Template:Becoming Valkyrie

“Gather round, my children, and hear the Fornaldarsaga of the Valkyrie, the story of our race’s birth,” said the aged Valkyrie as she fluttered her wings. After many long years of flying, they had begun to show signs of decay, but they were still strong, and kicked up a swirl of snow in the courtyard.

The group of youngsters quickly surrounded her. “You have come of age, and are now old enough to know this dark tale. For though our story is horrible and gruesome, it must never be forgotten. Do not be embarrassed to shed tears. Tears are not a sign of weakness. Empathy is our great virtue, and we learn it from our origins. As you listen, recall our code, and the oath you have all taken.” Shaken by the elder Valkyrie’s serious tone, the boys and girls sat in silence, their wild-haired heads bobbing attentively in time with her story.

It is true that the Piercing of the Veil brought many terrors into this world. Yet we cannot ignore the awful truth: The world has twisted souls who do not need the influence of a Veilstorm to commit acts of the most terrible kind.

In one of the mighty fjords of our Realm, the was a small island that held an even tinier village. Hardy folk lived fished and roamed the fjord, mostly young people and a few persevering elders. Unimaginable alterations swept through the land after the Piercing; yet this tiny village somehow managed to weather the storms on this remote island. Life became very hard when the rocking waves and fierce winds destroyed their boats, cutting them off from the mainland. Hunger seeped through the village like a poison, as fishing was difficult and no one could get to the mainland without a boat.

A young lady named Brynhildr was one who never gave up hope. She roamed the small island, clutching the necklace her mother gave her for luck, looking for precious driftwood to help the boat-makers with their task, though they never asked her.

Brynhildr had always been a willful child. She was much more interested in the aggressive games that the village boys played than in the dolls that her little sisters liked. From the time she was very small, the girl excelled at their gambols and their battle training, surpassing all the boys her age. As they all grew, the boys eventually surpassed her in size and strength, but she changed her fighting style accordingly. With her martial skill, she became a match for anyone.

She became known as a protector early on. When one of the warlike games played by the older boys grew too rough, leaving the younger ones on the verge of tears, it was Brynhildr who stepped in. Ducking and weaving, she brought down the older, stronger boys with a few well-placed blows. “Don’t do that again,” she told them firmly. “Fight someone who can fight back.” From then on, the smaller boy she’d saved followed her movements, trying to learn from her.

Her parents were very proud of Brynhildr’s accomplishments, for in her chest beat the heart of a true warrior. The girl promised to keep her mother’s necklace safe forever. But that promise would prove as difficult to keep as catching the autumn wind.

The wind blew over the island, making the long grasses wave their fading green finery in supplication of the sky. The wind carried a salty cold that made the island’s inhabitants shiver. The few children who were doing their chores glanced up and hoped it wasn’t another storm. Something about the cold wind made them want to go somewhere, want to go exploring, anywhere on the little island that they hadn’t seen before, as if to escape the rattling wind and its icy fingers. It was the wind of the coming fall, bringing a new or different scent of the sea, of things roiled in the black deeps. The wind whistled through the cracks in the walls and the wicker baskets that they carried across town.

The wind brought a dot on the horizon that grew and grew, grabbing the attention of the villagers with a glimpse of salvation. The cry rang round the village like the tolling of a bell: A sail, a sail! A ship from the mainland!

The villagers rejoiced, dropping their desperate boatmaking and their daily tasks. They rushed down to the shore, waving their arms excitedly. Rescued at last! Men and women laughed and smiled a welcome, overjoyed at their good fortune. They couldn’t have been more horribly wrong.

As the sail rode the ominous wind closer to the island, some of the older villagers grew concerned, for it had the look of a warship. But they had nothing worth taking in their little village, and the weapons on deck stayed in their scabbards. Fear faded as the men and scattered women of the crew smiled and waved to the villagers on shore as if they were long-lost relatives.

Brynhildr stood among the crowd near the shore. She smiled and nodded with the other girls as they laughed in relief and commented on which warrior was the most comely. Something in her heart felt sick with fear, though Brynhildr could not say why. She fingered the amulet around her neck, then hid it under her shirt.

One of the boys, a younger brother to the one that Brynhildr had saved, ran down to greet the first man that splashed ashore. Beaming up at the tall, roughly dressed warrior, the boy grinned happily. Even though the lad barely reached the warrior’s knee, he burst out, “Let me carry some of your gear ashore, sir!”

The stranger grinned in return and tousled the boy’s auburn hair. Without changing expression, the man drew his sword and swung it in a tight arc, cleanly separating the boy’s head from his shoulders. It happened in an instant. The boy’s helpful smile spun as his head bounced away, and his lifeless body collapsed onto the sand, gushing blood.

There was a moment of stunned silence among the onlookers. Then, as the rest of the warriors howled and leaped ashore, they broke and ran screaming. None of them could run very far; the island was small and had nowhere to hide. They were gathered together like stray cattle, with no chance to organize a defence against the overwhelming power of the raiders. The days of brutality had only just begun, dark days that most only speak of in the faintest of whispers.

