Post by The Cryophoenix on May 15, 2013 5:21:51 GMT -5
March 6th, 23 CLE
The tender silence of the Freljord was broken by the panicked cries of a tribe of goats as they scattered in terror. Her mind clouded with a haze of pain and exhaustion, Anivia soared perilously close to the Freljordian mountainside. As a wing clipped a spur of rock, she did nothing to fight to fall, landing bodily and grinding to a halt at the precipice of a sheer bluff. Days of flight had done little but amplify the damage to her body. With her wings splayed out at her sides, the jagged fractures throughout their form pulsated with a silvery light. The ruby light of her eyes dimmed as she gazed, unseeing, through the mountain air. Darkness and instinct was calling to her, her broken body pleading for release with each forced breath.
Anivia blinked, coming back to her senses as a small creature shuffled against her, foraging for food kicked up by her crash landing. She considered it for a moment, the small furry creature making its way along her wing. Despite the harsh conditions of the Freljord, it pushed on, content to eke out a life through the hardship. The humans had a name for this creature... was it related to the low-land rabbits? A poro perhaps? It hardly matters. With a vicious snap of her jaws, Anivia dispatched the creature. Life in the Freljord was about survival, and the cryophoenix wasn’t done yet.
With an herculean effort, she lifted herself with her wings long enough to bring her legs beneath her. Her blackened talons beneath her shrieked in protest at the slightest pressure against them. A single bound threw her bulk over the precipice and the darkness clawed at the edges of her vision once more. As she shook her head and willed the pain back a moment more, her massive wings caught the air like a sail, gradually slowing her descent from freefall to dive to a controlled glide.
The wreck of her talons hung beneath her uselessly. Where the corruption had initially been little more than an annoyance it slowly spread across everything it touched. While a steady stream of magic kept the corruption from eating into the eternal ice of her body, exhaustion and depletion of her reserves had allowed it enough gaps to render every moment a stream of agony. They clenched and unclenched involuntarily as the spasms of pain shot through her in waves.
Narrowly passing through a saddle of the mountain ridge she had crashed on, Anivia’s final goal finally came into view. Before her, the great Gelid Vortex of the Freljord spread across the land, consuming mountain and valley alike in its grey embrace. There was no relief in the eyes of the cryophoenix to see the greatest storm of the planet. Her path did not waver as she approached the icy headwinds of its grasp. Grim and determined, she pushed ever onward, toward the thundering heart of the great storm.
The Gelid Vortex, the storm of legends, was a cacophonous symphony of the peals of thunder, cracks of lighting, the howls of high winds and the dull explosions of fist sized hail striking the landscape. The moment the lightning struck the ground, the charred remains of whatever it had struck would be quickly swept away and glazed over with a thick layer of frost in seconds.
The Cryophoenix's journey to the heart would reveal the hundreds of frozen corpses, ranging from tundra rodents to barbarians and the warriors of the sister tribes, and even a few sacrilegious Ursine corpses. If that were not surprise enough, despite being able to count them on her talons, Anivia saw sporadic Yeti corpses. Each beings' final moments were all preserved in the same manner: within a layer of hard rime.
She would be able to perceive that this was not a normal cold, not a normal chll. The statues of rime figures, the desolate landscape midst all of the sound and fury, this was not the simple concept of cold, for even Anivia felt chills down her spine. She felt these same chills even before entering the Vortex.
It was not unnatural, just a force of nature, just another aspect of life, the same force that would afflict most who entered the Vortex's domain and would succumb to its whim. It was the cold breath of death itself.
Anivia could swear that she was starting to become delusional from the corruption and her injuries, because she could swear a deep growl, overpowering the storm itself in her ears.
Abomination...No. Not abomination...? Corrupted, but fighting...Hrn...Judge...
The Ursine supposedly were able to speak with the Vortex, as though it were an entity. It did not seem that they were incorrect as two shining orbs that resembled flashes of lightning appeared.
