Of all the stories surrounding the Deepfrost season, the one of the Luxere intrigued him the most. Maybe it was their mythical properties, where he’d never had an opportunity to land his eyes on any others (dragons were rare, unicorns were scarce, and monsters reigned supreme across many lands), or the promised gilded antlers, extending through midnight oils, pushing past the deep lacquer of furtive twilights. Or perhaps, and the most likely of all, was that they were the direct opposite of him: light instead of dark, gentle instead of savage, angelic, beatific, and blessed, instead of twisted, desolate, and forlorn.
He once sought out pinnacles of compassion and quietude, the hushed incitements of laughter and the spring, rain showers cascading in rivulets down his face; but once it was lost, he hadn’t bothered again. What would’ve been the point? He’d tended to his sorrow, to his brooding, to his collected anguish because it was so much easier to linger in the agony, instead of moving on, forgetting, and liberating himself from the pain. He never quite gave himself the permission of absolution or clemency. He didn’t deserve it.
But the curiosity nettled him, scorched at his bones, for the chance, for the opportunity to see something otherworldly, ethereal, to be witness to something other than death and desecration. It’d been his life, his forged sword, his penchant for violence, for upheaval, for mayhem and menace. So the Reaper would understand if none came near, if they backed away from his presence as many others did, but he was still willing to try.
The warrior had scouted out the woodlands area, hoping to find an open copse, a welcoming glade, where one of them might stray under the cover of moonlight. As the hours whittled away, dawn sliding to dusk, he’d put out a few flakes of hay, spreading them across the snowy, wooded ground, placing a few apples in the center, pondering if this would lure them further into the midst. He couldn’t cloak his existence, his presence, however, except to duck behind a few boulders and wait – the epitome of patience, face drawn into its routine nonchalance.
