Scream It Until You're Coughing Up Blood - An Early Medieval Punk Fairy Tale

[Gargulec]

1. First Song (part one)

Before anything else is said, it is important to mention that you have not wished for any of the things that started to define your life to come to be. That is not to say that you did not have a choice.

But, let's not get ahead of the story.

You were born on a small farm cradled in the crook of a quick-running river and fenced in by dense pine woods, into which you feared to go. In that, you were unlike your brothers, who would spend much of their youth grazing the pigs there and your sister, who would often accompany them, even if it was not womanly work. But that was hardly out of ordinary; there were never enough hands for all the manly work in your family. Yet, it was unusual that she would also sometimes sneak out alone, blind to the dangers, or worse enjoying them. When she couldn't be convinced by father's hand to stop, he had her learn to shoot the bow along with her brothers. In that, she excelled.

Afterwards, she would often bring a hare or another bit small game from her excursions. While mother was convinced it would end with her falling afoul of wolves or, worse, forest-men, she proved to be impossible to coerce out of it, and her brothers, who, during their pig-herding days, learned to see her as one of them, relished her company. In truth, it often felt like you had three brothers, a fact they loudly blessed and which you would quietly curse whenever your sister would leave her work on your shoulders. However, you never allowed that annoyance to the surface, instead maintaining the polite and demure exterior that was expected of a girl such as you. In the face of her untoward behavior, you made every effort to appear prudent and virtuous. You became proficient with needle and thread, but did not shy away from the grindstone. You paid your family every respect, seldom showing any disobedience. When the rod was used, you made yourself feel like it was deserved, often with success. When your sister ran the woods and dreamed about also learning the sword, you tended to the fire and to the vegetable garden, working for two, as she would rarely help you with the weeds. This did not go without recognition; mother spoke highly of you and always claimed that you would make a very good wife, a husband's pride. That is not to say that she spoiled you with praise. As father's fondness for the firstborn led to too much leniency, every effort was made to avoid it with you. You were raised in the proper way.

You felt loved, and in the proper place.

When your sister started coming of an age, father had it explained to her that she would have to marry soon. While she wasn't happy about that, she recognized the necessity and soon there were men about the house. For the first time in your life, you envied her - the wooing she received and the good bride-wealth that would be paid for her. That you would fetch half of her price sickened you. It felt wrong, and still more wrong to be thinking such things. You even went as far as to mention it to mother, and she made you regret those thoughts in a manner that was the talk of the house in the weeks that came. Worse still was that your sister became angry with father and mother, claiming that you had reasons to feel cheated and that the punishment served was far too severe, disrespect which she was not forced to reckon with.

Still, she was your sister, and you made every attempt at thinking of her with love and care; in time, you managed.

Her wooing took some time. Some suitors took offense to her character, others ran afoul of her brothers. Still, a match was found for her late one summer; the groom was a man from a farm across the river and then a hill. While not very wealthy, he was of firm character and good repute. The bride-wealth paid, he went raiding across the winter so that he could offer her a good morning-gift when they were wed in the spring. It was a very manly thing and only added to your envy. Even she managed to find some enthusiasm for him and, while even father found it rather objectionable, made an effort along with her brothers to hunt and lay snares during the winter months, so that she could add in fine pelts to her dowry. She got so many of them that you and mother could then sew them into a rich cloak. The rumor of the accomplishment spread quite fast, of a woman who would acquire a dowry for herself. Seeing that, reluctant to be outdone, father produced from the chest a silver brooch to serve as a clasp; she wore both when speaking the oaths and when the nuptial crown was placed on her brow.

You were happy for her, and even felt sad to see her go.

You came to age soon thereafter, and too experienced the pleasure of wooing. Men would come to see you, some bringing small gifts, others exchanging words with father; you smiled at them and made every good impression. As you had no slave-woman to tend to you, in that time it was mother who guarded your virtue and made sure that your honour wasn't sullied. Your brothers, meanwhile, paid you little attention, but you didn't begrudge them. It was a time for wife-searching for them too, and they would be often gone for days.

Unlike your sister, you made no obstructions in wooing and a match was quickly selected for you. A fair-haired boy, a blacksmith's third son. His house lay two days down-river and so he couldn't come in often. You saw him twice before the arrangements were made, and he seemed to you pleasant enough. Your bride-wealth was paid, lower than your sister's – it still stung, but you felt very ashamed of your pettiness – and it was decided that the wedding would take place soon, right after the harvest-season. There remained the issue of dowry, but it was solved in the last month of spring when the older of your brothers met with a foreign trader and bought from him a wool cape of foreign make, dyed bright-blue. Mother and you puzzled on the color, because you didn't know any dye that would leave such a hue. Still, it was a fine item to add to your dowry, and while it did not make it very large, it was at least made reasonable.

You were to be wed soon, and you were happy. It was everything you have ever wanted, even if it wasn't much. This needs to be stressed again, to those who might presume some hidden discontent: you were happy. Not bitter. Not afraid. Your life followed along the tracks it was supposed to follow. You would have never thought to ask for anything else but that.

It was late June, a day as beautiful as they get. The sky was clear, and the meadows that surrounded the farm in full bloom. You spent most of the day sewing, but then mother wanted to make some adjustments to your work and so you went to pull weeds in the garden and then, as there wasn't that much work for you anyway, so you allowed yourself an idle moment, gathering flowers and weaving them into bands that you would then hang across the house. You were so caught up that you missed your brothers rushing into the house; you did not realize that something was wrong until you heard your mother wail. You ran back in, then heard the news.

They brought the debris in on the next day. They called it by her name, but you refused to acknowledge and recognize that. What the brothers had carried from the house beyond the river and then a hill could not be your sister. Your sister was strong and tall and fair, not some bruised slab of meat beaten blue and red. Your sister smelled of sweat and salt and prickly forest fruit, not of rot and shit. The swollen mass of purple and green, putrefying within a shroud of a dirty dress could not be her, it was something else, foreign and ugly. No. It couldn't be. As summer flies circled above the carcass, you struggled to remember the look of her face before someone's rage bashed it in. But the more you tried the less you could. The image of her faded and when you closed your eyes, you saw just this and more of this squashed, meaty flower that lay before you, defenceless, dead, disgusting.

Still, the world made sense then. You would bury her, and then retribution would follow. Along with mother, you goaded your brothers. You wailed about the crime, you refused to leave the body, you hid her cloak and dress still bloodied to bring up as a relic and reminder of what had to be done. And at first, they acted up on it. They took down axes and spears from their places on the walls and sharpened them without speaking, but singing angry songs of vengeance and slaying. But father, ever wise, ordered restraint.

Summons were sent for a lawspeaker and an accusation was made against the murderer; your brothers were called in as witnesses, and some other men you did not know along with them. They had all testified in one voice and there could be no doubt that some petty, drunk argument turned the way it did. It was never unseemly for a man to discipline his wife, it was said, but this went beyond the pale. This called out for blood. This called out for retribution.

The matter was resolved quickly. Two days later, the murderer's father came in along with twelve men. They carried with them three hundred ounces of silver, and they placed it before the threshold as compensation. It was very high for a woman and higher still than the custom would demand. Over the silver that bought off your sister's life-blood, father embraced them and promised friendship between families, and they promised the same. You did not understand at first, not until evening, when your brothers hung the axes and spears back on the walls, and instead sung the songs of mourning. You cried as you listened to them, because of loss and because of how it felt to accept it.

You did not hold it against your father, against your mother, against your brothers, that they accepted the compensation, the blood-silver which paid for life and restored peace between families. Had you been born a man, you would have ignored the silver. You would have taken an axe and with it went over the river and then a hill, and spilled blood for blood. They would die, or you would; either way, you would be at peace.

Instead, all that was left to you was an anger of sorts, a strange kind of a sensation nested somewhere deep inside your gut. At first, it was like a fresh cut that you expected to go away in a day or a week. But it refused, making you watch powerlessly as it slowly took root and turned rancid. You carried this festering wound for days, then weeks, feeling it dripped poison like pus into your life, turning each moment into a cry of stifled fury. You could smell her decay wherever you went; all red appears to you drops of her blood. When you heard men feast and served them wine, the sound of a skull cracking echoed from a distance.

There were days when you wished to scream from dawn to dusk, howl at the world, that you wished to set fire to this place you lived in, anything that would finally banish her, and the more those thoughts danced around you the more of her was in your every waking moment, in your every prayer and every dream.

Mother made preparations for the coming wedding. Brothers hunted so that there would be meat for the feast. You wove flower-garlands to hang about the house, you and your grandmother would help you sew a dress to wear, that would look beautiful on you with your blue cape. You didn't understand how any of it could be happening. How everything could stay so casual, so life-like, when underneath the skin of it was rot and decay.

What you had wasn't hate, wasn't disdain, it was something else, something you could not name, something that crawled out of that ugly wound deep inside you, something that made you realize that you could not live with them anymore. That this crook of a swift-running river would never be your home and neither would be the blacksmith's son house, and any other place meant for you, that staying would be like living through a midnight that never turns to day.

All your life, you wanted to be a good daughter and then a good wife. Live your life as you were supposed to, grow old in peace and good reputation. You wanted your father and your mother and your brothers to feel proud that they raised a good woman.

The world you thought would be yours was now poison and untended graves. The faces of those close to you faces of those who would sell their daughter for three hundred ounces of silver. The Saints know that you struggled against it. That you wished it would stop. That you cried at it, raged it, rallied against it with all the meagre strength of someone such as you. And none of it helped. It only made it worse.

You didn't steal much when you fled; just the bright-blue cloak that would be the pride of your dowry. It was large enough to wrap yourself in, to hide, shield the world away. You took some food that you wouldn't starve and a knife you always carried, tinder-irons, a thing or two more. Not little, but not much. You wished to say goodbye, but if you did, they would had prevented you from going. So you ran away in the middle of a night, like a thief or a madman or a wild thing and went along the river and into the woods that you were afraid of so much. The unknown terrified you, but what you left behind was so much worse.

You went…

[ ] ...downriver, towards the lowlands and the cities there, where you were told everyone could find their place.

[ ] ...upriver, towards the mountains and wild men who live there, where you were told honour was the only rule.

[ ] ...across the river, deep into the woods, into the realm of brigands, madmen and monsters, where all that was rejected could live.

Spoiler: A/N

Welcome to Scream It Until You're Coughing Up Blood, a Quest about the filth and the fury, born out of my love for the early Middle Ages, history and interpretations of punk cultures, my fondness for the magical realism side of fantasy writing and my interest in issues of gender across history. Ah, and also certain aesthetic elements of Hyper Light Drifter, one of the best video games to come out in recent memory.

There is not much else to be said for now: the Quest will be narrative, running without a system. I will be attempting to keep a steady pace with updates, but those things go as they tend to go.

 

[Gargulec]

2. Cry Now, Cry Later

Under the light of a half-moon, the river's water shimmers quicksilver. This is a good night for flight, clear-skied and heavy with summer's heat. You look back, over your shoulder; during the day you could see the fence surrounding your home's hayfield from where you are standing. But it is near midnight now, and behind you there is only darkness.

The meadow by the riverbank does not stretch far; to your sides and before you there are the outlines of the trees. Beyond them, there is nothing. You are afraid to go there. Not yet, you tell yourself. You linger for a moment, listening to the water tumble down. It would be a lie to say that you also do not consider turning back. They wouldn't be mad at your escape, even if they found out, and you could sneak in just as easily as you snuck out, lay yourself on the floor by your brother's side, wake up in the morning…

Slowly, you walk along the silver ribbon of the river, against the direction of its brisk current. You think that it must come down from tall mountains, where highlanders herd their sheep. Through a haze, you recall father speaking of them, how they are bold and suffer no dishonour and take great pride in keeping strong and clear. You don't know if that's good or bad, but the mountains are far away and high, and past them you know nothing at all. That alone is a reason to go.

But it is not where you will go. Upriver, there is a ford, easy to cross this late into the summer. And past the ford, there is a trail that leads into the woods, and this is where you promise yourself you will go. Because no matter how tall are the mountains, how remote the valleys, it is only into the forest's heart that no one will ever follow you.

For now, you stumble along a thin strip of gravely bank between the tree-line and the river's edge, nearly blind in the dark. It is slow going, feeling out the pebbles with the tip of your feet before making each step, and even though the dress you wear beneath the cloak shortens your each step, it is progress nonetheless, and it gives you time to feel.

