Vaalea

Vaalea pushed the light blonde tangled locks of her hair over her shoulders, straightening her back. She sat on the floor of Jarnsalr, her legs crossed and her daughter sitting on the variety of furs laid in front of her, staring up at the young mother expectantly.

Vaalea cleared her throat,  her expression solemn. Then she suddenly beat a quick melodic rhythm with the flat of her hands into her chest, her movements halting momentarily when she declared in the language of the Lossoth, 

(This story takes place after an encounter between Ottho and Vaalea on the perch of the Hunting Lodge in Bree.)

Vaalea met by chance this tall woman with a mysterious aura about her, Ulfey her name was. The last time Vaalea had met her, the woman had given her a jar of some salve for the unnaturally sickly wound in her palm. The woman had said she was a healer and the wound in Vaalea’s hand had indeed healed strangely quickly after she had started the treatment. She merrily presented now the results to Ulfey. 

For a week she had tried to learn how to hunt with her bare hands and a knife. In contrast to some of her tribesmen, she didn’t believe in trapping. She didn’t like the idea of imprisoning the animal before the kill. The kill had to be clean and swift. The animal should die as a free being, allowed to bolt away or fight back. When using traps, such was not possible. The challenge was the whole point of hunting, with traps there were no challenge, no race.

Vaalea laid on her back upon a field of newly born grass, staring at the darkening sky and the emerging stars. Her hand rested on her chest, holding the wooden piece she had found from the bottom of the river a few days prior. She lifted it up against the sky and her eyes trailed the strange runes carved into it’s surface. She then lifted her other hand next to the wooden piece, and her gaze shifted into the cup of her palm. The wound in it appeared sickly and swollen, despite her great efforts to clean it and heal it.

Vaalea stood at the edge of a steep cliff, naked. She smiled as she felt the cold wind swirling around her warm skin. She listened to the tales of the wind, inhaling it deeply through her nostrils, her arms laying calmly at her both sides. It was dark, but she could see the silhouette of the cliffs at the opposing side of the river. The day before she had sat there with Mauri, a fellow Lossoth, and noticed the cliff upon which she stood now. It was a cliff she had seen many times in her dreams, tall and steep.

Animism