A man stood at the edge of custom,
As tall as a grave is deep.
His complexion a marbled stone,
With a fate he\'d come to meet.
Dawn\'s whisper swayed his onyx locks
And tempered his beard of flame,
While the sun rose ever higher on the shadow
As if to honor his presence within its glade.
Despite the bite of Winter\'s wrath
He stood among them proud and valorous,
They launched spears with heavy glares
But his spirit was nigh relentless.
They knew he roamed their far-flung wood,
Though his origins remained unknown.
He then unsheathed his lustered blade
And threw its skin down in the snow.
\"I\'ve come this day to partake in battle\",
It was said in their native tongue.
\"Worry not of what I\'ve to lose,
For whom I fear, there is none\".
Upon hearing words that could never be unsaid,
Those girded men had drawn their swords.
While their lasses looked on in anxious awe
As if frightful for the lives of their boys and men, -
The outlander strode ever forward
And in the passing of but a mere second\'s tenth,
Mystic arts apexed within a squall
With each swing relayed just what he meant.
The northern tribesmen clinging to life
Had by this incarnation, been bested.
He cast aside his shard of metal
Got on one knee, leaned down and bent.
In front of him a bonfire,
A constellation in the human form.
Her mane the color of starlight;
Frail as glass, forest-born.
He saw her when they were younger,
Bathing in the waters of the fjord.
He had known ever since what he would do,
And for her hand he\'d gone to war.