Earthwielder: Heritage

These pieces of fiction were written during user:P3a's Early Spring absence from the game in 2011.
It primarily features
*Ursala (who narrates)
*Takan (first appeared in Earthwielder: Nagrand)
*Elder Gralg Stoneweaver (first appeared in Earthwielder: Nagrand)
It also features
*Driga (first appearance)
==Earthwielder: Passage==
Set on various dates between 12th and 25th January, 2011.
We both wept openly when we realised that it had happened.
Granted, it had been four or five days past when Takan and I had originally expected him to go. The day we'd been anticipating it, we'd returned from our hunt on trepiditious feet (having left the slain talbuk with the matrons around the campfire), expecting to be met with the stony silence of the dead. We instead found Elder Stoneweaver sat up in bed with his quiet, knowing smile, nodding to us as we greeted him – both of us a little surprised, but not entirely.
Takan would go and take some of the tea to his grandfather. It was tea that I made from herbs which brought the Elder’s temperature down so that he was comfortable. Often, the old man would refuse it with that same understated smile on his face. We’d let him. This was his death, not ours.
“This is just a change,” he’d tell us; he was trying to comfort us. “Not a start or an end. Just a change.”
Takan didn’t like change, and neither did I. It meant different things to both of us – to him, it meant demons and green skin and loss of tradition. To me, the concept painted vivid sensations of the Shattering in my mind. Neither of us liked change at all. We did our best, though, over the weeks, to accept the one that was coming: that now the world had Elder Stoneweaver in it; and that in hours or days or weeks, it would not. We discussed it in the way that adults do when they are around the very young (for there were many children in Garadar) – in hushed voices, lowered eyes, and quick dismissive statements if any curious small ears heard too much. But the chances were that even the tiny ones knew roughly what was going on. For there were many old people in Garadar, too.
Others tended not to be so quiet or so gradual about their acceptance of Gralg Stoneweaver’s impending passing. One particular shaman sprung to mind. Well – she wasn’t even a shaman yet, but it was very clear that she was going to become one when she passed her rite to adulthood in several winters’ time. She was built stockily, short and strong, deep bark-brown skin stretched over her toned muscles. But she walked with the Elements, speaking loudly with Air and Fire as though they were close personal friends; she could even call Fire to her hands, if she was careful. When she passed her Om’riggor, she would be snapped up into the Horde in no time. Possibly the Kor’kron. She would be good enough – after all, when they were both five years younger, she had been Elder Stoneweaver’s student.
And so it was with great rebuke, when I delivered it upon the Stoneweaver’s specific request, that she met the news that he was going to die.
“It is just a fever,” she’d said, her temper visibly rising. Perhaps she was Warsong stock. “He will recover. He always does! He has been sick before – with Redpox! He survived that; why is this time any different?”
“Because he says it is,” I replied calmly. “You. Are learning to be shaman, yes? Will learn that older shaman know these things, when their time is near.”
“You are making it up,” she hissed.
“Why would I do that?” I tried not to smile at her youthful naïvité.
“Greenskins all drank demon blood, and it twisted your souls! I do not trust you any single bit. You are trying to upset me, when really you just do not give him the proper medicines!”
It took me a few moments to process the sudden, foundless racism. I knew she was angry, but that was far out of line for one of her age.
“…no,” I managed eventually, irritation beginning to crystallise at the edge of my voice, “is refusing his medicine. Also, were my mother and father that drank the blood. Not me.”
“You lie!” she shouted, stamping her adolescent foot and making angry gestures with her sharp, scrunched-up fist. But I had already turned to go.
“This conversation is over,” I said blankly, before briskly leaving the fireside.
News delivered, I returned to our hut to take over from Takan so he could sleep. I told Elder Stoneweaver what had happened and he smiled some more, and told me not to mind the young one’s words. I sat with him and we watched in comfortable silence as the sun began to slink below the sill of the window.
The next few days, I did not see the pup at all. At first, I thought she was avoiding me. Garadar was a sprawling town that lay over the landscape like a large blanket – I still got lost sometimes, despite the good amount of time I had spent here over the last year. The young female could probably even have gone about her business as normal without encountering me, or any other “greenskins”. However, it gradually became apparent, through various means, that she was genuinely gone. Most of all was that various matrons and some of the more dutiful children were walking and running, respectively, through town whilst calling her name.
“Driga!”
