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Cold and snow, snow and a thin, biting wind.
When Oriana returned from Mount Arreat, the monastery in the pass was no longer home to her. She had always felt different from her sisters, a little apart, unsatisfied with a cloistered life; after the monastery fell she had quickly become discontented with hunting zombies in the woods and catacombs, patrolling the ramshackle camp, escorting would-be heroes to their fates. That was why she had set off into distant lands, she and Blaise, gathering together a few other restless souls here and there as they travelled, and returning by a circuitous route to the sisterhood, which they found almost wiped out, barely clinging to existence. Akara had told them of the threat, worse than anyone had known: not only risen dead but a demonic incursion from Hell itself. Of course the companions, the eight hardy warriors, had given what help they could... and their mission had led far further than any could have imagined.
Snow and ice, blowing across rocky crags and collecting in crevices.
After the demon queen's fall at their hands, as the group journeyed away from Khanduras, Oriana had hoped to return. A final death in battle was more likely, she knew, but if she survived, she had always planned to come home. But after the events in the northern lands, after the destruction of the Worldstone and the disbanding of the small corps, at the end of a long journey, she found the monastery's familiar surroundings had nothing for her. No peace, and no sense of belonging; changed by her adventures, she could no longer feel sisterhood towards the surviving Rogues. She stayed a week or two, shifting rubble, sawing wood, helping where she could with the work of rebuilding, but in the end she had to leave.
Wind keening in the rocks, a high, thin monotone through the snow-filled air.
Oriana had headed off alone, into the mountains above the pass, seeking solitude – seeking answers. There was little life here, above the snowline; little to eat, when she hunted, and no sound but the wind. She spent long hours sitting in the snow, listening to the wind as the snow drove into her face, listening for something to give her new direction.
Ice and snow, and the sound of the wind in the frozen crags.
From her earliest training Oriana had never feared the cold. Where Blaise had loved fire, Oriana's affinity had been for ice. With ice she had slain spectral horrors and monstrous beasts, and gone to battle with the greatest lords of Hell. Here, where the ice and snow lingered all year, with frozen crystals in her eyelashes and her skin so cold that the snow lay on her without melting – here she would find answers. But there was something more she had to learn, and she sat in the snow as darkness came, listening.
The icy wind howled, resonating in the string of Oriana's bow.
She had known, from the day the bow had been crafted, that it held secrets forbidden to her kind. There had been no time to study its secrets as the eight warriors pursued the lords of Hell; no solitude, nor the desire for it, while they fought side by side, falling wounded, carrying one another, living to fight again. If she had uncovered the bow's secrets then, perhaps there would have been less pain and suffering for her allies. Back then, though, she hadn't the experience or knowledge to use it wisely. Now she knew herself to be worthy.
The snow fell, and she listened to the wind: not the single note she had always heard from the bowstring in the past, but a complex set of overtones, faint but audible to ears trained by long listening. The notes spoke to her, and for days now she had been listening and learning the secrets they had to tell. Sometimes she thought she glimpsed a tall form in the distance, walking through the snow: a tall woman in shining armour, carrying a great spear.
Soon she would fully understand the bow's song; soon there would be no need for solitude, and Oriana would return from the mountains. Though the demon lords had fallen, there was still much evil in the world, and soon Oriana would take up arms and descend to fight again.