Tapestry of the Ages Midlands - Xhorwa's Introduction

[Tiko]

The charred remnants of the village still smoldered beneath Xhorwa's feet as he walked with careful steps and he could feel its heat seeping into the soles of his shoes. There was no end in sight to the destruction that lay all around him, and the smell of the burnt wood was thickly permeated with that of charred flesh. The indiscriminate nature of fire it would seem had left no survivors. Men, women, and children alike lay buried within the charred rubble of their homes.

Why hadn't they fled?

The question would come unbidden to Xhorwa. As unbidden as the disorienting shift in his perception that left flashes of imagery assaulting his senses. Varnathian soldiers where boarding houses shut trapping people within as they begged for their lives. A woman clutching a child was shoved inside her home. A signal from a man riding atop a war horse and the arc of flaming arrows that peppered the rooftops. The screams of the dying.

The imagery wasn't clear, but rather it came in disjointed flashes that where gone almost as soon as they came. But before he could make sense of it though the burnt wreckage of the town was gone in the blink of an eye and he was standing in the open plains of his homeland, mutilated bodies strewn across the ground all around him.

It was a vision that even his blindness could never rid him of, for in the deep recesses of unconsciousness the mind remembered sight. Even a decade was not enough to rid his memories or his dreams of the images of the faces of the fallen.

"You are lost," a rough and gravely voice observed.

The source of the voice was that of a heavily armored draconian woman. She was an imposing individual standing just shy of seven feet tall, and her visage was that of a dragon snout complete with rows of conical teeth and bony protrusions. Her scales where of a vivid crimson red, and a pair of large wings where furled at her back.

Despite her imposing stature, the manner in which she held herself and the weight of her words exuded something of a calm and dignified strength.

 

[Griffith]

The dreams weren’t a foreign thing to Xhorwa.

They’d started around the time where it happened, back in the darkest abyss of days where reality was but a fractured figment engulfed in Xhorwa’s nightmares, the visages of charred bodies and the cries of the fallen wailing unceasingly in his mind’s eye. Xhorwa could not speak for sure how long he was in that state - for all he knew it was probably only a few weeks, two Moons at best - but during those days time had seemed to slow and warp into itself, each fresh new wave of pain compounding on the last until time itself ceased to hold meaning.

Over the years, the dreams slowly ebbed away in its frequency. Where they would plague Xhorwa for weeks on end without reprieve, they would then come once every few days, which then stretched into weeks and months. Despite that, the dreams never once diminished in their ability to transport Xhorwa back to his lowest point, to make him feel as though he was twenty-four again, useless and wretched, watching his whole world burning down and being utterly helpless to stop it.

Xhorwa despised it, he did, but over the years he’s been able to wrest some form of control back from his own treacherous mind. Although he could not rid himself completely of those visions, he’s learned to recognise his dreams as just that- dreams. The imagery always remained the same, like returning to the same pages of a book that’s been turned over in every possible way, and though Xhorwa had no power in the realm of his nightmares he’s learned to hold himself together as best as he could until the visions inevitably faded away and he resurfaced once more in the land of the living, shaking to the core but alive.

So no, the dreams weren’t foreign, not at all. They’ve been with Xhorwa long enough for it to become just another part of his life, however unpleasant it was, and he’s learned to cope with them for it to almost be tolerable.

The dragon woman, however, was new.

He’d been taught of prophetic visions before, divine visitors who graced mortals in times of great need or calling, leaving cryptid messages and half-remembered words meant to guide their path through adversity. This didn’t feel anything like it, and though the dragon woman didn’t look to have any ill intentions, Xhorwa didn’t trust her, especially not as an unknown factor within the realm of his dreams.

“Looks like you’re the one that’s not supposed to be here, lady.” He replied, terseness slipping into his tone, his eyes never once leaving the impressive visage of the woman, watching for miniscule tells that might hint of imminent danger or otherwise malicious intentions. The acrid smell of bloodshed and destruction around them saturated the air, far too vivid even for a usual dream. “Who are you?”

 

[Tiko]

The draconian let out a knowing chuckle at Xhorwa's reply. "I am Taima, and I am where I am meant to be," she explained. "Why do you still linger here?" she inquired of their surroundings.

There was something almost sad in her eyes as she looked upon the open grasslands, and the bodies of the fallen that littered it.

As the pair conversed a sense of unease prickled along Xhorwa's skin and left his hair on end. A chill had crept into the air and the sky was darkening overhead. A glance skyward revealed that the very clouds where beginning to churn and coalesce in a great spiral with them standing at its eye.

In the distance he could hear the howl of distant crag wolves drawn to the carnage, but what should have been a familiar sound held an unusual and unnerving resonance to it.

Taima seemed to pay the changing atmosphere no mind though, nor the sound of the wolves in the distance.

