A/N: Finally, a complete reboot and re-imagining of "Familiar of the Snowstorm"! Hopefully no one will be too disappointed that I've decided to start with a similar premise but go different route. Many things will not be the same while others will have passing likeness. Hopefully this time I'll be more consistent and not jump around as much. This one will also be a tad bit darker than before and focus much more on the relationship between Priscilla and Tabitha, without the baggage of the whole familiar business. Also, Velka shenanigans from the get-go!

It was abnormally cold this night. A dim moon obscured by oppressive clouds cast scant light on what could have been once an idyllic hamlet, complete with a stylized keep and church. It was only ruins now. All was still, as though no life remained. A statement nearly true.

The screech of bone-like metal upon cold stone resounded, echoing in the frigid air. The tall figure clad in white fur robes dragged it's bare feet, lulling to and fro pulling a wicked ebony scythe behind by a single hand, gouging long and deep scratches in the frosted stone. Deep and heavy panting produced small clouds of steam that cooled and caked the frame of white hair surrounding the figure's face with a fine dusting of frost and ice. Shuddering and heaving a labored sigh, it fell to it's knees.

It began to sob quietly, in a gentle, weak but melodious voice.

"A lie..."

The shifting clouds allowed light to pass, revealing the seemingly pure white was instead stained.

Blood.

Blood of various shades soaked the arms, lap, and face of a decidedly feminine figure. In places it frosted over, in others it was still slick but rapidly cooling. The scythe loosely held in the left hand with it's blade trailing behind was still wet, indeed still steaming from the freshness of the blood. The blood didn't belong to the figure in question.

"It's a lie!"

This time the voice was raised, cracking near the end.

The figure and voice belonged to an abomination. A being whose existence was deemed an insult and travesty. Whose continued existence seen as a threat. With the world finally becoming too much for it to bear, sent itself into self exile. For the protection of itself and the world at large.

It, more appropriately she, is known by the moniker Cross Breed Priscilla. A creature whose birth is shrouded in mystery, the details known only by the Mad Duke Seathe, a scaleless dragon who betrayed his own kind and may possibly be her progenitor. The only other, the eccentric witch goddess Velka, who may have had a hand in her creation, but acted in the background as a patron of sorts for the forbidden child. Her motivations for her support were as much a mystery as Priscilla's birth.

In her self-exile to the Painted World of Ariamis, Priscilla had become comfortable in her existence. Indeed, her comfort was in part due to the inhabitants of the land, for they were peaceful and kind. It was made better after an untold amount of years when a singular man appeared in her home. The man, his name long forgotten even by himself, was known soon after as the Chosen Undead. After initial tensions being dispelled, he would return to visit the exile. He regaled her with stories of his travels, his friends, his conquests over demons and beasts. It was when he revealed his purpose that genuine hope and a desire to live in the outside world returned.

He was to be king. This man's quest was to replace the failing legacy of Lord Gwyn and restore light and warmth to the darkening and cooling world. With this news, Priscilla gave him her blessing and eagerly awaited news of victory and the prospects of walking once more on verdant fields of grass under the warm light of the sun.

It was not to be, however. For it was all a lie.

The man did not lie. No, it was all a lie by omission by those that manipulated the poor man. It was but a few hours since Priscilla had chosen to break her exile in search of the man when what she guessed were months had passed without him returning as he normally would. Sure, she found the world had been restored, the sun shone bright and warm, and life flourished once more. But her friend and eventual confidant had become sacrificial kindling for the flames of the Kiln. He was now a charred, hollowing corpse, writhing in agony. And there was nothing Priscilla could do for him. So she returned to her world within the painting.

Upon returning, in the lucidity granted by her sobering discovery, she realized another lie.

The inhabitants of her land were not peaceful. They were not kind. She was not comfortable. Nor was she happy.

In her delusions and, indeed, madness. She had lied to herself.

So she slaughtered them all. The hollows, the undead Xanthous King Jeremiah, the zombified dragon, and even the crow hybrids, the former worshipers of Velka that had taken refuge within the painting.

It was but a small mercy she had granted them in their madness and empty existence. So now she all but bathed in their blood.

"It was...," she sniffled pathetically, "a big lie..."

Slowly she looked up to the false heavens of the painting. The moon had finally been freed of the interference of clouds, revealing the dull and eerie red hues of a lunar eclipse, a blood moon. Reaching into her robes with her right hand she grasp at the smooth wooden doll her late friend returned to her so long ago. The doll she lost when she wished upon it for her escape into exile.

Once more she clutched tightly to the doll as though it were her only protection from a non-existent threat. Once more she wished, desperately in her sorrow and madness, under the light of the blood moon.

"Please...I don't want to be alone anymore..."

She closed her eyes, choking back tears. She didn't expect an answer. She didn't really expect anything but silence and the accompanied nothingness.

But instead, a flutter of wings followed by a biting cold wind on her body.

She opened her eyes to find a clear starless sky. Two moons shared the inky blackness, the smaller of the two slowly edging out from eclipsing the other. And then there was a beastly screech that pierced the air.

Tabitha had known it would be too good to be true.

