This far into the mystical, ancient swamps, it was almost impossible to keep one’s bearings. The huntress’s compass spun wildly when she checked it, like a petulant child’s mood, refusing to settle on the direction of true north. She navigated where she could by the stars far above, and the rising and setting of Esyon and Cereth, the ever-present blue and red moons high in the night sky, but even that was problematic.

The local tribes revered them as sacred. The not-so-local tribes revered them as important. She revered them as useful for reflecting the light so she could see where she was going, but here? The tree canopy grew so thick and cutting overhead in nature’s constant fight for sunlight that glimpses of them for guidance or otherwise were fleeting, like a squirrel darting between trees.

The air down here was cold, the snow that lined the spaces between trees never truly thawing fully. What little fell through the canopy tended to stay where it landed until disturbed by herself or some other creature of the woods. Tree cats were a problem, as were the Iron boars and other predators that stalked the ancient woods.

She did not fear them, though. She was no frightened lamb, despite appearances. 

The huntress may have been little, but she was skilled, bold and had taken prey many times her own size in the past. Even the Suntouched Arvians with whom she often worked respected her skills, and knew better than to underestimate her creativity when it came to a fight.

She kept her short bow in her paws and with an arrow resting against the string, as she had since she entered these lands. Her cloven hooves made only the faintest of crunches as she pressed forward in the blanketing snow, owing to her years of honing her skills. She could be as silent as a feline prowling and even give the Arvian scout cadres a challenge.

This was her third hunt for this particularly elusive quarry, but the reward was enough to set one up for life.

Assuming her quarry existed at all. She had exhausted the Loresingers and libraries both in her quest to see if there was any merit to the stories.

On her first hunt, she felt eyes upon her when she searched this place. Still, in the end, she found no signs that anything at all had even the slightest hint of unnatural disturbance. She’d been almost put off but couldn’t shake that feeling that she had been this close to finding some vital hint. She was certain she’d been staring at the veil, but it had refused to yield under her intense scrutiny. No secrets had been revealed to her.

Arvians were stealthy, but they did not simply vanish from the world without a trace. If this one did not exist, then it would put a sincere damper on all of the Arvian tribe's stories dating back as far as history went. She had expected a shrine, a marker, a note carved into the bark of a tree—something!

And yet, her first hunt left her wondering truly if they had existed at all.

On her second hunt, she had spent a week among the ancient trees. Reaching a point that she felt was good, she set camp and explored further from there. At first, it went the same as her prior hunt. Six days among the trees, six days looking for signs or clues… Legitimately, anything to make it worth the effort. She was disappointingly met with six days of nothing but her own thoughts, childing her as a fool for trying to find a myth.

She had cross-referenced dozens of tomes, some that she’d had to request access to under the watchful eyes of the documents’ Arvian guardians, delicately turning pages that should have rightly fallen to pieces decades prior.

This was absolutely the place, if anywhere was even remotely close. That was not in question.

Yet, the reality on the ground did not fit the lore that she knew. Perhaps it was so long ago that the forest had reclaimed all of the traces of the First that once existed here.

Or, perhaps, there was some other trickery at play.

She had expected perhaps to find a final resting place or some sacred place forgotten by the ages. Ruins buried in the snow or overtaken by plants, reclaimed by nature to hide their true nature.

What she had not expected was to return to camp on her last day to find a white and black striped hackle feather standing straight up in the cold ashes of her campfire. She'd not slept that night, sitting beneath her sheltered lean-to in the light of the fire, her bow drawn in her lap. The shadows had taunted her like phantoms of wicked spirits, always moving and creeping close, retreating when she wheeled on them.

But if ever there was a more unmistakable sign that she was on the right course, that was absolutely it. She hid the feather away in her belongings, consulting no one, trusting no one with its existence. She treated it like a cursed and taboo thing, keeping it secret while silently holding and marvelling over it in the silence of her tavern room.

But if the stories were true, seldom and rare were Arvians with such a feather pattern. Pure white Arvians stood out like a sore thumb, even among a crowd of their own kind.

She didn’t know any white feathers as pure a white as this, who she had met or otherwise.

Save for The First Loresinger.

