• Closed • [Alivilda] Trapped Under the Wagon Part Tree

[Ashling]

Trapped Under the Wagon, Part Three

60th Ashan 720

The betrothed couple Tristan and Ashling were on their way from Raelia to Fensalir. There, they were going to take part in the tournament of plants and potions. The third trial of their journey (on horseback) had been an eventful trial! Riding toward the small town Alivilda they had found a wagon accident. Two noble brothers had ended up in the trench, their scared horses running around in the vicinity. The elder brother, Joran Magnus had been trapped under the wagon.

The younger brother, Jorg, had been irrational and tried to drive them away. But they had managed to make the boy calm down. Then they had saved Joran Magnus. Tristan had used Zanik’s blessing to lift the wagon up a bit, an exceptional act of strength. (Baffled, Ashling had arrived at the conclusion that her suspicions that Tristan was a Stormtouched were true. She had even decided that he seemed to have acquired some traits of a Melrathi Snow Leopard.)

They had caught the runaway horses. Then, the Maguses had joined Tristan and Ashling, riding on horseback to Alivilda. There they had parted ways.

Tristan and Ashling were now alone again. It was a beautiful Ashan evening in the picturesque small town. Ashling was soon going to speak to Tristan about his supposed storm touched-ness. Tristan was soon going to speak to Ashling about his blessings, something he had been postponing for several seasons...



Alivilda was a lovely small town. They had rented a room in a nice inn, but Ashling hadn’t wanted to stay indoors. She had insisted on taking care of her horse Granegal herself. She had brushed the road dust off of the horse, cleaned the hooves and combed the animal’s mane and the tail. Granegal was one well-groomed horse enjoying its food when Ashling left the stable.

They had been riding for three trials. The standards of the roadside inns had been very simple. This meant that Ashling wasn’t particularly clean herself. Not anymore. She didn’t feel it herself, but she knew that she smelled of sweat, horse, dirt and dung. It hadn’t been so bad the first trials, but this third trial had been full of physical activity.

She decided that she wanted to use the inn’s small bathing facility. It didn’t occur to her that it might be possible to order a bathing tube with hot water in the room. That kind of luxury was unknown to her. So, the bathing-cottage it would be. She got the set of extra clothes she had brought with her and went to have a bath.

It was in a separate cottage on the yard, the door at one gable leading to the women’s washing room, the other to the men’s. The room she entered was lined with pinewood, floor, walls and roof made of the same material. The inner section, behind a wall, was very hot. The outer room was also warm and here was lukewarm water in big basins. Beside the basins, she saw small wooden buckets for pouring water over the body. As this was at an inn, they also offered towels and herb-scented soap. and there were baskets you could put used clothes in if you wanted them to do the laundry.

Ashling undressed and threw her used clothing in one of the baskets. Then she took the whole bathing procedure. Very clean from top to toe she stepped out from the bathing cottage, her hair still damp. She would hand in the laundry basket, then find Tristan and ask him what he wanted to do next.

Take a walk in the wonderful Ashan evening? Have dinner? Something else? She would let him decide!

When the opportunity would know she would speak to him about his snow leopard traits! At some point, it must become possible for her to speak to him about his leopard traits!

[Tristan Venora]

They had been riding for three trials at that point, and Tristan’s behind was rather sore as a consequence because he just wasn’t used to being on horseback for that long. His previous trips on horseback had mostly consisted of short rides through the lovely Venoran countryside, in the company servants and such. He was also a little unclean and smelly, and unlike Ashling, he was quite aware of that (his boots weren’t quite as shiny anymore, for example). While he wasn’t as stuck-up and spoiled as a lot of other nobles, he wasn’t sure if he liked his new “perfume” that he had come to call eau de Maxos particularly!

While Ashling wanted to go outside after their arrival in Alivilda (which was quite a nice town, everything considered), Tristan decided to stay in the room that they shared because he really needed a bit of rest. Of course, he didn’t only lie in bed and such. He also changed into a clean set of clothes and freshened up a bit (he didn’t want to lie in that nice clean bed when he was dirty). Upon his request, one of the employees even brought him a bit of water, some soap and a handkerchief (that was nice and soft and not scratchy at all).

