#int. w/lothar.nornwatch

[alrikhart]

@lotharx location: Nornwatch Keep notes: the beginning of those first two weeks at the keep

Snow fell over the opening of the cave mouth as the witchers moved the last of the barricades that concealed the hidden route through the mountains. Light from the dark clouds above filtered through and Alrik stepped into the clean air of the open cold and took a breath. He’d said once that nothing could make him go back to an Iskaran mine, but that vow had shifted through the battered wind of change that fell upon Alrik and Alessia. They had called the mountain salvation and in the quiet dark, he’d considered the madness he’d felt when he’d been pushed underground. Back then the witch had traveled into the deep in chains, this time Alrik had gone willingly - that was the difference he carved away.

That had not made it any easier, reduced to muttering to himself under his breath in private conversation as he mulled over the possible motivations of the conquerors who’d taken everything from them over the course of a single fortnight. But the sky was liberating, not just for him, but for Valr.

Alrik removed the bird’s hood and lifted his arm, watching with some liberty as the falcon flew with unabashed liberation for the first time in a fortnight.

“If only it were so easy for the rest of us.” Alrik said to the nearest person: from the mouth of the cave the refugees were making the short pilgrimage from the mountain to the Keep only a short distance away. It was imposing, but nothing like what Alrik had imagined. Stained walls that looked broken or breaking in places, and only one or two figures on the walls. Not much of a guard.

[alrikhart]

"Cal-or-ies. Such a big word my brooding friend." This was the most that the other had spoken yet, Alrik knew he'd drag something out of the man eventually, but he hadn't expected it to be akin to some semblance of wit. Who knew that even meat could have a mind. Alrik's hand clasped his shoulder, the fruit back in its place as he pointed readily at the Keep, "Perhaps here you will, painted across the sky - bannered in magical fire. The glorious death of the Iskaran people." Alrik left the brooding man's side in favor of walking backward toward Nornwatch, blue eyes bright, smile provoking. "Surely there are worse ways to die than with that weapon of yours in hand." It was the only way to die, as far as Alrik was concerned.

Lothar could not claim to recognize the eerie silence as birds flew the coop of Iskaldrik, but he understood the chilling sentiment. When faced with danger, the animals were always the first tell; wolves and elks, snow hares and birds, all streaking through a forest in hopes of imminent survival. It'd been much like the stragglers here, each formerly at the mercy of the mages, each running for even an ounce of salvation from the relentless fumes of magic, from the blanket of fire that threatened to emblazon the Iskaran homes in agonizing infamy. The brute he'd become was once a kind conversationalist, something of a wallflower who opened up given due time, given their moment in the sun. Life had seasoned him, however, turned the flowery bits of him to twisted bramble and thorns; he needn't make nice when he was merely hoping to ensure the majority of the refugees would make it to Lysara relatively unscathed.

The Ax understood he could not promise the whole lot; it was foretold in the fates of the universe that for some, Death was their path and he often wondered why he was the overseer. Death had drifted towards his life time and time again and each kiss upon the fabric of his life almost felt akin to mocking ridicule. How often he had to lose and endure, how often he watched death drift in and out. He could not compare it to the violent rise and fall of the Veiled Sea upon Iskaran shores; Death was so often quiet, this hushed foreboding that bristled just out of sight.

"And small guy like you needs his store of calories," a rough retort, but it felt less combative than before, a silent retreat of his typically unfriendly cues. Still, Lothar rolled the apple around in the palm of his calloused hand, staring at the bright red of it's skin, crinkling his nose at the bruised flush that naturally peppered it. "I'd come across a few." A scowl flashed across his countenance next before lifting the apple to take a bite; Lothar only wished to be able to flank the mages again, to free those taken, it was a promise made and one he would guarantee would be fulfilled.

[alrikhart]

“Birds can leave at any time, the birds were the first to fly, the first to go quiet before Aetheron set the sky on fire. When the trees bent and the first crop of wheat shone gold before it blew to ash.” It was a work in progress, one that Alrik quickly scrapped - too flowery, their story didn’t need to be painted with Lysaran prose but was better spun through flyted words. “You’re right, that sounds like shit. Don't worry, I'll get it.” Alrik admitted idly, he continued to watch the falcon though as it embraced the skyline - he’d held onto his nation for so long that he’d forgotten the choice that led him to stand upon Northland walls when the magi attacked a fortnight prior. Would that the witch could, he’d have chosen a vantage on the cliffs to watch it all burn away before he and Alessia blazed a trail through the eastern Spine. 

The Iskaran brute he’d spoken to said little but Alrik rarely needed more than a few words to give himself a laugh. Hauntingly light and undaunted despite the harrow that the refugees had stumbled through, the liberation into the light brought with it a spark of adrenaline. Even obscured by cold, gray clouds, Alrik felt the sun hit his cheeks as it had the day that he and Alessia had cracked through the Abyss to bask under it - freedom after an age. “Only the Gods get to call down lightning, lest we crack the world in two but how easy it must be for a bird to see a fire and simply fly away.” Red orbs moved in synchronicity as Alrik hardly paid them any mind, he followed the eyes of the haggard man who looked to the past as if there were anything but death waiting for him. 

Those refugees that milled their way from the tunnel marched on, likely to their deaths, among them Alrik couldn’t count one that he’d miss. His sister was already ahead, and while he owed Prospero a debt he didn’t spare much thought toward the druid otherwise. “Here,” Alrik didn’t miss a beat as one of the apples was lobbed in the stranger’s direction, to hit him square between the eyes, or make for a well-deserved snack. “Big guy like you needs his strength. Did you see them? The magi when they attacked.” 