It's the sound. There is no one by your side to talk, or break the quiet with their own heavy steps or huffed breath. At first all you hear is yourself and the river's steady rumble, but as you move farther and farther, your ears pick out different tones. There is the buzz of insects, mingling with the rustle of the water; they are plentiful here, flies and beetles of all sorts. They play a different tune by night, without the whine of bees and wasps busying about. The night does not belong to those who do honest work.

It's the wind, gentle this time of the year, but present. Sometimes a splatter of water as some fish or fowl breaks the surface, scared by your footsteps. But you too are scared. There are other sounds. Between the trees, far away, where you can't see them but are sure they are there, the beasts out to eat leaden, lonely wanderers such as you. Their howls carry far through the night. As do the cries that abruptly cut. The forest is never quiet.

There is some comfort in the smells. The earthy, heavy air of summer at full bloom, leavened by the cool river. Here, there is wet sand and mud, and all the myriad water-plants that you could name by sight, but not by smell. And flowers, too. You don't recognize any scent, though they cling heavily to you and the narrow gravelly path, but you're sure you know them.

Better to focus on such simple mysteries.

The thing about being alone in the woods that terrifies you how simple it would be to turn back. Because you can. The path is clear behind you. Clear for you to follow back to the place you call home. And if you think of the distant sounds you might hear, of the black spaces between the trees you want to take it.

So you try not to think, and instead focus on what flowers fill the night with their strange, familiar fragrances. But it doesn't work like that. You can't force yourself. You've been holding your breath for too long, teeth clenched. You breathe in and the air is cold on your throat and lungs. So different than what you left behind. You can't force yourself so you allow yourself instead.

You remember choking. Sitting on a bench and sewing, the needle running quickly in your fingers. And above the cloth, squinting at stiches with pursed lips, you struggled for every breath. It was the air inside your home. Smoke and herbs thrown on the fire to make it more palatable. Heavy. You've breathed it all your life, and it never felt hard to you. And then, as you sat down to do some work, your aunt teaching you about what to do when you are with a man, and you just couldn't. When your mouth opened, it was like a fish gasping, something flowing in but giving you nothing. You started coughing, pricked yourself bad with the needle, ran outside, but hardly anything squeezed its way past the soot that seemed to cake your insides. You retched, trying to force it out, but it stuck in your throat and refused to leave.

It's better now, even if it's cold. What you breathe in feels like air, not ash. There is at least that much.

You've been like that for days. But it was worse at night, when it would keep you awake while others slept, and you feared to make a move and betray that something was wrong. In spite of all that had happened, everyone was so happy for your wedding. You didn't want to- spoil it?

You tire of walking and crouch down by the riverbank to rest for a moment. You throw a pebble or two across the surface, then stop. If there are others around, it might draw their attention. There are things in the woods. Beasts, men, both and neither at once. You are sure they are there, looking at you, sharpening their teeth. It is how it's been told to you in the tales. So you stop.

You just can't. You're an idiot. There is no way forward. You back up, turn away, head home, to safety, take one step, then another, then stop. You remember again.

There is a memory of speaking. Of listening to words that you should recognize and realizing that none of them make sense. That mother is trying to tell you something, to encourage you, to show you that you are her beloved daughter in these difficult times, but what you hear is nothing but gibberish, kibbled language. You nod, then nod off, then she becomes angry with you because you didn't listen. You think. There were words, but now there are none.

You can't go back there. It's not safer there. It's not easier there. The woods will kill you, or something else will, but it is better that way.

But what if it gets better after a while, it's not that…

You want to breathe again. No.

Yet, everything does get quiet in…

You want to sleep again. No!

Still, you are…

YOU WANT NOTHING FROM THEM!

You realize after a moment that you are screaming at the waters, screaming so loud that you might start coughing up blood, screaming no words or meaning but raw anger as long as your throat can take it.

It's bad. You shouldn't be doing this. It's dangerous. But for a while, just a moment or two, you don't give a single shit. You howl like a wounded beast, you howl out the screaming thoughts battering against the inside of your skull. You howl until you can't.

It echoes for a long time, voice carried far over the swift-running waters.

You want to see your sister's face again?

You crouch down and cry. It's too much. You will go between the trees, where bandits and exile dwell, men for whom to kill is as as to spit, you will wander where the trees grow so tall that their canopies scrape the firmament, you will go as a brigand and a drifter who betrayed the trust of their kin. Saints know you don't want that. You don't want to be like that. But you don't know what else you can be.

When you thieved through the house which used to be yours, you didn't just steal some food and a spare knife, no, you took something else. Swallowing tears, you undo your bundle and look for it there.

You just wanted to be like any other girl. To smile and to dance and to be wooed and loved. You could have stolen your father's sword or your brother's axes. They would help so much. But no, you rummaged through other things, looking for a daydream you stole for yourself, a petty little token of who you will never again be, useless for a voyage like that…

[ ] …silver bracelets your mother liked to wear and which would in time become yours. You liked to put them on, think how beautiful they look. You too always wanted to look beautiful.

[ ] …a precious comb, a mirror, a sponge from a faraway sea that your aunt received as a gift and you were never allowed to use it. Signs of propriety and decency. You always wanted to stay clean and pure.

[ ] …needle, thread and some folded silk that your grandmother held back to give to your older brother's wife. It's the best fabric you have ever held in your hands. You always wanted to excel at woman's work.​

 

[Gargulec]

3. Jordan's First Choice

You find it easily, wrapped in coarse, thick cloth. Blindly, you unwrap it and lay the contents on the ground in front of you. Silver moonlight catches on the little brass mirror, and comes back slightly gold. You hold it in your hands for a moment, feeling its weight; there is not much use in looking into it – it's too dark. But its mere presence makes you calmer You don't need eyes for that.

There is a feeling uncoiling inside of you, somewhere in your throat, where the anger has gone. It's strange and you have no name for it, and it only grows as you lay down the brass plate and pick up the comb, brush your hands over its bone teeth. There's an inlay of gold in the handle, worn-down by your aunt's hands. Well into old age, she would sit by the fire and brush her grey hair with it every morning. You remember that clearly, even though you were little then. If you could, you would sit next to her and wait for her to finish, then ask if you could do the same. She would allow you, but give you a different comb, hiding her precious little thing in a pouch by her dress. Then, she grew so old she could no longer lift it, and thus died. Mother wanted to bury the comb with her, but uncle was against it and so it was put into the chest, where you would not see it until tonight. You touch it gently, afraid that it might break in your hands, even if there is no case for worry. It is of solid make. It's not going away. Unless you lose it. Or toss it. You wrap it carefully back in cloth and put it in your bundle again, where it is going to be safe.

You try to lift yourself up and get back to walking, but your muscles protest. All the energy that brutally threw you forward and kept you from stopping is gone. You screamed it out and now there's just this tiredness spreading through you that doesn't come from your muscles but your head. It's been a long day.

The soil you're crouched on is hard and dry. You remove your cloak and put it over your bundle, to keep the blue fabric from touching the ground. It's too precious to stain with the dirt of the road. At least that's what you think at first. The night's chill, even in the heart of the summer, gets to you when you lay down, and though you ache for sleep, it doesn't come. You curse yourself for not taking a blanket with you.

It's not long before you sigh, wrap yourself again in your cloak and lay down in it. Its fabric is thick and strong. It cushions you and keeps you warm; it feels made for the road. When you rise in the early hours of the morning, you curse the stains you've made in the night, but no longer think of protecting it over yourself. Still, it hurts to see it already getting caked with the yellowish dust of the riverbank.

The weather still graces you with clear skies above, from which the sun shines so bright that it blinds you to just look at the river. You walk in the light for a time, but soon the warmth chews through the morning's chill and you start to sweat, sidling away from the water and towards the forest.

You skim by its edge, taking shelter under the willows and poplars. Pleasant cool invites you deeper inside, but the canopies further from the river are knotted together so tight that it would be stepping back into the night. So you follow along the border. Besides, you need to keep to the river. How else will you find that ford?

Even in the light of the day where you can see where you put your feet, your progress is slow. Walking over the far-running roots, on uneven soil is strange to you; it feels like something you have to learn. All your life, the ground beneath your feet was either the beaten soil of your home or the soft grass of the meadows around it. Sure and solid, nowhere treacherous. Here, it feels like the woods are laying snares for you. Here, walking is not just for feet. It focusing your eyes on the path ahead to make sure it is clear. It is pushing away the branches and young growth with your hands. It is cursing the dress you wear under your cloak, because it keeps your step modest and short. You hike it up and tie it high, but it still doesn't help all that much. But it stirs up a memory.

When your sister ran back from the woods, she would put only a long shirt which stretched to her knees, like her brothers did. Although they ribbed her about it and father scoffed at it and mother complained about it, she was allowed to do so, as long as no one saw. But there wasn't that many people living around you, not where she would run with your brothers, and so it was safe. For the longest time you didn't understand how she could want such impropriety and how she could be allowed it. As you trip for the third time due the dress and scratch your hand to blood on a tree's rough bark, you start to understand why.

Careful not to stain the cloak's blue with your blood's red, you push yourself forward. More scratches soon join the first. You are not getting away fast enough. What if they realize where you have gone and go after you? Your brothers, so adept at running the woods?

They will catch you, they will bring you back. You'd wondered where your fear has gone. But there it is. Without thinking, you hasten, as little as you can.

The summer favours you. In the hard, dry soil, you leave no tracks. Maybe they won't catch the trail. Maybe they'll seek you somewhere else. Maybe they'll forget you were even among them. That would be best for all, but you hate that thought. Why? It's the best for all. Why do you not want them to forget you? That's not how you should be.

You are not how you should be.

There is one more thing that you have to learn on this slow walk towards a ford you've never seen, and that is how to be alone with yourself. You are alone with your own thoughts. There were always voices around you. Always others. Family, animals, walls and fires that felt familiar, friendly. Here, everything is alien and the only company you have is the inside of your mind. It's not very good. It urges you to run. Dash forward, but look back. They might be coming right at you.

It also wants you to run at them, throw yourself at their feet, apologize, weep in shame. It reminds you of your shame and tells you to never forget it, like you have forgotten the ones who cared and loved for you. It reminds you that you wanted to be the best daughter, but turned out the worst.

It reminds you of a caved in face you can see in every shadow back where it commands you to return. If you ever return you will die, but not like her. No, it will be sepsis, rotting you from the inside. It will take your voice, so that no one will know of it. It will take your mind, so you don't know it either. It will take-

When you reach the ford at midday, you almost miss it. The thoughts drag at you like brambles, and lifting your head at the horrendous wheeze of a hurt man is hard.

The waters here run shallow, and the tips of large stones break the surface where the river is safe for passage. And between you and that crossing, there is a man.

He is large, broad-shouldered, wrapped head-to-toe in green cloth, not dissimilar in shape from your own cloak. All you can see of his face is through a thin gash left open for his eyes. There are weapons in his hands. A sword in one, and although the sun shines directly at it, it does not gleam. It is covered red.

In the other hand, he holds a short spear, blade pointing down. You eyes follow the line of the shaft to the ground, and the two bodies that lie at his feet.

The wheeze did not come from the green-cloaked man. It came from there, below. Mesmerized, maybe simply shocked, you watch the man thrust down with the spear, piercing a throat. Warm blood flows out, sinking between damp stones, mixing with the gore of the other slain.

You have seen dead men, but never men die, not like that. A short gasp escapes you, a cry of some protest. You cut it off as soon as you regain control, but not soon enough. He hears it and looks between the trees, straight at you. You freeze.

He surveys you carefully; you can feel his eyes move down from your face down to what interests him the most – the belt. They linger there for a moment, and then rise again. It is the cloak that draws his attention. You try not to breathe and not to scream as he watches you and appraises you.

He lays down his sword, and lays down his spear, then takes three steps away from them, hands open and empty. In spite of all, he doesn't appear hostile. The opposite: he looks friendly, and beckons you to come out.

Tentatively, you step out of the shade, eyes darting to the sides, prepared to bolt away. He makes no move and patiently waits until you stand in the light. Then he beckons you again. The weapons lie behind him, far from his reach. He sees no need for them.

From this close you can see the dead men better; their ragged clothing, and the weapons in their hands. There is a club by the snapped arm of one of them. A chipped axe-blade peeks out from the pool of blood underneath the other. You have no idea who they were and you have no idea who that man who ended them is.

