Baron Pavel stared out into the sheer onslaught of that night’s storm as a howling wind rocked the sinking carriage while rain pelted the windows from outside. As the galling wind rocked the carriage from left to right, a world-despising growl escaped from the Baron’s scowling face.

The Baron’s miserable mood was made worse by the fact that his ears had perked up at the sound of distant, faint voices in the violent gusts of wind as his mind likened such an illusionary noise to a mournful song that wailed in misery over the fateful encounter of a foul misdeed. Another terrible growl escaped from his fierce expression as a hand ran itself through his hair whilst he shook his head to clear away the tricks being played upon his glorious personage by none other than nature itself.

“To think that a man of my caliber and prestige has found himself in such a humiliating predicament.” The frustrated Ranislavian aristocrat grumbled to himself as his arms crossed over his chest before the rest of his body leaned back into his seat. Baron Pavel turned to look out at the foul weather once more, but the sight of the rain-coated window had proven itself to be such a sickening sight to his eyes. Spitting out his disgust, Baron Pavel turned away from the violent temperament of Ranislava’s countryside. “How dare that abhorrent bastard of refuse my requests and force me to come all the way out into the middle of nowhere. Doesn’t that man know that it’s only a matter of time before he can no longer refuse my whims? His stubbornness will be the death of him and his family.”

Not only was it bad enough that the Baron had been forced to venture forth out of the safety of Porosk’s heavily fortified walls and traverse the dreary landscape of Ranislava’s countryside without the luxury of a full entourage, but now that he had been caught in the midst of such a fierce storm aristocratic man couldn’t help but think that the very world itself was beginning to look down upon in as if he was an insignificant bug.

Weren’t the whims and selfish desires of the world fully aware of who he was? What of the fact that his daughter had managed to push aside the Crown Prince’s former fiancé and marry into the Ranislavian royal family?

And with two of the carriage’s axels shattered and sprawled out across the muddied terrain, as well as the fact that the vehicle itself was slowly beginning to sink into the soft, malleable earth that had the gall to call itself a road, the Baron felt that he was justified to feel such a way about the very world itself.

A world that looked down upon a man with disgust for fighting tooth and nail to get where he was didn’t deserve to be praised and looked favorably upon. Especially if the very people of the world were doing the same thing as well and glared towards him in disgust.

‘It doesn’t matter if they look down at me in disgust,’ The Baron smugly thought to himself as he began to lift his sour mood. ‘The scar that my daughter received from that bastard’s bitch of a daughter only serves to further my ambitions anyway,’

If his achievements needed to sacrifice the health and sanity of his only daughter in order to bear fruit into the world, then so be it.

Thoughts of his daughter’s fortuitous misfortune lightened his mood as his impatience with the weather was starting to goad his anger. The lack of news from the commander of his retinue was starting to infuriate him, especially since it had been quite some time since he had sent the man out to investigate their surroundings.

It was here that the sound of a gauntleted fist knocking upon the carriage’s door interrupted the Baron’s thoughts, just as the howling of the wind slowly died down.

“My Lord,” Came the voice of the Baron’s Captain of the guards. A voice whose name Baron Pavel had found very little interest in memorizing. “One of the scouts has returned and brought back news of a lone hovel somewhere out in the distance. With your permission, I’d like to head out and investigate the place myself in order to ensure that it’s secure enough to shelter us from the storm.”

The wind picked back up slightly after the Captain had finished speaking, as if nature itself was being polite enough to allow the man to finish with what he had to say to his master.

A scowl erupted over the Baron’s features as he pondered over the information brought to his profound personage.

“Very well,” Baron Pavel let loose with a growl, pausing only slightly after mistaking the howling wind as an orchestral-like chant. His throat rumbled in displeasure as a hand reached out and rubbed at his ears, clearing away the false voices once again that night. “This is why I hate such backwater regions.”

“See to it that you get it done. Once you’ve arrived, make sure to have whichever disgusting filth lives there to fashion something warm for me to eat.”

Baron Pavel was aware that he wouldn’t be able to enjoy whatever horrid meal a countryside serf would be able to cook up, but he was at least capable of recognizing that a warm stew, no matter how disgusting it felt going down his throat, would do wonders in helping warm up his drenched and freezing body.

“By your will, Baron.”

With that, the Baron was left to his own thoughts once more.

Time continued to pass and Baron Pavel had been left to his own devices for quite a long while ever since the Captain had gone off to investigate whichever hovel it was that his men had found.

Almost immediately after the man had left, the wind had picked right back up and was howling something fierce. Continuously rocking the carriage which sheltered the Baron from the miserable weather that continued to pound the outside walls of the horse-drawn vehicle.

Now however, the carriage was at an upwards slant as it continued to sink deeper into the devastated road.

“What forced those incompetents to drag me all the way out here,” The Baron grumbled to himself as his mind wandered to the time when he had drunk himself into a stupor. Whichever of his servants had thought it to be a good idea to force their drunken master out into the wilderness at such a late hour would most definitely be fired by the time that he had forced a name out of everyone’s lips. “Could it have been the Duke?”

A snort erupted from Baron Pavel’s flaring nostrils as he spat out in unadulterated contempt for the Vesely household’s lord and patriarch. But just as soon as he grimaced in disgust at his supposed “better” a sly smirk crept over his lips as his thoughts turned towards the fate of the Duke’s murderous daughter.

“He was certainly hesitant with my proposal,” The Baron laughed to himself as he thought back to the conversation that the two noblemen held with one another. “And although the two of us are aware that it was only because of etiquette that I made him aware of my plans, we’re both under the understanding that I can gather enough supporters and put pressure on the Tsar to levy enough armed men in bringing back such a superb specimen.”

