist. "Neven—"

"Just keep moving," he insisted with another pulse sent behind them.

"I am trying!" she bit back, her lungs screaming from exhaustion and frostbite. "I'm the one slowing you down!"

Neven's eyes narrowed at her when the howl turned into a whisper.

In a blink of cyan light.

It whizzed through the air, gathering energy around its pointed tip as she found herself unable to outrun the arrow from the abyss. Neven lunged forward, pushing her to the side. It slammed through the golden-scaled cloak around him. It drove through his shoulder as pain creased his brow. Pieces fell off it with the broken cloak as he fell to the snow, the beads dilating as he dropped to the snow. "Neven!" Maria ran for him, pushing her hand to find the wound the ice arrow left. It left nary a tear in his armor.

"You were told you couldn't escape into the blizzards. You chose to do this the hard way, Lotayrin."

A chill swept up her spine as she kept both hands on Neven's still back, his feathers clumped with the constant snowfall as the three Iceshards caught up to them.

"Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "Were you hired by the same people who tried to murder two Storm Wardens?" On her feet, she kept herself over Neven. Flames crinkled against her skin, but frost chewed at the hottest cores when she tried to burst it forward to scorch them. "We have nothing against your people! We protect the world!"

"It is not the Storm Wardens our client has an issue with," Mazril said with a nod down at Neven Lotayrin, who had gone limp in the snow, his feathers shivering against the wind. On her knees over him when he came closer to Yuven's Guardian, she dug her fingers into his back and willed for him to awaken from whatever the ice arrow cut off in the flow. "It is him we want. You? You're just an Outsider who was in the way in the end."