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| − | [ST] Elk walks with his shoulders hunched, scarf pulled up to shield his face from the cold. Here, in the covered winter streets of Icehome, no snow can fall, but the occasional chill breeze still winds through the shielded arcades and galleries. He is, as usual, mostly silent.
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| − | [Otter] Otter walks through the slush that had melted off the boots of previous walkers, heedless of the damage the wet did to her city boots. Snow Peacock had induced her to buy them, and the rich embroidery was quite pretty, but just now, Otter had bigger concerns. "So they just - find out where I live- and set up a tent. In the middle of my house. A tent! I knew better than that, and I'm not even Haslanti! And then, when I FINALLY negotiate a
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| − | [Otter] good spot in the nomad's camp, the kid complains. Says he doesn't have any friends there."
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| − | [ST] "Mmm," Elk says, noncommital. If she didn't know better, she would almost think he was about to crack a smile. "I guess Hand-of-Ice got the last laugh after all, eh?"
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| − | [Otter] A heavy frown descends on her face. Thoughtful Deer was no trouble, though Otter had been shocked to see her, but that kid... "Didn't he have any kin of his own? Why give them to me? The kid's only five years younger than me!"
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| − | [ST] Elk is, as usual, pragmatic. "Well, he did seem to respect you. I mean, other than..." he casts a quick glance over to where Otter had shorn her braid in the honor duel. "It is a great honor, in its way."
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| − | [Otter] "Yeah, maybe." She's silent a moment, conscious of the honor. She meant to fulfill the charge, she did. Hand-of-Ice had died in her service. But- "THEY don't. I don't know their customs. They don't know ours. Deer's always looking at me like I'm doing something wrong." Otter thrusts her hands gloomily in her pocket.
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| − | [ST] "They consider putting ones hands in the pockets during a discussion to be extremely rude," Elk offers, brushing past her. "This is the place." He opens a heavy door with effort, revealing the flickering interior of a tavern.
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| − | [Otter] "How do you know that?" Otter demands, following inside. She stomps her boots on the threshold to knock the snow.
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| − | [Otter] She takes her hands out of her pockets.
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| − | [ST] "I made it up," Elk says, stomping away the snow himself. Within, though it is only early evening, a clamor has already arisen. A pair of Outwall tribesmen set across from each other, armwrestling across a table, as a crowd watches, placing hasty bets. A man and two women prowl the crowd with an obvious intent that any more experienced courtesan would avoid. All of them are over-painted.
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| − | [ST] "This isn't the best place," Elk apologizes. "But it's good if you don't want to run into any other Once Dead."
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| − | [Otter] That was true. The Once Dead were sent on suicidal missions every other week, but they were paid well and could afford better. "It's not funny," Otter mutters. She glances around for a free and unsticky table. "It's fine."
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| − | [ST] As the pair take a seat, Elk raises a hand to a serving woman, holding up two fingers. She gives him a curious look. "What's the matter, Elk? Got tired of Rabbit already?"
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| − | [ST] "Ahh..." Elk says. "Er... no. She's away."
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| − | [ST] He drums his fingers on the table top.
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| − | [Otter] Otter gives the barmaid a dirty look. "You're still seeing her?" Her tone is incredulous. "She's an old - " Otter doesn't go further. Some basic courtesy had been ingrained into her. She sets her teeth.
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| − | [ST] Elk narrows his gaze. "She's not old," he protests. "And who I see is my business. Rabbit's not perfect, but I chose her." He reaches to take the proferred tankard, drinking slowly and deeply before setting it down. "I didn't marry her."
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| − | [Otter] "She IS old. She's like, thirty. And you didn't choose her, you just-" Otter shakes her head. She hadn't meant to needle him about his stupidity or unfaithfulness. Or awful taste. Kekk was right: she had to be the seal hunter. "Nevermind." She takes a swig of the awful Icehome brew.
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| − | [ST] "We could die at any time," Elk says. "At any moment. It is only natural to enjoy ourselves, and life, how we can." It has the note of something he has learned by rote. He never used to talk like this.
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| − | [ST] "I hope you're seeing someone. You should be. You are married now, after all."
