I Can't Take This Anymore

I am going to kill that rogue. I’m serious this time. It’s one thing to steal my diary. Oh wait, that’s right, she didn’t steal my diary. She found it lying on the ground. Of course she had to read it to find out what it was and who it belonged to.

WHAT SHE DIDN’T HAVE TO DO WAS READ THE WHOLE DAMN THING! OR WRITE IN IT! AND SHE ESPECIALLY DIDN’T HAVE TO MAKE LITTLE COMMENTS IN THE MARGINS!

The Order hasn’t been reunited for two whole days and what do I find Yvala doing but thumbing through MY DIARY happy as can be. The diary that Cora embossed with storm clouds before giving it to me as a birthday gift after embossing the leather covers. The very diary that I’ve been looking for during the last week. And she was opening it up to a blank page to start writing. I mean I thought we were getting to be friends. I thought I could maybe trust her with some things. Not money or anything valuable, but you know maybe girl stuff. Fat chance I’ll trust that two-bit thief now.

Anyway, I saw her sitting there my diary spread out before her like it was her own, and I saw red. She was lucky the rest of the girls happened to be nearby and heard my screech of rage. Kalena tackled me before I could get my hands on the wretch and I was so shocked by the little wizard that she managed to keep me on the ground. Vixi acted quickly to find a blank diary to give Yvala for her own while Kyri plucked mine from the dirty thief’s hands. I would have given anything to zap her with a spell as she sauntered off while I remained on the ground underneath Kalena, which is to say nothing of the way I felt when I found the comments on my earlier entries.

My week here in Danaria had been bad enough without the incident with Yvala and my diary. It was pretty much just icing on top of the cake. First, there was the fight with the drow scouts in the woods. Then, Markas and I got dragged off to Sellah to help the eladrin and the elves with a pestilence that had been plaguing their society. Walking into Sellah was horrible enough. The scent of putrid wounds hung in the air. Everywhere I looked there were sick and dying fey. Some were coughing horribly. Most had pustules and bruising on their exposed skin. But the worst part was the way they looked at Markas and me with such hope in their eyes. Like our presence alone would cure them.

I wasted no time in lending my services and spent the first half of the week dealing with open sores and chest colds. Now Markas had never been much of a healer, but he did the best he could. I don’t blame him for leaving when he got the chance. A group of humans from up the coast came to Sellah asking for help with some shadar-kai. Since Markas is a devotee of the Raven Queen it was natural that he would want to investigate. Still, it was tough being the only one in Sellah whom people were hanging their hopes on.

Avandra pulled through for me on that end though. A day or so after Markas left, I was treating some of the warriors who had first come down with the pestilence. When I was cleaning the sores on their legs and arms, I noticed what looked like large spider bites. Figuring it was at least one thing I could do to help make the patients more comfortable, I inquired about for thistledown seeds for Brother Mynard’s spider poison remedy. But thistledown, as I found out, didn’t grow in Danaria, so I made up a paste of elm bark and swordfern roots. To my amazement, I saw improvements in the patients by the end of the next day and rushed to let the Melorian clerics know. Soon the awful lesions were clearing up, and the coughing and chest infectionslessoned as the days passed. What the clerics had thought to be a contagion spread through the air was actually a poison that spread by touch and that affected the lungs as well as the skin.

Well, at that point everyone wanted to meet the amazing cleric that had saved them all. I hid out in the temples mostly, insisting to anyone who tried to thank me that it was just a blessing from Avandra. When that got to be too much, I wandered up to the cliffs overlooking the sea. If I had known what would happen to me, I would have sat out in the middle of the temple square.

I was in a meditative cycle when I distantly heard footsteps behind me. Know that the Order was expected to arrive in Sellah that day, I remained where I was. I expected it to be one of the girls. What I didn’t expect was to hear the words, “Brown? Really brown? I definitely thought you would have given up pretending to be a brunette by now. And I really thought that traveling with an adventuring party would have loosened you up more by now. I mean you’re traveling with a sex priestess.”

My eyes widened. The voice was familiar but certainly not anyone I knew here. I spun around to see a woman striding up the path. She could have been my cousin. She was a couple of inches taller, and curvier where I was straight up and down, but she had the same storm blue eyes and her hair was the same gold blonde shade mine was naturally. She wore knee high boots, greaves, a short chainmail skirt and a chain top Yvala would have been happy to wear. A sword was slung across her hips and I could see a shield over her shoulder.