Still betraying no hint of impatience, he waits for you to respond. Maybe it is innocent, who knows. Maybe they were some enemies and he means you no ill will. Maybe he just does not want to have to chase after you.

Your first instinct is to look away and move on, to not acknowledge the slaughter or the man whose spear is still planted in a man's throat. It's a pang of fear, a coil in your gut telling you that if you are not noticed, you will not share the fate of the unlucky two. And yet he beckons you to come closer. You hesitate, then approach him.

The cloak he wraps himself in is rich in colour, so vivid that it almost shines; you can clearly see where it is stained with mud and road's dust, and where it still damp with blood. You catch yourself staring at those patches, trying to tell if it is his gore, and he makes no move, allowing you the time to appraise him. The desire to just turn away and walk past him and across the river doesn't leave. You throttle it. This fear, those butterflies in your stomach: they have die. One way or another.

Aside from the fact that he had been in a fight, there is not much you can tell about him just from looking. Through the colourful wraps that cover his head you can scarcely glimpse at his eyes; you feel like they are green and cold, but it might be your imagination. One way or another, you make one more step, near the corpses and then sit down, in a spot that's dry.

He acknowledges you with a nod, then follows you down, even farther away from the sword. From the folds of his cloak he extends to you a piece of hard-track; you snap it in half and eat it, chewing slowly. The gesture sets you at ease. He doesn't eat, but stands. You watch him walk away, towards the river bank, give it a quick look, then return and grab one of the dead men by the arms, dragging him towards the water. After a moment, you follow his example and grab the other one.

The one you drag had to be young, you think to yourself, even though there is little left of his head to attest to it other than some unrecognizable mess of blood and shattered flesh. You don't realize you're not moving until the green-cloaked drifter, concerned, moves closer. Then you wave him off. The corpse is light enough that you don't need help moving him, slight of frame, boyish under the heavy wraps of a brigand's cloak. You just need to look at something else. Maybe at the other corpse, the one that's whole, the one that used to be older. The other's son? Brother?

Although you expected him to toss the bodies into the river's current, he doesn't. Instead, he arranges them next to each another and then reaches into the shallows near the bank, picking up large, water-smoothed stones, piling them one by one around the slain. You realize what he is doing and move to assist him.

It is a slow work, setting up a pair of mounds, and surprisingly hard; the stones are heavy and slippery. They remind you of the grindstones back home that you'd remove from the chest before setting them upon a bench to do your woman's work. Your brothers would help you with them when they felt heavy. The longing returns, and you throttle it just as you throttled the fear. Your hands clench around a water-smoothed rock until it slips from your grasp, like the lives you are helping a stranger bury.

It isn't until late into the day that you are finished and two cairns rise in the river's meander. The green-cloaked drifter doesn't take stock of his work. While you kneel down to mutter a few prayers, commanding the two to Saint Amal, that they would be guided to the abode of the Saints, whoever they were, he instead moves where the water is deeper and teeming with with fish. With his agile spear he goes after them, quick and precise. By the time you are done praying, he has the dinner for both of you.

He sets the bonfire better than you ever would, so you dip into the forest's edge to gather kindling. You have some experience in that; at least more than at grave-building.

They had to be brigands, right? Woodsmen, exiles? You briefly wonder if the two tried to ambush the drifter, or maybe he was one of their band and they came to blows over loot or something else. It doesn't really matter, does it. He lives, they are dead and he seems to mean you no ill will. In a few days, you lie to yourself, you will have forgotten about the matter. In a few weeks, you lie to yourself, you will become used to it all.

You bring him the kindling, he starts the fire. You'd gut the fish too, but he had already done that while you were away. For once, someone else cooks for you; you watch him over the fire as night come down around you.

He's smaller than you thought he should; once he removes the wrappings from his head, you see the pox-marked face of an old man, his hair braided into a single silver string, skin wind-beaten and tanned. His eyes are green, as you thought they would be, the hue of spring leaves, cold and heavy with life. He watches you as you watch him, and after a moment, you realize why. Your cape is not that much different from his. Of course, yours is blue as the sky, and his the green of the grass. But that's not much of a difference. Yours, like his, is stained with dirt. Yours, like his, shows the marks of the road; his was simply longer.

Or maybe he just wants you to strip, too. Maybe wants- no, he doesn't push the issue. After a moment, he looks away, tears a bit of fish away and starts eating, chewing slowly. He still glances at you from time to time, but if there is expectation in him, you don't see it.

Is this cloak important? Does it mark people like him, who drift through the world without home, without kin? Is this what he sees in you? One of his ilk? You stay huddled in the shell of your clothing as if it could hide you from whatever conclusions he comes to. His sword and spear stay far away, outside the fire's bright circle. It is as he thinks you a fellow of his.

Even his knife, a large blade sheathed in gilded leather, is outside his reach. It takes you a few moments to return the gesture and put your meagre shiv next to it; he smiles at the courtesy. The more you sit next to him, the more you feel like a fake, a phony. He has killed those two men, and you are sure that they cannot be the first ones to fall by his sword. He is tattered and stained, he has been drifting the woods and dusty roads for years now; you think that if he ever had a home, he had to long since forget it. You think that he doesn't even miss it, that he doesn't begrudge the life he chose. Something bitter swells in your mouth.

You take down your robe in one angry motion, tearing them to reveal that he is everything you are not. He jumps up at the sudden gesture and then sees your face, sees your chest. For a moment, he stops chewing, frowns, and you tense, wondering if you can reach your knife before he reaches his. Your stomach, again, twists into a knot.

Then he nods and returns to his fish, tearing another bit with his fingers. You grab yours and follow the example, still wound taut. You expected a different reaction. Outrage, pity, anything. But he just took it as if you were yet another of those brigand-boys who go into the woods to die by his hand. You grimace and don't even hide it. But he pays no attention. Instead, having finished eating, he reaches into his packs to find a water-skin. Before drinking, he gives it to you, and you take up on the offer, take a swig. The wine inside is strong, far thicker than what you are used to. It goes to your head almost immediately; the exhaustion of the day crashes past your contempt and you wrap yourself in your coat and lay near the fire as he hums to himself some melody that drifters know and that you learn as you fall asleep.

You wake up soon after sunrise to see him gone. Little trace of his remains – a few scattered fishbones from yesterday's meal, the cold pit of a bonfire he pissed in to put out, the two graves by the river. And, set near you, a short javelin, its shaft worn smooth. Wrapped around it is a long band of blue cloth. You don't know where he found it, but there is more than enough of it to serve not just as a scarf, but a veil. To hide your face like he did.

You put on your cloak, and then try to mimic the way he wore his wrappings around his head. It takes a few tries, but you manage, and though it covers your mouth and nose your find it easier to breathe. You are keeping it.

It is the weapon that you eye with suspicion. Just like the cloth, he left it for a reason, with a purpose.

So he did pity you, in the end. Enough to leave you gifts so that you wouldn't appear so fake to him and others like his. Your stomach lurches again. You wanted that? You want that? You hesitate again, then make a quick decision you are sure to regret one day.

[ ] Take the weapon.

[ ] Leave the weapon.
​

 

[Gargulec]

4. The Hands That Thieve

Delicately, as if afraid that it could grow teeth and snap at you, serpent-like, you remove the spear from the ground and bring it up. From the tip of its ash-leaf shaped blade to the butt of the shaft, it is runs a little longer than your arm, and its weight reminds you of a large plunger for churning butter. But unlike that tool, it doesn't seem familiar to your eyes. The spears that hung on the walls of your home, the ones your brothers would carry, were all longer than this one, their blades more like chestnut leaves in their shape. As you turn the drifter's gift in your hands, you can't even tell what kind of a wood it was made from.

But you decide it is yours now. A weapon is a weapon, and even if you scarcely have any idea on how to wield it, where to grip it, how to throw it or stab with it, you can't just leave it behind. For now, though, it serves you a different function. By the base of the blade, reddened with a patina of rust, you tie your bundle, and then prop the shaft against your shoulder. After a moment of consideration, you also take down the cloak and wrap it tightly around your chest and arm, exposing the dress beneath. You have a river to ford, and you don't want it getting wet.

It turns out to be more difficult that you have expected, on both counts. Although by the shore the water is shallow enough that it scarcely reaches past your ankles, you quickly realize that you have to pay close attention to the bottom nonetheless. The riverbed is littered with shells and rocks and you stub your bare foot painfully with one misaimed step. You try to move slowly, feel the surface with your toes before setting the foot down, but the dress, once damp, restricts your tread even more. The progress through the shallows is drudgingly slow, but it is when they give way to deeper water, reaching past your waist, that you start to really struggle. To move through them, you have to fight not only against the harsh river-bed, but also the current, surprisingly swift even in the lazy month of summer. Your feet sinking into the mud, dress completely drenched, you move forward one tiny step at a time, so short that it feels like running in place at times. Worse still, there is no steadiness to the current and sometimes, a wave hits you, threatening to make you trip, fall below the surface, or just have the javelin slip from your hands and lose it and the bundle. You fear that, you fear being dragged by the undertow and drowned; you don't know how to swim. Despite the cool of the river, you sweat.

It feels like hours before you finally reach the shallows at the other side and then the other stony bank. The solid ground under your feet is a blessing; you crouch down, exhausted. The bundle, at least, remains dry, and only the hem of your cloak caught water. You strip from the dress, wrap yourself in the cloak and try to wring as much water from that bloody garment as you can; when you put it back on it is still damp and you know that it will remain such for hours. You look at the sky and thank the Saints for the good weather.

Hungry, you eat some of your meagre supplies; a bit of cheese, some dry bread. There is not much of it, and even as you force yourself to be frugal with it, there is no way it will last you for more than a day before you have to start going on an empty stomach. Another reason to go back, to end this stupidity. You grit your teeth at the thought, linger in the sun a moment longer and get going. There is a path that runs from the ford into the trees, well-trodden enough to make you a bit less worried about following it. Time to enter the woods.

This side of the river, the forest looks different. Instead of trees growing so dense that it was difficult to tell where one of them ended and another began, here you walk through an airy expanse. From green, moss-strewn underbush, slender pines sprout, but never close together, sunlight easily making its way past their branches. Sometimes, you pass by clumps of broad-leaf growth, just as tight and foreboding as other side, but they are rarely larger than a groove. Herbs carpet the forest-floor.

You spot bear garlic growing among them and stop to gather some of it, greedily stuff some leaves into your mouth even before you are done picking. Their smell and taste bring back a memory, and you remember similar woods not far from home, near the farm-fields; mother called them fields still, even as pines conquered them. You'd go there with your sister when she was not busy running into the deep forest to gather herbs and fruit, and she would tell you the reason why they were called fields by the family was that not long ago, it was where you grew your rye and wheat. But the soil turned barren and they were abandoned, left for the wild to reclaim.

Wild animals sometimes slink to your sides; you catch a doe or a deer in the corner of your eye, or maybe the sound of something larger reaches your ear. The grip you have on your spear tightens, and nonsensical thoughts entire your mind: that you should go hunt, now that you are armed. You know you can't. You eat the last of your food by the evening, try to set a fire and fail. Instead, you hide in a depression of the land, over which a few fallen trees cross, forming something of a roof. The soil there teems with ants and other insects, so you bring your knees to your chest and cover yourself tight with the cloak, not even removing the wraps from your head for the night. You sleep terribly and wake up cramped and sore, but at least unmolested by the vermin in the soil.

You've gone hungry before, so at first it is the dress that draws the most of your ire; still not fully dry and as restrictive as ever, it makes you feel as if there were irons on your ankles. It has always been a problem for you; the dresses you wore were once your mother's and your sister's and they were both tall, taller than you. But it never felt that difficult to walk in it, it never felt like something you wanted to curse.

There are moments when you want to just strip yourself from it, stay in the cloak and nothing else, but you'd die if you had to go naked. There are moments when you instead think of taking a knife to it, shortening it. It never gets past a stray thought. There is something in the thought of cutting it high that disturbs you, viscerally, in ways you don't quite understand. It is just wrong to destroy something like that. It is just wrong to wear something like that. So you do nothing with it, stay in it and grow less and less comfortable with each passing moment.

