Polaris

The Frozen Warrior, they called her. Icewarden’s Chosen, Blood-on-Snow. Beside her god and general, she led the battle, ice and wind shrieking in her wake.

They were three, once. Bonewood, the great commander. Zetsumii, swift and stalwart. And Polaris. In the time before the Pillar, when the world was changing and new. They followed their diety into battle time and time again, forcing back their enemies, claiming new lands in the name of the Icewarden. Their frozen touch was felt in every corner of the world.

The Shadowlands were to be their greatest conquest. The warmth of the forests frozen over. But Bonewood succumbed to the thorns and thickets, his strength no match for the forests themselves.

Polaris fled, broken and weak. Her forces were scattered. Few of the Icewarden’s army remained, many were nothing but scale and bone on the forest floor.

At the edge of the forest, where the water rose up to meet the wood, she prayed to her god for deliverance. Instead, he delivered punishment. No warrior of his would run from a fight. His great hoary jaws opened and ice consumed her, sealing her in a frozen tomb.

The glacier floated out to sea, drifting on the surface. From her prison she saw Zetsumii fall as he attempted to join her, crushed by one of the great trees uprooted in the fray. Within the ice, Polaris could not weep, could not scream. Instead she could only watch in horror as her fight collapsed, her soldiers scattered, her god ashamed. Slowly, she sank below the surface, forgotten.

For ages she waited, trapped beneath the waves. But Sornieth grew restless, and the steam vents erupted, sending her glacier to the surface once more.

On the beach sat a Guardian, staring out to sea. He was different, his colors changed, no longer marked with the scars of battle.

But his eyes were the same.

Zetsumii led his battle partner into the forest they once aimed to conquer, to the remains of their leader. And there they wait.