Muna

The last stretch of road to Sullr was tense.

It was a village of size comparable to Fornthveit, and we had approached in near complete silence. Cara’dina didn’t leave Dae’s side, didn’t check on me or offer food as she tended to, but that was fine. She had gone through something traumatic. I preferred the solitude anyway. I’d catch looks, though, over her shoulder. I didn’t know what they meant, but she never lingered, and her proud Muirish nose had a permanent wrinkle.

Which wasn’t much different from how the rest regarded me. After I buried the handsy loudmouth, people had begun avoiding me. Even some of the guardsmen gave me a wide berth. Which was a little odd, considering I’d done their job for them. No matter. I hadn’t meant to get so involved anyway, this was…well, I don’t know what any of this was. Becoming a digger wasn’t my intent, and neither was making small talk with a merchant company.

I didn’t have any intent at all.

Sullr did not welcome us with anything but thick fog and indifference. We pulled the wagons to a halt outside the city in a vacant field. The ground was wet and a few men grumbled about getting stuck with all the rain, but Thespans had solutions for this. We had to, because the Great Rains let up for no one. As everyone settled in, Dae and Cara made it a point to avoid my eyes. And not long after settling in, I learned why. Dae walked up to me with a sour expression, the kind that curdled a child’s dreams before noon.

He shoved a sack of goods into my hands, then he said, “Fortune of the many to you, Jaro.”

Cara’dina hid in the carriage, unable to brush me off as Dae had, but that’s what they were doing, cutting ties. I had crossed some line in my intervention.

Apparently, it was alright to kill in defense of a wife, but not allow another man to defend her honor. I don’t know. It all seemed confusing and I didn’t care enough to ask anything more. They’d gotten a digger, a headache, and paid me off. I watched Dae’s broad back retreat inside and heard them gathering up wares. I glanced around at the other Damsir members, and they all kept their eyes down. Their gratitude had run dry it seemed. Oh, well. I spun my shovel in my fingers as it rest on my shoulder.

No one wants to talk about this, but there are times in life when something ends and nothing else has begun. This was one of those times for me, and so I wandered into Sullr. The air had a slight chill to it, and there was a faintly sweet scent traveling with it, floral, but understated. I shrugged my sack into a more comfortable position.

Emerging through the wet blanket of haze, Sullr revealed itself to me little by little. A few villagers walked the muddy roads. Buildings on either side, built with porous white stones, almost glowed in the early morning light. It was very different from Fornthveit’s own driftwood appearance.

I hadn’t remembered hearing of a mine down in Sullr, but things could have changed since I was a boy. My boots made loud squelching sounds as I tried not to let them be swallowed in muck. On my right was a small shrine temple to the Woodsman. I figured that was a good a place as any to rest my bones and wait to die. As I approached, a few hooded figures exited the building, crude wooden neck ornaments, made from unrefined logs, hung around their necks, almost too big to allow free movement. They called them pillories. I had met a few devout of the Woodsman before.

Harvi forgive me, but I hated other religions.

I let them pass by on the stone stairs and they measured me up as they passed. They were young, younger than I was, and far too young for this kind of zealotry. One of the boys walked with an odd gait, favoring one side. I wondered if it had to do with wearing any other nonsensical religious symbols. Then I chased the thought away in disgust.

I leaned my shovel against the building away from the main door slightly. I sat down on the cold stone and watched as people danced in and out of the fog like apparitions. I rubbed my hands together, feeling the blisters on my hands begin to harden even more. In the relative quiet of Sullr, I let myself feel her again. Seeing her the night before, smiling, encouraging me for the acts of service I committed, made me miss her as if she were still with me. That’s a crucial difference for those who do not know grief so well. Missing someone who is dead is entirely different from missing someone who is around the corner. Even if the result is the same.

As the fog gradually dissipated, I saw more of the main road. Sullr hadn’t changed all that much in function, even if it did look a little cleaner. There were two inns that doubled as drinking holes. I dare not call them taverns. That would be an insult to fine establishments everywhere, and even uncle Ornn’s Silver Scale. No, they were little more than hovels. A sickly cousin of the feather-ladies worked their, imitating their charms with brazen displays of cleavage and come-ons that would make a seasoned sailor blush. The music wasn’t half bad, for what I knew of such things.

There were several shops, perhaps most notably an apothecary, a true apothecary, with a well-respected herbalist running it. I’d heard tales from the caravan. The stuff she sold was actually high quality, and I imagined that Dae and the others would have some dealings with her before they left. Apart from the staples, a tailor who did his best at cobbling, and a barber who served meals near lunch time, Sullr was mostly full of farmers.

My time spent with the Damsir Collective was a blur. It had been a whole week and a half already since I’d lost Harvi, and then found her again, but it felt longer. Digging and traveling had kept me busy, and now that I wasn’t doing either, I felt the flicker of heat again. I revisited the metallic ring of bashing teeth in my mind and shuddered. I took my shovel in hand and traced the blade between my thumb and pointer finger. A few smudges of dried blood flaked off and disintegrated.

It was then that I knew I’d gone too far, why I’d been shunned. It was as if I suddenly saw myself the way others saw me. Reserved, angry, and most recently, unhinged. They didn’t know what I had seen less than a fortnight ago. I didn’t tell them anything. All they saw was a stranger assaulting one of their own, and despite how much he deserved it, he had also lost his daughter. My thoughts of spinning some kind of apology were interrupted before I could piece them together.

“J-jaro?” A soft, threadbare voice said. “Jaro Garaffi?”

I snapped my gaze to a thin, pale young woman with earthy green eyes and a small, crooked nose. She was dressed in harvester vestments. Brown, tailored breeches and a tunic a shade’s differing from her eyes contained by a leather vest full of tools and minimal supplies. I couldn’t tell if she had freckles or a dirty face but the most striking of her features was her hair. It was in tight curls framing her face, and a pure white, like tufts of angel down.

“I—” I paused, something about her seemed familiar. “Muna?”

Her curls bounced excitedly, “Yessir! Surprised you noticed me since the—” She gestured to her hair. “Kalvirri uncle apparently.”

My face cracked a smile, the first true one since Harvi.

“Apparently.”