1629, Sea Season, Disorder Week, Wildday
Context
Just outside Beasts Gather, Berra and Varanis are walking back. Varanis had a nightmare and told Berra a little about it, which seems to have finally opened up the Humakti to talking about some of her own difficulties. Follows immediately on from In the Wilds. After Who Trolls the Trolls? (Session 4.03)
SPOILERY for some of Berra’s Jar-eel experiences and her state of mind.
Events
It takes about ten minutes before Berra lets go of Varanis’ hand as they walk. “You wanna know what I saw, when I … I mean, nobody’s overhearing us, but it might be quite hard to listen.”
Varanis nods, then realizing that Berra was looking ahead, says, “Yes.” She seems to have calmed down and mostly returned to herself while they walked. Movement has that effect for her, always.
“So, first off, it wasn’t when I was initiated. I remember tiny bits from there, but mostly when I’m dreaming. I was Humakt, I think? But I don’t know. And I always kind of… you get the idea about I Fought We Won. It thrills me. I don’t use that word often and I’m not sure I am using it right, but being told about it felt right. Not remembering’s one of the reasons I didn’t join Vinga, though. I wasn’t quite sure, and I wasn’t going to commit to the wrong thing. Even with Humakt I didn’t really know until he marked me, but I was determined.”
Varanis nods again. Her murmured “Mhmmm” seems to be an invitation to continue.
“Tarsh. And it’s going to be hard for you to hear some of this, but if I say it, and you stop me, that’s going to be really damned hard, so you get to just listen to it.” Berra takes a swig of her water, and wipes her lip with her thumb. “I asked my Lord Eril if we should go back and look for you, and I also asked him if we should do the Heroquest, because by then, Koraki was going to have arrived. And he told me to look for you, and said that I should do it if I could make it my own. He said ‘you’ and he’s always really formal so it could have been that he meant everyone, but he was instructing me to make sure that happened.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath, but the Vingan releases it slowly and says nothing.
“So at this point, I still thought we were just facing Onjur, and I knew he underestimated me. I thought he might have you prisoner but I figured – like you probably did – that if we were Lightbringers hard enough, we could get what we wanted. I was primarily hoping to just get you out, though.” Berra looks at the faint path ahead of her, not at her companion. “If you’d asked me to stake my life on it, I’d have said you wouldn’t have made that decision. Not because of it being right or wrong, but because you made it for me as well. So I wasn’t just angry. I was hurt, like I never have been, but some part of me, deep inside, was telling me that it was a good start, and I was wondering if it was just for us, or for them as well – that emotion seemed like a thing Humakt would feel, and push down, so I pushed it down and tried to be him.”
Varanis winces, but continues to hold her silence.
“I’m gonna say, a lot of this might not make sense.” That’s Berra’s aside-tone. “I don’t remember it all clearly. But most people who get told it, get the Lightbringers’ story wrong anyhow. They think that Orlanth went to get Yelm back. I was trying to search for a solution, instead. And I had my orders, which basically now amounted to ‘try to fuck up Jar-eel’, but I’m nothing if not obedient, and as long as I kicked up enough of a fuss, I reckoned I could at least damage them. We were trapped, but we could bite. And if you’ve never seen me angry… I think you’ve ever seen me really angry. I wasn’t thinking with my head, or my heart. I was thinking cold. Asset listing. And then I started off being someone on a road and there was this tanned bandit ahead of me, but he reminded me of someone. I met Devolin before I met… before I even met Mellia. He tried to hold me up and he ended up afraid of me. And this bandit had a lisp. I was trying really hard to be Humakt, but I remembered I was Berra as well, and I grabbed him by the throat so he couldn’t say anything, and I told him to be Eurmal as hard as he could. That the Lunars had us, and that was the best way to harm them. And anyhow, I took his ransom and we talked and stuff, and we ended up in a city in Carmania. He knew it, and he could say it, and he didn’t know how he knew, and they were still pushing us really hard. So I told him to be Eurmal, and he went off and caused a distraction. I think when you arrived, bits were still on fire?” Berra may be wrong, but at least she makes the effort to talk to Varanis, not just the air.
“He played his role well,” Varanis says softly.
“Yeah. I went to see him afterwards, and gave him back a chunk of his ransom. He stole it from a soldier somewhere in Carmania.” Berra grins, but it is fragile. “Anyhow. I was with him, and I figured that at that point, Yanafil Tarnils was still Humakti. So I could be him, and still be Humakt.” She pronounces the name of the Lunar War God in her typical peasant way; badly. “And I went to my Temple. My sword was kinda bent and kinda straight, two things at once. And… I can’t tell you the details, but let’s pretend that… I dunno, there’s a ritual and I did it and went into the Underworld. Which wasn’t what they wanted me to do, I hoped – but in the end it didn’t really matter. Onjur had planned for us doing the Lightbringers.” She shrugs. “I ended up on … I ended up walking, and I found I was being more the noble war god, and stuff. And I didn’t want that, so I pushed to be something else instead. Me. A duck. Someone who doesn’t talk like they’re worth more than me. And then – this is kinda important for my thinking – I ended up being me and Humakt. And the other one faded. He was still there, but outnumbered. I kinda thought that was victory. And it was enough to keep me going and determined. At least they were not doing it on their terms, and they weren’t going to get the god they were after. Although at one point I … yeah, a bit later I think, I felt I had a beard. That was the first time they tried to make me Lhankor Mhy. Din’t work.”