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| − | [Otter] Otter looks at him. "That's hedonistic Haslanti cowcrap," she tells him bluntly. "As well be a beast, to live that way, thinking only of the moment. I bigger responsibilites than, than...sleeping with someone like it was no more than scratching my ass." Not that she'd let Rabbit scratch her ass, either.
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| − | [Otter] "As for my marriage...." She can't maintain the tone of stiff disdain. She slumps a little in her seat. It wasn't fair. Elk was the one sleeping around and having fun and behaving in all respects like a beast, and SHE was the one with a kid. "What am I going to do?"
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| − | [ST] "I'll take that as a no," Elk sighs. "But if any of us were thinking of the future, would we have joined the Once Dead? I can't stop thinking about it since what happened to the Third Scale." He shrugs, letting it drop. "What can you do? Take care of them. Raise the boy properly. Or find someone else to do it. Someone as worthy of the job as Hand-of-Ice seemed to think you."
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| − | [ST] "Come the next mission, Thoughtful Deer might have to find a new 'spouse' anyway."
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| − | [Otter] Otter's lips flatten into a line. Elk's words had scorched her, perhaps unintentionally. Perhaps that was the first part: she didn't know if she could do it as well as it should be done. "She won't," she says positively. "I wish you'd stop acting as if you could die at any moment. I won't let that happen, to you, or to me. And I'll see Little Jackal made a worthy tribemember if I have to drag him to the Fox Spirit to do it."
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| − | [ST] "See?" Elk empties his mug. "You do have some fight left in you." Across the room, a thunderous roar rises as one tribesman finally pins the other's arm. They soon fade into snarls of disgust.
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| − | [ST] "Maybe you don't need my advice."
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| − | [Otter] "I do," Otter says firmly. "If only to make sure I don't become as soppy and morbid as you have." She drinks some more of the Haslanti piss. "I'm taking the boy hunting later. Do you want to come?"
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| − | [ST] "Gods know my family wasn't the perfect one-" He stops as it occurs to him belatedly that much of the estrangement was over the issue of, well, Otter. What could it hurt? "Sure," he says, "I'll come along. Oh, and don't breathe so loud this time. You scare the birds, and they scare everythin else."
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| − | [Otter] She scowls at him, but nods. He was the better hunter, and she'd have been a fool not to admit it.
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| − | -----
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| − | [ST] The camp outside the city of Icehome proper is one of dozens, sprinkled up and down the length of the Greenfield itself, and the revelry here puts that in Icehome itself to shame. As Elk and Otter walk through ranks of aghars, they pass fire jugglers, dancers, friendly brawls and duels of honor, raucous and outrageous. A couple is busily fucking against a snowbank. No one bats an eye. In
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| − | [ST] Icehome proper, most such disturbances would at least get a warning from the city watch, but here, the wildest part of the Haslanti character is freely on display.
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| − | [ST] "Well, some things never change," Elk says. "I hope you know where we're going." Off to one side, a group of children huddled close around a roaring fire hear an old man telling the story of Jak O' the North. In a Greenfield, the temperature is relatively tolerable - there's only about a foot of snow on the ground.
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| − | [Otter] "Of course." She leads him through the rows of to tents to a curving half-circle of gray leather a dozen tents laid around a banked firepit. The Banner of the Wolf flaps overhead, an old ally, but a pair of fox and bear pelts stitched together signify the presence of Otter's own tribe. She had procurred her 'wife' and son a place beside the Fox-and-Bear's ocassional trading delegation.
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| − | [Otter] Their tent is large and spacious, by tribe standards. Otter lifts the flap and steps inside without knocking.
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| − | [ST] Thoughtful Deer casts only the brieftest of glances Otter's way. She kneels on the ground, Little Jackal's head cradled in her lap. The boy looks pale and weak, and blood is crusted at his temple. It is obvious that the woman has been holding back tears of rage. "We must discuss something, honor-wife." She says, glancing between Otter and Elk.
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| − | [Otter] "Of course. What happened?" Otter moves closer, a little pale herself.
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| − | [ST] Elk makes an uncomfortable noise, but doesn't move.
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| − | [ST] "Do you wish for your consort to stay?" Deer asks, her dark eyes boring into Otter's. "Otherwise, I would air this incident only privately."
