Private Tales The Season of the Pale Moon

[Sigrith]

The long nights had arrived, leading the tundras into a realm of darkness that was both ethereal and damning. Beneath the light of a full, pale moon the snow-covered landscape gave off an other-worldly glow. Silver incandescence filled the common area of Withereach, interspersed with the warm, golden gleam of firepits. Like a reverse rainbow, all manner of shades and shadows flickered about the flames, pouring colors slashed by blackness of a silhouette across the ruddy faces of the townspeople gathered.

Sigrith sat among them, taking up residence in her usual spot next to the large, empty space normally filled by Doggrave. He wasn't there, presently, to share the warmth of his great hulking self. Neither was Sannoru - the elf had left to hunt a short while ago - nor was Signe ... or Vand for that matter. A quiet evening, then, for the woman who sat crafting a totem from bone collected from the demon slain by Vand and Doggrave.

A small hand reached for the raven feathers at her shoulders, snatched by her own fingers before they could touch the plummage. The hand belonged to a little Norden girl she learned to be called Herra.

Herra yelped. Sigrith smirked, but the expression was not particularly kind.

"What would a little Bear be needing to touch a witch's feathers for I wonder..." she released the girl, the lines of her painted face softening to a strange form of patience.

"Mm," Herra shifted where she stood, no more than 12 winters aged, "they say you turn into a herrevan and fly."

The witch's eyebrows raised slightly at this, always a wonder what sort of tales the people came up with about them. Sigrith narrowed her eyes suspiciously and leaned towards the girl, "Who is they?"

Herra looked around, never having considered the source of the rumors she heard as anything important. Rumors were stories, and stories came from everyone and everywhere. She shrugged.

"Have you ever seen me turn into a herrevan?" Sigi asked her, skeptical.

Herra shook her head. No, she had never, "Only a wolf."

"Would you like to?"

Herra nodded.

"Then you must do something for me first. You must bring me twelve seashells from the shore, a deer skull from the forest, and the nest of a dea'roh."

The child seemed equal parts taken aback and mystified at the prospect of this mission. To solidify her obvious desire to see this secret of the witch, Sigrith reached up and plucked a black feather from her left pauldron, then tucked it into the girl's hair just behind her ear, "Do we have a deal?"

Another furious nod from the girl.

"Then you best get started. There's not much time before I must leave."

Excitement bubbling in her very figure, Herra looked around the fire at those gathered, noting the sleeping or otherwise drunk facades of those who would be her guardians. It took a village to raise a child, and this rang especially true for the children of Withereach whose blood parents were often away for long stints of time to work in the mines. No one seemed to be particularly fussed with the girl's interraction with the witch, and so Herra snuck off from the safety of the firepit and made way for the shores on the south end of the town.

Sigi watched her go, a queer gleam in her eyes of green and violet, then turned back to her totem.

 

[Vand]

The older crew harbored no delusions that sleeping was an nonconstructive use of one’s time. These days started early, the adventure no longer offered mystery, and the work stretched on for an eternity. These long nights, where the dark crept in and smuggled away the dusk were often seen by the elders as nothing short of a blessing. It was bed time, fuckers, and anybody who would argue the contrary would find little ground in the still, swallowing nightvoid.

Amidst the dull murmur of respectful chatter, beneath the periodic discordance of a miner’s cough, one might hear, should they listen for it, the faint clatter of something small – silverware, a tool perhaps -- bouncing off the floor of one of the hovels set within a section composed primarily of Withereach’s more senior residents. “Fuck…,” whispered, then nothing. Silence.

Give it a few beats. Maybe a second more.

The sound of pots and pans clamoring to the ground in a loud, disruptive crash.

“Fuck!,” Vand shouted, barely landing the closing consonance before it was drowned under a thunderous roar from the biggest, weirdest sounding Svalen in the world. It almost had a hissing quality to it.

The door burst open only to bounce off the exterior and slam shut again, Vand emerging, back upright, his eyes wide, his teeth wrenched shut and bared in a grimace. He was walking hurriedly away from the hovel, trying to disassociate from what had occurred and appear innocent in that very way that made one look anything but.

“Run, boy—Run!,” one of the old biddies cackled from a neighboring house, cupping her hands around her mouth for added dramatic effect. Vand glance back at her and shrank his head into his shoulders, moving as fast as he possibly could to the central fire, his back straight and muscles tense as though his spine were entirely composed by a broom shoved up his ass.

 

[Sigrith]

Snap. Crackle.

Cough.

That was the sound of the town at twilight.

Snap. Crackle.

Cough.

Though the wheezing of the residents had been something of an annoyance to her when she first graced the settlement with her presence, Sigrith had come to appreciate its unique nature. Like the sounds of nightbugs in the short summer and the long suns. The croak of the toads in the bog. The yaw of the forest demon on the hunt.

