Nightshade: Chapter I
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Part I – Into the Wilds
I–The Garden and The Guardian
Noë woke from a midday dream.
In it she had seen him again, a man… or not quite a man–tall and lithe with deep red hair sailing into white curling mist that wished for his demise.
At the bow of the boat he seemed free–thriving with adventure and the comforting feeling of danger to remind him of the life he lived.
She wondered about him as she sat up in bed, the cream linen covering her likely placed by her aunt while she slept.
Did he always live this way–so close to danger’s edge that he nearly fell off? Or was it acquired–forced on a gentle soul to adapt to the cruelties of Fimbulwinter? And like many other subjects from her dreams…
Was he real?
She looked out of the stained glass window of the seaside cottage, the green trees behind the estate rustling with the promise of rain and strong wind from the incoming storm. Slowly she pulled the threads binding her hair into a braid, wrapping her brown fingers into the white curls as they sprung around her shoulders and down her back.
She closed her eyes, seeing him again in her mind’s eye atop the boat, fearless and daunting as battle took place around him, a coast golden brown and lush green painted onto a mountainscape behind his feat of victory.
His eyes–sapphire and telling–slowly shifted to her standing behind the enemy commander as he walked over to her at a snail's pace and stood three feet in height taller than she.
Excitement quickened her breath as he raised a hand, his long white fingers creamed tan in compliment to his fiery hair, and with a gentle sweep–his pointer finger leading–he scorched her ear, drifting down her neck and jaw with familiarity, her chest rising with her startled breathing at the sense of his touch.
Noë shook her head, his warmth and the nerves he inspired in her brought her from her daydream with a blush across her cheeks.
She wiped the sleep from her eyes as she attempted to forget the phantom feeling of his fingers on her throat; a pleasant feeling that fluttered her tummy and made her legs want to shake.
He felt real.
But so did a lot of things she dreamed of, like that twenty foot cake draped in vanilla and strawberry cream that she had dreamt of three nights past.
She could still taste it.
She groaned in frustration and lied back down, her head turned towards the window.
She wanted him to be real.
For decades she had seen him in her dreams, starting as only a red blur, energy in the recesses of her mind that she could feel watching in protection for her, and growing each year until the image lived and breathed before she inevitably woke up.
He was always doing something extraordinary, scaling mountains, surviving ruins, or riding through the marshes of the west as the moon hung high above, casting flattering blue light on his pale cheeks.
At the very least Noë wanted his name, if only to know what to whisper as she pleaded for him again, and again.
“Iketet.” she said in warning to herself in frustrated Vanir as she covered her warming face.
Focusing on the quiet of the cottage, Noë searched for a distraction.
Knowing her aunt, she was tending and harvesting in the garden before the storm reached their shores.
She looked over her shoulder, surveying the front of the plush covered cottage where the chipped wooden garden door was still open. Sweet words sung low and high drifted through the opening, carrying on the promise of rain.
Dahlia sang softly as she harvested the ticker bushes that she insisted needed to be tended to before the long storm arrived. Her long black hair was tied up in a winding bun, adorned with thin black rope and feather that her niece crafted for her.
Her soft hands worked the spiked stems, oblivious to their pricking as she gave firm tugs, shaking the brown leaves.
With her Aunt distracted, Noë peeked around the stone corner. Perhaps now was a good time to call for Huginn?
Her aunt detested the raven for fear it was still Hel’s minion, but Noë knew her shadows no longer occupied his heart.
She tapped the window again, just in the pattern her friend liked:
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
She hummed along to the melody he often chirped with four high notes followed by a deep tip in tone. She sat for another moment, hoping to see black wings in the distance. But as the moment passed, sadly she did not.
It had been weeks since last she had seen him.
Noë turned away from the window and considered going into town instead. She couldn’t stand another moment holed up at home any longer. If she dressed quick enough, she could sneak away before her aunt came back inside.
She continued to search the window as she dressed, pulling her dress over her head and allowing it to fall down her thigh high knitted stockings.
In Fimbulwinter, it was better to be warm than to lose a limb to a sudden chill.
She hoped Huginn was alright.
Without his brother to lookout for him he was at risk. What if he got caught in the coming storm? Or was somewhere with a broken wing?