Follow...guide...Hard...speak...
The orbs started to move slowly in a direction, Anivia could only hope that it was leading her to the heart of the storm rather than to the fringes.
Post by The Cryophoenix on May 19, 2013 19:33:36 GMT -5
Many times the Cryophoenix had skirted around this storm, wondering at what strange power lay in its depths. The storm was not natural. Nothing like had ever existed on her homeworld, or anywhere else in Runeterra. While she could readily fly through the deepest of Freljordian blizzards, every instinct she had pushed her away from the swirling depths of the maelstrom.
And now they called to her.
The chill of death was nothing new to the Cryophoenix. Many a time she had met its cold embrace in the sunset of her eternal cycle, yet for the second time in her life, she was unsure what the end would bring her. Anivia was a creature born of the elemental power of the world, but not of this world. While she had encountered many a false death on the Fields of Justice it was the summoners that contained her essence. The nucleation of a new body was not a power of the phoenix themselves, but of the world they inhabited. Should she allow her body to shatter and her power to scatter to the wind, there was no telling whether her spirit could become a part of this world’s energy. And she knew that moment was coming soon.
The further she delved into the depths of the Gelid Vortex, the stronger the call of death’s presence became. Yet it was the power of that call and the sanctity of the storm that she sought out. Her claws twitched as lightning burst nearby, dimming her senses with an overwhelming pain that nearly drove her from the air. As the ringing of her ears cleared, the storm’s howl seemed to resolve into a semblance of a voice calling out its strange message to her alone.
Two orbs of lightning appeared before her, slowly forging onward into the storm. With her judgement impaired by pain and exhaustion, it was all Anivia could manage to heave a sigh of relief that the entity of the storm did not seek her destruction. With her body crumbling and magical reserves stretched to their limit to hold back the evil of the void, there could be no fight. Bowing her head and closing her eyes, she left her protection to fate and pushed onward through the intensifying storm.
It was hard to tell how much time passed within the storm. The only light source aside from the glow of the eyes were the cracks of lightning. Anivia would notice something different, though, despite the howling winds and the hail, she could swear she saw paw prints. Each print was easily the size of a man's head, though what source they came from, one could only speculate. The outermost ridges of the impressions seemed to be caked in an oddly thin layer of ice, colored the same hue as Ashe's bow, and Sejuani's horn.
You keep...moving...Keep...fighting...Tell me...why...you come...
The peal of thunder sounded like a jaw snapping angrily.
Come to...desecrate land more?
Anivia's talons would strike a thick chunk of black ice.
State...purpose...NOW.
The glowing eyes would stop in their tracks and glare at Anivia. The cryophoenix's eyes had to be playing tricks on her. They were deeper within the storm itself, the ferocity of the storm having notably dimmed, yet around the eyes a cyclone seemed to swirl in place, hiding its form. One blink, and she would swear that she saw an old man, regal in nature, but no discernible features. The next blink would make her see...something not of this world.
Far too large, far too gnarled, it should not be moving, not be talking, not-
And then it was gone, replaced by the eyes once more. The low growl and rumble of thunder seemed to be emitted from where the glowing orbs shone from.
Post by The Cryophoenix on May 21, 2013 4:36:11 GMT -5
As the storm mounted around her, it was all Anivia could do to fight forward, eyes trained on the werelights before her. Despite her labored breathing and pain-addled mind, her great wings caught purchase against the strongest headwinds, driving her unerringly into the storm’s heart. Snow and ice enough to freeze any mortal creature in its tracks raged ineffectually against her crystalline form. A creature of the storm and cold, Anivia would not be deterred by the elements she commanded.
