Dawn broke soft and slow across the Terrepar Highlands, the light spilling like pale gold over the slopes. Mist clung low to the ground, caught in the hollows between the stones. The wind moved lazily through the heather, stirring the faintest scent of dew and earth. Raider had been awake long before the first blush of morning. He stood sentinel upon a rise, the shadows still draped about his flanks like an old cloak. His breath came steady and deep, rising in faint clouds that drifted and vanished. Now and again, he shifted his weight, stretching his legs, the faint creak of muscle and tendon breaking the silence. The night had been uneventful, save for the rustle of small things in the underbrush, and yet his eyes searched the horizon as though expecting something just beyond the reach of dawn. Behind him, where the ground dipped into a hollow of wild thyme and grass, Viper stirred. The warmth of the sun had begun to seep into her coat, and she blinked herself awake with a drowsy smile. Her mane was mussed from sleep, and a few petals clung to her side from the night’s rest. “Morning,” she said, her voice bright and lilting, cutting through the hush like a sparrow’s call. “Tell me, is today the day?” Raider did not turn at once. His gaze followed a hawk wheeling over the valley before he hummed low in his chest, a sound more thought than word. “It would be a good day if it were.” Viper laughed softly, rising to her feet. “That’s not an answer.” “No,” he said, finally glancing her way. The wind caught her forelock and tossed it across her face, and she brushed it aside with an amused snort. She moved to stand beside him, eyes sweeping the distant line of forest where the land darkened, the edge of the Witherlands, where their path would soon lead. “Then,” she said, her tone half play, half purpose, “let’s make it the day.” Raider’s only reply was a faint smile that never quite reached his eyes. The sun crept higher, and the shadows drew back into the stones. The highlands began to stir, the distant murmur of streams, the call of unseen birds, the slow breathing of the world before a storm. And so began their journey toward The Scar. The morning light bled slowly into full day as they descended from the rise, their hooves pressing soft imprints into the damp grass. The world stretched vast and green before them, rolling slopes that spilled into the Terrepar Highlands, where the mist still clung to hollows like sleeping ghosts. Beyond, the trees stood cloaked in shadow, and further still, the dark line of the Witherlands marked their distant goal. Raider walked in silence, his head low, tearing a few last mouthfuls of grass as they went. The dew cooled his tongue, grounding him to the present even as his mind lingered on the road ahead. Viper, lively as the morning breeze, trotted at his flank. “What exactly are you expecting to find?” she asked, tilting her head toward him. “That thing you saw, it was enormous. Even if your spikes and stones could reach its hide, what then? You can’t fight a monster with a sword.” Raider gave a small grunt, chewing slowly. She huffed, tossing her mane. “That’s not an answer, either.” He rolled his eyes, slowly, deliberately, and she caught the gesture with a grin. “You think it’s clever, don’t you? Chasing death for glory?” He shrugged simply. Viper snorted but fell into step beside him, the air between them easy and familiar. Her voice meandered like a brook, light and constant, talk of herbs, of mountain passes, of rumors she’d heard about the Witherlands’ cursed soil. Raider listened without reply, the rhythm of her chatter a comfort he would never admit aloud. After a long while, when even the larks had quieted and the only sound was the hush of wind through the grass, Raider spoke. “There was a sword,” he began. “Forged before the Auri Plains turned gold. Its edge was said to drink light, emerald in hue.” Viper’s ears twitched, curiosity sparked. “And you think a dragon guards it?” “I don’t think,” he said quietly. “If the creature before was a dragon, I've heard of such dragon swords.” Viper’s ears flicked. “Heard of it?” He gave a short nod, his gaze turning distant, northward, toward the hazy teeth of the mountains. “My dam used to tell stories before… before I was taken from her. One was about a warrior who fought a dragon in the old age of the world. They said his sword burned green as the heart of spring, an emerald blade that could pierce the scales of any beast.” Viper slowed, her expression softening. “And you think this sword is real?” Raider’s lips curved faintly, though not into a smile. “I don’t know. But if the tales were true, if the sword still lies buried where the beast fell, then it’s worth finding. Worth trying for.” The wind swept through the grass, carrying his words into the quiet. For a time, only the sound of their hooves broke the stillness. “So,” Viper said at last, glancing toward him with a light, knowing tone. “You’re not after gold or glory, then. You’re chasing a story.” He shrugged, eyes narrowing toward the distant shadow of the Witherlands. “Maybe. But some stories deserve an ending.” They moved eastward through the highlands, where the green began to fade from the land. The slopes softened into long, weary ridges, and the air grew colder, carrying a faint metallic scent that clung to the back of the tongue. The earth underhoof turned dark and heavy, rich with decay. By midday, the last of the heather had given way to brittle grass and patches of black moss. The mists here never lifted, only shifted, rolling and curling between the stones as though alive. Ahead, the horizon was veiled by a low wall of fog, and beyond it, the shadowed silhouette of dying trees marked the beginning of the Scar. They descended in silence, each step muffled by the damp soil. Viper kept close, her usual chatter quieted by the unease that seemed to breathe from the ground itself. The trees ahead stood twisted and pale, bark peeling like old skin, their branches hung with strands of mist that swayed without wind. Raider paused at the edge of the treeline, his gaze steady, the faintest narrowing of his eyes betraying thought. “This is it,” he said. Viper stepped