Waiting Who: The companions of the future Grey Wardens Where: Amaranthine When: Evening, 13 Molioris, 9:45, concurrent of The Joining Summary: There are those who have been chosen to embrace their destinies as Grey Wardens - and then there are those who wait, and the waiting may well be the harder part of the bargain. Rating: PG-13?
When Hilda Aelricsdottr had traveled down out of the mountains and into the lands of the South, this was the last place she had ever expected to find herself.
Even though she was a stranger to their lands, the people of Amaranthine had opened their arms and their hearts to her, embracing her as family, teaching her of their culture and ways, sharing their stories as surely as she told those of her own people. It was so often a busy place, full of life and noise, and even moreso with the arrival of both parties of potential Wardens; but now on the evening of the Joining, Vigil's Keep was quiet, as if they already mourned. It had been whispered, behind closed doors and in fearful tones, that the ceremony might very well slay those who participated in it. This meant much to those who worried for the candidates, of course - but for Hilda, who had already battled darkspawn a decade, it meant so much more. The Commander, a kingly figure of a man with a surprisingly quick smile, had ushered all into the main hall of the keep, and now the doors were locked and barred. She wondered if he had brought darkspawn from the north to test the warriors with; she wondered how many would come through alive.
She wondered, with a pang, if her decision to forestall earning her way into Conlan Delaine's good graces had been a bad one, and one that she might never be allowed to rectify.
But in the Anderfels, idle hands were the Archdemon's playground, and since no one else in the keep seemed motivated to do something constructive, she took affairs into her own hands.
Into the kitchens and sculleries she went, seeking bricks and stone, and fuel-soaked logs thicker than her own thighs were round; with these the blonde skald worked a circle into the main courtyard, stacking the logs in a cross-woven and ancient pattern, that of an honor-pyre, to respect the dead even if they would not be burnt within its confines. Many of those within the keep sat at the edges of the courtyard and watched her work, her cloak and bow set aside, one wrapped carefully about the other as she labored to set things aright, the sun having long ago set, the area lit only by the barest of sconces. Sweat beaded on her forehead, the upper half of her leathers shed to reveal a slim, strong torso wrapped in linens from hip to armpit, heat steaming off of her in the coolness of the night air - and then at long last, the work was finished, and she took her own flint and tinder to set the structure alight.
The cordwood went up like a beacon, and Hilda sat and watched the flame lick hungrily across the logs until it was a full-blown bonfire, red and orange and white, spitting sparks up into the night air.
And then she began to sing.
It was not high, for Hilda was no soprano, but for that it could not be said that her training as a skald left her lacking; her voice was clear and pure and honey-smooth, head tipped back and eyes for the blackness of the night sky, spinning a tale with foreign words, of bravery and the hunt, of warriors young and old, of elders finding peace and youth prematurely ended, victories dearly won but no less honorable for the sacrifices made in attaining them. It was something like unto a pagan call to prayer, a benediction that did not require religion or faith.
Hilda the girl hoped that Conlan and the others could hear her, and would take strength from it, to face whatever adversary Alistair would set upon them. But if he could not, Hilda the skald would sing anyway - for she was what Gunnarr had made of her, and the hope of her people given form, the bearer of the histories, of both the glory and the pain.
And perhaps others would come to the fireside, to listen, to join their hopes and fears with her own, until the barred doors opened, and they knew the toll that their hearts had taken.