History might remember the tale of monsters and heroes, when they collided at that murderous bridge. The few who know only see the valiant ancestors of Freljord throwing their masters into the abyss ...
The glade was covered in a fine layer of fresh snow from the recent winter storms. Grass and dirt were hidden underneath the pristine sheet while tree branches sagged ever so slightly. Where it could, the white powder accumulated on the ruins of ancient stonework that inhabited the center of the glade. It was an eerily tranquil scene, one whose undisturbed silence wasn't lost to the Ice Witch.
She glided gracefully through the snow, magical ice carrying her wherever she willed it to go. The shifting crystals and shards tinkled softly as they worked, moving her which way and that. After circling the ruins once Lissandra stopped at what used to be the entrance archway. It was a thick stone wall section that curved at an angle near the top. The wood frame had long since rotted away, leaving only its skeletal remains.
Setting down on the ground, the controlled ice receded and left the Ice Witch on her own two feet. She looked up to the stonework off to her left, staring at it through the backwards-swept winged headdress she wore. Reaching up with her unnaturally dark blue hand she laid it across the stone delicately.
So far away from home they took you, Lissandra thought in disappointment.
With a precise slowness she dragged her fingers over the stones, feeling out what remained of the masonry. She could only feel a smooth, if slightly bumpy, surface beneath her fingers. There was nothing left of the traditional intricate archway carvings her people took pride upon.
Not even the stones remember you anymore.
Her hand jerked back slightly at the thought before returning to her side. Lissandra turned herself forwards and began her walk into the ruins. She wasn't certain how this house would have been built. If it were a Grand Hall she would have immediately entered a vast, open space richly filled with tables and tapestry. Perhaps they would have done a hunting lodge which would have afforded a smaller entry room but many different sleeping quarters.
There wasn't enough left for her to decipher. The muted crunch of snow being stepped on was the only real thing that reached her senses. Looking around from left to right she could see more stonework left behind. Yet unlike the archway, a semblance of life had remained here. It didn't come in the form of anything the inhabitants left behind, but by nature itself.
To her left a baby oak tree rose from the ground, its branches laid heavy with snow. Its roots had pierced through the flooring and stonework, aiding in their demise. Glancing over to her right, frost berry shrubbery fought with crumbling doorways and nestled stubbornly in corner posts. Lissandra could only frown to herself as she moved through.
And yet they are all that remain. No chests or racks of equipment, no inscriptions of deeds done ... nothing. It is fitting, I suppose.
Something changed underneath her in the ground. Her steps felt different. The Ice Witch stopped and looked around, confused at the occurrence. A thrum barely detectable to her was in the earth. It offset the natural stillness of the glade. Earlier she had not noticed it, but closer to the source it stuck out.
Following the disturbance she moved off to her right. Each step brought her noticeably closer, and with it more clarity. A foot over a rock, a side step of a boulder, and finally passing through waist high bushes. When she emerged she understood what the thrum was and what she saw only confirmed it.
Departed as you are from this world you still taunt me? Lissandra wondered as she stared at the tombstone a fair distance ahead of her.
Whatever was causing the thrum from earlier ceased as soon as she laid eyes on it. She stood there stiffly, wondering if it was worth approaching. Truly she had come far to find this place - but to have it there in front of her was something else. After several moments of quiet hesitation she approached the tombstone.
Compared to the earlier ruins it was considerably more intact. The edges were withered and a corner had broken off on its left side. Vague smudges of some inscriptions were visible on the front face. The largest of which, in the center of all the others, had lost half of its writing. Despite that Lissandra recognized the curvature of the logogram; she knew what old Iceborn word it was trying to form.
Avarosa.
Kneeling down the Ice Witch brought her frozen hand to the tombstone's face. She brushed it gently in a sweeping motion, clearing away what little snow had dug into the writing. Avarosa's name was recognizable enough, but what was being said around it was unclear. Hero was one thing she pieced together, along with what would be the sentence for eating. That was strange, unless they meant to...
Of course. They would inscribe the Great Feast for her passing, Lissandra smirked to herself in bitter amusement. She stood up and placed her hands on her thighs.