After a while, the forest thins and you emerge onto a large clearing. There are fields here, and on the fields, bowed down with their hands in the soil, you see women. As the trail takes you closer, you soon recognize them by their hunched-down frames and bundles of stray grain in their hands. Gleaners, picking up the leftovers that the harvester would not deign to dig up from the dirt and detritus of the soil himself. You slow down and feel the hunger inside unwind to remind you that you still have not eaten. You step from the path and bend down to pick a stalk of wheat.

They notice you, too, their heads turning to face you. Owl-like, they freeze in place at the sight of you, eyes locked. The weight of their hungry stares makes you straighten. You don't understand. Are not the fields open to all paupers of the world to glean from? It is how the saintly faith teaches. Why would they want you away?

The realization creeps on you slowly as you see them take a step back, then another. You recognize their fear and then, belatedly, the source of it. The blade of your spear gleams red-bright in the sharp sun. They are not staring at you, not at your covered face or meagre frame. It is the bare weapon that draws the entirety of their attention. They are preparing to flee.
Do they see a brigand in you? There is something unbearable in the way every twitch of the spear on your shoulder is unerringly followed by them, in how they seem afraid to as much as blink. They expect you to hurt them, force them away. You try to step back from the field, and wave an open hand at them, as if to indicate that you mean them no harm. But they remain still and tense and you can't linger. Hurriedly, you turn away and return to the trail. Within moments, they are behind you, but their eyes track you all the way until you again enter the woods. You don't even have to turn to see that; you can feel it. It chases you away.

Carrying a weapon in the open – it is such a simple thing. And yet, the change is so palpable. They were not looking at the dress peeking from under the cloak, the dress you wanted to tear and hide. They were not looking at the meagre frame or at the eyes barely visible through the folds of clothing wrapped around your head. All they could see was the spear and the danger posed by it. You realize that if you had shouted at them, or even shaken it, they'd have fled. The notion makes you hold onto the spear tight. If you can make others afraid of you, then you won't have to fear them. Yet, there is something to that thought that feels wrong, some hidden fault you can't quite name.

Then, the hunger swells up and for a moment, you think only of it. You look around for another crop of herbs you could pluck and chew on to keep it off your mind. But the underbrush here is bare, save for an odd patch of lichen and moss. You follow the trail for a while longer, hoping to run across something – anything – before finally realizing that it is along the road that all will have been plucked and stripped. So you step off it, and promising yourself that you won't go far, move between the trees.

You find nothing at first, so just walk in a straight line, confident that this airy, spacious wood will not betray you. Along the way you find what you have been looking for: patches of sorrel and bear garlic, the soil near them disturbed by the animals grazing. Then you notice berry-bushes nearby and start picking; you don't recall them being that enjoyable before. You are not done until your hands are entirely drenched in the dark juice, but even then you gather some more for the next day.

The hunger momentarily sated, you turn and head back towards the trail. It strikes you that the forest around you is beautiful in a way have not appreciated before. Its empty spaces and green floor given an open feel, free of that oppressive gloom and shadow of the woods around your home. There is sun here, and even a taste of the wind; the trees grow lithe and sleek. It feels safer, and even the sounds of the animals in the distance don't stir up that much fear and worry. You breathe a bit easier. Even the soil under your feet seems soft; the pine needles prick gently, and there are few rocks or hard roots to trip or stub.

In all of that, you miss the trail and become hopelessly lost.

A part of you yells, somewhere in the back of your head, that you should panic. Scream for help. Scramble around. Do something to find the trail again, to be on a way once more. And yes, you worry, you worry a lot; you are tense and your thoughts swirl back to all the dangers of the woods you have heard of. Yet, the fear does not cut it past that, past worry and tension. The panic you feel does not come.

You stumble through an expanse of trees, fallen trunks, ridges and bushes that feels and seems all the same to you; it is likely you have left the path so far behind that you will never find it again. But after all, wasn't it what you were after? You crossed the river to enter the forest and become lost in it. To follow your sister's road, to some far-away heart of old growth. Trails, roads that lead to somewhere: you wish you could follow them. But they are not for you. It's hard to say that you enjoy being lost. You wish you weren't. It is just how things are.

The Saints smile on, though, and before the day is done, you stumble through a broadleaf grove and out into another clearing, neatly fenced; and beyond the fence, you see a house, large, larger than your family's, and you hear voices and smell food. One of the many families that live scattered through the forests; perhaps it was even one of their fields that you have passed by earlier today.

You hesitate at first. You remember how the gleaners looked at you, and you know that a dress and a spear are no match and that they will see it if you show it to them. But you are not a person of the woods, not yet, and the berries and sorrel are no meal. The sky darkens; you don't want to sleep with the ants again.

You pass the fence and with a barking dog announcing your arrival, you walk to the door and ask for hospitality.

***

They seated you on the place of honour, opposite of the high seat where the father of the house sat. Although his hair were like old silver, nothing in his posture betrayed a single hint of weakness. In the oil-lamp light, the bands of gold he wore around his wrists seemed to burn with inner fire of intensity such that only the fervor in his booming voice could match. When he spoke, he gripped the carved pillars around the high seat and as he did, his muscles bulged.

His sons were at his side, each a younger image of him; fair-haired, bright-eyed, full of bluster and laughter. To frown seemed foreign to them, to whisper: a travesty. In that they were not much different from the cousins and nephews on the low bench, sitting around you and drinking the ale rolled out to celebrate the arrival of an unexpected guest. Even the women at the cross-bench, wives and concubines, were cheerful and hardly quiet. Flustered with drink, they were easily match for their kin.

You feel out of place.

It's in everything you do. It's how you don't know how to prop the spear against the wall so that it doesn't appear as a slight to the house. It's in how the weapon draws the curiosity of the house-father's sons and yet you can't even explain to them from what land does this foreign weapon come. It's in how you grip the drinking horn awkwardly when they pass it to you, trying to unlearn the dainty woman's grip in the moment and yet failing to hold it like brothers and sons. It's how you are quiet to their shouts and sullen to their laughter.

It is not like they didn't notice the dress or how you looked when you removed the wraps from your face. But they also saw the cloak and spear and even if they watched your awkward failing at playing someone you most certainly are not, they pretended not to see. Instead they treat you like they would a drifter, a man of the woods, a man of the road. You can't even protest; it is this good grace that they extend without even being asked for it that allows you fill your belly to the point of being sick, that makes it so that a horn is constantly pushed into your hands, always fresh with ale. The harvest is behind them, and so is the war-going; the coffers are as stocked as the larders, and they do not skimp on anything.

There is a strange feeling that sprouts inside of you as the feast progresses. It takes root somewhere in the gut and creeping around the stomach, it extends its stalks into the throbbing heart in the chest clenched by some kind of pressure that bears down on you from all sides. You feel its growth but pay it no heed until it squeezes its vines suddenly and you almost retch, excuse yourself wordlessly, step out to catch a bit of fresh air. The bustle and cheer ring behind you and you hate yourself for hating that. How can they treat you like someone you are not? How can they mock you? You see it, you are sure of it: they cannot tell you in the face that you are just a usurper, some stupid girl pretending to be a warrior, pretending to be free, and yet still wearing a dress as if going to a wedding after tonight. And still no one mentions, no one does anything! They just look at you with something in their eyes, some pity like they would offer to a beggar or a cripple.

You don't want those feelings and these thoughts but they are out of your control. You try to swipe them away from your mind, but they resist, cling to the underside of your skull with a tenacity of a malignant tumour.

When you return, they notice that there is something wrong about you and try to lift your spirit like good hosts would. The father of the house tells the stories of war-making, of conquest and of tender love won by sword and shield. Even though everything about you is fake, they treat you like a warrior. You don't want to revolt against that even though everything inside of you twists and churns at the thought.

As the night drags on and the lights die down, the feelings inside you quiet a bit, and in their wake, there is a new kind of fear. You watch the women so drunk they are almost asleep and men who spent themselves all on feasting and shouting and laughing and you wonder why did that hate find such a fertile ground in the undergrowth of your flesh and bone. It terrifies you – not in the blood-curdling way a howl of a wolf would, but rather as a mounting sense of wrongness you can't shake – that those feelings are something so entirely outside of your control, that you can't squeeze them back into some sealed chest from which they will never surface again.

You want open your mouth to speak, to say that your clothing is worn down and useless and if they could offer you the garments for a man, that would make you appear more like what you should be, then you would be forever grateful. But you know you won't. The mere thought makes you squirm. You are sure that if you do, they will finally call your bluff and tell you that you are not a man.

It's not like you ever wanted to be one. Right?

One of the men whispers something to you; you feel his breath on your skin, damp and reeking of beer. It snaps you out of your thoughts; you turn to face him and freeze as he leans, as if to rest his face on your shoulder. Before the whine can escape your mouth, another man – one of the sons – reaches over the table, shoves him out of the way. He tumbles to floor, already asleep. The son starts to talk very fast, blurting out an apology and you don't quite understand for what. The booze is going into your head, too.

When you return to your thoughts, they are a jumbled mess you have no idea how to untangle. The only thing that is clear is some sense of disdain for all of this, for this obvious falsehood, and above all else, for yourself. For the fact that you are going along with it just for the promise of a full stomach and a shelter for the night. For the chance to ask for- no, you are not returning to that thought. Even if it too refuses to leave.

The feast starts to drag. More and more depart for sleep and ale stops flowing; for that, you are glad. The son that knocked away the cousin who tried to touch you talks to you some more, and you really don't know what any of his words even mean. They've been so good to you and yet contempt swells in your throat.

They offer you a place to sleep in the fire-room, not far from the house-father's bed-closet. They even offer you a blanket that you can spread on the floor so that you don't have to tarnish your cloak even more. You lie down, hoping that the sleep will come soon. It doesn't. There is something wrong with you, you grow increasingly certain. Something awful and twisted, that makes you resent them even though you know you shouldn't. You know how to be a good daughter, a good woman, and what are you now? A runaway freak playing at something false, someone who shouldn't be allowed under a respectable roof, a fake warrior in a woman's dress. Booze still clouding your mind, you come to the only available conclusion. It can't continue like that.

You wait until you think that everyone has gone sound asleep and then start to crawl forward, careful not to stumble over a sleeping man. There is a chest you remember noticing, put against the wall, a bench by day. You pray to saint Egil of exiles that they did not close it for the night, and your prayers are answered.

The lid screams as you push it open. You almost drop it when you hear someone behind you twist and groan, but manage to hold it up. No one is waking, and you can do what you set out to do. Rob the house that gave you the finest of hospitalities. You reach a hand inside and find what you expected to – your fingers touch fabric. Clothes, the finest linen and leather the house has, stored for weddings and funerals and the greatest feast. You lose breath.

When you pick through them, you do so blindly and quickly, wanting nothing more than to be done with it, to find a pair of leggings and a shirt, take it in your hands and run away; you are not staying under this roof a moment longer. You find them soon enough. But not only.

It is under some linen shirt that your hands scout out something else. A fat pouch; it clinks as you move it. The sound of gold is easily recognizable. The house's wealth. Coins, most likely – at least as far as you can tell just from feeling them. A lot of them, too. Maybe not a fortune, but enough to afford much. It'd be so easy to steal it along the clothes. What's one sin to another?

At that notion you balk, physically. It hasn't been a week since you ran and you are already a robber? Those people did nothing to deserve this from you. Whatever you feel for them is what is wrong with you. Right? You still have some dignity?

Right?

You hold the lid open and decide.

[ ] You're not a thief. Steal nothing.
[ ] You don't care for the wealth. Take only the clothes.
[ ] Fuck 'em. Fuck everything. Steal whatever you can.​

 

[Gargulec]

5. Gloria

The lid of the chest is very heavy. You have to lean on it to prop it up and keep it from smashing your thieving hand. As you dig through the wealth of the house that received you, you become strained. There is an exhausting element to this despicable work. Still, you showcase admirable resolve in pursuing it. You are in to the elbows, then to the shoulders.

It comes to you a moment later, when you lean deeper in, resting your hip against the edge of the chest and almost diving inside to bury yourself in cloth and gold. It's a name of that strange feeling which gripped you so tight earlier, during the feast, and hasn't let go since.

That name is disgust.

It is not a coffer you're in, but a midden-heap. It is not cloth and gold you sink into, but manure and offal. It stains what it touches; your skin burns where thievery brands it.

