Booming laughter filled the wooden halls.
"A-and then I said to the Warlord; well, I guess I should consider you ruthless!" Jolder continued. Timur, quaking with laughter buried his face in his arms upon the table.
"And she had the card behind her back the whole time!" Saladin laughed, thumping his fellow Titan on the back. Skorri, who'd recently come to Old Chicago out of curiosity for the Iron Lords, couldn't stifle her giggles.
"That's so mean!" she laughed. "Poor Warlord, missing his Babe Ruth card because of mean old Jolder!"
"Hey! I'm not old!" the she-Titan protested. "Just because I was born several centuries ago, doesn't mean I'm a geezer!"
Silence.
Timur could contain himself no longer, and burst out laughing, as did the rest of them. The young Warlock fell off his perch. Radegast poked his head into the room, and grinned.
"Telling our guest the Babe Ruth Warlord tale?" he asked.
"What kind of welcoming committee would we be if we didn't?" Jolder chuckled, as their leader came into the room fully.
"Always a good tale. Skorri, may I have a word outside with you?" he asked. The laughter died down as Skorri left the table, though Timur was still snickering into his arms. Radegast led her outside, laughter still within her.
Skorri was a bit of a traveling hermit bard of sorts. She had all the powers of a Warlock, but she wore old, torn cloths, layers of cloth stitched and tied to her. Her blue face was dirty, but bright with laughter, and her messy light brown hair was done up in a ragged bun. She was, at second glance, painfully thin as well; she'd seen better days. Radegast had been more than happy to take her in, soaking and shivering in the rain on the doorstep of their base.
"Perun says she enjoyed your song in the mess hall. It was quite beautiful." he told her. Her smile broadened.
"Glad to hear it. I think I used to do it a lot, before I died. Entertain people, I mean. By singing." she said. "Not to say it's all I can do; I wouldn't have made it this far if I couldn't hold my own. The Fallen are... merciless."
"Indeed they are." he agreed with a nod as they walked. Rain pounded on the roof, the sound echoing as they entered a large, circular room; the main entrance of the Iron Lord's base of operations in Old Chicago. Out of here, they sent members of their small alliance across the world to where they were needed. They spent a majority of their time looking for new members or trying to expand of repair the base. Even now, they saw a young Hunter set a bucket down next to a couch, then sit down and continue to sharpen his knife as water dripped into the metal can.
There was a large hearth in the center of the room, a few recently arrived Iron Lords gathered around it. Wet cloaks of Hunters were hung on a long row of pegs near the large, wooden double doors. Skorri had been offered dry clothing upon her arrival, but had declined. Perhaps, with all these strangers, she was paranoid. Traveling on ones own in a hostile world tended to do that to a person; it was reasonable. Even now, she clung with strange paranoia to the sack slung over her back, the small lute with a broken string strapped to it as well.
"I daresay, you need a better base!" she exclaimed, eyes on the Hunter who had gotten the bucket. Radegast shook his head mournfully.
"There are, unfortunately, very few of us with a natural skill for building. There's one of the new guys, of course; Siimar, I believe his name was, who has some ideas, but something tells me this base will not work as a permanent residence." he said. H looked at her.
"You may be a traveling bard, Skorri. But aloneness if for the Hunters; not someone with a Warlock mindset and skill. And it doesn't look as if your travels have been to kind to you. I saw the way you ate tonight, as if this were the first time you've eaten in years. You claim to be able to fight, but look in a mirror, at yourself; how long would you be able to hold off the Fallen, in your current state. I will not force you to stay here, Skorri, but please consider it. You're skilled; any fool can see that. But every tree needs nurturing. I... would hate to see you wither." he told her, putting one hand on her shoulder. It was true; she'd displayed her skills for him to see earlier, and she was talented with solar energy, as if her Light could sing just as well as she could.
His hand on her shoulder... he could feel every bone, every joint through her cloths. Even if she declines, we should offer her shelter a few nights; perhaps weeks, so long as she needs. She wasn't a threat, or a Warlord. Just a traveling bard fallen on hard times. He could imagine, easily, her life; village to village, keeping her head low so the Warlords didn't notice another chosen in their borders. She would sing at a local tavern in exchange for food or shelter, and leave before the Warlords caught wind of her.
