[Quest] the mountain and the stag

[Torstein]

"Speech..." — Thoughts... — Circe's telepathic speech.
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Torstein did not often come to the Plains; there was something about its vastness, the almost unending rolling wave of grass, that did not sit well with the Solterran. Maybe it was too alive. But today, he came here unsure of what it was that actually pulled him to this distant place.... feet lost in the wander of his own step, mind lost in the echo of his heartbeat. 

As he stood at the bottom of a great, expansive hill, the clouds roiled above. The entire journey here they had rumbled and groaned, and quietly the soldier had wished for the rain. It was the last bit of reprieve he could ask for on his trek and oh how welcome it would be, the sand having choked his throat for so long. Even when you leave the Mors... it really never does leave you, does it?

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So there he stood and aimlessly wondered why he had even trekked to this place. And as if the slumbering gods had heard him - the lightning illuminated a figure far ahead, perched precariously at the top of a long sloping hill. The soldier's attention was immediately grabbed, all three eyes focusing on the figure amid the whipping wind and drizzling rain. 

Said unknown creature was not someone that Tor was familiar with, and initially, he was just going to write him off as another wanderer like himself. His gaze dropped away and he looked towards the treeline, quietly wondering to himself if he should investigate the nearby fore-

The stranger's bellow abruptly caught his own thoughts off guard, his attention and gaze snapping back towards them as his ears slicked back against the expanse of his crest. Such an odd thing, for strangers to be so aggressive... and Tor was caught off guard even more so when he actually charged. The ex-warden's eyes narrowed and teke reached for his dagger, unsheathing it from the holster on his leg. 

He felt the ground shake, both from the weight of the other's steps and the thunder that snarled angrily overhead. But Torstein was not made a warden by him backing down, so the stallion steadied himself with his dagger grasped firmly in his teke.

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The thrill coursing through his veins was unreal, jolting him awake with an intense course of adrenaline. The stranger met the stallion head-on, but with so much time in his charge Tor was able to anticipate and skirt almost effortlessly aside, dagger outstretched to slice along the antlered stranger's side. He heard the other's anguished cry and his heartbeat thrummed. His heartbeat and his dagger.

As the stranger stumbled and tried to right himself, Tor stole a glance down at the large dagger grasped firmly before him. It hummed, a sound almost serenely shrill, and pulsed in an intense glow. 

That's new. 

And then he stole a glance back up, the thrumming of his heart and the humming of his dagger making his lips twitch into an almost twisted smile. The stranger had been unable to right himself, unable to regain his footing as he anguished and writhed on the ground. Red, red, red from his shoulder, across his ribcage, to his hip - flayed, raw, and open.

So Torstein approached, three eyes staring into the soul of the downed stranger who looked pensively back up at him like a caged animal. For a pregnant moment, they stood in silence regarding one another with the ex-warden's blood-soaked dagger held firmly between them.

"Welcome to Novus, stranger," dripped from sanguine lips. 

Then his dagger found its place, lodged between the stranger's ribs and into his heart with the antlered stallions wailing cry.

@Random Events
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