The invaders ran amok, murdering villagers in ways that should have sickened even the most hardened warrior. And yet they were just getting started. Some of the villagers were bound and used for target practice. Several young men were castrated and used by the invaders in the most horrific ways. This was not done to fulfill bodily desire. The strangers wished for power and pain, causing their victims to suffer in the cruelest way they could conceive.

The village elders were treated as pack animals. The invaders competed with each other to devise ever-crueler ways to humiliate and demoralize them. Contests were held to see who could come up with the most novel way to break an old man through sheer exertion. When the last of this group died, the tormentors turned their attention to the dozens of imprisoned villagers. Commencing a drunken feast, they separated the survivors into two groups. One group was immediately forced to serve their new masters. They were made to posture like dogs and beg for what little food they were given. This first evening was filled with laughter, folk weeping in between playing the mad game.

The more awful their abuse, the more the invaders laughed and celebrated their own imagined bravery and strength. They forced the villagers to thank them for the “honor” bestowed on the “lucky” survivors. The warriors drank themselves into a stupor at their vile feast, yet never relaxed their grip on their weapons. There was no question of resistance; the surviving villagers were weak and shivering with humiliation and fear.

The new dawn did not deliver true daylight to the village. The sun rose faint and red, sickly and ominous. The second group of captives had been dressed in their finest garments and told to wait until their “kindly new masters” summoned them to that night’s feast. The minutes turned to hours, and their apprehension mounted as they recalled the sounds of the night before; The terrified screams and desperate sobs of their friends, mingled with the derisive laughter of the warriors.

They prayed to the sky, to the old gods, to any powers that would save them and their lost loved ones. But when the summons to the feast finally came, there was still no response from the heavens.

Shuddering, the villagers were dragged to the central square. Each captive in turn was made to stand on a table. They were then measured and assessed in every degrading way possible. Each warrior, according to rank, was allowed to choose one villager. The rest were told to stand ready, in case any of the chosen didn’t “want to see the new morning.”

A “priest” was called forth, a grinning and dancing fat man who draped white cloth over his armor. In a mockery of ceremony, each of the captives was wed to the warrior who had chosen him or her. Then, their hands bound, the newlyweds were dragged into private rooms for their ‘wedding night.’ The horrors that went on there were greater than anything that had come before. The subhuman torturers laughed and laughed long into the night, stopping only when the villagers were fortunate enough to stop screaming forever.

As time passed and the days blurred together, the terrors eventually became predictable. Some sufferers grew numb, and walked aimlessly about, mere shells of human beings. This emotionless state irritated the invaders, for they hungered for the struggle, for blood and terror. So the warriors began to devise new and unthinkable ways to torture their captives, trying to make them respond. Some of the aimless ones were beaten with spears, while survivors were forced to beg for more abuse each night.

Through everything, Brynhildr tried to retain her sanity. When she hadn’t seen her parents for days, she knew they were gone. She was luckier; passed over for some of the worst horrors, and only kept in a pen like an animal, along with the boy she had once defended. He survived the castration and ensuing abuse, and endured quietly, teeth clenched, while others wept.

The madness had gone on for over a week when a fierce Malevolence descended upon the village. Undaunted, the invaders simply carried out their atrocities indoors, letting the storm rage outside.

One night, the leader of the warriors came into the pen where Brynhildr had been kept. He wore a satisfied smirk as he went from one captive to the next, looking them over as if they were animals for slaughter. When he came to Brynhildr, he lifted her chin roughly and licked his lips. With a grunt, his heavy hand tore the necklace from her throat.

His laugh was harsh and full of raucous glee. “Excellent! Tonight, we shall hold a glorious contest. And now we have a prize!”

For the first time, Brynhildr felt a sob welling up in her throat. Her vision dimmed with tears. Something about the sight of the necklace in his massive grip, or the stinging of her neck where the necklace had been, finally brought it home. That it had been her mother’s most prized possession, that it had been passed down through generations of her family, meant nothing to this monster. There was truly nothing any of them could do. The horror would continue until they were all broken in mind and body. The storm’s thunder shook through her bones.

Seeing her eyes brimming, the warriors gathered around their leader, watching her and licking their lips, drawn like sharks to the scent of blood. The leader’s grin grew wider, and he shook his head with false concern. “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll have your chance to win it back.”

They were dragged into a building out of the growling Malevolence. In the flickering torchlight, the warriors gathering in a circle, clearing an open space. Stripped and beaten with the butt end of a spear, Brynhildr was thrown in into the ring. A moment later, her opponent was tossed in, stumbling and already bloody. “Fight for your life! Last pig standing gets the necklace!” the leader growled.

Brynhildr looked up. Staring back at her across the opening in the stamping, shouting crowd was her friend, the boy she had defended. His wounds had reopened, trickling red down his leg. He stared at her with a hopeless smile in his eyes. She knew he wouldn’t fight back; she could kill him easily.

Her gaze roved over the circle of jeering warriors. Their faces were no more than the masks of depraved men and women who had burned their souls on a pyre.

