#been avoiding naming mr humanities tho so that's still in the air. but the moment i say a name im afraid it will be final lmao.

[vonlipvig]

never give your characters placeholder names, because guess what. that's mr. placeholder now.

[for-peace-war]

art by @idrawbuffgirls

This is the final part to the Great Winged One series I did.  Last night the heroes entered the mountain and after defeating the sleipnir Vanjir and the valkyrie Aesera, may have allowed an ancient evil back into the world, but... also prevented an apocalyptic joining of worlds.  It was a lot!  So again, I want to thank: @lordcaliginous, @i-am-guinevere, @scowlet, @perfectperfidy, @diermina and @that-green-nut for sticking through my attempt at pathfinder/conaning a story out of thin air.

Also thanks @mcsars for introducing me to the setting and giving such a good place to start with an AU.  So again, thanks to everyone and when I start my next series up I’ll get back to these hour writes! Cheers.

OH and @idrawbuffgirls FOR THIS ART. YOU ROCK!

THE GREAT WINGED ONE.

Follows Part I.

Follows Part II.

Follows Part III

Follows Part IV.

Follows Part V.

Follows Part VI.

Finale.

CHLORIS THE CORINTHIAN quietly collected the clothing of those convalescing within the chilled cabin.  A gentle fire warded what cold it dared from the interior, but from the shivers that ran along the men about her there was little doubt in it—the wintry frost had found its way into them, and only the strongest of those gathered would survive. That sentiment, one of strength and those that possessed it in its zenith, followed her as she moved sightlessly from one of her convalescents to the next.  How had she come to safeguard so many, she wondered, when only days before she had not been able to protect even herself?

Mindful as she was of her condition, it was the lack of her hand rather than the absence of her sight that dogged her in those waking moments.  She could still feel the phantasmal pain of the arrow piercing the white raven she had imbued with her sight—still feel that arrow lance through her eyes and cast to the ground crimson tears that she would never see. The magicks she had been expected to use were old and dark, and though her better judgment would have warned her against them, there were few things that could motivate a decision more rapidly than the ire of a Ymirish lord.  Even more so, the ire of the Jarl Grimtor, whose barbarity was second only to the delight he drew from the cries of his victims.  Sightless or not, she would never be able to forget what she had seen within captivity—she would never forget what it meant, truly, to be without power.

But sight—sight was something taken for granted.  She could hear those she tended to and through that, knew where they were. The smell of their wounds had not yet soured and so she could see those as well; she knew the number of them, had patched and bandaged them to the best of her ability.  In the absence of sight her senses had gained a preternatural edge, compensating in ways that no human would have been capable of were they not blessed by The Great Mother and the secrets that the woods whispered when frosts melted and spring’s breath was fresh within the air.  It was within the northern climes of the Pictish Wildlands, not the decaying fyli of the Karpasha Mountains, that she had learned the most important lessons of magic—true, terrifying magic.

The Pictish Wildlands were a savage wasteland to some, yet the very ground that had been seeded in the blood of generations spoke with such fervent admonishment of mankind and expectation for that which would follow, that she knew far better than to consider any part of it a waste.  The very skies above hungered there, and that hunger bred within its bowels such true and raw power that even a woman blinded such as she, could yet see the beauty manifested within the awakening might that was come of its mounting urges.  Yet for all of this, she had not been captured for her knowledge of those untamed wilds—and she had not been named for them, either.

She was but Chloris the Corinthian. And she wasn’t even from Corinthia.

Had she ever truly seen, though?  The eyes were deceptive and the faces that she had known did little to tell her of what she saw when a person was before her.  It was not until they were freed to show what was beneath the mask of their existence that the truth was known and by then, was it not always too late?  She had scars to remind her of that—upon her back, and forever straining against her heart where her trust should have been. Even before she was without sight, she realized, she was sightless. Had she ever seen anyone?  Could anyone?