This was to be her final task, the final mission given to her by her uncle. Upon completion, her mother would be released to her and she would even be allowed to continue to attend the Academy of Magic, summon herself a familiar, and possibly live the rest of her life in relative peace. But alas, this was just another of her uncle's games. This time she was tasked with hunting a particular infamous rake that wandered the snow wastes of the northern Germanian border, further than any territory familiar to her. Apparently the drake had an artifact within itself that her uncle desired greatly, but in hindsight Tabitha should have noticed the smirk upon the face of that hated woman Sheffield that was always by her uncle's side.

She wondered if her uncle finally grew tired of the manipulation and attempted emotional torture he conducted on her. Or perhaps her mother had finally passed on and he realized he no longer had any hold over her due to that.

It didn't matter though. She had determined that this would be her final mission regardless. Exhausted of her willpower by combat and sapped of her physical strength by the environment, it was all too late when a previously withheld bit of information became apparent to her.

Her target had a family. A large and incredibly angry family that had begun to relentlessly pursue her through the wasteland with the sole intent of tearing her apart limb from limb and most likely consuming her still warm corpse in retaliation.

Throughout the pursuit she had begun to truly believe that the Founder had abandoned her. After all, her heritage as a mage had done nothing but provide her with misery. It robbed her of her mother, robbed her of her childhood, and now it most likely robbed her of her very life. Her magic had dug her grave and left her at the bottom with no way out. She had half a mind to laugh at the commonly said praises to Brimir and utter her own curses in response.

Lacking the strength to trudge along further without the aid of magic, and her willpower too depleted to fuel said magic, she finally fell prey to an environmental hazard she had feared the most at the moment. She sank to her waist in a hidden soft snow drift, effectively ensnaring the young woman and allowing her pursuers to catch up and surround their prey.

Breathing heavily, beads of sweat crystallized along her face as she shivered in the bitter cold, she slowly rotated in place to observe her current situation. With her hopes for an opening quickly dashed as the Ice Drakes that composed of the deceased drake's family effortlessly stomped through the soft powder, achieving complete encirclement. The wingless breed of drakes native to the northern wastes were adept at traveling across the dry snow with their webbed feet that acted like snow shoes.

The largest of the pack, the one Tabitha guessed to be the mother, broke the circle. Slowly stomping forward until it was only a few feet in front of the diminutive mage. A toothy and sinister 'smile' crept onto the drake's face, displaying a feral hunger as it gnashed repeatedly as in sniffed the air before the girl.

Tabitha had resolved not to succumb to any intimidation, she would die standing and unflinching.

As a proud warrior.

Her only concession was to look up to the sky rather than the predator. It was then she noticed a rare sight, the eclipse of the larger moon by it's companion, dyeing the sky a deep violet hue.

'Fitting? Perhaps...'

Lowering her gaze, she found the mother drake reared up onto her hind legs. It too turned it's gaze to the heavens, but instead of taking in the beauty of the sky it let out a bestial scream of victory, announcing to the world that her prey had surrendered.

'Yes, this must be it. This is finally the end of me?' Tabitha let out a breathy sigh. 'I regret not being able to see mother one more time...and not thanking Kirche for her friendship...'

Tabitha closed her eyes and bowed her head, tears that froze almost instantly welled up in the corners of her eyes. For the first time in years she had shown emotion. Unfortunately it was to a beast out for blood and in acceptance of her own imminent demise.

'I just wish it weren't like this, and not alone...I...don't want to die alone...'

She waited for the pain she imagined accompanied being bitten into by those massive jaws.

She waited.

Seconds passed without anything happening. The air was eerily still and silent. And then her front was splashed by warmth and a distinct metallic scent. Slowly Tabitha opened her eyes.

'Blood!?'

Before her, the snow was dyed red and melted under the heat of freshly spilled blood. Slowly bringing her eyes up she observed the still body of the mother drake, standing above her mid-lunge. Through her skull protruded a long black blade that entered the crown and exited the soft underside of the drake's massive maw. The blade belonged to a massive scythe. Shifting her sight to follow the shaft to find the wielder of said scythe, she was stunned by what she saw.

Green-amber eyes shimmered in the dim moonlight, almost with a light of their own. The eyes belonged to a woman of rather large proportions, clad in what was once pure white fur robes that were now stained apparently multiple times over by the crimson of blood. In place of eyebrows, the woman had what looked to be soft scale-like protrusions and behind her slowly swayed a tail covered in the same white fur of her robes.

The woman looked first at the mother drake. Her face only shown a faint, almost disinterested disgust. She dislodged her scythe with a resounding crunch, causing the younger child drake to back away slowly in fear. The woman then turned to look directly into Tabitha's own blue eyes. The glare was piercing, but shown no hints of disgust that were there for the drake. Rather, within the glare was a curiosity shared by Tabitha.

Within those green-amber eyes Tabitha recognized something else.

Madness.

Yet it was a madness quite unlike her uncle's. In fact it was one she herself courted many times in the past. It was one born and fueled by solitude, sorrow, and despair.

The young woman's strength finally began to falter as she started to succumb to exhaustion and the cold.

The last thing she seen with her failing vision was the larger tailed woman flicker a moment in a puff of snow, reappearing once more with a fresher coat of red and several heads belonging to the young drakes slowly slide off their necks. The woman in white's eyes never left Tabitha.

The last thing Tabitha thought as she fell forward, 'Beautiful...'

The final thing she felt was not the cold of the snow, but rather warmth accompanied by something soft and fluffy that had the scent of blood and a hint of musty sweat.