The storm shook the walls of the building as Brynhildr screamed and flew into a rage. Instead of her opponent, she charged the warriors standing in a ring. Howling her anger, she grasped a chair for a weapon, then laid about her with the splinters when that broke.

For just a moment, the warriors hesitated. No one in this weak village had dared to defy them. But they were ruthless killers, armed and armored, and Brynhildr had endured much already. Though she fought their clutching hands with frenzied spirit, she was only human. Their blades plunged into her, their armored fists beat her to the ground. Fighting fiercely to her last breath, Brynhildr died cursing them in Odin’s name.

The remaining villagers broke into helpless weeping. The tormentors were delighted at first, but soon grew annoyed. The survivors were sent back to a guarded hut where their mewling would be less audible. There was talk of burning it, to finish their revels with the blaze.

The Malevolence continued to swirl around the island. Those few who looked up from their own misery saw the storm do something strange, something never witnessed before. The clouds gathered into a dark vortex just above the prison. Hearing the storm rage just outside their door, the survivors wept even louder, wailing for Brynhildr, the only one who had dared to fight back.

Whether or not the gods heard their plaintive calls, something in the storm listened. A wisp of its roiling energy passed into the feasting room and brushed the blood and tears that marked the face of Brynhildr’s corpse.

In any other time, she would have been swiftly forgotten, another toll in the unbalanced ledger of human cruelty. The memory of her name would be covered with the ashes of other dead innocents. But this is the Age of Becoming.

Brynhildr’s body began to glow with an undulating light, and a circle of blinding white fire surrounded her. As the flames grew and touched her still form, Brynhildr was reborn. She arose and assumed the aspect of a female warrior, clad in shining armor. A pair of glossy crimson-black wings sprouted from her back, and she lifted a fiery spear. Blood-red tears were etched into her skin.

Her eyes burning with reawakened fury, Brynhildr strode into the sleeping chambers of the torturers. A few warriors rolled to their feet, but she pointed her spear at them, and they burst into flames. Others she simply hamstrung and left to writhe to agonizing death.

Dripping with blood, Brynhildr freed the remaining captives and asked who would stand beside her to be cleansed by the storm. Eir, Hildr, Gondyl, and others joined her. Exposing themselves to the full violence of the storm, they began to hunt the rest of the invaders, who had strayed all over the island. Brynhildr’s followers were transformed as they drove their enemies screaming into the sea. Their open wounds vanished, and their eyes began to glow with a veiled hatred that burned like the sun through stormclouds.

When the night was over, only one of the subhuman invaders was left alive: the leader, the one who had offered Brynhildr her own mother’s necklace. He was caught slinking back through the village in the grey light of dawn after the storm, clutching the piece of jewelry in one hand, his axe in the other.

A blast of blue flame from Brynhildr’s spear dropped the weapon from his hand, and he stumbled into the ruined feasting hall, his cruel face a mask of fear.

Brynhildr followed and snatched the necklace from his hands. She would strangle him with it. But then a hand appeared on her arm, holding her back. One of the castrated young men had stepped forward. As if looking at the memory from far away, she knew it was the boy again, the one she’d saved twice now. Without a word, he freed the necklace from her clenched fist, shook his head and placed the necklace gently around her neck. He smiled helpfully, just as his young brother had when the leader had slain him on the shore.

Over the boy’s shoulder, Brynhildr stared deeply into the vacant eyes of the defeated brute. Though her soul cried out for a final act of vengeance, she simply hissed “Never again.” The cost of each word burned in her eyes, white-hot stars of anger. The man stepped back.

She pointed her spear toward the thatched ceiling. Another spout of flame flared from the tip, searing the roof to ash. Crimson-black wings glimmered and shone in the pure sunlight as Brynhildr and her followers flew out of the hall to search for any villagers who remained alive.

Left standing alone in the ruins of the feasting hall, the leader of the fallen marauders sat back down and marveled at his good luck. There were always other warriors to hire, other villages to have some fun with. His horrible, savage mind began turning, thinking of disgusting horrors he had yet to try.

It took him several years, but eventually he arrived in an undisturbed village with a new band of warriors at his side. As the villagers grew alarmed and began to run, to try and hide from the laughing killers, a wolfish grin spread across his face. He mumbled to himself, “Never again, hah! That bitch will soon learn who the real master is.” He cinched up his belt and drew his sword, licking his lips.

Then he heard the beating of wings overhead. He blinked into fiery sunlight to see a familiar female figure standing before him. Before the brute could react, he felt an acute stab of pain as her spear punctured his groin.

The elder Valkyrie finished her tale and looked around the group gathered in the courtyard. Deep red tears streamed down the cheeks of the various Valkyrie, old and young. Behind the tears were eyes of steel, purpose and determination burning in their souls. She cleared her throat.

“Thus ends the Becoming story of the Valkyrie. It is said that of all the races in the Realm, our tale carries the most tragedy. We can only hope we continue to carry that terrible distinction, for no creature should suffer as we have. We are born of suffering and horror. We are born to defend the Realm. We are born to defend those too weak to defend themselves. The Valkyrie who came before me wrote the embodiment of our spirit in the Valkyric Code, though the creation of that great document is a tale for another day.”