Category: Journal Entry

Neath the mountain Einjallar, on the Wolfchaser river,
Winter’s ice thawing, the river-banks swelling,
As village-gates opened to spring’s first endeavors,
A wild man descended the rime-covered mountain.

He came to the meadhall, calling for guest-right.
His trunk as a barrel, limbs stout as tree-trunks.
The hair on his chest mixed with blood long forgotten.
Hallbjorn his birth-name, scion of Greywolf.

On the mountain he trained, through windstorm and blizzard,
The fire of his rage overcoming the winter.
His mentor surpassed, now he came to the lowlands
For bloodshed and glory, the hunt never-ending.

The men of the village met these words with a challenge,
The warrior’s way, a test of the stranger.
Should he prove himself strong against the warrior chosen,
Then he would be welcome, with shelter and feasting.

Seven men stood before him, the pride of the village.
As guest he could choose the one he must challenge.
Hallbjorn emptied his ale-horn and met them with laughter.
“Every one will I fight, and be done by the sunset!”

The circle was drawn, the warriors made ready,
Cast lots for the honor to be first to the blood-pit.
They took up their axes and sharpened their daggers,
Each eager to fell the arrogant stranger.

As the first fighter entered, the crowd roared to greet him.
Just as quickly the crowd fell back in stunned silence.
The mirthful great man, the wild man of the mountain,
Before them transformed to a terror of bloodshed.

The blood of the first still steaming, he pointed
To the second in line, and called him to come forward.
As a starving man given the key to the feast-hall
Was Hallbjorn when faced with the chance to do battle.

Seven entered the pit to bring down the stranger.
Seven men carted out, bloodied and broken.
Hallbjorn squinted against the sun not yet setting,
Looked to the crowd and called for more ale.

This was witnessed by Erik, the Skald branded Treehide.
In the feast after battle he stood and declared:
“This unstoppable power that comes down the mountain,
I name thee the Avalanche, and call for the Branding!”

Summer 608 –

I lost my sister, my brother, my sibling last weekend – I watched her final breath, held his cooling form in my arms, and spread their remains to the forest.

I never had any siblings.

My sister never lived – he spent his life bound to another, their essence woven together deep underground. The only time they truly had to herself was those final moments. Did our grandfather put him there? Was this punishment or purpose?

I was an only child. I don’t even know if I remember my grandfather?

I and a few of my other siblings were there to witness the death. My grandfather refused – perhaps out of principle, perhaps out of shame. I don’t know if I’ll ever learn one way or the other, they have only spoken to me once.

I recall going down to the cave, I remember the battle, I remember mixing the ichor and the essences to make the poultices (my cloak also remembers this – will need to talk to Colibri on how to clean it), I recall Rowen awakening – weakened to near death.

After this point – I’m not sure if I can trust my memories as solely my own – nor my emotional state. This experience with Aspen still lingers with me occasionally – a day dream when I should be focusing on my work, or a nightmare when I should be sleeping.

I choose to answer Aspen’s call, and I need to be able to live up to his challenges, but his focus on Justice leaves me wondering about her focus of truth – after all, it is these truths that I think Luisant needs if we are to weather the coming storms.

I have filled nearly a dozen pages with questions for Aspen, ranging from historical information to immediate pleas, but underlining it all is just one:

Have you awoken to help us?

Under the weight, I shall become as incompressible as the Jewel.

“Relix… Narez…”

Under the weight, I shall grasp the Wheel of my destiny.

“Relit… Mamuri…”

Under the weight, I shall Seal away my doubts.

“Worum… Sicun…”

Under the weight, I shall be the Knot that holds tight to the bonds I’ve formed.

“Gundavult…”

Under the weight, I shall learn to Control my fears.

“Vorug… Ta…”

Under the weight, I shall hold my ground and be as steadfast as the Crown Tree.

“Verg… Tyra!”

Under the weight, I shall become the hero I always imagined I could be.

Games. “Games” they call them.

A constant clash of wooden equipment, bruises, headaches, pain, victories and losses.

Months of brutal training. I hear the mumblings. The resentment of a new commander.

I am not Sir Der Ritzen, and only am covering for his work out of necessity.

The Væringjar are brutally efficient warriors and are truly trained to a steel’s edge, but the steel is only as good as the hand that wields it.

I have spent my life on a small team. Fighting, Hunting, Hiding. We had become like ghosts in the woods, extricating, learning, and killing. But I had never developed the strategy. I still lose to academics in Tafl and Cyess for the love of Benalus!

In the heat, in the very moment I am competent. I still have so much to learn in tactics, but I know them. But when it comes to strategy I am green. I have a wonderful tutor, but I do not know enough and I worry I’m not learning fast enough.