The long, hissing groan of an irate Svalen.

The witch's gaze lifted from the totem forming in her hand at that last one, a curious glance given around the fire. A few others stirred, looked up from their rest, shifted, rolled over, fed the fire, went back about their business. Odd. Sigrith gave a sniff, itched at her nose, and set back to carving the eyes of the totem with a small knife.

Vand's strange figure appeared within her peripheral a few moments later. Sigi gave him a momentary glance, noting the strange posture, and briefly considered how much toadstool she had on her person. Probably not enough, judging by the expression on his face.

"You're in a fine form..." the witch remarked quietly as he entered the gleam of the fire, "making a habit of disturbing restless spirits."

 

[Vand]

“Restless--? What the fuck?,” Vand’s script broke, shaken free from his previous nervous escape. Never much one for banter, anyway, his mind did not instantly go to any sort of ironic witticism or its retort, but, instead, straight to how it failed to jive with anything experienced in recent memory. He turned his head to the side and coughed hard, spitting into the fire with a crackle. There was no effort to cover his mouth.

Maybe she just got the wrong end of the stick.

“That’s my dad – The 'restless' ass-hole,” he accounted moving nearer to Sigrith, his posture adjusting, becoming more casual as he awkwardly put his hand behind his neck as if in pain. He wasn’t. He was just suddenly aware of his hands. Vand elaborated bitterly, petulance heavy in the saliva of each spat word, “Fucking old fart wants to sleep in the middle of the day, so he snuffs out all the damn candles…” He shook his head in the firelight. With his half-mask gone, it was more obvious that he had rolled his eyes.

“Of course I’m going bump into shit. It's black as fucking pitch out here.”

Someone walked over his grave. Vand looked back from where he came suddenly. “’Yograth,” in alarm. “Shit,” in relief.

Nothing, just the darkness.

 

[Sigrith]

Vand wasn't the only one rolling their eyes. The man truly was daft sometimes - Sigrith had yet to decide if the quality was endearing or exhausting. Either way, it provided some small amount of entertainment on a quiet night like this.

The witch gave a low chuckle, the tip of her blade now carefully carving the opening of a mouth on the totem. It was beginning to take shape but not in any immediately recognizable way. This was not the embodiment of some simple creature, it represented what shape or face could be taken by that of a demon. Not quite like what Vand had hunted and killed with Doggrave only a fortnight ago, but those spirits could take many forms.

An Oni Totem could harness them, but first she would have need to find a spirit to entrap within once it was finished.

"Maybe it is time to make your own home..." she suggested gently, "you can burn candles long into the night then."

 

[Vand]

Vand failed to register Sigrith was rolling her eyes not with him, but at him. It had been a common thing since his teen years, where his peers would ape his movements so as to be more likeable to the hard-to-handle, oft-volatile creature. He failed to register this (consciously, at least), as well.

The movement of her blade caught his eye, drawing it to the little totem or action figure she was whittling with her knife. It looked like something Sanno would draw, he passively noted. Hell, as it racist as it might have been, it kinda looked like Sanno; a note he made in almost immediate succession. It seemed the Dark Elf was starting to rub off on the Witch.

Vand’s freedom was of paramount importance to him – from dependency, responsibility, tradition, debt. Oh, how his ass already ached in anticipation for the inevitable societal backlash when the people of Withereach got tired of being crushed under the growing mountain of their weird bullshit.

Sigrith began to speak, and his gaze returned to hers in its asymmetrical glow, then promptly narrowed, scrutinizing her. It grew obvious, perhaps even awkward, in the seconds following her punctuation where he said nothing at all – let the words scatter about and fill the outdoors with all their disassembling pieces. Just the crackle of fire, the scrape of steel against wooden demon figurine.

On the surface, what she said was completely innocuous. True, even. Perhaps it was a little paternal, but it wasn’t the evanescent condescension that he latched onto, either. It was how it seemed designed to draw his diatribe to a close – like she wasn’t interested in at all and was hurriedly trying to make space for her thing. This was often the prefix to being asked for a favor -- “Oi, Vand, can you fetch some garbage out of this dragon’s shit-pile for me? Vandy – I have this Fertility party for me and a few of my friends, and we just figured you’d like to come, too…” Batting of the lashes. Sometimes, it worked out in his favor, but…usually not.

Plus, “make your own home” and its implication of setting down roots...Gross.

It felt manipulative. It felt weird. “Hrmm...,” Vand sounded a skeptical, confused dog sound, then walked away from her – though it was not so aggressive so as to imply should not follow.

Crossing to the other end of the fire where some dead, cooked animal lay for all to pick at, Vand went ahead and picked.