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| − | [ST] "Consort-?"
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| − | [Otter] "You can say anything before him you can say to me." Otter bites her lip. "But if you would prefer-"
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| − | [Otter] Marriage was difficult. Moreso with someone else's wife, when neither had chosen the other.
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| − | [ST] Elk shuffles behind her.
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| − | [ST] "No," Deer says. "I will trust you in this."
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| − | [ST] "He seems a good enough man. He cared for you when my husband let out your life's blood, and nearly slew you."
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| − | [ST] She reaches down, stroking the unconscious boy's hair softly, careful to avoid the blood on his face. "Jackal was playing with some other children. They knocked the suckling pig of Drunk Njal off its spit and into the snow. It was only an accident, but Njal struck him with a piece of wood in his rage. I would have demanded satisfaction for this myself, but I could not leave Jackal."
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| − | [ST] She looks up, the question unspoken, but obvious.
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| − | [Otter] Otter had stiffened at the pointed reminder of her defeat. "I will handle it. Where is Drunk Njal?"
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| − | [Otter] Who was Drunk Njal? This could be politically awkward.
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| − | [ST] "His aghar is across the bonfire, the one with the red-painted elk antlers. He will most likely be there, drinking." She reaches out, and takes Otter's hand in her own, squeezing softly. "Take care. Should you wish, I can stand for you, if you would but stay here with Jackal."
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| − | [ST] Drunk Njal's name is not one that is familiar to Otter, but if he is nearby, he must surely be a member of the Fox-and-Bear tribe or the Wolf.
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| − | [Otter] "No. Stay with him." She grips Deer's shoulder. "I'll be back soon." It would be her right and duty to demand satisfaction as a tribeswoman in any event.
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| − | [Otter] She glances at Elk. "Will you stand witness?"
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| − | [ST] Elk looks between the two women. "...I.. I will." He says, with a nod.
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| − | [Otter] Otter turns to leave, but stops at the tent door and half-turns. "Has he woken up since he was struck?"
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| − | [ST] "Only briefly... a word here or there. I am afraid to move him."
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| − | [Otter] Otter bites her lip. "I've known head injuries to leave deeper damage. I will send for a healer."
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| − | [ST] "Thank you."
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| − | [Otter] She leaves the tent. She supposed she should send Elk, but she would rather have him by her. Outside in the fresh snow, she can see the compressed snow where Little Jackal had fallen. She stops a girl wearing a strip of bear's fur wrapped around her neck and sends her scampering off to the Tomb. The Once Dead surgeons were the best in Icehome - by practice and necessity.
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| − | [ST] "Are you certain you want to do this?" Elk asks. "You, this family, and duels seem rather connected."
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| − | [Otter] "Someone has to," Otter says soberly. "That injury is no joke. They are Fox-and-Bear now, I would have a duty anyway." She remembers the paleness of the boy's skin, the blood on his head, and she adds with a rush of anger. "And he is my son."
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| − | [ST] "I... you are right," he says, quietly. "I apologize. Sometimes, I wonder if I have forgotten..."
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| − | [Otter] "Who you are?" She looks at him evenly for a moment, then away. She does not need to say that sometimes she wondered that too. She picks a spear that lies across the arch of the tent: it had belonged to Hand-of-Ice. She sets her jaw and strolls over past the ill-fated firepit. "Njal. Come out of your hole. I would have words with you."
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| − | [ST] Njal emerges from the flap of his tent - a tall, muscled, clumsy looking man with dark eyes and flame-colored hair. His beard and hair alike is braided. He looks quite drunk already, his eyes dull and mean.
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| − | [ST] "Who disturbs Njal's revelry?" He says, blurrily.
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| − | [Otter] Otter casts her eyes cooly over his attire for any sign of his allegiance.
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| − | [Otter] "I am Sprightly Otter, Daughter of Fox, Daughter of Bear. You injured my son without cause. I have come to call you to account."
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| − | [Otter] Her lip curls a little at his obvious drunkness. "Have you any to stand witness for you?" Her tone imples that she expects he does not.
