#naut

Amongst the snow he hibernated, in the rains he bathed, and in the sunlight he grew his odd plants that sated his hunger.

None who spoke believed what they had seen of him. Those who saw were not believed when they spoke of him. Those who believed revered him as one who should neither be seen nor heard.

Yet...

There came days of fire unto those who dwelt along the edge of his lands. The heat of a warming world had warmed the blood of its children to the point of boiling. They rose in anger against each other, tribe rising against tribe. They sought to own the warmth, relish in the strength it brought, and they wished to to spread it to all lands.

A believer cursed the burners. Blinded with rage for his fallen, and deaf to the roaring flames, he invoked the wrath of the Iron-faced man upon them. His words of a creature immune to the freezing spurred greater fire in the burners and the believer sealed his curse with blood.

The fire spread, far and wide it consumed, and it reached ever closer to the one who dwelt in chosen peace.

A child of the curser ran and ran and ran. Always a step ahead of the grasping flames. The child found the Iron-faced man with heat rising in the distance behind.

The child wept to the man, tears falling on worn boots. Sorrow flooded forth, seeking the means to quench the flame. The tears left to fall upon the earth as the man stepped away, leaving a chill in his wake.

As the flames surged toward the iron obelisk of the freezing lands a new rage entered the world. A quiet rage, a calm rage, a calculated rage, a passionless rage, the rage of a blizzard.

A sword unsheathed from a hoe.

The curse child watched as they witnessed a force they could neither describe nor comprehend. A blizzard rolled out to meet the blaze. The Iron-masked man would quench the untamed flame with blood.

Skilled swordsmanship sliced through scales like the north wind through tattered clothes. An ageless knowledge of the battlefield led the blind on their quest for vengence. The deaf paid no head to the shrieking flames as they buried them with steel tools.

Alas, as steel and snow smother flames they themselves warm. Quenching and tempering comes and makes those who pass through stronger. Harmony leaves the cold lazy to expunge the fire, as its warmth leaves them feeling safe by their hearths.

Soon the cold is no longer welcome, and the iron of swords is better used for farm tools.

In this day, the crusade abandoned and the blizzard hid from, the Iron-masked man left. The curse child, now grown and blessed, spoke not of the man's departure. Neither could the blessed elder believe what was seen on that day. As once hidden sword, cut the air as fabric and stepped to the world hidden beyond the sight of the seers. Leaving the world to its tepid harmony.

-----

Into the tavern wandered a weary traveler. He truged to the bar and sank onto a stool with a soul-shaking sigh. A rusted, boar-faced mask found a resting place on the counter-top, and a sheathed blade was leaned against a crossbar of the stool's legs.

"Its been a while, W," commented an odd cat, as he cleaned a glass with a rag and his twin-tails.

A grunt was the response, as the travelers head rested on the cool wood of the bar.

"The usual then?"

Black hair shifted over tanned olive skin as W nodded against the bar.

Naut set the glass down and called to his assistant.