Private Tales What Does Not Kill Us

[Hath Charosh]

<<You,>> followed that cackle from the tent, <<Shadow of the Sun Sister. Come here.>>

Hath stiffened at the shaman’s voice. Yska’s words carried like thrown stones, sharp enough that even the wind would flinch at their passing.

He cane to a stop. He had expected the quiet he had found in the rocks to shift into the noise of the orcs gathering around fires. He hadn't expected it to be cut apart by Yska's voice.

Shadow of the Sun Sister.

"Hmm," went Hath.

He did not know what it meant. An orc intrinsically trusted their own shamans. They viewed the shamans of other tribes with deep suspicious.

Did he even have a tribe? He had killed his half-brother and vanished. He couldn't imagine what his mother might have been told. Kardidua was a strong and resourceful orc, but she needed the strength that had come with her mate.

Hath approached the tent slowly, bow slung over his shoulder. He set his axe down on the floor outside.

Yska sat cross legged inside her tent. The tunic hung loose over scrawny limbs. Between them bones and feathers laid in patterns. Some odd trick of the light seemed to be hiding her eyes even when she looked straight at him.

He stopped a respectful distance away.

<<I am here,>> he said.

Yska sniffed, the sound thin and sharp.

<<Sit.>>

Hath obeyed, lowering himself to the ground across from her.

 

[Pern]

Hath being who and what he was did not seem to make any difference to the Shaman. He dwarfed her, ever so much more than the others of her clan, but she seemed neither discomforted nor threatened.

The small fire in her tent lent very little light once the tent flap closed. Warmth and cooking were not the purpose of her flames.

<<You linger in our camp like a storm cloud...>> said Yska as she cracked an egg into a carved stone bowl, then began to sprinkle in powders from various satchels, <<those emotions are only good as kindling. But what kind of fire will you let them light, hmmm....>>

She tucked the bowl into the side of the fire.

<<You may ask of me three questions and I will reveal the truths offered by fate.>>

 

[Hath Charosh]

The tent felt smaller once the flap dropped behind him. Close. He could smell the herbs hitting the mixture in the bowl.

He said nothing at first because he didn’t trust his voice in this place. It felt like shadows bent in strange ways over the shaman’s hands.

Three questions.

He’d never liked magic. He had been pleased to find out that his axe - biter - had been made to chew through magic.

He shifted, broad shoulders brushing the hide wall. Even seated, he loomed.

"I do not know what to ask," he admitted.

Yska only waited.

Hath frowned, working his jaw. The emotions she spoke of - the ones he tried to ignore - pressed closer in the dark. He wanted to ask about Pern, he wanted to ask about her tribe and he wanted to ask about his own tribe.

He took a breath.

"I will ask this first," he said. "Will I see my mother again?"

 

[Pern]

Into the fire went a handful of pale blue powder that sent a spurt of flames upward with a stream of sparks. Yska hummed to herself, wafting the color smoke toward her.

In the plumes above the flames as they slowly rose toward the top of the tent to stream out through a smoke hatch, Hath would catch the brief amorphous image of his mother.

<<Your mother does not lie on a direct path...>> Yska fluttered knobby fingers with long claws through the flames before reaching into them directly and withdrawing a small bone. She neither yelped at the fire on her skin nor seemed to be burned by it at all. The bone she picked out was black with char and looked to be a small animal bone. She studied it and the way the char cracked along its surface.

<<Seeing her again relies on the paths you choose to take, but it is a narrow path and a red moon that will bring you to her presence again.>>

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath had to keep himself from bearing his tusks at the flash of blue flame. He didn't shirk, but his discomfort was etched into his face.

That smoothed out as he saw the smoke coalesce into Kardidua for the span of just one breath.

He didn't trust magic, but he didn't doubt it's existence.

Hath leaned forward and watched with renewed interest as the shaman manipulated the fire. He leaned forwards just a little.

A narrow path. A red moon.

He did not ask what that meant. Fate-talk was always woven in riddles; he’d lived long enough among his clan to know shamans rarely spoke in anything else.

He swallowed once.

"I thought… she might have passed beyond the reach of any path."

He hadn't expected an answer that made any sense. He definitely hadn't expected to see Kardidua again.

Maybe that was why the next question came to him faster than he expected.

Hath shifted, bracing his hands on his knees. He did not look away from the flames this time.

"Pern."

He paused. The words felt strangely heavy on his tongue.

"I do not know if she could ever see me as… anything more than a companion on the road."

He exhaled slowly through his nose. This almost felt wrong to ask. He was having his fortune told instead of talking to Pern, but even in their most recently conversation he had failed to understand her.

"So I ask: is there a path where she looks at me and sees more than a… friend?"

 

[Pern]

A handful of white powder over the flames this time. The fire burst brightly, but no sparks emerged. Instead trails of embers, burning brightly, fluttered up through the air and coalesced around the melding figure of Pern in the smoke. This image lingered longer before dissipating up through the smoke vent.

<<The Sun Sister's fate is a complicated web of paths...>> Yska said, turning the stone bowl with the egg inside it half way. From her side she pulled forward another larger, oblong bowl carved from wood and tossed in the bone she'd plied from the fire. Alongside it a handful of other small bones, including what appeared to be the under developed tusks of young orcs.

Yska hummed as she looked upon them, then quick as a viper reached through the fire with a blade, slicing free one of the loose tendrils of hair about Hath's face. The blade did not touch him otherwise.

