Elder's Counsel
Thirty Third of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
Inge had never once considered for herself the life of a raider, one of those who cast bones with Ikomi in search of silver and glory yet here she was the sun in her eyes, the captain clearly pondering it even as the old man was more hesitant. The gulls were squabbling overhead for the scraps of fish guts she had paid them in, blind for the squabbles of humankind.
Is that how the Gods see us? The girl wondered with a twist of unease in her stomach she could not name.
Not since the island had Inge feared her own passage Beyond. She had kept a knife on her so that she could go to the goddess rather than be taken by the dead. Yet Death was not without fear to Her young servant. She feared would not be able to help those who had taken her in, that she would not be fast enough to heal or strong enough to fight, that she would not be clever enough to unravel some misery or spot some new foe.
"Most do not die by the blade you know," the words are soft, too soft, an echo of a thousand faded voices made almost as one.
She cannot change what she was born to, Inge told herself almost a a reflex now.
"Most die to plague and pestilence, to hunger," the sorceress continued. "Petty deaths for petty folk. We here shall not die of those scourges of the world, for behold do we not have skills of healing sorcerous and skillful. If we do go down into death it will be with a fine tale of our passage, perhaps even with a song to keep us upon the lips of singers down through the long ages."
"I fear parting, I fear loss," Inge admitted shamefaced. The others were speaking in the tongue of the other world, too loud to pay attention to what was whispered in a corner of the cabin
"So do we all, in time even the mountains wear away and the seas dry out, perhaps in time even the sun will gutter to an ember and die and this world shall go the way of those which had come before, fear is not a a lapse, it is a tool, a knife in the hand. If you grip it wrong it may cut you and the wound in time poison you, but if you grip it aright it can serve as well as any trusted blade"
"I can stab people with my fear?" Inge felt a smile grow on her lips almost in spite of herself.
"It is more shield than weapon, you will pardon the clumsy simile..." Noticing that the girl did not know the word she corrected. "
Likeness I meant. Tell me have you ever heard of being battle drunk, or battle mad, the warriors that drink the mead of Olweje on the day of blood?"
"Yes, but what has that got to do with..."
"Most of that is fear, the pounding in your chest, the way the world seems to slow, movements swift and thoughts swifter still..." The sorceress shakes her head. "You can hate the person in front of you enough to get all of that from rage, I would know. Folk go to war for the ideas in their heads, but it is fear that keeps them alive in war, and fear that keeps those around them safe, as long as you do not let it rule you."
"Why are you being so..." Inge cut herself off aware that the next word would not come off very well, but knowing no other way to ask it. "Nice"
"Well you are the healer and I am made of flesh and blood, same as the rest," came the glib reply.
Somehow Inge did not think that was it.
OOC: Inspired by the question of how Inge was feeling about the battle above. I fired off an answer with the specifics right away, but the more I thought about it the more I came up with how Inge feels about 'battle' in general and that was worth exploring in an interlude so here we are.