1.1 Reason
There was a stall, near the playground, where you would go between rounds of stick-fighting to quench your thirst. It belonged to an old man, shriveled and tiny, his frame hidden by folds of colourful, heavy fabric. You remember their vivid reds and greens, stitched in dazzling, ragged patters, adeptly dotted with splotches of white and blue. You would come to his stall battered and bruised, smiling wide, and toss him a coin. He would catch it, hand darting from beneath the fabric like a striking snake, and then without a word would split a fruit – an orange, or a lemon, or a grapefruit – and squeeze it into a jug of water. He had no tool for that and his fingers would get stick sticky with juice, so much so that the leaves of spear-mint would cling to them as he tried to shake them into the drink. Lastly, he would add a dash of honey, uncaring of the plethora of small flies buzzing around the jar to drown inside. Only then, he would pass you the jug and you would take it into your hands and drink quick and deep, the sweet-sour taste lingering on your tongue as you went back to the muddy fighting rink to batter and bruise other girls. Near noon-day, with wind picking up, a gust of it would bring the scent of the stall to the rink and you would fight in its pleasant, refreshing haze, rushing to throw another coin at the elder man after each round.
After the last fight, he would notice your black eye and bloodied knuckles and then chuckle.
"Brave" he would call you, and then prepare you the last drink of the day, smiling and adding one more little ingredient as you were about to take it from your hands. Something for a warrior such as you, he would say. It would burn with pleasant warmth, going down your throat, and making it so much more difficult to explain to Njall all the wonderful things that have happened to you. Even with a year passing, you dreamed of that often and was always loathe to wake from such a dream.
Reluctantly, you open your eyes and welcome the day with a loud groan. Hervor is still fast asleep next to you, and so you don't forget to stumble over her frail, lanky body after dragging yourself up. The dark-skinned girl protests dreamily, but does not stir yet, winding herself tighter in the red cloak that serves you as a blanket. In a fit of a morning pique, you jerk it up from her to drape yourself in it. She looks at you, you look at her, and she says nothing. The cloak is yours and she better remember it.
There are some embers left in the firepit, but they give no heat. In the dim light, you shuffle towards the door and push them open, giving them an elbow shove when they don't give. With a croak, they open, letting in a gust of cool, damp air. You step out, bare feet into mud.
The sky above the home of the Masked Men is laced with clouds, tinted yellow and rose by the rising of the sun. It's late – you should have woken up hours before, when the moon was still creeping down towards the mountainous horizon. You spit. Still, there is no one else outside; all the other huts seem cold and empty and as far as you know most of them are. Only above the forge you spot a thin billow of smoke. The Smith never extinguishes her furnaces. You doubt she ever sleeps.
It is the mutt that notices you first. It jumps out from its den in the leaves, barking happily, the stub of its tail wagging. He wants something to eat and so you retreat inside. Unless you toss him something, he won't let you be.
You didn't expect Hervor to be kneeling by the firepit and so almost trip over her. She stifles a yelp as you push against her back to stay up. In her place, you'd have just yelled, but she's not like the girls you know.
"Don't start the fire" you mumble at her. "We're going today."
She raises her head from and opens her mouth, but then shuts it and puts away the handful of kindling. You find some leftovers from yesterday, quickly stuff some into your mouth and swallow, then throw the rest in the direction of the dog. Across of you, Hervor squats, dipping stale bread in milk and chewing in silence. One more thing you don't understand is how people can eat like that. But it is apparently a northerner thing. At least that is how Njall explained it to you when introduced Hervor. Still, you find it odious.
After she is done, she throws this strange cape of hers over her shoulder. It is an ungainly, northern thing, little more than a pelt skinned from some animal. You watch her clasp it over her breast with a bone pin, then wrap fabric around her feet so that they don't touch the soil.
You have been living together for many months now, but you are no closer to understanding her than you were when you've first met.
Together, you go to the well, collecting the pails along the way. The mutt follows behind you, all the way between ancient, moss-covered shacks and huts. Unlike Hervor, they quickly became familiar to you. Of course, in the home of the Masked Men they built them differently, on a foundation of stone, and with slanted, shingled roofs touching all the way to the ground. But the wood, blackened with age, damp and overgrown with the green creep of mosses and moulds, was just like in the home of your kin. The well, too, was similar. Sturdier, of course, build around with grey stone, but just as deep as the one before the house you grew up in. And just like there, it took two people to draw water from it. One holding the loose crank, the other pulling out the bucket.
You hold, Hervor pulls. After a few moments, the pails are filled and you are ready to go into the woods. You put the water on your backs and go.
There is a wall surrounding the home of Masked Men, a stone fence as old as the village itself. Once, there was a gate in it, but now it has crumbled so that there are many entrances and exits; Heidrek keeps demanding that you repair it and claiming that it will be good for you to do, but neither you nor Hervor know the first thing about working with stone, so the best you can manage is carrying piles of stone from one end of the wall to another. That seems to satisfy him. As for you, you would prefer to make the wall sturdy again, and you know that Hervor would too – she is afraid of the wolves that can come in the night. But right now, with the heavy pails burdening you, you are just glad that there is a nearer exit. You cross through a hole in the wall and take direction for the alder grove on the hill overlooking the village.
Hervor trails close behind you as you walk; you expect her to be like you and grunt and curse the heavy weight on your backs, but she keeps womanly quiet. The one womanly thing she does, you think to herself. Yesterday, you had to yell at her again. She was afraid of going, thinking that there were beasts between the village and the grove that would surely beset you, insisting that you both take a javelin or an ax to fight them back. Her fear annoyed you, and even more annoying was how she listened.
