#freydis.lysara

[witchertorsten]

@freydis-freydat location: Tower Library notes: as requested

This place raised the hair on the back of his neck, he'd been raised to hunt witches and magical beings - not ask them for resources. Torsten could not play the part of hateful hunter forever though, he'd turned a blind eye on more than one occasion so that he could sit in wilful ignorance. His missive had always been to perform his duty exactly as requested, no more, and no less. It made him efficient, and reliable and secured his appointment in the Kingsguard.

It also made it incredibly difficult for Torsten to find his own path or direction. He did best with clear-cut orders, but he'd made a point to secure, in his own mind, a sequence of the events he wished to see accomplished.

One had been procuring a prosthetic, and that alone had worked out more favorably than he imagined. The mithril appendage had cost Torsten his plate, but it worked to conduct his antimagic seamlessly. While he did not care for these Lysarans... the pathetic, drunken, bottom of a twink he'd fished off the floor of the Palace had proven surprisingly useful.

With a few more texts in hand, he placed them in front of Freydis before he sat opposite her. "Remind me again what we're looking for?"

[xnikandrosx]

@freydis-freydat location: Lorien'dal notes: as requested, idk local old man is feeding the pigeons

Love bred demons like Desire and lesser-known aberrations like Control. The Altus, Nikandros, had known love but that had been several mortal lifetimes ago. As he was today, the daemonfey didn't see much use for it beyond what were obvious needs for physical connection and a desire to be understood on an emotional level. Truthfully, Nikandros thought the very obvious mortal exchanges were the weak offspring of lesser emotions - better to be combated with more worthwhile endeavors. Humanity had such a fleeting expanse of years, even the elvhen died younger and younger with every passing season. A sign of things to come; Nikandros thought people might have better things to do with their time.

For the time being Nikandros opted to remain in the Silverlands, not yet certain if he'd return to Eterna and continue with his post as if nothing had happened, or if he'd cut his losses and move on. The Vanguard would learn of his true nature eventually, the daemon could attempt to sway the wind to his favor and convince those who brought him forward how invaluable he was - but Pride was a demon and in the eyes of both this world and the last, demons were meant to be either controlled or banished.

"You missed your son," Nikandros commented as the young mother made an appearance while he retained his place on the bench. "I sent him back to the Guild with fair payment, seemed the least I could do given he nearly died several times over." The boy hadn't been entirely useful but, he was young and there was room to grow into whatever warrior the Iskaran was meant to be. Nikandros had assumed that it was for him that Freydis approached the daemon, the two had never traded words before despite their proximity to one another so her attention now only made him think that this was about his hiring of Ragnar.

[witchertorsten]

@freydis-freydat location: Marinus Bay, Westreach notes: plot call for two characters who haven't interacted yet...

A witcher of ten years and a warrior for longer, Torsten stood in the training yard, his silvered sword gleaming in one hand and his mithril blade held lightly in the other. He'd pledged what he could to the defense of the Queendom with the hope of future returns, but while the refugees took to Marinus Bay, Torsten gathered what warriors were eager to learn and brought them to the training yard. Ymir's Spine was open again and Torsten often thought of the temple they'd found on the outskirts of Hrimthur's Wastelands. Fear is the mind-killer.

The guards and members of the warriors' guild encircled him, their practice weapons raised with determined grips. Torsten gave a small nod, signaling the three boldest to attack. Their hesitation lasted but a moment before they charged, their steps pounding across the dirt like an uneven drumbeat.

The first came straight on, aiming for a high slash to drive Torsten back. Torsten sidestepped fluidly, his mithril blade sweeping low to tap the man’s exposed ankle. “Overcommitted,” spinning to meet the second attacker, who lunged with a thrust aimed at his side. Torsten’s silvered sword snapped into a parry, the impact driving his opponent’s blade wide. He stepped into the guard’s personal space, his pommel striking the man’s wrist with precise force. “Grip too tight. You’ll exhaust yourself before the fight’s begun.” The man yelped, retreating as his weapon clattered to the ground.

The third warrior, bolder or perhaps foolhardier, swung in an arc meant to catch Torsten’s exposed back. Anticipating the move, Torsten pivoted, both blades flashing in unison. The silvered sword locked the attacker’s strike mid-swing, while the mithril blade darted forward, stopping just shy of his neck. “Telegraphed. Your footwork announced your attack long before your blade did.” He stepped back, lowering his weapons as all three men regrouped, faces flushed with exertion and frustration. “In battle, the one who keeps their stance steady while chaos rages has already won half the fight. ” He flicked the dust from his blades with an effortless flourish and motioned for the next group to step forward. "Adapt or die."

