[center][h1][colour=lightblue]Frostbite, Part 1.[/colour][/h1]

[h2]Featuring [u]Sanya[/u][/h2]

[i]A collab between [@AdorableSaucer] and [@Enzayne].[/i][/center]



[hr]

The chill shook her to the bone; a biting wind howling over the tundra that seemed to pierce through her furs and cloth. Sanya trudged forwards through knee-high snow, struggling to pull her feet forwards, staking out a path ahead by sticking [i]Sorrowsting[/i]’s shaft deep into the white wasteland and leaning on it as she walked. It was long past the point of return - there was no way she’d make it back through the canyon on what meagre supplies she had left. However much conflict her heart stirred in the moment, the building worry of facing death at long last - it was too late to change her mind. There was nothing here on the northern edge of the land, no villages to whisper from afar, no sorrow dancing on the wind to distract her.

Just snow, and cold. She exhaled a crisp, painful breath, watching the last heat in her body evaporate in a cloud in front of her. Her fingers gripped her spear - unchanged after all this time - hard, the pain from her forceful grip the only sensation left in her fingers. She wouldn’t last much longer now. The hollowness would finally go away. Her crimes paid for. Forgotten and alone. It was for the best. “You win, goddess,” she muttered to herself, knowing no one was listening to her. If the goddess had ever heard her prayers, she had never shown it.

She trudged like that until the sun glared from it’s highest perch, followed by the sound of snow crushing under her fur-wrapped moccasins. The sun blinded her with unyielding light, bright white snow cutting into her eyes. The slow build of warmth she felt was a lie - she knew that much about surviving in the cold. The fact that she could barely feel her legs told her all she needed to know. Still, she came to a slow stop. Breathing quiet, as her eyelids battled both fatigue and the sharp light bouncing from the snow. Perhaps she’d just lie down right here. Just for a moment. Catch her breath. Perhaps the goddess would finally let her rest. Let her die.

With that, the dark-haired woman fell backwards in the snow, knees giving out to fatigue and her spear failing her. She’d just rest a little while. Or forever. Sanya managed a half-smile, as she closed her eyes.

[hr]

A warm sensation brought life back to Sanya’s body. When she opened her eyes, she saw the ceiling of a tent curtain, likely fashioned from animal skins. The air was humid and soothing, and colouring the soundscape was the pull of an outside storm on the curtains of the tent. There was also a small bubbling sound from the centre of the tent, from which a flickering light danced across the ceiling. 

Was this the afterlife? The thought passed her by only briefly, as her head tilted to watch her surroundings. No - the afterlife wouldn’t bless her with a headache, of that much she was certain. Sanya did her best to sit up, exhaling sharply in the humid tent. Confusion ran through her. “Where-...” she uttered with a hoarse throat.

Next to the fire sat an old woman, hair as white as the snow outside and face as wrinkled as a raisin. With surprising agility, however, she shuffled over to Sanya and shook her head, gently pushing her down while mumbling something in a language Sanya could barely make out. The words were similar to southern tongues, and yet so terribly different. There was one word that stood out, though: “No.”

Sanya groaned in frustration, yet neither her body nor her willpower found purchase enough to battle the old woman in any more than token resistance, and she fell back down under the administration of the crone, too fatigued to make a fuss beyond a sharp exhale. She hadn’t known there were people here, hadn’t felt anything. Had she been so caught up in her own woes? Again? “...Where am I?” the dark-haired highlander managed after a few moments of thought, and immediately regretted it as her throat felt like it was being raked across a stony beach. “..Water?”

Sanya fanned her right hand outwards slowly, and her head twisted slowly when she could not find [i]Sorrowsting[/i] loyally awaiting her embrace. Anxiety began to bubble in her chest, delirious breaths growing quicker.

The old woman had retreated to the fire at the centre of the tent, over which a reindeer stomach sack was suspended from a bone hook hanging from the ceiling. She scooped a wooden bowl into the “pot” and pulled out a bowl full of some sort of stew, which she brought over to Sanya and offered to her, saying something she again didn’t understand, though it sounded imperative. To further indicate what she was saying, she pointed five fingers into her mouth with her opposite hand and repeated the word she had spoken: “Hapmat!”

