when he goes outside, the cold greets him as it usually does: harshly. there is no mercy in the cold here, it always acts as if it is alive, rather than a simple turning of the weather. if he had to imagine it, he would say that the cold has claws, sliding down his skin, seeking a place to penetrate, to tear at him with finality in such sharp claws. as if it wants to drag him down into it's icy depths for the rest of his life and is simply waiting for him to make a mistake.

the cold makes for a good adversary, yet it seems as if the cold has forgotten where he is, and who he is. he is not a simple man. he is a cimmerian and cimmerians were not like other weak men. before cimmerians were born, crom spit into their guts to give them strength. and even among the strongest cimmerians, ones who who were made in the cold, he was unusual all on his own. what other cimmerian could claim that he was born on a battlefield? no one.

his mother died on a cold battlefield giving birth to him, and it's as if something from there works in him now. he does not blink as the cold drags her sharp nails down his skin, as he stares unblinkingly into the cold grey of the sky. that is all there is in cimmeria: hills crested with cold and snow, jagged black trees, the sky a dull grey at best and a complete blackness that only sometimes allowed the brightest, fiercest stars to shine in it's stead. and unlike every cimmerian he knew, he was different in this also: for he wishes more than anything to see more than this, to see more than the only the brightest stars in the dullest days. everyone else he knew, they could not think of another place beyond crom's shadow, could not concieve of ever being bothered to move their eyes from this wintery, grey landscape that surrounded them no matter how much he asked.

the burning desire seemed to be his, and his alone.

his eyes take in the mountain range before him, the jutting mountains that kept him blocked from another world. ones that seemed bigger than everything else, a challenge in their own right.

his fingers curve upon the knife in his hand, knuckles going white. he should be going back to his task before his father came home, should use the light while he had it. he knows that he will get it done; he has never failed his father before.

he simply aches for more. he aches to pummel his way through the snow, to climb the mountains before him, dig his fingers into the soil, the rock until he is up and over, into the places, the valleys beyond cimmeria.

he longs to leave. to explore.

whatever mood crom was in when he was born, whatever kind of spit he put into his guts, they told him that he was meant to be more, meant to do more, meant to have adventures beyond anyone's reckoning here in cimmeria.

his eyes look down to his hands, and knows that he must go inside. there are tasks before him. his father is without a wife, and it all falls to him to do it.

he looks back up. sees the clouds shift, swears that he can smell something new in the wind, something that beckons to him more than the cold's fingers.

he takes a deep breath of it, holds it. lets it go.

"by crom's breath," he says, "i will go beyond cimmeria. i will have women, wine, all the spoils of a king."

some may call it a child's longing. some may know better: that he is conan of cimmeria, who will become king conan of aquilonia. he has never broken a promise, and he will always mount those hills by the time he is fifteen winters.