"Does the Jarl Icefang wish to provide a demonstration?" Torsten asked, in greeting he crossed a sword over his chest and gave her a light bow - if only to salt the wound a bit. Freydis had a reputation of her own now in Lysara: Jarl and Shieldmaiden, turned one who was taken, one who survived, and now perhaps something else entirely. He gestured around the crowd with his blade, encouraging those who'd come here to train the opportunity to step up before four, unsurprising, men came to stand within the ring. "Do you answer the challenge, Jarl?" Freydis was more than her title or reputation; he understood her preference, but the goad remained a point of interest for him.

[witchertorsten]

"We're all afraid. The point is what you do with it." That was the true lesson that the First had passed on to him and the other members of his class. Everyone who stood in front of a dragon or other beast felt the rush of fear that came with putting themselves in line of sight with something that wanted nothing more than to tear them apart. That fear had power, it fueled a great deal and could shape them into the shape they needed to take to become what was necessary.

The darkspawn at the gate were relentless and they'd been at this for long enough. "Get some rest, Jarl Freydis." He took the book back and moved to shelve it once more. There was a pause as Torsten looked back to the shieldmaiden sat at the table, touched by the veil, contesting with demons and who knew what else. If only it were so easy as to charge her with the antimagic that coursed through him. "Not selfish," he said at last, "the work is important. I will do what I can too."

Changed. It was a less inflammatory word to describe what she was now, what she considered the both of them. Quietly, Freydis wondered how much better off some of the witcher’s like Torsten might have been if they had not been reared and tortured into static mindsets. That wasn’t to say that Torsten could not think for himself; he could, and she would easily admit he likely did significantly better for himself than she did for herself. But she hated that any of them had been conditioned to hate and mistrust others so completely, and even more so that it seemed to have been instilled to some degree that he, and all witchers, ought to hate themselves. Or at least what they were. 

Freydis listened to him from across the table, nodding slowly. The feywilds might hold some answers. She had been told recently as well that the Elvhen, if willing to help her, might have deeper knowledge as they were something of distant cousins to the fey. Her impatience compelled her to act, and it was difficult to sit with the discomfort of the unknown. But she would heed this advice from Torsten, even if it went against her instincts as a fighter. She continued to listen, but she did prop her head against her hand and quietly mutter, “I’m afraid of everything.” It was hardly a mistruth–she was. But she was also well equipped to navigate beyond the short sightedness of her fears. 

Another reminder that elements of her destiny resided in Iskaldrik–a land she had no interest in returning to aside from pulling at the strings of this fey magic; strings that now she worried more than ever she would find Nintra puppeteering her from on the other side. “You’re right,” she sighed. “It’s selfish of me to concern myself with this matter as much as I have been.” She closed the book in front of her, laying the issue to rest at least for the time being.

[witchertorsten]

"You have been changed." Just as Torsten had been changed, just as countless others like him had been changed before him. It didn't matter what Freydis thought of him, as Torsten had said many times previously - often to Ormir - other's opinions of him mattered little, and he spent less time considering them than many would assume. The law was the law and it was more ingrained within Torsten's upbringing than a couple words of comfort would ever amend. This was the way his world worked, his orbit remained fixed on this point and it reduced the world to a state of simplicity.

"The world of the fey doesn't end with the Tower or even Lysara." It sounded like Freydis had her whole life to decide, a life with a length that was yet to be determined. She could take the straightest, most obvious course and risk going in unprepared, or be patient and gather every scrap of information that she could. This enemy was thousands of years old, she wouldn't find everything she needed by turning over a few books. "The First used to say that everything was a lesson. Every injury, every feeling. Let what you face pass through you. Your fear about what might be; fear is the mind killer." The Fist had said a great deal, Torsten still hoped she was okay. Alive.

"The blight is on this Queendom's doorstep, and a nation of magi stands over us." It wasn't to say that Nintra wasn't a threat, but she was one of many and for the moment they had larger problems at stake. "The veil mirrors this world, if you landed in her domain in Iskaldrik, wherever you have to drag her out, you have to be able to get there first."

The word hit Freydis like a punch to the stomach. In truth, she couldn’t say if it had that impact because it was the first time it had been wielded against her or out of the empathy she felt for the witchers. Freydis had been called most names in the book, violent and derogatory monikers had always been slung her way from her opponents in holmgangs and those who circled around them. It was an odd feeling for a word to have such an impact against her after so many years of numbing herself to such words in the form of weaponry. Then again, she’d always been more sensitive than most. She peered across from him and listened to him speak of how magic permeated all–except true humans. It made her feel vulnerable and weak, it made her wonder how she had ever survived so long, question why any force greater than herself would look out for her when she was so insignificant and powerless compared to all that was and could be. 

“That isn’t how I think of you,” she said quietly. Freydis assumed Torsten didn’t need comforting, and probably didn’t want it, but a piece of her she could never quite silence forced the words.