When Ashling had finally finished taking care of Granegal and taken her bath and went looking for Tristan, she would find him in the common room of their inn, drinking a bit of warm tea with honey and looking a little less tired and exhausted after his brief nap. He was wearing some sort of tweed suit now rather than the blue outfit he’d been wearing for most of the journey so far, and he immediately stood when she walked through the door and approached her, a wide smile on his face as he was just so happy to see her.

Even the fact that he would have to talk to her about his blessings soon didn’t dampen his mood. He had decided to take the fact that the incident with Jorg had been resolved so well as a good sign, and he didn’t feel guilty about the fact that he hadn’t told Ashling earlier either. She had been a stranger when they had gotten engaged after all, because of a misunderstanding, and he hadn’t been sure if he actually wanted to stay engaged to her.

He had not thought that he would come to enjoy her company that much and love her that much!

“Ashling?” he asked and embraced her for a moment. “Are you feeling better now? I thought that we could go for a short walk as the weather is quite lovely before we eat dinner here. Besides, there is something that I’ve wanted to tell you for a while, since we met Joran and Jorg …”

[Ashling]

Tristan had sounded like he had something very important to tell her. Ashling supposed that he might want to reveal that he was a stormtouched. But, t it could also be something else. Anyway, she had heard in his voice that it was something serious. She felt a bit unsettled by the options her mind ran through at high speed. Stormtouched issues? Dangerous surprises underfoot? Something he felt annoyed at her for? Problems with the Magnus brothers? Changed plans for their journey?

Second thoughts about their betrothal? She hadn’t noticed any signs that pointed to it, but ...

He had proposed at sight, unexpected like lightning from a clear sky.

Or like a snow leopard pouncing at something.

What if he would end the betrothal in the same sudden manner?

The sunlight was as golden as it only became at the end of the trial. The evening air was warm for being in Ashan but the wind was colder and foreboded the lower temperature after sunset. The birds were still singing like it was the last trial of their life. Taking a walk would be perfect. Ashling put her arm under Tristan’s arm and her hand in his hand, as they left the inn. She smiled at him but there was a streak of melancholy in the happiness she felt. The springs and summers in Melraht were so short and the seasons of darkness always bided the time for their return. Being Melrathi, shaped by its nature and climate as well as its culture and religion, she carried its characteristics in her mind. The darkness to come loomed over her even in the brightest trials of spring and in the endless light of Saun. Once in a while, like right now, the awareness of the wheel of seasons welled up in her like a dark forest lake.

They walked through Alivilda. Ashling had a friend there, the cartographer Brent. She hadn’t seen him again after they had parted ways in early Vhalar the last arc. One of the houses they passed by might be his house but Ashling had never been there. Now, she thought of how their short meetings, the spies they had helped the Ragnari catch and the trials they had spent chartering Fensalir. It had been so fun and she had been having a good time. But, at the end of Vhalar, the Ragnari had used the map Brent had made for hunting and abducting people. Her nice memory had gained a dark and bitter tint and her copy of the map rested in a place where nobody would find it.

She thought of it as they walked.

But soon, her thoughts returned to Tristan. Tristan hadn’t yet told her what he wanted to speak to her about. Ashling decided to speak a bit about her experiences with stormtouched people. This might show him that it was safe to speak to her if his (supposed) condition was what he wanted to speak about. Ashling hoped that he would bring it up himself. It felt awkward to ask him ...

But Tristan why are your claws so black ... an impossible question!

The town was small and they were soon in the outskirts. Happy cattle grazed on the pastures. The new rye and other crops stood green on the fields and people were still working there, making use of the last daylight. Tristan and Ashling continued along a lane that took them into a glen framed by leafy trees. Until now they had chatted about the events of the trial and other easygoing topics but it felt on time to find out what Tristan had meant.

“Was there something special you wanted to speak to me about?”