“Lhan…” The Vingan catches herself, shakes her head, and shuts up.
“Yeah. Because they didn’t care about us being us. Just about going through the motions. No respect, huh? Anyhow, you know the kid at the Temple, right at the front? They’d killed her. The Seven Mothers quest needs someone innocent to die.”1B: Do me an Insight Human, if you like. V: 2!
Varanis watches her friend, managing not to trip over the root that twists across their path.
Berra’s expression of calm is the one she uses when she cannot really be calm. Her light tone says that she wants people to die for this. More, though, she is talking a lot now because she is afraid of what is coming. “I’m pretty sure Onjur would have thought it his duty to kill her, but no matter what, he allowed and he organised it.” She makes no explicit threats, but she means him great harm. “And then, I got pretty angry. How dare they?” She looks to Varanis, suddenly intense. “They sent a child to me because they knew I would have to look after her, and that would bring me back to their story. So I decided to ignore what they wanted, except to walk away from it, and I couldn’t be Humakt with the child with me. But if you really try, myths are not just things you walk through. I was Humakt. I told her she was Voria, and I took her to a place I knew. She could be safe with Ty Kora Tek, and maybe she could be saved, because Humakt can’t stop that. And if she came back to life, then she couldn’t be part of their plan. So I forced it to happen. And Jar-eel’s harp stopped.”
There’s the sharp intake of breath again. Varanis’ eyes flare, but she does not interrupt. Berra has her complete attention.
“I thought, for a bit, that I’d got away. That I’d escaped. But at one point in your journey, you’d have heard the harp stop. More than one, in fact, because I got really really angry and at the end I was just trying to break things.” Berra’s smile is not entirely safe to be around. “She was Ty Kora Tek. And she told me I had made her intervene. I got her attention.”2V: Sadly, I can’t remember what was happening when the harp stopped. I think Varanis was too Orlanth anyway. B: I think you were on the turtle, the first time. Berra’s expression is a mix of awe, pride, and distant fear. She takes a deep breath. “She let the kid out of the house, and started telling her things about Death and re-birth and being a crocodile, and I thought screw this, I’m the best predator here, not a crocodile, and I became the wolf, and jumped to go snatch the kid.” Pause. Grin. “Din’t work. She’s Jar-eel.”
She gets a worried look from her friend.
Berra does not have to shift her armour to show the scar inside her left arm, just pull her sleeve up a bit. “Took out the tendons, and when I tried to bite her, she… well, I fell. Turns out four-legged people need four legs to stand up on unless they’ve practiced.” The Humakti sighs. “And the next bit is dangerous for you to know. I can’t tell you not to tell anyone, because you shouldn’t swear to that, but from here, I’ve got her attention.”
Varanis looks at the scar, then at Berra’s face. She nods. She will hear it all, regardless of the cost.
“She kissed me, and for a moment I could see her lips.” Berra rubs at her forehead. “I sometimes still can see weird stuff, if things are right. And she was with me, meditating, naked. Which I have to say would be pretty distracting if I hadn’t been angry, but at that point it just kinda bounced off. She was interested in me, because I had tried to do something different. And what she said was true. She said that I was a rebel. And also, that told me what I had to do, because it told me that she wanted me to follow her, and I could take up her time and talk with her. And then you’d be able to do your thing better, because the harp wasn’t playing yet. But because I was keeping her busy, I had to hear.”
She can’t help herself. Varanis lets slip a barely whispered, “oh gods!” But that’s all. Should Berra happen to glance her way, she’d see that the Vingan has bitten her lip to shut herself up. Her eyes are wide and worried, but she has fallen silent again.
“She showed me the Death of Yelm,” Berra says, and looks away. “I asked Humakt, or listened out. He didn’t tell me it was an assassination. But the version she showed me – it was Orlanth and a bat and some other people. They killed him together. That’s a thing that’s True and happened, just like Orlanth doing it alone did.”
There’s a huff of air through Varanis’ nostrils, but her teeth maintain their hold and she manages not to argue.