“Driga, we need to know where you are!”
This persisted for several days, before the pups got bored and the others decided that it was too late for all of that either way. They had no idea where she had gone, so they would need to wait and see if she ever came back. Of course, everybody hoped that she would. It would sting too much to lose an Elder and a child within so short a time of each other.
About a week and a half later, Driga returned.
She had scars, and bruises. Harsh, nasty cuts that looked on the edge of infection and part of her ear missing and one of her tusks wonky, and muddy. Very muddy. And tired. We – I insisted on helping, as I felt some responsibility for the situation – carried her to a river and bathed her, then I made sure Water saw to her wounds; purging and cleaning and sealing them. Then she was revived before being taken back to town.
She was given a fierce public telling-off by her aunt, and was hit so hard that she almost fell back – but she didn’t, not Driga. She took her telling-off and she took her beating, and then she took her hug and shared her aunt’s tears of relief.
And then… she turned to me, and asked only one thing: that I take her to see the Elder. In her hands, she clutched a leather skin full of liquid that looked like it had seen as much adventure as she had.
What could I say?
“Yes.”
***
“No.”
“What?!” Driga’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Elder Stoneweaver. “You will not take it? But—But I travelled so far!”
“I will not take medicine,” repeated the Elder. “It is not the time for me to do such. That time has passed. But I appreciate the sentiment, Driga. And yet, there are many old orcs in town who are not due to pass soon, but who might do so anyway.” He looked at her meaningfully, then reached an creased, shaking hand to pat the top of her shorn head. “They might appreciate it more.”
She scowled flatly, but didn’t raise her hand against him as she had against me.
“I made it ‘specially for you,” she said. I had originally estimated her age to be about fourteen or fifteen winters, but right then she seemed to be around ten.
“Do not give yourself false hope,” he said, serenely. Yet at the same time, he reached that same hand to take the stoppered skin from where she was clutching it in her lap. She looked up at him.
“It has to help,” she almost pleaded. “It has to. The other stuff just does not work because the greenskin gives it to you. Her tainted blood twists it so it does not work.”
The Elder hesitated. He and Takan, who was stood beside me, exchanged looks and for a hesitant moment, I was painfully and acutely aware that all three Mag’har were looking at me and my dirty olive skin.
Then, starting at a low rumble and rising to a pleasant chuckle, the Stoneweaver began to laugh.
“No,” he said to Driga simply. “The Earthwielder girl will cause us no harm.”
Then he drank the contents of the skin that Driga had paid for in scars.
After the youngest shaman had left, the Elder told us something.
“This will have more effect on her than it will on me,” he smiled, gesturing to the now-empty skin. “In a week, I will be totalised; complete and free. She still has so much potential. It ripples under her skin like muscles, and it blazes from her eyes like spirit.” He shrugged, then lay back slowly, his joints cracking audibly. “It is better this way.”
***
He passed away three and a half days later. We knew that he had been on borrowed time – we were surprised at Driga’s luck that she had returned before the last day. And yet, when it happened, it still shocked and upset us. Here was lying a shell that had once been a great orc.
Takan and I held each other close for comfort as first he, then I, began to cry. It was quiet, and it hurt – but somehow, it was relieving and cleansing and purifying.
Somehow, it was right.
==Earthwielder: Heritage==
Set on 27th January, 2011.
“What are we drinking?”
I looked at Takan over the rim of my cup. He smiled at me, sadly; he was sat on the other side of the small fire, eating fruit. His teeth were better for it than mine were. I was eating cooked meat – my teeth were pointed, for tearing and slicing, where his were flat for shredding and crushing.
“Tea, made from herbs.”
I put the cup down sharply. “Who wrote the recipe?”
“Heh; you’ve had history, I take it?” He tipped his head sympathetically.
“Yes. I have. Made me say all sorts of things I should not have.”
“Lies?”
“No. Worse.” I grunted irritably. I remembered every painful statement of mine from the night when Salax had given me some of Nelai’s tea – everything from “Kevla, look at the beetle!” to “I wish I was more like you, Kruss”. I retained that I had been out of control of my actions that night, but I could not bring myself to state the things that I had said as anything other than the truths they were.
Takan paused, looking at my face; shrugged. He bowed his head a little. “Grandad’s recipe,” he said, in a voice showing weakness I had not seen in him before.