[Tristan Venora]

Ashling linked her arm with Tristan’s, and the young noble leaned a bit closer to his lovely fiancée as they walked and smiled at her. His smile wasn’t melancholic at all in spite of what he was planning to talk about. The evening was just too perfect. The golden sunlight was so beautiful, it was warm, but not too warm, there were birds chirping in the trees, and Alivilda was just such an interesting place. He had never experienced spring in Melrath before. When he had arrived the cycle before everything had already been covered with snow, so this seemed like an entire new world to him in a way.

As they walked, he alternated between looking at the buildings that surrounded them, the cattle on the lush grown pastures and at all the people (because this new town turned out to be quite interesting) and looking at his fiancée because he just couldn’t pull his gaze away for longer than a bit or two at a time. He couldn’t believe his luck. She had such wonderful grey skin and such beautiful completely black eyes, and she was so kind and gentle, and such a good person, but she could also be quite fierce if she wanted to – and she even liked his daughter!

His daughter. That was another thing that he would have to explain to her sometime, he realized. He wasn’t even sure how he was supposed to start to explain that, that he had thought that her mother was Faith at first (the Faith, the world-famous Faith Augustin who had been his slave once), that she had died in his arms after she had visited him with the baby – only that she hadn’t been Faith at all, but an Immortal and the real Faith was of course still alive. How was he ever supposed to explain all the craziness in his life?

It would be alright though. One way or another. He tried to tell himself that. He had been absolutely optimistic before because everything had gone so well so far. But when the young Melrathi woman whose arm he was still holding asked him if there was something special that he had wanted to speak to her about, he felt his heart beat faster, nevertheless. “Ashling”, he said and looked at her, the tone of his voice a hint softer now. “When I lifted the wagon that Joran was trapped under, did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Did you ever wonder how a man like me was able to lift something that heavy?” he wanted to know. “I’m not normally that strong.”

“What do you think happened?” he asked. She might already suspect something, after all.

[Ashling]

They had come a long way from that first meeting when everything had been like a fairy tale. Ashling thought back on that moment now. It gleamed in her mind like a beacon, a diamond a distant star. It was already season’s ago. Zi’da had passed, then Cylus and half of Ashan too. After over one hundred and seventy trials they were still betrothed. Her feelings for Tristan had not been a temporary crush. They had grown stronger by the time and the more she learnt to know him the more she loved him.

It had been so easy to love the beautiful and charming Tristan. He had a good heart, nice manners, humour, intelligence and talent. He was a wonderful parent to his little daughter. It had been easy to disregard his expensive habits, his extravagance his taste for luxury. Wasteful, yes, but he was after all an outlander and back in his homeland he had once been a powerful nobleman. It was part of whom Tristan was and she neither expect him to behave like a homeboy from Fensalir nor wanted it.

Now, her love and loyalty were being put to the test. Her beloved Tristan wasn’t entirely what he had seemed to be. There were other things to him, less easy to deal with. Things that put pressure on her and forced her to scrutinize her feelings and attitudes. It wasn’t only about what Tristan was and what it could entail for him. It was also about herself and who she was ... who and what this moment of truth would make of her.

Loyalty had always been a strong trait in Ashling. She was steadfast. This had made her stand by the unfortunate stormtouched. Her stance was that they were still the same people they had been before the weird storm had changed them. To abandon them in their time of need would have been against everything she believed in. Instead, she was going to lengths to help them. Now, when she thought Tristan was a stormtouched it was more personal though. It affected her and her future life in a very direct manner. As Tristan was an outlander she had known that some would dislike their relationship. But, a stormtouched outlander? This raised the stakes quite a bit! But, Ashling had already crossed the lines. She had accepted the stormtouched and she had betrothed herself to an outlander.

Hence, she wasn’t deterred...

“I love you, Tristan. I love you like you are, with all the things that make you the person you are...never doubt it. I will always stand by your side.” All the sincere love she felt for him was in her voice and in her eyes.

It had felt important to her to say this first.

