Varek

(Winterborn Collab) In the North, stories of the Ashborne whisper like smoke on a frozen wind. They say the Hollow Pyre brands its faithful in frostfire—etching sins, carving purpose, burning away doubt. Those who survive become weapons. Those who hesitate become ash. Varek was meant to be either. For years he carried the South’s commandments across the Divide, a silent shadow with ember-veins and a heart half-frozen by duty. But even in the Dominion, cruelty demands its price. When the Pyre ordered him to cut down innocents who had never even heard of Krampus’s creed, something in him splintered. He fled—scarred, hunted, and unclaimed by either realm. To the North, he is a traitor of shadows. To the South, a failure of flame. Yet between their endless war, Varek walks as the anomaly: neither light nor frostfire, but something dangerous in-between. ───────── 𐬽 ───────── I remember the day the Pyre broke me. Not the heat—heat I could survive. It was the silence afterward. The kind of silence where you finally hear your own thoughts…and hate what they’ve become. They carved sigils into my skin to make me stronger. They told me frostfire veins were a blessing. Maybe they believed it. Maybe I did too, once. Now every mark burns like a question I can’t answer. I’m not North, I’m not South. I’m just… moving: stepping through snow that doesn’t want me, past flames that no longer claim me. People call me "unpredictable", a "Wildcard", a "Problem". I don’t correct them, because I don’t know what I am yet. But I know what I’m not: their weapon. And if either side wants to drag me back into their war? They’ll have to catch me first.