You didn't even hesitate much. You saw an opportunity and slid down all the way to dust where snakes and rats swarm. With scantily any shame you sought to steal from those who hosted you so graciously, who treated you with nothing but kindness. You recoil and the lid slams shut, a bang loud enough to stir others from sleep. But they just groan tiredly, still too addled by the feast to notice your crime. You crawl back to your spot, still gagging on bile.

A thief is the rankest kind of a creature, at home only in the sewage. What she touches is sullied, her name is a curse. A branch and a rope are too good for her; that scavengers even touch her unburied corpse is an underserved kindness. There is no room for her among men, because they are she is not one of them. She is vermin, and as vermin, she is met with disgust.

You are vermin.

You know this in your gut and in your bones. It's in the taste of acid on your tongue. It is in the shame that burns your skin. It is in trying to cry at your own misery and finding that tears won't flow for one such as you. Lies you've propped yourself with all your life come apart and you face what you really are. You spasm, as if trying to tear yourself free from what lives inside you. But you can't. Even if you tear yourself open, it will remain inside of you, this undeniable truth. Wishes burn through your mind: that you were anyone else, that you worn born better, luckier, saner, that you were born right. But you weren't and all you can do is concede to this notion.

A man respects the ties of kinship that bind him. A reptile abandons them and runs the wild alone. A man shows who he is openly and with pride. An insect hides her nature behind false colours. A man would sooner die than break the law and custom. A rat steals what she wills. A man knows he is a man. Vermin knows she is vermin.

You wish they'd never allowed you past the door, but how can you blame them for not noticing who you really are? They couldn't peer through skin, through lie and pretense, see the filth you feel roiling just beneath. But there is someone else under this roof, someone else who lives in this that however greater and wealthier, is a home just like the one you left behind. Someone you can't fool. You curl down, press your hands to your temples and shut your eyes tight. Your lips twist into wordless prayers for the sweet odour of her rotting flesh to stop filling the air. The Saints do not listen to you today; they pay no mind to ones such as you.

Even in the dead of the night, you can hear the flies that circling over her putrefying carcass. She is be here, as she is around any hearth and under any roof. She sees what you are and she will not allow the vermin to live among men. You will not flee from her to a fairer place. Wherever good men of law, custom and honour raise a home and farm, you will find her invited in, rotting on the floor, silver laid on her chest.

You open your eyes and see what was left of her face, lying right next to you. Lichen covers her skin, glowing faint silver and blue, and in its light, you see the squashed fruit of her lips twist and curl into a grin.

You scream at the top of your lungs, louder still. Everyone jumps awake, but before they can even see what is going on, you are already grabbing your spear and cloak and smashing your shoulder straight into the door, through them and into the open air, where her ghost won't follow. You run past the hayfield, past the fence, and into the darkness beyond.

The woods close around you and welcome you as their own.

Their hands are branches that reach to you and scratch against your skin; their caress draws blood. But even as they smash you in your face over and over again, you know that they care for you. When they see that the pace of your mad dash is constrained by that accursed dress, they make it snag on a root, bringing you down and bruising you. But when you lift yourself up, the fabric is torn, and you step lengthens. You run like a creature of the forest. They make you fall again and again, so that you wound yourself on rocks and sharp growth, again and again until your knees and hands are a mess of bruised meat. And yet you run, run until your chest burns with exhaustion, until you can barely breathe and even then you push yourself, ever away from homes of men, which will always be her haunt.

You can't see the sky when you finally fail to lift yourself up from another fall. You lie sprawled, limbs refusing to listen to your commands, twitching feebly as you try to move them. The pain of overexertion, emotion and physical hurt crashes into you in a numbing wave, and you give up on trying to rise. Blood congeals on your face and on your knuckles. There is a darkness around you, but is different than the pitch-black of a night under a roof. Even though there is no shine of the moon nor stars to be seen, the dark you are in is imperfect. It crawls and teems, like bubbling pitch. The woods never sleep and never stay still.

Insects find you and climb over the mound and valleys of your body. Birds stir at your passage and at your fail. Other beasts scream and growl in the shadows, their eyes flickering like wisps between the unseen branches and trunks. There is no doubt that when the sun comes up, there will be no tracing back the path, and there will be no return. You are lost, thoroughly and perfectly.

In a way, it comes as a relief.

It had to be some kind of lunacy that possessed you to seek shelter among men, around their fires and under their roofs. You are not kin to them, no more than you were a fellow to that drifter in a green cloak. That you pretend to be drifter, a wandering man, does not make you one. Under the cloak and wraps, there is no man, but vermin that does not belong where men dwell. Now that you think of it, it feels like something you have always known. But only she could see through your lies and chase you out to where you belong.

It's so funny to think about it that way, but it's not something you can deny. She ran the woods and you feared them; she lived as a boy would and you put every effort to be the girl you should. And now you are lost in the realm of wild beasts, where monsters make their lairs, where there is no law and custom, and you know it is the only place you are safe from her.

In the end, were you really the good one of the two? When the family asked, she obeyed, she abandoned what she loved and she did her duty. You never saw her hesitate nor question, not even when it led straight to her death, valued at three hundred ounces of fine silver.

In the end, isn't what being the good daughter means? That you couldn't bear the thought of it is proof enough for you to accept that you were always a fake. You could have pretended, but the moment you were put to a test you failed, and you don't even regret that. You wish you could. You hate yourself for that, but deep inside, you know that it was never really a choice.

Maybe going into the woods is death. You have nothing: a spear you don't know how to wield, a cloak you shouldn't be wearing, a brush and a mirror of a woman that you are not. Those are no tools of survival. But it is on your own terms. Unlike living there, with always by your side, reminding you always what goodness in the world is. Three hundred ounces of silver over a rotten corpse. Peace over untended graves.

It is what a good daughter want, but you take comfort in the notion that as vermin, nothing stops you from hating it to the core.

Exhaustion of your mad dash spreads through you like a soothing balm, purging the lingering bile, the taste of disgust. Here, you can be a thief or you can be yourself, and the wild beasts will not judge you. Here, you can be the worst monster, and you will be at home. You don't move and allow ants to crawl over you; you listen to owls hooting, to distant howls of wolves, you listen to the buzz of night flies.

When the light comes, first you spend a while just lying on your back and watching the sun philter through the canopies above. Here, the trees grow tall and wide. Their canopies tie together, a vaulting of sorts. The morning barely reaches the forest-floor where you rest. Only a few scattered rays of summer make it through. It's so different than the woods yesterday. It's so different than sleeping at home.

After you are done, you shake the night's detritus from yourself and take the knife to what remains of your dress and cut it at your knees, making it like a shirt. Then, you unwrap the mirror and stare into your own reflection for a while. Even past all the grime and blood covering it, it's still a womanly face. If you clean up, put on new clothes, no one will see anything wrong with you.

This has to change.

It's not easy, cutting your own hair. You try to hold the mirror in one hand and the knife in the other, but then you find no good way to catch your locks on the blade. Then you try to prop it against a rock, but it balances poorly and you can't really get a good look at yourself. Somehow, even with what you are doing, the thought that you'd make a hack-job out of it bothers you.

She manages to sneak up on you during this struggle. You don't notice her until her quick hands dart under your arms, and close around your wrist. You drop the mirror and open your mouth to shout, your heart coming up to your throat, but she snaps a green bracelet around your hand and the scream comes out as a quiet sigh. You calm, all worry gone in an instant. She comes into view moment later, lifts up the mirror and brings it closer to you, so that you can finally see into it easily. But you are too curious to finish what you were doing and instead give her a solid look.

From a distance, she would be easy to mistake for a human, but humans don't have curved horns growing out of their foreheads and don't have teeth that are all sharp and jagged. Humans have feet, not cloven hoof on legs that bend the wrong way. Humans speak, and she just stares at you, baring her fangs with something that may be a smile. Whatever that expression means, it feels warm and you yearn to trust it.

She waits for you to appraise her, even as your eyes slid down the oddly slim frame, covered with a tattered remains of a cloak and a shirt; beneath it, you see ink staining her skin, painting it with vivid reds and greens. She appraises you in turn, squinting. You wonder what she sees in you, but her eyes are a barrier you can't get past. Nothing about her seems familiar: even the way she holds the mirror strikes you as old, long fingers smudging the polished brass as she lifts it to your eyes.

The thought occurs to you that she must be a Malefactor, then, an evil spirit sent after you. Fitting, then, that she is here to help you with what you are trying to do. You have always been rather proud of your hair: they were a mark of care you put in yourself, and a distinction of womanhood. You cut them close to the skin, as evenly as you can. She watches you as you do, patiently keeping the mirror up, moving it so that it is always in front of your eyes and in turn, you politely try to ignore the fact that her tongue slips from between her lips to lick them ever so often and that there are morsels remaining stuck between her teeth that look like raw meat. You can't think about that. You have something else to focus on. When you are finally finished, she puts it down at your feet, then shakes her head, frowning. Her hair grows long and lush.

You guess you she doesn't like the look. You shrug, then crouch to pack the mirror back. You don't want to lose it. It's a small surprise that you don't even feel that much of a loss when you look at your hair littering the underbrush. You'd have expected getting rid of them to feel like something bigger, but as is, it barely gets a rise out of you.

It's a really calm day, and in truth, you feel light as a feather. Birds sing praise of the world above and the forest-floor is soft under your feet, like a bed of feather. Even the splinters of old bones you step around do not menace; they are just an ornament, nothing more. You linger down for a while, allowing this peace to seep into you, wash away all that sadness and all that rage you feel.

When you raise your head, she is gone. You blink, then notice that her hooves left clear impression in the soft underbrush, easy enough to follow. You rub your temples, the bracelet she gifted you scraping against your skin. There is something you feel that is slipping your mind, but you are not sure what it is. Likely some dregs from the night, some lingering fears you should better leave behind. In any case, she seemed kind, and maybe you should follow her? It is not like you know your way around the woods, so some guidance would likely help.

[ ] Follow her trail.

[ ] Focus! Something is wrong.

 

[Gargulec]

6. We Will Do Great Things

You rub your head, the green bracelet brushing gently against your skin. It takes you a moment to find a name to the feeling in your gut which for once isn't revulsion. Ah. It's curiosity. Anticipation like you haven't felt in weeks, months, maybe ever. Wherever she's gone to, you want to follow.

Everything aligns to make the day good on you. The morning sun shines through the canopies, light and warm, but they also give enough shade to keep the summer's scorch away. You pack your things and run a hand through your messy haircut. You don't remember why the woods ever scared you, at all. When you put on your wraps, you smile under them.

Her feet – no, her hooves – left clear impression in the underbrush, and they are not difficult at all to follow. Although her trail snakes through dense thickets of fresh growth, over high ridges and down steep gorges, it never once fails to lead you safely and quickly. The woods are gentle on you as follow with your eyes down to the ground, always on the lookout for her next mark. Branches brush against you, but their touch is a soft caress. Roots seem to move out of the way of your feet when they would trip you and raise to give a hard platform where mud bars the way. Among the trees, you spot the beasts of the wild, watching you. But in the eyes of the foxes and wolves and stags and boars that meet you, you see no fear and no hostility. You pass between them either unseen, or thoroughly accepted. Even sustenance is amply provided to you. You drink from brooks too rapid for you to see a reflection of something ill in them, and eat from tall brushes heavy with blood-red fruit which taste sweet like honey and are still heartier than any meal known to people of the Saintly faith.

And yet, it is not that comfort that awes you the most about the chase after a woodland temptress. It takes you a while to notice, but somewhere during your sun-soaked road, you realize that there's been a voice in your head that kept screaming poison and curses into your ear ever since-

-you pause, both in your walk and in your thoughts. The trees around you wind so to support you when you lean against them and try to remember if there was ever a time when there was no voice following your every step and action. Maybe you were free of it back then, back home, when there were others around you drowning its screams with their voice and presence. But it was there, in the undergrowth of your memory, in the dark places of lightest days. That voice, that part of you, had always been your surest companion. And now it is gone, like a pain you don't even realize you had to live with until it abates. The thought occurs to you as a parliament of birds gathers on the branches above to sing peace to you that maybe it hasn't left you entirely, maybe it remains buried and sealed somewhere deep inside, muffled and muzzled. If that's the case, then you are not going to go poking through the underside of your skull, looking for its den.

