BWP Third Door: Judgement - Printable Version

The path that may ask everything of you, the Visitor says, but Midge is already lunging for the Third Door. Her survival is paramount. But sometimes, the riskiest option is the most direct line to that end. The danger of this door doesn’t mask the likelihood of it being the source of all of this, the year-long crises that had gripped this world that had kidnapped her. The huntress’ paws hit the ground on the other side of the Door, and magic surrounds her. It is so thick here, it is as if she has been plunged deep underwater. Her lungs struggle to fill, her bones feel leaden, her ears fill with cotton.

At the epicenter, a wolf is bound.

His teeth are bared. His eyes clouded with agony beyond words. He has been abandoned to this fate. Given up by his pack to endless silence, endless torture, endless claustrophobic imprisonment. It is the fate that haunts her deep as her marrow, the living death that Midge would commit atrocities to avoid. Once, she was in his place. Caged unwillingly, unfairly, only freed by the compassion and courage others would muster.

It might kill her. It might kill everyone in this world.

The huntress’ paws were already in motion, her instinct spurring her to action long before her mind had determined her conclusion. She surged into action alongside the other gathered wolves, pressing her pelt against theirs to shore them up. They were pack for now. They would move as one. And if the Bound One chose to burn this world to ash when he was free, so be it. She clasped her jaws around a burning chain with a strangled snarl, lifting her gaze to the bound wolf’s. She had broken her chains. She’d break his. He’d feel the sun on his skin, the wind in his fur, the reach of his limbs without limitation.

He was one of her own, now.

She is well acquainted with the dreams and the Visitor by now. Solulfur bares her teeth at him in lieu of greeting. She has learned it is not his fault entire that this world is so set on her destruction. And yet, too much of the blame lies with the ghost to spare him her ire. Still, these visions are vital. She watches coldly, the empathetic connection trying and failing to convince her heart to flutter with sympathy.

The air itself splits like a wound, revealing three new paths to walk. Solulfur can only choose one. Gold eyes level themselves at the Visitor.

She is not blind to the doomed circumstances that arranged themselves to cause this tragedy. But she is not blind to the lasting consequences it has wrought on her life, her loved ones. She cannot change what happened. Punishing the Visitor changes nothing. The only thing Solulfur can do is step through the Third Door and put an end to this. A slight nod is the only goodbye she offers the Visitor, before she steps through the portal.

The magic is suffocating here. The Bound One wails and snarls, reminding her of the maddened rage that gripped the Reykblindur. But it is the madness of centuries of agony. The magic had formed and reformed him, as the Visitor said; like a warped version of the transcendental passing-on her Afi had experienced. Is the Bound wolf even alive - or a tortured spirit? If he is, will he cause more damage free than if Solulfur simply aims to kill him? She cannot make the wrong decision. If she does, it puts the lives of all those she loves on the line.

The Sun-wolf thinks of her ancestors, the spirits that watch over her and will one day welcome her into their number. She must prove herself worthy of their ranks; live her life with honor, with strength.

But Solulfur knows there are many kinds of strength. Her own strength is only partly rooted in the power of her fangs. A coward only uses their words to fight. A fool only uses their brawn to control. The Black Sun uses both.

There is strength in mercy, especially now, and it is a hard choice for the fra Nordri. She would prefer to stain the blue-hued stone wine-red with the Bound One’s blood. She would prefer to hear the death gurgle to know in her heart with absolute assurance that she is at last safe. That her closest comrades are at last secure. But even if there is no Visitor, no Bound one, no Mythris magic to cause calamity - danger will always find them.

This spirit deserves freedom. Solulfur does not think of what he deserves. She thinks of what marks her as worthy, to her. She thinks of what will give her the best chance of a future without abandoning the values of her heritage, and the values of those she’d come to cherish. It didn’t matter what the Bound One deserved. But Solulfur deemed, with reluctance, that she felt it worthy of her time to risk freedom over bloodshed. She slipped her shoulders beneath one of the chains and began to try to pull it free of the stone.