Undiscovered Beauty

It was seldom Artorias found himself up in the northern lands, but following their wedding, Briar had wanted a chance to go back and visit her family in their new home in the northern mountains. Artorias was fond of the Armada, and Sirius had a special place in his life, so any chance he got to spend time with his in-laws was a win in his book. Plus it gave him an opportunity to get to explore some of the northern lands and become more familiar with them and Boreas as a whole. During their time in the cold, snowy north, Artorias had heard from some of the Armadan wolves about a shifting of the mountains, crumbling and opening up new paths and tunnels in the cave system to the west. Well, that just sounded like an adventure waiting to happen! So after asking Briar to accompany him for some light spelunking, Artorias navigated his way around the craggy paths of the mountains that wound around to the old desolate caves covered in strange glyphs and paintings.

"I thiiiink they said it was down this path," Artorias mused to himself as he led the way into the winding tunnels of the ancient caves, the tunnels still spacious enough for both him and Briar to fit comfortably through. Fortunately, this seemed like one of the more major cave systems, so the fear of getting stuck or cramped anywhere seemed to not be a worry. Artorias had been in these caves once before, but it had been some time, and he hadn't really gone far into them. This was where the black market had been set up that Sirius took him to over a year ago. "This is where I found Lia," he explained to Briar as they passed by one of the large chambers near the entrance. Art followed the directions given to him, navigating by memory and word of mouth alone. Eventually, they came upon a fissure in one of the cave walls that revealed another tunnel beyond, water dripping from the crack. It was fresh, recently caused by some sort of tectonic shift. This had to be the tunnel he'd heard about!

Giving Briar a motion to follow him, Artorias shimmied his way nimbly through the opening and into the more spacious tunnel, following it down a short ways until it opened up to an incredible sight. the tunnel let out to an alcove in the side of the mountain, except instead of a barren rocky shelf, this recess was filled with foliage of all kinds, growing and thriving like a clearing in a forest! Artorias gasped and gawked at the splendor, amber eyes going wide as he stepped further out onto the ledge. The alcove was protected from the biting winds and icy snow by the mountain all around it, allowing the plants to grow and keeping the area much more temperate than the rest of the frigid north, feeling more like a cool spring day than the dead of winter.

"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Artorias asked Briar, mostly in rhetorical stupor. He padded across the patches of lush grass that spread like plush carpet across what should have been hard rock. Artorias made his way through the copse of willow trees, sweeping their long tendril branches aside to go inspect the pool of crystal clear water in the center of the alcove, still in awe of this hidden grove of beauty tucked away in the mountains.

"Artorias & Briar Carpathius"