<bb> PWW's Battleboard (Santen, Arch[er]angel)

The weak fire flickers in a shallow cave, providing a meager protection from the chill. The vague form of a pack lies in the shadows against the cave wall, next to a bow and a half-empty quiver. The fire leaps at slivers of wood being tossed to it, as a figure sits cross legged in front of it, bundled up in furs. The glint of a knife shines rhythmically, as the figure whittles a stick into an arrow shaft.

Lifting it up to the light, she examines it, and decides she’s satisfied with her handiwork. She stands, a shuffling pile of furs, and walks to the quiver, and puts the new arrow in. She looks at the pack beside it, and sighs. Rummaging through the contents, she pulls out a number of vials, a book, and several bones before finding a poorly-made leather tube, topped at both ends with bone. Putting the displaced contents back into the bag, she returns to the fire, and opens the scroll case.

She holds each of two scrolls up to the fire, trying to read them by the dying light. She returns one scroll to the case, and focuses on the other. Between the howling wind outside and the dark of the cave, she can barely see or hear the incantations she’s attempting to read. She finds that the words that once were read easily now appeared in an unknown script.

“How did it go? Maegna… vie? Maegna vix? Surely there must’ve been a v in there somewhere. Damn it all, why can’t the multiverse speak Khan?”

She catches her tongue, and pauses a moment, staring intently at the flames, before whispering to herself:

“And why did my translator have to leave?”

She returns to her pack and retrieves the book and a piece of charcoal from the fire. Flipping the book open, she finds pages upon pages that form a long list of phrases that are only slightly different, many of them scratched out. After hours of fumbled pronunciations and frantic writing, the fire finally dies out. Atlani returns the scroll to its case, and both the case and the book to her pack, before lying down in front of the embers.

“Maybe… it was something entirely different.” After listing off various weak attempts at incantations, Atlani drifts off to sleep.

____

Morning sunlight drifts into the cave, illuminating the huntress and her camp. Her eyes open slowly, disgruntled at the realization that she was in the cave, and not wherever else she dreamt she was.

…another day’s march. Perhaps I’ll finally stumble across someone today. One can only wish.

She emerges from the outermost furs, and goes about a newly set routine: relighting the fire pit, retrieving salted meat from her pack, and gathering the rest of her gear as it cooks. As she removes her sleeping furs from the cave floor, she is greeted by an unexpected sight. She holds her breath, then looks around suspiciously. She looks deeper into the cave, and finds no tracks in the dirt. She looks out to the entrance, and finds no tracks in the snow, none at the entrance to the cave. She looks back to the furs at her feet.

A very large, elegant snow leopard lies on the floor, cuddled up with Atlani’s sleeping bag, with shaggy fur and large paws. It rolls over at Atlani’s removal of the furs, opens its eyes, and reveals them to be a cool blue. Despite her disturbance of the beast’s rest, it shows no sign of aggression, simply looking up at her curiously, to which Atlani looked utterly bewildered.

The spell… worked? I did it?

"Mrow?"






www.artstation.com/artwork/PzGG1