Sejuani opened her eyes and choked the snow out of her mouth. A gentle touch on her head followed by a grunt had awoken her. She looked up and saw the face of her trusted mount, Bristle. She tried to push herself up which was more taxing than she thought. She was half burried in snow and the lower part of her body felt like it was a block of ice. After she got on her feet she took her flail and started to take a look around her. The memories returned to her.
The campfires of the Winters Claw were lighting the sky and Sejuani was just about to go to sleep. Tomorrow would be an important day and she didn´t want to sleep in. As she entered her tent she heard a loud detonation outside. As she tourned around a blue light was fading from a small mountain and a part of it was set in motion down right into the direction of her tribe."Avalanche!" she yelled while starting to run to the stables. The whole camp, which had been rather peaceful for the night, was in uproar in a single instant. She found Bristle asleept and shock him awake. "Come on boy we need to get moving!" she pressed as she climbed his back. But it was too late, the masses of snow had already reached the center of the camp. Before her mount could move out of the danger, masses of snow crashed down at them and Sejuani´s vision went black.
The former camp of the Winters Claw was now only a plain of snow, ice and scatered supplies with many of her men laying dead in the snow. She wasn´t really shocked, after all she was used to the view of destruction and death, but it hurt nontheless. She had camped with her tribe below a small mountain about two miles from the Avarosan position. They had ventured far into the south of the Freljord to meet her rival. Only the mountain range seperated the Freljord from the wilderness that was the bufferzone between them and Demacia. Ashe wanted to negotiate an armistice with her to take care of Lissandra. Sejuani didn´t really mind the idea as she did not trust the Ice-witch further than she could throw Bristle, nor did she trust Ashe, but leading her into a trap and slauthering the whole Winter Claw was not something the Frostarcher would do. Or so she had thought, the view before her showed the opposite. The Avalanche even seemed to have burried parts of the Avarosan camp which had been at least three times as tall as her own. After all it consisted not only of soldiers and fighters but also craftsman, families and elders.
After wandering around what had once been her 'Army' she fell on her knees. Not a single one of her tribesman seemed to have survied the calamity. She had lost the war for the Freljord before it even had begun. It was now either Ashe or Lissandra who was to rule over it. There was no goal or purpose for her to pursue. She could join Ashe in her cause to unite the Land since the thought of Lissandra as the queen of her homeland disgusted her. Obviously the Averosan were weaker and would not make a nation as strong as Sejuani had desired, but she knew the Frost-Archer would make an acceptable queen compared to her Frostguard counterpart. She stood up and burried her face in the fur of Bristle thinking about what to do next and felt a feeling she had not felt for a long time: Sadness.
The last time she remembered was when her tribe was subjugated and her parents died, although she only rememberes fractions of it:
The Air was filled with smoke as Sejuani came back from hunting deer with some of her companians. As they got on top of the hill they saw most of their village in flames and corpses laying in the snow at the camps center. She hurried down through the shattered gates of her home in search of her parents. It looked like there had been heavy fighting. Dead invaders and defenders alike lay on the ground in blood, some of them in their last death throes. Before the chief´s hut some of the people of her tribe were hold captive by a horde of barbarians.
"Looks like our spoils have arrived!" the supposed leader exclaimed. His men followed with a loud shout, raising their bloodstained weapons in the process.
"Listen now you cowards, if you surrender your young ones to our tribe we keep you living for another decade or so. Our own are rather dead because we don´t have the patience to raise little babies while raiding!" he continued.
A tall man, Sejuani recognized him as her father, stood up and walked up the the raider. He was a strong man willing to do anything to protect his people and his plan. She had always admired him for that and she was sure that he would save them right now too.
"I´d rather die than give my daughter to you!" he said in a sharp voice. 'Yes!' Sejuani thought. 'He will save us all!'
"If you wish so." The leader replied emotionless. In one swift strike he parted head and body of Sejuani´s father. It all went so fast that he could´t even react. In that single instant Sejuani´s world had fallen apart.
Without thinking she charged the man with her hunting dagger in her hand. But he effortlessly doged her attack and rammed his fist into her stomach. Sejuani chocked and broke down. She let out a loud scream, tears falling down her cheeks uncontrolled. Her father was the only person she ever had really cared for since her mother died when she was born. She refused to accept that he was dead, but a hit on her cheek reminded her of reality. She looked up, drenched in tears, into the eyes of the furious barabrian leader.
"The weak are the only ones who cry" he said in a stern voice, "and weakness leads only to more loss and death. So don´t be weak like your father was." Without another word he cleaned the blood of his blade and signaled his warriors to retreat with their bounty.
After that her vision of the past blurred, he took her to his tribe and trained her to be the woman she was today. Today Sejuani felt no anger for this man. After all he had showed her how to be strong and not lose things she did not want to lose. She had taken over the clan when she killed him in duel, but not out of revenge. He was just too weak to lead the tribe any further. But now all she wanted to protect and fight for was gone, in one instance.
