A couple days of travel after a failed group hug
10th Day of Summer 218
Warbler
A light rain patters softly on the moss and stone covered ground as the wind whistles in the predawn haze. There is no sound of birdsong or of chirping insects. There is almost no life signalling the oncoming shift from night to day, but there is the patter of a halfling’s feet and a low whistle as Warbler makes a pot of mushroom and ginger tea.
Vanja
Vanja wakes with a sharp inhalation of breath and a pounding in her ears. She had fallen asleep sitting with her back against the edge of Sav’s shelter, a small node of Isendelian hardwood half-worked in her lap and a knife in her hand.
Vanja’s eye darts around the shelter, her vision darkening at the edges, her blindness seeming - for one terrifying heartbeat - to spread.
Then she’s outside. Scrambling out of the shelter on hands and knees, the earth slick beneath her palms, the rain wetting her neck. There is the scent of decay. Leaves, fallen the season before and now turning to rot, and Vanja breathes it in, waiting until her lungs fill. Until her sight clears.
Vanja climbs to her feet. She tucks the hardwood carving into her belt, sliding the knife up her sleeve, the hilt snug against the crook of her elbow. She tries to brush the mud from her knees, but it’s already soaked into the linen. She could grab her blanket, wrap herself in it. Shield herself from the wet of the air, somewhere between fog and rain.
No. Better to let it dry out.
There’s a fire, though.
Vanja sits herself on the ground, on a flat, moss-covered stone, folding her legs beneath her in an attempt to keep her bottom dry.
A clear note of what sounds like birdsong cuts through the silence, and the sudden sound straightens Vanja’s back and widens her eyes. There are no birds in these woods.
But it’s only Warbler.
Warbler
Warbler pulls the small kettle from the hook where it was hanging over the fire, as the whistling steam begins to drown out the low slow tune that he was whistling only moments before. He takes in a deep breath while waving his hand through the steam as the scent of citrus, spice, and mulch mingles in the air with the rain. He heard the footsteps approaching the small cook fire, but continued with the task at hand until it was complete.
He crouches over his pack, and carefully retrieves two polished wooden cups and fills each with the amber colored brew. Wisps of fog drift and dissipate from the cups as Warbler walks from the embers of the fire and sits cross legged beside Vanja.
The shadows cast from the fire only serve to further contrast the difference in their size. Warbler reaches out his right hand holding one of the steaming cups just over Vanja’s knee.
“You’re up early.” he says, his gaze still fixed on the glowing coals.
Vanja
Vanja takes the cup and smiles over at Warbler.
“I suppose I am,” she says. “It’s a funny thing. I still feel so tired, but I can never sleep for long.” She shrugs and traces the edge of the cup with her thumb. “It’s the weather,” she says, “In my village, this time of year would have long hours of sunlight, straight through the evening, and it was always hard to sleep.” She brings the cup to her face, breathing in the warm steam before taking a sip. “This…” she gestures to the air, “this fog and rain. It’s hard to know the time. It all…blurs together. Feels like days can go on for entire grasps of time, but also it somehow doesn’t seem bright enough to count. It feels like it’s always the hour before sleep.”
She takes another sip, “This is good,” she says.
There’s a moment. Quiet but not uncomfortable.
“What’s it like,” she says, finally, “where you’re from? Your home.” Vanja glances at the small nearly-invisible shelter, and then squeezes her eyes shut, her knuckles white against the wood of the teacup. She keeps her eyes closed as she continues, “Bax told me it was warm in the South. And that the sky would be clear, and that you could see stars. But that’s not real.” Her voice is quiet, as she opens her eyes again, but stares down at her cup, “It’s always just fog and rain.”
Warbler
Warbler leans back to look up at the foggy sky as he considers the question. Then gradually settles into a reclined position with the cup of tea held in both hands just below his chin.
“I can barely remember the last time I properly slept” he mutters almost inaudibly into his cup.
