Exile (an ode to Icewind Dale)

I. The cold does not lie. It does not pretend to welcome. It does not smile with poison on its breath.

It simply is— indifferent, vast, and honest. More honest than any word spoken in the great caverns of my birth.

II. I fled the dark not for light— but for truth. And here, in the whispering white, I found it.

Not in kindness. The North is not kind. But it does not betray. It does not twist. It does not smile when it means to kill.

III. They call me exile. They are right. But they forget— to be cast out is not always to fall.

Sometimes, it is to rise. To climb from shadow with bleeding hands and say, I will not become what made me.

IV. I have seen the dance of light above a world made of silence. I have walked for days and spoken to no one— and still, I have felt heard.

The wind here listens. The snow remembers. The mountain watches, but does not judge.

V. I do not seek warmth. I have found clarity. Each breath a blade. Each step a declaration.

I am not drow. I am not surface. I am not what they made.

I am what I chose— a lone figure moving through the frost, never home, but never lost.