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+---
+title: The Girl and the Gift
+---
+
+_Legends in the cold ranges of Nordsvar tell the tale of a girl, tied to the ground and surrounded by the mist-wrapped peaks, and the gift she is granted by the mighty Wanderer of the Reach._
+
+---
+
+Mother always liked to tell me that tale, the tale of the Girl and the Gift. About a young girl who looked up in wonder at the mist-wrapped peaks of the Wanderer’s Reach. She’d admire the clouds that danced upon the wind until day’s end, when they would lay to rest on the rocks they graced. They would leave a pale blanket of cold snow to the mountain’s sole inhabitant, a parting gift for the day before they would rise again the next, and the peaks were met by the next series of iridescent bands.
+
+The girl had always wished to scale the mountains where the dawn’s sun rose to wake her, to meet the elusive soul that rested within the Reach. After all, she would spend day and night, imagining the wonder in her sister’s eye after returning from her journey to the peaks, having laid eye and hand upon the Wanderer themselves. So had her loving mother, who drew power from their spirit, and her father, a steadfast warrior of the tribe enchanted by their grace.
+
+Yet, the girl was ever down at the foot of the mountains, gazing at the peaks she knew she would never scale, dreaming a dream that would never be. Tied to the earth, as if by lock and chain, left to wonder what could have been. It had always pained her father, the knowledge that she would always be kept from his side in the war. Though her mother always remained faithful, casting her faith to the Wanderer, under the dancing lights and the moonlight that shone down from above. Wishing, praying, that somehow the Wanderer could let her child scale the peaks she roamed, if only once.
+
+Though her cries had always gone unanswered, she would wake the girl at every day’s break, to ask her if her miracle had yet passed. Every morning, she would raise the girl from her back, and sit her up carefully against the head of the bed. Every morning, she would take the girl onto her back, down the stairs, and out to the sweeping fields. They would sit side by side in the wet grass, staring in wonder at the peaks. While the girl always enjoyed their mornings, gazing in wonder and pointing at the same peculiarities every day, her mother grew sorrowful evermore with each passing day. With not the destiny, but the curse, that had found her youngest.
+
+Day in, day out. Her daughter on her back with her beaming smile, blissfully unaware of the life that was set out for her. An eternal cycle that brought her more discontent, more desperation, with every passing day. Her wishes to the Wanderer grew ever discordant, until they were merely empty echoes of painful screams, set adrift on the wind that swept up to the peaks.
+
+As the girl grew adolescent, the mother’s sorrow started to slowly pierce the veil that she had cast. Their trips to the fields grew more silent, less comforting to the girl, it’s as if she could feel the winds around them change and churn with her mother’s dismay. Though she could never be sure, she could see the tears in her smile, the painful stumbling of her voice as she spoke. Every morning, where she would be carefully set against the head of her bed by her mother, she could see the hopeful smile fading more with every passing day. Until the day that the girl would not be laid to sleep in her bed again.
+
+Plumes of dark smoke began to rise from the settlement, the mother looked on in horror and stood frozen. The marauders had come, as was inevitable, and soon they would lay claim to all their tribe held dear. And so, with her youngest still upon her back, she would make for the mountains’ trail, and begin their ascent, to seek the aid of the Wanderer at the summit.
+
+The bitterness of the cold grew with every rising step, but the mother could not be brought to the ground. Even if she would not be more than her daughter’s legs, her chariot to a better life in the Wanderer’s care, she was willing to make that day her last. And without a ritual, without a ceremony, without a march up the peaks’ side, only her willpower and her final hope for her daughter, her rate of ascent was unrivaled.
+
+After days of strife, they would reach the summit, famished and freezing. But they would arrive at the Wanderer’s refuge nonetheless, even if barely. The mother would collapse, and spend her remaining spirit to call upon the Reach’s master.
+
+“O, mighty Wanderer of the Reach, heed my call…”
+
+With her hand reaching for the stormy chasm ahead would her mother fall forwards, and her daughter fall from her back one last time. She would scream and cry over her mother’s body, lying motionless in the snow, covered by the cold cascade of the raging storm.