“I did think of trying to stop the assassination, but it wasn’t one, and if I got in her way she might have stopped talking. Never interrupt the enemy when they’re making a mistake right?” Berra’s smile falters, and it was never a smile to begin with. “She was asking me questions, trying to get me to agree with her in my thinking – she didn’t mind me arguing, but she was trying to make me think some stuff. And she didn’t stop. She showed me the Great Darkness. She thought that the Lunar Way is like I Fought, We Won. She’s wrong about that. Was wrong about that. But I didn’t tell her. I wasn’t going to give her any information.”
Berra rolls out her shoulders like she is getting ready for a fight. “That’s when she showed me the Devil being born. I… Well, yeah. Unholy trio. The lot. It’s maybe the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but it had some competition. But yeah. It was bad. He’s…” She trails off.
Varanis stares ahead at the village, coming into view. Calculating the distance, she signals Berra. Ahead? Around?
Berra looks at the gates, open and safe, a place where she could not talk. “I could say more,” she says. “But that’s how I saw the Devil.” She really does not want to go on, but she stops rather than walking in there.
“Berra… I… Orlanth’s balls, you’re a fucking hero. You defied her, repeatedly.” Varanis has focused on the safe part. The safer part? The dead demi-goddess, rather than the Devil.
“Yeah. I don’t know if I helped Lord Eril there. I didn’t ask him, but if she’d been on the turtle, or if she’d been playing the harp, I don’t know if she’d have noticed he was a Hero.” Her voice is stretched close to breaking. No matter how heroic she was herself, this is hard to look back on.
“I…” Varanis seems to be struggling to find words. Finally, she holds her arms out, offering without demanding.
Berra takes a breath, and another. A tear sparks but does not escape her. “I shouldn’t. It’ll make me break.” She gives a little smile and turns around to walk on. “Come on…” It lets her face away for a moment. It seems she is done for talking for now.3B: I’m leaving it open as to whether we walk past because we have probably got 2 more weeks.
Varanis lets her arms drop to her sides. She silently falls into step beside her friend, waiting for the other to continue speaking or not, as the Humakti chooses.
After walking for a bit, Berra stops to lounge on a rock, her weight on one foot and two hands, as she watches the sky. “She didn’t stop to heal me, or let me do it, and I didn’t notice she… I… that I was bleeding. I forgot, but I noticed later. That’s the sort of person she is. So selfish that the thing she wants to show you has to be the most important thing, so determined that she’s right, she couldn’t think of anything but changing me.”
The red-haired Wind Lord winces, hard. “Maybe she did it deliberately? To be one more thing for you to deal with?” she offers.
“No. She just didn’t think the body was important. While I was there, I forgot it too, to be honest. But she didn’t forget – she just didn’t care. Anyhow, she’d been trying to take my hand for a while, making it into an offer. This time when she tried it, I did. I had thought of a sword grip that would put… that would make her know that I thought I was moving her… an insult, really. It didn’t work. She’s too fast. But then she showed me the path of … I think it was a thing she did, or a thing the Red Goddess did. But she was playing the Red Goddess sometimes and I was part of it. I couldn’t always tell them apart, even if one was right next to me and one was right in front.”
Varanis shivers.
“So, she took off her power and went into the Underworld. I told Lord Eril all this, and the details he needed. You’re getting less. Some of it, I didn’t want him having to know, and some of it, I didn’t want him to know. He’d get it wrong. The devil ambushed her, and broke her completely. I guess that’s a pretty powerful thing to happen in a myth.”
Wide-eyed with horror, Varanis asks, “But if he broke her, why is she not dead?”
“Because dead isn’t broken. This had to happen in Time, anyhow, so… well, maybe she is. I don’t know. But she… I don’t know. By now I was pretty angry, but as long as I had her attention, it was all good. I was more thinking about me and her than the Devil, to be honest. But if I had to guess it’s because she came to some kind of deal, or he wanted her alive to suffer. Maybe those are the same thing.” Berra shrugs, which given how she is on the rock is a feat of impressive strength and control. She sits down properly, though. “She’s still alive, and she’s Chaotic. We know that.”
“I hate to ask this, but…” Varanis appears to have completely forgotten her earlier determination to stay silent. “How do we know that Jar-eel is truly dead then? I mean, we saw Harrek destroy her, but what if that’s got mythic implications? What if that just makes her more like her Goddess?”
Berra winces. “We don’t,” she says after a few moments. “But you need to listen to a bit more to understand some stuff.” Then she pauses. “I’m pretty sure I heard her voice recently, when I had no call to. So there’s something of her around.”
Varanis opens her mouth to speak, then shuts it again. She joins Berra on the rock and signals her readiness to listen.
“After that, she met Arachne Solara, and learned secrets, and then she met… well, sort of Gbajji, and sort of not. She took knowledge from him too. I’d heard of the Gbajji wars, but they’re really distant, you know? So I didn’t know who it was at the time. Just that she took a power from him in the shape of a golden man. If you know a bit about history I can tell you that too.”4B: Your best Homeland Lore at half its score please. V: 54, so not even bothering to look it up.
Varanis looks blank.
