"Come time again, man celebrates a new beginning, the next year in the lives of all whom were left behind by the fortunate enough to pass on.", as the sound of crunching snow grows louder, now beginning to sound more akin to someone taking a big bite out of a bell-pepper, truly a disgusting sound, one could finally make out the distant flames of a settlement hidden in the tundra's deathly guard.

"I've travelled the world, I've seen what none can and none have and what none should or could or would - yet one place I avoid. Like a claw in my mind that scrapes across my brain whenever I even think it.

That accursed place, born in ice and frost, 'the edge of the world' the first people called it, they say the settlement can only be seen at night, as that is when its light shines bright and new, that the day's snow covers up even the tiniest pebbles that one would wish to see of it. The edge of the world, the loneliest settlement in Ormmenia - Night's Edge, those old tales always intrigued me, for man travelled far enough to settle into the most unlivable of areas - seeped into the tiniest pore of this world, and for what?", silence grows for a moment, no answer given to the question or its originator. The origin of the monologue answers their own question, gleefully so as the lights of Night's Edge grow, though barely so. Such a small difference that one would need to be blessed to see it, the only noticeable difference now became the fact the journey led downhill at last.

"To show he was strong, to show his hate for the natural order! To say - 'This world is mine and mine alone, shall no God or no Devil even try to take it away!'

Truth be told - I envy men, vampires, the undead, werefolk and all those who are still mortal, but most of all I envy the weak, the old and the deceased. Powerlessness breeds want, and once you've all the power you can wish for, your wants turn to yourself. Is it happiness, to see the fear on the faces of those who follow your footsteps, thinking they'll find a lonely wolf to slay, only for it to be a creature so great and terrible that man had not yet made its name. Is it strength to burn down what you do not stand for? Destroying the contrarian, being left alone to sulk in your own impure, untrue thoughts. Maybe strength is recognizing that they are indeed false, lies and lies, but only to yourself. Maybe, none of this matters at all really? I wouldn't know if I were honest, not yet...

I will know, though. I will learn it and I will behold the ultimate truth soon enough! Night's Edge is the key, it must be. Night's Edge is the solution, that's the only way. The settlement calls my name, and even the Nameless God should it wake could not pry me away from my journey towards it. Something is wrong with that place, or maybe not, whatever it is about it, I can hear its song, I can see its calls and feel its poison seeping onto my lips. Those lonely lights, melting away the thick night's fog, burning away snow, snowflake by snowflake as they transform into thicker-than-normal droplets of rain, it's almost hypnotic. I can feel my eyes brewing tears the more I stare at it from such a distance unblinking. Yet, my tears freeze into thick, painful growths on the edges of my eyes, blurring my vision. I often found myself wondering what it was like to die again, maybe this is what it's like to freeze over? I heard that once you're too far gone, you feel warm again, feeling the need to strip off any remaining clothes to cool off.

Ah, I'm taking too long. I can tell. The Moon's rising - my old adversary, I wonder how that damned God felt when I tore his eyes out? Certainly he's not that worried about it, the bastard has at least a hundred-something left. One looking at each country, at each lord and king and queen his disgusting eyes can witness. I almost curse myself for not plucking more of those damned jewels out, at least, if anything, I could've kept the few I tore out. A nice trophy, no? The eyes of the Moon-God, the one who weaves his silly little fate and dreams of new stories only for those who breathe freely to tear those predeterminations apart."

A tall thing looks up at the sky, clouds cover the stars and the moon, its monologue interrupted, dark clouds, so dark that no ink could replicate such color or, lack thereof would swirl into strange unnatural spirals, forming worms of air that seemed to be segmented and weird, almost bubbling and boiling. Its many tails cumulate in a large, shining nucleus. The Moon takes a peek from its cloudy shelter, though it cannot hide. The tall thing can't help but smile, the bits of frozen tears shatter as its body fumes with warmth, pulsing like some kind of heart. The tall thing, to any traveler appearing as a slick, thin shadow with human proportion, wearing some kind of onyx cloth and letting its hair flow. The thing's hair seemed so wet that it was a miracle it didn't freeze in place as the cold winds blew toward its face, as if trying to force it away from its destination and plunge it back to wherever it came from. Its smile adorned with teeth nearly as dark as its hair, shining in the barely-reaching moonlight. They were sharp, almost carved out from some kind of precious stone. Such teeth were only ever heard of in tales of large, scaly beasts. Dragons, or dracons, wyrms, wyverns, whatever one would dub such beasts. The figure gained a sudden burst of energy, raising its arms in the air as it walked, as if to greet an old friend, and yet as it did so the Moon hid once more. The nucleus of the spiral closing in on itself, leaving behind the barely visible moonlight which made any clouds covering it shine a barely visible whitish green color, leaving traces where the Moon once was.

