Solo The Children of Winter

[Maro]

The Children of Winter 3rd of Winter, 516 AV Maro had read the notice that the figures had posted in clear view. He was pretty sure everyone who could read had read them, and those who couldn’t had had someone else read it to them. It was the Seasons’ priests and priestesses who had placed them, so Maro didn’t blame people for their curiosity. Curiosity was innate in Maro; it was practically an instinct. The priests and priestesses had posted the notice outside the Sanity Center, so anyone entering the city would know, and anyone using the Sanity Center for its geographic steadiness would see it as well. The message was clear. Morwen, Goddess of Winter had shirked her duties, and the remaining Seasons meant to make her pay. More than that though, they were calling for the blood of anyone associated with her. First, it spoke only of those marked by Morwen, but by the end of the manifesto, it seemed to target the Vantha people in general. The wording throughout always mentioned those “marked by Morwen,” but in the end, it had specifically mentioned the Vantha marked by Morwen. Fruthermore, the notice gave descriptions, but the first was not of Morwen’s Gnosis Mark. It was of the Vantha people, their stature, their dark hair, their shifting eyes. Only after this did the notice mention what the Gnosis Mark looked like. Maro found that concerning. If the problem was truly with Morwen, then only those who bore her Mark, only those who were intimately involved with the forces of winter, should be targeted in this hunt. If the problem was truly with Morwen- Had that notice said shifting eyes? He read it again, and sure enough, there in the description of the Vantha people it was mentioned that they had eyes that danced and shifted between colors, like the dancing lights of an aurora. That meant little to Maro, as he had never seen an aurora before, but he imagined it was beautiful. In the matter of a moment, his curiosity stifled his horror at the call for blood. He had to know more about these people. To that end, he was making his way to the Sunken Conundrum. Or at least, he was attempting. Over half a year into his stay in Alvadas, Maro was still no good at navigating the ever-changing streets. Helpful strangers had given him advice, but no matter which advice he followed, he always managed to remain lost for far longer than he ought to. Some people said to watch the illusions, that certain illusions that matched the theme of one’s destination would lead one to their desired location. Some told him to simply believe that the city would allow him to arrive at his destination. He’d even followed the advice that the key to his home would draw him toward it. None of it worked. Instead, Maro lived in a perpetual state of being lost. He’d spent a fair share of his nights in Alvadas sleeping on the streets, nearly half of them, in fact. Today, he tried the first approach, the one that told him to follow similar illusions. The first thing he thought of was books. The Sunken Conundrum was a library of sorts, so it made sense that anything related to books would send him in that direction. After a bell of following signs of pages and doors with hinges like book spines, he found himself standing in front of the Acumen Asylum. With a sigh, he moved on to following signs of water. He’d been in the Conundrum once before and had been sure he was going to drown; the place was completely submerged. The new path he followed had walkways that looked like rivers and illusory waterfalls spilling out of cracks in walls. It wasn’t until the illusions began to fade that he realized he was approaching a familiar place, the Patchwork Port, home of the fishing industry in Alvadas. Had he been in his jackal form, his ears would have flicked with annoyance; as it was, he just glared at the port and the last illusion he had seen. Giving up on using the illusions to guide him, he tried the second approach, and Alvadas mocked him for it. He had begun his search early that morning, and it wasn’t until the sun was nearly setting that he found his intended destination. He was tired, and when he thought about it, it would have been best if he started trying to find his home now. Still, curiosity was what it was, and it was one of his strongest drives. He stepped up to the front door and opened it.

[Maro]