“I only saw it from a distance when you lifted the wagon a bit. For a moment it was like the sun shone me in the eyes, but I felt amazed at your strength. I took it Joran must have helped out a bit...but I’m not a stranger to the traits of the stormtouched Tristan. I have seen that you have black claws and the grace and colouring of a snow leopard ... and the strength. It’s not unusual for the stormtouched to be stronger than they were before.”

She drew a breath before she delivered the end of her answer.

“You are a stormtouched, aren’t you?”

[Tristan Venora]

When Ashling told him that she loved him, Tristan smiled at her, and his entire face seemed to radiate from within for a moment because her words made him so happy. Would she still love him if he told her the truth about himself though? He had been so sure of it before, so sure that nothing would ever be able to get between them, but now there were certain doubts all of a sudden. For a moment, he even wondered if he could have handled things differently, after all. He didn’t think so, though. He couldn’t have told her earlier.

Besides the fact that he hadn’t known her back then, there had been the hostile atmosphere, Hart’s death and all those other things that had made him just a little unsure. Fates, did he have to tell her about Hart and Eihr as well and that his brother was a Mortalborn – and that his cousin had been married to the man who had started the last civil war in Rynmere? How could she not run when she found out what his family were like?

He pushed the doubts that had begun to creep up on him all of a sudden away and stopped for a moment in order to take one of her hands in his and hold it. “I love you as well, Ashling”, he said to her and looked into her eyes. “From the moment I first saw you, when you stood on my doorstep, I knew that there was something special about you. I didn’t think I’d ever find someone like you”, he spoke before he fell silent again and listened to her, held her hand and waited for her to say something.

Obvious confusion marred his features for a moment as she spoke about the traits of a stormtouched, claws and snow leopards. He furrowed his brow, and then he furrowed his brows some more, and finally he asked, “Stormtouched?” He had expected her to say a lot of things, but this was something that he hadn’t even considered. A Stormtouched?

“I’m not a Stormtouched, Ashling. Not that I have a problem with them. I accept them, and I think that people should help them rather than discriminate against them. I wasn’t even in Melrath when the etherstorms took place. No, it’s something else. I’m …” He broke off and looked at her for a moment before he took a deep breath. It would be alright. Ashling was a good person. She was not like the Melrathi that condemned Stormtouched and blessed – and mages (which was another thing that he disagreed with). She didn’t hate people who were different. She wasn’t afraid of them.

It would be alright, and if it turned out to not be alright after all … speaking the truth would be better than living a lie …

“I have been blessed, Ashling, more than once. What you saw back then, the golden glow, that was Zanik’s blessing. It allows me to perform feats of great strength, among other things. That’s how I was able to save Joran. Zanik blessed me after I saved King Cassander’s life, after the play I wrote for the king. If you want me to explain, I will, and I will answer any questions that you may have for me.”

“I’m sorry that I kept this from you. I just didn’t know how to …”, he began, but broke off again and simply waited for her to say something as he realized that the things that she had just heard were probably quite overwhelming, and she needed time to process them.

[Ashling]

Ashling gasped. Her betrothed’s sudden claim to have supernatural powers shook her!

At first, she was hardly able to take in what he said. It was too unexpected and too strange. Was he kidding her? She had no idea what to say. Her eyes widened. Under other circumstances, she would have thought that it was the words of a madman. But, Ashling knew that she had seen a strange glow. She knew that Tristan had shown amazing strength. Without any doubt, he had saved the Magnus brothers by lifting the wagon. It had happened, for real.

Her mind was reeling as she tried to grasp the news and sort out her feelings.

It felt surreal that Tristan had supernatural abilities but she had to admit that it seemed true. It felt like the world was spinning. She had to take time to think of what (little) she knew about the immortals. In her thoughts, she recalled what all Melrathi citizens learnt as children. She felt dizzy, trying to grasp it all.

Immortal worship wasn’t forbidden in Melrath but they disdained the practice. Almost all were against it. The ancestors of the Melrathi had fled from the chaotic feuds of the immortals. They considered immortals to have bad judgement and take unwise decisions. In other words, they found the immortals incompetent. That was a very bad thing in Melrath, where personal skill was important and valued.