She had been on edge the entire time she’d returned to civilisation, and even then, she only stayed long enough to gather supplies together and head right back out. The trail was fresh, and she didn’t want to give her quarry’s tracks a chance to turn cold again.

This time, she hadn’t seen anything, at least not yet. She had set her camp in the same place as her last outing and stalked out through the trees, following… Something.

Navigation might have been almost impossible, but what she followed was something more primal. A hunch. Intuition. A gut feeling. Perhaps it was even the way the breeze wafted between the trunks of trees that were older than even her ancestors.

But it was frustrating. The lamb felt led on, like a horse following the mere promise of a carrot, without having ever seen or even smelled the carrot.

She huffed, lifting her ornate mask from over her eyes, the plate of crafted metal resting between her ears atop her head. She growled into the perpetual twilight, yanking the white hackle feather from her belt, shouting as if she were curing the forest itself. The wind whipped up, threatening to steal her voice away as snow gusted into the air, as white as the hackle held at arm's length before her.

“I got your damned feather! I know you are out here! Show yourself!” She snapped, tired of this back-and-forth game of cat and mouse that she had been playing with the shadows.

The wind stilled suddenly. Silence reigned through the mighty trees.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose with the sense of a prey animal that knew it was being hunted and that the stakes had suddenly become far, far more real.

She waited for an attack that never came. Minutes passed, holding perfectly still save for the tension on her bowstring. Her cloven feet pressed down a circle in the snow as she turned in place, watching every gap in the trees for the slightest hint of movement. But nothing moved, not even the trees. The area had become entirely silent.

She cautiously took a single step forward when the world fell out from underneath her with a sudden crack and a roar of tumbling earth and snow like an avalanche, pouring in to bury the huntress. And then, as suddenly as the commotion had erupted, the small part of the forest lay still once more, as if nothing had ever disturbed it.

———————————————

Dying was spoken of in many cultures as an experience in itself. Quiet and peaceful, or violent and sudden. The fact that the ewe could still taste dirt and plant matter in her mouth told her this wasn’t the experience she had undergone. She was alive, and her body was reminding her of that with an acute level of discomfort.

Kassandra came to with a sputter, rolling over quickly and retching, spitting twigs, snow, and pine needles from her dainty muzzle. She wiped her face on her sleeve, leaving a smirt of dirt of half-melted snow on her cloak’s arm. It was already soaked, and the leather of her cloak had sat long enough in the snow mound she found herself in to be stiff and cold.

She dug around in the snow for a few moments. Her mask, she found half-buried and snatched it up with a shake to dislodge the snow, quickly slipping it back into place across her face. Fortunately, her bow had survived her tumble. It was lodged in the snow beside her, unbroken as if by some minor miracle. She pulled it free, testing the tension of the string a few times before she checked over the body of her weapon for any signs of cracks or bending.

It hadn’t failed her yet and was not destined to this day either. She reached back and drew an arrow from her quiver, notching it. There were far fewer in the leather tube than she had begun with. A few scattered arrows she found nearby, but others were outright gone or broken, their shafts’ snapped in her fall-

She paused and looked up. The night sky was still visible through the canopy here. She couldn’t have fallen, at least not-

She turned, looking back at the snow mound, or where it had been at least. The ground was flat once again; any evidence of the pile she’d awoken in was as gone as her missing arrows.

Something is watching you. Kassandra’s hunter's instincts and subconscious warned her, but she was already dropping to a knee, the arrow drawn back against her cheek. She loosed it with a soft exhale as the string twanged quietly.

The arrow flew off into the darkness between trees before it vanished from sight entirely. She didn’t even hear a noise of it striking anything.

Kass cursed under her breath, rising back up.

It’s just nerves. Go and get your damn arrow.

Wherever she was, it wasn’t making sense like it should have been. The woods were as silent as a crypt, but even those had telltale noises and the soft whistling of the wind.

Against the silence, her footsteps seemed deafeningly loud as she marched forward, following the flight of her arrow.