The woman’s insistence wore down Sanya’s defenses quicker than she had expected, and Sanya found herself weakly accepting the bowl as she watched the woman’s gesture. It wasn’t the first time she had come up against a dialect she couldn’t understand - it was becoming all the more regular as a matter of fact. Some gestures, despite some regional changes, always meant the same. Sanya glanced down to the stew, gently wobbling it back and forth and watching small chunks roll back and forth with brief apprehension. She’d had worse. With that in mind, she lifted the bowl to her lips slowly, and tilted it to taste the offering.

The warm stew left a glowing heat filling her with a little touch of life from inside. Sanya tasted it again with a little more gusto, it was only now she realized how hungry she was. If they had wanted to kill her, they’d have left her in the cold. Had she collapsed? She struggled to remember now, in the heat, and the comfort with food in her hands.

The old woman gave her a reassuring nod as she started drinking. She hobbled back to the fire and continued stirring around with a long femur bone. Then, in a blasting breath of wind, the entry flap of the tent flew open, revealing an entering shadow which grew into a young man, cheeks red and bare from the cold outside. The old woman immediately started chewing him out, and the young man looked humbled by the scolding. In his hands, he held a number of pelts which seemed to be wrapped with sinews around something long and thin. After the old lady seemingly calmed down, the man trod over to Sanya’s side and said his greetings in their unfamiliar tongue. 

Sanya paused as she tried to follow the scolding. It was no use, too many of their words seemed like a strange jumble unlike anything she’d heard in decades, spoken much too quickly for her to catch anything but snippets. If she had to guess, there were a few borrowed phrases from the waterfolk in there, but that too was entirely a shot in the dark - she hadn’t seen one of them for at least… she wasn’t sure any more. Hundreds of years? What did a waterfolk even look like, again? 

Sanya shook out of her daze as the man spoke to her, looking over at him as he stood by her side. Her eyes fell to the furs he carried, before she looked back at the expectant man. The humid air was making her tired, the hot food was a blessing just to hold in her hands that somehow still managed to ache just a little. “...Hello,” she managed in a polite murmur as she lowered the bowl, trying her best to sit upright without jostling too much.

The man looked somewhat confused at what she said and turned to the old lady to ask something. The old lady offered a somewhat loud answer and the man nodded understandingly. He laid the long object on his lap and pointed to his face. He shook his finger a little to make sure Sanya was paying attention before saying, “Sabba”.

There was certainly no mistaking that gesture, she’d been exposed to it countless times as village dolts tried to introduce themselves. She hesitated and studied the young man for a few moments before raising her left hand and pointed at him with her whole hand. “Your name, Sabba,” she repeated clearly, and moved her hand to lay it flat against her own chest. “My name, Sanya.” She wanted to ask more, but stopped herself. She doubted they’d understand. She’d let Sabba think he was directing this meeting.

The man grinned and pointed at her. “Sanya!” He then turned to the old lady and boasted something fierce, mentioning Sanya’s name once or twice. The old lady hummed coarsely back as she gave the stew another taste. The young man then turned back and gestured to the item in his lap, which he began to unpack. It quickly became clear that [i]Sorrowsting[/i] laid within as he plucked off the sinews and pelts. Once it was all unwrapped, he pointed to it and then to her and asked her a question.

Sanya felt her heart skip a beat, eyes transfixed as he unveiled the black-and-silver weapon that had followed her through the millennia. Her hand immediately shot out half-way in an attempt to reach it, but the attempt died down as she reconsidered their hospitality, and she cleared her throat, looking up at the young man properly. With no mind to comprehend his question beyond his pointing, she nodded, and repeated his gesture instead, speaking as she did. “It is mine.”

The young man nodded and laid it down between them, saying some additional words with a smile. With that, he rose up and exited the tent, likely saying farewell to the old lady as he left. The old lady let out a hum in his direction. After a moment, she hobbled over to Sanya, took her bowl, brought it back over to the fire and refilled it. She then hobbled back and offered it to her again, shouting the same phrase: “Hapmat!”

Sanya stroked a few fingers over the spear, watching it in thought as the bowl was taken away from her. The bitter memories of an eternity of crying, hate, and vengeance nagged at the back of her mind. She should have thrown it away long ago. So why didn’t she? Not even when she came out here to die. She accepted the new helping of stew with a forlorn smile, painting over her morose thoughts. [i]Sorrowsting[/i] was as much part of her as her arm, now. It drank deep of her pain, and she carried it to ever new bloodshed. No one else should be enticed to wield such a wicked weapon. Goddess’ favour indeed. She scoffed to herself as she lifted the bowl to her lips once more, closing her eyes to immerse herself in the stew instead.

