Public A Screaming Scene

[Vulpesen]

Location: Deep in the Forests, Southwest of Dunwyn
Objective: Silence a Rogue Banshee
Progress: About ready to scream in frustration

He had been wandering for hours. How he had been wandering for hours when his target had staked its claim on a single river, Vulpesen had absolutely no clue. All he knew was what his lord had told him. The people of the nearby cities and settlements were becoming restless. Iron was being forged in higher supplies and precautions against the fae were on the rise. It made life for the local fair folk inconvenient. The source of this wariness came in the voice and claws of a local banshee who had grown a bit big for her tattered skirts. In his experience, their kind were often quite kind, insightful and blessed lovely voices when they weren't screaming. Their prophetic sight led to them often being wise and introspective. Growing up, he had felt his heart break as he witnessed their tears. They felt such sadness in the passing of those they saw in their visions. Whatever this particular banshee had seen; however, had turned that sadness into rage.

Mortals did not like being warned of death. They hated when that warning was followed by killing. Bodies had been found torn asunder as if by an animal, but without a bite of flesh having been nibbled, and with blood leaking from their ears. The investigation of Varos's agents had also found other signs of the faes' influence on the mortal realm. Vulpesen had been sent to place that influence back into balance. So, there he was. Wandering from one bank of the local river to the other, his golden eyes scanning the trees for signs of a white dress and his pointed ears twitching for a sign of wailing or crying.

 

[Haaki Skorrson]

HAAKI SKORRSON
"The Snærsverð"
Vulpesen ​

The forest did not welcome him.

It bent, subtly branches leaning away from his passing, birds long since fallen silent, even the river seeming to hush as it curled through root and stone. The air carried that same wrongness he had followed for hours now. Copper and sorrow, death not yet settled. And beneath it...

Her.

The Wolf Prince moved like something that did not belong among men anymore. Water still clung to him in places, dark furs heavy at his shoulders, his tunic wracked and soaked from the river's violence. The current had tried to take him. The thing in the water had tried harder. He had not forgotten the feel of it, the scream that was not sound but force, the way it tore men apart without fang or blade. Good warrior were dragged beneath the surface or left twitching in the shallows, blood leaking from their ears as if their very spirits had been ripped loose. The Snow-Sword had crawled from that river alone, a displaced predator now on the hunt. A low breath escaped him, slow and controlled, though there was nothing calm behind it. His pale blue eyes, cut through the treeline ahead. The honed senses of a wolf-coated berserker, a hunter of men, and now, something else.

Movement.

No, presence. Haaki did not step quietly. He arrived. Boot to root, iron to earth, he emerged from the treeline behind Vulpesen like a shadow given weight. Tall. Broad. Cloaked in wolf pelts darkened by water and blood, strands of pale hair hanging wild against his face. His hand rested near the hilt of his axe, though it did not yet draw. For a moment, he said nothing, he studied, a sudden arrival with no trace of from whence he came.

Golden eyes. Fae-touched. Not prey.

His voice, when it came, was low, rough as frostbitten steel.

"...You hunt it too."

Not a question.

Haaki stepped closer to the riverbank, gaze shifting briefly to the slow-moving current, as if remembering the moment it swallowed him. His jaw tightened.

 

[Vulpesen]

Vulpesen's ears flicked to a presence behind him, rumbling and crashing through the brush like a boar. It comforted him to know that the banshee hadn't gotten the jump on him, but he knew enough about the treads of nature to know a human's steps when he heard it. He whirled about, a dagger whispering from its sheathe as he faced the Northman. His other hand was placed firmly on his hilt, a natural precaution given the reaction that humans often had to his kind.

Still, it was only a moment later that he eased his posture and sheathed the small weapon back into his baldric. In this massive man he could sense a shared purpose not an adversary. "You could say that." Hunting suggested a desire to kill. If possible, he was hoping for a peaceful solution. Of course, that didn't mean that he would endanger himself or others to achieve that solution.

His golden eyes dared over the human's body, his tail flicking curiously behind him. "Should I assume you've had a recent encounter?" The poor man was still sopping wet and dripping water onto the grass and turf beneath his feet. Banshees weren't known for drowning their victims, but that didn't mean that an encounter wouldn't leave one soaked considering their general proximity to water.

Haaki Skorrson