//what we are in the moonlight// calla

[charade]

s i g r u n .


"Fight the weakness, your heart's still beating
We are, we are, we are savages"

Dusk draws near.

The night has never held its secrets from me. The moonlight will illuminate the old paths as it always does. The sky finished weeping only an hour past, and the forest still smells joyous. It delights in the moisture, and I do too, my clothes clinging to me like a shroud. My feet sink into the moss and loam as I creep forward, stepping over rock and root as patient as a fox. The air brings with it pine and I inhale deeply, a second away from chanting meaningless exhalation’s. It is close now.

I pounce on the prey I’ve been tracking like a hawk, my blade as sharp as any talon. The ground drinks redwater with me. It is bitter and warm, and I thank the god of the hunt for delivering the rabbit into my waiting hands. It is my nature to clean it. Skin it. The fire is ready before I even remember it is the next step. It is the sizzle of fat frying over the open maw of the voracious flame below.

Down, down, down.

Hark.

I am the owl, all-seeing as my head swivels and tilts to look curiously at this newcomer. Not new. Not a trespasser. An intruder on my meal, but not on the land. Not today,One of the chosen. The aesir. All are chosen in our pack, our clan.

But some are more chosen than others.

I tear a strip of meat from the bone and chew it thoughtfully. It is easy to make offerings to the gods who whisper through the winds, who kiss us with the frost and rain. It is harder to make offerings to the ones who walk among us. Did she divine our meeting? We are all family, but her mother can see the threads that bind us together, the spider’s silk that grows ever taut.

What does she seek? My time? My life? My words? Any and all would be given gladly. One of us is given to the forest every year. It is the way of things. A handful of mud and blood will speak for me. I press my palm into my face, peering at her through the gaps between my fingers. When I draw my hand away I know the print remains.

“Freyja,” I whisper, letting the name roll off my tongue like dew rolling off a blade of grass.

“Do you seek to hunt tonight?”

elegant

[tick 12a / calla]

i know my way through the night to your door
you know the blood that i'm owed is all yours
the wishes i've made are too vicious to tell
the devil already he knows me so well

Eirik starts wailing before the sun sets. Freyja tries to soothe him as the air cools, bouncing him under the boughs, but his lungs are strong, and his resolve seems to be even stronger. He's gotten more temperamental as the fall approaches, tiny fists curling up the way the leaves do in the later months.

But as they wait, Freyja lets him suckle a drop of chamomile from her finger and he reaches up to play with the hops blossoms in her hair. His own braids are as dark as his eyes and they watch each other for a long moment.

"Are you hungry, ulveunge?" She asks him.

Eirik blinks back slowly.

The mulberries on the outskirts of the commune are soft enough for his gums at this time of year, and so Freyja brushes a thumb against his cheek and then slips him into the sling on her back. He babbles once, then twice as they move forward, then she reaches back to give him the old backbone of a shrew to teethe on. Freyja follows the whispers of the trees to the hare's path, where the tops of the berry bushes are untouched and ripe. She picks them with nimble fingers and lets the juice stain her fingers red, mashes them with her thumb for Eirik, then draws a crimson line from his forehead to his chin.

"Warrior," She teases gently, "You must learn to look the part."

Then one of Eirik's small hands sneaks out of the elk hide and flails north, up the direction of the path. Freyja follows the line of it, and hears the telltale crackling of a fire burning. She eases the babe back into the sling, and starts towards it quietly.

The firelight dances across the ground with its many feet when she reaches it. It's maker sits steady, watching Freyja complete the circle.

"Sigrun." She returns in greeting.

Freyr knows her better, through the hunts and wild runs and the gatherings. Freyja knows her best by name, by title, by huntress. Sigrun is a child of the Bear, Freyja is of the Wolf. Her eyes flit across the sigil on her face, across her posture and the line of her shoulders and finds a suitable respect.

“Do you seek to hunt tonight?" Sigrun asks over the fire.

But she doesn't have to say anything else, Freyja knows what she means. She sees the wariness in the hunting parties when she lingers to see Freyr off. She knows of the omens that follow her and what her word is weighted with. She remembers, still, when her mother divined Vargen's name. She can still feel the pulse of him.

Somewhere, an owl cries, and Freyja grins to bare her teeth.

"Not tonight." She says easily, lowering herself to the leaves, "Not yet."

Freyja twist Eirik to sit on the ground in front of her, propped against her knees. She watches Sigrun, just as she watches the fire spark and pop against her child's foreign features. His eyes chase the embers like they're fireflies.

It is constantly a dare, the way she is so unapologetic with him. Perhaps the way the Forresters look at him is a test of its own, but to Freyja, it hardly matters. She knows how to channel disgust into malediction. The forest can be swayed, and she is more powerful than the others give her credit for.

"How was your catch?" She asks Sigrun, and there is a heaviness to her words. The Hunter only bestows gifts to his most beloved children, to the fiercest ones like Freyr, to the devoted ones like Sigrun, and one day, to Eirik.

phildel — the wolf

[charade]

s i g r u n .


