(PRP) Dreams of Fire and Blood

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

 

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Her blood roared in her ears as she layed waste to the field. At some point she became aware that there was nothing left standing around her. The adrenaline that had been coursing through her body began to slow as she realized that her body was coated in blood.

Her muscles began to ache and her throat felt suddenly parched for drink. Step by step as she looked at the battlefield, she became aware of her own pain. She was covered with lacerations here and there, one deep denting bruise to her ribs that made her breath hitch. It was always like this. She felt no ache or wound in battle as she went berserk across the field. She was a weapon wielded for the might of Valhalla and the place she would one day earn herself there or with the goddess Freya.

As she thought of the goddess, she felt the runed ink on her leg flare at the mention as it always did. Ever since she was a child at the knee of her warrior father, she had listened to the seidr that told of her great fate and destiny.

You will find the never setting sun pierced with a spear. Your fate lies with the one who wears it dripped in starlight. The one that does not break, nor bow, nor bend to anything on this earth. There lies your destiny child of Freya


Skaði Banamaðr  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Her eyes opened with eyes that were not hers but yet they were. She padded with soft feet in her dream, her silver coat slithering through the fog and smoke as though it was a part of it. The smoke of fire burned her nostrils and something more acidic, something that burnt like by dragons. As if summoned, a shadow fell across the ground at her feet of a large beast with fire billowing out of it's mouth.

The sky lit up with lightning and the wings of the dragon beat like thunder. Down amongst the lightning strikes there stood a mare covered in scales and blood. Her body had runes on it that Valena did not know, but she knew they had a power to them. A simplistic beauty. The lightning struck all around her and she had to dodge being hit as the storm came down around her.

Then she felt the cold creeping in. It was slow, but it was thick like ice crystals forming in her chest. It was the unnatural cold that came from the North with the "Others". The winged mare that danced with lightning was still, her body tensed as though she sensed something wrong.

Her dream eyes looked up at the mare and met her eyes. The tongue of this dream body was not made for human words, so she breathed and ice formed in front of them for a moment before melting. With it was a silent warning.

Something comes.[/]  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Skaði Banamaðr was tired to the bone, ready for mead and rest. But then across the decimated field of battle, she thought she glimpsed a small grey fox. For a moment, their eyes met, eyes that felt too sentient for the body it held. She blinked and it was gone. But unease had filled her, an omen to go. Now.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Valena woke with a start, her skin frigid in the mid-day sun. She found a wrap and tried to warm the chill from her bones. It was always the same with the dreams lately. Dragons, lightning, and....her  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Skaði lay in the warmth of her pitched tent, alone. Soon after the battle, a great storm had come. It had seemed a bright day before then, but it turned cold as Niflheim. It reminded her over and over again of that moment on the battlefiled when she' seen the silver fox looking at her with all too knowing eyes. She would have followed it, seen if it was meant to lead her somewhere but it had disappeared before she'd even been able to take a step toward it. There was something about it that bothered her, not fear exactly but a deep sense that it belied that something was wrong--that something was going to happen.

She might have thought it was a dream brought about by the beserkness or frenzy that overcame her in battle, but outside it hailed. The balls of hit the canvas and bounced off. Even though she was use to snatching sleep whenever she could despite the turmoil around her, she could not sleep now. There was a deep vein of unease running beneath her skin.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Valena could not cease shivering. The wrap had not helped nor the hot mead she'd drank or tea. Finally, she'd been forced to make a fire and sit before even though her body was physically sweating. It took hours before the cold in her dissipated. She ate very pickily, her visions often left her without an appetite but she knew that she had to force the food down to keep her strength. Even though her legs felt weak by the time nightfall came, she kicked out her fire and began to move slowly through the woods before wending her way down a stream.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

After another hour, Skade gave up on the idea of sleep and pulled together her furs, armor, and weapons. Carefully, she thought out what she was doing as she prepared to leave for Freyja knew where. When her party woke to find her gone, they'd think she'd gone sun mad or battle mad or worse, but she didn't feel like explaining herself. How would she even explain it? She was no seidr, but even a blind stallion could read these signs. She had to leave this cold hell and find the piercing sun before it was too late.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Every day when she began to walk again, she let her feet lead her. She didn't fight the impulse that drove her body a certain way. She had learned a long time ago not to fight against it. Some would call it prophesy as she sometimes did and others would call it fate or pre-destination. The truth was that all of the words were right and all of the words were wrong. There was not a word that she knew that contained what exactly this was and she had not been able to find out. As far as she knew, the word, did not exist.

