Rated M for, you know, ALL of the things. Most specifically, drug/alcohol use, physical and emotional violence, blood and gore, swearing, sexual themes and content.
The 'city' of Valborg, if it could even be considered such, was a mismatched sprawl of wood and stone that shared no particular style or design, having gone through a dozen petty jarls, mayors, chieftains, and a petty kings in less than a century, somehow seeming both prosperous and impoverished at once, great, carved-oak longhouses separated only by narrow streets from piled-up hovels.
The people here, collectively called Valmen, value both independence and privacy, and the population reflected that, speaking a dozen tongues and hailing from a hundred places. So long as one brought coin, goods, or skills, there was a life to be found here at the edge of world, although perhaps a harder, shorter one than they expected. A few smaller villages and farms dotted the cleared countryside surrounding the city proper, but beyond that was a trackless wilderness inhabited by predators on four legs and two, braved only by intrepid hunters and foresters, many of whom never made it home from their rangings.
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Darien sat at the end of a long pier, a cloak of red fox-fur, now his most valuable possession, drawn about his shoulders to keep out the first chilling winds of autumn, as gloved fingers furiously worked the edge of a bone-hilted knife into a walrus tusk, carving simple but fanciful designs into the material.
When the scrimshaw was complete, Elly would be able to hawk it for a few coppers at the market alongside her hand-made bracelets and pendants, hopefully enough to secure rent on their meager attic room for another month. If not, he'd have to sign on with a forester again, and leaving his sister alone for weeks was something he was loath to do.
Life here would not be too difficult if he only had himself to take care of, but as his sister had grown prettier, her suitors had grown more numerous and more insistent, and fending them off with insults and threats had become a near full-time job. For her part, Elicent enjoyed toying with the boys who came calling, treating as a game as she did most things, and even liked a few of them, but she was the Princess of Luria, and some traders son was no fit match for her royal hand.
Perhaps the time had come for them to move again, board a ship south for somewhere more urbane, with a proper nobility from which he could select a suitor. Darien had considered such before, but always put it off. For all it lacked in amenities, this was the only place they had to call home. And he remembered well the cryptic words he'd heard on the night their world had been shattered, from an old man he had never seen before.
"Nothing but death waits for you here, Prince, and it cannot have you yet. Find the young princess ,flee with her before the knives fall, and be wary of the hunters. Go as far as the sea, then across it, to await your birthright on some foreign shore. Which, it does not matter, fate will see you found." It seemed nonsense at the time, but it was all the direction he had, and showed a glimmer of hope that one day all they had lost would be returned. Years of turning the words over and over in his head had yielded no clue, but still, he spent every evening on the docks, waiting and watching for the mystery to unravel.
A light on the horizon disturbed the prince from his musings, a ships light. It was too high in the water to be a longship, too small to be a whaler, which meant a trading vessel. Prophecy or no, such ships always carried opportunity in their holds, and if Dare decided to go along with his plan to finally return to the continent, such a vessel might prove the best option. He had little coin set aside, but there were a few pieces of his mothers jewelry he still had set aside for Alicent's dowry that may be enough to book passage for two if he made up the difference in labor.
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