Winter Short Stories

Winter's Solitude

A deep voice rang through dusk’s head,Let me take over.We will make quick work of slaughtering them...then our quest will be quick success.      

The voice that rang through Dusk’s head is her wolf, Shad,  short for Shadow. Having a wolf is like an eternal companion that allows you to take the form of a werewolf. Shad is a male wolf which it’s is unheard to have a wolf the opposite of your sex.  But she didn’t care. She loves having shad around.

This morning Dusk was sent on a quest to negotiate with a group of bandits to relocate.

“That sounds fun but no, we must try to make peace with them.Princess Daeris’s orders”, she said in her head. Dusk is deeply in love with the princess. She was trained since she was a pup to serve and protect the princess with her own life. Dusk always looks forward to seeing her after each adventure. Her chocolate skin, emerald eyes and auburn locks mesmerize Dusk leaving her in awe in her presence.

Dusk was near the supposed hideout of the bandits when she heard an unholy howl that admitted from the hill side.She unsheathed her sapphire blade creating sparkes and rushed to the source with uncanny speed.

When Dusk arrived to the camp she stopped dead in her tracks,  her countenance was twisted with horror. It wasn’t the fact that the hideout was a fully fledged fort, she had once single handedly killed 100 armed soldiers. It wasn't the stench of rotting corpses and burnt flesh either. Nor was it the fifthteen foot wall that stood between her and whatever unearthly being that was behind the gate. No, she was in a trance of fear because of what was on the gate of the bandit fort.

Purple ice coated the gates creating a small fog across the ground.

The other side of the gate admitted the same howl from before breaking Dusk’s paralysis. She dashed to the wall and jumped on it, using it as a lookout  point. It was a soul stig, a lost soul from cold depths of helheim that only crosses over to midgard by being summoned. It appears She jumped down to meet her opponent.The area around the soul  stig was littered with bodies. It just swallowed the soul of the bandit that was crawling to safety.  

Well that soul made our job a hell of a lot easier. Too bad we couldn't be here for the blood shed,  shad said.

“What do you make of it?” Dusk thought.

We should end it as swiftly as possible and return to Daeris with and warn her. Allow me to lend you my strength, Shad offered.

Dusk took a deep breath, bracing herself for the pain. Her mind drifted as her bones cracked and reformed. Ashen fur sprouted on her olive skin,her eyes turned from sea blue to a pulsing red, her long black hair with streaks of silver melted to her fur. Dusk’s armor is enchanted to move with her shift giving her an appearance still of an elf. With two swipes of her claws the soul was reduced to nothing more than ash.Dusk, still in her werewolf form ran to the kingdom carrying the word of the purple ice.

Dusk you know what the purple ice means. We must find the culprit at once, Shad said with urgency.

She grunted “ I know"

She headed to the kingdom of Pheathia running on all fours, reaching the castle by mid-day.

When dusk arrived to the castle she was greeted by Daeris’s warm,spring-like smile. Dusk admired the princess from a far constantly waiting to catch her eye. Her most trusted knight as a lover, nonetheless a women it was complete nonsense. “To awake seeing a light that is Daeris will be as the day I allow her to be injured. Never.” Dusk thought gravely. Daeris has yet to see dusk without her helm or know her true identity , only one has.