Noë calmed her worries, controlling her emotion as anxious feelings took over. She heard her aunt reminding her to take deep breaths in her mind. She touched her belly, steadying as she put her walls back in place, focusing on making them impenetrable, trapped behind thick glass where the cold thoughts of the void swirled within it like a seer's orb.
Briefly she wondered if Hel’s control of the void manifested the same way.
She shivered at the thought.
Two hundred years Noë had hidden from Hel here with Dahlia in The Wilds.
She wondered how much longer she would be forced to remain living in fear of being discovered, longing to see the world she had only read stories of.
Dahlia looked upward to the greying sky as water droplets fell on her porcelain cheeks, blushed from gardening in their seaside hideaway.
Now perfected–her bushes of ticker prunes and metalrose were plucked and harvested, ready for the new growth to come in the fast approaching wet season on Hyatse’s shores.
Black wings lazily drifted on the gusts above, flying from the eastern peaks of the mountains of Narothal and out to the blue glass sea pushing shards of white ice onto the pale sand lining their front yard.
Dahlia watched the raven as it continued past and disappeared into the clouds without a second glance–its message received.
She lifted a hand to her fading Leyra–the circle of protection that had been placed on her neck very near to two centuries before by her sister in arms and dearest friend.
The runic circle–now faded and hardly holding–would not last much longer. Dahlia only hoped it would hold for another winter–just one more.
Ceasing her harvest, she gathered her basket filled with green and purple ticker prunes and stood. She stopped to admire the garden surrounding the vast yard, leading to the stables down the sandy path.
Flowers and tea leaves, gourds, and berries bloomed with white and red spotted petals, boasting their growth under the sea sky.
She sighed deep within, comforted by the ripe smell of the wet woods as she passed her Honeytree–tallest of them all with yellow grey leaves that reached up to the sunless day sky.
Planted in her first year on the dwarven coast–she touched its bark, tawny and broken at the seams to reveal fawn flesh underneath.
She took her knife from her belt cutting a small incision in it to bring delightfully light cider coloured sap to the surface and swept her finger against the blade. She lifted the sap to her lips, allowing the familiar taste of sweet honey to run over her tongue.
In only moments she made a deeper cut and filled a jar from her basket with the liquid gold, eager to share it in trade with the dwarven shopkeep in town.
A fellow herbalist and a mediocre mead distiller–Geran would appreciate the welcome gift.
Noë heard her Aunt’s singing carried on the wind up from their shore garden and looked out of the front window of the cottage kitchen–pots and kettles of brass and iron bumpy and malformed from decades of use stacked in tilting piles on the wood counters and cold green stone floors.
She cleared a spot on the counter for Dahlia’s harvest basket and continued her search for the elusive black tea leaves her Aunt loved so much.
Noë grabbed the jar for tea leaves, only to find the black leaves depleted. She looked in the next jar to find only more of the common sweet leaves.
Dahlia entered seeing her niece’s sweet disappointed face at once, surprised that she was dressed for the day. “Going into town, darling? The rain is beginning.” she asked as she stopped her singing to give her a peck on her perfect maple glass cheeks blushed with frustration.
“I was hoping to make tea for you before I left, but we’re out of the kind you like.” Noë turned her silver eyes to Dahlia’s perfect green and returned her hug.
“Mmm, a bribe.” Dahlia tapped her round nose. Constantly her niece was attempting to escape. Even five minutes into town was an adventure for her.
She put the jar of sap on the counter and covered it with parchment to seal it. “Take Geran this for me if you’re going into the village?”
Noë took the jar of sweet sap and agreed before digging in the basket of fresh fruit.
Dahlia closed the basket lid with laughter. “Not yet! If you eat them all I’ll have none to make dessert.”
Noë’s eyes widened with excitement at Dahlia’s promise. “You’re making ticker jam? Tonight?”
Dahlia nodded knowingly. “And maize bread, your favourite. You’ve been working hard lately helping me prepare for winter. I thought you deserved something sweet.”
Noë’s eager smile warmed her. “I’ll go right now.” She circled the wood cabinets beneath the hanging plants and kneeled at the large clothing chest at the foot of their bed. At first glance she saw her black bound journal, its red leather strings wound tight around its binding on top of her royal blue scarf stitched with a silver boar at its fringed ends.