Standing there in front of her renegade sister's grave, Lissandra was indecisive still. She knew what she wanted to do and it was there at the tip of her tongue. Her sister was quite departed from the world in all senses. The thrum that had called her here was a left over from some enchantment. It bore her sister's mark certainly, for only she had the capability of making something last so long.
Lissandra exhaled slowly and faintly crystallized air escaped from her.
"I expected more, truly I did," she spoke quietly, in her old and forgotten native tongue.
"But what can be said of our former brethren? They wouldn't know our family tradition. To be buried in this place ... how disgraceful," Lissandra admonished the tombstone.
"I wonder if that matters when I am the only one who knows."
Moving her gaze away from the tombstone, she casually examined the area as she continued speaking.
"It has been so long since we have talked, hasn't it, Avarosa?"
Behind her was the shrubbery growing in what would have been the entrance way to this tomb. Around the area she noticed a circular pattern of uneven snow, mostly likely the ritual ring of runes.
"The last words we ever exchanged were when I attended your death bed. They were hateful ones, I recall. Worthy of legend in their enmity, were anyone left to tell it."
Ahead of her were three broken window frames. Judging by the width between each stone column, they were full floor-to-ceiling windows. Looking up Lissandra took a brief gander at the sun's position and felt that the windows probably faced west.
"I still enjoy that surprised look on your face when I revealed myself. Age had taken its toll on you but my Iceborn nature persevered. You would be happy to know I could not take control of your renegades. I had to go quite far to find a disloyal group."
It was a touch Lissandra didn't agree with. To have one's resting place on display to the world was disrespectful. Not only to the departed, but to the mourners who would visit their final place.
"I have worked hard since then. The Frostguard are nowhere near our old power, but they are more than enough for the inbred failures I see today. The Watchers will be so pleased with the strength I have conditioned them to."
Lissandra rolled her shoulders. Beyond the window remains was the forest that surrounded the glade. It was too far for her to see anything in there, but she doubted any animals were near here. They had a habit of avoiding her.
"One of these failures is different, though. An imperfect imposter of you in many ways. The hatred that surged in my heart when I saw her with your bow was unbelievable. For a brief moment I had thought you returned from the dead."
Habitually she smoothed out her dress, working out imaginary wrinkles. She started at her sleeves and moved towards her hips next.
"Humorously she is a descendant of your tribe. Serylda has one as well, although that one is considerably more aggressive. They are very busy squabbling over who will rule the Freljord right now, entirely ignorant of what is to come."
"That is a story for the living, however. For you among the departed, there has been something on my mind lately," Lissandra trailed off into a wistful tone.
"I have wondered if I was wrong about your betrayal those many years ago," she then hastened to add, "Not betraying the Watchers, mind, but why you did it - what compelled you to turn against me."
In the lingering silence following her words the Ice Witch felt a tenseness around her. The peaceful quiet was oppressive, suffocating even. She knew no one was here to hear her, but to utter the words made her musings all the more real.
"There are creatures that roam the lands … otherworldly monsters you and I thought myth back then. Perverse, ungodly... I do not know where they came from, or where they hid during my rule. I have seen them take hold a man's mind and heart in ways that should not be possible. Imagine the most loyal of persons overcome, enslaved inside their own body as another moves it."
Lissandra looked down to her right hand, palm upturned towards her. She clenched it slowly into a fist, holding it for a moment before relaxing. Her Iceborn blood responded to her unspoken command and the magic simmered underneath the surface. Wisps and stands of teal colored mana languidly squirmed across her hand's dark, frozen blue skin.
"I am no fool, they had to have existed even back then. And yet, where were they? What did they do? Did they plot in some backwards hole, waiting for the prime opportunity? Were they poisoning my Iceborn in ways I nor the Watchers foresaw?"
She looked back to the unmoving tombstone and stared at her sister's symbol.
"Did one get to you, my forlorn sister?" Lissandra asked the stone, "Were you so less fortunate than me to become a mindless plaything as another undid our beautiful empire?"
The tenseness in the Ice Witch's body eased as she continued on with her one-sided speculation.
"A part of me wants to believe that. It wants to believe you were so weak that it was another who used you against me. I want to believe a monster was the one who took my Iceborn, my sisters, from me," her final words came stronger than she intended. A cold rage that had dwelled in Lissandra's heart for centuries trembled behind them. Without missing a step she continued on.
