Root Meditation with Ysgramor

The fury of the sea caused the lead ship of the men of ice to be swept across the northern beaches of frost and be swept southward without mercy through storms before becoming moored in the southern east of the land. A convoy of lizard-men came out to meet the vessel and Ysgramor steps off to meet them, allowing himself to be taken further into the nasty waters and the muddy soil until reaching the grove of one of the Hist. The tree acknowledges his confused state and greet.

GREETINGS.

The Atmoran gasps as the picture-thought-mathematics-songs of the Hist-speak enter his mind and nearly causes him to sink to his knees, but the man-wyrm regains his balance and stares at the many-branched tree.

“What is this? What sick hell has befallen me and my crew, surrounded in a realm of lizard-men? This is neither the southern north nor the Old Land.”

GREET?

“Voices in my head! Fox, protect me!” The Atmoran sinks to his knees and cries in his hands, listening to the echoes of the Hist-speak reverberating in his heads. A root extends upwards from the ground and wraps his around his shoulder.

CRY NOT.

Ysgramor stops his lamenting and stares upwards at the tree in shock. “Mother Spirit of the Winds, have you sent this tree to aid me and my men?”

NO. HIST.

“Hist? What is a Hist?”

REPEAT. GREET?

“I am Ysmaalithax and Ysmir, but I am also and always Ysgramor. I come from the North’s north to avenge my brethren at the hands of the frozen brood of Auri-El.”

AH.

The root redraws from the man-wyrm’s shoulder and retracts back to the massive root system, which beings to slightly shake in musing.

WHY?

“Why shouldn’t I? They deserve to pay in blood for what they have done to my people. My friends, my family, my wife…”

DEBATABLE.

At those words Ysgramor drew Wuuthrad, its tongue still bloody from the elves that fell to its deadly voice during that faithful day. He stands with his mouth opens and prepares to slice.

“HIST WILL TAKE BACK WHAT IT HAS SAID!”

LIES, PREFERED?

Ysgramor closes his mouth, sheathing Wuuthrad and stepping back out of both restraint and shame. He turns to stare back the way he came, where he can see the brave souls of his crew standing at the ready for the spilling of blood.

“I am sorry and I apologize. No, I do not prefer lies over the truth and I shouldn’t have become upset at your language. But the words you spoke angered me and they still do. Why should I not kill those treacherous devils who breath frost?”

SAME.

“You dare call me a devil?”

WHAT IF?

The man-wyrm looks shocked at the words, and stands there thinking. He exhales his breath, and the dust of the Old Land flows out freely and drifts towards the massive root system, which stretches.

The North grows quiet.

“…”

…IS IT THERE?

“Hist, please do not make me remember the events of that day.”

…IS IT THERE?

“Yes it is. Or it was. Or it will still be. I am the last to know that it breathes without mouth, and cries without tears. But how do you…”

YSGRAMOR KNOWS.

Ysgramor nods his mighty head, and breathes in stiffly.

“Yes, I do not know how but I do and so it shall be. But what am I supposed to do with it?”

STOP.

“Yes, I must stop them from retrieving it and avenge the fallen souls that died protecting it.”

IT?

“…You are right. She.”

FLY, YSMIR. FREE.

Ysgramor nodded his head and turned on his feet, and began marching away from the nasty marsh waters and soggy bogs of the southern east when the massive root system touched his shoulder once again, staining it. The North stopped and turned back around.

DO NOT.

“What?”

ALL, DO NOT.

“But they killed them–”

WHAT IF?

Ysgramor hears the words and looks down at the ground, frowning. He then looks back up at the Hist, with a tear running down the face of winter and smiling.

“I will not.”

FLOWS, SNOW.

Ysmir left the nasty marshlands and back on his ship, and so was that the first, the only, and the final time winter ever traveled to the southern east. But it continued to snow forever after, because snow is water when it changes. And everything is doomed to change, sooner or later.