I do not own anything except for any OC's.
The forest was calm and dim. Errant rays of sunlight shot through the heavy cover branches. A hunter moved silently through the thick shadows. The morning frost had made the foliage stiff under her boots, and small puffs of fog rose from her nostrils.
Faye inhaled deeply, sampling the air on her tongue. She could almost taste the stag. There was a bitter musk, nearly undetectable among the mix of scents in the forest. Faye followed the currents of wind where she could catch the scent of her prey. She followed the trail the cloven tracks made in the spongey earth.
Faye crouched, tracing her fingertips along the edges of the hoof-marks. The imprint was nearly as large as her spread palm. A grin quirked on her lips. It would be a large catch today. A creature that size could feed her for months with good preserving. She itched at the anticipation of a new pair of boots, knowing that her current pair wouldn't last much longer. But first, she had to catch the elusive creature.
Wildlife had grown more and more scarce since the Desolation. Each season proved harder to provide enough resources to last through the long cold months. She hovered her hand over the track and focused her senses. Shutting out the forest around her, silencing her mind of the chatter of birds and the babbling streams, Faye could catch the faintest warmth emanating from the earth. She had grown closer to her goal.
Faye bounded through the forest she had come to know so well. Many had winters had passed since her kin had fled Midgard, leaving her to guard the realm alone. Had it been eighty, gods, ninety winters? The exact number escaped Faye's mind.
By now, she knew every rock and every stream. She knew the varieties of every shrub, and herb, and flower. She even knew the names of the trees by heart. The ones forgotten by time and by tongues, ones she could only hear whispered among the branches. They called to Faye now, but in her singular focus, she too had shut them out of her mind.
A stranger walks here, they warned her. But she could not hear their gentle words.
Faye found the stag drinking from a stream, unconscious of her presence as she crouched a couple yards away. A gentle breeze carried the scent of the stag towards her, filling her nose with its musky scent. Strands of auburn hair tickled her cheeks and she knew that she was downwind from the creature.
Faye nocked an arrow then hooked her leather-guarded fingers around the bowstring. On a slow inhale, she reeled her arm back and drew the bow. Holding the bowstring taught, her ice-blue eyes narrowed on the stag's chest. The animal straightened, it's large dewy eyes not seeing the imposing danger. She watched the beast exhale a long puff of fog from its mouth.
A twig snapped in the distance, breaking the spell. The stag froze as it suddenly became hyper-aware of its surroundings.
Before Faye could loose her arrow, a figure burst from the foliage with a howl of rage. At first, Faye thought the beast to be a troll or perhaps a wulver. Her heart pounded in her chest, her instincts caught off guard.
The poor stag released a wail of pain as it was wrestled to the ground by the beast. But it was no beast, Faye realized, but a man. He had a stone grasped in his pale hands. He brought the stone down hard on the stag's skull. Blood exploded from the creature's face.
Though no beast, the man was feral. He roared as he brought the stone down again and again. The sound of bone crunching wetly under the force of impact made Faye nauseous.
She had seen reavers scavenging in the forest and old ruins, but none like this. It all happened in a matter of moments and the stag grew limp under the man.
The stranger remained crouched over the animal, his chest heaving as he panted. She couldn't see much of him except that he wore a makeshift cape of bear-hide and a pack was slung over his back.
Faye released a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Before she could make a swift exit, the man's eye's shifted from the animal. Piercing gold eyes met hers.
Faye's fingers slipped. Shit.
The arrow sang through the air and struck the man in the shoulder. He grunted but didn't seem to take the impact. For a moment, Faye wasn't sure if she had actually shot him.
The man regarded the arrow, grit his teeth, and snapped the shaft off in his fist. Adrenaline flooded Faye's bloodstream, her chest pounding hard. The stranger stood and faced her head-on, his face twisted in rage.
She nocked another arrow.
"Stay back," Faye warned. When she spoke, his expression only soured further. He seemed more annoyed than anything.
She stood amongst the shrubs and other foliage, the space between them feeling immensely smaller. He was a giant of a man, at least a head taller than her and broad with thick bands of muscles.
The man dropped the bloodied stone at his feet. With bloodlust burning in his gaze, he took a step forward. Faye's heart stuck to the downbeat she fired another arrow at him.
This one hit him square in the chest. Again, he didn't seem phased. He took another step, a snarl brewing on his lips.
Her eyes darted to the bloodied, crushed face of the stag to the stranger. The sirens in her mind screamed.
She fired two more arrows in quick succession.
The man dropped to a knee.
Stay down, Faye thought. Though she didn't know how he was still conscious in the first place. This was clearly no ordinary man.
The man looked down at his chest and Faye could see that his mind must have caught up with his body. The energy drained from him almost instantly as his hand gripped an arrow. He winced, saying something under his breath in a language that Faye did not recognize. It was coarse and foreign, escaping her knowledge of all the languages in the nine realms. The rage that was burning inn him before deflated and his golden eyes lulled.
The man drifted backwards as he lost consciousness. He hit the earth with a heavy thud that echoed in Faye's chest. Her heart raced, her mind churned.
Silence returned to the forest.
Suddenly, a sharp twist crawled from Faye's gut, up her spine, to her forehead. She gasped, images flooding her mind.
A young boy with auburn hair and ice-blue eyes darts through the trees. The pale, tattooed man follows him, wielding the Leviathan axe. Her axe.
The images receded like the ebb of a tide. Faye's stomach turned as she looked at the man lying in a heap next to the dead stag.
Indeed, this was no ordinary stranger.