There were other girls in your kin, and they were not like Hervor. You wish she would be more like them.
The way uphill is steep and slippery and with the burden on your back, it takes you well over an hour until you finally arrive at the top, on the edge of the grove. Although the place is not far away from the village, you have never been here before, so you take a curious look. At a glance, it is just a grove; tall trees, their canopies full and green. It is only a moment later that you notice that something is out of joint. You put the pails down to rest and crouch and then notice how thick and vivid the grass is. Tiny flowers peek from between the green blades, white and yellow. Behind you, Hervor plucks a handful.
"Do you feel it?" she asks.
You shake your head. For once, it is she who takes the first step. She slings the buckets over her back again and heads straight into the grove. You hesitate, berate yourself for that, and go after her.
In the shade of the trees, the soil and wood smell of spring in unrelenting bloom. The tiny flowers are everywhere you look. In the underbushing, on the vines creeping up the trunks of the trees, seemingly finding purchase even in the crevices of bark. It is as if the scene has been sprinkled with a handful of glitter. You smile; Hervor does too.
The girl keeps on rushing forward and you can barely keep up. You are surprised, to be honest – the climb taxed her less than you would have expected it to. Soon enough, however, she stops before a great, tall tree, so large that a natural den has formed between its roots.
"Do you feel it?" she repeats her question, and this time, you nod. A strange feeling. Like something pulling at your insides, then releasing them. It reminds you of something. "I think it's here" she adds.
Somehow, you don't doubt her. When Heidrek ordered you to bring water to the man in the grove, he did not specify further, and you did not ask – he hate clarifying. But now, deep inside, you feel that if there is a place on this hill you were supposed to find, it is this den. You step closer, trying to look in the dark inside, but you see nothing.
"Hello?" you call.
The answer is a shuffling, croaking sound, then the click-clack of a rattle. Hervor takes a step back, you stand your ground. Then, from the dark depth emerges a strange figure. A stunted shape of a man, cowled in rags so old that they may as well be pages of moss and fiber. A mask cast in brass and stripped of features covers his face, and a small rattle in his hands announces his arrival. You could mistake him for a human, but for the way he moves. Hervor takes another step back.
You stand your ground.
"Novices?" the man rattles. His voice does not come from his mouth. It comes from the soil.
"We brought you water" you reply, making sure to sound brave. You are not sure if you manage.
He coughs and after a moment you realize that the sound is a laughter of sorts, earthy and deep.
"Young Heidrek's jests! You seek to take up the mask and the rattle, then?"
He twists himself further from the den, allowing you to notice that beyond his torso, there is no body. No human body, at least, only a tangle of sinew and bramble, tightly wound into a serpentine trunk, disappearing in the darkness beneath the tree. In a flash, you imagine it, the veins of the earth, going down to the roots of the hill, and then back up, growing up as alder and grass and vivid flowers. You feel the weight of the life around you and gasp.
It is too heavy to shoulder. You have seen a dead beast as tall as a tree, but the man you are facing now is so much more than that. He is the hill and more than the hill, he is the grove, each trunk and each leaf, each blade of grass and each flower. His breath is the wind and his voice the croak of the soil, the squelch of mud, the chirping of the bird. His voice is life, the life speaks to you. Hervor stands her ground.
"You seek to take up the mask and the rattle?" he repeats his question.
"Yes" Hervor replies for you, womanly, quietly.
"Then see!"
And you see. Again the depths of life, and then the fault in all of it. It is not for the eyes to perceive nor for the mind to grasp. It is something you feel: like muscles tired after a day of work, like a wound bleeding, like an illness spreading, like the most visceral joy, like the most choking fear. For the briefest moment you understand the weave of life around you, the complex tapestry of breath and decay, of sound and quiet. So difficult to put together. So easy to unravel.
The grass is soft, heavy with dew. Fragrant, like you have never smelled before. You lie in it, comfortable. The voice comes from all around you, soft and caring.
"I can show you how to carry this burden. I can show you how to wield it."
Your memory goes back to the day when Njall came for you. To the trees turning into fetid water, to his body swelling. This is when you first felt that tug on your insides. When you first touched Life as it was, raw, unleashed.
"But what makes you think you can learn?"
Hervor speaks her reason and you speak yours.
[ ] Determination.
No matter whether you are capable of learning or not, you will not stop trying. You gain the Hot-blooded trait which allows you to endure more stress and trauma than your stats would imply and overcome certain forms of coercion through sheer fury. However, your Focus skill becomes unfavoured, costing 50% XP more to upgrade. Madcap determination goes poorly with quiet, collected approach.
[ ] Brilliance.
Your mind is keen. You know how to imitate technique, and, even more importantly, how to analyze and understand it. You gain the Analytical trait which allows you to apply your Skills to learn, mimic and find flaws in the other's use. For example, your brilliance with sword may allow you to spot flaws in the opponent's fighting style, or copy his signature move. However, your Lifesense skill becomes unfavoured, costing 50% XP more to upgrade. It is hard to both expand your perception and keep an analytical eye.
[ ] Authority.
You are not just some kid. You are a Masked Woman in training and that alone makes you worthy. You gain the Voice trait, representing a natural charisma and strength of character. Others tend to listen when you speak, you are difficult to resist and easily put on masks of confidence and authority. However, your Physique skill becomes unfavoured, costing 50% XP more to upgrade. Making others work for you does not engender certain kinds of growth.