Freydis wet her lips, trying to thing of something to say in retort, but nothing really came to mind. She was a fearful creature, the emotion coloring many of her thoughts and decision making. It was a mystery to her what she housed within her that allowed her to push past all of her doubts and fears, but chronically she did so. “The alternative is to leave it alone and give the arch fey what she wants eventually anyhow,” she thought aloud, conceding that Torsten wasn’t making a bad point. “Which I would be more inclined to say might be the safer bet if we hadn’t just evacuated our kingdom and barely survived it. Maybe she is manipulating me–I know I don’t have the best of sensibilities. But I don’t know if it’s safer to act or not act.” The pressure was beginning to bloom inside of her, a dull thrumming at her temple building, and suddenly it was hard to sit still. She crossed her arms, though only so she could dig her nails roughly into the back of one of her arms to try to create some temporary release. 

“Where else am I meant to look?��� Freydis asked as she nodded toward the literature on the table in front of them. She sounded exasperated, but her frustration wasn’t aimed at him. Freydis looked at him as he spoke and drew in a deep breath that found its exit from her lungs in the form of a heavy sigh. A moment later her hands lifted to massage a bit of the tension from her temple, a stress headache already mounting as her mind rattled with concerns about Aventia, her leadership, and this additional threat; she never knew if she was doing the right thing until it was too late. “I know I will, I just don’t want to lead you or anyone else into their own ruin. Especially not if it's for some empty cause."

[witchertorsten]

"Mutants." It was the word that most people danced around, but they were witches until they weren't anymore. The poison changed them so intrinsically that whatever magic Torsten had been born with had been inverted completely. "We were witches once, Iskaran law wouldn't call us human." No lands or titles, nothing but the authority to kill and hunt the very thing that had seen them thrown into the Watch in the first place. "But there's magic in the building blocks of everything. Threads of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit make up the world. Druids, elves, witches, they can just influence it in different ways." Witchers did too, in their own way, but rather than manipulate they rejected the pattern.

From Torsten's perspective, Freydis had no inclination toward the truth of what she'd seen. Moving forward with little more than suspicion and hope was far from concrete. "She was in your mind, inhabits part of your body, you have no way of knowing how she knew, what she knew, or why she showed you what she did." Again, it was just as likely that Freydis had seen exactly what she'd needed to see to go along with what Nintra wanted. It wasn't Torsten's intention to sew doubt into Freydis's mind, only consider that the things she'd seen might have just been reflections in the mirror.

The straightforward answer was that Torsten would never be in this position. "I wouldn't take any word but my own and before I went charging into the demon's domain, I'd learn everything about her and whatever it was that she'd done to me." As far as Torsten could tell, Freydis didn't even have a name for what she was, if there even was, but it wouldn't change the fact that he'd stand beside her wherever she went. "Then I'd cut the bitch's head off." He had no problems just skipping to that part too. "Bereskarn: wherever this road leads you you'll have my sword."

Of course it didn’t work like that. Freydis should have known, burn instead found herself looking off in some far corner of The Tower’s great stacks to try and disguise some of her disappointment. If it did work like that, it still might not have mattered. The magic she housed within her was borrowed, she doubted she left her own arcane signature. “It seems no one does, not exactly,” she responded, looking back at him now. “The druid insisted I was still human, but I suspect in the same way some say you and the rest of the Witcher’s are still human. True at its core, I suppose, but not unaltered.” She felt a twinge of pity for those like Torsten and Njal, but did not dare betray herself and make this obvious. Freydis suspected the idea of being pitied would disgust Torsten. Based on the reason they were studying, she didn’t dare suggest she might be fey or partially fey. 

Freydis didn’t know how it wasn’t a trick, but she suspected it wasn’t. Torsten was not a man who dealt in suspicion, he placed his bets on certainties and facts. Too anxious to be dishonest with him, Freydis shook her head no. “For certain? Not quite. Not logically, but based on feeling,” she tried to explain, but she doubted her feelings held the weight Torsten would need to be convinced. “It knew things and showed me things I don’t think an archfey would know–about the past and present, about the future. And Sakkara felt that I had gone through the arches in earnest. Wouldn’t she know more about that than we would?” Freydis wasn’t trying to convince or strong arm the Witcher, her question was in earnest. 

Exhaustion bled into her features as she lifted her shoulders in response to his question. “Why do you think I asked you to look into this with me? Of course it might be what she wants,” Freydis responded. “But didn’t the Broodmother want to keep us? Didn’t the blighted dragon want to kill the lot of us out in the tundra? What the enemy wants is moot with the right people to face it.” But this might have been too optimistic of a world view, and she knew Torsten would sober it if needed. “Say our roles were reversed… What would you do?” 