Around her, the unearthly voice of the storm intensified, its ire manifesting with the primal fury of lightning. This was no hallucination: a greater force was at work. Does it seek my motive? Or rage against its own failure to end me? All traces of life had vanished, save for a set of ice-crusted footprints driving meandering the snow. None had ever made it this far. Her voice cried out against the winds, hoping they would carry her words to whatever master they may serve, “Onward you have urged me, to the depths of this Gelid Vortex of death. I do not know what you are, Spirit, or what it is you want. But I will come.”
A second time, the voice rose against her, prophesying the corruption of the land. And suddenly, she was free of the winds as the cyclone’s walls slid past her, but not before her void-blackened talons smashed against a risen wall of ice. A spray of dark ice erupted from the force of the collision, neither body surviving the impact. With a shriek of agony, Anivia crashed into the eye of the storm, the bright silvery glow of magic flowing freely from the stubs of her shattered legs. A tremor shook through her frame as the chill of death set upon her demanding that she release this ruined form and with every vestige of strength left in her soul, Anivia fought back against it.
Visions swam before her as she stared at the entity in the heart of the storm. Man, beast, and something not of this world flickered before her, demanding her purpose as she rode the tortured boundary between life and eternity. Through strength of will alone, she drew her ruined form up before it. Her eyes flared with defiance even as her strength fled her body, “So long as the Freljord is in danger, be it from man, void, or death itself, I will place myself before the land.”
Freljords...Freljords...Oh my Freljords...What has become...
The eyes hovered closer to Anivia. The crunching of snow, the shattering of ice followed after, as though a great weight had been suddenly pressed down onto the ground.
Me...Tales used to be sung...A memory...I am a memory...
Another loud crunch, ice shards flew at Anivia and harmlessly bounced off of her body.
...You smell...of corruption...you smell...of...
A third crunch. From the glowing eyes, a snout and an elongated jaw formed. There was no physical form to them, the howling winds, the whipping snow and thunderous hail giving it them a flicker of form.
The illusionary jaw started to move, slowly but surely, to speak. "State...Purpose..." The eyes floated closer, another loud crunch accompanying the movement. "Why...you have come..."
A sharp exhale of wind, which sounded like an exasperated breath, sent a torrent of dirt, snow and ice flying at the cryophoenix. The voice strengthened in coherence for a single moment. "Why...do you...seek me?"
Post by The Cryophoenix on May 21, 2013 16:04:12 GMT -5
From the depths of the storm the figure manifest itself, blasts of cold and wind heralding its every movement. Anivia’s defiance flagged as it stood over her prone frame and she shook her head, “It was the power of the storm that drew me here, not whatever manner of power you might represent.” She bowed her head in resignation as her voice began to fade, “This place, a place of death, is what I sough. And the Freljord will decide my fate."
Her body shimmered brightly in the darkness of the storm, lighting the ground around her brighter than any lightning strike. And then it shattered. With an ephemeral gust of wind, chunks of ice and frost scattered into the depths of the great maelstrom, sending the last heirlooms of her homeworld to the far corners of the Freljord. Her voice whispered in the wind with crystalline clarity, “I came here... to die.”
The eyes stared at Anivia, and watched her body crumble away in silence. The jaws opened, and from its depths a howl was emitted. The storm churned and echoed the howl. To the very fringes of the Avarosan and Winter's Claw encampments, the Freljords would swear that they heard a choir of wolves howling in different pitches and in unison.
The jaws remained open, the intensity of the storm decreased. The swirling winds hurled one of the chunks of Anivia to the ground before the eyes. Two loud crunches, and two wolf paws emerged. Mottled fur, blackened gnarled flesh, icicles of the deepest, bluest ice hung off the edges of its hair. The jaw lowered itself and scooped up the shard of the cryophoenix into its maw.
A sudden snap and its teeth sank into the chunk as though it were the flesh of a caribou rather than the dense ice of a cryophoenix. Its saliva dribbled into the cracks, filling them with a quickly freezing liquid. Any hint of contamination, of corruption, would be forcibly drained by the injection of the strange liquid.
