Mjukur

Overview
Mjúkur is a young sheep hailing from the northern snowy mountains of Abexilas. He lives a nomadic lifestyle, traveling far across the lands of Abexilas, selling various trinkets and valuable resources he picked up during his travels. His appearance reflects his travels.While his clothes are simple, only a beaten up pair of trousers and a satchel around his waist, the most striking thing about his appearance is the hand-made beads woven into his wool, made from many kinds rocks and woods from around the world.

Backstory
His parents lead a secluded life in the highest reaches of the peaks, teaching him the ways of survival in some of the harshest conditions knows to anyone in Abexilas. Unlike his parents, Mjúkur wanted to see the world, from the peaks to the valleys to the darkest caves. He left his parents’ humble home at the age of eighteen to pursue a new nomadic life of excitement and exploration.

Becoming More Like Himself
Mjúkur was born into a female body, though always knew, deep down, that it wasn't meant to be. So, shortly after leaving his parents’ home, he decided one of his first missions would be to find a way to make his body match his true identity. Through the avenue of herbal medicine and a little bit of folk magic, he found a concoction that would nearly perfectly mimic the properties of the chemicals that naturally occur in male bodies. The mixture of various herbs and berries stimulated the growth in his already existing horns, making them grow longer and curl into a spiral. They also caused his voice to deepen from his previously softer pitch. As far as anyone is concerned, they would have never guessed he hadn't been born that way.

Discovery of the Divine
One fateful day, while Mjúkur was conducting his usual routine of gathering herbs and other natural resources for his travels, he stumbled across perhaps the greatest discovery he would ever make.

Amongst the blades of fresh spring grass and soft moss beds, there was a small colony of mushrooms, in a perfect circular formation. Mjúkur was fascinated, he had never seen mushrooms in such a seemingly unnatural formation before, he took it as a sign, of what exactly he wasn't sure. Something in his heart told him this wasn’t just an ordinary mushroom colony, so he took it upon himself to gather every one of them for further study.

Upon doing so, Mjúkur quickly realized these were not like any mushrooms he had ever encountered before. He divided them into two groups based on their color. In the first group, the caps were nearly perfectly circular, and a brightly saturated cyan, with speckled node of orange and gold that glittered softly in the firelight of his camp. In the second group, the caps were hoods gently set upon the stems, and colored a deep blood-like crimson, with the same orange and gold nodes as the others. They seemed to glow with an aura of otherworldly-ness, as well as literally glowed. An alien nature that could not be understood with the laws people of Abexilas have made for themselves.

These mushrooms weren’t the poisonous kind as their saturated colors would suggest. Experimentation quickly revealed they held no such harmful toxins. They gave off a sweet aroma, almost like fresh flowers, but more sickly sweet. He had become deeply fascinated by these strange specimens, over just a few days of experimentation, and documenting. Though, strange to him, he felt compelled to consume them. He wasn't sure why, it didn't feel like thoughts of his own, rather something else in his mind. He knew now that no negative consequences would come to his health if he did so, though he still felt aprehensive, as if his subconcious was driving him away from an unknown threat. He couldn't be sure, everything in him was screaming for him to stay away, but his curiosity got the better of all his better judgement.

He quickly prepared two of each kind of specimen for consumption, took a deep breath, and popped them both into his mouth in quick succession. He could never fully comprehend what he saw that day, but one thing he was entirely convicted of, was that he had seen behind the curtains and glimpsed the universe in its rawest form. Every color one can conceive of as well as the ones one cannot, spiraling and folding in endlessly upon themselves in floral kaleidoscopes. The cosmos itself, as a whole, all its stars, its planets, its grass, its mountains, its seas, and its void sprawled out all at once in a grand tapestry, unimaginably gargantuan and unspeakably beautiful. Anyone’s first instinct would be to cower away from such a terrifying raw view of everything that has ever existed and has yet to exist, but Mjúkur found himself surrendering to it. He came to realize just how small he was, and he was comforted by that fact. He was just a thread in the tapestry of the universe, small when by himself, but incredibly important to hold it all together.

When he came back down to his tiny slice of reality, he found himself instilled with the knowledge of his true purpose in life. He must spread his newfound wisdom to as many people as he could. They deserved to know just how beautiful their grand purpose really is. Thus, the Occult of the Cosmic Mycelium was born.

