[se] i got lost to find my way

Noah followed after Deimos, keeping stride with the General as he spoke. Noah nodded, hands lifting to find his pockets. He felt a little more at ease here the longer they spent in the new, strange land. So far, nothing seemed to point toward any danger. "You are right." He agreed, nodding again as if to solidify the statement in his own heart. Deimos was right. Noah shared both sides of the coin in this world. He was both predator and prey, hunter and hunted. He knew very few other attuned who shared this with him. Eira trotted after the pair of men, her long tail waving high above her like a banner. She purred and rubbed against Noah's leg, looking up towards him with a blood stained beak. He smiled down at her, letting the warmth of her golden eyes settle his mind down. "So, what happened to the storm that blocked this place off before?" Noah asked, going back to the conversation he cut off before. Glacier eyes moved from Eira to Deimos, brows lifting some. He wanted to apologize for leaving the topic before, but decided against it. Deimos had given him all of the peace of mind he needed already, and had moved on gracefully. Noah Olson When the night is cold and you feel like no-one knows what it's like to be the only one buried in this hole You can make it to the sunrise

I carried my own ashes to the mountains

The Sword’s eyes went towards the outline on the horizon once more – listening all the while, as he stared upon the expanse of rolling hills, barrows burying something, portions of the world they’d once tried to explore and receiving naught in return. That it was all before them was some other semblance of a gift; stretching beyond their means and measures, and exposing them to another kind of disarray for the future. But he appreciated it for the inquiry, for the knowledge, for the insatiable drive of curiosity laden within his soul – seeking out the unknown, paying homage to the sagacity that came before, and now.

But the how – how the tempests came apart, unraveled, and ceased, how they’d been cleared and departed, still remained a mystery to him. His brows furrowed, concentration contorting, resting there in the ridges, in the absentminded way his hand came to rest in Zuriel’s mane. “Another group tried after ours. They attempted to move underground as well, but did not get very far either.” Deimos’ machinations conspired and curled, never quite resisting the balance of scheming and wondering, recalling Loren’s other insinuations. “Supposedly they felt something in the earth.” And Caido being Caido, that meant anything and everything – from uncanny monsters to wholesome, charitable burros. Thwarted, once more, by the platitudes of potential destruction and treachery. “So I am not certain how this all came to be.” They could surmise all they wanted – inclinations reeling towards the Voice or some other circumstances – but the uncertainty only brewed and hastened further into his midst.

DEIMOS

The world was all so new for the hunter, despite having lived in it for almost 30 years. Halo was a host unto itself -- frozen in its own blockade, surrounded by the sharp points of mountains and herded by the dragons that roamed the mountains. Until a portal opened, he had never ventured further than the tundra and the Sea of Glass. Now, it all seemed limitless. He did know, though, that this limitlessness came with some price. The Voice and her followers, her Ascended, were the ones that made the portals. Noah did not quite understand her -- but knew many other saw her as the villain in their story. He was trying to hold tight to the Old Gods, the ones who gifted him over and over, but he still wanted to understand. "I wonder why this part of the world was veiled from all of us." His own mind wandered up and down different possibilities -- had the Heralds kept this land from them, or had the Voice? Had the Heralds opened this land up, or had the Voice? There was so much he did not know, did not understand. "Deimos," He kept his hands in his pockets as they walked, "What do you make of all this conflict? Between the Old Gods and the Voice?" Noah Olson When the night is cold and you feel like no-one knows what it's like to be the only one buried in this hole You can make it to the sunrise

I carried my own ashes to the mountains

The question curled in his mind too.

Why? Had the storms been placed like the barrier before? To keep the Voice out? To keep the Ascended contained? So they roamed, from one land to the next, with limitations, rather than the intrigue, the knowledge, the insight, but also the potential to do damage? He wasn’t a Natural, hadn’t been immersed in their history, in their tales, until assimilation made it necessary; listening in on the vast array of conspiracies, tales, tragedies, and afflictions. The beast could only herald and conspire with what he knew, what he had, what he’d experienced firsthand – and the uncertainty in all of it still mired and ground against him. “I do not know,” was the only truth he could relay – incapable of making sense of it all. Why now? Why after all these years?

Did it come with a price? Was this just one more strand towards the ominous eaves of crusades?

His long limbs crested over the subtle rise of a hill, and he gazed out over what lay below – more barrows, more mounds, more confusion, more turmoil restlessly clattering against his brain as the words echoed. One hand went back to Zuriel’s mane, and she shook her great head, encouraging scratches, while he ceased movement and motion to ponder the platitudes. “There is something coming. Battle. War. Whatever you want to call it.” Why else would the heralds send their demigods to the Greatwood? Or wherever the Voice originated?

