In the middle of Freljord, after visiting with his family for a few hours, a man kissed his wife and turned to face the cold expanse between his home village and the one up north. The walk was not too far, but he knew there was always a danger in traveling out. If the winter's icy grasp was not enough to rid one of their life, the treacherous trolls and soldiers who waved the flag of the Winter's Claw was plenty to do so. Had the frozen lakes been big enough in either town to accommodate the massive populations, there would be no need to keep the camps separated; however, for the time being, residents had to be limited.
Latching his poison coated knife into his sheath, the man looked to the distance and began his march. His snow shoes kept him from sinking too far into the ground while his thick coat and gloves kept him warm despite the subzero temperatures. He was one of the few unfortunate families who were not allowed to sleep in the same village as his family due to the limited space. He had volunteered due to the fact that he knew had he left it up to a raffle of some sort, a larger family or one with younger children than him would have had to sleep separately. Normally, he would not have taken off so early, but a storm was predicted to set in soon and he felt it best to be in his home before night fell.
The walk over was not long by length, but knowledge that the weather conditions may prevent him from returning to his family for a few days, forced the hike to become a journey. He always hoped that the geologists had just been incorrect, but he knew better than to bank on such petty hopes by this point in time. Rarely were they wrong, and usually what was incorrect, if anything at all, was the extremity of the storm and not its occurrence.
Once he was back in his small house-like structure, he sat and stared at the walls for awhile. He had done his work for the village today and he was not sure what he had left to do. In a few hours, he would not be able to venture outside safely, so if he had anything that he wanted to do, he would have to do so soon. After contemplating options for a brief period of time, he decided that he did not want to do anything other than return to his wife and boy, and the fastest way to do that was to lie down and hope that his body remained asleep for as long as possible. Unfortunately for him, that did not happen as he wanted it to.
Midway through the night, he was awoken by noises outside. He heard sounds of steel clashing and people screaming. Immediately, he got out of bed and rummaged through his belongings to pull out his sword and armor. He quickly strapped on his shoulder pad and donned the leather chest plate and leggings. He double checked that his poison tipped knife was still in its place besides his hip, and he rushed out of his home. He had never needed the poisonous knife, but he always kept it on him. He knew that one day he would face a foe too strong for him to beat with pure strength, and he was not going to allow something as simple as war ethics to get in the way of him surviving long enough to return home to his family. The poison was supposed to be strong enough to take down a mammoth, and would cause the one injected to thrash about in a mindless rampage as the toxins set into the very brain of its target. Essentially, it was a last hope tool that he was positive would be able to get him out of a rough situation.
After he got outside, his heart sank deep into his chest when he realized that his worst nightmare had come true; his village was being invaded. The flag that bore the Avarosan symbol swayed in the wind as it always did, but this time it was ablaze. He looked around in a panic as he saw the people that he had lived his whole life with running around frantically and fighting for their lives. In the middle of the town a woman in full armor sat upon a large boar that was decked out for war. She was not partaking in the pillaging, but she was keeping careful watch of her surroundings.
The man stood in shock as he watched the structures around him crumble and the people before him fight to the death. He was not sure what to make of it. The fight was clearly lost, and he knew that the strength of Sejuani, the woman standing in the middle of the town who led the Winter's Claw, was not one to be trifled with. He dropped his sword to his side and looked at the ground. The snow covered wastes were not forgiving enough to wake him out of a dream. The smoke in the sky billowed out from his life set aflame and he did the only thing he thought would allow him to survive; he approached Sejuani.
She looked down at the unarmed man as he walked up to the side of her boar. He was not afraid like half of the men who approached her were. This meant one of two things to Sejuani: he wanted to join the Winter's Claw, or he was a stupidly brave and devoted man to his belief in Avarosa.
She did not respond to his approach with hostility. Her face held the same expression that it did while she watched her army destroy the village, but her head shifted slightly downward. Her silvery hair was short, but it still managed to sway in the wind where it was exposed around the edges of her helmet. Other than that, nothing on her face moved. She did not even blink as the snow was carried into her face from the night's harsh gale.
"What," she asked in a manner that may as well have been a statement. The man was flustered and unsure as how to proceed. He did not want to beg for a chance to survive as that would show weakness; which was something that Sejuani sought to put an end to. He also did not want to let her know that he had no intention of joining her forces and to aid her in these slaughters of innocent people. He asked what he truly wanted to know.
"Why?" he inquired.
"I asked your village's leader if he wanted to join forces with me. He told me no. I told him he either becomes part of the Winter's Claw or I test him and his people's strength against me and my squad. He replied that he had women and children here. I told him that I cared not, for those raised in weakness, become weak. He spat at me and started to stammer some nonsense, so I struck him down. Is that what you asked me?" Sejuani's response almost took the man off of his feet. He was not sure how he should respond to her. He was actually asking why she did what she did, and believed what she believed, but he knew that the answer laid within the context of what she had just told him; she wanted everyone who lived in Freljord to be strong enough to survive on their own, not because something allowed them to.
"Well?" she barked at him due to the long pause. A tear rolled down his cheek as he knew it was hopeless. It froze to his face before it fell to the ground and he looked up into Sejuani's eyes as said his last words.
"May Avarosa be generous to you in the afterlife," he stated. She rolled her eyes at him.
"You fools worship the ideology of Avarosa as if she were a goddess. She lived, and like everyone else, she died. Now it is your turn. See for yourself how generous this imagined entity is." Sejuani rose her flail, made out of nothing more than true ice – an ice imbued with magic whose temperature is so cold that it can never melt – and with one swift swing allowed it to crack into the side of the man's skull. He crumpled to the ground and his crimson blood stained the snow around him. She shook her head and turned to leave the village. She had not intended to kill the man; she generally left the villages deprived of all resources and forced to survive on their own. But the men always chose to fight her, and that was when blood had to be shed.
She looked over her shoulder as her boar continued to trod along the snow, and saw that the man was not quite dead. She was not going to go back to him. If he was strong enough to survive such a blow, perhaps his thick headed stubbornness was a feature to be overlooked and he deserved to survive. He clambered about and dug a knife out of a sheath along his hip. He held it up to the wind and stared at it. His gaze bounced all over the place as he held the blade. Clearly, the impact was taking its toll on his vision. He took the arm back and threw the knife into the air. Sejuani sighed as she saw the blade flop helplessly through the air. It was not even coming close to her, and it was probably going to fall short. Sejuani turned her boar about to face the man as the blade fell towards her. The boar opened its mouth and caught the knife, as if it were a dog catching a ball, then ingested the petty weapon and turned to go on its way. Sejuani swayed lightly from side to side as the massive creature's weight shifted about with her on top of it. She guided the boar out of the town and the remainder of her soldiers finished their duties and fell in behind her. Without even bothering to look and see if the man was still alive after his attempted heroism, she left the village in silence and allowed the blizzard to engulf her and cover her tracks with the fiercely falling snow.