[Cards] Winter Ward (Patreon)

Myrwen stood, blood-slickened fingers just strong enough to nock her bow. She'd heard these winter wolves were unusually canny and cruel, but the raw resolve she saw made it clear her quarry had something to protect.

Dirusvulf Rimeclaw knew, were the huntress to prevail, his clan would be hunted and driven out; it happened before, after all. Despite this, he was impressed by the elf's will to live. Nevertheless, one would fall; it was the way of things.

But when both tensed to spring, the snow erupted as a colossal bolt blasted a crater between them. At the clearing's edge, unheeded in their struggle, stood a frost giant; his relaxed sneer showed only contempt for the battered fighters.

Myrwen and Dirusvulf's eyes locked. One would still die, yet for the moment, it would be neither of them…

The pups of the Rimeclaw Clan sat entranced by the elder wolf's story, a legend of their grandmothers' grandfathers' grandmothers' time. And the elder loved to tell it, seeing in the incongruous blue accessories arrayed before her the echoes of the two who had made the clan… itself.

Beyond the treeline stood an elf, hair silvered with graceful age beneath a warm, blue hat. With a smile, the tribe's legend padded away through the forest, a radiant, snow-furred figure sharing her stride.