[h1][center][color=6ecff6]Svanhild[/color][/center][/h1]
She dreamed of a distant land, of thin grasses dusted with a light brush of snow.

The frigid air clenched around her like a fist, every bit as heavy as the dead beast she carried slung over one shoulder. No sound could be heard for miles around outside of the steady pant of her own breath, and the weighty crunch of her footsteps as she forced her way uphill. A vast and merciless figure loomed above, and sneered down at her struggles with eyes bereft of all compassion.

[i]"Still so frail, Svanhild. You march like a wounded wolf hastening to its own death."[/i]

The girl did not look up. Her advance proceeded unfaltering, even as pain gnawed deep into her muscles and tore at the inner skin of her lungs. She could not slow down, could never slow down, not when one missed step would earn her a beating or lose her a precious meal. In a way this was lucky for her: once she was grown there would be no such merciful punishments for her mistakes.

[color=6ecff6]"I am yet alive, mother,"[/color] she said, between one ragged breath and the next. The top of the hill seemed so distant, further away with every passing moment, and she knew countless more lay beyond it. She spoke for her own sake, to summon up strength where none remained. [color=6ecff6]"The cold and the beasts could not end me, and not once have I ever faltered. When I fall, my journey will live on in hallowed tales, and in the scars I leave upon the world. They will weep for my passing; they will sing my name to the endless heavens."[/color]

She truly believed it, even after all this time. [i]Wanted[/i] to believe, enough that it burned her inside.

Her only answer was a laugh like the cracking of ice. [i]"And who will weep for you, daughter? Who will sing?"[/i] The giant's gaze was unrelenting, a pitiless light that glared through to her very soul. [i]"There is no one left to follow you, and you have nowhere left to go. You live in the dark, broken and lost, and you are alone."[/i] That laughter again, echoing from everywhere at once. Svanhild's mother was gone, and in her place stood a black and bloodied spear, its tip stabbed through a maimed and blue-skinned head that cackled ceaselessly at the girl as a fresh wind stained the landscape red.

[i]"You are alone!"[/i]

[hr]
Awareness returned to her by degrees, a slow and grinding inevitability. Corrupt and fetid air, that lapped against her skin with a sickly warmth incomparable to the chill of her homeland. Voices, hateful voices, speaking a language foreign and foul. Even before she opened her eyes she could guess at the truth of her surroundings, and only with great reluctance did she finally pry her lids apart to greet the sorry sight that awaited.

[i]The woman.[/i] Svanhild would not grace her with her title, though even calling her a living thing felt somehow wrong. Regent of this accursed pit, architect of perpetual despair, slave to the crown and enslaver of all who fell into this abyss: the giantess had every reason to want this creature dead, and now she stood no more than a stride or two before her. In that moment Svanhild wanted nothing more than to lunge forward and snap that monster in half, break her like a twig and dash her brains out across the hard stone floor. Only honed instincts stayed her hand, informing her that if she were to try, she would be dead before she made it a single step.

Instead she lifted her muscular arms, and folded them across her chest. Let her attention turn to some of the others in the chamber, without ever taking her eyes off her despised foe.

She hadn't met all of them before, but rumors had a way of traveling through the Maw, and she could identify most of these people by reputation alone. The savage ogre, a crass brute even taller than Svanhild herself, though she wagered the beast had barely half of her brains. A rotting corpse of a human, who had well earned his evocative nickname. A vile elven witch and a reckless pyromaniac, each seeking to outdo the other in the field of insanity. Not a one of them was worth more than the filth that lined their cells, but their collective presence told her much about the nature of this meeting. Dangerous prisoners, all potential flight risks... Only a fool would gather them together like this for a common execution.

No, this was something special. They were [i]needed[/i] for something.

Svanhild did not waste her breath on pointless words. Unlike many in this room, she could exhibit actual patience, a quality she proved by waiting in silence without moving a millimeter further. Her gaze remained fixed upon her ghastly captor, an unflinching blue glare filled with all the bitter defiance of a monarch trapped in hell.