These Old Bones

13-2

Another knock came to the door as he turned to move Notch back onto the bed. He liked to keep his weapons close when he slept.

"Come to tell me more of the knowledge you wish to gain?" He straightened up to find Viriili stood outside the door, a long woollen shift drooping from her shoulders, the hem dragging along the floor. "Oh. It's you. What do you want, girl?"

"I can't sleep." Viriili entered the room and dropped onto his bed, ignoring his scowl. "I've been thinking about what the Sorceress said about my gifts."

"Have you tried closing your eyes? If you really try, you'll be able to sleep. In your own room." Brorzjav puffed out his cheeks as Viriili picked up Notch, waving his precious sword around, absent minded.

"Of course I tried!" She pointed Notch at him and he snatched the blade from her, tossing it onto the chair once more. "Do you think she's right? Are my gifts magical and not from the Eternal Mother? Why would the Priestesses lie? Why would the Eternal Mother speak to me, about the journey, about you? It's all very confusing."

"Aye, well, it's not the place of a 'servant' to think of such things." He emphasised the 'servant' and the girl rolled her eyes at him. "I reckon we just continue on to the Temple Valley and everything will work out. You think about that. In your own room."

"But if Irimik is correct, that means I'm not the vessel of the Eternal Mother." The girl's hands flopped into her lap and she stared at them, picking at her fingers. In that moment she looked more like a child of her age than he had yet seen. "And if I'm not the vessel, then what am I? A mage? Nothing?"

This was not Brorzjav's area of expertise. Give the girl a sword and he can make a warrior out of her. A spear and he could make a soldier of her. This question of what her powers were and where they came from, he couldn't begin to understand. Sighing, looking out of the door for aid that wasn't coming, he knelt in front of the girl, her icy blue eyes avoiding his.

"You are you. A stuck up, arrogant pain in my backside. And that's alright. You aren't the powers you might or might not have. You aren't the sword I put in your hand. You aren't some chip to be bargained with for some old Priestesses. You're this." He tapped her head. Twice. And then he tapped her chest. "And this. You are who you want to be, who you feel yourself to be. Everything else, everyone else, are just things and people. Not better than you, not worse. Powers don't make you you and neither does being the 'vessel' of some high-and-mighty Patron."

Viriili sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She brushed back the damp, vibrant dark red hair from her face and looked up at him with those piercing eyes of hers, and smiled. She smoothed down his hair and caught a finger in a knot. She scowled and jumped from the bed, rummaging in a draw in the table where the lantern sat, pulling out a brush made from bleached bone.

"Your hair's a mess. Don't move." Brorzjav almost snapped at her, but held his tongue as the girl pushed his head forward, dragging the brush through his tangled, damp hair. "And, I swear to all the Patrons, if you squeal because I pull a knot, I'll tell everyone we ever meet how pathetic you are."

He didn't even have the energy to sigh. Taking the weight off his knees, he sat down on the floor and allowed the girl to brush his hair, stifling the yowls as she pulled out the knots without the slightest sign of any mercy. She'd be at his beard, next, he surmised. Both he and Viriili turned at the sound of another knock at his door.

"I think we should all sleep together. I don't trust this Dragon-Kin, or her Toady servants. They give me the creeps." Tiera barrelled into the room before she even finished knocking. She picked up Notch, tossed it onto Brorzjav's bed and dropped into the chair. "So, who's getting the floor?"