DEIMOS

War. The word waged its own battle within the hunter. His heart throbbed and panged at the idea that Halo and its citizens could be caught in a war for the gods. Noah himself had only just started leaning into the gods for guidance and help -- Frey being his most sought. He didn't understand how deep the dedication had to be for someone to lay down their lives for the ideas of the gods because he himself was not there yet. The Ascended lived so closely to their goddess. Noah knew they needed her for their most basic functions -- without her they would not exist. For him, without the old gods, he would still exist, but without their blessing. He wouldn't have attuned, and wouldn't have the close ties to the earth that he did. The hunter stayed silent for some time, walking along and eying the wondrous new land before him, before finally breaking. "If the war comes to Halo, where do you stand?" Noah finally asked. It was truly an unknown answer for Noah -- in his mind, Deimos was both blessed and cursed by the gods. He held attunement and abandonment simultaneously, each powered greatly in his fists. He did not know where Deimos fell on the spectrum of it all. Noah Olson When the night is cold and you feel like no-one knows what it's like to be the only one buried in this hole You can make it to the sunrise

I carried my own ashes to the mountains

War had been synonymous with the Sword’s life since he was young. Isilme had been plains of hatred sown deep into its roots, with challenges and derision around every corner, with blistering, bestial wakes coiling from its fumes. And while he’d often basked in the sea of his birthright, it didn’t mean he’d ever be immune to the tangibilities of crusades, battles, and invasions. When duty called, he and so many others answered – time and time again – and it stretched into Helovia, where it was just a revolving door of sedition and spite, clarity and malice, vehemence and vengeance. Drums of tactics and calls to arms were in his blood, and he’d never tried to fight the siren wails, the barbaric outcries, or the banners, the emblems, the waves of armaments.

But it was not the same here – and he could understand the apprehension. The distrust. The way the earth wavered and relented, scattered and cringed, yearned to crumble or rose defiantly. All in beckoning blades, or in unpredictable, earnest columns – hoping for a sign that would never come. They could walk amongst these fields of fertile greenery now, be blinded by the beauty and not the onslaught, but for how much longer? How long would it be? What would tip the scales?

So many things had already occurred, winding and winding and winding until they’d arrived here; all waiting for something else to falter and fall into line. And Deimos kept his head high here, as Noah asked, as the filaments of potential weighed across brawn and shoulders all the more. “With the Old Gods.” Certain, sure, precise; an unwavering fortitude in the tone of his voice, in the way it carried over the grass. “I have nothing against the Ascended.” Save for Wessex, though he didn’t consider her the sole distinction of what the race stood for. She just happened to inflict and cause a number of instances. “But the Voice has caused too much damage.” Sickness after sickness, LongNight's monsters, the Mathair incident…perhaps a score of other things he’d yet to realize or understand.

His features immediately turned back to Noah then, arching a brow, breaking apart the veneer of reticence for a moment. “And you?” Where would the Attuned hunter immerse himself? Because at some point, within some layers, there would be a choice. An option. Lines drawn in the sand.

DEIMOS

Noah stopped at Deimos question, too wrapped up in his own mind to think and walk at the same time. He looked out over the fields, at the flowers dancing joyfully in the breeze and sunlight. "Like you, I don't have any fight with the Ascended. I've had favorable experience with all of those I've met, except Neron." Elide, Wessex, and now Kiada -- they were all fine for the hunter. Even his experience with Neron was not negative because of his ascension, rather his tricks with the Eirachi that the rest of the people of Halo paid for. "I don't know much about what the Voice has done, before this newest sickness that she offered healing for." He shifted some, glancing briefly towards Deimos before letting his eyes fall back out to the flowers. "But my blessings from the Old Gods cannot be ignored, and I have been trying to get to know them, and the heralds, better." Halo had made that difficult, before. It was near a godless land, frozen and forsaken. "So...I guess I stand with the Old Gods." Noah Olson When the night is cold and you feel like no-one knows what it's like to be the only one buried in this hole You can make it to the sunrise

I carried my own ashes to the mountains

He ceased movement as Noah stilled; not aware his question had been too puncturing, too piercing. The monolith usually, frequently, knew where he stood amongst the dramatics of the world; eternally certain in his own capabilities and foundations. It was the rest of the world’s motivations that sometimes remained mysteries, and only slid apart in some proportions now, when given thought, when given motion, when given time to extract them from the echoes and vestiges of one’s mind. Perhaps Noah had never had to sink into the same factions as war. Halo had its own history, its own mercies, its own slaughters and wakes, a world nestled in mountains that didn’t hold the same fractures. But it would at some point, in some way, and maybe it was best to know where they lingered now, before thresholds became entirely too murky or defined.

