#norn

She doubted this would work. Her mother was a stubborn old fool. Gytha was a slightly younger, equally stubborn old fool. The exchange would end with neither party's acceptance. This was mostly to humor her sister and prove a point at the hopelessness of it all.

And it was hopeless. ...Right?

Muscle memory guided her boots to her Gran's door.

Old Edda's youngest granddaughter paused at the doors to the old healing lodge in Hoelbrak, feeling just as small as she always had at its threshold. Owls, carved into the intricate knotwork doors, woven into banners in the fallen Spirit's memory, and real stared down at Gytha, and she glared right back up at them. All this time, it was her family's tradition to feed the owls, and generations of them have roosted on the roof of the homestead. Useless, empty-headed things...

Gytha glanced down at the wreath in her hands. She'd collected it from the evergreens her hut was nestled in, along with some of the fresh green leaves and blooms on the hardy shrubs growing in the more open places of the valley.

Things thriving in the adversity of a cold, rocky place. Perhaps the irony wouldn't be lost.

Calloused knuckles knocked on the heavy old doors.

...Eventually, the sound of a cane tapping floorboards barely audible from within could be heard, and then the doors slowly swung open.

...Spirits, Gytha thought, staring down at the thin, wizened figure in the door. I hate how much she looks like Gran did. The lines on her mother's face followed the same patterns as her grandmother's had, her long straight hair greying just the same way, though her mother's eyes aren't nearly so soft. She had the same sort of presence like Old Edda did, but in her own way; Edda the Wise was a warmth that could fill a room, while Oddný Eddasdottir, for whom even her posture remained unshakable, seemed to grow into any space she occupied.

Oddný's willowy hands clasped her own mother's old cane, thin fingers held a wreath of juniper branches, some with berries still attached. She stared unflinchingly at her daughter, and for a moment the two were locked in a stalemate.

"...You've returned," said the matriarch.

"...Aye," her youngest replied. Oddný studied the years she'd missed on her daughter's face for a minute longer, before glancing down at the wreath in Gytha's hands.

"You goin' through with a wreath after all, 'en?"

Gytha's chin lifted slightly, and she didn't answer the question directly. Instead she replied, "You first."

Oddný's expression changed, taking on an almost hurt look. "...No. You first. You ought to know my answer 'fore you give yours."

Gytha scowled. "Fine then."

She placed her wreath at her mother's feet.

Oddný stared at it for a moment. That look on her face remained...

...And, stooping with slight effort, she took the wreath without another word. Her own wreath then occupied the space the other left.

Gytha scoffed, glancing away. Oddný studied her carefully, her daughter's wreath held firmly in her hands.

"Surprised?" Oddný asked, her tone lacking any of the edge it usually had.

"No," her daughter replied curtly, defensive nonetheless. "Just like you ta jus' wanna ferget the whole damn thing."

Oddný didn't reply, glancing aside.

The two women stood between Oddný's wreath now, and it was Gytha's turn to act.

Oddný waited, gaze still averted, looking as through she were bracing for bad news. Grimly anticipating rejection, expecting it, preparing herself to accept it. A consequence of tough love she only ever knew how to give, resigning herself to losing another daughter.

Gytha sighed, pulled something out of her pocket and, after some hesitation, placed it in the middle of the wreath.

Oddný glanced down. It was an earthenware cup.

The matriarch stared. Gytha's frown deepened. A questioning glance back up to Gytha was all it took to break the stubborn silence.

"'F I take it," she says, "Thats it. No chance ta clear the air. 'F I break it, that's no fair fight..." She breaks the eye contact by frowning down at the cup, unsure if she could handle the look on her mother's face.

"...An' 'f I leave it, we're on square one. So fill the damn cup, an' we'll talk it out. Like grown-ass norn."

Oddný's sudden laughter shook Gytha out of whatever mental barricade she'd hunkered down in. She'd been braced for impact, for criticism, for opposition-- and her mother was laughing.

"My girl," Oddný replied, "I'd want nothin' more."

Oddný opened the door wider, and Gytha stepped over the wreath to enter. Oddný stooped to collect the cup while Gytha took in the wreath, and they closed the tall heavy doors after them.

You grunt, leaning back in your seat. You never quite knew how to talk to Amica, even after all this time. You especially had no clue when she was a cub, adopted in the last years of your grandmother's long, long life. She never stopped looking at you with those wide green eyes though, like you were something to be admired.

"...Well..." You glance aside. She was like looking at the sun sometimes. Bright and happy, and you were just...

"What's done is done. Jus' gotta work around the damn thing an' keep it outta trouble." There's a pause as Amica leans down to scratch the smokescale at her heel... and then giggles again.

"...Do you remember? That year for Ma's birthday," she says, "Where I tried helping you and Klara hang those garlands?"

You scoff. She was about six then, full of energy and always bouncing from person to person.

"...You were un'erfoot," you recall, "An' you kep' snaggin' yer claws on the ribbons."

Amica laughs, brightly. "Klara was so patient with me... She sat me down and distracted me long enough to show me how to tie a bow, while you and Magnús threw the rest up as quick as you could...!"

You didn't know how to deal with kids. You were never sure what they could handle at which age, and they took every little detail in, absorbing everything you said or did and taking it into themselves.

It was a miracle Amica turned out right if she ever looked up to you.

"Ah... I miss her," Amica says, a little more gently. You suppress a wince. You instead give a silent, even nod as an answer, bracing yourself for the direction this conversation was headed.

