Cold Resistance

All was quiet in Drizzlewood coast.

Gone was the constant roar of engines and thrumming of charr copters. Speakers droning Stormsounder's recruitment propaganda all the months past were shattered and silenced. Marching orders, clashing weapons, screams and roaring of the wounded and those still fighting, even the firing squads executing Smodur's skritt justice... all of that constant noise just died down one day and never came back. But neither did the usual sound of the boreal forest. No birds in the trees, no animals calling through the crisp night air. This far from the coast, there wasn't even water lapping at the shores to break the silence.

Thoughts became unbearably loud.

"You never answered my question." The formerly-Dominon gladium almost flinched at the sound of his own voice, even if he spoke barely above a whisper. His ears eagerly focused on the tiniest sounds. The way armor plates shifted against one another with every rising breath. Leather creaking against cloth, metal against skin. He could swear he could even hear the slightest clink of ice as it shifted in his frostbitten fur.

The young tawny male spread limply against the gladium's form didn't move. Only a slight change in his breathing revealed he wasn't yet fully asleep. "Hmh?"

"When I first woke up in this place," the frost-tainted charr focused on his words as if he were poking at an unseemly wound, "I asked you what made you stay your blade." He wondered if he only imagined the body resting against his grow just the slightest bit tense at the memory. "You could have killed me. Or simply leave me to bleed out or starve where you had found me."

Silence. The younger male was a charr of few words, difficult to read even when met face to face. It wasn't unlike him to simply quietly listen, maybe offer an affirmative nod, but little in terms of longer conversation.

Then, after a little while, came a slight shrug. "I had no reason."

"I wore the colors of your enemy. Most would consider that reason enough in a war."

"I do not."

The whole sentiment was so completely out of place for a charr that the gladium would have to fight the urge to laugh had it been said by anyone else. "That still doesn't answer my question."

The younger male let out a disapproving tsch. There was a considerable pause. "I do not hate you for siding with them, if that's what you truly want to know."

"That's not what I asked," the gladium replied, perhaps a bit too hastily. Whether his companion detected the brief slip in composure, he could not tell.

There was only a sigh as the tawny charr readjusted himself slightly, finding a more comfortable position before settling back down. "I have fought beside you." The younger male raised his voice enough that the gladium could feel its low rumble reverberate through his breastplate. "I shared your meal, your drink, your tent. I have known you in every sense of that word. No flag on your chest changes that."

There was a certain finality in his tone that made the point hard to argue. And as much as the older male tried, nothing came to mind.

Once again all was quiet in Drizzlewood coast.

Except...

"Thank you."

As much as Cantha is leaving me pretty uninterested in terms of being stuck with human lore and all, I really can't stop going back to Icebrood Saga. While I was apprehensive of the entire charr civil war idea back when ANet pitched it during early previews, it has become my absolutely favorite playing field of them all and a source of a lot of my personal stories and character developments. Especially when it comes to how a society based on tightly-knit social groups deals with those who find themselves on the wrong side of a conflict because they were apprehensive to break a life's worth of ties over what seemed like a minor disagreement at the start.

I expected both of these charr to be made-on-a-whim sidejobs I will maybe play once in a blue moon, but they quickly became my favorite new toy.

... a toy that is in dire need of cleaner rough sketch phases.

So chances are, if I ever claw myself from under the comic heap I'm currently digging through, that I'll inflict quite a bit more of these two sorry mutts on you when I get the chance. Run while you can!

I'll also try to take a day off like this more often between the more time-consuming projects. I almost forgot what it's like to just doodle for fun rather than part of a larger whole.