The small tug inside of her soul pulled her to the left and she altered her course without much thought on the matter. What she did know was that whatever this was was leading her to that mysterious mare--whether that meant salvation or ruin, she did not know.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Skade felt restless even though she was walking, a lot. It was more a restlessness of spirit in some ways. It had been years since she hadn't done swordcraft daily for battles or practice. It had not been necessary for her to learn the sword, given her powers and her claws--but she hadn't wanted to. Had begged her father to teach her.


He had been good they said, but by then he was gnarled with age. Still, he had imparted on her more than just the craft but the wisdom to go with it. Her siblings had long gone of to seek their fortunes in war, by the time she came she was a child of his old age. However, she had bee determined to be as good as her siblings were, if not the best of them.

She had learned not just to fight the enemy but to think like them. Every feature in a space was something that could be used in battle. Her eyes had learned to miss nothing as she assessed her surroundings.


The mare was so still, the setting sun blazing behind her and setting the stars on her skin ablaze.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Valena had seen it--their paths finally converging at one spot. It thrilled her and butterflies were a chaos in her stomach. But still, finally seeing it become real instead of some fog-like dream was amazing. It made her blood surge through her skin.

The mare was just as she had seen her in all those visions--battle-marked, bloody, and beautiful. She seemed to possess some knd of sense of self or self esteem that made her oblivous to what others around her thought. Or at least it seemed to. She was confidence personified, even though it may wind up to be over confidence.

Valena stood at the crest of the hill, the sun framed behind her. She knew what she must look like, fire and blood and stars. Just like all her dreams of this mare, the mare who was to come to help her on her quest.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Skade knew enough to stay wary, things that came in beautiful packages were often deceiving. She eyed the mare as she got closer, all the while checking the area for any signs of ambush. There was none.

"You came to me?" She asked, her voice brokering no argument. This was not a request it was a demand, she would have her answer. She halted few feet away from her, taking in the frailer build of the other mare and the almost dreamy look she had on her face.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

The mare was cautious in a way that Valena had not figured on with someone so headstrong. It must be the discipline of the warrior about her, the easy way she held herself and the way she demanded answers as if they were her right. Her first question took Valena a little by surprise as she was not prepared to answer that.

The answer however was very simple, it wasn't something she even had to think about.

"I did," she said simply. "I walked your dreams. I saw you with a hundred eyes. I saw the future lay before you like a map. All of your choice set in stone but stil fluid, able to change. But not this. We were born to meet."  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Skade felt the cold crawl up her spine, half the chill of fear and the unknown. The other part was a kind of dark excitement. There were legends of seidr or as the saxon (non Danes) called them, witches. The legends were largely in two parts, a dedicated and loyal seidr could help any base fighter up to become a warlord or jarl. A seidr could mean fortune and great destiny or it could also mean the ruin of one. Seidrs only messed with two type of soquili those with potential to sway it one way or the other, or those they used to serve an end only. To be a puppet often ended worse than badly, as the strings of your fate were only tied up so far as to serve the seidr's greater cause. Bthut if you happened to be one of those that had great potential (which she thought she did, but then so did every other Dane born) a seidr could change your fate for the better or the worse depeding on their own goals.But this mare said they were born to meet, that this was fate.

"And why should I be willing to tie my fate to yours?"  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Valena could see the wariness that still lingered unsoothed with the the other mare. "They call me a prophet, a seer or at least my people do." She spoke calmly making no moves to move closer to the other mare. "Some view us with disdain, some with honor, and some with outright horror. I don't know what your people think," her eyes met the other mares across the clearing. "But I know that you believe. Whether you will it or not, our fates are tied. That is what it is and it is a knot that no one can undo. It can be cut, and I can be killed if that is your intentions. But whatever happened before was all leading up to how we would meet now, and how it would shape the rest of the story. We could have met a thousand differrent ways, but we were to meet."