25th of September, 523rd of NDE. Buymir Heimrad, Kingdom of Naireanth.

  Dim clouds flocked over the Osgoroth Woodnd stretching in the heart of the heimrad, forth their dark belly, snow rinsed and fluttered onto the finely contoured visage of the sol dracorith, Nikoias. His hair, reaching only his firm shoulders, bearing the refined shade of beaten gold. Eyes of golden speckled emerald burned in the cold shadows of a majestic tree rising high towards the domain of distant gods who smiled no more at the dracorith whom they graced with beauty and gmour beyond even his kindred. The scales growing along his fwless skin bore the far-southern regal shade of amber golden, and followed the trajectory of the whiskers of wealthy Grauburgian magnates and generals who led thousand, millions into their doom for profit and fame, for the chance that their names shall live on for eternity.

  These no longer mattered to him as he waited for his prey, pulling his gloves and his cowl over his head, casting his divine given grace in the embrace of wicked shadows. “Should be here any moment.” He murmured, a torrent of white mist with a hint of etheric golden escaped his lips with each word, then further carried by the cold winds of early autumn. “Still not as punctual as the Roses.” Nikoias added as his gaze alternated between his clock adorning his honed wrist and the pallid sun hanging over the sky, its light penetrating the crimson, opal blue, verdant green foliage still hanging on the branches, like the few corpses hung and dangling dripping their bile and tainting the snow.

  Although his gaze seemed chaotic, his awareness spread far beyond its natural limits. He sensed every animal, every ravenous crow pecking at the corpses, squirrels skulking around with nuts, wolves lurking nearby, but keeping far away assailed by the scent of sulfur and death revealed only to their swelling noses. Then at st, after ten or twenty minutes into waiting, his ears picked up on the faint sound of crunching, boot sinking into the furtive snow settled over the darkened earth. His right hand reached soundlessly for the hilt of his dagger, but halted. “Not yet.” He reminded himself in a meager whisper.

  Back pressed against the wide and rough stem, Nikoias gradually turned transparent, then invisible before he leaned out. Just a few meters ahead, a lone aelfrith drengriar made his way towards his position. His emerald eyes with slit pupils like dragons or serpents surveyed the dim white surroundings, on his tall and lean form the Ormieth Type-II long and double-breasted coat hung stiffly, in all its rough leathery allure with a meager enameled metallic sheen thanks to the arcane material it was sewn from.

  On the bottom around his hip, the coat ended in an asymmetrical hem with a bck as a jet trim bleeding into the inner lining. The rge panel folded over his chest were adorned with buttons ending in curving spikes simir to the ones on the long back of dragons whose heads were graven onto the snow silvery metal. Slightly above the slit pockets, the metallic badge remained stiff and still even as the drengriar marched forcefully, a ruby embedded on the right of the runic letters glowing with the same, portentous glow. Betwixt the broad, sloping and smooth surfaced shoulders, the triangurly shaped neck arose, the folds spreading over them like thick and stiffened wings of snow white with jet bck trims.

  In the wide space, the stiff bck dress shirt’s colr hugged his neck, crawling elegantly up towards his tapering, faultless jawline which cast its shadow upon Taffaerna-Weave shirt which possessed a gracious luster befit for the rgest and most fearsome Host of the northern alliance – though it still cked in both smoothness and luster compared to the arcane satin of the Roses he thought. At its center, the contrasting snow-white necktie looped in the shadow of the rge and long leaves, while the bde itself was heaved forth by the small metallic dragon’s head.

  Nikoias held his breath as he waited, listening intensely as the steps neared ever closer. When the aelfrith reached near, only five or ten steps away, he opened the gates of his arcane points and let the mana flow whilst his mind formuted the propel spells. "Hrrhrgm!" Came the muffled cry carried by the frigid winds, though it reached no ears except for Nikoias whose palm encased in a leather like material molded into a glove, and poured a saccharine gas into the nostrils and mouth surrounded by silken soft stubble. A few more whimpers and groans emanated from the drengriar whose beret slid off his shoulder length mane of an earthen gold, combed with care.

  “There, there. Sleep well comrade.” Nikoias whispered into his ears as he softened his grip around his colrs. Then at st when his eyes closed, his body went limp the dracorith assassin let out a sigh and let the sleeping dragon lie afore in the snow.

  Before he began his least favorite process, his hand reached into his waist pocket and pulled out a bulky roll of silver sealing tape and peeled off a singur long strip. Without much ado, he applied it over the drengriar’s mouth, his gloved right hand ran over it as it fastened itself to the smooth skin and silken stubble. “Don’t take it the wrong way.” He murmured as he knelt besides him, in the snow and unbuckled the coat’s waist belt and unfolded the panel, with telekinesis the concealed zipper beneath ran down in a mere second. Nikoias held a small break after he zipped open the draucr vest beneath the coat, over the shirt, then continued on.

  “Nice sword my friend.” As soon as he was done unzipping the vest, unbuttoning the shirt, Nikoias took off the drengriar’s belt and noticed the long sword still resting in its sheath. He pulled it out, and cut the air with a few swift strikes still imbued into his muscle memory. When light and snow fell onto the bde, the runes at the sides glowed ethereally and he felt a surge of power, a thrilling sensation. “Times like these, I regret choosing the dagger when they offered it to me.” He took one st nostalgic gnce before sliding the bde into its den, and let it rest in the snow. “In the long run, it paid out.”