I’d not heard him refer to the Elder by that name before, either. Quietly I dropped my line of sight to the fire and picked the clay cup up with both hands, blowing on the hot tea and going to take a sip from it.
After we had finished our food and drink, we went to collect supplies for a night’s camping, and loaded them onto Dogtooth and Takan’s riding talbuk (whose name I had yet to hear him use).
Takan now lived in a hut by himself; although, having previously also been inhabited by Gralg, it was big enough for two people. It would not surprise me if the matrons would soon encourage him to invite an adolescent orphan or two to stay with him once the wake of the old man’s passing had gone. Takan was good with children. But the hut was currently full of elders and matrons and shamans, presumably tending to Gralg Stoneweaver’s body to prepare it for the rest ceremony tomorrow. That was what they had told us they would be doing. I had my suspicions that they might be lying, but I was sure that the intentions behind their deception (if it was indeed such) was a good one. And, I had to agree with what I had overheard one matron saying to another – it would not do for Takan to try and sleep in the room with his grandfather’s empty body.
So we travelled to Clan Watch in near silence. Occasionally I would glance over to Takan, and he would be gritting his teeth, his expression one of almost bitterness. When we arrived, we set a campfire inside one of the buildings as our mounts settled outside – Dogtooth had been giving the talbuk vaguely predatory looks, so I tethered him away from the grazing animal. I helped Takan to lay out his bedroll. He smiled and thanked me; but I saw behind the smile, and hugged him instead.
His shoulders began to shake. I stood there with my arms around his waist and my cheek to his shoulder for quite some time before we sat down, and then lay down. I fumbled in a belt-pouch and passed him something. He looked at the label on the bottle then looked at my sympathetic grimace, before drinking the Dreamless Sleep potion.
Once he was asleep, I moved over to my own bedroll. I was tired, and I would sleep; but not with a potion. I deserved whichever dreams I had earned myself tonight, be they good or bad.
I didn’t quite expect what I got, and I certainly wasn’t sure I deserved it.
“Hello, Earthwielder,” said Gralg Stoneweaver.
I sat up almost cautiously. Then I was aware that I was not sitting up on arms; that I was attached to my ankh firmly with bindings and attachments, and that the Earth was holding me into my body, too. I looked around, and I saw the invisible Earth spirits walking in the grass, heard the inaudible Air spirits in the sky, felt the intangible Fire spirits in the campfire. And I looked at Takan, and saw a sleeping boy; and I looked ahead of me, and saw the Stoneweaver.
He was smiling. He had always smiled. His right tusk was broken as it had been in life, but nothing about the rest of him was broken. He stood on two firm, strong legs, up straight – not with a walking stick, like he had before. His arms were thick and strong as well; skin a deeper brown than I had seen it. He was wearing furs, like leather armour, unlike the cloth raiment I was accustomed to seeing him wear. His face was creased, but nothing like how it had been; before, it had been like a fruit left out too long, but now it spoke of a man about Gremkarc’s age. His hair was a soft, neat fawn, growing from the top of his head as well as the back and spilling over his shoulders in a mane, almost like mine. His beard was not diminished by his current form, either.
He chuckled and watched me and my surprise as I realised, piece by piece, that I wasn’t dreaming – not in the layman’s sense of the word.
Then, suddenly, he frowned. It was suddenly a very frightening thing. I had never, ever seen him hold any expression other than mild amusement or quiet kind-heartedness before – and now he was actually frowning at me. What had I done to offend him? Had he come here to tell me off?
He snickered, and smiled at me again.
“It is considered polite to speak one’s thoughts aloud,” he said, “especially when the other party can read your face as easily as one might an open book.”
“Ah!” I was startled, and floundered for words. I wasn’t accustomed to speaking in this form at all – I had only done it once, almost a year ago now, and that had been under far less favourable circumstances. But it had also been under far more urgent ones.
“Sorry. Stoneweaver. Do not understand. Is tea? Playing hijinks? Or?”
“Ha! No, I am Stoneweaver. Takan was clever to give you the tea. It makes this much easier. But, let me look at something, Ursala Earthwielder.”
I stood up, although my own spirit had nothing resembling legs. The Stoneweaver paced around me patiently, inspecting my form. He looked at my body, too, where it lay on the ground, the ankh around my neck fluorescing even through my clothing – but I could not look at it. It was… wrong, to have it lying down there and me up here looking at the Stoneweaver.
Eventually, his face lit up. I hesitated to ask.