She turned towards where she suspected the rest of the Avarosan encampement to be and started walking towards it with her boar by her side. She spotted a man approximatly 30 meters in the distance. She couldn´t see who he was, the snow just took to much of her vision. Hope blossomed in her heart, maybe she had not lost everything today. Ten more steps and her hope was crushed. The outline of the man was no other than a Avarosan warrior. But it was not just a normal warrior, it was the Barbarian King, Tryndamere, husband of Ashe. While Sejuani had never met the Frost-Archer in person she had already met the furious warrior Tryndamere. He was much taller than Sejuani herself and packed with muscles. In one hand he had his giant sword, almost bigger than the blonde woman. She had heard tales of him killing about 50 men alone without any help at all. And while he did look impressive Sejuani never believed quite them.
As he approached he grinned with a trace of madness in his eyes. "Look who we have here, the cause of the desaster.", he said with a stain of blood on his face. The Avalanche must have hit the Avarosan harder than Sejuani had anticipated.
"Your not standing before the culprit." Sejuani answered calmly. She really needed to sooth the situation if she wanted to join the Avarosan. On the other hand she didn´t even know if Ashe would accept.
"Why should I believe any of your words? All you have ever done was threatening my Queen and her people!" He retorted. His voice indicated he was not intenting to negotiate.
"Why should I destroy my own clan." she interupted him.
"I just think your plan failed." he continued determined."You Winters Claw don´t care about colateral damage and thought you could wipe us out with your pretty little plan. Too bad it didn´t work and backfired on you. But I will make sure nothing is left of you and your wretched clan!" he almost shouted, and started charging at her with his giant sword.
This man was obviously not to be reasoned with in his current state. She griped the handle on her flail and prepared for a fight. She was not someone who avoided fighting but this was just stupid. "Bristle, attack!" she shouted and saw her huge mount crashing down at the barbarian. One of the tusks of the beast hit Tryndamere right in the stomach, but he just pushed the beast aside with his sword and conitued to charge her. Sejuani was surprised, the boar was at least three to four times heavier than Tryndamere but it looked like it took him no effort at all to repell the attack.
Sejuani swung her flail around the giant sword as he tried to swing at her. She pulled with one hand tearing the blade from Tryndamere´s hands. It took her less effort than anticipated, probably because he was already in full swing and couldn´t control the moment anymore. With her free hand she reached for her blade on her side. She always hat one ready but as she fought almost all of her battles on top of Bristle she barely ever used it. She reached out and drove the blade right into the heart of the Barbarian king. He looked surprised at first and stumbled a few steps back, but the surpirse soon gave way to anger and rage in his face. He grabbed the blade still in his chest and pulled it out. Sejuani was confused and also scared. She stood frozen in place.
'What the fuck...I drove the balde right through his heart...is this man...a demon or what'
"This is the end 'Fury of the North'! I see the fear in your eyes!" he screamed. His voice sounded otherwordly and his movements where only controled by pure fury. "You have never seen true demons, but I have! True Bloodshed does not end until one side lies dead on the ground in his own blood!"
He swung the blade through the air and let it come down on Sejuani´s head. Barely she moved her head to dodge the weapon. It crashed one of the horns on her helmet and Sejuani was shaken by the impact. She heard a crackling sound and then felt the blade carve into her shoulder. She faltered backwards hitting the ground.
'Looks like this is it.' Sejuani thought to herself and grited her teeth. She almost started to laugh at herself. The first enemy she met would kill her although she was considered one of the best fighters in Freljord.
The man towered above her and prepared for the finishing blow when he was suddenly overwhelmed by a giant boar. Bristle just stomped on the back of her adversary and this time he could not recover. His back was shattered and one of his arms was bent unnatural twist. Bristle nuged Sejuani with his nose not sure if her owner was even alive at this point. Sejunai herself wasn´t that certain how she just survived that. She forced herself up and collected her weapons and the horn he had broken from her helmet. They were always more of a decoration than for parctical use, but without them she would be dead by now.
She now could not join the Avarosan even if she wanted. Not after she killed Tryndamere, even tough she wasn´t really sure if he was really dead at this point. Afterall he had taken a blade to the heart and still fought after that, she had never seen something like this. She swung herself ontop of her mount with one last push of fortitude. The wound on her shoulder didn´t go that deep but it bled like hell. Reaching into one of her saddlebags she fetched a bandage and started to cover up the cut. Not really happy with the result Sejuani put them back and breathed heavily. She just wanted to get away from here. She could think about what to do when she was safe and had healed from her injuries.
"Bristle, get us out of this shithole. Out of the Freljord." The Boar grunted in confusion."No, I dont know if I want to ever return to this place" she muttered. 'I dont even know if i wanted to survive this day' she thought to herself before fainting on the back of her furry companion as he started moving.