She found the bright guide feather sticking from the ground fifty feet past the tree where the shaft had lodged itself into the ground and knelt to retrieve it, her eyes scanning the forest around her. A single white feather fluttered down right in front of her eyes, almost landing on her, a single black stripe splitting it horizontally towards the tip. It settled delicately atop the snow by where her arrow had landed, mocking her with an icy chill that raced along her spine.

She spun, drawing and raising her bow upwards, searching the canopy.

A voice called out to her, seeming to come from everywhere at once while a faint blue light circled her high up in the trees.

The words didn’t click at once. They were spoken in a guttural tongue of cries, clacks, clicks, and halting birdsong, a tongue not used by Arvians or anybody else for a very long time. She kept turning, trying to pinpoint the voice's source as it repeated itself. This time, she translated it faster, keeping her bow raised, the arrow drawn against her cheek.

“You/Foe/Stranger, Declare yourself. Why/What/How/ Here? Do/Will/Might you share-fire as Not Prey/Not Food/Do not Eat, else Clash/Fight/Battle.”

“One here to hunt you.” The little lamb snarled through grit teeth. She looked calm, but in truth, she was rattled. Her heart raced. Fights against Arvians especially were often determined by who got the drop on the other first.

And she had definitely been caught off guard by this one.

The wind around her whipped up for a moment, sending a spray of powdery snow up and beneath her mask, forcing the huntress to turn and shield her face. She dived and rolled, expecting an attack in her moment of blindness, but none came, the wind stilling once more.

“A fool then, perhaps.” The chilling voice dismissed her threatening tone, warbling in that unique way Arvians did like the words themselves were spoken with a mocking chuckle.

Quick as a coiled viper, she pivoted in place, practice and muscle memory taking over in the fluid and rehearsed motion.

The arrow she fired was perfect, barely flexing at all as it left her bow, aimed squarely at the sternum of the Arvian, who stood maybe thirty paces from her. It was an easy shot. A child could have made it without a fear of missing. She knew the shot was true as she traced its path with her eyes.

The arrow soared gracefully with deadly intent, like a hawk diving on unsuspecting prey from on high, soundless. Her heart beat rapidly. A single bead of sweat formed beneath her mask. This was her moment. What all of her training and preparations had led up to.

This was her kill…

…and he swatted the arrow from the air with the back of his paw as if to shoo an annoying gnat from before him. His face was set like stone, a slight scowl of disappointment upon the snowy white Arvian’s beak. He stared her down, and under his gaze, she didn’t even dare reach for another arrow to try and repeat that trick.

From the tree beside her came a cackling, sharp chirp of birdsong. The little ethereal, glowing dreampal seemed to stare her down with the same intensity. For the most part, many Arvians’ spirit companions took the form of peaceful creatures of the woods.

This one, though, was a shrike- a butcher bird. The apparent symbolism of such a small creature being a predator wasn’t lost on her.

“Don’t shed blood in this grove. You’re treading sacred ground.” The Arvian spoke to her in a deep, rich voice that growled the warning unambiguously. His hackles were raised, and his eyes glowed faintly with whatever latent magic the Arvian possessed. Arcs of electricity traced between those long, white feathers cresting his head and neck.

Quietly, the sheep lowered her bow, huffing with irritation. After a moment, the sparks that traced The form like lightning between trees faded as well, the glow suffixing his eyes fading. He stared at her with an Arvians expression that was hard to read. Curiosity? Confusion? Reservation, perhaps? There were a lot of questions in those eyes, but the desire to fight was curiously absent. Most nomad Arvians would fight beak and claw to stay undisturbed.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” She asked bluntly.

The Arvian chuckled, tossing his head back to laugh. His dreampal flew across to perch upon the hulking bird's shoulder. He reached a finger up, delicately petting the small spirit creature along its back.

“There’s been nobody else in this sanctum for a very long time. What does that make you, hmm? Who, more importantly, does that make you?” 

The Arvian towered over as she took a hesitant step forward, standing an easy eight and some feet tall with his hackles lowered. His pelt was as pure white as the scatterings of snow around him marked only with black stripes across his feathers and tail that swished dangerously behind him as he watched her with cautious fascination.