 

[Sigrith]

She wasn't paying the man much mind as his own thoughts spun about the various implications of this, that, and the other thing. On the whole, of all the witches within the coven, Sigrith was by far the least cryptic. Of course her suggestion could have meant many things - especially for the word of home coming from her. If one bothered to ask the witch what home meant, she might've replied with something as simple as whatever it needs to be.

For her, home was the bed she made at night, wherever she happened to be. Seldom did that involve a roof or walls or furniture or candles; she cast her life to the whims of the lands and the pull of the ether. Strange to think that only ten years ago, home had been the great hall of Hjerim. Never in her youth had she ever dreamed she'd be a vagabond outcast skirting the tundras of the southern reaches of Eretejva.

Sigi carved away in silence, pausing only as Herra returned with flushed cheeks and warm breath billowing behind her.

"I got the shells," said the girl as she opened her mitted hands proudly.

The witch leaned to see and made a thoughtful noise, "So you did, but you need four more. There must be twelve."

Herra's face drooped as she examined the gathered shells in her palms, "How many is that?"

Too often did she forget what her noble blood had given her. Education was not dead in Withereach, but not nearly so strong either. Likely a deliberate move by the former Jorn - uneducated people were easier to fool. Of course, she supposed, it was always possible the girl was simply an idiot that did not learn, though she had her doubts. Sigrith held out a hand for the shells and allowed the girl to carefully empty her palms. She then placed within her hands four small stones from nearby, "This many."

And off the girl went again.

Sigrith pocketed the shells, sheathed her knife, and tucked away the totem. An uncanny sense of the outgoing tide shifted her mannerisms and flow of thought, turning her attention back to Vand.

"Does your father always sleep through the long night?" A direct question - unusual for her, but she was earnestly curious. Hibernation wasn't uncommon in the settlements closer to the Capital, though it was practiced less and less in recent years.

 

[Vand]

“Weird bastard.”

Vand pseudo-asked the butcher…or, rather, whoever took it upon themselves to approximate the duty. Whatever the animal had been in life was unrecognizable in death. Defurred, skinned, beheaded, cooked– it was now just a narrow thing with a lot more taught muscle than fatty meat. The question warranted the asking. “What did it used to be?”

And did it stop being?

“Wolf? Really?,” Vand kinda scoffed, incredulously. He punched down suddenly, breaking off a rack of rib. “Anyone I know?” He was grinning, but there was a line in the sand drawn. The Rabble-Rouser noticed how the guy had been glowering at Sigrith, at Sanno. Usually, they had done something out-of-step that had warranted the odd look, but…

…well, that didn’t really matter to Vand.

“Let’s hope not, right?,” Vand cracked a rib free and proceeded to rend cooked flesh from bone with his pearly whites.

Needless to say, he had completely missed Sigrith’s interaction with the cub.

She garnered his attention again, and he gnawed for a bit, considering her.

Chomp, chomp, chomp.​

“As much as anyone does,” he stated kinda obviously. “Snores like Bent-Nose Of the fucking Tusk, but…y’know.” It hadn’t occurred to him she was asking about hibernation. The silicosis had been too long a facet of day-to-day Withereach living for him to even really remember a world without it.

Vand took another bite, but continued with a full mouth, “It wouldnchomp be so badchomp if he just went to sleepchomp instead of passchompchomping outchomp.”

The butcher coughed onto the meat. Vand coughed as well, food debris falling into the snow and mud.

 

[Sigrith]

Sigrith reclined against the trunk behind her, elbows shifting to brace back over the top, hands idly prepping a smoking pipe in the same old ritual as always. The woman listened as he spouted his misgivings - always something, that one. It occurred to her to tell him to move out, then he wouldn't have to deal with all these things that tested his patience and tolerance. Make his own home. Make his own way. Take a sleeping aid or - fuck - give his father one. Smother him.

But that, she thought as she packed ground smoking leaves into the pipe, would simply be too simple. Or too traditional. Or too something.

The woman gave a non-committal sniff to the concept of simplicity at his chomping follow-up and lit her pipe with a flame on a twig, "What's the difference?"

 

[Vand]

What’s the difference? Spoken like someone who had never passed out before. Ruefully, Vand half-grinned at her, then shook his head. Her attitude, when factored against what had already been said, cast Sigrith in a light. Or, at least, it did in Vand’s head.

Perhaps she thought it simple; the obvious solution. To grease the community; to kill those supported you, and held you aloft, and contributed to the work of not just the local chores, but to that of humanity reaching a bit higher to achieve something it otherwise could never have. There was none that valued their freedom more than Vand, but to go it alone – especially out here – was not that. It was suicide. It was to submit to the will and the whimsy of the wilds, and to die alone as something’s food, or even just its thrill-kill. Just look at what happened to every Elf that washed up on the Rotting Tide. Just look at what happened to Irvad the Only.