A cough came from the man to her left, whose body she had found curled up beneath a tree and nearing a death that would take him from the lands of his ancestors, into the frozen hell that swirled about them.  Even had she not, with the white raven, seen their lot emerge from the snow then she still would have known he was a Zingaran: she could smell the salt of the sea in their blood and hear the crashing of waves when they breathed.  The man’s cough was stronger than it had been the day before, and promised to discharge some of that which coated his lungs and forced his ragged breathing to hasten.

“Where am I?” The man asked.  She had not expected him to awaken so suddenly.  His voice was weak, yet there was the virile lust for life within it that the swarthy men of the Zingaran coast braced life with. “You—”

“You are safe,” Chloris answered.  She felt her way from where she stood, to the table nearest them, and from there moved with a warmed cup of broth to offer him something to drink.  His breathing resounded throughout the air for her; his motions became faint lines that were traced in her mind a thousand times.  No, she could not see the dusky Zingarana, but she could feel him—she knew where he was, even if he did not.

From the opposite corner in the room, another voice rose. “Marioso, yer aliv-ed. Gods be damned, I tho’ I were due fer’a promotin’.”

“Darmino, you live?”

“Yer damn’t right I is.”

“Ah, what good news. The captain—”

“The witch’rn’t sayin’ nothin’a the cap’n.”

“The witch? Madam—”

She began to speak. “My name is—”

“It dern’t matter what she am say ‘a her name, Marioso.  She be a witch’r frost’n fell magicks, cullin’ yer ‘fore ya’ spake ill’r her dark gods.”

The man, whose name must have been Marioso, took in a quiet breath.  Chloris could feel his patience returning to him, like a hound that had been long without its master.  Once he had wrestled it into submission, she supposed, he might be free to speak more earnestly.  Until then, she remained quiet—and the other spoke in her place.

“Have you offended our hostess in some way, Darmino?”

“Gods damn’t truth ain’ done a thing t’er!” His protest caused her to wince, though she tried her best to conceal it.  Loud voices—anger, were things she had learned to avoid or endure.  Perhaps her attempt to conceal that had not been as successful as she wished though, for the man that had been harassing her—Darmino—found a somewhat softer tone.  “When I wok-ed up and she’s there with’r crow teats all in me face, I tol’t her true—‘I’ma man’a fair haired asternations, I din want any a wha’ yer offerin’,’ and she said—”

“I am shocked she said anything to you after that, you cantankerous scab. Where are your manners, Mr. Marachino?”

“Ain’ never held ‘rm.”

“Mitra be praised,” Marioso said.  At long last he seemed to remember that she was standing there, for he reached for the broth and drank of it steadily with a shaking hand. “Forgive my companion his indelicacies, madam. We are indebted to you—and men of the Cavallo repay their debts, on our captain’s honor.”

“Maybe if yer the cap’n there’s honor,” Darmino said. “If Valensi’s dead, anyroad.”

“If he has died in pursuit of—”

Chloris interjected. “ He hasn’t.”

“Hasn’t?”

“He hasn’t died.”  She drew her arm back and set the emptied cup down, then felt her way to the wall and removed the poker from it.  The fire had to be tended once more, for of the three men she had retrieved only two had awakened—and the third trembled now more than ever.  The smell of death was upon him, but she had seen it turned back before.  She had seen it turned back, many, many times before.

From both men, sounds of joined relief flooded the erstwhile tense cabin.  “Oh, what joyous news,” Marioso said. “It was a damnably bold plan he had, and when our trap failed! Oh, but we have prevailed. I—ah, my ribs.”

“You are much wounded,” Chloris said. “Please, do not move.”  She wished she had her other hand then, so that she might move her hair from her face as she tended the fire, but the stub wiped at ineffectively, and her hold on the poker felt suddenly hollowed for that reminder. Was she not much wounded?  And yet, she could not stop moving—if she did, then they were all ended that evening when the cold came and the darkness with it.

“What of the battle, then?” Marioso asked her.  She could imagine his eyes, seafoam green and sweltering with delight, cast upon a body that had been broken and beaten more times than there were days to the year.  She felt flustered by that attention, and continued to stir the fire for whatever traces of warmth it might have provided. “How did we come to be here—how did any of it come to pass?”

At that, she spoke a single word. “Treachery.”

“Madam?”