The sight that greeted him was one he would never get used to. A wall of water hung poised, ready to come crashing down on him, but it didn’t. Instead, the impending wave just stayed where it was, in a way inviting him in. Invitation or not, it was dangerous, like the inviting maw of a predator waiting for its prey to wander too close, but Maro was curious. Setting his comfort aside, he took the plunge for curiosity’s sake and felt the wet of the water envelope him. He read the sign as he stepped through the door. Please remember to breathe. It was tempting not to, especially as surrounded by water as one was upon entering, but Maro trusted more readily than he should have. As he breathed, gills spread along the length of his neck, letting the water he breathed flow over them. He didn’t know if it was all an illusion, if there was no water and therefore no gills, if nothing but the information one gained while at the library was truth. It didn’t matter though. If it wasn’t real, the sign on the wall kept library patrons well taken care of. They’d at least remember to breathe. Walking, or drifting rather, to the front desk, he asked the woman there for any volumes on the Vantha, and the woman gave him a glare that said she was already tired today of having been asked that question. The ferocity of her stare said that most of the people who had asked her this question hadn’t been able to read the books for themselves. “It’s merely a curiosity,” he added. While he waited for her answer, he wondered how they were able to speak underwater. If they truly were breathing through gills, then there was no air in their lungs for them to speak with. The sound was muffled, the way it ought to sound underwater, but none of it made sense. If there was anything he had learned from this city though, it was that nothing made sense, and that was okay. He was reminded of something a fisherman had once told him. Fishing isn’t actually about catching anything. Nothing in life was merely what it was. Each moment was made up of more than itself. In that light, everything made sense, even when it didn’t. Maro must have lost his focus, because he came back to her clearing her throat. Something about his curiosity must have seemed genuine, because after another look that said she didn’t approve, she pointed to the back of the library and told him to search the second shelf from the top. She had recently moved her Vantha tomes there to keep the less savory types from soiling her library with their illiterate stench. Swimming his inelegant dog paddle, Maro made his way to the back of the Sunken Conundrum and found the bookcase the librarian had mentioned. His eyes scanned the titles on the lower shelves. Magic and I by Vuld Shaik. Morphing Structures: The Complete Compendium for the Novice Shifter by Amir Berliotz. Multitudes Within: The Mass Possession of Emilia Flowers by Ramone Flowers. Murder: A Craven’s Guide to Surviving Spiritism by Rune Caitiff-Craven. He almost reached for the last two titles but remembered what he had come for. Kicking as powerfully as he could with his small legs, he used the sturdy shelves to help support some of his weight. When he reached the mentioned shelf, his eyes danced over the books, reading their titles greedily, hoping one would catch his attention. Here, the titles weren’t alphabetized, as they had been moved in a hurry. The Peoples of Mizahar (Vol. 18): Vantha by Hera Ophenius. My People: A Trek through Avanthal by Redran Snowsong. The list went on and on, but only one caught his eye. The Children of Winter by Gerci Frostfawn. Grabbing the small book by its narrow spine, he pulled it out from where it was trapped between two heavier books and took it down to a desk hidden away in the corner. He admired the drawing on the cover. There were several heavily tanned people dressed in warm, furred clothes. All of them had dark hair highlighted in various colors, and their eyes shown with different colors, some of them unnatural to any race Maro had ever met. In their center was a massive polar bear, but it was not the subject of a hunt nor was it the perpetrator of carnage. There was peace between them and the smiles of friendship. The scene made him smile, and he opened the book to its first page.

[Maro]

This tome had been copied by someone with a neat hand. Every letter seemed the same size as the one before it and the text was written in a flowing continuation from one letter to the next. Maro admired it a little longer before actually reading the words. In the farthest reaches of the North, where even Taldera herself tries to end and fails, lies a frozen city that claims a Goddess as her Queen. It is a city not trapped in winter but embraced by it. Here, the inhabitants welcome the fierce cold that pervades as it is a reminder that they are watched over by Morwen, Goddess Queen of Winter. This city is Avanthal, my home. Here, reside the two races lucky enough to be called the Children of Winter. Two races? Maro knew that the Vantha lay claim to Morwen as their Goddess but was unaware of any other. His eyes darted to the next words, curious for an answer to question of who the other race could be, but the words strayed from answering the question immediately. My people, the people of the Aurora, the Vantha, we are a people of stories, and a people of stories never forgets. But a people of stories also invents, and so there are a hundred stories on how the Aurora and the Vantha are connected. Each goes back farther than any historian has ever cared to track, and so no one knows which of them is true, if any are at all. People of stories also make for fantastic liars. But the stories exist, and I believe one of them must be real. Some say that the Aurora was the bridge of light the Vantha crossed when we first entered this world. Others say that it birthed us, that we began as nothing more than light that took human form. A few contend that it was merely the light sent by a Goddess to guide us from a meaningless existence to the providence She had waiting for us in the frozen North. The legends go on and on, as they must with a people of stories, but that matters little. What matters is the evidence. The evidence is in our eyes. The Aurora’s light is in them, and that is evidence enough that we were chosen. With its light, our eyes smile, laugh, frown, scowl and do anything that it normally takes other races an entire face to do. But we aren’t only chosen by the Aurora. It has been called Morwen’s Lights, and the proof that we are chosen lies in the Mark that every Vantha in Avanthal receives upon coming of age. Morwen gifts us with her gnosis, so that the cold of the North is cut. It doesn’t bite us the way it tears at others’ flesh. We are protected. It went on, describing the many characteristics of the Vantha people: their tendency to be Morwen-marked and how that played a role in their society and environment, their ever-changing eyes, the colored shine to their hair, their athleticism, their affinity for art and stories. Everything the notices had said was true, and Maro found himself even more fascinated by Morwen’s people. He kept reading until halfway through the book another picture took up a full page. It was a frightening scene. In one corner, two Vantha were huddled around a grievously wounded compatriot. A massive polar bear stood before them, facing down one fearsome Talderan Sabretooth with a second dead one crushed beneath its broad paw. A dozen wounds from bites and slashes showed across the bear’s hide, but the fear was not in its eyes. It was in the sabretooth’s. The title of the picture was simply The Icewatch Defends Its Own. The next page went on. Morwen claims many as her children, and as often happens with children, they have children. One such child was Yshul, and among her children were the twins Marcus and Myrna Kelvic. Maro’s heart began to race. Kelvic? As in his race? His eyes tore greedily into the page.