Berra gives Varanis a glance before she goes on. “S’complicated. I think he … yeah, I can tell you this. He gave the Telmori their coats. The curse in them, at least.”5B: Insight Human, at +30, please. Combo of knowing Berra and your earlier critical. V: 6. Yeah, she’s paying more attention to Berra than she ever did to her history lessons.
As she goes through the story, Berra is getting reckless. She is making the decision to tell more, not less, when she has the choice. 6V: I feel like I need to decide if Varanis will point out to Berra that she’s saying more than intended, but… what to roll for that? It could be an Honour thing. But, also, Berra needs this. Maybe oppose Honour with Love Berra? That seems almost like a forgone conclusion because of V’s honour. I’m open to alternatives? B: Hmmm. Well, two successes there could mean being undecided, so saying nothing yet? V: sounds reasonable. Let’s see what the dice say then. Result = undecided “Then she tamed the Sky Bear. Lemme tell you, at that point, I had the idea she could take Harrek. Maybe she’d’ve been able to, but for later. And then with the bear as her mount she fought the Devil and defeated him and took the Bat.” Berra scowls. “I have opinions on that. They are not all polite.”
Varanis listens, her brows drawn together. Her fingers are plucking at the mossy surface of the rock beside her.
Berra wriggles her nose as she thinks, and then takes a deep breath. “So that was the first time the harp stopped. It… I was pretty damaged when I came out of that, and I could see all of the spirits around me, so I just talked to the rocks and stuff for a while. Jar-eel was gone. There was a friendly rock I was sitting on. I liked him.”
Berra shrugs. “That was the hardest bit, anyhow. But after that I had to keep going. So when I remembered who I was again, and that I had a thing to do, I got off my friend rock and kept going. I was trying to find a way to break the ritual. Like, was there a body? Could I kill one of Jar-eel’s harp-strings? That kind of thing. All sorts of plans. But it would be dumb to take off armour in a place like that, so when the Devil came for me, I was armed. I fought him and won. He was…that troll.” Berra does not seem too bothered by the memory now. If anything, she is more amused. “The universe gets to know I can take him, I suppose.” She gives Varanis a distant smile, with a hint of challenge to it.
The tormented bit of moss lies forgotten as Varanis hangs on Berra’s words. When the warrior falls silent, her friend can’t help herself. “Were you… Storm Bull?” she asks softly. “Or Humakt? Or… I’m sorry. Listening. Not talking. Not something I’m good at, but I’ll try.”
“No, I was me. She sent me around the same path again. Once I realised, I tried to get it all… yeah, wrong is the word. Not just different, but breaking it. It’s hard to do, and for reasons I can’t say I didn’t really manage it. Not for me, anyhow. But for her. We’ll get to that.” Berra sort of grins slightly, like the next memory pleases her. “There were drums, but in looking for them, I missed them. I went straight to where the golden man was imprisoned. Humakt teaches us how to do human sacrifice, although it’s rare. So I killed him. I was not letting him back into the world, and he was Chaotic, but in that place he also wasn’t, so I didn’t give a Chaotic offering.” Berra looks away anyhow, like that part troubles her.
The tumble of feelings is clear on Berra’s face. Even for her this is coming fast and hitting hard, and she has no stamina to feel each emotion, so she does not stay there for long. At least once, she looks like she might be about to panic and then there are more words and a different way to feel, and she can stay out of the abyss by concentrating on the next thing.
Her friend stays quiet, except for the occasional sharp intake of breath or soft listening noise.
Berra considers her next workds. “At that point, there can’t have been any music, because, well. The golden figure had red hair. So I think I cast out some of her power. She probably knew how not to have that happen, but also I did it, and she was concentrating on a lot. So that’s one of the things that weakened her. I think. And then I realised I’d gone past the drums, and went back to look. Can I have some water?”
“Yes, sorry. I didn’t think.” Varanis fumbles for the water flask on her belt and hands it over.
Berra looks confused by it for a moment, and then opens it to drink, doing so with her eyes shut, like she fears water. She sets her jaw for a moment, and then goes on. Suddenly there is a real smile. “So, I met Cragspider. The fire witch. She was Arachne Solara. That was a good rest. She fed me, and I fed her. We talked a bit. I can’t tell you everything, but if I ever go talk to her, she won’t eat me the first time, and I won’t slay her the first time.” Berra smiles distantly, then sighs quietly. “She’s got your tooth. The one you made me. I needed the right gift to give her, and that was it. She gave me a thing in return. And she showed me how a spider winks. Although it’s cheating, because she only had two eyes. That she showed. I mean, in her face.” A curiously specific statement, and Berra seems to have thought about it all as she said it. “It was a good rest. I needed that. And then I went on. Where I had killed Jar-eel was empty now. But I killed her. I dedicated her magic away. And then there was a sky bear. And about now you were… wait, at one point I was up on a giant turtle, wasn’t I? I think that was after this but I can’t remember. Certainly it was after… yeah. At least after the first time. I was being me, after that, refusing to take a part. It gets really confusing, and I wasn’t clear about anything at the time, anyhow. Just trying to do the next thing.” Berra stretches out on the rock, into the Truth Rune.