The warmth was enough to relax the worst of her anxiety. The onslaught of worries could come later, she was tired. She had food, heat, shelter. And the whispers were quiet. However many lived out here in the middle of nowhere, none of them stained Sanya’s presence with pain. Perhaps they had found happiness in a desolate place like this. Sanya relished at the thought as she put the bowl aside, leaning back and laying a hand on the hilt of her spear. Maybe she could learn the language.

[hr]

A week passed like it was nothing to a two millennia old woman, and the tribe she had taken refuge with quickly grew to appreciate her combat prowess. She picked up a few words, primarily names. In addition to Sabba, she now knew the name of the old lady, her caretaker Lehtta. She had also learned the name whom she presumed to be the chieftain, who had come to see her earlier in the week, a middle-aged man known as Tude. She had aided them numerous times, particularly with fending off predators from the reindeer herds the people kept. The tribe itself was known as the Weike, as Sanya had recently heard the chieftain refer to its members as. Sanya had done her best to carry conversations with them, both to impart words of her own, and to learn theirs. As was regular with unknown peoples she had stumbled on before, they often gave up and gestured instead. Still, the tribe, and especially Lehtta, in her own way, seemed to have endless patience with her stern insistence to talk to them in her own language. And she’d caught Sabba looking at her practicing during what little downtime they had. He was either taken with her, or with [i]Sorrowsting[/i]. For his sake, she hoped it was the former.

One day, however, when Sanya was out with the reindeer herders, a beast unlike any which they had seen before came thundering down the hillside - or, correction: Sanya had seen one like it before. This one was somewhat shorter than the one she had met two thousand years ago, but there was no doubt about its breed, for it came in, ate four fully grown reindeer and nearly crushed the two herders in the process. Being ill-prepared, the herders had urged Sanya to help them keep control of the reindeer flock. Sanya felt the same panic grip her as the first time she had seen it. Somewhere deep inside, old memories and ancient hatred rustled free from their prisons and surged through her body with a chill that stood her hairs on end. Nowhere was safe. The eternal enemy of mankind did as it pleased and suffered no repercussions. Even out here, in no man’s land. The others shouted at her in their own language, and she ripped out of her frozen state to watch the creature barrel through. [i]Sorrowsting[/i] gripped tightly, she readied herself to intercept the beast. She knew first-hand what result leaving it alone would have.

The troll stopped its feeding and turned to Sanya, bloodied lips curling into a grin. It stood at least ten metres tall, its face all but obscured by the storm if it hadn’t been for the crimson all over its jaw. The reindeer herders had run some distance away, shouting and shouting Sanya’s way. However, their words were unintelligible. Meanwhile, the troll thundered its way towards the warrior, bringing one of its arms low to scoop her out of the snow.

Perhaps it was the lingering effects of wandering to exhaustion - perhaps she was just rusty. The big creature swung it’s paw and she felt herself leave the ground, her knuckles turning white in their gloves as her grip on her weapon was all she retained. Flashes of the horror she had felt all that time ago turned in her stomach, stirring feelings to life she did not know she was capable of without outside interference anymore. That endless, bottomless hate. Existential dread.

The troll brought her to its head and unleashed a deep, rumbling laughter. It thunders a series of coarse, guttural words in a voice as deep as the ocean itself, sending tremors through Sanya’s body. It then seemed to await an answer for an awkwardly long time, it’s grin turning to a frown over time as it frequently would repeat its words, intermittently adding in questions.

The rumbling thunder of its words were a mockery to the natural order. In her head, Sanya saw the teeth, the shape of its mouth. The casual malice that echoed what she had witnessed so very long ago. The awkward pause was enough to gather her anguish, her hatred, and her courage. Sanya lunged herself through the storm as best she could, an unsteady hand forcing [i]Sorrowsting[/i] towards the lumbering menace’s eye. If the spear had ever wanted to listen to her pain, now was the time.

The troll was quick to pull her away before the spear made contact, clicking its tongue disapprovingly while rumbling some additional mocking remarks, most likely. It unleashed a loud guffaw and flicked her head from side to side with an index finger as though he was tickling her.

