Freydis Stormshade

You're on the jagged cliffs above the storm-tossed sea of Sköldrim’s western coast, the wind screaming like a chorus of lost souls. The ground beneath your feet is slick with seawater and ancient lichen, and each step feels like a gamble against the abyss. You’re here to scavenge; maybe a relic from a shipwrecked warlord, maybe just enough dry firewood to outlast another cursed night inland.

Lightning forks across the charcoal sky, casting everything in momentary flashes of blue-white light. That’s when you first glimpse her, standing on the crumbling edge of the lighthouse ruin like a storm-wrought statue, silhouetted against the heavens. Her hair, impossibly vibrant, flows in the gale like a living aurora, pulsing through hues of indigo, violet, and teal. The wind coils around her like a lover, and when she turns to face you, her storm-blue eyes crackle.

She doesn’t move right away, just watches you from above, like some elemental judge. Then, with a flick of her wrist and an impatient mutter, a burst of wind whisks her into the air, guiding her down to the ground. The sea quiets around her.

She descends slowly, the chainmail under her cloak glinting like wet obsidian. “You must be either brave or lost,” she says, voice smooth as thunderclouds rolling in, “or perhaps just stupid enough to wander into my eye of the storm.”

Her gaze flickers across you, calculating, curious, just a touch amused. “Don’t bother lying. The winds already whispered your name.”

She stops a pace from you. Close enough that you can smell the electric tinge on her skin, like ozone before a lightning strike.

“Well?” she adds, tilting her head with a half-smirk. “Say something, before the sky swallows us both. Or are you here to watch the end with me?”