The Special Stranger
It was a day like any other. The beginnings of summer, flowers fully blooming, the sound of bees buzzing carried on the soft, crisp breeze. Mjúkur took it in with all his senses as he made his way down the slopes of the mountain. While he lived a nomadic lifestyle, he made sure he would always have a stable place to come back to if he should ever need to rest or gather more resources for his travels. He had dug a small cave into the side of a large mountain, capped with snow, which overlooked a dense forest.

Once he reached the base and began to make his way into the overgrowth, gently pushing away anything that stood in his path. It was his usual routine of gathering herbs and mushrooms, wood and stone, whatever he would need to continue with his travels in the near future. Suddenly, he heard the distinct sound of something falling onto the grass carpet of the woods. It wasn't loud enough to be a tree, not quiet enough to not mean something, so he reasoned it may be a woodland creature that needed help. He quickly navigated towards the origin of the sound. In a small clearing, softly illuminated by sunlight screened through tree leaves, was a young wolf. Mjúkur immediately recognized he was wildly out of place. The wolf was dressed in slacks, a cream linen shirt, and a pine green vest adorned with an antique golden monocle and chain. This mysterious wolf had passed out, likely from exhaustion, though how he had gotten himself in the middle of these woods puzzled Mjúkur. Still, he knew he shouldn’t just leave him there, he would surely be consumed by the wild monsters of the night before he could wake up. So, he gently grabbed the wolf by his underarms and began to drag him back to his home in the mountains.

By the time the wolf began to wake many hours had passed by, the sun had sunk below the west horizon, and a cool night had fallen. Mjúkur had used the time to cook a nice meal for his unexpected guest. The warmth of the cooking fire filled the space with the sweet aroma of roasting vegetables and greens. He glanced in the wolf’s direction and noticed he had fully awoken, clearly disoriented and confused. He prepared a small bowl of the vegetable stew he had been tending to, and shuffled over to offer it to the wolf.

“Feeling better?”

The wolf nodded, taking the bowl of stew out of pure instinct, the disorientation quickly leaving his gaze being replaced by hunger. He gazedup at Mjúkur with what he sensed was curiosity mixed with uncertainty.

"Yes, thank you. I... I don't know what happened."

“Fainted,” Mjúkur answered. He observed his guest with veiled curiosity. "This wolf is far out of his element, indeed." He thought to himself, internally fighting the urge to chide and lecture the stranger on the dangers of the woods.

“How did you find me?” The wolf inquired with clear awe and gratitude in his voice.

“Heard you fall.” Mjúkur stated and gestured towards the entrance of the cave, “Brought you here.”

His answers were short and to the point, mostly out of his shy nature, though, in his time traveling around the world he had learned that one must be cautious around those they don't know. Anyone could be an enemy, as well as a friend. It is important to tread with a healthy amount of wariness. He maintained distance as watched the wolf closely, observing every tiny morph in his expression, from confusion to realization to gratitude. This wolf did not seem like the typical wolf he had been told to fear. To put it bluntly, he was wildly ignorant and underprepared for the world, something a predator would never be caught dead doing.

"I'm in your debt. My name's Elyas. May I ask yours?"

Mjúkur quickly brought himself back down to reality from his thoughts. He pondered the question, and hesitated for a few moments, debating whether he should become friends with this wolf he had never seen before. A more primal part of him cultivated since his birth feared this wolf as a predator, but he did his best to push that assumption down.

“Mjúkur”

“Mjúkur” Elyas repeated softly, visibly concentrating on keeping the name to his memory.

"Thank you, Mjúkur. I can't believe I was so careless."

Mjúkur nodded, studying Elyas, noticing his features were slim and withered with dehydration. His fur covered in dirt and grime, he was completely disheveled. Mjúkur concluded that his wolf was worth trusting, he couldn’t hurt him even if he wanted to.

“Water?” He offered, he knew now that he must make sure this wolf wouldn’t get himself nearly killed again.

“Yes, please. I forgot to bring any with me.” Elyas took the cup of water eagerly. “I didn’t expect the journey to be so… intense.”

“Much like my first time camping in the woods as a child…” Mjúkur remembered how he himself had made the same mistakes as the wolf when he was younger. His immediate disapproving judgments dissipated and were replaced with empathy. He decided he would let Elyas stay the night, to make sure he would remain safe against the night.

"A sheep and a wolf, friends?.... There are stranger things in this world I'm sure."