We can’t let dumb troublemakers lead us. We don’t worship those.

If any people prayed to immortals they did it in private in their homes or secret places in the wilds. A few peaceful immortals were still a bit respected. To Ashling, they were nothing more than a list of names. Xiur, Karem, Treid, Ziell and Yvithia were harmless. It wasn’ like the Melrathi wanted the immortals to visit Melrath though. Melrath belonged to the spirits of land, water and sky.

But, her betrothal to Tristan was Myrkvior’s will. Being religious herself, she didn’t feel entitled to disapprove of Tristan’s faith. This was especially true as he had attended the ritual sacrifices. He had respected her religion. She ought to do the same for Tristan, didn’t she? That thought settled it. Loyalty and love took precedence. She didn’t want to lose Tristan due to religious differences.

Finally, the words came to her. “I respect your religion like you respect mine. ”

She wanted to say that the news didn’t change anything but she disliked lies. His confession didn’t change her feelings for Tristan. No. She still loved him. But, she felt a bit worried. Loving Tristan didn’t make her blind for reality. He had been leading another life in the past, far away from Melrath. Tristan was like a jarl in his homeland. She had avoided worrying about it. But now, he had revealed that he also had supernatural abilities. An immortal had blessed him because Tristan had saved a king. This accentuated the ... social gap. She felt unable to fool herself into not seeing it, no matter that she was in love.

But, she was not going to delve into a discussion about that. Instead, she would mull over it during the times to come and try to understand the ramifications. There were other things she found more important to speak about here and now.

“It’s good that you told me about the blessing Tristan. It’s best to build a life on honesty and not live a lie. And you are also special to me, my very rare and special love...”

She embraced him and kissed him.

Then she asked him to explain what the blessings meant. She imagined that it was better to face the facts right away. So, she wanted to know ... many things.

For example, what kind of immortal was Zanik? (It worried her that Zanik wasn’t on the Melrathi list of harmless immortals.) What could Tristan do with his blessings? What did they mean to him? What did they make him be? What cost did they come at? Were there any drawbacks? She was too full of questions to ask them all.

[Tristan Venora]

Ashling gasped when she heard that he had been blessed, and her eyes widened, and Tristan wondered if she would run in the next couple of trills or call him an evil, lying Immortal worshipper. But then again, she was his fiancée. He knew her. Shouldn’t he trust the woman that he was going to marry one trial? No matter how often he told himself that her reaction wouldn’t be that bad, his heart started to beat faster and faster, and he waited for her reply quite anxiously. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t beg her to tell him what she thought. He just stood there and looked at her, at her beautiful face, and waited.

He wouldn’t pressure her, but give her the time and the space that she needed, no matter how much time and space she needed. Even elsewhere in the world, people would likely have needed some time to come to the terms with the fact that he had been marked by several Immortals (and met a few more of them, sometimes not entirely voluntarily). This was Melrath where they worshipped spirits though, the land, the water and the sky. Melrath might not be as bad as Etzos – or as bad as Etzos had been a few arcs ago when he had made a sculpture for one of the people there – but the beings that he prayed to were far from popular here. He’d already found that out when he had first arrived.

When Ashling finally told him that she respected his religion as he respected hers, he just blinked for a few moments because he couldn’t believe what he had heard. She was fine with it? She didn’t mind – at least not as much as he had feared? What had he done to deserve such a woman? “You do?” he asked before he decided that words could wait, for the time being, put his arms around her as well and met her kiss. After a while, he withdrew, and he would take her hand in his if she would let him before he explained.

To be honest, he was a little worried that she would just get more overwhelmed when she realized what kind of events he had been involved in and what kind of people he had kept company and continued to keep company, but he told her anyway because she deserved to know the truth and nothing but the truth. He told her that Zanik was the Immortal of Music, Strength – and Seduction. He hadn’t seduced anybody in order to gain his favour though, he quickly assured her. It had been as he had told her before. The play that he had written, the play whose premiere King Cassander had watched, had been a musical.