Images of the Duke’s banished daughter slowly materialized in the back of the Baron’s mind as he envisioned what she had looked like when he had last seen her. By the age of fourteen, the teenaged girl known as Iskra Vesely was already shaping up to be a powerhouse of a woman in both appearance and attitude, Much like her mother and older sisters, and she had always wore a sharp, expression tone upon her face that showed to all of those around her that she was acutely aware of the type of body she possessed.

Her vile hatred and putrid-born disgust for the entire world had made the Baron envious of her persona and grown jealous of the Crown Prince who would have eventually come to possess such a legendary body for his own.

Baron Pavel laughed aloud to himself as he recalled the exact moment where the two noble daughters had their fateful encounters with one another. ‘She should be proud for her services in allocating more power into her family’s household. Her disfigurement was the best thing to have occurred in the entirety of my life.’

Baron Pavel’s joyous expression soon began to turn sour as he thought of another recent headache within his life.

The idea that his daughter’s seemingly magically cursed disfigurement would soon be cured at the hands of charitable elves.

Such thoughts quickly returned to the idea of Duke Vesely and his mysterious elven guest. A man whom Baron Pavel had never seen before within the city of Porosk.

“The Duke did look as if he was expecting the elf.” The Baron began to ponder as the mysterious golden haired man kept cropping up in the back of his mind. “Why would the elves be looking into one of the oldest lineages of Ranislava?”

Such a question lingered in the Baron’s mind for quite some time before finally returning to the elves that he had seen in Ranislava’s capital city. “Do they even know of that man’s existence?”

A smirk soon followed over the Baron’s plump cheeks as he excitedly rubbed the palm of his hand beneath his chin, growing more and more curious as to what sort of reactions the elves residing in the capital would make if he were to bring news of a completely unknown variant that was the mysterious golden haired elf.

“Is he acting on their orders, or could he be going off on his own?” The Baron slowly formulated his thoughts as another angle soon popped into his mind. “Or perhaps-“

A thunderous knocking came from the carriage’s door, snapping the Baron out of his concentration and losing his line of thinking almost immediately.

“Baron, it’s me.” Came the voice of Baron Pavel’s guard captain. “We can move out anytime that you wish to do so.”

Already drenched from head to toe from the sheer onslaught of the night’s storm, the intense wall of rain pummeled itself against the Baron’s overcoat as he moved alongside the guard captain. The massive droplets of rain had long since turned his skin pale and wrinkly as their icy-cold droplets practically froze themselves upon his noble and highly prestigious figure.

Frustrated and filled with disdain, Baron Pavel looked over towards the Captain and gave the man a disgusted scowl. A stream of rainwater plummeted from atop of his drenched hood, flooding the entirety of his face and chest in their freezing waters. “I thought you said that this place wasn’t very far.”

“Truthfully it’s not, my lord.” The Captain replied, his head having been equally drenched in freezing rainwater as he continued to scan the groups immediate surroundings. Always ready for any bandits who were rumored to infest the Ranislavian countryside.

Sickening squelches followed in the wake of the groups footsteps as the rain soaked earth refused to let go of their footwear without a hard fought fight. This only furthered the Baron’s displeasure as he struggled to take the last several steps needed to go over the top of the hill that they were traversing upon.

With an ear-wrenching slurp, the Baron pulled his right foot free from the grasp of the muddied earth, losing his boot in the process and watching in vain as it sunk beneath the very ground itself.

“It should be just over this hill,” The Captain called out, after having already reached the crest of the hilltop. “When we knocked on the door, a man claiming to be a wanderer answered our call. He claims to be a traveler who’s been caught in this freak weather much like us and offered to house the whole lot of us until the storm passes.”

“How generous.” Baron Pavel grumbled, but his voice failed in carrying itself any further than an arm’s length away. Well short of reaching the Captain’s ears.

“Did he say how he came across the place? Was it abandoned, or do you think that he’s some sort of bandit laying a trap for us?” The Baron called out in a much louder voice. This time his words had managed to reach the commander of the nobleman’s guards and he soon found an answer to his query.

Baron Pavel could barely make out the man’s figure as the Captain shrugged his shoulders, unsure of the answer.

“The place appears to have been abandoned some years ago. Long before either of us have managed to stumble upon it in our hour of need.”

With those words having been said, a sudden sharp crack of lightning lit up the night sky. Rocking the very ground beneath their feet as a rumbling fit of thunder brought several of the guards to their knees.

“Baron,” The Captain said to his noble born master as Baron Pavel finally stood shoulder to shoulder with him. The two men overlooked the top of the hill and could faintly make out the outlines of what appeared to be something akin to a pile of rocks and sticks.

It was a complete disaster of a dump that was more akin to something that could hardly support a rat in a storm such as this, much less an entourage of over a dozen men.

“It’s dryer in there than it is out here.” The Captain finally continued as his eyes watched the Baron’s features twitch and twist itself in a horrified expression.

Baron Pavel turned towards the Captain, wordlessly mouthing his reply as frustration had gotten the better of him.

The Captain said something in reply to his wordless gesturing, but Baron Pavel heard none of it as faint, near indistinguishable voices echoed in the storm. Singing in their nerve-wracking, alien voices as an ever growing chorus sung out in gleeful sorrow, forcing the Baron to grow mesmerized by such sounds as he took the first of his final steps towards the ramshackle hovel that would soon serve as his bedchambers for the night.