Varanis stays seated, watchful. “I don’t remember a lot of it,” she admits when Berra stops talking. “Maybe the turtle? I don’t know. Vinga tends to leave little room in my head for me when I’m HeroQuesting, it seems.”
“It was the turtle, because that was where I saw Dormal first. But I got there by hailing a lift on the sky bear. I refused to tame him, but as it turned out he knew me. He didn’t seem all there, though. I was trying to talk to him, and then I was just out on the turtle refusing to be Lhankor Mhy. By then you lot had made oaths that bound you in, but I wasn’t going to be part of it. Anyhow, me beating the devil by arriving early and armed, me dedicating her power away, and Harrek not turning up – those were all important. And I didn’t meet a devil thing that time. Also I actually had not realised it was Jar-eel when I cut her throat. I only worked that out later, so I did it without hatred to the sacrifice. Still bloody angry, though.” Her voice veers from street Nochet to rural Sartar, with no apparent meaning behind shifts in accent. “Those are things that made her vulnerable. That’s why I couldn’t say anything afterwards. My Lord needed to know.”
“I thought you wouldn’t talk about it because …” Varanis shakes her head. “Sorry. Listening. Not talking.” She begins to shred the clump of moss she dislodged earlier, having found it again. She doesn’t look at what she’s doing or at Berra, but instead keeps her eyes on the landscape around them.
“I… yeah, it was a pretty bad thing, that whole debrief. Also I think I left my High Sword to clean up some stuff I broke. Spilled. Broke. Um…” Berra looks over at the water bottle, and moves it away from her. “So I refused to be Lhankor Mhy, and she had to be. A bit later she bound me in there again, and a lot harder, but I told Dormal I’d give him a free go at me – take out a tendon. And she couldn’t control both of us. So even though I was bound pretty hard by that point she had to let me go. I was in an absolute rage. And that’s the whole thing – the whole problem. There’s more to tell, but that’s what it comes down to. I didn’t just spend that Heroquest being a wolf. I mostly spent it as me, being angry. Being angry and rebelling. It’s as much of a change as the wolf is… But after that she didn’t bother me much. She needed to guide you, and that left me in the Temple. Livid.” Finally, Berra sounds threatening again. “And all she had to match against me was Onjur.” Threatening and half dismissive. She pushes herself up on one elbow, and smiles – wolfishly – at the distant mountains to the North.7V: What happened to Onjur anyway? B: He left before Jar-eel and the Emperor. Berra later sent a letter to him.
Varanis sighs, but says nothing. She reaches for the water, then stops and stares at her hand. Moss and dirt is embedded beneath the fingernails. She takes the flask anyway and after a sip, she asks, “Did he respond to your letter?”
“Oh, no. I don’t even know if he’s got it yet. If he’s wise he won’t antagonise me. That would get me moving again. The letter was mostly for his enemies, anyhow. Do you want me to go on? The rest is… well, actually I should. I see you again at the end. But when I made Jar-eel be Lhankor Mhy, they couldn’t get me back into the Heroquest for a while. I could probably have left if I wanted to, but that wasn’t the way to damage them. Anyhow, I met Onjur.”
Her friend nods.
“He wanted me to fight him – was still trying to make me be Yanafal Tarnils. But he is really not up to my speed there. We both knew he couldn’t kill me. So I just walked away from him. But then his second layer caught me. He’s always got second layers, but that just means I get more to break.” Berra shrugs. “He had a walktapus.”
Grey eyes widen in surprise, but the Vingan manages to hold her silence.
“That did mean I had to fall in with what he was doing. I think it was going to be the Devil that got bound at the end of the Compromise, because they sure as hell didn’t mean to have the Red Goddess story happening.” Berra looks up at Yelm, now clear of the horizon, and struggling against the cloud cover. “But I knew how to deal with it. I just killed it quickly and then I had to choose between going forward or going back. I thought it was a guard, and they thought it was a stand-in for the devil. I’d defeated Drazn’k, so he wasn’t there for me to fight the second time around. So they used that. But… well, he had expected me in that corridor. I nearly went back to find out what was in other places, and I should have, but I went on. And I reached a balcony, and a load of people acclaimed me. That was his regiment. And then I hadn’t really eaten for a while except a bit of ham beetle and I really was not thinking clearly. I… you know, there wasn’t much left of me to think at all? That was the other reason I didn’t say much on the way back. Just couldn’t. And there were all these people shouting and I thought I was being pushed to be Yanafal Tarnils. They were his Regiment. Probably the worship power behind the ceremony, or at least, some of that.”