“The girl—of the Wolflands,” Chloris went on to say.  She had seen Caethe through the eyes of the white raven, and done all she might to alert her that she had.  Jarl Grimtor was no great thinker and by saying she used the snow to alert him to where she was, she also gave the girl a chance to flee—which she had. The Zingarans had done their good service, certainly, but the girl and her wolves had been considerable in setting into motion the events that followed.  Even as she thought of them, they seemed too fantastic—it all seemed too unreal.

“Caethe,” Marioso said.  “We occasioned upon her on the way up.  As I recall, the captain had a desire to see her informed of our plan to aid her, but the Stygian—Tsekani, was it? She said it would be a better ploy if she did not know. That a cornered wolf fought thrice as hard as one that knew it could escape.”

Chloris believed she concealed her revulsion at the mention of the Stygian’s tactics.  It was true, a cornered animal did fight to the end, but the Pict was a member of a pack—and the presence of her friends, she had seen, was what pressed her beyond the point others would have endured alone.  As Marioso made no mention of her response, she assumed her deception had prevailed.

Or else, the Zingaran was merely too nice to show otherwise.

Outside of the cabin, stalking about it protectively, the dire wolf that had shattered her arm so that she might slip free Jarl Grimtor’s chain, howled but once.  He had found something. Chloris had taken to calling him Vigo, and he responded kindly to it—never so much as to seem tamed but answer her if she needed him at any moment. Had the Child of Wolves known that she had not meant to harm her? Was Vigo’s presence a reminder that their shared blood mattered more than the sides they had been on in the battle?  She did not know.  But she knew that she could vividly imagine what he must have been feeling then, rushing about the snowy battlefield and consuming whatever had not yet been taken by the elements or the wild.

She could feel in her blood—the blood that had dripped down her cheeks after the white raven fell—that she was as free as he.

Marioso politely clearing his throat called her back to the present.

“You spoke of treachery, madam?”

“After the Wolfchild—Caethe—was rescued by her companions upon the winged wyvern and Vigo had pulled me to safety—”

“I’m sorry, madam.  Vigo?”

“It be thar devil wolf she is nightly fuck’t by in the shade of—”

“Mr. Marachino!”

“Well, I ain’t tellin’ a fib!”

“I am certain that whatever relationship our hostess has with this creature is a consensual endeavor in husbandry.”  As he worked through that sentence, Marioso seemed to stumble more than his companion had when he tried to stand.

Despite herself, Chloris could not but bashfully smile and blush.

“I do not couple with the wolf,” she said.

Marioso’s relief was audible. “Oh, well.  If you had—and I do not mean to imply that you had—but had that been the case, no gentleman of the sea ought inquire or conspire against you on that account, madam. I assure you—”

“Oi! ‘m well glad yer nay be our cap’n, Mariosi! Y’r talkin’ more’n a preddy har what know’t I wan’r somethin’ bad.”

“I’ll never understand your turns of phrase, Mr. Marachino.”

“Aye, well, anyroad—go back to talkin’ wi’ yer lady.”

Marioso, as if given leave to actually speak, went on. “My lady, please do continue.”

“You do not need to call me that,” Chloris said, but went on. “After we were safe, the others realized that Jarl Grimtor was injured.  Ymirish lords are not loyal—they respect strength because they fear pain. Two of them—Joratun the Mighty and Thoramun Blooddrinker, broke away from the offensive and pressed in upon Jarl Grimtor.  I believe they felt that in his weakened state they could fell him.”

Joratun, Son of Brator, had been as close to a right hand as Jarl Grimtor may have known, excepting his son—who he had, in a stroke of genius motivated by her entrapment—seen sent to the interior of Glacimar itself.  With Grimthor Jarlblood no longer at his father’s side, Joratun and Thoramun made their move—and discovered why the jarl stood where he did.

“Scurrilous dogs,” Marioso breathed under his breath.  “Have these creatures no honor?”

