Sesh 2: Magics work thy Will. Ending 23rd Feb

Taft sniffs at the bread rinds that Ragna left at the table, then shows them to Shadow.

"There was an odd feeling when I returned home this evening. Can you smell it? The bread and meat were warm, when they shouldn't have been. I have felt the aid of spirits in the forest, but never something as clearly as this. And never in my home."

Shadow sniffs at the bread rinds, and then gingerly takes one from Taft's hand and chews it. It tastes sweet and nostalgic. The wolf remembers stealing things like this as a naughty pup. Those were the days. It swallows the rind and says, "The banner is gone and the spirits here are happy. Our friend has done well in destroying it with his fire."

Eirikr, you awake, a little later than usual, feeling refreshed. Freyr is preparing himself for lighting the pyre for the funeral of the dead; like most of the village's public ceremonies, it takes place just before noon.

Meanwhile, outside the shrinehouse, Kata shrinks away from her brother, whose face is even redder than normal. Bram is swaying slightly, and he continues "Sulo is bust. S'I'm'n charge. Gotta listen to me all of you. If you know what's good for you."

As if in a trance, Freyr, in his vestments, exits the building, and lights the pyre of the single dead resident of Kallbacken. As he does so, he sings, deeply, of the loss each part of the whole feels as another dies. His voice reverberates around the entire village, amplified around the square and beyond, clearly head in every single home. Backing him is the sound of tinkling chimes from within the Shrinehouse, which seem to peal solemnly; as Freyr's voice changes key, and he sings of the breeze which flows around all of creation, which will bring us all together once again, the timbre of the chimes changes too, and they ring with laughter.

Shadow the music has another voice lifted in duet with the voice of the Shrinekeeper. It speaks amongst the chimes; a clear voice that rings out like the wind that covers you as you chase along the shore. It promises that the Interlopers will always be upwind, and the arrows of Kallbacken will not be picked up on the breeze; it says it will carry the ashes to its cousins, and that they will carry them to their cousins, and that the burden will be shared between everyone.

Vasil lays the last corpse on the pyre. Kata looks incredibly uncomfortable. Still not wanting to start trouble in this place of the dead, yet wanting to help his friend, Vasil calls out.

Kata, could I have a hand here, please?

Shadow leans on Taft and whispers into his ear, "Friend, there is a spirit singing with the voice of the wind. I do not know it, but it sounds happy. Perhaps if we talk to it, it could give you guidance on using your abilities against the enemy. Shall we speak to it?" The wolf's breath is hot and smelly.

Kata, pulled from her reverie watching the ceremony Freyr is performing, looks towards you. Bram swaggers forward a little, and whispers something in her ear. She freezes for a few seconds, and then runs away beside the Shrinehouse, towards the huts that ring the coast; you can see tears welling up in her eyes.

Freyr seems not to notice, and ends his last note; as he does so, the sound of the chimes dim to background music, and he looks at the second pyre. "Is there a problem, Bram?" the Shrinekeeper asks.

Taft puts his arm around the wolf and listens more closely to the singing.

He whispers back, "I always hear the wind, and I hear it now. Yes, it is happy. I've never talked to it before. Or maybe I have. But I've never asked it anything."

Taft breathes lightly and shifts his focus from the humans and their song to the wind and its movements. The roar off the cliffs. The whistling through gaps in the palisades. Smoke and ash reveal the winds intentions - the remnants of the bodies are carried inland, into the forest. Taft feels good about all this. This is how he listens. Everything feels right.

He whispers to Shadow,

"Some people ask the wind things. They say they'll get an answer, usually in a day. Sometimes in their sleep, in their dreams."

He looks out at the ocean, where the wind almost always comes from, and shifts his focus even more intently. He looks far outward, and also deeply inside himself. He speaks without words. He asks a question in his heart, in his whole body:

Dear wind. I never ask you anything, I just trust that you will show me when I need to know. But I think the need is more urgent now. Things have changed. I think I might have to do something different than before. Wind. Show me. I am ready to do something different, if I need to. I will even leave here to help my people. Give me a sign, wind. There is no rush. Whenever you are ready. Could be in years. Could be never. But I am asking.

