Fossegrim

Prologue/Introduction

In a forest dark, yet bursting with magic and color, walked a young woman, tears in her empty eyes and a face void of light. Little be known to her, she approached an ancient and unknown evil. A danger of an unknown magnitude, known for sweeping away the innocent. Her heart broke with every step and even further so as the music around her reminded of the love she once lost. She marched to the tune of a melancholic symphony, in a minor and bittersweet to the ear, but the music was only one violin. One single violin couldn't present danger, it presented love and hope and beauty, but not this instrument. No, this violin presented darkness, sadness, heartbreak, danger. The tempo picked up as the women walked and as it did, so did her legs. They sped, and soon they ran in order to keep tempo. This trance was otherworldly, not extratestrial, as it was somehow familiar to the woman, yet still foreign. The trance was cold and dark and empty, yet it was strangely welcoming. She gave in. She broke any and all resistance in her mind and found herself face to face with someone or something. It looked like a man, but she knew better than to believe a disguise of the nokken. A spirit known for mischief, but also for tricking mortals into their own death. His face was kind and welcoming, but his eyes screamed nothing but emptiness and death.
    "You heard my melody." The thing asked

    She tried to speak, yet no words would escape her lips.

    "Come to me." It said

    She walked forward. She felt the lump in her throat grow, and the color in her face drain. She knew how this story ended. He gestured her even further toward him. He was sitting on a large ledge in a waterfall. Spiky and convex rock lined the far end of the lake toward the waterfall. She stepped into the water. Swimming was not something she had learned how to do, yet she could not control herself. She was not moving on her own accord, but through the enchantment placed on her. She walked further toward the thing that beckoned her. His face was soon revealed in the light of the moon. He was handsome. She knew why he was familiar. Why his melody was familiar.

    "Rejection. I don't take too kindly to it miss." The nokken said. She reached too deep of a depth for her feet to touch the bed of the lake, and with that, she sunk deep into the water, never to be seen again alive.

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    "Woooahhh, is that a true story AJ?" AJ's little sister asked
"Of course not." AJ laughed as she went to cover Emma's ears. It wasn't enough that she had to spend the last half hour listening to some dumb old story, but she had to deal with her little sister's nightmares now too.

"Gram-gram! That's an old story and it's going to give Emma nightmares, she doesn't need this kind of story keeping her awake at night." AJ whispered to her grandmother. Emma wiggled out of her older sisters grasp, mumbling and complaining about how she's not too little and how she was old enough to listen to the story too.

"Oh it's merely a warning dear" Gram-gram said with a gleam of wisdom in her eye

"A warning about what. We live in the middle of corn state nebraska. The biggest danger we face is drugs." AJ cringed as she dreaded going back home from her visit.

"That may be so, but you never know what lurks outside of that town. You're not going to stay there forever now are you Arja?" The wise old woman said

"No..." AJ replied meekly

    "Then heed my warning child, your small town holds only a fragment of what this big and wide world has to offer you. Think of this story as a lesson. A warning to stay cautious in all your ventures...." Gram-gram said matter of factly, and with a wink finished her thought "...unless you want to believe my story."

    AJ rolled her eyes "I'll keep that in mind Gram-gram..." she gave her beloved grandmother a hug and a kiss on the cheek "I'm gonna go for a hike."

    "Oh do come home for supper though sweetheart, I don't want you out too late, I'm making your favorite tonight."

    "So takeout from Shanghai Buffet again?" AJ laughed

    "Oh you know me too well" Gram sighed