A silence fell between them like a thick blanket for a few moments. She watched the face of the witcher, a loyal protector of the royal family, and a loyal friend to her as time had proven. For a few moments, she considered how much more difficult the shifting landscape and acceptance of the arcane must be for him than many others; how everything that had been stripped, carved, and tortured for him probably seemed like it was for nothing. “I don’t know how to express to you how much it means to me to have you as an ally still,” was all she could manage. But she meant it. She hoped it would be true to the very end.

[witchertorsten]

Freydis's assault bounced needlessly off of Torsten's head and rebounded back onto the table before the witcher repeated the phrase back to her. He came in peace.

"It doesn't work like that." If it did then his job would've been significantly easier. Magic in the aftermath left a signature, but beyond physical characteristics or trials, it was nearly impossible to discern. Werewolves could commune with their lupine kin, elvhen with their sharp ears and quick eyes. Druids and witches were harder to uncover but those who could weave always would - it was an inevitability. "I don't know what you are." Touched by a demon in some form or another, a darkfriend variant but flavored differently.

"You know for certain that this was your former self? Not some trick?" Fey were fond of their deceptions, it was just as likely that this Nintra creature was using their connection to trick Freydis into doing exactly what she wanted. The shieldmaiden would be an easy mark, naive when it came to magic, and likely desperate to get the archfey off her back. "Bringing her here physically might be exactly what she wants you to do. Have you considered that?" The question was less pointed than it sounded, what went unsaid was that regardless of Freydis's decision, he would support her.

"We are..." Afshin was a changeling, Njal was making deals with devils, and a witch had made Torsten's arm. "living in different times." That was the most support he could conjure at the moment.

The change in his expression was minute, but she could sense his consternation and assumed that what the witcher felt was a sense of dread or distrust. Freydis couldn’t blame him for this–her initial reaction to accepting the fey power into herself was a mix of wonder and disgust. She had been conditioned to distrust magic, and she knew that Torsten had been trained to hate it more deeply than almost all others. In an attempt to diffuse the situation, and perhaps convince him she was still very much herself, she crumpled up a page with useless notes scrawled upon it and gently chucked it at his head. “Bereskarn,” she grumped at him, though it was difficult for her to be genuinely cross with him. 

A moment later, her shoulders lifted into a shrug and she gently shook her head. “Your guess is as good as mine. They came to me in a dream, but I know they were real,” she responded. “There were…. Differences… when I awoke,” she explained vaguely, unsure if she was ready to lay out the specifics to Torsten just yet. “And I spoke with the druid Sakkara afterword. She confirmed that it wasn’t some vivid dream or delusion.” She sat back, her palms flat on the table as if demonstrating that she lacked the intention to be a threat to Torsten would diffuse any of the tension. “When I was in the Arches, I was guided by a former incarnation of myself, and it was she who advised me that I needed to kill Nintra Siotta in the material plane to sever my contract with the archfey once I had completed the trials.” 

Freydis was clearly considering something, her eyes teetering on the precipice of doubtful fear and unignorable curiosity. Finally, her mind settled on one option and she asked, “Do you still sense me as human?” Her brows were upturned and carved the expression of concern on her face as she asked it.

[witchertorsten]

There was a grim shake of his head, but while the thought had been on Torsten's mind, the witchers spent more focus on dealing with monsters on this side of the veil. Drawing them into the physical world wasn't in his area of study, though he imagined that if the ones taken had fallen through into Nintra's domain, there must be other methods. Torsten had yet to meet a fey that wasn't some variant of a trickster. They were deceptive, cunning, and vicious. Should Freydis fall in the days ahead, Torsten had no idea that "Njal has become stronger since we've arrived in Lysara." This hadn't gone unnoticed by Torsten, the how was still a mystery to him, but Njal was his friend - so the Kingsguard would approach the subject gently, at least at first. "Whatever tricks Nintra pulls out, we'll be ready for her."

If Freydis became a darkspawn she wouldn't have to worry about Nintra, the archfey wouldn't possess a blighted vessel - and if Freydis needed to die as part of the condition, she wouldn't. At least not so long as her head remained attached to her shoulders. The Dark One's army of darkspawn were immortal, to an extent. In Torsten's ruminating on Freydis's condition, a few macabre ideas had cropped up in the witcher's mind, but Icefang was more valuable with her heart and mind intact. Blighting her and burying her six feet under wasn't a true, viable option - at least not one that Torsten would ever truly consider. The honorable path would be to cut her down should the worst occur. That would be how he honored the Jarl.

"Bereskarn." Their first kill, it seemed fitting.

In summary, the passage discussed the obscure and arguably apocryphal accounts of Nintra Siotta. Information was scarce, and though it was more than they would have known a few moments before, it was not much to build a strategy around. The pages told of Nintra Siotta positioning herself as an antagonist and adversary to the Elvhen long, long ago in history during the Age of Enlightenment. Agreement on any detail could not be found within the pages and each story seemed more different from the previous account than the next. The only component of the story that seemed to hold true regardless of who penned the account was that Nintra Siotta had been imprisoned beyond the veil–but whatever transgression Nintra had committed was contested between scholars.

