Private Tales What Calls the Tundra Home

[Braum]

Braum shook his head. "Not really "

He had spent most of his life in the reachees of Kjos, never traveling that far or across the Tundra. His father had always needed him back at the forge, and there was ever work to be done. Traveling had never much been in the cards for him.

Until now anyway.

"Ivar, my friend, has always been more the world traveler." The Exile had no one to hold him back. "He has mapped out a large part of the Tundra. Old paths, mountain roads, things forgotten."

Braum shrugged. "I learned from them mostly."

That was of course likely not someone like her would want to hear. In the middle of the Tundra someone like him wasn't the greatest if allies. Of course he towered over even Frost Trolls, but when it came to finding his way all of it was pure theory.

 

[Elenwë]

The snow elf listened curiously. The ways of Man had always been perplexing to her. Elves had such a structured way of learning and raising children in their society. It was a process that took nearly as long as a human lived and so it was always a bewildering thing to watch them try and cram an education into a span of a handful of years.

It was even more confusing when humans seemed to just bypass the whole idea of an education and let their young wander off into the wilds like had apparently happened with Braum.

"Then... may I ask why you care about where you come from? You seem happy from everything you've said, sometimes ignorance is bliss."

 

[Braum]

It was a good question, one that he could not immediately answer.

As a child the others had often made fun of him for being 'slower' than most. He did not speak often, and when asked a question he took his time in answering it. His mother had always called him deliberate, though he was not entirely sure that was true. "I intend to leave the Tundra with my friend."

Something that was not entirely his dream, but an action of support. Something that he did so that his friend would not be alone.

"I suppose I thought it prudent to learn the truth now." Braum explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

"In case..." He frowned. "...I don't return."

It was a possibility after all.

 

[Elenwë]

El nodded empathetically. It was incredibly hard not to read the mans thoughts though she tried, but people who were not aware of their thoughts projected them at a level akin to a shout. She could understand the swirl of emotions that surrounded his words - a desire to know, to belong perhaps or at least find reasons enough why he didn't belong at his home.

"For snow elves it is an important thing; there are different bloodlines that trace right back to the first settles in the Tundra. These links tell us what potential magics might manifest within us, or which types of work we might be suited for. People base their whole coupling on trying to create good matches of bloodlines."

As she spoke she sorted through her little satchel and produced some jerky. She offered out a stick; a little bit went a long way for an elf.

 

[Braum]

Braum blinked. "That seems...controlling."

He did not want to insult her culture of course, that would be rude, but...well the thought of coupling because of blood lines seemed utterly...strange to him. A frown touched the Giant's face, and then he briefly wondered what his people did.

His actual people.

Braum knew next to nothing about Frost Giant's, hell, he knew next to nothing about most things. He wondered if they would hate him. If they would see him as a half-breed or some sort of monster. Quietly he reached into his pocket and grasped the small amulet.

"Though." He said quietly. "Suppose I can't judge much."

No one really could.

 

[Elenwë]

Elenwë gave a gentle laugh that rung like musical bells around the cave.

"Judgement does not always have to be a bad thing, Braum," another, tender smile offered in his direction, like a teacher patiently trying to school a student. "It is what makes us living breathing things and that is not something to be ashamed of. I, too, think it is quite controlling; hoping for a child with certain abilities - it puts a lot of pressure on a person," a slight shrug of her shoulder. "My father was from another tribe and my mother was curious about what it would be like to combine southern and northern tribe lines," her smile was wistful as she lost herself in a memory only she could see. After a moment she shrugged herself out of it.

"For what it is worth, I think it is a good thing for you to find where you are from."

 

[Braum]

He shrugged. "I certainly hope so."

There was still a part of him that thought perhaps this was a bad idea. He was not entirely certain that they wouldn't be killed as soon as they neared the Frost Giant's camp. The stories he'd heard weren't exactly on the...friendliest terms.

Giant's were supposed to eat ordinary men for breakfast.

"In Kjos there are stories of the Frost Giants." He explained, not wanting to keep her in the dark. "They are not all together pleasant."

He frowned. "I don't suppose they'd recognize me."

 

[Elenwë]

"No... I don't suppose they will," the snow elf mused thoughtfully. The Nordenfiir could smell their own so she had been told, and there was a certain look about a person with elvish blood that was hard to ignore. But she wasn't sure about Frost Giants apart from the obvious height.