Deimos couldn’t help the snort that ensued from Noah’s statement about Neron. “Was it his leadership?” Or something else – the Launcelyn ties strong and binding, feral and twisting, a surname one didn’t forget – thanks to Zariah, and all her other constituents.

And even if the hunter hadn’t heard the stories surrounding the Voice, the Sword had lived amongst them. “What do you want to know?” Because he had ample amounts to tell, but only if Noah wanted to listen, wanted to learn, wanted to hear the way the earth had twisted back upon itself in her means and measures. Thereafter, at the proclamation, he nodded, eyes shifting back to the horizon, to the skyline, to birds overhead, to barrows in the distance.

DEIMOS

Noah nodded, "In a way, yes. At first we were all hesitant to accept him in the role of Warden. There hadn't been any outlanders before him." Noah's jaw feathered some, "He made a deal with the Eirachi, and when it went sour, the people of Halo paid the consequences for that. The Deepfrost goddess displayed her anger and left us open to the attack from the cultists. We lost a lot of our guard, our warriors, and some citizens, too." He left it at that -- that Neron's poor choices while in the seat of Warden left his people to suffer. The hunter did, however, hold a moral vendetta against the hybrid who was willing to make the deal at all. Not to mention Zariah and her part in all of it, with her willingness to sacrifice a child for her magic school. The memories of it all made a chill run down the hunter's spine. He shifted his weight some before looking to the general. His face was serious, cut from the ice of his homeland. "I want to know what makes you believe going to war with her and her people worth it." Noah Olson When the night is cold and you feel like no-one knows what it's like to be the only one buried in this hole You can make it to the sunrise

I carried my own ashes to the mountains

He’d heard the tale of Neron before; the way it had surmised and spiraled in the same factions as his relative: Zariah. Loren had been the black sheep of the family by sheer demonstration of caring about others – though none of them, not any soul lingering in these worlds, weren’t free of some horrible decision, some weighted burden. “Understandable.” It was a wonder why Neron hadn’t been banished completely from the land – perhaps an agreement between him and Morgan.

But thereafter came the veracity, and he couldn’t help but puncture a hollowed laugh throughout; it ricocheted and volleyed back along the grasslands, where they could stand in a place left untouched for hundreds of years, and discuss something that might’ve left it all to pieces. “You make it sound like there will be a choice, in the end.” To piece together which side they’d stand for – perhaps – but not to be involved at all? With embittered heralds and mighty beacons, demigods assembling defenses, worlds solidified, fortified, for whatever was to come? Who was to say it would be worth it? With all the potential carnage? With all the ominous destruction? With all the impending heartbreak? Deimos had gone to war so many god damned times: for land, for protection, and for vengeance – but he’d never been wound or contorted into a herald’s chain of events. “I can only tell you what I experienced.” And then he glanced upwards, into the sky, watching birds flickering, flying overhead, before reliving the events in his head.

“The Voice had experimented long ago. Those machines became the monsters of LongNight, abandoned, only to roam during those weeks of darkness. Killing those who went outside. Trying to take Ascended parts from their brethren.” He eased a breath, ensured Noah would hear what the travesty was like. "They would tempt others to leave safety - pretend to be a friend, a family member." Committing murder after murder, rampage after rampage; and while it could be avoided, the main justification of it was bizarre anyway. The Naturals had accepted it as just one more necessity – when it shouldn’t have happened at all. “She once released a sickness called the blight. This was different from the latest,” and he tilted his head downward, remembering affliction after affliction. “Loved ones attacked their own. Turned feral. Bloodthirsty.” Kiada, assaulting him; and the Sword striving desperately not to do the same in return. “She never offered any cure, and I remain suspicious that she had her hand in the last too.”

Eyes flickered back to the hunter, and he wished he was done, but Noah had wanted to know. “There was also an incident with the Mathair in the Greatwood. Some Ascended, including Wessex, attacked the tree in attempts to make a portal. The Fae came to defend it, and they were killed.” Which would explain the Fae’s continued resentments. Were there multitudes of things he was missing? Perhaps – his mind flickered back and forth, conjuring the facets; for now, he’d grant the opportunity to digest what he’d said initially.