Eventually, the jaws released Anivia's chunk of body onto the ground. The corruption of the void that may have once plagued it was now a thick, viscous black puddle on the snow. A paw slammed down onto it, and lifted itself up in a regal manner. A layer of blue ice now covered the corruption, forever sealed.
Eventually, the jaw moved to speak again, the deep, the thunderous rumbles of its voice echoing now that the storm had died down. "I forgive you...for not knowing...who I am." A deep breath and a long exhale threw a hundred meters of snow into the air. It was strangely more coherent now than ever before. "If the Freljords...Nay, they will deem you a proper death. An honorable death...Let these be my final words to you...Your journey was not fruitless, for I am the Storm. My anger will not end you... For you have done nothing wrong...Now...go. Let the Freljords...dictate your destiny...Go...Travel to the other side, with a king's blessing."
Post by The Cryophoenix on May 31, 2013 4:20:36 GMT -5
Even as snow and ice was thrown high into the storm’s core by the beast’s great breath, the raging headwinds of its fringes continued to fade. Clouds locked in the ravaging turmoil of snow and ice for centuries drifted outwards, dissipating into the halcyon Freljord skies as the great Freljordian Gelid Vortex petered into a gale. While light might have glinted from the long frozen bodies of those who lost their way, it alone would never melt the entombing rime. The storms path was a place of death, its grim reminders of mortality a stark contrast to the brief respite it was granted.
“A Storm, a beast, and a king? One can hardly be all three at the same time.” Anivia stood at the fringes of death calmly, a dark land both impossibly foreign, yet familiar as a half-remembered dream. Her flawless crystalline body shimmered faintly in the realm, untouched by the decay of death around her. She had been here many times before. This time a figure stood before her, his visage fully embraced by the ruin of death, yet standing tall and regal. He was likely once human, yet his form seemed to warp and twist in her vision. Whatever the creature once was, it was far removed from humanity now.
Had it not already given a blessing to her passing, Anivia would have feared necromancers attempting to lay claim to her power. The creature before her appeared as another face of nature. The dark grimness of death, perhaps, but Anivia had learned to deal with fire very early in her life. Why should the harmony between life and death be any more severe than that between fire and ice? She could only hope that his reaction at the gateway to death be benevolent as he claimed in a shadow of life.
The withered old man raised an ethereal hand up to his long mane of snowy hair. His thick beard seemed to be forever flowing, forever shifting. The moment Anivia spoke, his eyes snapped open and locked with the cryophoenix's.
Anivia would be able to see the bags under his eyes, the stress wrinkles that seemed to line every inch of his face, but his eyes, they carried an intense anger, an intense sadness to them.
"What...? What sorcery..."
The man's form started to shift as he took soundless steps to Anivia. His face started to elongate, his hands starting to change into paws. He snarled at the Cryophoenix, "Traitor...Another traitor. Not again."
His spirit started to lose form as he walked towards Anivia on all four limbs. "My benevolence, mocked. My charity, laughed at. Never again. You will not mock me."
Post by The Cryophoenix on Jun 7, 2013 5:16:58 GMT -5
As their eyes finally met, a brief moment of clarity showed Anivia what the creature before her truly had been. Not a being of immense control over its domain, nor a revenant embodiment of the power of death. Beneath whatever force might shroud it, she was still dealing with a human, lost well beyond its time in life. While it might not be a true kinship, the sudden bond she realized made its next words all the more shocking.
She drew her head back in confusion at the accusation. She had been cursed and hated enormously in her time, particularly by those she stood against. Yet always she had attempted to remain outside the alliances that so many civilizations make as they squabble amongst themselves. She had been called a demon, an abomination, and even a foul work of sorcery, but never had she taken enough of a side to be a traitor.