"Would it make you feel any better if I told you a nice story about them?" Elenwë cocked her head to the side curiously, an amused little smile hugging her face.

 

[Braum]

Braum looked at the Elf with a frown for a moment.

A nice story?

He couldn't help but be reminded of home for a second, the way that his mother treated him even though he now stood at twice her height. The diminutive woman had never been one to treat anyone in any other way but motherly.

Yet with him it was of course even more so. He was her only son after all, the only true child that she had ever had. "Sure."

Braum said with a small smile.

 

[Elenwë]

Elenwë leant forward, bracing her elbows on her knees and folding her hands neatly together so that her chin might rest on top of it. For a moment she stared into the fire thinking as a smile played about her face. There were so many stories that the elf had heard over the years that she was finding it difficult to choose one of them. In the end she went with the suggestion from the great snowcat who, despite resting outside, had an ear cocked in their direction.

"There is a story of the old Frost Giant Malgnri - you have heard of him yes?" she glanced up and tilted her head to the side. Before he could nod she herself nodded and continued. "Mal was known for being a fierce and bloody warrior - those are the stories most humans tell of him - but he was also a husband and more importantly a father.

He had two strapping sons and one young girl. With the sons he was firm as fathers often are, but with the daughter... Well. One day he comes home to tell his wife that he will be leaving on another campaign. He goes to pick up his shield, his armour and his axe. But the axe is gone.

"Wife, where is my axe?" he boomed, expecting that one of his sons had taken it.

"Faile had taken it, husband. She was playing with it in the garden," curious he goes to find his daughter. Like his wife says she is outside but the axe is nowhere to be seen.

"Child, what have you done with my axe? I must go to war."

"I do not want you to go father, so I have hidden your axe," Faile responds in that matter of fact way children do. Mal is taken aback. His daughter has never said she doesn't like what he does before. Carefully he sits beside her in the snow.

"But I must, daughter. The men-"

"No, father, you do not have to. You choose to. The axe calls to you - I see you looking at it when we are playing games or sitting by the fire. Well, father, I want you to choose me instead. I miss you when you go away."

Mal sits quietly for a while. He has never thought about it in this way before but as he sits he reflect and realises his daughter is right. So he agrees to leave the axe buried and from that day forward Mal was never seen on the battlefield again. When the horn blew, he turned away from its call and would sit with his daughter in their garden making crowns of frost roses instead."

 

[Braum]

Braum listened carefully, quietly.

He had never really been one for stories, at least not those that were carried by just the voice. It was difficult for him to follow, his attention always on the here and now. Yet this time he tried to take in as much as he could, tried to understand and listen.

It was a story that surprisingly, he had heard before. The tale he had been told had not been of Giants, but instead a man.

Had he been a more educated man he might have understood that such a thing was natural, that stories flowed and ebbed between cultures. It was a mark that perhaps the Frost Giant's were not so isolated as they appeared to be, that their tales had come all the way to Kjos.

"It is a good story." He said calmly.

Braum did not think his people monsters, did not think them some bulwark of evil. There were tales like that of course, but...perhaps her tale had helped with that.

 

[Elenwë]

"It is Khel's favourite," Ele smiled, her eyes lingering for a second longer than what was comfortable as though she were looking through him, before dropping her gaze to the fire thoughtfully. "My favourite is of Olgri, the Mourning Queen, who takes up the crown after her husband and sons are killed by a rival city. She saves her people from certain slavery," she fed another log onto the fire lost again in her own thoughts. For a being with such a long life it at times took a while to sort through all her memories.

"Do your people - Ah, I mean, humans - do they have stories about my kind?" she looked up, curiosity filling her round icy eyes.

 

[Braum]

"Of course." Stories were always told around the fires, usually late at night when the younger children had gone to bed.

Not many in Kjos could read, and fewer still could write.

Most traditions were passed down orally, told by seer's or witches who had committed the tales to memory long ago. Braum himself could remember a few, but most of them were about battles or ancient lost memories. His mother knew many more.

"I am not one to tell them though." He said with a slight shift of embarrassment. "I only remember small parts, pieces. During their telling I was always rather...distracted."

Meaning he did not pay attention. "Until recently things were rather...simplistic for me."

He had been a blacksmith, what would he do with stories?