But Freydis cared little about what Nintra had done centuries ago. She had tricked the veil maiden recently, and for that she would pay. 

Freydis sighed as she sat back and looked off, her eyes becoming distant for a few moments. “There are still no leads on how to lead her into the material realm, unless you have any ideas,” she sighed. Though her voice was dejected, it was far from defeated. Magic ran through her veins now, but so did Iskaran blood, blood which would not allow her to give up so easily. “Do you think you and Njal’s ability to dispel her magic will be enough? Arros was invaluable when we first fought her, but she was not easily defeated.” It defied logic that any of the women had made it out alive. Freydis was nervous regarding whether or not the archfey would be slain so easily, not with such a carrot dangled before her as a body to steal and liberate her from her imprisonment. It wouldn’t be an easy fight. Within her, there also existed a small seed of doubt that the witchers would not wish to fight with her now that she was still human but something removed from human all at once.

"It might be prudent to create some sort of... understanding between us, with all that has happened recently," Freydis began with some reluctance as she breached a new subject. "This new frontline won't be kind to anyone, least of all leadership. The darkspawn are a significant thread, but in fighting isn't out of the realm of possibility either. It's not impossible that something may happen to me." The thought was a familiar one, a line of consideration that saw her off to sleep and greeted her first thing every morning. "Nintra is a trickster, but she sounds to be a bit of a coward, too. It's as likely she uses my body to wreak chaos as it is she absconds with it. If you have doubt that I am me, maybe we ought to have some sort of a code or validation. So you can be sure and do what needs done."

[witchertorsten]

It wasn't like Torsten to spend an entire day devoted to sitting and reading, periods of study were generally always punctuated by the physicality that came with rigorous hours of straining. Splitting musculature so it could grow back stronger and stronger. The arm that so many had fixed their attention toward felt like a slight, a shortcut toward something that Torsten neither wanted nor deserved. Still, despite the magic that lay within, it was a tool like any other and one that had come at the cost of the plate that Torsten worked so hard to obtain.

If the archfey posed as much of a threat as had been recalled from the journey of the ones taken, then Nintra Siotta's name was on the list of those that Torsten intended to butcher. Beyond him and those Torsten had sworn to protect, he'd resigned to the notion that what occurred within this Queendom meant very little to him. Their games, their tricks, and the petty aggressions could easily be forgiven if Ormir and Afshin could be successful in securing what was most needed - a path forward. Until then Torsten would endeavour to see their path cleared of any obstacles.

Curious peaked now as to what the shieldmaiden uncovered - far better at the notion of hunting something than he was at discussing his own views or code of honor - Torsten leaned in, expectantly.

The corner of her mouth twitched as he answered, but she bit her tongue to stop herself from asking more questions. Already, she had been nosier than she had the right to be, and she ought to stop before she crossed the thin line between a curious line of questioning and badgering the poor man. Instead, she simply nodded to indicate her understanding, and she hoped that living with the mechanical arm would become easier sooner rather than later. 

Silently, she wondered if the arm garnered such attention because she was truly concerned about her friend, or because it reminded her of the twisted, mangled body that she had been trapped inside of in one of the arches. She ached to discuss this with Torsten but was still too fearful to admit the totality of what lines she had transgressed, even if she did suspect Torsten was able to sense the gifted seed of magic her encounter with the fey realm had planted within her. It was easier to pretend or overlook these things before they were named. Beyond this, he might ask about the other arches, and she didn’t care to disclose to him the visions she had endured in which she had killed him, had killed Afshin, and many others she knew the both of them cared for. 

“And I do say.” Her tone was uncharacteristically stern, but she had returned her gaze to the pages before her. 

Her head lifted again, hazel eyes setting on his face when he spoke. Freydis dropped her hand, which had been nervously twisting a long blonde brain around restless fingers, and leaned forward to read what was on the page. The name stood out to her as if it blazed upon the page, and she carefully lifted the tone to read what was on the page closely aloud for the both of them in a hushed tone so as not to disturb others in their studies.

[witchertorsten]

Timbrous eyes lifted at the ease of Freydis' reception, noting the slight tilt of her lips laced with a notation of clear sincerity. Again, he wouldn't pity Freydis, because in addition to being a jarl Torsten had come to respect the warrior a good deal - both on and off the field of battle.

"It's strange, but yes, it works much the same. Just heavier, but that is meant to get easier." Torsten had no feeling attached to it so things like grip and touch were more difficult, but when he flinched the arm went with him. "Now and then there's a resonance, like I can remember what it felt like to touch something with those fingers but- it's just the mind." Working tricks to compensate for what was lost.

