Wervingo

by Reteller

When the first Wervingo came to the planet Flastorch, it was a sweltering summer day. The small, Marsian colony on the planet could feel its arrival: the drop in temperature during the planet’s summer months was strange to be sure, but once the furred, mawed creature had made its way into the outskirts of town, dread and anxiety began to root itself in the minds of the colonists. A girl named Kiana was the only resident of the small colony who had a sliver of an idea of what the species was; her studies on Mars made her an expert in the histories and functions of Pagan species. 

As such, the colony sent her as their representative to figure out the Wervingo’s business in their home. Kiana confirmed the Wervingo’s form, just as her studies had shown her, adorned in its eternally frozen armor and pelt-skin coat. Somewhat knowledgeable in the language of the Wervingo, she asked what its purposes were on their planet. She wasn’t the best with other languages, but the two words she could make out made her heart sink: “Establish… Hyperborea.” Kiana knew Hyperborea was a planet claimed by the Wervingo as a permanent settlement, and once news of this discovery reached the colony, the colonists felt a mix of silent fear, anger, and outcry. 

Soon after, the Wervingo left the settlement, but the colony had no respite in their anxiety-fueled jittering. The once humid subtropical summer climate began to grow colder by the day. Kiana knew this meant more Wervingo had arrived, they had an almost unnatural ability to make whatever area they were in colder at a given time. When the lone Wervingo came by the colony, the temperature dropped by a few degrees. 

A few weeks later, the mid-summer temperatures on Flastorch had sunken to fall temperatures, with cold breezes and rainfall. After almost a month had gone by, the first snowfall recorded in Flastorch’s history had begun. The colony was baffled and unprepared as the engineers rushed to create makeshift fixes to the freezing problems of the colony’s machinery. New forms of clothing had to be developed in a short time span, most of which weren’t suited for early colonial life. 

The changes to the planet’s ecosystem soon became apparent. The once tropical trees had long since died from the cold, and from their withered corpses the infamous pine trees of the Wervingo sprouted almost immediately. The constant rainfalls had filled the various canyons and hills, making great lakes that froze over once the newly established winter periods set in.

The barely holding on colony was starting to get desperate. Abandoning the colony was too shameful an act to even suggest. So the colony organized a party to exterminate the Wervingo on the planet. 

✵✵✵

It had been a week since the hunting party left the Flastorch colony.They never came back. About a day after the hunting party was sent out, the colony heard constant thunder cracks roaring in the distance, and saw beams and flashes of light shooting up like lightning. Constant thunder cracks roared in the distance, with many even seeing beams and flashes of lights shoot up into the air with the same speed and form as lightning. This phenomenon of lights and noises went on for what seemed like an eternity, until it all stopped, and only silence remained. 

Nobody was quite sure what had happened. The officials of the colony didn’t want to reveal the communications they received from the party. Communications had been relatively normal, up until they had reached some strange monument with power cords extending into the darkness. After that, all hell broke loose. All the communications team could hear were the sounds of the hunters yelling and the constant cracking of some indescribable force. Some of the hunters were equipped with body cameras, and the footage gained from that wasn’t much clearer to understand. If the footage wasn’t constantly white from the constant flashes, all the communications team could vaguely make out were figures hiding in between the pine trees, shooting at them. Eventually, all communications with the hunting party had been cut off, and the communications team feared the worst.

✵✵✵

It had been nearly a week since the hunting party was all killed, and suddenly the people of Flastorch could hear a sound. No, they could hear multiple sounds. Like the ripping of a chainsaw, but constant and with the roar of a thousand engines. The sound was getting closer, and the now starving colony began to panic over what many believed to be their impending doom. Even though colony officials hadn’t revealed the true fate of the hunting party, there was still a fear that whatever had taken the hunters was now coming for the entire colony. They had no defense force, as the majority of its defenders and equipment had been with the hunting party, so all the colonists could do was pray and hope that their deaths wouldn’t be long and painful. Eventually, the source of the sounds could be seen on the horizon: countless figures riding snow transports were coming up to the entrance of the colony, their leatherbound bodies, and terrifying masks striking fear in the colony. The colonists tried to hide in whatever fashion they could, bracing for their impending doom.

But their doom did not come.

As the citizens of Flastorch slowly walked out of their hiding places, the colonists saw a regal figure at the entrance of the colony. So similar was he to the lone Wervingo who had stood at the colony’s entrance so long ago, and alongside him was the elusive Kiana. 

“What happened? Where have you been?” demanded colonist officials, put off by the girl’s happy expression. “I made a deal with the Wervingo! The colony will be saved!” Kiana proclaimed, her words still not dispelling the confusion felt by the colonists. The Wervingo would teach the colonists how to survive in this new environment of theirs, even sharing weaponry and clothing, and in return, the colony would fall under the sub-clan’s jurisdiction and answer to its chief. Whilst many objected to the idea of being subjugated by the Wervingo, the colony eventually gave in and accepted the deal—if it meant their colony could go back to surviving in peace. 

The banner of the sub-clan was erected in the center of the colony, and the Wervingo got to work assisting the colonists in adapting to their new environment. They even collected the members of the hunting party and allowed them to be buried.

✵✵✵

Kiana believed the colony's plan to be genocidal. Secretly, she made plans to find the main Wervingo settlement and warn them all about the coming attack. She hoped that, by warning them, she could get on good standings with whatever tribe had established themselves on Flastorch, and perhaps get their help in saving the colony. A few days before the hunters would go out and exterminate all Wervingo life on the planet, Kiana left to seek out the Wervingo’s main settlement. 

