The winds blew that night. Their cold, harsh bites marking everyone who dared to go out. The few brave that did, rushed and pushed to get back inside, as the Hand of the North carressed everything. The dry, harsh winter winds blew in more than just clouds that night.
There came a knock on the door to the tavern. A rampant echoing throught the empty bar. The keeper, who had just put up for the night, stumbled out of his room. He had had one too many ales. When he opened the door to the winds, a ragged and deathly pale man fell in. The tavern keeper, drunkened by this night's ale, picked up the ragged clad stranger and walked crookedly to the foot of the stairs. "Ara-Aven Poppy!", he called to the wench who had just started to work at the tavern. She came swiftly and lightly down the stairs, unlike the pounding, demanding wind which had brought the stranger to the bar. Ara looked at the freezing man and went to gather some blankets and clothes. When she came back, the tavern keeper had placed the stranger on the scrubbed wooden floors. Ara quickly wrapped the thick, woolen blankets around the stranger, and tucked the extra clothes under his head. "I'll go findsum whiskey ter wake 'im up," the tavern keeper mummbled and he walked off to the back room where the whiskey and gin casks where. While the keeper was gone, Ara, being a mage in the elvish sorts, conjured warmth. The spell radiated waves of heat from the palms of her alabaster hands. She placed her hands to the face of the freezing stranger. As she did this, his head tilted towards her hands weaving their spell. Ara smiled at this, such an innocent thing. She moved her hands to his chest, pulsing the spell through his thin shift of a shirt. The stranger, waking slowly, let a small groan of revivement as the keeper walked in with a mug of whiskey. Ara took the mug of whiskey with one hand, carefully so she not spill any on the waking stranger, and held his head up with her other hand. As soon as the whiskey had touched the strangers mouth he coughed and the whiskey sputered from his pale lips. "T-t-thank you so much Miss.....," but Ara had silenced him. She gave in reply ," You need your strength, talking would only take breath from you when you need it most. You are a brave soul facing the Winds on a winter night. Gaia knows how many those wretched winds have taken now." The stranger looked as though he did not know of what she was talking about. " Why do you blame the winds for the deaths of the travelers?" He had asked this in one single handed breath of the air he needed most for recovery. " What do you mean " Ara asked, "You mean to tell me that you do not know of the Curse that has befallen this land? of the wars across the sea?" The stranger had sat up. He looked Ara full in the face..."NO, I dont know of these things for i am not of this land, but from across the World, seeking something."
" It has been weeks since his arrival Ara, when are we going to meet him? " Sera had been pestering Ara ever since he had arrived.
" Kaikin doesnt need to be questioned Sera, he is still very weak from the wounds he suffered from the Winds."
The stranger has a name now, Ara thought to herself. His name is Kaikin Jae, the traveler from across the World in search for something. He hasnt said what yet and why? "Ara...Ara...ARA!!...You need to stop spacing on me!" Sera had poked her hard beneath her arm. "you always seem the leave when you go off and think...even when you are talking to someone you still do it..." Sera laughed silently at her.