A complicated band of grief crossed her chest with pride. She took the scarf in her hands, running her thumb over her father’s house sigil.
Dahlia lit a speckled candle by the kitchen fireplace, its black cauldron cold and filled with plucked drying wheat. "Can you check to see if he received the rice and maize I ordered as well? And the seeds? I have to get those pumpkins planted."
Dahlia began to peel the ticker prunes, their skin coming off easily from the moisture in the air. She had caught them just in time, before they got too soft from the rain.
She waited a moment without hearing anything and called again. "Noë?"
Dahlia looked over at her niece as she slowly wrapped the blue scarf around her neck and shoulders, covering what little of her bust was revealed in the white dress she wore.
She watched her another moment before disrupting, drying her hands on a towel before helping her correct the scarf and pull it over her head to cover her ears, tucking her fine white hair into the soft fabric she had knitted herself.
“It’s a good colour for you.” Dahlia said quietly with a smile as Kirk’s eyes looked back at her through her niece. Though her hair had begun black like her father’s, in her adolescence it had begun to curl white, a sign of her growing connection to her powers and the Divine.
Her image made the mind wander, as if questioning if she was truly a walking spirit amongst mortal men. But the life within her was clear in her cheeks–permanently rose with lips of brown blush.
Dahlia’s own hand lingered over the silver boar and laid it across Noë’s heart. “Your father’s land is your own. Everything he and your mother ever had or wanted is yours by right. If they were here–”
“If they were here we wouldn’t have to hide this way.” Noë said with brief bitterness, a slip of the tongue she regretted as she looked into Dahlia’s worried eyes. “Sorry.”
Dahlia clung to her shoulder and gave her a sad smile. “The body is human but the heart is Valkyrie. It would not be so if we were content with captivity.” Noë adopted her smile as she reassured her. “One day, we will be free again.”
There was much Dahlia wanted to tell her–had tried to tell her before. But never had she found the timing to be just right. Perhaps there would never be a perfect time, and with the Leyra fading more and more everyday–
Dahlia let out a pained groan and rolled her neck, controlling her breathing to keep her mind her own. Thankfully, within moments the feeling passed.
Noë noticed her sudden discomfort as her skin paled and her eyes grew unfocused. “Are you alright?”
Dahlia nodded and squeezed her tight. The top of her hair tickled her nose allowing her to smell the precious clean zest of the bitter orange and sweet apple wrapped in her niece's warmth.
Moments like these she missed her sister endlessly. But raising Noë was a prize that Dahlia was grateful for.
Noë laughed as Dahlia refused to let go. "Auntie! I can't breathe!" She giggled as Dahlia began to tickle her sides.
"I know, I know! I just love you so much." Dahlia kissed her head several times over before she released her. "Okay. Go, so you don't get caught in the rain." She pulled Noë's blue shawl over head, and covered her ears. "Be careful, and keep your head covered."
Noë nodded and gave her Aunt a peck on the cheek. "See you soon."
Dahlia watched her go out of the back door, her heart filled with admiration at how much she had grown over the two centuries they had spent here after the night of her birth.
Noë was every bit of Aztrit’s daughter, wild at heart and yearning to be free.
For Aztrit’s sacrifice, this was the fairest price they could hope for: another day–another moment to cherish what precious little remained.
In stoking the flames of Ragnarök, Hel hadn’t accounted for this act of great love, and had nearly lost the chance to control the realms as she so wished in her journey to shame and eradicate the Asgardian Gods.
She had plotted for aeons, creating tension between the Asgardians and realm Gods such as Surtr the King of the Fire Jotun to build enemies against them, burning the innocent from his rage, sending the world tree to its bitter eternal end.
It was Hel’s will to break the cycle of their realms and recreate them as she so desired, but Aztrit's selflessness prevented her from having her way.
Now she searched tirelessly for Noë–her own grandsire–to correct where her plan had gone awry.
Knocking drew Dahlia to the front door, stepping warily in the case that this action would be her last.
It was not enemy or foe, but The Herald of the Fates that greeted her.
To be continued...