A crow calls out from a branch overhead, causing Varanis to jump a little.
“At that point, Truth wasn’t even with me. I saw a chance to stab him, and I took it. I thought I was speaking as Yanafal Tarnils, and I told my assembled troops, ‘War’s over, go home.’ I could have done better. And I did. After that I told them about the White Moon movement, told them to seek it out, and everything I could remember about it. So hopefully I’ve infected his regiment. Then I drew on their sacred architecture and went back in. Onjur was there again, and he likes you to know when he’s won… no, maybe not. Not any more. Because I used that against him. He’s smart enough to learn, so next time it’ll be knives out, straight away. But he said I’d been the Red Goddess and I’d killed the Devil. But to be honest I wasn’t prepared to believe that. So I didn’t. It didn’t have the force of everything else and it wasn’t the same Devil and I just didn’t have the strength to argue. So I turned and walked away. Back to the balcony. I couldn’t find a way to pull him over with me when he followed, so I just climbed. Couldn’t really think, but that was the one way he couldn’t control me, so I took it. I climbed about two hours. Rested a bit from time to time, but it was mostly up. Do you remember the way the place was laid out? The big stone ring outside, with the smaller ring inside?”
There’s a nod.
“I was climbing up the outer part of the inner ring. And at the… yeah, that’s how it happened.” Berra reaches for water. “Raven knows what a mess I am. Lord Raven, I mean. He doesn’t ask questions, but I think this report’s open to him.” She shudders slightly. “I mean, probably.” Defining it like that seems to get her on course. “Um. I can’t remember where I was.”
“Climbing,” Varanis replies.
Berra nods. She rolls the water bottle back and forth in her hands for a little while, and then says, “At the top they’ve got a holy circle going down. I mean, round. Round the top. And there was a Priestess there. I was too tired to fight, but she told me a few things, and I think she was just in it for the blood, to be honest. If I’d been able to find something big enough, I think I could have bought her. But it would have had to be Jar-eel sized. Moon big. So I decided not to die trying, and she had the soldier brought up who had brought in the walktapus. I wanna know how one person like that did that, because if it was really just one person, then the Lunar Empire’s been holding back. But she said he was responsible for bringing Chaos in, and kicked him – a long way. He fell into the middle. Blood sacrifice in a spot that makes a call to Yelm, and an Emperor. But for that, given she let him in and then called him responsible, there’s another notch on my grudge-tree. And then I couldn’t see a … oh yes. I forgot a bit. From there, I could see the Regiment.” Berra finally opens the water. “I think we talked about this in the baths. They couldn’t get me, I had height, and I made my chest wrap into a sling. There were plenty of stones, and I killed someone in silver, and made them all have to move, but that wasn’t a win.” Casually killing a wearer of Rune Metal is apparently not enough. Berra drinks.
When Berra mentions the baths, Varanis nods, recalling the conversation.
“After that, I asked the Priestess for a guide. There wasn’t much time left, and I didn’t want to miss it. I’d been looking for other vulnerabilities, but it was time to get to the middle. The climb had taken it out of me, but it’d also given me time. I don’t know how long I really went around the Heroquest bits, but I felt hungry, and I’d run out of water, and I wasn’t going to get more there if I could help it. So you know it from here, because I could tell it. Because people had seen it. I couldn’t do anything, and Xenofos held me down. After all that.” Berra’s head droops a little. She is at the end of her emotional endurance now, played out. “And I… I don’t think I could have stepped into the Compromise. I had a plan there. And I tried to call on Humakt to stop the Emperor’s body being used to come back to life, but in that place I’m not sure I could have got through. But then it was done and I just had to get you home. To go home.” Tears glimmer but do not drop.
Varanis looks stricken. “You were… I…” She struggles. “Berra, I…” She swears, then falls silent again.
“I stayed together, but to be honest I don’t know what ‘I’ means all the time right now. I have to stay under control, and then sometimes I forget, or I’m… yeah. Anyhow, Harrek came out basically under my feet. He was pretty hacked off, and he knew who had tried to use him. But he wasn’t dangerous, right then. Except to everyone. But I get how he feels.”
“It explains a lot,” Varanis says softly. “I know that saying I’m sorry again carries little meaning. And I can’t undo what’s been done. I…” The Vingan stares at her hands, not really seeing them. “I don’t really know what I can do, except to say thank you for helping me to understand better.”
Berra looks down at the grass in front of her feet, wriggling to the edge of the rock. “I need to look after Lord Raven,” she says thoughtfully. “And keep Lord Eril in line. But I’m finished for big things. I’ve done enough.”
“You think the gods are finished with you, though?”
Berra shrugs. “I mean, I’m not looking for it. I’ve got my position in the Temple, and I can do… I can look after that. I don’t have to be the one pushing.”
“I wish I thought it would be that easy,” Varanis replies, shaking her head. “I feel… there’s too much to do. We aren’t in the clear yet.”