The very wolf currently gnashed to bits in his teeth.

Sigrith, after all, was still only a Maiden in the soft hierarchy of her sisterhood, still but a wolfcub. She would learn, in time, that the wolf was only as the strong as the pack. In this realization of her immaturity, Vand felt himself mature a bit. He congratulated himself.

Again, I remind you, he missed the bit with the little girl.

In an instant, he reflected fondly on the Dead Bears Club. Of his father, and why it is he only talks out of one side of his face.

He might have told her about this, but it seemed like every time he went talk, it just made her terminally bored and disinterested. And yet, she kept wandering up to pester him.

Oh. Right.

Vand wrinkled the edge of his mouth, chagrined; the time passing between them eroding what remained from the conversational pallet.

“Do you vant me to fuck you or something?,” Vand bluntly asked the Queen of Straightforward Pragmatism.

Bitches, man.

 

[Sigrith]

She puffed her pipe, pulling the ember into the leaf, pulling the essences into her mouth, pulling the taste into her lungs. Expelling the smoke like a plume of esoterica, faintly hued blue and catching the orange glow of the fire to churn and evaporate into green. Her weird gaze, momentarily lidded from the world while she waited through his silence and inner monologue, suddenly slit open to the words that spewed from his mouth. Cheek's hollowed, lower lids pressing mild resentment upwards into blue and green, the witch figuratively chewed on that response for a moment.

Pale lips tinged blue from the frigid evening air pressed thinly over the pipe, enamel pinched against wood.

Had she missed something here in those short minutes between her question and his answer?

Sigrith eyed the man, caught between finding some semblance of humor and the edge of offense. The fuck did he just ask her? The fog began to burn her lungs from holding her breath for too long and the witch relented, releasing smoke through her nostrils like a dragon ready to spout fire.

"No," sharply, "I want you to have a conversation with me."

 

[Vand]

“Yes? Is this why you look so --fucking-- bored, then?,” Vand’s voice went up a few decibels, but in the periodic flash of firelight, a bit of a smirk was evident on his face.

It sorta became “shit-eating,” however, as he coughed again. The affliction was frustrating for him, as it was for all of Withereach. What began as playful became a bit more of an honest airing of grievances under Murphy’s Law of Thermodynamics.

Things fuck up under pressure.

“I talk, you dismiss.” He was gesticulating now, gesturing as though something were expelled from his mouth (His words, presumably) into his hands, which were then cast to the ground, each in sync with their most appropriate word. “I talk, you dismiss, you make your badger face.”

There was no gesture for "badger face," however. Just a wrinkling of his own that really failed to convey in the shadows and firelight. It was an abject failure to approximate what he was talking about, and if she were to try to replicate what she saw on his face with her face, it likely wouldn’t remind her of any expression she had ever made in her life.

And so, it was entirely probable that the witch might live and die without ever knowing what her “badger face” was.

He sighed, calming down a bit, almost shrugging. “No sex? So be it,” he cleared the air. His voice was almost condescending now as he indulged her.

“Then Sigrith – What is it you wish to talk about?”

 

[Sigrith]

It wasn't often that Sigrith was offended, but Vand actually managed to do it.

Dismiss? Badger face?

That smug fucking look. That obnoxious tone. How did the people here actually stand him? Because his brand of asinine was slightly less appalling than Irvad's? No, it was likely because they hadn't ever known better. To them, Vand was a Saint, and she supposed she couldn't fault them for that considering their story.

But that was on them and this was on her.

The witch scowled, pulling in a breath of smokey air in preparation to give the man her exact thoughts on just what she wanted to talk about when a tiny hand patted at the feathers on her shoulder.

"Sigi," Herra was back and the girl garnered a faint look of surprise vitriol. She persisted with her other hand, holding it open for Sigrith to see, "is this enough?"

Quick little thing, wasn't she? The heat of the words on her tongue quickly died as her eyes settled on the presented shells, cooling in the air like the steam of a dragon's breath. Blue and purple switched from anger to a curiously amused warmth, "Yes."

The witch held out a hand and collected the shells, carefully depositing the last of them into the pouch at her waist before moving to stand. Herra stepped back with a frown.

"Aren't you staying? I haven't found everything yet."
"No, I must go to the Ruuk."
"Can I come with you?"
"Go to your mother, Herra."
"But she's in the mine."
"Then stay with the other children."
"Why can't I go with you?"

Sigrith's lips drew thin, her strange gaze flickering towards Vand with resentment before falling back to the girl, "Because I'm not like you, your mother wouldn't want you going with me. I'll be back."

"When?"
"When I'm needed."

She didn't wait. Not for another rebuttal from the girl or another snide remark from Vand. Adjusting the black pelt cloak over her shoulders, Sigrith stepped away from the light of the fire and headed towards the west.