I am a selfish mean with selfish woes. I am partial to the needs of the World’s Edge and to those I now serve. I am sometimes misguided and untrustworthy. I am also passionate and wholehearted. I am everything that makes up the perfect storm, a true knight donning blackened armor. I am Thor the Gentle Heart… but I fear that I am no longer gentle.

Life has found many ways to upset and deter me and somehow I stand as a symbol of what no man should ever do. I have abandoned, I have deceived, and I have grown from the naive young sprout that once promised to bloom. I always wondered what kind of flower might be born of my roots and the truth has revealed that black roses are all that thrive from my soils. Yet, I cannot keep from nurturing these buds, because I am incapable of walking away from the many things that I abhor. Sometimes I like to console myself with ideas of purity and strength, but there is nothing more painful than lying to one’s self. I have lied for too long now and I have mocked my own morals… It is time to forget how I came to be this way and instead embrace this new part to my whole.

Again I found myself wandering from the Edge and from the home that possessed such a title only by name. Everything felt too fresh or too chaotic for anything to actually feel normal. I hated this life for its weaknesses and the way it made me feel, as if I were unbalanced or unseen- an invisible force of nature that only struck when least expected. Had I ever been such a disaster, I would have liked to call myself a hurricane or a tsunami that lifted against the tide too suddenly to avoid. After all, my anger was not something often provoked and yet hardly ignored. Life had done that to me… it had warped my morals and made me cold, despite every effort to make it not so.

As I ambled through the Threshold once more, now a place that forgave the numbness and my inability to face whatever monuments were being erected in the Edge, I relished the almost quiet beating of my heart. For so long I had bowed to so many, trusted so many, and been betrayed by so many… Was this the last of my worries, now that two Kings had replaced what once was? I believed in them as more than just leaders, don’t get me wrong, but I was such a bitter creature because of so many failed attempts to try. Maybe this was what I needed to... –hell, I don’t know. It didn’t matter and I didn’t care. All I could do now was resort to the only thing I could contribute to any new reign and recruiting was something I’d come to embrace as the years dragged on. It was the answer, or really a distraction, from all the weighed me down and made me as docile as an indentured slave.

With Sabine tucked neatly within the nest she’d made of my mane, I trailed the very routes that only time could identify any longer. One was quite beaten and muddied, a popular source of entry, while another appeared overgrown and ragged. Too many times I had travelled the beaten path, hoping to find something or worth or of momentary satisfaction, and each time I found myself wanting more than I’d found. I needed something different from the usual… I needed more than the typical hot-head who believed themselves worthy of a crown upon introduction. I needed someone willing to commit and call the World’s Edge their home- I needed their fucking dedication and I wouldn’t leave with anything less.

It was time to stop following and start leading, so I followed the thick underbrush toward a destination unknown and hopefully a truth that I’d yet conquered.

Upon covering a good mile of rugged brush, I was almost convinced that I’d find nothing of worth hidden away from such an open world. However, just when I was about to turn back, Sabine managed to bite and claw her way toward my poll (no matter how painful it was on my behalf). Her wide eyes seemed to peer off into the distance as if she’d heard something or sensed something that I had not, and when images of limbs cracking and twigs snapping came to mind, I was hesitant to move forward. I wasn’t sure what the Zephyr had been able to detect and I certainly didn’t want to walk into a rogue pack of wolves wandered too far from the Basin... However, images of warmth and the sun pressed against my consciousness and I paused in order to listen quietly, not only to my surroundings, but to Sabine as well. In our short time together I had discovered a great many things ranging from her curiosities to her fears… and she wasn’t frightful now.

Pressing onward, I was surprised to find that Sabine had been right about her intuitions, and I silently thanked the small bird when stumbling upon a large, jet-black mare. Her skin was mottled by scars, either from battle or abuse, and her deep brown eyes appeared to sport either pain or resentment for stories unrevealed. The mare was of hefty lineage and she rivaled my own stature, but I was not a man driven from his superiors- even if they were of the opposite sex. “You look… rough,” I opened blankly upon approach. “Welcome to Helovia, I’m Thor. Don’t suppose you’re looking for a place to settle, hm?” I questioned bluntly. I assumed short and sweet was the best way to entice such a battered mare to indulge in conversation… of course, I’d seen her type before. I assumed her to be a woman of wit and perhaps a bit of sarcasm which meant that this was certainly panning out to be a long day. Image Credits