Ringo closes his eyes, and imagines home. The four distinct seasons, all signified by the changes in the pear grove, each bringing the whole village together in celebration … pruning in winter, and then everyone planting saplings to signify the change to spring. The smell of white flowers and new growth as the town dances toward summer. The sweltering heat and thunderstorms echoing in the drum beats that signal the oncoming fall. The pear picking season, and the myriad of colors swirling throughout treetops … the new cider release every year. The crackling fires and stories in the town square in the cold dark of winter … Root and Stone, The Painted Gecko … Frog Jumped the Sun. He used to think the old stories were so stupid, but he’d give anything to hear them spoken again …
“My home was like … well, nothing like the north,” he chuckles. “It was like hot pear cobbler and whiskey … or, or a cool breeze on a hot day. It was rolling hills, ringed with mountains, cobblestone streets, acres of orchards … we were all one forest in Glenhollow … it, it was perfect.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever told me about your village …”
Vanja
Vanja takes a deep, shaking breath, but when she speaks her voice is steady. Clear. “My village is small,” she says. “Ten families, give or take. And homes we made from pine logs and earth. When it was warm enough, those first few weeks of summer, there would be grass on the roofs. You’d like that, I think. Sitting on those roofs.
“I’d help my father with that. He was a forester, and a carpenter, but most of us did most things. We worked together, anyone who could. We’d fell the pines and plant new ones. Strong, soft wood that settles into itself over the seasons to make good, solid homes that hold in the heat.
“It’s called Linjør,” says Vanja, “It’s Jorungun for ‘little Jorung’. Most of us were Jorungun. By culture and voice if not by birth. My parents were born there, though. Landvandjr. Travelers.. no…” she pauses and purses her lips, looking for the word in Isendelian, “Nomads.” She gestures with her cup, moving it through the air in fits and starts, “But it’s a hard place for humans.”
“All of us shared that, though. That…tribal tradition. It’s jantevøn. Community. One is never greater than the whole and all contribute what they can. It sounds like your home was much the same.
“I want to know more about Glenhollow,” she says. “Tell me about your people. Your family.” Vanja finishes her tea and sets the cup down between her boots. She adjusts her seat, leaning on her weak arm, ignoring the sudden sharp pain through her shoulder. She winces, but turns it into a smile. “I can picture those hills, and orchards,” she says with a nod to the bare trees around the campsite. “A place can’t be like a pie, though,” she adds with a small laugh. “That’s just poetry.”
Warbler
“Well, Glenhollow was a pretty small town compared to places I’ve seen since I left. Especially Northgate. Around four hundred mennshir, ahem … folks lived there at any given time. I’ve got some dwarven on my mom’s side, but your accent is different from what I’m used to.”
“And I … I meant the town is like pear cobbler and whiskey quite literally.” Warbler says, taking a sip of his tea. “The town smelled like booze and baked pears year round …”
“I grew up in a cider town. Everyone either worked the orchards, or something related to the pear crop. My parents met while working together at the cidery, and married young. My uncle took care of the trees. I was a picker and a pruner …”
“My people, they were good folks …” he says wistfully, “We took care of each other … one forest, many trees … no one went hungry, no one without a roof over their head, or a bed to sleep in. Glen, Glenhovians were all family, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Not necessarily by blood, but blood isn’t really what matters.”
“I could recite some Glenhovian poetry too if you’d like, but it’s … well … awful …”
Warbler sits up, reaches his arms behind his back and his left shoulder lets out a low groan then a resounding pop.
“Why’d you leave?”
Vanja
Vanja looks away from Warbler. She flexes the hand supporting her weight, digging her fingers into the earth. She can feel the edge of the blade against the length of her wrist, the steel warm from her own skin and as comforting as the tea in her stomach.
“I left because I’m a witch,” she says.
She shakes her head, and runs her good hand through her hair, her fingers working to separate out the larger plait into small interwoven braids and thick mats of blood and sweat.
“In Jorung, to be a runemaker is a good thing. Not more important, but… a special thing. Men with the might of giants. True-speakers who can speak things into being. Healers who can manipulate the Riverlight in a person’s blood.”
Vanja moves her hand through the air, pulling light from her skin and letting it coalesce on her palm. After a moment, the light shifts, changing, and a steady stream of green-lit water, colored by Riverlight, flows from Vanja’s hand. Vanja starts to comb through the worst of the mats, a trickle of red and brown running down her wrist as she rinses the filth from her hair.