Witchers drank poisons that were strong enough to kill most grown men, it didn't feel good to ingest it, but pain was the most familiar sensation that the Torsten could think of. His childhood was forged in a crucible of anguish, flames that burned their way through his veins and mutated him into what he is today.

"It's nothing." Torsten motioned to pick up a writing utensil and turned it idly between his fingers as if he were flicking a dagger along the curves of his knuckles. Dexterous fluidity accompanied the movement as it turned and moved over across the metallic plains with an ease that demonstrated that, if nothing else, Torsten had been working to accommodate the new appendage.

Freydis and Njal agreed, but his duty and his purpose were clear - and that swordswoman had robbed him of both. Forced to grovel at the feet of a witch to attune toward an object that had cost him a portion of his plate- Torsten could not bring himself to agree. He would be content with the man that stared back at him in the mirror when the High King was dead, and that damned Aetherian's head was mounted on a spike. "As you say." Torsten chimed, blatantly noncomittally.

Turning the page, Torsten narrowed his eyes on the book as he idly worked to decipher the notations - recognizing the name that Freydis was searching for with crystal clarity. Nintra Siotta. By providence, the subject could be made to shift from Torsten's feelings of his personal shortcomings toward the purpose at hand. He turned the book and pushed it idly toward Freydis, "There's something here on the archfey."

It was something to behold, the fortitude and determination of the witcher across the table from her. Freydis would have liked to think that his mettle and resolve took root in the unlikely bond the two had somehow managed to forge, but his disdain for what held magic within it was the more likely driver of his determination. Still, it was a comfort to know he would do what needed to be done. “I would expect nothing less of you,” she responded, a thin but real smile on her lips. How odd, to smile at the idea of her death and the complete and total destruction of her form. An odd idea–but not an unfamiliar one. Freydis spent much time considering her death as of late, not as an if but a when. This, she could deal with, so long as it mattered, so long as it was worthwhile. 

It was difficult not to think of how he had been in the Arches–when he had come to ensure she had died in a way that fit her as a warrior, or in the way she had dispatched him. It had only struck her in the last few days that those she had brought to swift, brutal deaths had been Iskarans with some level of authority. She had written many more names on the canvas curtain that separated her from those who had a chance at living beyond the breakbone fever that twisted her into something only half-recognizable as a woman. She had no way of knowing if those fears had been in connection–but she felt if they were, she was every bit as deserving of a blade through the heart as her peers. It almost paralyzed her with fear to consider she might be wielded as a tool of the Aetheron. 

“I more or less meant how you control it,” she tried to correct. “Do you think of it and it moves in the same way I do? If you flinch or act out of reflex, does it follow?” She watched the metallic hand make itself into a fist, impressive in its fluidity and dexterity. Her fascination was short-lived when he mentioned that the arm caused him pain. “Does anything ease it?” Freydis could tell he was ready to move on from the topic, but she couldn’t find it within herself to refrain from asking. 

Freydis watched him repeat the word, and it seemed to her as if it was the first time he might have spoken it aloud or considered the concept. She wanted to believe this wasn’t true, thinking of that brief moment she had shared with him and Afshin in the bay after the disastrous winter ball–but that moment was so special by virtue of how rare and fleeting it was. “Happy,” she confirmed quietly. She extended her arm forward when she spoke, but it fell short of actually resting on the back of his hand or forearm. The surface of the table felt cold against her palm, but she’d learned in recent events that her touches and embrace made those around her recoil more often than not. “I think you’re a very honorable man,” she told him in a hushed but earnest tone.

[witchertorsten]

"Whatever course is taken." Eyes like steel, Torsten did not mince his words. "I will destroy her when we're done." Freydis was welcome to make whatever bargain she wished, Torsten would not be tricked into an archfey's turn of tongue, not when he'd far sooner see it cleaved from her treacherous mouth. If Freydis's attempt resulted in her possession, then the witcher's implication should be clear to the shieldmaiden; he would not allow her to become the thing that they were aiming to destroy.

Nintra Siotta would not have her.

The mechanics were probably best left to a mind more inclined toward such thoughts. Torsten couldn't attest to how the arm worked, that was why he had left it in the hands of the Genovian witch. "Questions better left to the boy who fashioned it for me." Torsten made a fist with the mithril arm as he idly tensed it into a ball, feeling the weight of it as his shoulder worked at it. "But it has no feeling, it's heavy, it pinches at the shoulder, and it hurts." Torsten let his arm settle on the surface of the desk as he continued to scan the pages of the texts in front of him, resolved to not let conversation or fatigue distract him from the task at hand.

"Happy?" His mouth felt tense. It was such a mundane question and yet Torsten could think of only one occasion where he'd been asked after his contentment. The last person who'd asked him that was now a prisoner of war, taken by the swordswoman who'd cleaved his arm and placed him in this position. Torsten failed to protect Orhan from his conspirators because he lacked the resolve to look the truth in the eye and stand up to it. His order had fallen to ruin and given a witcher's propensity toward dying young, Torsten's time was limited. "I'll count myself happy when I see my honor restored."