Rife with indignation, Anivia drew herself up to full size, the aura around her shining a little more brightly. “Traitor? I’ve given everything I had for the Freljord. You claim to act in its name yet have ravaged it in secret for time untold. You have defied your lands, your form, and life itself and still have the impudence to call me a traitor?” She spread her wings, testing the air before her. “If you sought a thrall this day, I’m afraid you have much more to learn of the Phoenix.”
In the Freljord, the mighty maelstrom dwindled rapidly to the size of little more than a winter storm. At its heart, however, the storm continued to rage with renewed ferocity, obscuring all that may lie within its depths.
"You? YOU, have given everything for the Freljords?"
The man had changed into a wolf, growing in size with every passing moment. He was currently the size of a thoroughbred horse. His jaw loudly clacked against one another, ethereal spit flew from his lips like tear sized balls of hail. "You know not who you speak to, oh traitor of life. You dare accuse me of ravaging the land? Of my form? You know not of my crimes! Everything I did, everything in my life, was for the sake of the Freljords, except once."
The wolf was now twice his previous size, glowing eyes boring into Anivia's, unafraid of the cryophoenix. "I have not ravaged the land in secret, my anger, the Storm, has been always known of. All know the anger of the once great Wulfrik. No one remembers why, though. No one remembers who I was. My greatest mistake, was in letting those three witches live. My mistake, was to act like a father rather than a king. My mistake, was to let love, compassion, benevolence, overrule my duty as ruler."
The wolf seemed to have a fevered anger to it now, each slow, uneven breath it took revealed how worn the being even in such a primal form. "You said you sought death, yet you refuse to pass through the gates. You lie yet again, for Phoenixes, are creatures of legend. You are no phoenix, you are simply like her: A liar, a deceiver, one who should die, one whose end had come but you defy it, you defy the natural cycle of death, just like her."
When his jaws opened next, his fangs had elongated. "I have no need for thralls, for servants, for a kingdom, nor do I have any need for heirs, allies or enemies. I am not a warlord nor a tyrant. I was once a ruler but now forgotten. I was once a father but now despised, mocked, and so mark my words: I will escort you to your true death. You will not break the balance of Freljords any more. I will not allow it. She may be out of reach, but you are not."
The wolf propelled itself at Anivia, jaws wide open, the howl of the storm screeching in his wake.
Post by The Cryophoenix on Jun 8, 2013 9:26:08 GMT -5
Anivia listened with a sad shake of her head as the wolf before her worked itself into a bitter frenzy. She believed him, for the dead have little reason to lie. Whatever power had reanimated this Freljordian ruler had left him nothing but centuries to stew in his own failure. For all his apparent strength he had been unwilling or unable to do anything but display that storm of rage, and true that anger he now launched himself directly toward her.
She had more than enough time to prepare. With single leap and a mighty sweep of her wings, a great barrier of ice erupted from the ground before her, stretching high above the leap of the monstrosity her assailant had become. Unless he could stop his momentum some other way, Wulfrik would find himself sailing teeth-first into a wall of solid ice.
She lighted upon the of the high ground that she had created as light continued to gather around her, turning her head quizzically at his accusations. “It would seem that as much as the world has forgotten you, you have been left out of the world’s passage, Wulfrik. You speak of a threat of witches when the void has nearly consumed the land you held so dear. You accuse me of lying about legends when you yourself have become one. Are you so blinded by the past that you cannot see the present?” She hopped to the top of a closer spike, holding a shimmering wing for him to observe. “Look at yourself, revenant. Immortality suits those not born to it poorly: it changes and corrupts even the strongest of spirits. What greater traitor to death is there than one who wears its power to manipulate the world of the living? Yet I sought out death, found it, and am untainted in its gateways, as I have so many times before.”
With a mighty leap, she shot from her icy wall as it began to crumble back into the dull grey lands of death. “But we needn’t sully the word that you give so hastily, do we, Wolfrik the Undead,” she called down to him, destination firmly in mind. “Escort me to that final gate through which all the dead must pass. Only those whose time has come would fear it. I will take the lead, for you seem to have lost the way."