I hope when it comes to be steel and not wood that the hand is ready.

You often don’t recognize the normal sounds of life until they are disrupted. They fade into the background, forming a symphony that scores your highs and lows, your successes and triumphs: The ringing of bells to tell the passage of time. The calls of kith and kin going about their daily business. The grinding buzz of crafting tools, steady beats of axes, and the soft scraping of hunters dressing their latest kills. All dance in time to the pumping bellows of the breath and the swinging of limbs directed to their tasks, but beneath it all, the steady dance of the heart, softly moving humors along their way to maintain the balance of life.

You never realize how important something is until it’s gone.

You can never truly understand the meaning of silence until you rest like a tree, your arms outstretched to the morning sun, the rays soaking through your flesh and filling you with light. The thoughts and passions that drive creatures seem insignificant compared to the songs of birds, the dance of winds, the slow seeping coolness of rich, dark soil full of moisture and tiny seeds of life below…

It is a gift; one unasked for and unearned.

It is a curse; forced by a greater power and paid for in blood.

It is a duty; taken up with zeal so that others may yet grow stronger and the balance be restored.

They say that the songs of a Maiden are pure and full of the joy of discovering youth, while the voice of a Mother is silent, yet full of the memory of song. I think this deceptive, as Mothers can still sing, if merely following the rhythm of a different drum. Lost is the fire and passion of Spring, the yearning desire to Know and Name, instead given over to the steady determination of Summer, where tasks *must* be done lest disaster come.

Gone is the birdsong, sweet in the morn, and remains the hunting cry, sudden and shrill.

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

Severin Journal – Game 7

This market had been a time of revelations to Severin. Two things had happened to shake him up. First, he had been unable to do anything about the malefic hunters that arrived to threaten Luisant’s Lady and the Beastwise ritual. Second, the village had been emptied to go fight in the tunnels under the mountain against ancient evil. Both were dire circumstances that threatened the village, his family, and himself.

He had never been a fighter. When the malefic hunters showed at the beginning of the Beastwise ritual, he could resist their fear, but would not have considered fighting them. He was a hunter and rarely used his bow against things other than woodland predators. The one leading them was a ghost and no doubt his arrows would have just gone straight through him with no effect. His sword skills were also trivial at best. When given the choice to declare himself as predator or prey, he knew the only safe answer, and that is also not one he was willing to commit to. He backed away and withdrew from the Beastwise ritual as at that point, letting it fail by getting the Lady back would be better than being forced to hunt her down as he was sure the creatures would demand. He felt he was unable to do anything in this situation.

Later, when the village was called to go into the tunnels, he had a different experience. He had found himself in the depths of tunnels he hadn’t even realized were there. Finding out there was a mountain nearby was also sort of a shock. Still, the tunnels were strange, evil things left over from the days of the Witchking, Chiropractor. There, at the end, was a large room where he found himself fighting alongside a saint that had been trapped there guarding something from the creatures the villagers now fought. There he used a season’s worth of arrows, all he had, shooting at the monstrosities.

It helped that was fighting near the saint in a region others couldn’t enter for some reason. Any time the creatures came towards him, the saint would attack and send them fleeting. He was working on trying to lure them in as that was probably more effective than his efforts after he ran out of arrows. Once, a creature got in and landed a blow that sent him flying. The saint had inquired if he was ok, and he found himself unhurt due in his fevor. She even asked for his name.

It was a formative day for Severin. He had seen himself as a defenseless hunter, and as an effective fighter against evil. Things had been getting worse for Luisant lately. Lords had been killed. The dead walked, sometimes covered in bees. The plants walked even. He saw that it was no longer enough to just try and keep the village fed. Instead, he saw that it was needed for him to step up and learn the skills needed to make a more active defense of Luissant.

“Hadrien, these vegetables you brought back are delicious, but we do fine enough. You could have donated these to the town.”

“I know, Ma. I just like to make sure you and Pa are taken care of.”

“Well, we appreciate it, dear. Is everything ok? You’ve barely ate.”

“Yeah, life just got kinda complicated kinda fast, ya know”

“How so, dear. Tell me about it”

“Well, the gathering got kinda intense. Someone almost died. The spirits are asking for blood to cleanse some corruption, or replenish lost spirits, or something. I don’t know. And it sounds people are really willing to just give into them. And later I met some werewolves from a circle that just moved in. And they are kinda staying as wolves way too long, and killing people and things all willynilly. But they seem to know to balance the spirits more than us. But I the mother kinda had this hunger in his eye when he looked at me, and I was scared and tried to keep distance from him, which I think he took as weakness and then he scared me into staying still. And I think I held myself pretty well, but he could smell the fear. And then later someone got a vision on how to get closer to finally killing the witch king, and it meant we all had to gather basically inside him. It smelled real bad. There was some lady named Gabrielle who was apparently a saint. She seemed real mad though. And one of our spirits was there, and she seemed real scared. There were dead plant monsters. And then there was this beast that looked like he ate magic. And a lot of the town was getting hurt, and I had to keep a guy from bleeding out. I wanted to be there, but I also didn’t know why I was staying and not just running away.”