+
+But only to a different, a changed girl, only to a frightened soul, weakened by the cold and weeping over a mother’s demise, would the Wanderer finally break their silence. Rattle would their scales with the drifts of the reaching winds, and howl with anguish would they at the loss of their faithful. With a voice thunderous as the mountain’s might, yet soft as the snow that lay atop it.
+
+“Long had I heard her prayer, the pain she was made to face. But frail was I, brought down in time’s cold embrace.”
+
+A girl, tied to the ground as if by lock and chain, tears streaming down her face, would look back with sorrow and struggle to speak in the freezing cold. “Even if she were still here, we could not save them…”
+
+The Wanderer’s tail would pierce the storm, and bring light to their sanctuary, where she would feel the ease of the sun’s warmth again. An ivory horn from the valley would lift her up by the arms, and set her atop the end of their tail, until her eyes would greet the Wanderer at last. She would look upon a magnificent serpent, with wings and skin in azure and white as the Reach itself, with scales the size of homes.
+
+“Do not look away, my child, lest you wish to lose yourself in the storm. And ease your soul, the people of my Reach will swiftly find an end to their war!” The serpent would slither above the chasm and roar, seemingly ready to do battle within the Reach’s valleys, but the sands of time would weigh down upon them, and drag them against the faces of the cliff.
+
+“What are you, o mighty Wanderer?” The girl would ask.
+
+The dragon’s voice would raise the storm once again. “I, the Dragon of the Drifts, have watched over these mountains for ages untold. I bore witness to its most glorious summers, and even its deepest winter cold. When your kind stepped within my Reach, I greeted them with contempt, vitriol. But they would kneel before me, and promise to bring peace to this land for all. With my radiant heart, I welcomed them to my domain. I would grant them the power of my soul, so they might defend these lands from invaders, and aid each other’s pain.”
+
+“The deceased would send their shares up the mountain’s side. The portions of my soul, with me, would reunite. Those who matured would ascend the peaks, and find me greeting them then. They would be granted a part of me, until their deaths, when they would find themselves back to me again.”
+
+The girl would look up in wonder. “So mother’s healing touch, it was your doing…” An affirming wail would sound from the serpent’s scales. “But why then are you weak now, when so much death occurs below? Would you not be… complete again?”
+
+“As my soul is shared among mankind, so is our pain as one. In a peaceful death, it will return calmly, but the pain they now feel, to me, it is also done.”
+
+The girl would nod. “Then, what will you do now? When your body lies here in suffering, what saving is there for the people below?”
+
+“There is one way the valley can be restored. I shall grant you the power of my soul, by my accord. Not as a vessel, but as my new kin. The might of the drifts, controlled from within.”
+
+The girl would look on in shock, and almost tumble aback. “But Wanderer, I cannot stand! My body misses legs, even for walking!”
+
+“Then mine shall carry your eternally fervent spirit! But, my child, only if you will come to accept it.”
+
+She would look down to the blanket of snow below the dragon’s tail, and back up to meet the eyes of the serpent, awaiting her response. “I accept your power, Dragon of the Drifts, Wanderer of the Reach.”
+
+One final time, the dragon’s voice would reign the winds within the summit’s cavern. Storms would rise, and snow would plummet, bathing the girl in the touch of the Reach’s cold one last time.
+
+“Then be our warrior, our pride! Become what destiny has made you, and descend the Reach with your might! With the bitter cold of the drift… You, my child, shall receive this gift!”
+
+A series of iridescent bands would wrap around her waist, and with the touch of clouds would the girl be raised from the cold below. Two legs, covered in scales, would grow from her body, and set her firmly into the layer of snow. And with the dying roar of the Wanderer, would the girl be reborn.
+
+But the Wanderer is not gone, not even fading. They rest with me now, with every pull of the string, with every stride I take, this chance mother granted me echoes with the soft sounds of her voice. With every leap I hear that tale all over again, set adrift on the winds I run. The tale of the girl and the gift.