His younger brother Teddy had helped him with the actual music. Tristan’s face darkened for a moment when he said that, and then he explained that his brother had passed away. He didn’t go into any details about it though. He still didn’t understand why Teddy had killed himself and why he hadn’t talked to anybody about what had troubled him.

He had gained Vri’s favour and Vhalar’s favour as well. He had made a statue together with the Immortal of Art, and Vhalar had been quite impressed. He could empower people and give them strength now, for example. He could create a unique, Immortal paint and paint his works of art with it. And he could share the final moments of someone who had died.

Having a blessing meant that you had done something to attract the attention of an Immortal. Being blessed meant honoring your Immortal, just like the people of Melrath honored the spirits, he told her, in the hope that the comparison would make it easier to understand for her.

“I have a spirit companion now”, he finally finished. “Maybe our people and our faiths have something in common, after all, if both of us have some sort of connection to the spirits”, he continued. “It is an autumn spirit. If you want to, I can call it”, he offered.

[Ashling]

Ashling watched Tristan in silence. She was silent while he spoke and she stayed silent for several bits after he had finished.

“You have extraordinary strength and you used it to save Joran Magnus,” she said after a while. “It’s a good deed, saving people in distress.” She spoke to herself as much as to Tristan, thinking aloud as she tried to deal with what he had told her.

“And you can make a theatre play with music? Create amazing statues and craft unique paint for them? That is great. Here in Melrath, we love storytelling and songs and we love spirit figurines and statues. Music, stories and beautiful artwork are good. They light our lives up.”

She saw nothing bad or scary with these abilities either.

“You can empower other people and give them strength and you can share the final moments of those who die? This is not so different from what I do as a healer. When I work I do what I can to make the wounded feel hope. I encourage them to believe that the treatments will bring them back to good health. It’s an important part of my work ... though I rely on other means than blessings.”

She paused before she added her condolence. “And I’m sorry to hear about your younger brother’s death. It’s not always possible to know or understand what drives a person to end their own life...”

She had spoken at a slow pace, listening to her own words. It took a lot of mental and emotional effort, taking in a whole new reality. She found it very different from what she had believed. “This is all very new to me Tristan,” she said. “I have always heard that the immortals are destructive and incompetent troublemakers. They disrupt people’s lives and drive the world down into chaos and misery. Nobody has ever told me about the things you speak about. I will not lie. I am surprised. Confused. Perplexed. But ...”

There was nothing bad with what he told her. Well. There was that bit about seduction, but she didn’t mind seduction as long as it wasn’t about seducing other women. She made a mental note to keep an eye on him. Or, more correct, watch him like a hawk.

Another kind of emotion was brewing deep down in her. Anger. “This means that we have all been deceived by our religious leaders for hundreds of arcs! We have been deprived of this kind of blessings by benevolent immortals! I lack words ...”

She really did lack words because emotion overwhelmed her. The distrust and disdain she had felt for all immortals had been lifelong. Now, the truths she had believed in from childhood and on had been overthrown. For a moment, a red-hot rage that was unusual for her arose like a hunting hawk in her. She was on the verge of lashing out against the Aesir and call them liars and betrayers. If she hadn’t been bonded with Kyrie she might have done it, but her spiritual side took over. The spiritual familiar sent her one of its one-word intuitions and reined her in.

Fairness

For once Ashling knew the meaning of the message at once. The ancestors had fled to Melrath in a time when their old home had become inhabitable due to conflicts between immortals. To them, it must have been true that the immortals didn’t deserve to be worshipped. And today’s Aesir had grown up being taught the same things she had been taught. It wasn’t fair to accuse them of intentional lies and betrayal. Besides...this might just be an extension of the list of benevolent immortals. Other immortals might be as bad as people said!

“I will not blame the Aesir though. I don’t think they knew about the gifts of these immortals...Zanik, Vhalar and Vri.”

So, to her own immense surprise, she had arrived at finding Tristan’s blessing abilities a good thing!