Holding the theory that the colder it got the closer the settlement would be, Kiana wandered the snowy plains of Flastorch with a temperature tracker in hand, not knowing if her hopes of saving the Wervingo or her colony would succeed or crash and burn. After an untold amount of wandering through the foreign pine forests and seas of snow, Kiana tried to set up camp, only for the winds and cold temperatures to dash her hopes. Fearing frostbite and eventual hypothermia, Kiana yelled out to the sky, hoping that her voice would be heard by some sort of nearby creature with sentience. 

Suddenly, Kiana heard the roar of something nearby, unsure if it was an actual creature or some sort of hallucination spurred on by the extreme cold. The sound could only be described as the screaming whirs of some ungodly creature. She could tell whatever was making the noises was getting closer to where she was. 

Hyperventilating, Kiana tried to find a place to hide, but outside of the ominous pine trees. Hiding behind a tree, she heard the roaring get closer and closer until the source of the sound came into view. A figure, clothed in full leather with a mask, twisted and stitched into a bizarre and dark form, adorning spiraling symbols and silver effigies all over itself. Beneath it was a ski-bound metal steed, shaped like that of a savage beast ready to pounce on an unseen prey, but locked in the frozen unlife of being a machine. The leather-bound rider stepped off of their ride, seeing the shivering form of Kiana, and approached her slowly. Each step deafened Kiana. 

The masked figure could only look down at the girl and, after a millennium of staring, grabbed Kiana and brought her back to his machine-steed. Too cold and tired to resist, Kiana barely protested as she was placed on the machine’s seat. 

The ride was colder than the wandering. The wind whipped Kiana’s face, and the momentum forced her to hold on to the mysterious rider so she wouldn’t fall off. As they progressed into the dense pine forests, Kiana noticed a peculiar sight: for what seemed like miles into the distance, giant metal and wooden structures had been erected. They emitted what seemed to be some form of electricity or energy—if the occasional discharges of energy were evidence of their function. Not only this, but these structures were adorned with the same symbols and effigies that the unknown rider was adorned with. Some even had stone statues of Wervingo individuals surrounding them. 

Kiana was almost mystified by not only the structures themselves, but also by their unknown purpose to her. Kiana’s mind was fading due to fatigue, making her lose her grasp on consciousness.

Awoken, Kiana found herself in the center of what she assumed to be the Wervingo colony. Cabins and workshops surrounded her, built in an architectural style that Kiana recognized as being a staple of the Deukthun Overclan in Wervingo society. Each cabin was adorned in spiritual decorations and carvings, with an antlered monster’s skull above each door. In the center of the colony was a statue dedicated to their god: the Lord of the Thunder, the gynandromorph chief god of the Deukthun Wervingo. 

The statue was holding onto two great cables, presumably the cables of the structures Kiana had seen earlier, and from it an aura of energy and electricity spurred forth and enveloped the entire colony in its gaze. Sparks flew from each workshop, no doubt creating unknown machinery that would further advance the colony’s interests. 

Kiana could feel an endless amount of eyes gazing at her, both adult and juvenile Wervingo piercing her with their icy gazes, and the Thunder Lord’s statue even seemed to be judging her for being in its people’s presence. She heard an approaching group's steps in the snow, and saw what she assumed to be this sub-clan’s chief, as his thunder-adorned leather clothing and ceremonial helmet was a clothing trend Kiana had remembered in her studies on Mars. A group of guards followed closely behind, and the mystery rider who had saved her life stood at attention and saluted the chief in a strange manner. In their hands were the fabled lightning guns, the legendary Deukthun armaments made by members of the Overclan that were said to each be individually blessed by the Lord of the Thunder themselves. 

The sub-clan’s chief stared at Kiana for a moment, and then asked her what her business was here in a dialect of the Wervingo’s language she could understand. Trying her best to utilize her language knowledge, she explained the plan her people had to attack this colony so that Flastorch could survive, and she pleaded with the chief to forgive her people for their desperate actions. 

Suddenly, a rider came into the colony and ran up towards the chief in a desperate manner. The rider spoke too fast for Kiana to understand fully, but the words she did hear confirmed her fears: the colony’s “hunting party” was on the move, approaching the colony. Yelling out to the entire colony, the chief alerted his people to the coming attack, sparking an uproar of people running around and preparing for the fight. Kiana, however, was forced to stay with a duo of guards—presumably to make sure she wasn’t trying to double-cross the Wervingo. She tried her best to plead with the chief of the sub-clan, but he ran off before her basic words could reach his ears.

✵✵✵

It’s been almost a year since the small Marsian colony was accepted under the wing of the sub-clan on the cold and frigid planet of Flastorch. Kiana had been designated as the prime representative of the colony to communicate with the Wervingo and the culture of the Marsian colony had been shaped by their new protectors. In the center of the colony, a statue of the Lord of the Thunder connected to the electric structures of the Wervingo stood, watching over its new children. The transformation of the subtropical planet into a winter-dominated and rain-fueled realm had no doubt pleased the unseen god. While Kiana was working with the local Wervingo riders during their stay at the colony, one of the riders said something that resonated with Kiana after they had long left.

“Hyperborea has come, Hyperborea has fought, and Hyperborea has won”