"Do you... ever talk to Mag n' Eddy?" She asks after your siblings. Your lips press into a thin line.

"...Nah," you answer.

"Anybody?" In the family you and her shared, she means.

"Nope..."

Her ears fall slightly, her brow furrowing. "...Not since Ma's funeral?" You clench your teeth, but force yourself to relax.

"Kid." A warning. "This ain't... I'll talk with ya. Jus'... not this."

Amica gives you a puzzled frown. "But why me, an' not them?"

"You know why," you snap, "I said leave it."

Amica sighs, leaning back in her chair too. She glances down to her smokescale, who looks up at her inquisitively, sensing the shift in tone. Amica's quiet for a minute, but you speak first.

"...Kid, I--"

"Amica," she insists, firmly. "I'm not a child." You still aren't good at talking to her.

"Amica." You're trying. "I know whatcher... tryin'a do. I jus'..."

Amica's watching you, with that look of concern you knew so well from your own childhood. It's almost as bad as the switch you got from your own Ma.

You look away.

"I jus' need more time ta... figure out what ta say to 'em," you lie.

Her gaze hardens ever so slightly. You feel some deep, old part of you bristle in response, but you pin that instinct down before it can bite.

"...I'm sorry," you offer her. "...Maybe this w's a damn mista--"

"No," Amica insists, "no, no. Gytha..." She crosses her arms on the table, leaning forward.

"If you need time, you need time. I won' push you to do anything you ain't ready for." You feel the tension in your body leave, and a wave of shame rolls in to replace it. "But I know that everyone's... missin' you, still. Okay? I jus' worry, is all."

"'Bout them?" You know what she means.

And she knows you know, because she doesn't answer.

You sigh. You stand. "Gonna... grab some drinks from Sig," you tell her, and leave the table.

Amica sighs too, and as you leave you hear her claws scratch through her smokescale's mane, and under her breath you can hear her say,

"Oh, Smokey... What are we gonna do with 'er?"

You waste too much time looking for the right place, but eventually you do find the Grenthians. You decide you don't like them just as you don't like the Raven shamans, gawking up at you and wishing Grenth this and Grenth that for you. You keep your interactions brief and direct: you're Pact, there was an incident in Ebonhawke, there's bodies in need of last rites. Your team's regular priest is injured but insistent on the bodies being given their last rites. You're going there now to retrieve the bodies. They can come with you now or meet you there later, you're gonna be busy most of the night anyhow.

The priests give each other confused looks, but they agree to meet you there at dawn.

You leave, frowning the whole way. Now to Ebonhawke. You'd be doing this work in the middle of the night, cold and wet and miserable, and at the end of it you could look forward to more priests meddling in things.

...You tell yourself that if you didn't do this, that idiot would be an insufferable patient and not rest like he should.

As you head up the road towards the waypoint near the Grenth statue, you spot a raven perched on the statue's head, watching you with its beady little eyes.

"What're you lookin' at," you growl up at the bird.

You glance aside to Astrid, and her face is right there, close in with yours. "I see those gears turnin'," she says, softly, like she always had, "What've you got in that head o' yers?" You glance down at her lips, and a thought crosses your mind, but... Before you can act, there's the pale flap of something in the corner of your vision, the flash of yellow, and you glance aside.

The owls have all turned to look at you with bright yellow eyes, and you lean back from Astrid, unsettled. "Gy?" She asks, and suddenly something loud scrapes the hull, knocking the ship and rocking her suddenly.

Astrid's hand catches your shoulder, worry clear in her face. You take her hand, and lean over the railing to find out what happened.

An unsettlingly blue iceberg bobs by, spitting splinters into the water. A pit drops into your stomach.

"ALL TO YER STATIONS!" Astrid cries over your shoulder, and you struggle to remember your place in the crew. Astrid squeezes your hand and marches away, and you grab a rope for lack of anything to do.

Someone takes the rope from your hands. Kaania? They're gone before you're sure. Aelfgar hauls a crate past you. Raz is somewhere below, you think. You head for the front of the ship for lack of anything better to do and assess the damage.

Your blood turns cold as you see them climbing out of the water, shiny with seawater and twice as blue. Icebrood begin to scale the side of the ship, leering up at you with dead, milky eyes. You wheel back from the railing, and notice the ship's beginning to tilt, lurching sideways as it took on more and more water. You shuffle back as well as you can, but before you can even stand, the Icebrood are upon the crew.

Chaos explodes all around you, metal meeting ice, ice meeting flesh, blood hitting the deck alongside a sudden flurry of snow. Where's your weapon? You don't know why your magic isn't working. Is the dragon's voice coming back? No, you need to find Astrid. You stand, just as the water reaches your boots.

"Astrid?" You call, and the sky is darkening from the blizzard rolling in. Ravens scatter, crowing for joy at the pickings from the massacre. You're so cold. The water's so cold. "ASTRID!"

An icy hand grabs your ankle and pulls you into the water. You howl before the water covers your face and you hold your breath. You can't breathe, and all you can hear is Raven laughing,

CRAWW,

CRAWW,

CRAWW

You gasp, rolling out of bed so fast you fall out of it, landing on the blankets you'd kicked off in your sleep with a thud.

Something dark flutters outside your window, disturbed by the racket. It flies away, scolding in a familiar rasping cry as it went.

You groan, wiping your face, forehead to chin.