As she was Melrathi this led on to the responsibility to make the best of personal skills and abilities. She felt, naturally, that it was his duty to somehow put all his competence at the service of the world they lived in. Her tone was serious as she told him this. He could do so many things. What was his purpose, now when he was so extraordinary gifted? What did he aim to do with all this? What was his ambition? Letting all his talent go to waste wasn’t an option! This might come as something of a surprise to Tristan. But, to Ashling skills and talents weren’t something to only hold and have. It obliged people to do something of importance!

She stopped there (for now) and changed the topic.

“A spirit companion.” She nodded. He had a spirit as well as the blessings. This made her feel that they were on the same page. Come to think of it, Kyrie had never objected to Tristan or warned her of him! Now, Ashling felt that it was on time to tell Tristan certain things about herself...

“As I’m half sev’ryn I have a bonded spirit of my own, but I cannot show her to you. Only I can see her, in the shape of a translucent hawk, but she almost never manifests to me either. She sits in my mind like a hawk on a branch and most of the time she sleeps. It’s only when there’s something special going on she gives me a ...sign.”

And she wanted him to tell her about the spirit companion and call it. Of course, she wanted this. It made her feel that her view of the world was still valid. She had only broadened her horizons a bit. Her view on a few immortals (not all) had improved, but Melrath was still the land of the spirits!

"I'm excited for your spirit companion!"

[Tristan Venora]

For a moment, as Ashling spoke about good deeds and extraordinary strength, Tristan wondered if he might be dreaming. The way that she had kissed him when he had revealed that he had been blessed by Zanik had already surprised him (although it shouldn’t have!) but she seemed to have no problem with the other Immortals in his life either. On the contrary, she compared what he did to her work as a healer. He decided that it was true though. They tried to do the same things, but employed different methods.

“Ashling”, he said. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if words would do the way that she made him feel justice, so extraordinary happy. He had already loved her before, of course, but he loved her even more now. “Ashling. Knowing that you accept this part of me means a lot to me. I only wish that I had told you sooner. As for the Immortals being destructive and incompetent troublemakers”, he continued and shrugged his shoulders. “There are people like that everywhere.”

“Some Immortals seek to plunge the world into chaos and destroy, and some are good and kind and want to help, just like there are good and bad mortals. As for being deceived by your leaders”, he said and paused for a moment as he noticed the anger in her voice. “I’m not entirely familiar with the history of Melrath yet, but maybe there is a reason for what they did. I cannot imagine that they kept things from you out of malice. Perhaps, things will change from now on forth though”, he remarked.

“No, the Aesir probably didn’t”, he agreed a moment later. “I doubt that there are a lot of blessed individuals in Melrath or that the Immortals come here very often.” He knew of one other person who had been blessed, but he would not mention Eihr’s blessings. Such things were not up to him to reveal. So, he decided to turn to the matter of his spirit companion instead – only to find out that Ashling had a spirit companion as well?

For a moment, he just looked at her in surprise as this was quite unexpected, and then he smiled. He had never met a woman that he had had that much in common with! It didn’t bother him at all that he couldn’t see Ashling’s familiar. It was alright in his opinion. He just asked, “What is her name, Ashling, and how did you meet her? I got my spirit when I met Vhalar. The markings on my face, they are not an Embla. They are Vhalar’s blessing”, he explained in case he hadn’t told her clearly enough yet.

Having said that, he called out to the companion that Vhalar had granted to him. For a moment, there was the strong smell of harvest in the air even though it was only Ashan, and the harvest was still far away. When the little spirit appeared, it took the physical manifestation of colourful autumn leaves in various shades of orange, yellow and red. It didn’t say anything. It was a quiet spirit at the best of times, as all of its kind tended to be.

“My spirit companion tells me when the food that I eat is rotten or poisoned or has been altered by various means”, he explained while the little leafy spirit hovered in the air between them. “He’s been invaluable so far, and I do of course enjoy his company tremendously”, he added with a light smile. He really did. The spirit was such a pleasant being.