 

[Griffith]

Taima. Xhorwa turned the name over briefly while she spoke, testing the syllables on his tongue. It wasn’t one that he’d heard of before, at least not that he remembered. As far as he knew she was an intruder in a domain that was his burden to bear. And yet... the draconian woman exuded an energy that assured Xhorwa of her presence here, as though she belonged here and always had, in the midst of the burning plain, pristine even when surrounded by war and death. As though she had been waiting for Xhorwa to find her and he was the one that needed to catch up. It was a strange thought that he couldn’t shake once it’d occurred to him.

“Why do I linger?” Taima was looking at him, piercing golden orbs punctuated with reptilian slits. Xhorwa glanced away, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, then turned to meet her gaze again, a bitter smile twisting his lip. “It’s because I can’t rid myself of this prison. Do you think I have a choice?”

As he spoke, however, he could feel the atmosphere shift, a sudden unnatural coldness seeping into their surroundings that immediately set him on high alert. Xhorwa darted a glance upward, taking in the dark clouds swirling to form the beginning of a storm. He heard wolfsong in the distance, but something about it felt distinctly wrong, tinny and sharp in a way that filled Xhorwa with anxiety, some sort of wild animal instinct within him being driven into a frenzy. His hands twitched and he instinctively reached for the handle of his gun, throwing a glance at Taima only to find her gazing idly into the distance, seemingly completely unperturbed by the abrupt shift. His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Are you doing this?” He demanded, courtesy be damned. Taima turned her attention back to Xhorwa, though she remained silent against Xhorwa’s accusation. He pressed on. “What the hell are you?”

 

[Tiko]

"I am not," Taima replied simply. "This is of your own making," she explained. His questions gave her pause as she contemplated her words carefully. "I am a herald," she answered. "Of a future not yet certain. But you are not yet ready."

She gestured over the landscape that lay before them.

"You have more choice than you know," she told him. "But time runs short. There's a storm coming."

The prickling along Xhorwa's skin intensified and he could see the wolves now. Great ravenous black furred beasts that slathered from the mouth with wild crazed looks to their feral eyes. Their bodies where twisted and misshapen- not at all the product of nature - and they where closing in fast on their location.

The wind had grown stronger, whipping around him in violent gusts as he stood unprotected in the open plains of his homeland. The prickling sensation demanded his attention though. The wind, the wolves... they weren't the real threat closing in on him. His instincts screamed at him to wake up.

 

[Griffith]

Hold on, Xhorwa tried to call out to Taima, but he quickly found that no sound would come. No, please, I have no idea what anything you just told me means. I need answers. Try as he might, however, his tongue would not cooperate, and Xhorwa soon found that the world itself was blurring out of focus. The scene before him started to swirl, with Taima in the midst of it all, receding from him like the ebbing of the tides. Her steely, knowing gaze was still upon him. Though Xhorwa tried to reach out, the landscape sifted by his fingers like smoke, and though he tried to struggle against the tide, his legs turned lead-heavy, rooting him in place, and then he was falling, falling-

Xhorwa jerked awake, shaking, the remnants of the dream already slipping away, leaving him with a sinking feeling, like getting doused in ice water during the dead of winter. A full-body shiver washed over him which had nothing to do with the chilly nightime temperature that bit at his skin even through the cover of his cloak. The last afterimages of sight from his dream faded away, and he was once again plunged back into the pitch-darkness that was his reality. Xhorwa, thirty-four, wanderer of the Midlands, and if he didn't shift locations in the next few minutes, a very dead man.

The air was thrumming, a deep vibration that Xhorwa could feel to the very core of his being. Right now, its rhythm was erratic and finicky in the way that usually preceded a rift being torn in the fabric of the world itself, letting in massive, unstable influxes of arcane energy and all manners of unearthly creatures. The small cluster of trees that he'd settled under for the night seemed to have sensed this disturbance as well, an anxious murmuring rustling through their leaves, as though in conversation with each other about the oncoming storm. Xhorwa made quick work of his settlement, shaking off the fallen leaves on his cloak before donning it. He stepped out from under the cover of the branches, letting the full force of the night breeze sting at his face, with which carried in the signs of the storm.

The spike in arcane energy seemed to be coming from the South, slow making its way up North. If the pulsating rhythm of the air was accurate, Xhorwa estimated that he had a half-hour at most before his current location would be engulfed within it. Far too close for comfort, he thought. Especially with a storm this size. Why didn't I wake sooner? At once he thought back to the strange dream that he'd been caught up in the midst of, but almost as soon as it occurred to him he pushed the stray thought back, for there were far more pressing matters at hand than to contemplate over some visions. He had to act quickly, or soon there wouldn't be enough time to even contemplate getting out of the way. Crouching down, he touched his palm lightly to the earth.

"Give me a sign," he whispered.

The blades of grass underneath his palm seemed to shiver under his touch. The answer was slow to come - it always was - but when it came it was an ancient rumble beyond worldly words that was not spoken, but known - and Xhorwa knew. West it is, then. He didn't like the idea of moving further inland towards the Capital, but Xhorwa knew better than to doubt the directions he'd been given. It wasn't his first foray into the more unstable parts of the Midlands, after all. With a small flourish he set out into the distance, his brisk steps lightfooted and leaving behind nary a rustle in his wake.