“How… How long, exactly?” She asked. She kept her grip on her bow tight. The unspoken truce was uneasy at best, but even a fool could see that she was very, very outmatched. It was one thing to fight an Arvian prepared, and even then, without the element of surprise, she didn’t favour those odds, least of all in her current state.

“Who, exactly?” He proposed the trade with what she took as amusement, turning as he slowly began to walk back between the trees, giving a slight gesture with his taloned hand to beckon her to follow.

“Kassandra. I’m… A bounty hunter.” She offered after a hesitant pause, slowly walking forward, following the Arvian's almost entirely silent footfalls. He walked with the silent grace that came from walking with one's own footsteps and knowing them to be too loud. Her own were feather-light and still deafening by comparison.

“Not here, you’re not. You’re a lamb who has become lost in the woods. There is no bounty for you here.”  The Arvian chuffed with a note of amusement, his hackles raising as he chuckled. She still had her bow in paw, and yet, the Arvian had no fear of turning his back to her, almost as if he knew something she didn’t.

“And what about you? Who are you exactly? There are no Arvian settlements, Suntouched or Moonkissed, within three days of here.”

“You know who I am, or else you wouldn’t be here to search for me.” He replied with rolling, warble-like laughter.

“All the same, I’d like to hear it from you. How long have you been here?” Kassandra huffed, frowning behind her mask as she stopped, staring down the Arvian.

He paused mid-stride, slowly turning to face her, before slowly lowering himself to one knee. His dreampal looked around upon his broad shoulders, chittering as if irritated. Firm, golden eyes that sparkled with intelligence and wisdom of ages rooted her to the spot.

“By my reckoning, over a hundred and fifty passings of the twin eclipse. My name is Blajn. And you, little lamb, are not supposed to be here, nor can you stay here.” He tutted, almost seeming impatient with her, turning and rising with a flick of his hackles. His dreampal chirped once, almost mockingly, before bounding from his shoulder and vanishing into the air, as dreampals were like to do when they grew bored of something.

That gave the sheep pause.

A hundred and fifty twin eclipses? Kassandra’s mind reeled as she worked the math out. Those only happened every three or four years, though… That would mean-

“You’re saying you’re four hundred years old?” There was a note of disbelief in her tone, her eyes looking at him wide behind the mask that covered her face. He seemed to be able to tell, too.

“Oh, more than that, I’d say. Time passes slowly here. It is hard to say when there is nothing else to mark its passage, and there has been nobody but myself since I left my home… You’re here. I’m sure you know the story.”

Kassandra frowned. “No. Nobody did. Just whispers and hearsay and myths. It was said you vanished-“

Blajn huffed at that, shaking his mighty head and hackles. “Oh, and they threw me such a nice going away party as well… Though I suspect any who were there at the time might tell you it was just a small thing. They’ve all long since joined the spirits if it has been as long as you say.” 

There was a note of sadness in the Elder Arvian’s voice that was impossible to disguise, a longing for what was and yet never could be. Here was this mythical figure before here, regarded so highly by so many as such a wellspring of information and legend, made painfully mortal by the loss of all that he had known… Yet something curious nagged at the little huntress, her short tail giving a swish as she looked his figure over once more.

“So why haven’t you gone back?” She asked.

She could see the way the question made his hackles bristle, like static just before a lightning strike, and the slight twitch to his muscles.

He didn’t answer at once, and when he did, it was merely to deflect her question, shunning her from pursuing the trail of thought further.

“I presume you hunt, little lamb, yes? You have a bow, and you found me true enough. Tales are best told around a fire, and I’m in the mood for deer. There was a herd not far from here.” He gestured her onwards with a flick of his talons, pointedly leaving her question unanswered.

For now, she could tell the conversation was over. Her hunt had not gone as expected, and without a clear path forward or any idea of what she would do next, she let her feet guide her instead. She had more questions, but they would need to wait.

———————————

The deer were found quickly enough. Blajn himself had brought no bow and merely watched on like her old archery instructor had, arms folded and gazing at her the entire time rather than the stag she had picked out from the herd. It might have just been her, but the Arvian looked weary, tired like the weight of his years pressed down on him, and yet, he pressed on, nodding at her prey.