She sprinkled the black hairs in and then next reached for hot embers from the fire, tossing them on top.

An acrid smell filled the tent as the embers burned through his hair. Once more, Yska wafted the smoke to inhale.

<<There is a path I see where Shadow and Sun join. Children. Clan. A new Chief...>> her shadowed gaze glinted at him, <<another where your paths diverge, never to meet again. This path will spell great suffering for you... a shadow needs a source of light, or it simply converges with the darkness.>>

<<Before both paths there is a great sundering. Death. Pain. Grief. Opportunity.>> Yska lifted the wooden bowl and gently rocked it side to side to churn its contents, <<three moons until a choice must be made.>>

 

[Hath Charosh]

This time the tusks came out. It was instinct. If he had been sharper then he might have been more animated in his reaction. Instead he simply bared his teeth at the blade.

Hath felt the heat from the embers brush his skin, smelled the acrid sting curling in the smoke. The hairs that had once been his own blackened and twisted in the fire.

The vision of Pern lingered in the smoke longer than the previous conjuration.

Hath’s jaw tightened. His hands clenched in his lap. The words Yska spoke clawed at him and he could not hide behind action or instinct.

His own shamans had been pragmatic with advice when it was called for. Old Sellaba might have slapped him across the jaw and told him to be bold and go and talk to a potential mate. Instead it was more drama and choices from Yska.

He wanted the path they walked together. Every part of him wanted the possibility to stand alongside Pern not as a guide, not as a friend, but as someone she built a life with. He wanted to bring her safety and warmth and pleasure in the darkest of nights.

And yet the other path - the one that promised pain and suffering - loomed as a possibility.

There were no words strong enough to wrestle with fate. He only nodded once.

He could feel the weight settle on his shoulders. He didn't want to know that he would suffer if they parted ways. He didn't want to be selfish and make the choice to save himself.

The next question was obvious to him.

"Can I save Pern from the suffering at the crossroads?" he asked.

If paths were complicated webs then it stood to reason that fate could be changed. Hath could never have realised that it was too late. That heartache was simply waiting to be discovered at the end of their journey.

 

[Pern]

<<No,>> Yska did not need to add further powder to the flames or mix another concoction of Seeing.

<<It is a path you both already walk. A tragedy you both will endure.>>

And that being his third question, the old Shaman clapped her hands together, <<I have spoken. Eat this.>>

She held up the stone bowl with egg and spices to him over the fire.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath wouldn't regret asking the last question. He would never stop and accept fate. The words of a shaman could change the future on their own.

In a way, it was less unsettling to only have one serious crossroads ahead of them.

The clap of hands made him jump. The offer of food confused him.

Hath looked down at the bowl. The scent of fried egg and herbs made him instantly hungry.

"Hm."

Hath picked up the bowl and tilted his chin back. He poured the contents into his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

<<Thank you,>> he said, because being rude to another tribe's shaman was still disrespectful and likely to bring black clouds.

He stepped back out of the tent. It felt like the sky was higher than usual, the air more freshing. He took a moment to get his bearings and walked towards the camp fires to look for Pern.

 

[Pern]

Getting water with the younglings was proving to be a task unto itself. They were playful, still slightly too young to be useful otherwise. She didn't mind the play or the interruptions, but it became clear after the first trip that they wanted nothing to do with collecting water, and everything with swinging from the shoulder pole. She gave up halfway back from the second trip trying to juggle buckets in her hands and balance children on the pole over her shoulder, set the buckets down and hefted them both up to her full height.

Not that she was particularly towering as an orcess, but to them she was. They screeched and giggled, hollered and laughed as she swung them round in a circle among the tall grasses, their bare feet skirting the tops of the stalks.

Around and around they went until Pern became so dizzy she toppled over sideways and they all tumbled into the grasses laughing.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath walked because standing still felt dangerous. His boots carried him toward the river path without thought, toward the sound of laughter riding lightly on the wind.



Thrann was a mighty hunter. The war party rushed into the long grasses together, but he was their leader. They looked to him as they stalked through cover.

Then came the thud of heavy feet. He knew that sound. He whistled for the others to come to a halt.

The dark orc.

The others feared him but Thrann was brave. He signalled for the attack.



Hath saw her before she saw him.

Pern was in the tall grass, toppled over with two younglings shrieking with delight as they clambered over her. Her laughter came freely, her hair was in a wild tangle.

The sight hit him just a little harder than than any vision in smoke.

At Hath's hip was a particularly small orcling. It clung to his leg and ineffectively thumped at his thigh.

As if he had only just noticed, Hath reached down and peeled it from his leg. He tossed the orcling aside.

Young ones were bouncy. They had to be.

<<Got him!>>

<<Yeah Thrann>>

<<Follow me!>>

Several rustling trails through the grass showed a pack of orcling rushing away through the long grasses.

Hath did not know if he believed in visions. But he believed what he saw now.


Pern, laughing with children. Pern, who should have been crushed by the weight of leading him across the content.
Pern, who had nearly been broken and still found ways to smile.

Hath watching her as if someone had tilted the world and shown him a part he had not dared to imagine.

He cleared his throat quietly.

"Pern," he said, voice low so the younglings would not spook.

One of the children popped up like a startled rabbit, beaming at him and waving both arms. These ones were older. Wary of hjm

<<Hath! Hath! We made her fall down!>>

<<I can see that,>> he said.

But his eyes were on Pern, and something in his expression had shifted. It was softer now. He wasn't thinking of choices and suffering. He was thinking of what could be.