You are not stupid. It's not some miracle, it's not an act of the Saints. They are not heaping their gifts on you. The creature put a spell on you. You crouch down, sinking deeper into your thoughts, and the forest offers you a place to sit and consider. You pull yourself up a flat, moss-greened rock it presented to you, crouch on it, then lift your wrist to your eyes. The bracelet is there, vivid green. Careful not to break it, you touch it and flinch. The leaves are prickly – it feels like there are some unseen barbs that grow on their underside. You imagine how much it would have to hurt to rip it away and shudder.

Yet, you pluck at it again, the jolt going down your arm and into your chest. When you close your eyes you imagine long roots growing from the thorns, weaving around your muscle and bone, then beneath your ribs into that secret place of your body where everything vile in you dwells, and you imagine them tying it up, binding it and sealing in a thick net that it will never allow it to come back. Then you lay back on the stone and allow the sun to come and shine on you some more. You catch a short nap, for once alone from that rancid side of you.

When you wake up, the bliss is still with you and so is a growing sense of need to keep it there. If that creature knows how to keep you with it, you must never leave her side, because your life feels good, good and easy and most of all, simple. There is something hollow to this quiet inside of your mind, but maybe it how it should be, without the tension, without the pain, without the filth and the fury. Maybe this is why others- no, you don't want to think about them. You don't want to think about the world that is behind you and that's no longer yours. There is a road ahead of you that will take you to where a girl that you suspect to be a Malefactor weaves peace into bracelets and snaps them on the unsuspecting. If this is temptation, you are falling all the way for it, no stops and no brakes.

There is a sense of elation when you realize that you can think thoughts like that and not have them be knives that stab into your mind, that you can think them and not want to tear your own flesh from your bones to rip away everything that's wrong and throw it into the offal-pit where it belongs. Now, those thoughts come and go, like waves. No barbs, no edges, nothing. Just the silken surface of a mind like a sea-smoothed stone.

When you finally slide down the rock and return to following the trail, the sun is well on its way towards the horizon. But the summer days are long and you are not afraid of the dark. The woods are gentle on you as long as you march after her; besides, soon you do not even have to follow the hoof-marks. Enormous stones rise from the underbrush, and her path winds from one to another.

At first you think them to be just ordinary rocks, but each one you pass by stands taller than the previous, until they appear like white obelisks, tangled in vines, mottled with moss. Then they start to appear in pairs, triples and more. Sometimes they stand in neat rows bent at an angle or curled, and sometimes they are in scattered clumps so grown into the fabric of the forest that you would never notice them if not for the trail leading you through the weave of stalk and root from one to another. Slowly, you start to suspect that there must be something more to them and so when you pass by a row of five, arranged like upright fingers, from a thumb to a pinkie, your curiosity takes the better of you and with the butt of your spear you poke at the underbrush near the base. With less surprise than you would have expected out of you, you find the shared base they are built on. The shared base they grow from.

The first full hand appears in view not long after, buried to the middle of the palm, but unmistakable. When you approach its base, you have to look up to see the tips of the fingers; the smallest one of them is easily your height. The light of early evening paints the rock in beautiful roses and yellows.

The forest you walk through is no longer just trees. Palms and fingers of white stone break the soil one after another, some closed into fists, other spread and open as if trying to grasp at something. They rise up in hundreds while old vines spread between their fingers like cat's cradles. Like canopies of tall trees, the vines then grow from hand to hand, forming a complex, living moss. And then there are some hands that rip themselves free of the soil so high that you can see the rock wrists and arms frozen in their paused ascent towards the sky. Trees, both meek birch and alder, as well as mighty ash and oak hide in their shadow. The tribe that lies buried beneath the woods, no matter how long dead, still clings to some hope that one day, it will rip itself free from the soil's shroud.

But until that day comes, in this forest of hands, other creatures dwell, and among them, the Malefactor you were following. If not for the rhythmic clapping of her hooves on the side of a bent, stone finger, you would not have noticed her. The hand she took for her home rests half-curled on its side, forming a done of sorts. The fingers are spread, and from the one you assume to be the index-finger, a long curtain of junk, refuse, garbage and bone braided with twine that hangs. She hides behind it, beneath the roof of the palm, and only her legs are visible.

There is a stink coming from the inside, intense enough that you stop short of passing past the curtain and instead wait for her to take notice of you. But she doesn't seem to realize you are there, sitting absent-mindedly on her rock bench, looking somewhere at the network of vines spreading from the knuckles of her home to wide-spread fingers of the hand thrusting up in front of her. Or maybe looking past them and into the blue, empty sky. You don't know, but whatever it is, you don't want to disturb her. Instead, you sit on the dry ground, wave away the stench, and take a good look around yourself.

What you first took for a ramshackle collection of garbage reveals itself to be something else as you examine it closely. Woven into string, you see old nails and yellowed-out knuckle-bones, age-hardened wood but also glinting pieces of gold and silver – halves of a ring, bent bracelets, pieces of a clasp. They are all mangled beyond use, and strike you as very old. What you can make out of their craftsmanship is unlike the wealth of your people.

Yet, the familiar is not entirely absent from this strange forest. Not far from her curtain, thrust into a patch of dry soil, there is a pine log, paint flaking off one of its sides. Still, the figure depicted remains recognizable. Someone's unsteady had has painted it with a figure of a woman carrying in one hand a candle and in the other a knife. Saint Etheria, you recall her name, who listens to the prayers of thieves and jugglers. A few bones, scraps of rotten meat clinging to them at places, just out from the ground in front of it. Offerings, you assume.

As the Malefactor fails to address you, or even appear to notice your arrival, you grow restless and pace around her home. There is more garbage strewn behind it, soggy wood and fabric that comes apart in your hands when you try to grab it. Bones too, some of them you think to be human, as well as pieces of broken instruments: a body of a harp, a few strings still attached to it, a pierced drum. Junk, all and all, equally mixed with old remains. Above it, there looms a shape of a small cart, shattered into a pile of logs and splinters, but still recognizable. An ox that drove it once is near, or at least its skull, affixed to a pole.

Even with the bracelet keeping the worry away, you find this graveyard of sorts oddly disquieting and so return to the front, to the Malefactor, only to find her gone. But you don't have to wait long for her return. Before you can throw yourself into a pointless search, she sneaks in front of you, as soundless as in the morning. In her bloodied hands, she carries a pair of pheasants. She smiles to you and then bows her head, taking a bite out of one of the birds, feathers and all.

The fact that you feel no revulsion surprises you, although maybe it should. Still, when she offers you one of her catches, you do not follow her example and eat it raw, all the way to the bones. Instead, you start looking for a way to prepare it. But even though it is something you know how to do, there is no tub here, no fireplace, no well, nothing. You stumble around for some time, then deciding that you are not all that hungry anyway, you decide to leave the bird for tomorrow. You should have plenty of time.

The Malefactor doesn't invite you in, and for that you are thankful. Instead, taking use of the warmth, you find a bed of moss, spread your cloak on it and lay yourself to sleep. No dreams bother you, and the lingering blessing makes it so that when you wake up, you feel rested, like you haven't felt in weeks.

The pheasant, however, is already gone by that time, and a few scattered feathers around the Malefactor, still dumbly sitting on her bench, indicate that she took back her gift, likely assuming you were making no use of it anyway. However, you don't mind, not much. It gives you an opportunity to instead wander about this strange forest, in search of more of those fruits that sustained you yesterday.

They grow plentifully, although never near the bases of the monolithic hands. Within an hour or two, you have gorged yourself and gathered enough for the rest of the day. Not long after you also find a brook to drink from, and wash yourself. There is something deeply pleasurable to the simple act of scrubbing yourself clean as the summer's warmth makes sure to keep the chill away. As such, you stay at the bank, far longer than you had any need to, then wander down the creek for an hour or two. The forest of hands spreads far and the farther in you go, the higher they grow. A thought occurs to you that maybe if you go long enough, far enough, you will find the stone giants uncovered, come face to face with their collected, still visages. But that would be a great trek, and you do not feel ready, not yet.

There are many animals here, but they all keep their distance. In a way, it is different to being stalked or feared; you see many beasts, wolves and bears and many-fanged creatures you do not know how to name and how to describe stare at you from their dens and abodes in the trees and in the hands. They allow you to pass in peace and seldom follow. Only the birds seem to take some interest in you, and a few blackbirds keep you in remote company as you investigate the creek and the forest.

That there are other Malefactors living in the woods seems beyond obvious to you. You find traces of them – footprints too large to belong to a man, or sacrifices spread before rock-carved altars to Saints you do not recognize, or sometimes echoes of haunting melodies played on syrinx and drums – but never see them directly. At best, they are a blur, a motion or a shadow in the corner of your eye, fleeing from you and leaving alone in the shadow or arching hands. Idly, you wonder if, given enough time, they will come to see you as one of their own, whoever and whatever they are.

The woods, after all, are so welcoming that they might as well be a new home for you. When you return in the evening to the creature who brought you here you find her gnawing on a split carcass of small doe. She doesn't eat much and what is left, she throws back into the darkness behind her curtain of refuse. At least now you know where the stench comes from. But that's fine. From your treks, you managed to gather some wood and some kindling, and work on putting on a fire. She watches you from her ledge, either curious or bemused, and when you fail, she sneaks closer to crouch over you like an owl or an ill spirit. In the dark, her eyes shine gold and carefree, but you never feel threatened.

The next day is no different than the previous one, and the one after is the one where you finally manage to start a bonfire. In the licking flames, you roast some of the her prey and eat it alone as she watches, always distant. In the morning, she sticks her hands in the ashes and smears them on the surface of the hand that is her home, painting strange patterns. When the space in her reach runs off, she swirls the same lines onto her flesh, where they remain until evening. This time, she sits close to the fire and rips the roasted meat from your hands, before spitting it out angrily. From that point on, she refuses to share anything you have cooked.

There are a few more days before you forget to keep track of time and lose it, although the loss itself does not register until many days later. It's the same pattern, day bleeding into night bleeding into day. Explore the empty woods and be respected by the beasts. Tread in the wake of strangeness but never see more than a glimpse of it. Share some carrion with your host who never seems any interested in you, but also never fails to make use of the ashes you provide her.

There is a simplicity to all of that, a mindless quiet that in time makes you understand that she is not feral, but merely of this land and realm, and such petty human trappings, speech and the dramaturgy of life are as alien to her as the taste of cooked meat or the notion of language. It should terrify you, but it doesn't. The bracelet remains fast on your wrist and you don't touch it, fearful that it might damage it and weaken the spell.

To that simplicity there is also a certain hope that if you stay here long enough, it will erase all the memory of pain and its echoes that you still hear sometimes just before you wake will fade. That you will forget not only how it felt, but also that you have ever felt it at all, and maybe that you will become like your host, find yourself a den filled with rotting flesh and live there, empty, wild and without fear or concern.

But that hope is undershot by something not even the bracelet can suppress, and that is restlessness. The days are like water, flowing on without pause, and yet a measure of boredom slips its way into them. The forest is too kind on you and provides you too easily, and soon, you realize that you have time, more time than you ever thought a man or a woman could have at their disposal, and that time is also like water, running between your fingers, becoming lost without a hope of recovery. Without worry that it will one day run out – in truth, ever since she put the bracelet on you, you have not experienced a worry more pronounced than a grain of concern – you start to set out ever farther into the forest of hands, to find something that would occupy your mind and stave off this peculiar sense of boredom.

You find much.

There are more shrines like the one to Saint Etheria. You count at least a dozen, each depicting some other holy woman, and not two alike. Some of them are freshly painted, too, and you even manage to find one, lodged between a pair of stones so loosely that a stiffer gust of wind would surely knock it over, that is still wet. Sometimes, you stop and pray at them, and when you do, a feeling you can't quite describe overtakes you. Like elation, but incomplete. Yet, with each shrine you visit, it strengthens, and you feel closer, although unsure to what.

As you seek more of them, you start to notice a wolf that follows you, a lean, mean-eyed creature. However unpleasant he appears, you still get a sense that he has an interest in you that is not malign. When you chase after him on one cloudy day, he runs away and before long, you realize you are being led away. You break off the pursuit and return to your bonfire. When you sleep, you dream of warriors and bloodshed.

Sometimes, you follow your host onto her hunts, into a dark grove that spreads where the hands reach low. There are shadows there and whispers, and you never see her get the kill, but each day you spend with her where the sun fails to penetrate twisting canopies, you learn to listen to the heartbeat of that grove better and better. There is a heart that beats somewhere within it, and it reaches out. For her, or maybe for you.