"Then, maybe then, I could have found forgiveness for you. We would have been able to go back, undo the damage, or even start again. You and I arguing at the feasting table who to conquer next with Serylda complaining about her stupid hunger. She'd wander off and kill something of course, bring it back and force us to eat it the same way Mother did," her words conflicted between hopeful and cynicism in their tone.
"Serylda … she didn't deserve the heartache you and I caused. I want to despise her for siding with you on that horrid conflict, but we both know she was an indecisive person. Always more concerned with the homestead and a tidy keep ... and that dumb boar of hers. Goodness there was a creature I hated more than anything - maybe even you."
Her joke felt terribly forced and what mirth she had from recollection was swept away. With a sigh she brought her hand up to her forehead and held it. Lissandra gave herself a minute before speaking again.
"I want to believe that, but I understand you could have simply turned against me. I cannot comprehend it even to this day. Perhaps that is the most wounding part of it all; I still cannot see why," she remarked as she brought her hand down.
An idea occurred to her then. It was an inane thought, meaningless in its purpose but it would be something to do for the situation. Bringing both her hands up she looked at them as frozen magic began working.
"It does not matter in the end. No one is left to remember you as I do. No one knows our stories, or our triumphs. To all of them we are merely misbegotten barbarians, if even that. I alone remember, and I alone remain."
A frosty mist had formed in between her hands. At the center of it a dark, ominous looking ice sphere was taking shape. When she next spoke the sphere had finished completion, being held in her hands.
"The time of our rebirth is coming soon. The remaining tribes are marching to war, ignorant that they have already lost. We will go through the motions, but I know the victor already. Their howls will be the ones the winds carry across the land this time."
She was busy as she talked, shaping the sphere of ice in her hands casually. A stem-esque body was drawn out of the sphere's bottom. Then she drew more ice along the stem, shaping them off into three small branches.
"All your work has been for naught, sister. For the price of your 'freedom' you destroyed our empire, sundered our family, cast away our benevolent Watchers … It is so sad to see how much has been wasted."
Using her fingertip she began half-circle curves at the bulb of ice sitting atop of the stem. Small flakes of ice were peeled away from the body enough to make space, but not break. She kept going until the entire bulb had been made to look as flowery petals. As she put the final touches on her ice-carved flower, Lissandra insides tightened anxiously. The words she had wanted to say from the beginning were coming now. Words that she would not have said centuries ago, but now felt so necessary.
"I miss you, Avarosa," she hauntingly said to the chilly air.
Moving forward slightly Lissandra bent down and put the ice flower in front of the tombstone. It was planted vertically just a few inches in front of the stonework. The sun's light glistened through its dark petals, refracting and writhing as if the ice were alive.
"I miss you, and Serylda. I miss our family. I only ever did what was right for our people and us, and for that it was all taken away from me."
The Ice Witch took a few steps past the gravestone, pausing next to the slab. Tentatively she moved her hand atop it, resting her fingers there as she stared down.
"You once told me you were afraid the Watchers would turn me cold. That taking their power for my own would bring the end of me … It was not until you and Serylda raised a blade against me did I feel the freezing cold for the first time."
For a long while she stood there, staring at what was left of her sister.
Her piece had been laid to rest, Lissandra felt. Folding her hands together in front of her she took measured steps away from the tombstone. Large dark crystals formed underneath her feet as she walked. Soon her icy platform was carrying her through the snow, following her unspoken command to bring her away from her sister's resting place.
Lissandra wasn't certain if this had been worth her time at the end of it all. The damage had been done, and the new empire she was building would never replace the old. No one could ever be Avarosa or Serylda. There would never be a chance for her to enjoy that feeling of family that her sisters brought. They were gone. Them and everything they had built together.
There was one obstinate fact in spite of all she had suffered, though. Lissandra had one thing left to her that couldn't be taken away - that she wouldn't let be taken away. The Watchers remained, patient, waiting for the hour of their return. She had done so much, sacrificed what little could be given, to insure their return.
The Watchers would return, and they would have their Seeker once again.
... but only one can tell of the families that were thrown in as well.