#ingeborg

Marie Høeg and Ingeborg Berg in a rowing boat, ca. 1895–1903.

Riley opened the door to his apartment, and no one greeted him. Lydia set off yesterday to a suburban villa of a distant family of Maevaris: her cousin had suddenly fallen ill with a mysterious disease, and his angel was asked for help. She should be back in a few days, but Riley felt rather gloomy: it was the first time since they met that she left Minrathous. And after one too many Tarquin’s remarks about being a lovesick little baby, Riley decided just to leave the noisy Cobbled Swan and go back home. To sulk and brood. Alone and in peace. But something was not right. Riley felt a slight draft and saw that the window was half-open. And there was some strange knocking noise coming from the bedroom. He took out his weapon and stalked silently toward the sound. But he stopped abruptly at the doorstep, because what he saw was definitely not the view he was expecting. Lydia’s travel trunk sat in its place by the bed, as always. But on top of it something was perched, pecking it… A bird? A skeleton? A skeletal bird. Covered in a swivelling mass of dark purple smoke, so it looked like it had wings and a tail. He made no noise, but somehow the bird sensed him and turned towards him. It shook its head left and right a few times… blinking at him? Given that the bright, veilfire-coloured lights placed where its eyes should be were its actual eyes. He also blinked a few times, stupefied. The bird flapped its spectral wings and cawed at him, like it was asking what in the void he was doing here. “Oh come on, you’re breaking into my place and now demand explanations from ME?!” truly, this day was already not a good one, so Riley might as well converse with an undead bird. The strange animal hopped up and down a few times with a loud caw accentuating every hop like it demanded answers from him. Wait, undead bird? He knew of one very special undead bird that Lydia told him about. “Are you by any chance… Ingeborg?” he asked hesitantly. The crow (because he knew that Ingeborg was a crow) screeched happily (wait, can a bird sound happy? Especially an undead one?), certainly recognising her name. She flew up to him, sat on his arm and nibbled his ear playfully (and painfully). What the fuck should he do now?

Ingeborg in all her mischievous glory.

“Do I want to know what the hell that thing is?” Tarquin snapped as he stared at the creature sitting perched on Riley's shoulder.

“Well if I had to guess–” chuckled Ashur with a curve of his mouth in a good-natured grin. “I would say it has something to do with our missing healer.”

Our

Riley liked that, how at least one of his friends was growing more used to having Lydia around. Even if the Mourn Watcher came with her own unique set of… quirks.

“Whether he was a real or merely a mythical personage, Balder [i.e., Baldr] was worshipped in Norway. On one of the bays of the beautiful Sogne Fiord [Sognefjord], which penetrates far into the depths of the solemn Norwegian mountains, with their sombre pine-forests and their lofty cascades dissolving into spray before they reach the dark water of the fiord far below. Balder had a great sanctuary. It was called Balder's Grove. A palisade enclosed the hallowed ground, and within it stood a spacious temple with the images of many gods, but none of them was worshipped with such devotion as Balder. So great was the awe with which the heathen regarded the place that no man might harm another there, nor steal his cattle, nor defile himself with women. But women cared for the images of the gods in the temple; they warmed them at the fire, anointed them with oil, and dried them with cloths.” [1]

—J. G. Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, part 1 (The Golden Bough, vol. X, 1913, p. 104)

The Frithjof Memorial Stone at Leikanger in Sogne (first half of 19th century), by Hans Leganger Reusch. In the story of Frithiof, the hero's beloved Ingeborg is kept from him in Baldr's Grove; due to this association, the memorial stone is also known as Baldersteinen.

(Source: Hans Leganger Reusch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)