“But it’s not like that in Isendel. It…it wasn’t safe for me to stay there - In Linjør - anymore. Word had gotten out. I didn’t know to hide it.” She laughs drily, and plucks one of the small braids from her hair. Severed by something - some Swan blade - and hanging limply now from the point where it crossed under another lock of hair. Vanja pulls it and drops it to the ground.
“I didn’t want to go. But they all lied for me. To protect me. And they said I had to leave…” Vanja’s voice catches, and she twists the noise into a laugh, “Because an Inquisitor had come, and he said he was looking for a healer, and I…but my mother…”
Vanja swallows, hard. The grief that washes over her is dull. Blunt and suffocating, and it settles heavy in her chest in the familiar way it always has. This pain so old she registers it as relief.
“I was so stupid,” she says, softly.
It’s a moment before Vanja speaks again.
“Is…is Glenhollow still there?” she asks, “I don’t know that story properly either. How you left, or why,” she continues, rushing her words before Warbler can respond, “And no metaphor. No poetry about rotten apples. Tell me what really happened, please. Because I can’t…I mean…could you…” Vanja stops, and takes a slow breath, choosing her words with more care. “Could you go home, if you wanted to?”
Warbler
Warbler shifts his weight uncomfortably, and looks down at his boots, chewing on his lip while he considers the question.
“ … well, it would have been pears not apples …” he mumbles.
He stands and walks closer to the smoldering remains of the campfire kicking at the ashes.
“I honestly don’t know what happened … I know the orchard burned … I know I woke up in the treetops and everything was smoke and ash … I know the Painted Swans are responsible … I know I fell … and I know I ran … ” He pauses a moment and clears his throat, the taste of ash in his mouth, his lungs burning, a sharp pain shoots through his left side. Just a memory he thinks as he tries to clear his mind of it.
“I can’t go home … not until I’ve finished walking this path with all of you … not until.” Warbler imagines roots deep underground, pulling themselves up, breaking through soil and stone. “Not until we rescue your friend Danica, and … and we arrive in Galoring, and even then … I’m not sure I want to know what’s left of Glenhollow … I, I’m afraid of what survived.”
He stands in silence for a few moments watching the ashes swirl in the mountain breeze as the light drizzle of rain gradually drowns out the last of the embers’ warm glow. He turns to face Vanja with a bright smile on his face.
“I think I misread the moment a couple of days ago, and thought everyone was going in for a group hug when you started glowing … sorry about that … you kick like a mule by the way!” he says as he pulls a small glass bottle from his pack filled with an effervescent pale green-gold liquid, and pours a few drops into each of their cups.
“To home … and surviving. Un schou!” Warbler says, holding his cup up over his head.
Vanja
“It’s a hard thing, not knowing,” says Vanja. “And sometimes going back makes it worse.” She shakes her head, sending rivulets of clean water into the moss. “My brothers were safe. If I had just…” She glances down at Warbler, “But it would be a cruel turn of the River for something so unlucky to happen twice.
“And as for the…hug. I’m sorry about that, too.” Vanja says, “Throwing you off. I was in a bad place. After everything I can’t…” She rephrases, “I don’t like feeling trapped.”
At her own words, darkness comes unbidden across her vision. Runes glowing green in the darkness and fading at the point where her nails had worn down to nothing, where she’d begun to write in her own blood instead. It isn’t real. In the box, the blood runes had faded to black and flaked off. Disappeared. Now they glow with the hazy red of the aurora’s edge cutting through the dark. Vanja twists her hand, the blade pressing into her forearm. Sharp, sudden pain and the iron smell of blood brings her back. Clears her eye.
When her vision clears, Vanja notices the cup. Drained of tea but now refilled with a splash of something sweet and green.
Warbler raises his glass and offers a twist on a toast she knows. She laughs, gently, at the pronunciation. At Warbler’s southern accent turning his K’s soft in his throat, and making the word sound rude. For another person it might be an intended pun, but Warbler is all sincerity.
Vanja knows what he means though. A single tree can grow tall, but is easily felled. The toast evokes the strength of trees growing close. Supporting one another in foul weather. Many trees. One forest.
Vanja raises her cup and echoes the toast with the proper pronunciation.
“To home. And surviving.” She nods at Warbler. Smiles. “Un skau.”
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