This one was young, he'd try to bolster the troupe with smiles and laughter, mindless acts of salvaged humor to pass the time, but Lothar was a difficult one to crack. A brow raised as he went to tossing apples, juggling the fruit carelessly, to which Lothar could only think of the waste if he were to drop them. There was a massive journey ahead of them, they'd already charted the spanning darkness of the underground chambers for a fortnight, and yet they'd only just begun. Hope had not been squashed from this kid, a surprising feat since Iskaldrik always seemed destined to prune it from it's community before they ever came of age. If one wasn't smuggled to the sprawling reaches of Lysara, the cold of their home often dashed out any blind wonder.

"Envy?" That cracked a snort of surprise from him, Lothar's nose scrunching mildly. Iskaldrik had burned, for all the contempt Lothar held towards the growing pains of his youth, the witchers who looked upon him criminally as they turned their nose up at the entrails of his parents, and the royals who seemed obsolete - it had been his home and now there was nothing left of it but the charred embers and fallen villages. He'd witnessed the mages capturing many through their descent, a fiery blaze had eaten up their gelid homestead and many were rounded up amidst the slaughter; it only supplied Lothar with more questions. Overthrowing a kingdom was one thing, but what would become of those who had not been given the attempt to escape? There'd been a silent promise from the Ax, a solemn nod that he'd return one day to rescue those still within the clutches of the raiders. He hadn't owed anyone such caveat, but he knew he had friends amongst them; those who deserved a chance to see the daylight once more.

Skirting past the question of envy, Lothar attempted to avoid a tangent on addressing it, "Power in the wrong hands is always an equation for trouble. Don't act like that's a revelation." Snarky and tired, Lothar's head turned to the side, eyes cast to the other refuges who staggered behind them, coming forth from the pit of darkness that had been the channels and tunnels.

[alrikhart]

Good stories made boring history more interesting as far as Alrik was concerned. Nornwatch had to be steaming with them; they'd help pass the time in the days to come, but ever-the-performer, Alrik took out a few apples he'd stolen off one of the wagons and took to tossing them in the air. Still listening to the stranger, but keeping his hands occupied as the seemingly oblivious street performer did his best to entertain himself and his company. There was a joke when he was a kid about his only good thinking coming from when he was upside down - hanging from a branch or somersaulting through childish simplicities. Some of that lingered, but today Alrik worked through his own nerves best when his body and mind was otherwise distracted.

"Do you envy them?" Alrik's own answer was implied by his initial remark if he could, the witch would have flown this place already. Then again, it wasn't as though he hadn't had his opportunity after the mine. They were grown then, and he and Alessia could take care of themselves, in Bjarnheim it wasn't uncommon to catch a rumor of a smuggler taking human cargo safely from Iskaran shores. But Iskaldrik was his home, a home he wouldn't miss, a people he didn't love, and customs that Alrik would sooner spit at. He'd gotten to watch it burn, but that grim satisfaction was eclipsed by the sounds of screaming and the return of the very thing that had ripped the pattern open once before had returned. "All that power, it's not right, is it?" A million questions floated through his mind, questions that this man wouldn't be able to answer, but Alrik could prompt just the same until the other grew bored of him.

The biting cold was once this welcome vestige, a reminder of his Iskaran roots; a frigid plane swarmed by the very mountains which he, and the others, now aimlessly charted. It felt futile as they trekked, many refuges slower than others as the gelid air licked at their limbs with a vengeance. The monstrosities that were rumored to live in the dense curves and mountainous plains of Hrimthur's Wastelands were far more foreboding than any chill, and though they'd just reached the first streak of daylight in -well, Lothar had lost count-, the Ax looked upon the path before them with a bitter curl of his lips.

Nornwatch Tower was imposing, stood before them as the last bastion for the Legion who fought so heartily and viscerally against the blight. The Keep stared down upon them, a stark piece of Ymir's Spine, and Lothar could only pan his gaze away; the short walk towards it an ominous nudge. Pulled from the plummeting feeling he felt struck by, his eyes fell upon the falcon and it's owner; an unassuming refuge, though he was hardly ate up with age, it was certain to Lothar that he'd bore witness to the grief and mysticism of the world that aged any beyond their years. He'd like to presume this assumption was incorrect; that any who'd endured the fall of Iskaldrik were merely struck with such stance which bled from their features so heavily. He'd like to believe it was incorrect, but he'd seen the rotten spoils of this world, seen it's dark underbelly, and understood fully that his assumption was often, in fact, correct.

Lothar squeezed the haft of his weapon, the runes etched into the wood of the ax catching on the callouses of his hand; there was the palpable feeling that just as soon as he'd watch the falcon soar from his line of sight, that the mages would descend upon them in their crystalline vessels. Nothing came as the falcon swooped and soared and Lothar's shoulders relaxed ever subtly, almost met with disappointment that he could not come to face them again. He knew, in this ragtag group of refuges that it'd currently be their demise, but he'd been preened on a whopping spoon of violence and knew no other route when it came to facing them.

"Was easy for the mages and raiders," his arms crossed as his eyes remained half on the falcon and half upon their trek towards the tower. "We're to be sitting ducks in this glass house of a tower," there's something of a loose grin that pulls at his features, life was bittersweet, mostly tragic; this would not be the end of their losses and heartache, that he was sure of.