She made the shot cleanly, and in silence, the Arvian had nodded his approval of her technique before marching to the felled beast and finishing its mortal struggles with a quick slice of his talons across its throat. A short thanks to the spirits had followed before he’d effortlessly tossed the prey across his shoulders and started marching deeper still into the woods.

”Follow. We need to be getting back.” He started with the barest hint of urgency.

”Where are we going?” Kassandra asked, fixing her mask as she struggled to keep pace. It took nearly four of her strides merely to keep pace for every step the Arvian took.

”My gilded cage… You will see.” He answered cryptically. There were no apparent markers or trails here that he followed. However, his ears twitched occasionally as if straining for the chords of some distant song that only he could hear. They carried on this way until she could have no more found her way back to the herd than she could have found her way back to wherever her camp was.

And then, all at once, she did see, and the change was dramatic as it was sudden.

It was like walking through the surface of a pool of water, stepping into a chill sensation as the small ewe passed through the magical barrier. There had been no warning, no indication that anything of the sort was there. Yet the sudden and dramatic shift in temperature and scenery shocked her enough that she recoiled a moment, feeling her trailing foot still in the snow on the other side.

She staggered forward as Blajn merely chuckled from up ahead. 

“Mind the first step.”

But that was the absolute furthest from her mind as she looked around in almost wonderment.

”How… How is this possible?”

Blajn stopped by his lean-to, a thick sheet of leather pitched between two moss-covered trees. It had all the trappings of a well-established camp, including a small fire pit that seemed to be fed from the roots of the trees around it. Crickets chirped softly against a backdrop of the tiny forest biome’s background noise and insects and songbirds one would not find in the snow just beyond the magical barrier.

It was warm here, bright and welcoming, like the countryside in the spring. Green grass grew up to her ankles, and ferns and other plants that seemed out of place grew and thrived in the unnatural greenhouse created by some very, very powerful magic.

“Welcome to my home, my pretty, gilded cage.” He huffed, sitting by a large, flat stone to carve and prepare the meat. There were baskets of fruits and forage from the woods around as well, and an intricate, handmade set of simple shelves to keep it all.

Kassandra frowned at that. Blajn merely gestured to a spot on the grass beside 

”Why gilded? Why a cage? Is this how you-“

”This is how the -spirits- have preserved me. Hidden, alone, tethered to this place. I thought I found it by chance, but once I entered, I could not leave, at least not for long. If I stray too long, it drains me, like the weight of all my years slowly pushing me down. They assure me that my persistence here is for a reason. They simply do not share it.”

Kassandra tilted her head.

”I thought you Arvians were supposed to be in good with the spirits? Isn’t that your entire thing? The spirits bless you so you can help do their will or something? I’ve heard the sermons.”

Blajn chuffed sharply through his nares, a bitter amusement to his tone.

”Something like that, yes. And you are the first to have found this place since, which means there must be something about you as well that has caught their attention.” He added, tapping his beak wryly. “Arvian feathers do not fall idly. I would not simply credit your being here to chance, after all.”

The ewe frowned at that behind her mask. She had never had a particularly vested interest in the spirits. She’d seen plenty of Dreampals, and even the wild, unformed sort deep in the wilderness when she was hunting, but never had interactions with them beyond that.

Thinking on it, too much of it felt like the Loresinger was probably correct. That thought was more considerable and more concerning than even he had been when she’d first seen him. Had she been played? Merely an unwitting and able pawn for the spirits to pull around the world like a marionette on its strings? Had this entire hunt been influenced by their doing?

The worst part was that the chance of that was less than zero. She could not rule it out entirely. There were much larger games being played than merely those moves she could perceive.

Blajn seemed to read her thoughts as the Arvian looked over to her, the white strands of the fur of his paws stained red from butchering the carcass.

“Think about it. I didn’t know you were after me your first time out here, yet I felt an inkling to go and check regardless. The second time, my dreampal plucked one of my hackle feathers and left it for you to find, and now this time? You collapse from a snowfall and just happen to appear before me again.” He gave a low huff, and with a mere gesture of his talons, the fire sprung to life. Kass watched cautiously. She’d seen Arvians do magic before, but the ease with which Blajn did it made her second guess her original goal of hunting the mighty, almost mythical Loresinger.