Although you have a lot of time, you can't follow each of those leads, not to the end. And so, you come to the decision that you will devote your time to…

[ ] …praying at the shrines so that you can face the Laughing Painter.
[ ] …chasing the wolf so that you can see the battles waged in the Forest of Hands.
[ ] …hunting along with your host, until you find a way to the Beating Heart of the Woods.

Spoiler: A/N

I apologize for the update being delayed. It's been a bitch to write. Hopefully, the next one will come sooner and will annoy me less.[/quote]

 

[Gargulec]

7. Church Hymn for the Condemned

In the forest of hands, you soon lose the track of time. Day differs little from day and night differs little from night; the stars in the sky are as they have always been, and the summer's last breath lasts to no end. The sun gives you warmth aplenty, the brooks and rivers quench your thirst. Wherever you go, there you find fruit in the bushes, and leaves that are edible, and nuts, and all the other bounty of the woods. Therefore, there is no hunger for you, no basic want that would go unanswered.

Your host - the peculiar, sharp-toothed creature - soon stops paying you any significant attention. When you are near, she shares her bounty with you, and sometimes you catch her staring at you with those eyes that hide an intent you do not understand. But nothing ever comes off it, no conversation, no intimacy. Although you slowly set up a place to live near her den in the cusp of a stone hand, you never feel close. There are days when a sense of longing overcomes you, and you promise yourself you will follow her through her strange trails, but you never live up to that promise, and maybe are better off for it. Nothing in the woods threatens you, but in your gut you feel there are places where you should you go, groves that grow dark and tangled, where hands grasp at each other in a display of frozen anger. She prowls in their gloom, and perhaps belongs to it.

Therefore, you spend your time on different matters and different wanderings. You grow to know the beasts of this peculiar forest - the wolves and stags, and all the small game, and all the birds. For most of them, you do not have a name, and as there is no one to talk to about them, you let them be unknown to language. In that, you grow to recognize a kinship of sorts with them.

The neverending succession of summer days and nights is not worldly, and even as you are, you recognize that the place you have wandered into does not entirely belong to the temporal you fled from. Perhaps you should feel concern over that, but even as it buds, on the fertile grounds of worry in your mind, it never sprouts and grows. Something prevents it - distantly, you know it is the bracelet you wear, the one that allows you to think clearly and wander carelessly. You check on it every day, to see if it is as green and fresh as it was on the day she snapped it over your wrist. The way you are may be wild and may be inhuman, but at least it is simple. It is so much lighter on you than knowing the name of things, and knowing that name to be something terrible and awful. Here, you do not have to worry.

You leave your mirror wrapped in cloth and try to never come close to still water; it is not that you are afraid of your reflection, you keep thinking to yourself. You simply do not want to look at it. Why would you, after all. Here, no one can see you - and as such, there is no reason to be concerned about appearance. Your host lives wild, and you think of growing to be just like her. One day, you will forget, and then you will be finally free. The last shadows of memory, words without meaning and faces from the past you refuse will go away, and you will live like a wild beast, in one neverending today.

For that blessing, you pray.

You leave some of the forest's wealth at the feet of the shrine to Saint Etheria, and ask her to steal away from you the weight of memory. As you do not know that many prayers, you repeat a few you still remember. Speaking is a strange sensation, and a loathsome one too. When words come from your mouth, you remember more - and for that sake, you have to pray more. Her crudely painted lips do not answer your pleas, but you see something in her eyes, some glint, that allows you hope that she wants to watch over you and listen to you.

One night, you dream of her. The candle she carries in her hands gutters out, and in the last sparks of its light, she turns away and walks off into the distance. When you wake, you realize that she is not the Saint that will grant you your wish, and you need to seek more. With that goal in mind, you set out.

You find the next shrine on the same day. On a birch log, there is a figure of a Saint bent under the weight the boulders the heathen martyred her with. Her name you remember to be Suplicia, and she watches over the young. You repeat your prayer to her, and leave at her shrine berries and nuts. When you come to visit her the next day, they are gone, but her gaze hardens, and her smashes hand contorts itself into a rebuking gesture. She does not want to deal with you. You pray for forgiveness, and doubtful that you received it, set further out.

Next is Sanit Claudia, painted with ochre and soot on the side of a broken stone, once a finger. She holds a sword raised high, and her eyes judge all - she died praying for justice and she is the justice of the Saints. You consider praying to her, but she points the tip of her blade at your throat and you realize that she has little patience for criminals such as you. You pray that she sees the wronghood of her dismissal, and carry on.

Saint Clara is little more than a splash of moss growing over the trunk of a hand, but you recognize her with no difficulty. But she is dead, lichen growing over her limbs, and wants nothing to do with you. You understand her - the Saints are people, and even they deserve rest at the end. You leave her be.

From her abode, you fail to find the way back to your host's den, so you sleep under a shattered hand, between twisted fingers. A few wild creatures come to watch over you, and you are thankful to them.

In the morning, you find another Saint. Corvo is his name, and he watches over the exiles of all manners. You would pray to him, but he hushes you gently. Painted at his feet is the man he loved, sleeping, and he does not want you to stir him. It is a shame, too, because you find him beautiful in a way, but you know he will never be with you. Still, in his kindness, he points you to a secret path and you follow it through, making your way through thick growth and rubble of many broken limbs.

At its end, you come face to face with a Saint you do not know. Her halo is gold and fire, and blood drips from her fury-twisted face. Her hands clutch a sword, but unlike the one wielded by Claudia, it is not judgement, but retribution. You would talk to her, but she does not want to listen to you. She is after someone, and you don't know where he live, so she will not aid you. Still, you pray for her victory - but when she learns what you are after, she chases you off with a foul curse. Impressed as you are, you flee.

The road takes you deeper into the woods, where the hands join above, like some great canopies. In the darkness below, you almost miss the next Saint, painted with the richest oils of the world. He is unadorned, and carries nothing. You know that his name cannot be spoken, and when you pray at his feet, he caresses you like he would a child. But he has too many wards in his heavenly abode to take you in, and so he tells you that you must go alone. You do that, although the memory of his touch never leaves you.

But the next Saint helps. She wears a tattered cloak, and her flesh is black and white, marked with ink. She has no respect to anyone and in truth, she may be a Malefactor in disguise, having simply stolen the halo, but in her eyes you see something that you can't quite express, but which feels you with all the longing and all the envy in the world. Yet, when you try to pray for it, you can't find a name, and so she laughs at you. You endure her mockery.

She wears an iron chain for a necklace and tall boots, and she cuts her hair short. Her fists are never open, and always clutch a stone or a brick. Even though you don't think she has a name, you know what she is the patron of. She watches over the powerless, the angry, the ones who lash out. She is the Furious Saint.

You should be praying to her more. But there is not enough anger in you. And besides, the gift you ask for is the one she will never give. After all, Saints like her never forget, and nurture indignation like the holiest fire. You tug at the bracelet around your wrist, and when she gives you a long look, you let it be. She doesn't judge you for that. But you know it's not what she chose. Instead, you take her advice and keep on walking, because she promises you that there is something you will find in just a moment or two.

The next shrine you chance upon is unfinished. It's a slab of rock, like a tombstone. Near it, there is a creature crouched - a man so withered he may as well be a skeleton, nothing but skin tightly woven around frail bones. His beard is pristine white and drags a feet after him, and in his hand, there is a brush with which he calls into life a Saint.

He laughs as he works, because his is a joyous travail.

He is the first man you see in days or weeks; and yet, although you know you should be worried, you should be concerned, none such feelings come. There is something about him that is blessed; a man who allowed so many Saints to come to visit the temporal cannot be vile; or at least should not be. An aura of holiness surrounds him - he wears it like a mantle. It's the scent of spring flowers and the touch of peace, so grand that you are concerned that you should not be approaching him. That you are without that sacredness that would be required to approach one such as him.

Someone's voice - like your own, but not exactly - tells you that you should not close on him. That your presence is a taint his will not abide by. But the voice is weak, and the armband on your wrist heavy; the sound of his laughter drowns it out.

Still, you think you would disturb him, but he notices you before you can leave him be and motions that you should come close and watch his work - after all, it is such a wonder that he wants it to be shared. The Saint he paints too enjoys company - he is a talkative sort, and the moment he draws his lips, he tells you oh so many things. He tells you of his martyrdom, and of the beauty of the abode of the Saints, and of how men squander faith, and how beautiful the world is once you understand its purpose. There is no end to his chatter, and the painter chuckles at all of it in pure mirth.

You remain silent. In truth, the Saint's words bring you scant comfort and you feel them to be laced with falsehood. They are too easy and too smooth, unlike the fury you felt just moments ago. He notices that and lectures you that anger does not build, that anger is a poison, but you dismiss those concerns. You don't feel anger and you don't feel happiness. You just feel calm and all you ask from his is that he would give you this calm for all the time to come. Obviously he refuses, and before you can argue with further, the painter finishes his work and walks away. Preferring his company to the Saint's, you leave too.

Together, you wander for a long time. He doesn't speak to you, but instead hums to himself a cheerful tune, one that manages to lift even your own spirit - and so, you feel a pang of sadness when it abruptly cuts as he comes across a large rock. It's a tip of a finger, cracked at the second joint, fallen to the ground. Its sides are covered with lichen, but he scrapes it off quickly and reveals a white, smooth surface. He seats you on a trunk of a nearby, fallen tree, and primes the surface quickly. Then, he goes quiet for a moment, staring at you, frowning. When he turns back to his work, brush already in hand, he does not hesitate. With a bold gesture and a burst of laughter, he starts to paint.

Mesmerized, you watch the lines he draw curve towards each other, gain shape and substance, until you realize what it is that he is calling into being. It's a benediction. You watch him paint the Furious Saint give something to you, something you do not want, do not deserve and do not know how to use. A blessing you will carry out of the forest of hands and into the world that awaits your return.

A cold wind chills you and you realize that your stay here will not last. Not long. But long enough for you to fight for a gift that shouldn't be earned. The Furious Saint will give to you…

[ ] The Benediction of Rage and Refusal.
A spark of anger sets fire to the soul. It's not strength. It's not toughness. It's refusal to stop, even if you know you really should. It's telling the world 'no', even when it breaks your bones. You will be a berserker.

[ ] The Benediction of Madness and Lies.
It's the art of the Malefactors, lying to the world so well that it believes you. It's wisdom that brings little joy and power that they teach to be false and vile. But she is a Saint and she teaches that too. You will be a witch.​

 

[Gargulec]

8. She's Lost Control

There is a feeling that worms its way around your body as you watch the Laughing Painter work his art. It is a squirming, slithering, squelching thing, one that burrows just beneath the skin, leaving behind a hollow trail cold enough to burn. It is a familiar sensation, one that does not cause you to recoil in shock or horror; although not welcome, it seems to bring with itself memories. But just as it cannot pierce the fabric of your skin and emerge in the world in all of its sluggish glory, neither can those memories surface. A filament-like membrane keeps them separate from you, one that that allows enough light through for you to see the broadest outlines and shadows of color, but nothing more. Your fingers clutch the bracelet around your wrist and feel the places where the dead leaves have taken root. How and when did that happen, you do not seem to remember, but now you can feel them anchored to your flesh and bone, warped and woven into it. Briefly, you wonder if it is left for long enough, will it grow into you and one day fade from sight? From touch? Would it then become just a part of who you are, no longer possible to cut off and remove?

The thought has an unpleasant barb to it so instead you focus on the painting taking shape before you. The Laughing Painter's hands are a blur, and where he draws his paint from is a mystery to you; there is something arcane to the way mere swipes of his hand seem to leave behind vivid stains of color. At first, mere spectacle of this skill is fascinating. After a fashion, it reminds you of your brothers playing with flying axes, swift-handed, clear-eyed, never once missing a throw. You feel like you could watch him for hours, maybe days. Such is the truth, too. You lose track of the sun and stars above; for all you know days may really have passed really pass. In the shadow of the sky-grasping hands, time itself becomes suspect; something you know to exist, and yet can't quite bring yourself to believe in it.