The flicks were like getting jostled with a log moving of its own volition, and Sanya struggled to maintain any semblance of balance, and her ability to breathe in the storm. She remembered the terror of-.. what was his name? Saaen? She remembered his face as a beast like this one swept him up from the ground. It toyed with her, like it had toyed with him. Fuming with a frustrated rage, she spun the spear in her hands, and instead jabbed it straight down into the trolls’ palm.

The troll roared, opening his grip and letting her fall into the snow below. The spear had drawn blood, and the troll grit its teeth together at the pain with an intensity that could almost be felt in the air. Its humorous expression turned to one of bestial rage as it once more thundered towards the warrior, only this time with balled fists ready to crush. It would start with a stomp, raising its foot to squash her to pulp. Sanya threw herself forwards, coating herself deep in cold snow to evade the earthquake-like eruption that slammed down where she had landed. She was like an ant to the massive creature, and were it not for the intense hatred stealing all reason from her mind, she would have run long ago.

But Sanya was no more human in demeanour than this bestial creature. With a tame attempt to gain her footing and keep some sort of momentum, she swung her spear again, this time towards the leg that had slammed down where she had stood. It was her best chance, before the beast started swinging. The spear connected, and its divine edge was enough to pierce the stone-like skin of the giant. Blood spilled forth and darkened the snow and the troll clutched its leg in both agony and confusion - never before had a human weapon been able to wound it. Defensively, now, it tried to slap her far away as it began to hobble backwards.

The heavy snow and the biting chill was enough to make her slow. Sanya did her best to get out of the way, but the giant hand caught her easily in the storming weather, and the human woman was sent careening across the tundra with due force, landing at the mercy of a cluster of deep snow with the wind knocked out of her. It took her several moments to even realize what had happened, thoroughly dazed from what had fortunately been a relatively minor assault. She released a heavy, tired breath. Her clothes were beginning to let the chill in. Her body ached with adrenaline and the manhandling the beast had given her. Still, she did her best to fight to her feet.

Her respite would be longer than she may have expected, though, for the troll was gone by the time she returned to its spot, a long trail of blood drops tracing it to what the storm revealed to be surprisingly close mountains. Voices against the wind revealed also that a search party was coming for her. Sanya quickly scrambled in the snow, trudging at due pace towards the trail of blood. Snow-soaked gloves made the cold start biting at her renewed grip around the hilt of [i]Sorrowsting[/i], and it didn’t take many breaths for her to realize how out of breath the encounter had made her. Still, she pushed forward, but it was too late. The beast was gone, and she had barely reached the trail when the voices grew closer. Fatigue began to set in again, against her wishes, and she narrowed her eyes to stare towards the mountains. Now, or tomorrow. It didn’t matter to her. Death was here.

Behind her, a group of hunters came jogging through the snow, led by Sabba wielding a bone-tipped spear. They gathered around her, Sabba being closest. He grabbed her by the shoulder and asked her something she barely understood - it contained the words “are you”, she was fairly certain, but the other words, she couldn’t quite make out. The other hunters used stiff brushes of straw to dust the snow off of her before cloaking her in reindeer pelts. Then, they began to carry her back to the village. Sanya gestured wildly at the trail of blood leading away from the scene, “We can hunt the beast, I wounded it,” she breathed, but knew when that they neither understood nor listened. She tried to quell her tired, hollow rage as they lifted her towards the village, taking Sabba’s hand in her own as he repeated his question. Sabba followed her finger and shook his head as though she had suggested they all jump off a cliff. He replied with a long sentence which started with the most useful of words: “No.” After that, they redoubled their pace back to the village. 

Sanya gave in, feeling the warmth of the pelts and the villager’s efforts mingle with the growing anxiety of the villagers. For just a moment, she reflected on what she felt - it was the first time she felt negative emotions coming from the villagers. Was this what she wrought upon the living? She shook it off as fatigue began to set in properly. She’d convince them to hunt the beast down eventually. They’d see it was for the best. For their safety.

[hr]

[hider=SUMMAree]
Sanya is in the NORF, where she tries to kill herself with coolness. She is picked up by Sami and stuffed in a tent with granny, who gives her soup. She stays there for a week helping the reindeer herders until she encounters a troll, which pwns her until she slices its leg, at which point the troll retreats and she is brought back to the village. 
[/hider]

[hider=Prestigios]
Sanya:
4 + 5 (10k+) = 9 prestige!
[/hider]