“Oh, honey. That’s a whole lot. If you don’t wanna go back, we aren’t gonna force you”

“No, that’s not it. The weird thing is that I really have come to care about the town, and I wanna help them. I have thoughts and feelings about what is going on. Our circle needs to consider how the town fits into Vecatra. And there is a just created sprit who apparently had limitless potential that some people in the town are trynna to make into a spirit of community. But the trees think they it’s corrupted and shouldn’t be accepted. But I don’t think that’s right. I think the town needs a spirit to look over it since the town is so much of apart of our life. And I was able to provide a bunch of materials to the town to help with projects, and to help feed us. But it just feels like I should be doing so much more. I should be speaking up more. I have friends who see a problem and just run at it with all of their strength, and believe, and give it their all, and I am scared just watching them in a corner.”

“You know with the way you two talk you could raise the dead. And we already have enough malefic around here.”

“Sorry for waking you, Pa.”

“Don’t worry about it, the bigger problem is you not getting up and doing something.”

“Huh?”

“You say you have all these feelings about all the shit going on around you. Get off your ass and do something about it! You’ve seen a woman when her skin cut off, bee operated corpses, werewolves, undead plant things, magic eating shits, a fucking crazy saint woman. And you can’t tell me you couldn’t have just walked off and avoided all them. You wanted to go to that shit, and you say you wanna brave all this and do what you can for the good of the town. But don’t just show up, fuckin do something. Obviously you are in good hands out there. Seems like you fell in with a good crowd, and no one’s died yet. Learn something from them, get good at defending yourself, and speak up. You can’t just stand in the corner and empty your pockets at people forever and think that’s good enough. Get off your ass and do something.”

“But what if….”

“No buts about it. You have more guts than you know, son. You’re life’s been full of scary shit. You had to grow up too young. You just have to learn that you are stronger than you know. You just gotta put yourself out there and trust in yourself. Follow your friends’ examples.”

“Hmm……..I think I know what I gotta do. I gotta go see someone. Thanks, Pa!”

Hadrien runs out of the house.

“You’re too rough with him, Sylvain.”

“And yet now he’s doing something about it. Now pass me his plate, no need for that food to go to waste.”

“Take me instead.”The words echoed in Corbin’s ears, days, weeks after they were spoken.
“They are more important than I am. Let me do this.”

His hands clawed into the soft earth, looking to pull away the dirt and soil that surrounded the chunk of usable iron ore.

How quick we all are to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others, he thought. Not that he could blame them. We all do that grisly math at some point in our lives. The more dangerous things become, the more often we are forced to make those hard choices: Who will live and who will pay the debt. Who will walk the path, and who will be the one to hold the line for the next several centuries. 

‘Saint Gabriella’ could just as easily have been Saint Isabel, or Saint Cadence. Who’s to say they still won’t be. And who would he be to tell them not to them not to?. Henri thinks it’s his destiny to die fighting Coropler. How many other people are starting to think the same? and how quickly will those prophecies become self fulfilling given half a chance? Half the circle was already falling over themselves to sacrifice themselves in order to save one of their own, let alone the rest of town. None of them thought to try to settle the debt some other way.

Corbin grunts in frustration as the small chunk of iron ore he was working to remove continues to thwart his efforts by refusing to budge. Back on his butt he goes to wipe his dirty hands off on some nearby brush and reconsider his approach.
Sometimes you just have to pay the blood debt. Make the choice of who lives and who dies. The Stag dies to feed the town. The Trees die to make the wood we need to stave off the cold. Sometimes it’s an easy trade, sometimes it’s not. He knows whose life he would sacrifice his own for. There wasn’t even a question.  
After all the recent fun at his expense, just thinking of her was enough to make his face flush and push him back into the battle against this stubborn hunk of rock. Maybe if he chipped away at the far side? It still refused to budge even a little.

“No” he finally says to no one in particular, after a long contemplative silence of wrestling with the stubborn earth. “We can all face the coming trials with our heads held high, but no more martyrs. Either we all survive, or we all burn.” It was adorably naive and he knew it, but for just a moment he was content to let Sophie’s infectious optimism take over. 