It was no life for someone with her skill; if she'd truly survived the Fallen on her own for as long as she had, she must either be very good at sneaking, or very good at fighting. The things she might be able to teach their Warlocks, if she decided to stay!
"I do like it here..." she said slowly. "Lets say... I'll give it a few days. I'm seriously considering it, Lord Radegast."
He smiled. "I'm glad to hear it. You are good company, Skorri. I would look forwards to another one of your songs at dinner tomorrow. That is, if you're feeling up to it."
"More than up to it, sir." she told him, beaming.
"Very well. The guest quarters are this way, until you make a final decision." he waved an arm in the direction of one of the halls branching off from the main entryway.
"Guest quarters? You keep guests here sometimes?" she asked as they walked along.
"People like you." he nodded. "Who haven't decided yet. Sometimes we shelter traveling Hunters, or Warlords we're trying to convince to join us. Once, we kept an entire village in here, when this place was still being built; closest thing to shelter we could provide. It was early days, we were all off on another mission, and the Fallen attacked a nearby village while we were gone. Bretomart and Deidris did what they could, but by the time Ashraven and I returned, there was little we could do aside from help evacuate."
"How many of you are there? Right now?" she inquired as they made their down the hall.
"You've met Jolder, Timur, Saladin and I. There's Perun, Deidris, Bretomart, Ashraven. Silimar's around here somewhere, newly revived, head full of ideas. Titan, to his core. That Hunter you saw was Haakon, and I think one of those guys near the fire was Lady River, but I can't be sure. "he shrugged." I haven't memorized all their names quite yet; a daunting thing about leadership, the names. I suppose there are about twenty of us right now."
"Twenty!" Skorri gasped. "But this place- I was expecting at least fifty!"
"We hope to be that large someday; that's what all the extra space is for." he said grimly. He stopped at a door, and opened it for her. There was a bed neatly made for her, tantalizing and warm to someone who probably hadn't seen a bed in months. One door near the back led to a restroom(aka, a pot; plumming was an ongoing development), and rain pounded against the window heavily, as if trying to break the glass down and get at it's victims. The room was warm from the heat one of the resident Sunsingers had let off; he'd gotten frustrated with walking into every room cold, so he'd run through the whole place in a radiance-induced fit.
He had a feeling that "Weyloran the Living Heating Unit" was not going to go away any time soon.
"As you can see, here are the fresh robes you declined earlier." he said, waving a hand in the direction of the set laid out on her bed, along with something more casual. "Should you decide to wash, Lord Weyloran went on a... well, let's call it an OCD spree earlier this week; he put a map of the base out in the main entrance, for our convenience. The baths should be up near the right corner, and if you see him, don't ask him for directions; you'll get an hour-long lecture on the poor design of this place instead."
This earned a giggle from the Warlock. "And what does Lord Weyloran look like?"
"You'll know him when you see him. You'll be hearing whispers of 'heating unit' everywhere he goes."
"I was wondering what that was about!" she laughed. Radegast smiled at her.
"I truly hope you decide to stay, Skorri. Until then, farewell and goodnight." he told her, placing his hand on her shoulder once more before leaving. Skorri closed the door, back up against it. She looked around the room, and smiled.
"Goodnight, Lords of Iron." she whispered. "And... thank you."
Okay, here we are; Skorri, in all her glory! I always pictured her a traveling bard/warrior combo before joining up with the Iron Lords.
And before you yell at me that this is not their correct base; Felwinter peak wasn't ALWAYS where they lived. There WAS a time before he was one of them. We only know that Radegast, Perun, Saladin, Jolder, Deidris, and Bretomart were the original six Iron lords, from Radegast's grimiore.
It triggers my OCD that we now have all this new information about the Iron Wolves, but they don't have pages on the wiki.
And YES, we will see some GheleonxSkorri action here. No need to worry. *rolls eyes* Tell me I didn't start an ultra popular ship with that one-shot? Tell me there isn't going to be wave upon wave of Ghelorri one-shot like some fandoms do, please? Oh dear, what HAVE I started?
Okay, Ahamkara is just like Ood, got it; singular and plural.
Hope you guys look forwards to the next chapter!
Read and REVIEW!