The day started out much like any of the other days in the Werwood. Chilly. That crisp cold that heralded the ice of winter but held back on the hard bite. It spoke of hard days coming. Less food and failed crops and dark nights. The wind carried it.
The wind whistled down from the Southern Peaks, already white capped, whirling through the Dragons Pass and over the foothills. It blew harshly across the the grass plains and meadows. Plucked spray from the coiling surface of the Whelming River and gusted it through Landsend Village nestled in one of the coils, to the clattering of shutters, ringing of wind chimes and muttered curses from the people of Landsend themselves.
Landsend had weathered many a winter here, so the populace were used to this. They were a hard folk, they’d say. They had to be, cutting out a living a mere day’s ride from the Dragons’ Pass itself. They were the bleeding edge, they’d say. They were the last stop for any Adventurer — the few that passed through, Ranger, or highly confused traveler headed out of the realms of man and out into the unknown.
Still, their faces tightened, and they muttered to themselves worriedly about fell winds and ill omens, and the source of their worry felt the wind soon after as it twisted its way through the Werwood.
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One of the worries cursed as she ran, one hand clutching the stitch in her side the other the hilt of a belt knife. She shooed the other two worries before her.
“Come on Aemon.” She panted. “Come on Kaimen.”
The two children ran on determinedly, fear feathering the wings on their feet, but they were flagging and the first worry, barely more than a youth herself, knew, that even their desperate fear had a shelf life. Eventually the prey just… stopped caring. Eventually the prey just lay down and watched their end approach.
She ran, spurring the two children before her. She felt the cold wind in her hair. She saw the day’s light reflected off of the lush greenery slowly wain. And the first worry, called Leinan by most, was afraid.
“Come on Aemon. Faster Kaimen. It cannot be much longer now.” Leinan panted mostly to herself as she stumbled. “We must be nearly home.”
And the wind whirled and spun and heralded ice and cold and frigid fate, caring not for the worries of mortals, and then paused as the sky opened and a… wizard flopped out.
He let out a pitched scream of mortal terror and scrabbled blindly first for a ledge that most definitely was not there and then for his hat which was, but out of reach. He shrieked again as he fell, and his hat fell after him, somehow looking, for all the world, even more put out about its current situation than its owner.
So maybe today was not like all other days after all.