beside him, her hooves sinking slightly into the soft earth. “It feels wrong here,” she murmured. “Like the land remembers pain.” “It does,” he replied, lowering his head to study the fog that pooled between the roots. “They say the Scar was once a valley, before something burned through it. Fire that didn’t die, just, went cold.” Viper shivered, her breath forming faint curls of vapor. “And that’s where the dragon fell?” “That’s where it sleeps,” he said, voice low, almost reverent. The wind stirred faintly, carrying a sound from within the fog, a hollow groan, or perhaps the creak of a dying tree. Neither spoke. They began their descent, step by step, into the pallid wood where sunlight no longer reached and the air grew thick with the scent of rot and stone. Behind them, the last of the highland grass shivered in the wind. Ahead, the forest waited. They moved cautiously beneath the dying canopy, the fog curling around their legs like restless spirits. The air was dense here, heavy with the smell of ash and wet decay, and every sound seemed swallowed by the mist before it could fully form. Raider’s hooves pressed deep into the sodden earth, each step releasing the faint hiss of moisture. He paused often, his gaze flicking toward faint shapes half seen in the gloom; fallen trunks, old stones, perhaps bones. At last he spoke, his voice low but sure. “We’ll need to head north from here. If the old stories are right, when the dragon was struck down, it fled to the mountains beyond, the Witherlands. It might have returned since… maybe to die there. Or to guard what it couldn’t carry away.” Viper swallowed, her ears twitching toward a sound she couldn’t quite place, a soft moan that rose from somewhere deeper in the woods. It stretched too long, too steady to be wind, and ended in a note too sharp to be natural. She shivered. “Are you sure that was the wind?” Raider didn’t answer. His eyes narrowed into the fog, studying the gray distance where tree trunks twisted like the ribs of some buried beast. The deeper they went, the stranger the world became. Patches of the ground were bleached white as bone, the soil cracking in places as though scorched long ago. The trees were hollow, and when the wind moved through them it made a low, keening whistle that rose and fell like distant voices. Sometimes, the calls overlapped, moans becoming wails, wails turning into what sounded like faint, broken screams. Once, Viper thought she heard words in them . “Raider…” she murmured, her voice tight, “this place isn’t empty.” “Few places are,” he said, though his tone lacked its usual calm. “The Scar never forgot what happened here. It only learned to whisper about it.” Viper stepped closer to him, the faint shimmer of her coat muted by the mist. “And what if the dragon’s one of the things whispering?” He tilted his head slightly, listening to another long, distant cry that rippled through the fog. “Then we’ll hear it before we see it,” he said confidently, “and that’s the best we can hope for.” They pressed on, the pale light of day dimming until it felt like twilight under the canopy. The forest’s murmurs grew louder the farther north they went, and once, just once, Viper caught the reflection of something glinting green far ahead, before the fog folded shut again and swallowed it whole. They pressed north until the last light began to fade, their path winding through a maze of fallen trunks and blackened roots. The fog had thickened to a pale shroud, heavy and low, though through it they could just make out the jagged outline of the mountains, vast and silent, rising like the backs of sleeping beasts above the treeline. Neither spoke much as they walked. The air itself seemed to hum with unease, each sound, the rustle of leaves, the drip of unseen water, too sharp, too near. When the last trace of dusk slipped behind the peaks, Viper finally slowed, her sides heaving softly. “Raider,” she said, her voice small, “we should rest.” He halted, scanning the gloom. “Aye,” he said after a moment, “but not here.” They moved off the main trail, if such a thing could be called a trail at all, weaving between clusters of dead pines until they came upon a hollow where an ancient log had fallen against a slope. Beneath it, sheltered by a thick stand of low branches, lay a patch of dry earth, small, but hidden. Raider stepped in first, lowering his head to inspect it. He eased himself down, his body forming a wall between the opening and the forest beyond. Then he looked back at Viper and gave a slight tilt of his head. “Come on. You’ll freeze out there.” She hesitated only a breath before settling beside him, curling close enough to share warmth. The smell of pine and damp moss filled the little hollow, mingling with the faint metallic tang of the Scar’s air. When she was still, Raider closed his eyes and drew a long, steady breath. From the shadows beneath his ribs, a thin curl of darkness began to seep, soft, almost smoke like. It thickened, spreading outward in tendrils until it veiled their shelter in a murky haze. The mist hung heavy, swallowing the light and dulling the sound, turning the world outside into a distant, muffled blur. Viper watched drowsily, her voice no more than a whisper. “You’ve done that before.” He nodded faintly. “Keeps things from seeing what shouldn’t be seen.” “For bandit things?” she teased, her words fading as sleep crept over her. “For surviving things,” he replied, but she was already asleep. The forest seemed to lean closer then, listening. Twigs cracked now and again in the distance, soft, uncertain noises that might have been the wind, or might not. Raider lay still, half awake, every sound tugging at the edge of his senses. His shadows shifted faintly with each stir of his breath, answering him like loyal hounds. Hours passed this way, caught between waking and dream. Once, he thought he saw movement beyond the veil, a faint glimmer, green and low to the ground, but when he blinked, it was gone. He exhaled slowly, the fog deepening around them. The forest murmured on, whispering secrets to the dark, and Raider drifted at last into a restless sleep, one ear still tuned to every breath of the night.