“And now you are here. I don’t put much faith in that being a coincidence. You are meant to be here, and now the question is why?” Blajn turned his head, looking at the merrily twittering form of his dreampal sitting on a branch nearby. He tutted a few notes of birdsong, interspersed with words of the Arvian language that Kassandra barely caught.

A flurry of irritated birdsong shot back from the little spirit companion before it took off from its perch and vanished from sight with a barely perceivable pop.

“As I said.” He gestured to the now vacant branch with a dismissive grunt before he returned to preparing the deer. “They do not share their reasons. Only that it’s important.”

Kassandra shook her head, still trying to wrap her head around it all.

”I do not know… Didn’t know. Couldn’t have known. I expected to find maybe a burial mound, a shrine, something that proved you had lived, and now…”

“And now you are as tangled in their plans as I, little lamb, like it or not.”

Kassandra didn’t like the implications of it at all and sat quietly while Blajn roasted the meat strips over the fire, and together they ate in silence. Some part of her understood the role of the guest here. In breaking bread with the Loresinger, she’d inadvertently entered into that oldest of pacts. It would be wrong of her to try and complete the job now.

She’d simply have to tell them she found nothing. There was no other real option. Even hinting that she’d seen anything would just lead to others trying to do the same. While the spirits were crafty and determined, she doubted they could hide Blajn’s gilded cage from every curious glory seeker.

When conversation did resume, it wasn’t deep and weighted with the gravitas of the Loresinger’s burdens. He asked of his old home, and the ewe told him what she knew, that the tribe had moved. He asked of the Suntouched, and so she spoke of the Sunkeep and the settlements north of the great dividing river. He asked of his Moonkissed kin, and so she told him what news she had heard. 

He asked of many things, some deep and serious, matters of sacred rites still performed and the passage of time. Others, of lighthearted matters, what foods were popular. What the passing of seasons looked like from her home. What new learnings and techniques had been developed. If celebrations of the twin eclipses were still a week long and filled with revelry.

She answered as best she could, and food disappeared as it was offered. She saved her own questions in turn. Blajn had been out of touch with the world for longer than her or her sire’s lifetimes combined.

She yawned softly, almost prematurely. How late had the day grown? It did not seem to have been all that long since she arrived, and yet, she could feel the weight of exhaustion from the revelations of the day pressing down on her heavily.

Blajn seemed to notice the change in her demeanour.

”You cannot stay here. My companion warns me that if you do, the same malady holding me here will claim you, as it does me if I leave.” The ancient Loresinger nodded and pointed towards her while he spoke in his deep, melodic voice.

Kassandra frowned, shaking her head to try and clear the fog behind her eyes.

”What about you then?”

”I must stay here. My role is not done yet, for better or worse. When the time comes, I am sure that it will all become clear.” He offered with a wry smile curling the edges of his beak, slowly rising to his feet. The Arvian simply dwarfed her in every measure of stature.

Even with all the power behind his movements, the offered hand was kind as he reached down to help her to her feet.

Slowly, he led her back towards the edge of the clearing. The further she went from the hidden grotto, the clearer her thoughts became, like early morning clouds lifting.

When they stopped at the edge of the woods, beyond the shimmering barrier and at the edge of Blajn’s permitted freedom, she turned, regarding the brilliant white Arvian in a new light. To the east, the sun had begun to rise on a new day.

“And what if I wished to come back?”

Blajn chuckled and nodded to the feather that she’d tucked into her belt loops.

“Oh… You’re a good hunter. I’m sure you can find me. I would not say no to the company.” There was an implicit trust in his tone. He knew she would not speak of this encounter.

Who would believe her even if she did?

“Soon then.” She said, turning towards home. “I’ll return-”

She stopped, turning back. The forest had changed, leaving her standing in the clearing where she had been moments before the snow underfoot had given way. 

The Loresinger was gone, leaving nothing but a single white feather standing where it had been planted upright in the snow.

When she did return next, it would be expected. Shouldering her pack, Kass headed back towards civilization, trying to devise a convincing story as to why she had returned empty-handed.