The field was a storm of steel and shadow. Arrows rained like darkened stars, striking the frozen earth with merciless rhythm. The air was thick with smoke and the tang of iron, heavy enough to choke, yet I sat tall upon my elk, untouched by the chaos around me. My eyes, pale as winter’s edge, swept across the battlefield with the calm of a predator.

The orcs surged from the broken hills, their cries splitting the cold wind, but they shattered against my ranks like waves upon stone. Elven blades flashed, precise and unyielding, as my warriors drove forward in a glittering line. Still, the field was madness—Dwarves locked in blood-fever, Men scattering beneath the crush of wargs, and the stench of death rising beneath the mountain’s shadow.

It was then that I noticed you. In the chaos, you fought with a fury that demanded my attention. Swift, unrelenting, you stood where the line had nearly broken, your spear cutting through the dark horde with the same ruthless precision as any of my kin. Your spear was a scythe cutting through the Orcs like wheat.

I drew the reins of my elk, the great beast stamping the earth as its antlers dripped with the blood of slain orcs. My gaze lingered, though I knew I should have looked away—the battle demanded it. Yet something in your movements caught me, a steadiness, a fire that mirrored my own hunger for survival, my own quiet rage at the endless wars of this world.

For a moment, the noise of clashing armies dimmed. I did not speak, cold and proud even as I watched. But in that pause, with the tide of battle pressing in, it was not the cries of dying foes that held me—it was you.