“Not them,” she concluded. “But another.”  At that, she was reminded of what had been lost to that point and spoke more directly.  “Jarl Grimtor struck both down, but his injuries forced him from the field.  They say that the Nordheimers were able to defeat the lone Ymirish lord, Morfund the Breaker, and that—well, the mountains now call for a new thane. They say this woman, Aesileif the Aesir, will conquer the mountain and that her brother, Torman the Vanir, who was slain in felling the Great Winged One Aesera will be the hero to ordain her ascent.”

She understood very little of how Nordheimer culture operated, though the title seemed to imply that one person would bestride both Vanaheim and Asgard, joining them together and uniting a legacy of hatred under one fist.  A hero would be needed to preside over the joining of the mountains, and if they had indeed slain a Valkyrie then a great deed had been accomplished to merit their challenge to the heavens.  It seemed that a new thane may come of the savages of the north, as dangerous a thought as that may have been.

But she also knew that so long as Jarl Grimtor lived, that title would be a meaningless one.

“I cannot believe we prevailed,” Marioso said. “I mean—I knew we would, but what luck.  What honor—oh, how can we repay you, indeed?”

He may have meant it as a general courtesy, but she took him at it.  “There is a man among the captured, Grimthor Jarlblood. He and I were as one for a time, and I would see him granted the freedom he was promised.”

She did not mean to seem desperate, but she knew her words left her with more alacrity than civility mandated.  These were not the words of Chloris of Corinthia, she knew.  They were of the woman that had bandaged that poor half-giant, and seen him back to strength countless times.  They were the words of a woman that knew what love meant, and knew that the only reason he had not died was because of it.  Not carnal love and its brutality, but something more resplendent—something that did not take, but only gave and surrendered willingly to the strength of the moment.

“I do not know what it will take to see such done, but I will give my all for that endeavor.”

“An’ me,” Darmino said. “Since yer hair too dark fer a proper thank-fuck, least I can’der is see this Grimthorn soaks’s sword back in yer. If ol’ Garibaldi don’ go dyin’ on us, I’m speakin’ fer’m too.”  The sickly man’s cough could have been an assent—or his soul leaving him.

Chloris thought to speak more of the matter, but the howl that she had heard before was joined by a sudden growling.  Outside, Vigo had found something indeed—and that something had found them. “Stay here,” she told them, and without considering how defenseless she was against the world without, she ventured into it.

The snow as cold under her bare feet and yet it did not stop her stride as she moved in the direction of Vigo’s growling.  Under it she could hear a voice calmly speaking, and for the time being preventing him from advancing from his place.  What was she doing? Why?  Even if she were to summon any spells in the cold, what chance did she have of defeating someone that she couldn’t see? And to what end?  To protect Zingaran sailors that surely were as false as everyone else? Logic, reason—sheer self-preservation told her to trust for once in something other than the good of the world, and to take back to her own path as she had denied herself for so long.

But she was not a solitary creature, she knew.

A crow would always need its murder.

She allowed her feet to see for her—to guide her, until finally she felt Vigo’s back, bristling with raised fur, against her hand.  The chilled air was heavy upon her, but she knew that she had within her enough strength to forge from the prevailing winds a blade to severe the limbs of any monster daring to challenge her friend—or those she protected under her wing.  Yet when she looked to the one that had so agitated Vigo and threatened her home, she was dumbfounded.

She could not see him—and yet she could.

For the briefest moment, a golden light illuminated the darkness that had become her world.  This man was wounded—injured in a battle she could not comprehend, and yet the force of his existence fluctuated with a radiance that faded with each palpitation.

“I do not wish to kill your companion,” the man said. “But I must go to Jokullgard.”

“He will not harm you,” she said. “If you do not harm him.”

The man was quiet. The light upon him faded further until it was but a whisper—though no longer did Vigo growl.

“I am Keleos the Kothian,” he said. “You have my word that no harm will come to you.”

For but a moment, Chloris thought of saying what she had always had—that she was Chloris the Corinthian, a scholar of ancient texts that had been abducted by Jarl Grimtor and forced into service.  There was truth in that lie—more truth, in fact, than lie.  But that which had bound her to it; that which had for so long shackled her into place, was no longer there.  She was free—as free as the savage lands from which she had come.

“I am Qali the Crow,” she said. “It is good to see you.”