This rock wasn’t budging. He had no way of knowing it wasn’t the scrap of easily accessible ore he thought it was, but was actually the tip of an impossibly large boulder buried much deeper. As such, the perfect metaphor was lost on him when he eventually gave up – assuming the earth just wasn’t going to give in on this day. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

“After defeating those undead you could be branded!” says Kotzell cheerfully, I’m not sure how branding works since I’ve never really looked into it so I’m not sure if he’s joking or being serious but my cheeks burn all the same. “Heimir the De-deadnator!”

“ah…I-I don’t think I can ever be branded…” I whisper it, almost a reminder to myself to not even think of dreaming of that.

“You can’t? Why not?” He looks truly confused

“The runes…”

“Oh” he understands immediately.

—–

I’m 16 years old when it happens, all my friends had talked about how important their rune casting had been and had bragged about what it had said for them after. The night before I had stayed up with them thinking of the most heroic things the runes could have predicted for me, all of the things we had guessed were only things teenage boys would have thought of as heroic.

The day is cloudy and miserable, I try not to read too much into it as I step in the elder’s room. Instantly everything is dark except for a few candles.

“Sit.” She instructs me and I kneel down in front of her, all of the sudden I’m not excited just very nervous.

A cold shiver runs through me as she casts the runes.

She doesn’t speak for the longest time, just stares at the runes turning them over in her hands. I can’t read her face and I refuse to look at the runes myself. Something in me tells me not to look.

She takes a deep breath and finally speaks. “From the beginning you were sure of who you were and where you were going. You once had the energy to cut away the old and un-needed. And it was that energy that led you to make the decisions you have made to this point. You are at a period in your life where you are opening up to something new. But remember, movement involves danger, while timely movement leads out of it. Your process will involve disruptions that will turn out differently that you had intended. Hoped-for outcomes will elude you and you will find yourself at a standstill. You will be harvesting the seeds you’ve sown, keep in mind which are thorns and which are beneficial. You may find life easier to find partnership and allies, but true friendship will elude you and you may lose what you hold dear to those undeserving. Your future is grim. You won’t see the growth that you once wished for, and paths that should have been open to you may be closed, disrupted by your past and what may come to haunt you.”

I am trying not to let tears roll down my face, I can feel her stare as I nod get up and leave.

Outside my mentor Ingvarr is waiting for me, my friends are there as well. Ingvarr’s face falls immediately as he sees my tears, I see him moving towards me to ask but I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. And so I run, as far away as I can from everyone until I don’t hear them calling my name again.

Of course the runes would say that about me, it was ridiculous to dream of other things.

I stay in the fields far away from the village, I know Ingvarr must be worried about me and searching for me but I need time to myself for now. This is the time where I grieve the image of myself that I had dreamt of.

It’s night time by the time I get back, Ingvarr is by my side quickly telling me how the runes don’t matter and that I make my own destiny. I nod to him and give him a soft smile, too tired to argue and too tired to think otherwise. The truth is that now the seed of fear has been planted in my mind, one that has to grow overtime waiting to bloom once the runes comes true.

“It’s crazy when
The thing you love the most is the detriment
Let that sink in”

Two conflicting sides. Two different viewpoints. Both so clearly set against each other, both refusing to bend.
Both so similar in that regard.
Why is it she was always able to see the space in the middle? The grey tones everyone seemed unable to even acknowledge?

“Oh, ’cause I keep diggin’ myself down deeper
I won’t stop ’til I get where you are
I keep running, I keep running, I keep running”

Lysenna’s mouth tightened as her gaze fell upon the two daggers laid on the table looking as out of place as a fine tableware set on the rough old wood surface.
Neither were truly hers, and yet they had both come back for her hands to hold.
She didn’t know what to do with them. She had done what Willow had asked. She had done what needed to be done. She had finally laid her own personal night are to rest. And yet.
Between the spirits, the lionfolk, the town. They all had such narrow views of what any of them would truly accept. What would they do when they realized what she… Who she…
Shaking her head violently, as much to clear the thoughts away as to feel the movement of the cool air upon her face she turned on her heel and strode to the doorway. There the verdant trees and shadows seemed to beckon to her as they always had.

“They say I may be making a mistake
I would’ve followed all the way, no matter how far”

It doesn’t matter. All that mattered was keeping her family safe. And no one, spirit or saint, was ever going to make the decision of who her family was. Circle, blood, childhood friend. They were all her family. Shaking her head in denial of the shadows and their call she walked back to the table currently crowded as her thoughts.

Damn anyone who thought they could get away with telling her what to do. She reached out, gripping the strange hilts and slowly lifted them to eye level. Her eyes glinted sharp as the blades as she brought them to her side and tucked them into her belt pouch. If anyone thought they would stand in her way, well, they were about to find out exactly what she was willing to do to take care of the ones she loved.

“I know when you go down all your darkest roads
I would’ve followed all the way to the graveyard”