Cold air and a rough wool served to awaken Yomir to the cruel world about him. He jolted upright, shaking and shivering and expecting agony to befall him but found that for the first time since awoke on the mountain, he was entirely physically comfortable... cold aside. "What... how... is this wool?" Pulling his hands out of the blankets around him, he grasped the fabric, taking in the scratchy but warm fabric in near awe.

It was only when he heard a rough crackle, that he shifted his attention outward.

The room was large, wooden and there was a beautiful fire in the center. It radiated a gentle heat that he barely felt, but could see wafting through the room. Carvings covered the walls, each of various types of animals... birds of prey and wolves and bears... animas he had never seen but somehow knew of with vivid detail. He could almost hear their calls, feel their cries... he knew of them well. A Rug, much like the one he had tripped on, lay in front of the fire. It was layered in the most beautiful and ornate colors, each one impossibly vivid. The love woven into each and every fiber was intense, the patience, the skill... it was a lot.

"Beautiful..."

And it was, even afraid and hungry as he was becoming, he felt the beauty of this place much as he saw it. The dressers carved from delicate wood, horns twisted and carved into decorative pieces. Animal skins dipped and dyed and drawn upon to create wonderous pieces of art, mostly depicting war and conflict. It was brutal and violent, honoring the simplicity of life and death, a concept newly close to his heart...

Brutal but beautiful.

"Thank you." The voice that made him jump came closer and closer, the clattering of her thick feet ( for it was definitely a her) signaled her approach. Soon she was entirely in the fire's light. Taller then any man, her face was thick and rounded with a harsh grey color to her face, beautiful black horns spiraled around her face in a much more delicate manner then the other Urgals he had slain. Her eyes were still boarish, yellow and primal... but again there was a clear trace of beauty about them. Her hair was long and grey, falling past her shoulders in a braid.

She looked like a Goddess of the Hunt, wise, primal and powerful.

"Your welcome..."

She smiled, sitting next to him, a strange Gragra sound coming from her throat. "Not many humans would ever consider my home, my people beautiful... and yet that is what you just did." Her voice held a clear accent, this was not her first tongue, but listening to her speak made it clear that she could speak it as clearly as he could. She had a gift for languages, one he instantly envied.

"Beauty is beauty, it doesn't matter who...wait... you just said that you..." He shivered, recoiling away from the women even as he felt the same power from earlier return, burning into his limbs, shaking off his comfort and making him hyperaware. "You were in my thoughts?"

That odd Gragrah sound burst from her throat. "Few would have noticed that. You are wise beyond your years, a warrior in mind if not body... " That sound came from her again and he finally realized that it was akin to laughter. Then it stopped and fear returned, a fear that doubled when she turned her eyes entirely on him. "We found you in one of our homes, bleeding and near death. You slipped past our guard and apparently down a tree... after slaying two of our kin... we should have killed you on sight."

He shivered, then went cold as his heat stretched to his arms and legs. Some part of his soul started to imagine flying at her, ducking low to avoid her horn, latching onto her back and using his strength to choke her out... he measured the distance perfectly and knew that he would make it...

'But at what cost?'

The Words came to him, and he knew they were not his own.

He flew across the room, reaching the fireplace before collapsing as waves of sheer exhaustion overtook him. "What... why... how..."

"Magic by your tongue." The Urgal female strode towards him, kneeling enough to grasp his chin, raising it towards her. "I am a shaman, I bear the gift of magic. My name is Herndall Reygua and you are a threat to my people... and yet you may of use. I can smell the radiance of the Shade's magic upon your skin. You have been blessed by him!" Her tone had shifted, an animalistic growl. Hate filled it, and the longer she spoke the less human she sounded. As if it had taken a great effort to sound human, to sound like a person. "Why shouldn't I rip you apart you lacked-horned teat suckling, yellow bellied leech! You betrayed him, left his side for your own selfish needs!"

Tight claws clamped across his throat... and he understood.

'This is why she saved me... she wanted to see me awake, so she could enjoy my suffering...'

Then it stopped, the women's claw turned into a soft brush against his cheek. She pulled him from the floor, into her warm arms, setting him down against the bed. Whispered words sent warmth through his injured throat.

"We are not monsters, despite what your people believe. You are a child, and I read your mind...you killed our cubs but only to feed. You do not remember Durza, and for that and that alone I will allow you to live. You will stay here. We serve the great Durza here and you shall be the same." She brushed his head once more, then left, slowly and sweetly.

It was in that moment that he realized something horrible...why she did not sound like the younger Urgal's he had slain, why she sounded far too human, why he almost recognized her voice, why she had the power to so easily subdue him with magic, why she seemed so erratic and irrational one moment and entirely composed the next...

'Durza is working through her, just as he had done with me...'

Fear only exploded within him as the Shade's distant laughter returned to his mind, along with the words 'Look into a mirror... '

Shaking, he moved his gave, desperately trying to find such an object. It only took a moment, he found what he sought in the far side of the room, towards the door. Slowly, he moved towards it, free from the gaze of Herndall Reygua. Horrified, he stalled just shy of the mirror, almost unable to even take the chance.

It was only Durza's mocking laughter that got him to stare directly at himself, and when he did all of his hope evaporated and he consigned himself to his fate.

Red hair covered his once bald dome, the same shade as Durza's as were his eyebrows. His skin was almost see through, with countless veins visible behind it. His eyes were haunted, with deep black bags and bloodshot veins throughout his eyes. Broken bloodvessels covered his face, decorating his cheekbones. He was almost as small as he had once been, only this time he was covered in a thin layer of muscle and scars. Hundreds of scars...

Many, many of which were clearly self inflicted.

"Why could I not see these before..." He allowed his hands to roam, touching the scars... and he realized, absently, that most of them had been covered with crusted blood before. "What did I do to myself?" Then he saw them, scars thick and agonizing and all too familiar thanks to his recent visit with Durza. " How long... how long did I have... how long was I chained to that wall..."

Laughter, cold and cruel filled his mind, leaving him to his horror with one more message.

"Remember, Little Bird, keep my interest. Powerful though you are, even you cannot fight your way through an army of Urgals, especially when I am at their head. Keep my interest... if you wish to continue living.'

Chapter end, tell me what you think in the reviews.

This was a fun, short and powerful chapter that I think has set up his story well. I cannot wait to flesh it out more and more!

What is he?

Love, your Ninja Overlord,

Mika.