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| − | [ST] "Your son?" He laughs, sharply, looking her up and down baldly. "YOUR son? Woman, those breasts wouldn't suckle a snow mite. Have you even flowered yet?" He roars with laughter. "I need no witness to guard my honor, I remember it well, even if brats and their girl-mothers do not."
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| − | [ST] He belches, jerking his head at Elk. "Another of your babies?"
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| − | [Otter] Otter flushes with anger. Certainly a dog of a Wolf; no one of her tribe would dare speak so disrespectfully. "I'll carve your insults into you. Arm yourself, then. I'll not have it said I drew steel on an unarmed man."
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| − | [ST] "You'll regret this, bitch," he says, staggering back into his tent. His voice comes from within, muffled. "I'll cut your tits off and feed them to my dogs. Wait, no, maybe I'll cut off your tongue, first."
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| − | [ST] Elk looks after him. "Otter... he is drunk. There may be little honor in this."
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| − | [Otter] He was right. Her anger had gotten the better of her. A perplexing issue. She scowls at Njal's tent. "Think he'll be sober by evening?"
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| − | [ST] "I suspect he never does."
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| − | [Otter] "Then there is no help for it. I'll have to kill him as he is." She raises her voice. "I suspect he will provide little challenge regardless."
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| − | [ST] "I'm drunk, little girl, not deaf," Njal rumbles, returning from the depths of the tent, a pair of knives in his hand. He shoves one into her fist. "As challenged I... *hic* claim the right of choice. The knife. To the death. I'll cut your throat and make your ugly wife cry." He squints at her blearily. "If she misses you."
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| − | [Otter] Knives. Why was it always knives? She was better with a spear. "Very well. I have no objection to killing you." She salutes him with the knife, as a matter of form, rather than becaues he deserved it. "Are you sure you will call no witnesses? I will not have it said I took advantage of your sodden state."
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| − | [ST] "My witnesses will be the crowd," he says, waving his knife around. And indeed, a crowd of tribespeople has begun to gather, almost of its own accord, surrounding the two fighters, Njal's aghar, and the flickering fire behind it.
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| − | [Otter] "Very well." She steps back, manuvering so that he faced the sun, the firepit between them. She is struck by how much the same the scene was. Of course, there could be no comparison- that duel had been for pride. Mostly. This was more important.
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| − | [Otter] She tests the weight of the unfamiliar blade in her hand. A display of bravery was also a matter of form, so she smiles. "Come and get me."
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| − | [ST] Njal squints against the setting sun, loosening his limbs, gazing at her with contempt. He shifts from one foot to another, suddenly much more loose and fluid.
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| − | [ST] He answers her, advancing over the slushy snow, holding his blade towards Otter edge-on. It catches a piece of the sun, gleaming orange. The fire crackles between them. The crowd seems to inhale as one.
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| − | [ST] Suddenly, as he draws near, Njal's hand darts down, punching through the snow to claw at the earth. He comes up, flinging his arm out, hurling a spray of pebbly earth and ice shards into Otter's face.
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| − | [Otter] Otter brings her arm up too slowly to shield her eyes. "Gah!" She blinks away grit and dust, and makes as though to rub it from her eyes, when suddenly she lowers her head and barrels forward in a charge, dagger slicing against his chest. .
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| − | [Otter] It was a maneuver better suited to a spear; the lunge carries her blade slicing across his chest, but as Otter rolls away she is dismayed to see no blood on the end of her knife.
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| − | [ST] Growling wordlessly, Njal slips the strike and bulls forward, his knife swinging in a short, ugly arc for Otter's throat.
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| − | [Otter] Otter grunts, touching her throat. Her fingers come away wet.
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| − | [ST] "Otter," Elk says. He sounds close. He could be at her elbow. "Careful."
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| − | [Otter] She couldn't lose one of these things a second time. Njal seemed likely to kill her, and if she lost to a drunken brute she'd owe it her ancestors to hang herself.
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| − | [Otter] "I am. I'm going to kill him *very* carefully." She doesn't pause to look for him, but lunges forward again and then drops down, knife angled downward to slice at his thigh.
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| − | [Otter] The knife skitters uselessly down his leg. Did the man dull it? She rolls to her feet and crouches to meet his attack.
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| − | [ST] Njal lunges forward now, reckless and clumsy, stabbing wildly at Otter's face. His knife gleams, wet with her blood.