"Fight the weakness, your heart's still beating
We are, we are, we are savages"

I glance at the cub, and how he peers into the flames, unafraid of the pain it could bring and delighting in the light and warmth. Fire is the great purifier. It does not care whether it consumes a lowly root or the leaves from treetops. When fire sweeps the forest, it burns away the old so that new growth can spring to live like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.

It turns the poor and rich alike into cinders. Devouring, all consuming. But sometimes, fire forges great men and women on the anvil of progress. It brings life as well as death. Balance. Fire is as much a part of nature as water, air and earth, but many fail to remember that. They shouldn’t. Every year in Panem’s greatest alter, tributes are slain by fire, by the metal of the earth, drowning in redwater—

But they do not give thanks to the god of the hunt as we do. These victors. These false gods that people make idols out of. Even the ones from our district do not fully understand. They must be cleansed. All of them; save perhaps the one who died and rose again and the priest of rodents.

I must ask an elder what to think of them.

I watch the cub like a hawk as he must not be allowed to burn. He is strong, I think. To be fearless so young is a blessing. He will be a good leader one day. Or a hunter.

How was your catch?

“Nourishing.” I reply after a moment.

It will keep me strong for another day. I stab a roasted morsel with the end of my knife and hold it out to her, staring curiously at the cub. Has he grown large enough that he needs more than milk? Or is meat still foreign to him? Is he still foreign? There is talk among the others that her child is not a true Forrester. A son not of the forest but of the city; the non-believers. It is true that he does not resemble his mother.

Or any of us.

But even wolves have been known to accept dogs into their pack from time to time. They say blood is thicker than water and they say that means the family you are born to is more important than the one you choose. They are wrong. I have heard the full phrase. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. It means that the bonds you choose are stronger than the ones you are born with.

If we are the chosen, and she has chosen him, then what is the difference?

It is confusing, and so, I shall leave the weightier matters for the thinkers. I am a blade. Claws and teeth and silent fury. I follow the commandments of our family, I do not make them. It is not for me to waste time wondering, I simply do. As my knife is an extension of myself, so too am I an extension of the clan. Name my target and it will die. I am a weapon in the hands of my betters.

I whisper a benediction to the god of the hunt as I search for his face in the moon. Perhaps he will give me the answers I need. Or perhaps Freyja will when I ask the right question.

I flip my blade around in my hand, holding the metal and offering the bone-handle to the seer’s daughter as I tilt my head in a show of respect. It was made from the antler of a deer. It has served me well, ending the lives of all manner of prey. Cutting apples and carving the beads I wear on a string around my ankle.

“If you are not hunting this night, then what do you seek? May I offer my skills in service?”

elegant

[tick 12a / calla]

i know my way through the night to your door
you know the blood that i'm owed is all yours
the wishes i've made are too vicious to tell
the devil already he knows me so well

Freyja watches Eirik try to tame the fire and feels a force ease off of her shoulders. Sigrun eyes him with unease, but at a glance, Freyja can tell that there is no malice behind it.

"Nourishing." Sigrun answers, the word dancing between the licks of firelight.

Freyja nods, satisfied.

"The forest has been bountiful this moon." She says, then she peers up into the beaches, watching a sparrow hop from branch to branch, "It will be expecting something in return soon."

When her gaze travels back down, Sigrun is holding a portion of the hunt out to her, and Freyja takes it swiftly in her hand. Eirik perks up at the motion and twists his little body to watch her hands work. Freyja peels the skin from the meat and hands it to him, nesting the rest of it against the coals of the fire as he suckles the fat and grease from it.

"But the winter will be kind." She decides, "A late freeze, plenty of time to stockpile."

The rune stones attached to her hip seem to warm at the declaration, clattering against each other in the deerskin when she shifts. She will do a reading later, just to be sure, before she brings it to the elders. But she says it and it feels right. The air above her seems to warm, and a sign of life scurries in the underbrush. The preparation for hibernation has started, but there's a laxness to it. The chill doesn't rush this year.

The hilt of a knife enters her vision slowly, steadily, like a fox nosing at a nest. Freyja follows it from handle to blade to bearer and looks at Sigrun inquistively.

"May I offer my skills in service?" She says from across the knife, and Freyja feels her face twitch.

Freyja takes the knife from her, resting the point against one finger and spinning it slowly. The thing about the seer's daughter - she talks in riddles. She speaks with a voice that isn't often her own, and each question is offered as a test. Freyr is brute force and strength, he is feats of confidence and bravado. Freyja is cunning, and always changing, she can read people just as she reads the scrying bowl.

"What would you offer me?" Freyja asks coyly, but she holds the knife as if she already knows. She holds herself as if there is only one correct answer. "Freyr leads our hunt. Dagny tends to our animals, Eira stands at our borders. Hel and Kol watch over our altar."

Freyja moves the knife then, holding it hilt up, not offering it back - not yet.

"What would you provide?"

phildel — the wolf