  Next, he kneeled down at his feet, and unced the combat boots slithering up to his knees and pulled them off quickly and threw them near the roots breaking forth earth and snow. The pleated pants followed, then all the rest, exposing the chest of unblemished skin cloaking over the tendon and the bones as robust as a dragon’s. “Still a neonate huh?” He commented at the ck of scars whilst he folded the coat.

  Unlike the Bck Roses or the Hoshigawan Host’s, the Snow-Scaled Host’s coats consisted of three parts welted together – though some considered it four. There was the upper part, the neck and shoulders which were embellished with straps to dispy rank and the elevation within the rank in the forms of metallic cw and fang pins. The chest, yered segment with the pels, the front panel folding over the asymmetrical zipper line and the pockets. And the third and st – sometimes third and fourth – the sleeves which held the ced-on patches on the soft scaled texture area above the elbow.

  Before he slipped out from his own, yered and loosed jacket with a chin high cowl colr, Nikoias procured a mana cuff and a roll of silver sealing tape from his own personal pocket void. “Better safe than sorry!” He quickly heaved the high elf onto his sides, wrists crossed out of habit. The soft, metallic clicks of the cuffs were followed by a low mechanical hum as they tightened and small needless penetrated the fair skin like the fangs of vampires and started gulping out his mana. A low muffled moan came from the guard. Then he ripped the tape wide open and attached the filing end to the woolen bck and white socks around his ankles and meticulously wrapped it around eight or nine times before slicing it off with his right hand sweeping through it.

  “Maybe I should be a bit more conservative with tape.” Nikoias commented to himself, noticing the meager roll as he put it away whilst watching the yers of gleaming tape tighten itself around the high elves’ ankles amidst a soft crumpling and creasing symphony.

  When it came to his self-stripping, Nikoias started the process by zipping down his jacket and threw it besides the neatly folded uniform, revealing the tight bodysuit of a leathery weave that accentuated his wiry, slender form with a hexagonal pattern that acted more as embellishments. Etheric runes floated in the moderately thick fabric, serving as the first yer of protection against mid to low-high end spells whilst also amplifying his output and mana reserves. For this reason, the bodysuit remained on his form whilst the boots and gloves came off before he slipped into the drengriar’s uniform.

  Just as he was finishing cing up the boot around his feet, the sudden urge to cry out loudly came over him. Whilst his own boots came off st, his feet still spent considerable time sunken in the snow, and now it began the painful thawing as the boot’s enchantments began to heat up his form. Through concentrated effort, only a serpentine hiss came out from his lips as he slumped down on the sloping nether region of the tree. “Next time, I acquire the uniform in the nearest town.” He took out his small notebook and penned down these exact words. When the unpleasant feeling passed at st, he got back onto his feet and loomed over the still unconscious, trussed up and naked drengriar.

  The only thing remained was the badge and the stone embedded into it, holding a miniscule portion of a sliced off anima belonging to the still sleeping guard before him, seemingly unaware of the cold thanks to the magically induced sleep. He peeled it off the snow-white leather surface and held it out before himself. His veins and eyes lit up with a bluish golden etheric light and tendrils slithered out from beneath his unblemished fair golden skin and invaded the small magical crystal, injecting and transfusing a part of his essence into it, and molding it to match the guard’s anima wavelength.

  Finished with this st less mundane process, he pced it back onto his bosom and stared down, grim shadows gathering onto his eyes as the guard’s moan softly echoed, and was carried away by the chilling winds. The frigid nature began to invade his exposed form at st. “Nothing personal kid. More like for your sake.” Without saying anymore, in his right hand a peculiar golden dagger manifested and with a single thrust, plunged it into the elf’s chest, right into his heart. His eyes popped open and a st groan escaped his sealed lips before he passed onto the outer realms.

  Nikoias grabbed the quarterly frozen corpse by its armpits and dragged it further in, towards a prepared hole half filled by snow already. He quickly stepped into it, dragging the corpse then remained still, his hands folded over his abdomen as he offered a prayer of safe passage for the soul before stepping out. His left arm stretched out over the corpse and snow filled hole, and swept above it. The earth rumbled softly as chunks swept the body and buried the fallen drengriar at st like gentle waves. The snow followed and even hid the trail drawn out by the assassin himself – a bit subconsciously.

  As he stood over the grave, his handsome visage changed to the less but still handsome visage of the dead drengriar and as he adjusted his bck beret, Nikoias directed himself towards his destination, where his target lied. Vissborg, the Dreadfort of the Snow-Scaled Host.

  Author's Note:

  And so begins another short story. This time featuring the Snow-Scaled Host after I did a bit of rewriting their notes a bit.

  Also a new character, one of the rare males whose looks I based a bit on Jaime Lannister, his name on the actors just because the when I tried to "elvenise" it... well it wasn't good. Even this I am not fully satisfied with as it sounds more ancient greekish to me, but for now it stays.

  In regards of the Snow-Scaled Host, I haven't fully developed it yet, but I given them a simir elixir to the Bck Roses. But instead of making them elven supermodels, the idea is more of making them dragonish. One such example that I progressed on but left it out here, is their abdomen is like the stomach of a dragon's.

  I pn to do simir to the other non-Myelian Hosts, Orders, etc. For example at the moment, for the Grauburgian Steel Legion has less of a visible one. Their skin is hard and lustrous as enameled steel, and so far that's how far I progressed on that front. Still brainstorming and honestly even thinking of having the main Hosts share their elixirs.

  But anyhow, that is enough rambling for today. Thank you for reading folks, and have a nice day!

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