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| − | [ST] Droplets strike the snow, steaming.
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| − | [ST] The blade hits, but Otter's armor holds. Njal grunts with frustration, his breath emerging in a great steaming cloud.
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| − | [Otter] She supposed they both should have stripped, to make the fight an utterly fair one- but he must have over a hundred pounds on her. That would have to be enough to satisfy honor.
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| − | [Otter] Otter darts forward but Njal grabs her shortened hair, twisting her head back. She spits in his face, and when he bellows, yanks herself away and closer, stabbing. Knives made for intimate deaths.
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| − | [Otter] She's rewarded by a splash of blood against her face. She pulls back before he can recover and use his greater strength against her.
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| − | [ST] The knife punches through Njal's vest of rings, drawing blood. He bellows again, staggering forward with such force that it is almost as if he's trying to fall upon her.
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| − | [Otter] Otter grimaces through the mask of blood on her face. She slips out of the way at the last moment, letting him stumble on a piece of wood, then leaps onto his back, wraps her arm around his throat to hold on, and stabs madly with the knife before he can dislodge her.
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| − | [Otter] She gets another good thrust in before he throws her off, sending her hurtling through the flames of the firepit.
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| − | [ST] Njal tosses his head, blood sheeting down the rusty rings of his armor. As Otter crashes to a halt, he races for her, his fingers tangling in her hair, his knife driving for her belly.
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| − | [Otter] Otter grunts in pain as the dagger sinks deep. She claws at his eyes until he lets her go. She was damned if she was going to leave Deer widowed and Little Jackal fatherless a second time. "I'm going to KILL you," she snarls, and strikes at his face.
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| − | [Otter] She opens up a long bloody smile from the corner of his mouth up to his ear.
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| − | [ST] "Bitch..." Njal groans, finding his voice again at last. It emerges gore-choked and sloppy, blood sheeting down his face. "My face... my face... DIE!" He launches himself upon her, bearing her down beneath him, stabbing wildly at her with his knife.
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| − | [Otter] Otter shields her face with her knife, and as they roll together the mud she pushes him so that he lies directly on the firepit. His leathers smoke and she straddles him, fire licking up her legs as she raises her knife and brings it down hard against his heart.
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| − | [ST] Njal's eyes widen as he stares up, his hair smoking, one trembling arm extended towards Otter.
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| − | [Otter] The knife sinks into his chest. She gasps, her breath invisible amidst all the smoke. She regards his maimed face coldly. "I have taken your life." No one could speak against it if she killed him now, but the alliance with Wolf was important and this braggert was likely one of their fiercest warriors. She rises, pulling the knife out of his chest as she does, and then kicks him away from the fire. Sparks fly; the back os his leather
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| − | [Otter] armor is on fire.
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| − | [ST] Njal lies there, weak, inert, bleeding to death. The crowd looks at Otter, hesitant, waiting for her next move.
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| − | [Otter] "I have taken his life," she says more loudly. "I give it back to the Wolf Tribe, if they wish to save him. I give a mark that will be a reminder to him all his life. I take also his finest caribou and his finest furs." She turns and walks back to Thoughtful Deer's tent.
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| − | [ST] Elk follows, concerned. "Otter, he wounded you sorely. Your wounds..."
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| − | [Otter] Otter grimaces, touching her side. "The medicine-man that came to look at little Jackal can take care of it. Why can I never kill anyone cleanly?"
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| − | [Otter] They never let her fight with spears. That was it.
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| − | [ST] "Are you badly injured?" Elk takes her elbow, as if to help her walk. It is perhaps the most tender touch he's ever given her. "It's not far."
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| − | [Otter] She leans gratefully against him. She supposed she should walk proudly, without support, to impress all these Wolves. But she was damned if she was going to waste an opportunity to be so close to Elk. "Not too bad. The medicine-maker will fix it."
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| − | [Otter] He smelled good, Otter thinks, a little light-headed from bloodloss.
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| − | [ST] "We're close, now," Elk says. Her blood courses over her and over him alike. It steams in the cold. "Here's the tent." He helps her through the flap.
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| − | [Otter] "How's Jackal?" Otter asks as she moves clumsily inside, thumping down onto a nearby wooden stool.