Berra looks at Varanis and nods. “I know. But I can do it by following orders.” She looks back down at the ground. “Right?” There is a lot of worry there.
Varanis returns the look, then sighs. “I’m sure that’ll be fine, Berra. If it’s what you need, then so be it.”
The Humakti nods, and slowly shifts forward to get her feet back onto the ground. “Let’s go back?” she suggests in a small voice.8B: Do me an Insight (Human)? V: 10. Special Berra needed that to be able to get moving again. Even if she does not believe it to be true, she has to believe it might be true.9V: That she has done all the hard work? B: That she might be able to stop where she is, so yes, maybe? It’s not even necessarily about the work, but about being the one doing the pushing.
Varanis hops off the rock to follow. There’s a bare patch where she’s torn up the moss and she gives it a guilty glance before turning her gaze back in the direction of the village.
Berra looks around as she goes, checking the world for dangers.
“Maybe there will be something hot to drink,” Varanis muses, steering the conversation into a safe direction.
“Something without vegetables,” Berra says. “Did you know you can make soup out of worms?”
“Worms?”
“Yeah. Worms.” Berra nods.
“Can I… Am I allowed to ask questions?”10V: Based on the previous insight, do I think Berra has it in her to deal with questions? That might affect whether or not I ask now. B: This is as open as she has been for ages, and she is braced against questions now, even if she is in a bad way. Now is likely the only chance.
“Um, about the worms? Because I don’t cook well. But… I can’t tell you a lot about other stuff but I could always say no.” Berra seems to be perking up again. It is mostly on the outside, but the words seem to be genuine.
“You mentioned hearing her voice recently. Where? What did you hear?”
Berra grimaces. “I was talking to Maalira. It was a memory of her, but really intense. When she first really looked at me, she called me the Humakti who loved. And it hit me really hard – no reason to, but her voice echoes. So it could be just a memory.”
“Are you and Maalira… are you ok with her now?”
“There are a lot of ways of being OK with someone. I’m not free to be anything more than her friend, so that’s got to be the answer. She said she wasn’t pining, so I… I suppose yes?” Berra speaks like she is suddenly very confused.
“That’s good. I like her. I want her to be happy.” Varanis falls silent for a few paces, then says, “Do you see things?”
Berra blinks. “Um, like?” She is suddenly wary.
Varanis shrugs. “Spirits? Ghosts? I don’t know. Chaos? Some days, it’s like my dreams are encroaching into my days and I can’t quite tell them apart. Most of the time, it turns out I was dreaming and only thought I was awake. But sometimes…” There’s a shudder.
Berra pulls herself together as fast as she ever does. “No, not like that. I saw a lot of spirits in… I think I see them more in Heroquests, but I’d have to really concentrate on it. I can’t make it happen but I don’t have nightmares. Or if I do I don’t remember them.” She walks sedately, not bouncing from rock to rock as she sometimes does. “But it takes time to get over this. You will.”
Just maybe, Berra is relieved by which way the subject went. Maybe. For sure.
Varanis looks at Berra, curious. “Do you see… other things?”
“No.” Berra looks at Varanis and tries to move the subject again. “You should take time to rest if you’re finding it hard.” Useless advice for people out in a field after a night of worship.
“But…” Varanis starts, “you said…” Then she stops herself. “You also said you wouldn’t be able to tell me everything. I’m sorry. I won’t pry.” She sighs. “Sleep isn’t very restful right now. I’ll try what the healer gave me when we have a safe night. But, I can’t risk trying it sooner.”
“Yeah.” Berra nods, getting that. “Out to the Six Sisters today? I didn’t really catch everything, back at Sazdorf. I was concentrating on the Humakti.”
Varanis shrugs. “I suppose. It really depends on Mellia, I think.”
“Any more questions?” Berra asks all too brightly.
“The tooth… did sacrificing… um…” Varanis chews her lip. “Was it because I betrayed you?”
That gets an odd look, thoughtful for a moment. “That helped. I thought I might still want to be Humakt, at that point. Getting rid of it was appropriate; a separation. It was also a thing great enough to give her. But I don’t know if I would have, if you hadn’t done what you did.” Berra does not look away, just speaks her understanding of the truth.
Varanis winces. Hard. “I want to pretend it’s got some mythic meaning. My betrayal paralleling Orlanth stealing Death. But really… there was nothing mythic about it. Just arrogance and a stubborn belief in what I thought was right. I understand why you sacrificed my gift, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I put you in that position. I was a self-centred idiot and you paid the price for it. Your battle with Jar-eel is worthy of an epic.”
Berra looks worried, maybe even alarmed. “You’re not thinking of singing it, are you? People might try to kill me if they knew I’d followed that path and people want to kill me enough already!”
“I will keep your secrets, Berra. I promise.”