DEIMOS

The hutner absorbed everything that Deimos said. While Noah did not truly know the depths of Deimos' heart, had not had the time spent shoulder to shoulder with him to know the inner workings of his mind, he still trusted him. He knew his words to be honest, and it was clear to him that Deimos never intended to sway him in any direction that Noah did not want to go, and he had good intentions for Halo and their people. Thus, as he general spoke and detailed what he had encountered with the Voice, Noah simply nodded and let it fall over him. What he was learning was that the new goddess was not to be trusted, even if he had seen her do one good thing. It was a natural disposition to fall on, being born and raised in Halo. Distrust ran deep in the cold blood of his people, and though Noah had always tried to give those around him the benefit of the doubt as much as he could, he didn't think he could extend that nor his curiosity towards the mother of the ascended any longer. His frown set deep on his face, and his jaw set, and he looked out to the fields once more. He took a few steps forward and unsheathed a knife from his belt, crouched down, and began to cut wildflowers at the stem. "I think I will lean into the old gods and their strength moreso now than before." And he would carry this bundle to Frey. Noah Olson When the night is cold and you feel like no-one knows what it's like to be the only one buried in this hole You can make it to the sunrise

I carried my own ashes to the mountains

He waited, as he so often did, in his residual nonchalance, in the modicum of calm, justifiable patience. There was a lot of information to consider, to parse through, and the world wasn’t done yet. Not with the way things alternated – where his suspicions ran deep and cold, calculating and immersed, because he’d been a witness to too many events that scaled great heights and carved illustrious measures. The Voice bringing souls back had seemed a wondrous thing, and he’d been content for a moment too – arms open wide for Kiada to come rushing in. But behind the generosity he presumed there were other manipulations at stake – the earth and realm pawns, the gestures underhanded and consuming.

His companions stilled, muscles tensed, and his gaze went away from the sky, and back to the hunter, cutting wildflowers. The answer from the hunter wasn’t immediate, processing, considering, and the General only arched a brow as the response was finally forthcoming. It’d been enough, at least, for Noah. So he nodded, and the Sword’s eyes went to the ground, amongst the long grass and sprigs, the fertile plains so vivid, so green, so untouched by all their hands for centuries. “Do you have one you favor?” A head tilt; light curiosity and nothing more – no judgement stringing along the neutral tone. Then he began to wind his way back towards Zuriel, checking over her packs, and the young peryton maneuvered alongside.

DEIMOS

Noah chose the flowers he thought would be most fitting for an offering. Beautiful and vibrant, he collected the wildflowers until his bouquet displayed a bit of each flower from the field. Sheathing his knife once more and standing, the hunter used a small piece of leather from his pocket to tie the flowers together. "Frey." He said, lifting the flowers up at the same time. Noah wasn't just picking these to be a centerpiece at his table. No one would be there to appreciate them, anyways. "Phoebe Steadman shared with me how Frey has helped her so much, and Frey has helped Halo, so it seems fitting to me." Of all things Noah was, he was really a helper. Rarely a leader, out in the front of the pack shouting commands and wielding his weapons. He was there to help. to lend a hand a give of his skills and knowledge and craft. It was what he did in life, and he was good at it. Noah Olson When the night is cold and you feel like no-one knows what it's like to be the only one buried in this hole You can make it to the sunrise

I carried my own ashes to the mountains

Frey; not a herald Deimos was overly familiar with. The stories strung along the two-pronged deity weren’t usually ones he orchestrated himself within – and the few times he’d come across the nature angled had been due to Halo’s outreach. Perhaps it was fitting for Noah – a man of the world anyway, hunting and gathering flora and fauna for his people. The General, if he were nosey enough, might’ve asked what Noah sought, but he refrained – nodding and stretching his gaze out over the mounds and barrows, graves of yesteryear and worlds already long since collided.

That Phoebe’s influence extended into the mountain region surprised him, but that wasn’t worth expressing. Instead, he continued to angle onward, while Noah contemplated and completed his flower arrangement, breathing in a deepened sigh, taking in the rolling fields before him, capturing present moments, because they wouldn’t see something like this again in the landscape they called home. In the distance, he could see some motion, some animals, speckled against the green backdrop, and Zuriel raised her head at the notice – ears pricked, nares widening. A sharp neigh filled the silence thereafter, exuding and echoing from his companion, and he shook his head, pointing out her necessity to call out. “Unicorns.”

DEIMOS