I stood up quickly as she finished walking up the path. “First of all, it doesn’t matter what color my hair is. Secondly, I am perfectly loose. Third, I think I would know if I was traveling with a sex priestess.” I told her.

She cocked her head to the side and said “Huh, I could have sworn she was one of Sehanine’s. Oh well.” She shrugged and smirked at me. “You’re the one I’m interested in anyway.”

I scoffed and turned around toward the water. “Well, I’m not interested in having anything to do with you.”

“You don’t really have a choice there kiddo.” She ran a finger down my braid, which unraveled at her touch and faded back to its normal golden blonde.

I smacked her hand away and started to stomp back down the rock path. “There was no call for you to do that. Maybe I dye my hair for a reason, so that people pay attention to what I do instead of passing me off as I dumb blonde.”

“Trust me, they pay attention.” I could hear the smirk in her voice.

Infuriated I shouted, “I’ll tell you the same thing I told that deva whoshowed up five years ago – leave me alone.”

She swore. “I knew we should never have let Brunhilde try to contact you. It was too early.” She ran after me and grabbed my arm. “Tav, wait. I didn’t mean it like that. People pay attention. I mean obviously we valkyrie are paying attention.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I knew it was childish but the valkyrie was pushing my buttons and making me more than a little petulant. “That’s exactly the kind of attention I’m tired of. I’ve had enough divine intervention in my life. I don’t even know who you are.”

She held up a hand. “I’m Sigdrifa.”

“Well Sigdrifa, you can find another girl. Last time you valkyrie tried to involve me I took out the outer wall of the abbey compound.”

“But you won’t now. You’ve matured, your power has leveled out. The cleric training you’ve had will help you control it now.” Sigdrifa sighed. “There is no one else. Don’t you think we’ve been trying to deal with this situation for years now? Followers of Kord are getting harder to find. You’ve seen the situation in the world. You’ve been to Vertinina, to Danaria. The world is going to crumble to dust unless we find out what is causing this mess. Gondul and Freyja are missing. The rest of the girls and I, we’re spread too thin. Communication in the Astral Sea is so bad we didn’t even know about Danaria until you came here.

“And we certainly aren’t getting help from the lugs up there is Valhalla. Half of the fallen are gone, the other half don’t seem to realize the magnitude of what’s going on. We have clerics and paladins and more than enough fighters. We need someone with brains to help us figure out what’s going on. We need a skald.”

I shook my head. “The temple wouldn’t have trained me as a cleric if I was meant to be a skald.”

Sigdrifa snorted. “Not a single cleric or paladin in Pernior had seen a skald before you. Your magical aptitude would have easily been mistaken for the effects of divine prayer. Of course they wouldn’t have known what you are. There hasn’t been a skald for 150 years.”

“No, I read about skalds. The power source is different.”

“And you’ve already proved you can tap into it.” I hadn’t even noticed Sigdrifa move until she grabbed my hand. Somehow she’d drawn her sword without my notice. She brought my hand up to the hilt and cupped it with her own. My other hand joined of its own accord. “You’re going todo just fine.” She whispered something I couldn’t quite hear and the sword flashed bright white. I could feel the energies swirl around the two of us. My power, her power. Divine magics mixing with arcane. I heard voices, saw battles, listened to a hundred generals, watched empires rise and fall. Occassionally I heard a woman singing. Not Sigdrifa, someone older.

It’s hard to remember what I saw. I do remember the energies calming down and the composition of what I could draw from had changed. The divine threads were all but gone, replaced by a store of martial resources and a wealth of arcane lore. I realized that the sun was close enough to setting to bathe the cast in gold. Sigdrifa set me down on a rock and took my mace. She set it on the ground and cleaved it in two with her sword. The pieces glowed and shifted into new shapes – a longsword and a wand. She put both weapons in my lap and knelt down.

“If no one’s been a skald for over a century, how and I supposed to learn how to do this?” I asked as I fiddled with the sword. “I gave you everything you need. It’ll come to you in time.” Sigdrifa put a hand on my shoulder. “Relax when you get the opportunity. The road you and your companions are on is hard enough.” She stood up and shook out her hair and her wings. They were white, like a swan’s.

“I didn’t want this.” I said, my voice catching in the wind. She looked back and smiled. “None of us did. I certainly didn’t when I was turned. Velkommen til die sosterþingen.”

My life is so screwed. The girls really should have let me kill that rogue.