A long time passes before Taft speaks again to the wolf at his side.

Vasil clenches his jaw. This is not the time or place, but he'd really like to punch Bram in his fat fucking face.

Taking instruction from Axe, and Freyr Vasil follows the procedure of the village, washing the bodies, he whispers a blessing of his homeland, taking extra time with those felled by his own hand. Guilt weighs heavy in his chest. These people, naked and cold are just as human as he is. Or they were before he destroyed them. Vasil ignores Bram's leering gaze.

Approaching the first corpse, a blonde haired woman felled by his own spear. Vasil kneels by the pyre, he closes his eyes letting Freyr's song wash over him, and recalls the sensation of flame upon his fingertips. With sorrow, he returns her to ash.

Bram reiterates his threat, this time to Freyr "No-one is to take a torch to these Interloping outsiders. Their dead do not belong here" His red face flares down at Vasil as Vasil focuses on lighting the pyre.

Vasil ignores Bram, looking to Freyr for permission.
With your blessing...
He reaches down to the kindling surrounding the dead woman.

Shadow lifts its head and scents the breeze. It speaks, saying, "We Hunters know of when the spirits are moved. We know when they rampage, and we put them down. We know when they celebrate, and we watch that they do not become too rowdy. This spirit has been here since time immemorial, before Kallbacken, but has grown with the town to embrace it. It was uncomfortable with the presence of the enemy's taint. Now, it sings free. It is happy, and its core may be moved to you as you call to it."

The fire spreads from Vasil's outstretched hands, and quickly spreads along the pyre. The assembled villager's first stand, not quite able to take in what they were seeing, and then a murmur of appreciation rumbles around, positive grunts as a spark of new hope skips between them at this fresh and beautiful sight to behold.

A thump breaks the murmurs off, as Bram's body hits the mud. Freyr looks appreciatively at the pyre and say's "Well, it wasn't a torch."

Vasil bows his head respectfully to Freyr and the dead - partially to hide the satisfied smirk from Bram's fall.

Regaining his composure, Vasil leaves the square, following where he saw Kata go.

Weaving your way between the salt-tainted huts, you can see Kata. She's sat on a driftwood log which sits on the beach. Her thick autumn wear covers her face, but you can still hear faint sobs as she sits there.Common knowledge: The spirit listens to all the prayers sung to it during Solsblot, Jolblot, and at the Ceremonies of Winds Changing (Midsummer, Midwinter, and the Equinoxes)
Interesting Facts: A Shrinekeeper or Attendant opens those ceremonies.

Vasil approaches, flashing a considerate smile, and sits next to his friend on the log. They sit in silence for a time, listening to the waves.
It's a comfortable silence, but Vasil breaks it eventually,
Your idiot brother fell in the mud before half the town.
He pauses for another few moments,
Are you ok?

Kata lets out a long sigh. Her legs curl up, her knees pressing against her chest. Her head shakes, and there is a long pause.

"He blames all this on you." Kata says at long last, her tone almost as if commenting on the worksmanship of a nail. "And Kallbacken can't protect from its own."

She pauses again, and then says "Sometimes, I just sit here for hours and wonder what it would feel like if the tide stopped, or if the wind ceased to blow. I wonder what would happen if the food stopped, how awful things would be. I guess we're all living that now." High above the figures of Vasil and Kata on their log, ravens fleeing Kallbacken are silhouetted against the noontime sun.

Vasil pauses a moment to take this in. This is a more honest conversation than they've had, moving beyond smalltalk.
"How worried should I be about your brother? He is a drunk and a brute, but has he the cunning to take a blade to my back?

If it is only words, or even fists, I'm not too concerned. If you fear more, perhaps I should take precautions - talk to Sulo, perhaps?
Sulo sat in the middle of the spectrum of the Jorstad siblings - he and Vasil probably would never be friends, but he made a decent guard.

"As for the stopping of the tide, I think we humans think too highly of ourselves. It is far more likely man will stop,
but not the ocean, not the wind."