The shadow spoke out towards the clouded sky again, talking to its imaginary audience with such grace that its very steps seemed to move with the rhythm of its loud, careless speech. Its voice growling with pride, deep, almost with blood stuck on the walls of its throat. Things like it were not used to the cold, and yet this one endured without a worry in the world. That damned call, Night's Edge's song, granting it an unnatural strength as its monologuing continued on:

"He hid from me, once again. I shouldn't be surprised, it was supposed to be a full moon tonight. the thirteenth full moon of the year, such a special occasion! Witches surely celebrated it in advance, gathering their oh-so-precious moon-waters and baptizing their newborns under the light of it. I never understood those customs, but who am I to judge? I've not been interested in alchemy for a long, long time...", its wrist flicked around before it, almost creating a circle as it took a gaze at its sharp finger, almost as if it were forged, that's how sharp it seemed even in the dead of night. The indigo-colored hand shivered, a layer of snow and frost causing the pores and lines of its skin to turn deathly pale: "Perhaps, he's trying to write my fate again? He barely learned from last time, it seems. Oh but who am I to blame him? Such a young god, so much so a few mortals even precede him! I almost feel sorry for that conflict, but alas I fear I was given no choice..."

Night's Edge grows close, yet another uphill walk, and then from thereon - it's all flat snow. The golden eyes of the shadow dart through all the directions around it. It has walked for so long, it felt nothing in its legs anymore, it felt nothing beyond its entire body disgustingly pulse every few odd seconds with warmth. Like its entire body began to decay swiftly and then pull itself back together, pale flesh breaking apart, pulled akin to how a torn rope would look before going back together with smoldering smoke puffing up and melting through any coming snowflakes. It never stopped snowing here, that much could be gathered. No tracks of any kind of animal, no frozen over bodies either, no rock or even the tiniest dent in the ever-expanding snow blanket could be seen. It was haunting, only hearing the wind howl, howling louder and tougher than even the biggest pack of wolves or direwolves that could come to mind, and beneath such large hills at that. Such howling would render an uncovered ear to freeze, hardening, growing with frost, turning purple, before it at last fell off with just the gentlest possible touch. Unprotected fingers would first see their nails turning a deadly purple color, the skin around the nail beginning to bleed from the intense, almost unnatural cold, before they too would become frostbitten and useless. Noses would fall, feet would freeze over, anyone who travelled alone and by foot to Night's Edge, especially during the night, would see themselves enter the settlement as half a man and half a crew, if they even got to it. Though some understood how to travel in this frozen-over hell, specifically clans like the Jhäk who came from Night's Edge, to them understanding the paths and ways of getting to and from Night's Edge was crucial as without it the clans would have very little chances of survival.

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Even from here, the shadow could see it - the famed library, holding perhaps the oldest knowledge, languages and books known to the mortal world, sat in the peaceful settlement under the protection of un-nature and its deathly cold. The singular spire adorned with a sharp cone-esque roof stood out among the small huts made of simple, pale wood with mud and stone as glue, primitive, yet, one can't help but wonder how they weather this cold. Even to the shadow it was almost unbearable. "Soon...soon..." its lips began to hurt from its monologue, slowing down to take in the image of the closer settlement. Gazing up at the distant spire. Night's Edge was nowhere near as marvelous as most thought. People said it held large, sharp structures made of crystal-black materials and that it had a flame so powerful in its middle that it melted the very winds that passed by Night's Edge. But none of it was found, not here.

Snow crunched beneath the shadow's footwear, sounding more and more like chewing on some sort of vegetable, a loud, almost sour sound made itself known with every step. The shadow's trip was consumed by an eerie quiet amidst the humming and howling of the wind - so silent that you could hear the blood flowing through your brain and have it be embodied by a low, though audible constant ringing noise that would cause any sane person to go mad after prolonged exposure. The shadow's lips, despite its constant pulsing and rebuilding of itself with the heat, could no longer make sly comments of the Moon or monologues to its imaginary audience. Instead, it could only feel its claws grabbing around that settlement, grabbing its warmth, sapping the knowledge from its library, fulfilling the shadow once and for all - holding up a mirror through which it could understand itself. It felt its call, something was there, there had to be something there. It could feel that sensation down to its onyx-esque bones.

The shadow approached, faster as the light grew. At last, it entered the clearance - from here on, all it had to do was simply walk in a straight line, and it'd be there in fifteen or so minutes, maybe an hour. It depends on whether its body will allow it to move. After making itself decay and rebuild for the hundred-something time exhaustion was finally felt. Ice manifested instead of its spit, and its vision was blurred by tears from time to time. Yet the shadow kept moving, unyielding to the cold. Watching the settlement intently. That is, until...

Flap, flap, flap...

A large thing flies across Night's Edge, the shadow squints, shaking off and melting the tear-ice forming on the sides of its eyes. It stops to see the thing better. But before it could make out anything but a large beaked head and a few limbs, it began to fall down...