Berra runs her tongue around her teeth, thoughtfully. “It’s not secret. Not a secret. I mean… I don’t want it told but I can’t bind you not to. Not this.”
“If you don’t want it told, then I won’t tell it. A secret of sorts,” Varanis replies. She reaches out to pat Berra’s shoulder, then seems to think better of it. “You might consider telling Xenofos, so it can be recorded for posterity, but that must be your decision.”
“Fuck him!” The words burst out. Berra then has to take a moment to calm down.
Varanis steps back, holding both hands up. “Whoa. I thought there was peace between you, even if the friendship was lost.”
Berra breathes deeply, a Storm Bull in the making for a moment. “Would you trust him with this? With the knowledge or with treating me right about it? You think you make bad decisions, but yours are just big, not the same ones again and again!” Apparently the deep breathing did not help. This anger seems more discordant and disconnected than when Berra was talking about her deeds. This has more frustration in.
“I’m sorry I suggested it,” Varanis says, still holding her hands between them. “I was thinking only of preserving the tale, not of how he might react to it. I spoke without thinking things through completely.” She looks pained. “He’s kin and I love him, but you’re right. This is not a story for him either.”
Berra looks up at the sky for a moment and back to Varanis. “I never used to get angry like this. I mean, I used to, but in a different way. I’d fight anything but now I want to pick a fight with anything. Make it all fear me or go away.” Anger has turned to worry, far too fast.
“Has it eased at all since the battle?”
“Since Harrek? A lot, yeah. But it might have started at Whitewall, years ago. I was berserk in a Heroquest. Dunno really?”
“What’s D’Val say about it?”
“He’s really calming but he doesn’t know about the last few days. At the Temple. They got bad. He helps me meditate and he mostly doesn’t say much, just shows me.”
“Last few days?”11V: This isn’t something Varanis would know that I forgot, is it? B: Berra had a hard time at the end of Sacred Time. V: She vanished for a bit, yes? Wasn’t at the wedding and such? But, how much of that was known and how much was hidden? I don’t recall us playing that through. B: She was at the wedding, and then not at Silor’s celebration the next day. Lord Raven said she was having fits of vertigo, and Varanis was helping her to be calm and breathe. She seems to be finding questions like ‘why’ very hard and getting stuck in them. Raven was very protective at the Temple, and a bit prickly. V: Ah, right. That was then. Ok.
Varanis considers. “Of Sacred Time? You’ve seemed better since we got on the road. Well, except when we were robbed, but we were justifiably enraged about that.”
Berra nods, slowly. “I like travelling,” she says. “And this is people I know, and like.” She does not say ‘trust’, but that is in her tone.
Varanis nods. “I’m glad it’s better for a time, at least.”
- 1B: Do me an Insight Human, if you like. V: 2!
- 2V: Sadly, I can’t remember what was happening when the harp stopped. I think Varanis was too Orlanth anyway. B: I think you were on the turtle, the first time.
- 3B: I’m leaving it open as to whether we walk past because we have probably got 2 more weeks.
- 4B: Your best Homeland Lore at half its score please. V: 54, so not even bothering to look it up.
- 5B: Insight Human, at +30, please. Combo of knowing Berra and your earlier critical. V: 6. Yeah, she’s paying more attention to Berra than she ever did to her history lessons.
- 6V: I feel like I need to decide if Varanis will point out to Berra that she’s saying more than intended, but… what to roll for that? It could be an Honour thing. But, also, Berra needs this. Maybe oppose Honour with Love Berra? That seems almost like a forgone conclusion because of V’s honour. I’m open to alternatives? B: Hmmm. Well, two successes there could mean being undecided, so saying nothing yet? V: sounds reasonable. Let’s see what the dice say then. Result = undecided
- 7V: What happened to Onjur anyway? B: He left before Jar-eel and the Emperor. Berra later sent a letter to him.
- 8B: Do me an Insight (Human)? V: 10. Special
- 9V: That she has done all the hard work? B: That she might be able to stop where she is, so yes, maybe? It’s not even necessarily about the work, but about being the one doing the pushing.
- 10V: Based on the previous insight, do I think Berra has it in her to deal with questions? That might affect whether or not I ask now. B: This is as open as she has been for ages, and she is braced against questions now, even if she is in a bad way. Now is likely the only chance.
- 11V: This isn’t something Varanis would know that I forgot, is it? B: Berra had a hard time at the end of Sacred Time. V: She vanished for a bit, yes? Wasn’t at the wedding and such? But, how much of that was known and how much was hidden? I don’t recall us playing that through. B: She was at the wedding, and then not at Silor’s celebration the next day. Lord Raven said she was having fits of vertigo, and Varanis was helping her to be calm and breathe. She seems to be finding questions like ‘why’ very hard and getting stuck in them. Raven was very protective at the Temple, and a bit prickly. V: Ah, right. That was then. Ok.
