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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Meridian" data-source="post: 356880" data-attributes="member: 1603">Interlude: A woman's wyrd begins...The volla's hut was dry, the air inside a mixture of herbs and age.  Quietly, Ragnhild waited as the volla hunched herself over the runestones that had clattered a second ago against each other like  the fall of so many bones onto the sacred cloth of the reading. The foster daughter of Einar Haakonssen could not help but remember that this was the prophetess whose manipulations had sent Ivar away and robbed him of so much, but the only sign of her nervousness was the web of whitened knuckles her clenching hands wove as her fingers did a spider's dance in her lap.When at last the volla did speak, it was with the hiss of dead air escaping a long-sealed tomb. True to her blood, Ragnhild did not jump, but merely blinked once at the unexpected sound."The Einarsson..." The volla drew out the sibilance with all the casualness of a viper. "It is as I have always said, but men never listen. One cannot avoid one's weird. You can only run away from it for so long before it catches you and eats you alive."  She looked up suddenly, rheumy blue eyes nevertheless flashing a venomous azure fire that beat against Ragnhild's cheeks with the blaze of a blacksmith's forge. "I told them!" she spat. "I told his sire and his dam before that fool flicked his wand into her grove that the son born of that union would not be long for the otherworld, no matter what they did! But they filled my hands with gold, so what could I do? The norns would ignore it, the gods could do nothing with it, so I tried where no one could.""W-what are you saying, old woman?" Ragnhild stammered. "Ivar is--?""Dead, you foolish girl," the volla said inexorably. "Yes, he is dead. After all the trouble his parents went through to take the wod-fury from him so that he would live long enough to continue the Einarsson bloodline. His mother even bargained with Odinn and Freya with her service to gift the boy with the mastery of runes in exchange for what was taken from him." The volla cackled. "Now his mother will rot in Niffleheim, serving neither the All-Father nor the Queen of the Valkyror, instead a handmaiden to Hel herself until Ragnarok itself comes to cleanse the Nine Worlds of darkness, with the continuance of the Einarssons ended with her."Her face tautened into a skull-mask with rage, Ragnhild leapt across to where the volla sat without realizing it and slapped the old woman out of her vile self-amusement."How dare you, witch woman?" Ragnhild accused. "Mocking your own liege-lord while you elsewise claim protection from him?"The volla moved even faster after her initial second of total surprise, seizing Ragnhild by the throat and with surprising strength running the length of the hut to slam her against a post."How dare you, child?" the volla hissed, her yellowed cracked teeth snapping dangerously close to Ragnhild's delicate face. "I am Einar Heisir's protection! It is by my arts that he has survived so long, with the curse that was laid upon him for seducing away a valkyrie from the gods! He is lucky to be alive, much less prosperous!" Ragnhild struggled, and the volla slammed her head again against the post, quieting her for the moment it took for the volla to say, "Do not blame me for the death of your secret love! He made his choice and went to his death willingly!"Roused by the volla's declaration of her innermost heart, Ragnhild screamed, "Let go of me, hag!" To their mutual amazement, a surge of heat thrummed through the maiden's body, and flames erupted under the volla's hands at Ragnhild's words. The volla howled and hurled herself away from Ragnhild, who managed to keep her feet, while her mind whirled, struggling to absorb what had happened...what she had causedto happen.For long moments, silence reigned in the volla's hut, broken occasionally by the volla's curses even as she moved around the hut, applying various salves to her scalded hands."So..." the volla finally said when she appeared finished tendering her injuries. "Now the nature of your blood has come to the fore." She looked sidelong at Ragnhild, who stared back at her uncomprehendingly."Didn't you know, Ragnhild Fafnirsdottir?" the volla purred. "In your veins runs the blood of dragons and giants. It was Einar's intent...and your father's...that the brood of your union with Ivar would rule the Northern Lands with might of sorcery to challenge the doom of the gods themselves. And in your lineage is Fafnir Jotunwyrm, the giant's son who found the sacred Tarnhelm of the river-maidens' hoard and used its shapechanging power to take the seeming of a dragon when it pleased him. Soon he became as much dragon as he was giantborn, but it was in the form of a human that he sired his own children before he was slain by Sigurd Sigfridsson.""There are...no sorcerors or witches...in my family..." Ragnhild managed, her throat still spasming painfully from where the volla had gripped it.The volla chuckled. "Only a few know the secrets of awakening such power where it slumbers in the mortal shell," she told her. "Those of deepest thought know that whatever the means, the root of it lies in passion and a catalyst for the awakening of the magic...in this case, such a catalyst being someone of power. You have met those conditions, my dear.""What am I supposed to do?" Ragnhild said aloud, though she in truth did not mean to; the volla startled her by answering her."Learn to use the power, or it will in turn use you, and bring you to a bad end," the hag said shortly. Then her tone changed, becoming wheedling, coercive: "I could always use an apprentice. It has been so long since a potential heir to my knowledge has come along..."Ragnhild was still for so long that the volla felt a rising excitement at the possibility that the maiden would accept her offer. But her hopes were dashed with Ragnhild's next words, delivered deliberately and firmly."No. Your offer is generous--" here Ragnhild's voice took a ironic tone, "but...no. For all your powers, you are still a speaker for the gods and the spirit realm---and I have no interest in bargaining with them or being a vessel for their will."I feel that what you have told me is true. I feel the power in me. It speaks to me in a language I only half-understand...but given time, I feel I can master this which has been given to me through my blood."It is a thing apart from the gods. It is not of the Aesir, or the Vanir. It is something older. Perhaps even older than the norns themselves, I do not know."What I do know is that I can learn to master it.""To what purpose?" the volla inquired.She didn't pause. "No one was content to leave Ivar as he was; whether it was that the gods cursed him with wod-fury, or the norns cursed him to die of it, or you took it from him at the request of your liege-lord. Now that Ivar's weird has come to pass, there is nothing stopping me from having what should have been mine in the first place.""What madness do you speak?" the volla whispered, a dread rising up in her.Ragnhild's ice-blue eyes fixed on the volla. "Madness? It is not madness to cure madness. In this, I speak of the madness of a universe that would curse a man before he was even born. "I do not know the breadth and depth of this power awakened in me, but I will test it. I will do all I can to master it. And then I will see if it has the strength to do what I need it to do.Ragnhild's voice grew cold and fell. "I have heard the tales of those who have brought back their loved ones from the death realms, those who met a premature end when the norns were tricked into cutting short their thread in the tapestry, as Loki and Odin One-Eye were sometimes wont to do.  I will give Ivar Einarsson the chance that the gods and the norns did not give him."If it is within my weird to do so, I will bring Ivar back to Midgard, so that we may accomplish the destiny our fathers desired for us."Ragnhild fell silent, as if struck by the immensity of her own words, as binding as an oath, then said to the volla,"Ivar and I never had the chance to confess our love openly. You sent him away before that could happen, but you sent him away in an effort to permit him to survive the norns' doom. For this, I am grateful. Now I will go away in the world to learn about this, my blood legacy, and with luck I will accomplish the end that you and Einar Heisir sought. I do not ask for your approval, but I do ask for your silence."The volla simply nodded. Ragnhild without another word walked to the edge of the hut, pushed aside a curtain of hides and left, not seeing the smile that raked itself across the old woman's face in Ragnhild's wake...The End...for now.</blockquote>

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