He spoke as if his opinion was that fey and demons were one and the same. Freydis could understand this perspective to a certain degree, she had been conditioned to distrust magic of any kind as an Iskaran, and certainly, she was an unwilling participant in what bound her to Nintra. But despite all of this she had still set herself on the path of the fey, had willingly opened herself to their specific type of arcana. Sleepless nights listening to Glaceor rattle on and on left her exhausted and wondering if she had always been something other given her past lives; even worse, she had whittled hours away feeding the fear that if she delved too deeply into the path, if she followed Ithelia too far that she might come out the other side something closer to Nintra than to herself. She tenuously tread a line that she knew she barely understood for the sake of garnering what power and wisdom she could in the hopes of improving their chances in the war against the Aetheron, but now more than ever she feared she would be something unyielding, and uncaring as she had been in the arches. 

She wondered across the table if she was now, and increasingly, something Torsten would hate as he uncovered the truth. 

“I know we will,” she responded in a quiet, measured tone. She leaned back and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw stars trying to stave off the exhaustion. How many nights had it been since she truly slept now? Freydis dropped her hands and looked at Torsten from across the table. “But I think we should try to uncover any option that may offer us an advantage. Even if we don’t take it, even if we determine it’s too high a risk later on.” 

If she were more well rested, she might have been a bit more capable of the decorum and privacy Torsten deserved. Freydis spared a moment to try to read into his tone of voice, and she hoped he knew that her interest was born of curiosity and fascination. “I suppose I’m just curious about how it works,” she admitted softly, trailing her eyes from the shoulder of the prosthetic arm to the tip of its longest finger. “Is it different to control than how you were born? How it works.” She paused for a moment, finding the next question that she vocalized as strange and surprising as she suspected Torsten would. “If you’re happy.”

[xnikandrosx]

Much of the daemon was incapable of empathizing with Ragnar, but the altus who'd rebelled could understand what it meant to try and find your place in a strange world. Magister, daemon, inquisitor, all and none were correct - each failed to capture his glory. This realm was simpler than the one he'd known, broken in ways that the people couldn't see. Stunted dreamers wrapped in self-righteous intention and deflated purpose; where Eivor had found alternative methods of motivating himself, Nikandros remained propelled by a singular focus.

Nikandros had never inferred anything regarding a question surrounding Ragnar's pay, or any requirement on Freydis's part. He'd assumed she'd be seeking Ragnar out by their biological connection, he was as much her son as she was a veilmaiden, but Nikandros wouldn't fault someone for maternal indifference. As a point of observation, it was callous and were he in Freydis position - which he never would be - Nikandros would abstain from making that remark to Ragnar himself unless her intention was to inflict a grievous injury.

They'd gone a great distance in adjacent company, though their circles were different and Freydis's road took a detour, she'd never approached him and Eivor had never mentioned her without Nikandros's prompting. Why, after all this time, she'd wish to approach him now came with an assortment of reasonings but in every instance, it returned to one of two things: what had been revealed, or what she wanted. Pride couldn't contest its nature, but the offense had already been taken and wouldn't be easily soothed. "And?"

It had been a while since Freydis had determined that becoming further acquainted with Nikandros was something more of an inevitability than it was an option.For as much as she had recently discovered about Eivor, both from the vague answers and glimpses of himself he offered her during the standing stones and his supposed new leaf of complete and total honesty since, she knew less thinks about Nikandros than she could count on her fingers. There was the fact that he was some sort of species not of Taravell or Aetheron (or at least that’s how her mind could understand the context she had), he was souldbound with Eivor and what that bond meant on a basic level, and that even if they weren’t he likely housed an undying loyalty to the prismatic dragon. Freydis found that she much preferred the days when she knew less and her concerns and misgivings about Nikandros could begin and end with the fact that Eivor trusted him, and that was enough to lay any other thoughts of him to rest. Now she was not so sure what she thought or felt. 

“I know where to find him if reason arises,” she answered quietly, stiffly taking a seat beside her. Freydis could not tell if Ragnar was an easy entry point to conversation or the salting of a wound. She decided on the former; Nikandros didn’t know her enough to realize the weight of Ragnar’s life and how he came to pass it in this thread of the Weave. Until she remembered, more than likely, Nikandros did. “If he had either question or concern about the terms of his contract or his payment, he can handle that directly. I’m his mother, not his manager, and… here, in this turn of the world, I’m hardly even that.” Her tone was neither terse nor flippant–she more or less aimed to let Nikandros know that she had no intentional to meddle in the affairs of the Warrior’s Guild or the recruitment choices the daemonfey made with his own coin. She itched to ask why he made such a selection amongst the capable ranks of the guild, what he knew and how he might have liked to see that knowledge leverage, but more and more she was learning that knowledge was a knife she lacked the skills to wield. Some things were better left unknown, some questions better left unasked. 