The wolf's teeth crashed against the ice wall, embedding themselves deep within the frozen water. A moment or two would pass before the deep sound of cracking was heard. Wulfrik easily tore out a chunk of the ice, firmly gripping it in his jaws. Another loud crack, and the ice shattered from his bite.
"I am Gelid the Wulfrik, the former ruler of the Freljords, friend of the Yeti and the Ursine, uniter of these lands and its people, conqueror of the Frozen Watchers, husband to a murdered wife, bearer of three wicked children, and I will have vengeance."
The wolf gave Anivia a fevered glare, his snarls sounding reminiscent of the rumbles of thunder. "I was not just forgotten," he growled. His voice became a loud bellow, lightning cracking from the intensity of his yell. "I WAS ERASED."
Even his wolven form started to lose form, becoming wisps as his eyes grew brighter, his teeth elongating, his chest started to...lose chunks of ethereal flesh. Shattered ribs were exposed, barely held together by a thick, roughly cut piece of dark blue ice. "Erased by my own daughter. You will never understand the weight of betrayal, False One. Never will you feel the pain of your loved ones twisting the knife in your back. Never will you feel the pain of allowing an entire kingdom come to ruination. Never will you know how it is to fail in your duty and damn your people."
Wulfrik opened his mouth impossibly wide, his jaw unhinging from itself. "My mountain where I once communicated with the Ursine, my penultimate connection to this world, is now severed. By some power, some corruption I had never encountered, and you come in my presence bearing it! Know this, Traitor, I am not Wulfrik the Undead."
Wulfrik's size had now tripled from before, the intensity of the Vortex in the physical plane becoming noticeably more potent with higher winds picking up.
"I do not have permission to cross Death's threshold, until my duty is at an end. I will see to the fate of the Freljords, and if it means to wipe the slate of treacherous creatures such as you, bringing their corruption and flaunting their defiance of death in front of me then rest assured, I shall help you 'cross over.'"
Despite his words, something seemed off. His soul form was showing strain, his steps towards Anivia were now much slower. This all seemed to be a huge exertion of effort on his part, though he still struggled, still attempted to fight.
Post by The Cryophoenix on Jun 12, 2013 3:46:24 GMT -5
Anivia flew on quietly, contemplating the dead king’s words. It was not uncommon that a powerful man be written out of history by those who hated him. It was, however, quite rare for that man to be left to putrefy in both mind and body over the centuries. What did a man become when everything was taken from him? She pulled her left wing into her body, turning sharply over the barren grey landscape, but her foe was now far behind her. He may be large, but he sauntered all the slower as the flesh seemed to slough from his body.
She called down to him, her voice clear in calm against the cacophony he produced, “Always the young believe that their ways are best. That the path ahead is clear and the universe well defined. I have watched people, civilizations, and entire worlds rise and fall from embers to dust. Even the greatest mortals I have ever met are lost to time, their legacy nothing but the memory of a phoenix.”
“It is as you say, Gelid the Wulfrik. I will never feel the betrayal of my daughters, my loved ones, or my kind because I left them all behind to protect your world from threats that you have yet to name. I did bear the corruption of the Void to the depths of your storm because it is a place death. I do not know whether that corruption can die, but at the very least, I could buy the living time to learn its secrets.”
“Tell me, spirit, what god of yours have you spoken with? I should like to know the greater power has declared your decaying form and quest for vengeance sacred and beyond the reach of mortality, yet the natural process of my rebirth and the preservation of Runeterra an abomination. If you act of your own will, I have no qualms with you. Whatever powers your undeath have granted you that you may sate your rage and thirst for vengeance are of little consequence compared to the forces that vie over this world. Find your peace if you must, then leave this realm be if you’ll have no part in its preservation. My fate is in the hands of the Freljord itself, not the disgruntled souls it harbors after death.”
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