Thud

And almost as soon as it fell, not too far from the settlement, in fact it was north-west of its current position, it began to see something come from the newly crashed being, he imagined it was already freezing over, and already coughing and wheezing for air. But the question it had in mind was - what creature could possibly survive the howling winds of North Ormmenia? What creature could make it so far as to be here, of all places? Curiosity got the better of the shadow, as it looked down at itself, its freezing body, and decided to follow, gaze upon the thing before it was buried alive in a white coffin.

Snow crunched once more, though the closer it got to the newly made crater of snow, the dent in the perfect sheet of snow, the soundless death of a poor creature, the wetter the crunched became. As if the snow was sapping the thing's warmth, melting slightly as it did so, stripping it first of its temperature, then shortly enough - of its life. It didn't take the shadow long to see the thick Black coming from the creature before even gazing upon it. "Of course, what else would be sent my way.!", the shadow thought, moving to see the mass it expected - "Corvithers, of course...I should have known the moment I saw it fly over this damn place."

The beaked mass sat before the shadow now, the snow red from its soundless, but far from light impact. The shadow's eyes squinted at it, seeing it in all its wrongness, all that it lacked and all that it held in excess - its glassy, singular remaining eye looked down, through the thick Black seeping from its maw, its eyes begged for help but, the shadow knew it couldn't promise it so. The only question it had now was - why was it here? Perhaps, more accurately - who sent this thing here?

Such questions weren't bothersome enough for the shadow to stick around and watch as the thing coughed both dark fog and crimson, in the snow reddest possible fluids, if you could even consider it a fluid. What was coughed out of the thing was almost, slimy. It glued itself to the snow, forming long dragged out splatters that occasionally were drained into the white mass beneath it. It shivered, tips of feathers became white, gathering snowflakes already, skin began to bump up and start to burst from the cold, revealing the velvet-red flesh beneath for the cold to seep into. The shadow averted its gaze, best to not watch the sufferer suffer when you've already decided you'd do nothing to their aid. "It'll die, maybe in a few minutes, just until the cold gets to the bones..."

The shadow's assumption wasn't something it wanted to test and witness, heading towards the now much closer lights of the settlement. It could already feel the white lines of snow shut into its skin folds melt, water gently running down and to the ground, freezing over before it could make contact with the perfect sheet of snow, making ever-so-slight bumps in it. The newly born icicles swiftly became shards, broken apart under the shadow's foot. As the thing behind the shadow wheezed, gurgling in its sticking blood, being cut and slashed at by the cold, the shadow likewise cut itself apart once more, pulsing with that same warmth for one more time - just before it can get to Night's Edge.

"Let us see what the world hid from me here, eh old friend?", the shadow looks upon the closed nucleus in the sky - where the Moon once took a peek, now even the clouds that held traces of its shine were dark again. A warm, though barely visible smile strikes the shadow's face, closing its eyes and stepping forward into the warmth of the settlement. Already knowing what is to come, it turns for one last time in the direction of the dying thing. A steady stream of the Black fog coming from the small crater where it soundlessly fell and where it'll die, barely able to put up a fight. It felt sorry for the poor thing, a pawn, thrown towards the coldest of the cold, beyond Ulshen's mountains, beyond the Loner's woods, beyond that accursed keep, long ago frozen and shattered, beyond even those ancient settlements before it which were now called the Flaking dunes, places riddled with trees, with life, with death and most of all - warmth. At least now, it'll take solace in death.

The shadow only ever heard of Night's Edge, but gazing upon the thing itself, it felt so decrepit and simply poor that it felt dirty just gazing at this place. A single, large circle of rocks was made in the very center of the settlement - a bonfire of sorts, no doubt. The shadow's walking was actually harder here than in the constantly crunching snow, the rocks making up the makeshift roads and paths within Night's Edge were very uneven and primitive, the rocks themselves slippery and dangerous lest one was barefoot or their footwear was sticking to the surface of these smooth rocks for some reason. These buildings were coated in a thin layer of frost, wherever mud was used for a glue to put the stone slabs and bricks together, there was also a thin layer of white buds, cold as can be. They almost felt like seeds, eventually they will spread further and beyond just this building, but for right now they're small, almost harmless seedlings of cold. Wooden poles were buried around the makeshift paths, meant to carry with them lanterns to light the way but, at this hour, the cold had already gotten through the thick glass and snuffed the lights out. The battle of the flame within was certainly hard-fought, trying to melt away the air's cold only to realize its enemy wasn't mere snow or ice, but something far, far beyond its grasp. Soon after getting that realization, the flame had likely given itself up, dying off as swiftly as it was brought to life.

The shadow looked for the last time towards the nucleus above - reaching its clawed hand up one more time, pointing towards the center, where the slightest smidge of moonlight still peered through the dark clouds, its hand cramping up with rage, a singular vein peering through its tough skin, boiling with rage - steam began to seep from the skin of the shadow: "Come now, no need to be shy!", the nucleus revealed but one, singular dot, an emerald-esque color: "I know you were the one to orchestrate that damned thing's fall, weren't you? Coward! Letting a poor animal do your dirty work are you now? I'll pluck out every, single, eye from your shitty, dirty little vessel!"