Freydis found herself wishing she had followed one of the first pieces of advice Eivor had given her months ago. Back in the wastes, when she had returned from the broothmother’s lair as much herself as she was something different, Eivor had suggested she seek out Nikandros and speak to him when the Elvhen’s own limited well of knowledge dried up. Even now, she wasn’t certain Nikandros could have offered her much more in the way of answers, but at least she probably wouldn’t be frightened by the mere idea of keeping a conversation with him. The veil maiden figured there was little purpose in beating around the bush. “We have someone else in common,” she stated carefully.

[witchertorsten]

Respect ran mutually between the witcher and the jarl, where rumors of Freydis's reputation permeated the title Jarl Icefang of Iskaldrik, Torsten was pleased to find the measurement different from what he'd heard. Some truths lingered beneath the surface of the ego that was imposed with public opinion, Torsten had already gleaned as much, but it had been a privilege to fight at her side. Just as it was a privilege to sit opposite her in this library of... Witches. The latter came with its own set of accommodations to the witcher's code, but for the sake of Freydis he set it aside. Besides, their enemy epitomized magical power and Torsten would not let his pride keep him from using every weapon at his disposal to take back what the Iskarans were chased from, home. Whatever differences existed between Freydis and Torsten, that common thread, along with the desire to protect the people they cared about, threaded its way between their characters and tethered them together.

Nintra Siotta was a name that Torsten was vaguely familiar with from his research into the demons of the veil - particularly where fey were concerned. They were uncommon in Iskaldrik, but capricious creatures spiriting away children weren't uncommon. Some areas were best avoided for exactly that reason. As Torsten turned over one of the books he brought, he cracked it open and began pouring over it, listening to Freydis's explanation with a clear flick of his eyes to denote that she had his attention in the process. "Demons will always aim to deceive, fey may promise one thing but the truth you hear might not be the one you're looking for." A resolved answer - he'd die before letting the archfey walk free. "We'll have better luck trying to destroy her." The point Freydis made wasn't impossible, only more difficult.

While they spoke, Torsten was insightful enough to feel Freydis's eyes on his arm, glances now and then that she either tried to conceal or to keep respectful. Torsten did nothing to cover or conceal it, if she had a question, he considered Freydis welcome to ask after it. "You can ask." Torsten didn't look up from the book he was reading he turned the page on one of the books that he pulled on theories surrounding the sundered veil. The casing protected a crystalline core, mithril joints with the metal integrated into his shoulder. Karme had explained it far better than Torsten ever could, the arm felt heavy at first, but it operated the same as the other - except stronger and absent of any feeling.

Torsten’s discomfort in the setting of the Tower was obvious to the point of being nearly palpable to Freydis. She wondered for a few moments if perhaps she should have asked Alessia for her help instead, but she knew the fledgling witch was otherwise occupied with her own studies. The others who knew the truth, or at least part of the truth, of what Freydis had encountered on her path were now aligned with the Legion. This didn’t make them enemies or even unavailable, but it gave Freydis pause to burden them. And beyond this consideration, Freydis found that there were few she trusted these days as deeply and completely as she did Torsten–even the princess. This trust, laced with the affection and admiration of friendship, left Freydis feeling conflicted about bringing the witcher into all of this. She knew she would find a dogged ally in him, but as she watched the dim lights of the Tower library glint off his new, mithril arm she worried it might take more from him than he had already sacrificed. 

Freydis sat back, exhaustion from pouring over the texts rimming her eyes, as he returned to the table they’d been working at. She skimmed the titles scrawled across the spines of the tomes he added to the pile–which wasn’t insignificant but felt sparse compared to the level of concern she had about the archfey and their pact. A moment was spared to allow Torsten to settle back in, and perhaps to observe the workings of the mithril arm. She was curious about it, perhaps to the point of rudely staring, and she forced herself to look back down at the open page in front of her. 

“We’re looking for information regarding the archfey the other women and I encountered when we were escaping the broodmother’s lair: Nintra Siotta,” she reminded him, not that she suspected he needed a refresher. Torsten was sharp, he had a good memory. “We need to find a way to draw her into our realm and anything we can that will allow us to kill her. If I die, or one of the other women dies, then Nintra will gain access to our bodies as a vessel.” Freydis looked at him, suspecting he wouldn’t look especially kindly on what she suggested next. “So, we either need to determine how to kill her, or how to entrap her into servitude for our own purposes. If there is a way to bind her to our will, it could make a difference in this war against the Aetheron…” She would fall on her sword if the sacrifice was worthwhile.