It is only when the smudges of color gain shape and definition that you are shaken out of your stupor. The lines he draw twist and turn on themselves, into a shape you know to be human, yet too distorted and ugly to belong on a painting of a Saint. But you do not fail to recognize that they weave together into a stick-figure of sorts, all ripped lines and angry blotches of red and black. That figure is the Furious Saint. She looks nothing like on that painting before. She is just a girl, too young for the world, cheeks stained with soot and ochre; she is ugly and she is proud and you recognize her by the fire in her eyes. You know that given a choice, she would set it loose, allow it to burn and consume until there'd be nothing left but ash. You know that she cannot. No, this flame is not the kind that can ever leave her. You twist your hand around the bracelet, so hard that you feel the roots tear at you and you yelp in pain.

There is something terrifying about this girl you stare down. There shouldn't be. She is frail, she is not real, she is just some paint on an old log. You could destroy her. You could just turn away and leave it and she would be out of your eyes and out of your mind. And you sit and stare, and your heart swells, as if bruised. The Laughing Painter steps aside, still chucking, and reveals to you the last part of his work: a small, crude door, just a few lines of paint, and one or two splotches of black to indicate locks and bolts. The Furious Saint notices too, cracks her knuckles and smiles murder at you.

The door is closed for a reason. No one should be opening it. Not a even Saint. What is shut should stay so. It's dangerous. On your knees, you start to pray for her to leave it be.

She's your patron, not the kind of a Saint that would listen to your prayers. She turns and gives the door a kick; it doesn't budge at first, so she lifts a rock and smashes it into the lock. A terrible, ringing sound, too loud for you to handle goes through the forest, metal grating on rock. She does not relent. When it doesn't give at first, she smashes it again and again and again, drumming an ugly rhythm until finally there's a great crack and the lock falls open. Your heart threatens to rip your chest open and your stomach twists into a knot. You want to rip yourself up from the gravelly soil and dash, but the part of you that you hate, the one that is curious and sad, keeps you down. Just for a moment, just long enough to get a glimpse of what's inside.

You catch it, and immediately scream; at what's inside and at yourself, for learning it. You jump up and dash away, hoping your scream and fear will push it away, and it only brushes you. It's velvet touch makes you realize it's too late.

Soon, the calm of the forest descends on you again, cloyingly quiet. It almost makes you forget, but it can't change anything. You can remember or you can forget, you can run away and leave - but the door won't close again. The lock is destroyed and no more. Sooner or later, you will look back, into the door and past it.

You will see what no one was ever supposed to see; you will learn what no one was ever meant to learn. The cold certainty does not care for your fear and revulsion. You will see and you will learn.

How could you imagine the Furious Saint ever doing this to you? It feels like such a pointless act of cruelty. Everything was good. You watched that strange beast who led you here and dreamed of becoming like her, a mindless creature of a mindless forest, free of all burdens, of all thoughts. You slept well, and getting better by the day.

Now you know it was never going to last.

Perhaps it is nothing, you tell yourself. Perhaps it was just some bad fortune which will wash away in a day or in a week and you will forget again. Perhaps - and that thought brings you some stunted hope - there is more in the woods that can put its roots in your flesh and bone, tie you down to this place where you do not have to remember.

This hope joins the other worms beneath your skin, other slithering strands of thought. Soon enough, it also finds a measure of validation. Whatever drove you away from the Laughing Painter and his work fades, until it becomes just a dull throbbing in your chest, not nearly potent enough to be called paint. Black birds gather and flock around you. On the white stone of great hands they look like pox-marks. Those accursed beasts, bearers of bad news, keep their distance as you make your way back to where she is. She who will make the birds fly away. Leave you be. Make it so you don't have to listen to what they can teach you.

When you return, she is gone hunting; however, evening nears so you hope to see her return soon enough. Your things are in a disarray, scattered around the empty pit of the campfire like garbage and refuse, your spear buried in dirt, mould creeping up the side of your bundle. You don't care. Above, the birds circle then rest on the strands of moss that weave a cradle between the fingers of stone hands. They look down upon you in silence and you avert your eyes. You can't deal with them now. You can't listen with them now.

You have to hide.

Lost, you wander about, trying to find some shelter from this madness. But the late sun brings you no warmth and you find yourself wrapping yourself in your cloak tighter and tighter as you pace around the hand, pace about, look for her around every corner and in every nook. But she is not there, and neither are her charms. You are alone and helpless. The birds croak to you, and you hear their voice. They tell you to look up. Speak to them. They tell you that they are your companions, your kin. That there are things they want you to know.

Something inside of you - that stupid kid that did not run away when she should have had - wants to listen to them, but it would be crazy thing to face them, too crazy and too awful to imagine, so you don't imagine it. If you don't indulge them, you lie to yourself, they will fly away in time, and time here serves you. This is, at least, what you try to think, and what gives you some comfort.

But she does not come, and more and more you feel alone and ill. There are other sensations too, now crawling around as if there was a nest of snakes buried within your gut, but they remain nameless. Desperate, you remember that field of wreckage not far from her den - there was some debris there that could conceal you. You move there as quickly as you can, black birds circling high above. But the muddy flat is just as you remember, littered with broken wood, wreckage of wagons and shreds of bone and fabric. While the birds beg you to listen to them, you crawl under a half-rotted wagon. The ground here is soggy and crawling with insects, and the wood above stinks of decay and mould, but they can't see you.

You watch the moon's dull silver glow touch the damp soil outside the cart. Where it does becomes ugly gray, as if you were lying at the edge of a swamp where people drop garbage and refuse. At first you think it is dried solid, but then something ripples and bubbles beneath the surface, cracking the hard shell and allowing fresh, warm mud to seep from the hidden reservoir. Pieces of bone and rotted wood break the surface ever so often, before being dragged below again. An awful odour fills the air, of decay and filth. You shudder, less in fear and more in disgust; the swamp spews out remains and shreds, and you shove them back. Sometimes, the gray mud shoots and sprays, and where it touches your limbs, it clings to them, in long, damp strips that hang from fingers and toes, staining everything they touch.

The birds that do not go away even when you do not look at them start cawing, raising up an unbearable cacophony. You push your elbows to your sides, your knees to your chest, try to be as small as you can be, hidden from the world around you. The bracelet is the last source of comfort, a bulwark against which this hellish crooning is smashed. It keeps you safe. You reminds yourself that you are not afraid. That you do not want to be. Not again.

But it is too late. You had your chance, but the door is now open. The birds remind you of that, and they won't allow you to forget. Their shrill voices scream straight into your head the undeniable fact that you are not as you want to be. That you want something else, something better, that you have put a terrible burden on your own shoulders and that you can't shake it. That you will carry it. You may not want to, but it is too late. You will have to. Right now, the weight of it pushes you to the ground, and no matter how much you soften the feel of it on your back, it is getting too hard to breathe. You can't do it alone, you realize. No one can. And since no living are there to help you, you do the only thing that comes to your mind and beg the dead to do so instead.

They respond.

A new sound emerges from the noise. You raise your eyes and stare across the lake, and see a skeleton standing tall, a hurdy-gurdy in its hands. As it twists the knob, the instrument whines like a knife against whetstone, loud enough to split your ears. There is no harmony between this keening and the birds cries, but they belong together. They are ugly sounds, for an ugly place. You crawl deeper into the wreckage, but it is too late. You have been seen. They know you are here.

Another skeleton, wrapped in nothing but shreds of a colored sash leans in and extends a hand to you. There is a smile on its face, as there always is. You refuse to take his hand, and it withdraws, instead helping other dead crawl out of the mud-pit. Some of them carry instruments - a wrecked harp and and a banged-up drum. The noise they make is unbearable, but it doesn't stop others from dancing, and the black birds cheer them on as they make merry, knee-deep in mud.

In the discordant tunes, you hear an echo of a shout - no, of a laugh. Frenetic, mad giggle of someone who is too afraid to cry. A new feeling finds its way up to your head, and this time, you know its name. Envy. You watch them, dead people dancing to the worst tune. They have no future, no hope, nothing. Their place is in the mud and filth, in the prison of the earth. But they refuse it, and when they do, it releases them and allows them this moonlit revelry. The Saints certainly have no hand in that, but if it is evil…

They extend their hand to you again some time later, and you take it that time, allow yourself to be dragged into the mud. At first, you balk and try to keep your cloak clean. The squelching mass at your feet disgusts you, but it is too late to leave. When they pull you into their dance, you no longer want to leave. Soon, you are drenched to the waist in mud and filth, panting. You chest is on fire - the dead do not have to hold back, and you struggle to hold back. Then, there's blood. Their fingers rake you, cut you, bleed you into the mud. Sweat and gore drench you as you dance and stomp to the cacophonic frenzy, and the black birds egg you on. Their screams fill your mind until there is no room in it for anything else, no thought, no inhibition. You scream along with them, and although the dead throats can give no voice, they gone musicians join your howl. The thunder of your voice splits the night, then your throat. It hurts to be that loud. They offer you the liquors of the dead to drink, and they are so awful that you can't help but to spit them out.

You don't remember which one of them puts the spear in your hand. It's a dick move, to be honest - you have no clue how to handle it, and when you try to dance with it, you stumble and almost impale yourself on it. At least they can't laugh, but you laugh yourself, laugh with your sore throat, laugh and then cry and then bring the weapon up and dance with it some more, some stupid series of steps that bring you down more than they bring you forward. It's not joy. It's something else, something that lurked behind the door that was opened.

It is then that she finds you. She is just like you thought she would be - a frail wimp that pretends that if she bedecks herself in black and puts a chain around her waist, it will make her look tough. It's pathetic, really, and also very much brave. When she takes you in her hands and when she leads into an out-of-step dance to a tune without rhythm, all you can think about is how her touch burns you where you skin meets and of how she looks at her with those fire-filled eyes: you can see all the contempt she has for you. She hates you as much as only you yourself can. You try to keep up with her and can't, and her mocking laughter follows you as you crawl out of the mud, into the dry, safe land. It reminds you that you had to be dragged here, that you are just a coward, just someone who wanted things to be nice and pleasant, who wanted to live well, but also live calm. You understand her disdain. Good Saints, you share it.

The skeletons dance for a bit longer, but you do not join them; they pay you little attention, and when the time comes for them to crawl back into their pit, they wave you without pity or scorn. You sit alone at the edge of this fetid pool, stroking the bracelet on your wrist. It still works; whatever feelings you have are numb and without an edge. Whatever hit you as you danced with the Furious Saint was just an echo of, a pale imitation that is nothing like the real deal that will come if you tear it away. The mere thought of this is enough to send a jolt down your spine.

The birds sing to you that this bulwark will fall too, and they are right.

You are no longer afraid of turning back. There is no point in that. You know that what she unleashed had gotten to you the moment the door was opened. It was nothing but the truth, the truth that you are kin to wolves and blackbirds and the dead things that lurk behind the soil. That in time - if you make it there - you will become a peer to them and they will keep you company, because they do not deserve solitude and you belong in their company. They will call you a witch, or worse. Rightly so. There is a seed of pride in that notion, but for now it stays dormant. For now, you think of her, of her contempt. How dare she! How dare she tell you this is wrong, how dare she make you think you're garbage! You want to live, not scream, you want to breathe something else but fire! It's a normal desire, you just want to be fine for once. You hurl some insults at her and at the birds that refuse to leave. They are unmoved, and you are not convinced. The realization is not something you can fight. Had you really wanted to be like you say, you wouldn't have fled. You wouldn't have come here. The thought is ugly. It makes you see that you are just a sham. She is right to hate you - you want to be like she is, but not pay the price.

Pathetic. But also untrue. You are no kin to men. You do not want to live like they do. Such is the truth.

You look behind yourself, at the tall hand your host picked for a nest. Maybe it's not your fault, but hers. She led you here, she put the bracelet on you, she made you forget. If not for her, you would not have forgotten. You would not have hidden away. You would have lived on strong and brave, and she wouldn't have to hate you so. She would be proud. Yeah. It's been stolen from you. This dignity. Saints above be your witness - you're just a victim. Someone hurt too many times, by too many different people.

Disgusting. But also a lie. You've made the choice. You could have chosen different. Such is the truth.

The morning finds you still by the drying-out mud-pit, torn inside. It's not really a choice, but rather a struggle; something must break, in one direction or another. You, or the others. The bracelet clings close to your skin, but the roots it take weaken. Where their grip releases, something ugly seeps into the cracks. Hate. Pure, thoughtless hate, black as tar, nauseating and intoxicating. It calls out for pain and hurt, and you answer.


[ ] You hurt yourself.
[ ] You hurt someone else.