Valthyr
The hunt for the killer was over, but that only applied as far as the literal, physical realm was concerned. It had left quite the aftermath for Valthyr's mind to work on, but as the remainder of the night had progressed, said mind had had to fence off the threat of being consumed by all the food for thought itself. Just what should he make about this kind of first impression he had gotten ? Was Dawnhaven better or worse and even more challening than what the sketchy rumors reaching his homeland had promised ?
This Ayel guy was a condensed, compacted lump of degenerate arrogance. That was as much for sure as it was hardly a solid foundation to build a general opinion. An absolute outlier of a corner case he would most likely have to deal again later, but just wanted to forget for now.
The next one: the gold-plated, sun-bathed prince of Aurelia. He had run away as if he'd just remembered that the sun was missing because he had stuffed it in his oven to bake his bread more thoroughly and it would be really unfortunate if his majesty would have the ultimate piece of charcoal on his plate the next morning. Valthyr had no idea about Aurelian customs, but wasn't it an idea generally accepted that a leader should... lead ? On the plus side, this turn of events had effectively bailed himself out of any further scrutiny. Maybe the prince and his advisors had already completely forgotten that he even existed ?
A slight shiver ran down Valthyr's spine as he remembered the lump referring to the prince as 'his friend'.
Had it not been for Lord Coswain, Valthyr's already pretty mediocre opinion about nobility would probably have vanished in the deepest, darkest abyss that night. Was he really a noble though or was that a premature assumption based on the man's looks and choice of words ? That utter cluelessness again... Anyway, the druid felt confident to tag him as reliable.
The same he was halfway tempted to do with Orion, but that person was a tad too great of an unknown still. Red eyes and some other features had clearly betrayed his blightborn nature, but the fact in itself did not say much if one considered that he already was a very far cry from the average blightborn just by having more than basic killer instincts left.
And then there was another humble protagonist: his own feet! They had been reminding him for hours that the stage they were forced to act on was way too cold for doing it completely naked, but the availability of a merchant who could provide an almost seven feet tall individual with a pair of boots in the middle of the night and for no coins in return while a general alarm due to a life-threatening event was going on had been rather disappointing to say the least. Valthyr had not been able to just stroll around in wolf-form through Dawnhaven happily either and spending the night in the forest... Nope, he had some concern about his own life left still inside him, too!
Sleeping as an anonymous cat huddled away between some crates had worked for the night, but he really needed to fix that issue and tend to his injured arm now. At least it didn't seem to have become infected yet.
----
In a somewhat secluded corner of Dawnhaven, far enough away from the awakening marketplace, the bustling inn or what he could only suspect to be the nobles' city quarter, Valthyr dug his bare feet into the snow and even deeper into the ground for what he hoped would be one last time.
He could sense life in there. Or at least life that tried to be, hampered by the lack of sunlight, warmth, air and guidance by the steady ebb and flow of summers and winters that had ceased so utterly. He could also sense decay, partly hampered by the same insufficiencies and also by the abscence of its counterpart. They both needed each other to form a circle, but that circle was barely functioning anymore.
He could be the one to set things into motion again. A small set of runes and cryptic symbols cast into the bare dirt using nothing more than a wooden stick and accompanied by an inner chant nobody else could hear, he could effectively replace the sun for the tiny patch of land around him. Who- or whatever had taken the real object away from the sky had apparently completely forgotten that doing so, if anything, had only bolstered Lunarian magic and that contrary to especially Aurelian belief, not all of that was mostly cold, dark or outright eerie.
Although one could argue whether the sight of the earth moving as if thousands of rainworms had spontaneously gathered in an unbreakable frenzy did have a somewhat creepy aspect of its own. Yet Valthyr remained undeterred, letting things happen around the two lower ends of his body. No fauna here, just hypercelerated flora sprouting like it should be. He could sense the roots tingling his skin, soon had to bend down in order to nudge the first tiny, still bright green branches and leaves into the right direction so they would form a self-entangled web.
A gnarled, wooden shoe was still much better than none at all. The somewhat irregular shape could maybe even provide additional grip and he could let it repair itself from not too great damage by just rooting it again. A moderately thick layer of ivy had effectively grown around his feet, sealing them off against the cold and keeping the mud away.
Did that have potential to attract prying eyes and maybe even irritate people ? Probably yes, Valthyr figured. Yet there were more important things to take care off: If he had any intention to prolong his stay here, he also needed some kind of roof above his head. He had seen a lot of construction going on so hiring some artisans and acquiring material would not be an issue if only he had any coin. Or was this all sponsored and if so, by whom ? The gold-plated prince ? Or even worse the lump that wore a crust of cream and geysers of perfume on top of his skin ?
It dawned upon him that there was a shortcut to bypass most of these questions. He had just taken it on the small scale already, so why not do it on the large one ? All he needed was much more patience, a much larger spot to do it and some makeshift accomodation until things were ready for further development.
A spot nobody else would need anymore.
A spot where something large casting a long shadow wouldn't disturb the neighborhood too greatly.
A spot where he had a permit to erect a tree with a tree house on top.
No, not that one! Nobody except Lord Coswain had asked him anything friendly yesterday really. Dawnhaven had mostly just dragged him into things and then spat him out again. He could do a bit of that himself, too. If the gold-plated prince could jump from one task to another so quickly, then the man could also come to him and just ask what he was doing as it happened.
Part of Valthyr felt almost sorry for all the hard-working people putting stone upon stone and cutting one beam of timber after the other. If things worked out as he thought, he could automate most of that at the acceptable cost of a long-term compromise in terms of building shape and general appeal.
Maybe it was best to pick an empty spot somewhere in the vicinity of this Ayel guy's house. He was the one and only person in Dawnhaven Valthyr already was absolutely certain that he would neither need nor desire his 'good will' at any point in the future anymore. Nothing left to ruin anymore was a good start for making sure that no further damage would be dealt. Also finding that residence should be a stupendously easy achievement, right ?