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| − | [ST] Within, the curly-haired and rather messy-looking Iscal, the strange one who went beneath the ice and returned, is tending to Little Jackal. He looks up briefly, then returns to his work.
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| − | [ST] Deer looks at Otter appreciatively.
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| − | [ST] "He'll be fine," Iscal says irritably. "Nothing worth calling me down here over... though your wounds might be - did you wrestle a boar with your bare hands?"
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| − | [Otter] "Just about," Otter says, ignoring the physician's irascible manner. "Those Wolves grow tall."
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| − | [ST] Iscal moves over to Otter, leaving Jackal at rest. With clinical detachment, he begins removing her armor, then her clothing, and setting needle and thread to flesh.
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| − | [ST] Thoughtful Deer rises, padding over to Otter as he works. "Then... Njal...?"
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| − | [Otter] "If he lives, he will bear a scar that to mark him all the rest of his days."
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| − | [Otter] If he lived, perhaps it would be wise to move Deer and Jackal further away, though by rights it was Njal who should move.
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| − | [ST] Thoughtful Deer leans forward, brushing past Iscal, who objects noisily, and kisses the center of Otter's forehead briefly before stepping back. "Thank you for what you have done for our son."
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| − | [ST] Iscal's hands are as steady as ever. Bit by bit, Otter's wounds are closed, treated with burnwort, and bandaged.
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| − | [Otter] Otter reddens a little. "He is my son too," she says, self-consciously.
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| − | [Otter] Otter lets the medicine-man work, growing sleepy under the influence of some tea he had forced on her. She wonders if she could persuade Elk to carry her back to the city.
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| − | [ST] Elk claps Otter on the shoulder. "A fine battle," he tells Thoughtful Deer, his voice sounding strange and distant. "She defended your honor."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "I never doubted that she would." Thoughtful Deer replies. Maybe she's even telling the truth.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] Across the room, Little Jackal is stirring, giving a pained groan. Deer rushes to him.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter glances at Elk, wondering how much was left of him for the Haslanti to ruin. Her gaze is drawn to Little Jackal by the groan. The only thing she can think to say is something stupid, like whether he hurt, so she stays silent.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Her flying squirrel hops from Elk, where it had prudently retreated during the battle, back to her shoulder.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "What happened?" Jackal asks, and Deer tells him quickly, and quietly. She stands, leaving him propped up in a sitting position, and walks past Otter and Elk.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Your honor-mother defended our honor," she says, from somewhere behind Otter. "She protected us. She struck down the one who dared to harm you."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Is... that true?" Jackal asks, his eyes struggling to focus on Otter.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] Iscal coughs quietly, as if embarrassed by all these goings-on.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] "Of course!" Otter says cheerfully. She thought this was probably a teaching moment, she was damned if she knew what to teach. He was not yet old enough, she judged, to be told that one should goad the offender into challenging, rather than challenging oneself- pick of weapons was important.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] She rises and struggles over to sit beside Jackal. She grips his shoulder. "You are my honor-family, and I defended you, as you will defend your family and your tribe, when you are of age."
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] He nods. "I am sorry for causing trouble." It is the most apologetic she has ever heard him.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "Yes," Deer says again. She stands behind Otter now. "She was very brave." There is a rustling at Otter's waist, and she looks down to see Thoughtful Deer wind her shorn-off braid around Otter's waist, tying it there like a garland. "I believe you have earned this back." She says quietly.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter touches the braid, and reddens again. She ducks her head in acknowledgement, inwardly rueing that she couldn't just attach it to her head again. Her hair had grown out some, but it still barely brushed her shoulders.
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter shrugs. "Be more careful around fires. We'll have to postpone our hunting trip." Elk would make her look bad as it was.
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| − | | |
| − | [ST] "I think I will forgive you," Deer says, looking at Otter speculatively. "This time."
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| − | | |
| − | [Otter] Otter meets her gaze, clear-eyed. Elk shifts uncomfortably, and Iscal rolls his eyes. "Northerners," he say to the room in the tone of a curse. He snaps his medicine-bag shut, slings it over his shoulder, and strikes back to the marginally more civilized city.
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