Andarin: The Mountains: Learn;

This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.
The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown.:
The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save Us!'...:

...and I'll look down, and whisper, 'No'"
There was a quiet on the Range that Nicodemus didn’t quite like. It was eerie, a sound like the still before a war. That sound he would have otherwise welcomed for the fact that it meant he was alone. But right now…it was…well, like an ill omen. Dying was not something that Nicodemus feared. His fears were deeper, rooted back to his youth. The fear that he could not protect his family and home. That someday they would cry out to save them and he would not be able to. Perhaps it was because it had already happened, and knowing that he had been able to do nothing but watch in horror as his loved ones perished, screaming his name. It was the most horrible thing in the world, and he would do everything in his power to be certain that it would never happen again. And yet that was the way of it. They came after him through his loved ones, always the way.

He recalls a time when all he knew was bloodshed. A time when he himself had been one to sacrifice the lives of so many simply to save his own home. The techniques he had gained then as a warrior caused him to be lethal even now. He knew that some had been those who didn’t deserve to die. One had pleaded with all that he had to spare him, not even a man but a boy. The only one that Nicodemus had let go, in fact. He couldn’t go on with his life knowing that that terrified little boy forced into a life of war was killed by his own hand. So he had helped the boy escape, taken him beyond the place where the war was held, even found him a home. Nicodemus would never forget that boy or the awful look on his face, because it was what stopped him in his blind fury at last. He was the one who showed Nicodemus absolution, that war was not always the answer.

He sighs before moving through the new night, pushing himself forwards and through the thickest of the woods just before the high peaks. It was there that he began to climb, finding his solace in the sounds of the winds that only meant he was higher still, more alone than before. Always alone. It was his destiny it seemed. The stallion laughs, Andraste gliding beside him so close that each wing beat brings a soft caress upon his neck. Keir scurries ahead, not himself tonight, full of energy that had never been there before. Nicodemus looks curiously to his wolverine, a smile slowly unfolding.

It was then that he noted a patch of white fur, and he wasn’t the only one. Keir came proudly to him with a mouthful of it, laying it before the stallion and proceeding to run ahead. He felt a spark upon his flames, the first signs of his lightning, crackling about his hooves and nostrils. They recoil lightly from the fur, and it was then that he really knew.

Nyota.

Daughter.

Nicodemus laughs, the first pure laughter that he had felt in a very very long time….

He rushes forwards, colliding with her chest, holding her in a rather bear-like hug before sidestepping away and nipping at her crest playfully. “I knew you’d come home.” He smiles, his laughter echoing in the mountains, and it was then that he realized that the very place they were standing was the very place they had first met all those years ago. Back when she was naught but a child struck with wonderlust and he a mountain hermit, and when they were not father and daughter but mere strangers. Back when Andarin was simply newborn Wolfrange and nothing more.

KNIGHT
**NICODEMUS**

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us.

FIRE III LIGHTNING III

Emissary of Andarin, Phoenixsong, Iriase, and Kaikua'ana

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