“I see it now!”
And then he smiled. He looked at me again, this time seeing my feelings. Sensing confusion, he smiled and elaborated.
“You have your father’s marks,” he said. “I recognise them now.”
“…yes?”
“Your father. My son.”
He gave me a few moments of quiet contemplation that turned into a good long while – but time passed differently here anyway, I was aware of that much. A tiny Earth spirit quietly approached me and startled me with its touch; I frightened it with my reaction. I looked back at the Stoneweaver.
“You. Grandfather?”
“Yes. You can call me that if you want.” He smiled pleasantly. “Takan is your cousin. His mother and your father were siblings.”
I looked over to the sleeping boy (and it was so clear here that he was a boy, even though he was taller and stronger and kinder than me).
“Will care,” I said. “For the boy.”
“Good,” smiled Grandfather Stoneweaver. “He will take care of you too. I wish that I could talk to him, but he is no shaman, granddaughter Earthwielder.”
For a moment, I felt deeply sorry for Takan. This man had effectively raised him, provided everything he knew – introduced him to society and made him the person he was. He had been able to say goodbye, in a way, but that would never soften the blow of finally having lost him. I didn’t know how I would handle it if I lost Gremkarc. When I would lose Harg.
“Tomorrow,” said Grandfather – who was suddenly very close to my face, next to me, his shoulder almost brushing against mine – “I will travel to Oshu’gun. That is what will happen when my body is burned. I do not know quite what awaits me there, but I would like you to try something, Earthwielder.”
I turned to face him. My ankh kept me in place; I wasn’t able to move far.
“Would you like a challenge?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then,” said Grandfather Stoneweaver, taking a quiet step back, “you need to find your mother.”
“My—her? Why?”
“You need her blood. Only a small sample – enough to paint onto your face in a pattern. Pray she is alive, Ursala. If she is not, find your father. If they are both dead, then you shall not see me again.”
And then I listened as Elder Gralg Stoneweaver spoke.
“Take this sample, and travel to Draenor with an elder shaman from your clan – whichever one takes the advisory role. It must be from your Clan, and they must be at least a little older than you. From there, you will journey. On foot, you understand? To Oshu’gun. Your shaman should collect some of the tall-growing grass that grows in the Halaani basin – a handful of it, bound together with the roots, but make the sample dry. Also fill waterskins, if you can – four or five, each. Do not drink from them.”
For a split moment, I got a sense of the vastness of this – a concept of hugeness dominated my mind, of how ancient and inconceivably large and specific this was. Grandfather Stoneweaver was not making it up. This was heritage.
And then the moment passed, and I resumed my listening.
“When you get to the mountain, have your shaman paint your mother’s blood onto your face. Like you did in the first half of your Om’riggor – this is the last part of it. Then have them light the grass like a torch. It will give sweet-smelling smoke. Have them wave this about you…” He paused, then thought, then nodded, “and also themselves, to purify, unless they are a Mag’har. Then the shaman must give you their blessing, in whatever way they see fit.”
Then he stopped, and smiled; sadly, this time.
“Enter the mountain. See what you find there. Destroy any taint. You will know what to do with the waterskins. I will greet you if I can.”
I nodded. “Should take cousin?”
“No, Earthwielder. It must only be you and the shaman. Nobody else.”
“Yes.” I closed my eyes.
And I supposed at that point it would have been clear to Grandfather that I was not used to being in my spirit only as separate from my body; for I snapped back into my body and jerked awake, head spinning.
It wasn’t quite sunrise yet. I looked around and saw the grass swaying gently on the Earth; the sky in the pre-dawn glow, clouds lazily drifting across the broken sky in higher Air currents; the sleeping, placated Fire simmering under its blanket of embers. I felt a hand, just for a moment, on my cheek.
Goodnight, Earthwielder.
“Thank-you,” I said out loud. “Will look after each other, me and Takan.”
I looked across at my cousin – and suddenly the tiredness hit me, like a wall of hazy vision and weakened hands. Complying with my body’s wishes (and, I suspected, my spirit’s), I lay down, put my head on the ground, and slipped into a restful, dreamless sleep.
==Earthwielder: Renewal==
Set on 28th January, 2011.
We were walking back along the worn mud path. It wasn’t paved here, although it would be once we got closer to the towns again. This was a path which cut through the meadows of Nagrand specifically in order to avoid the settlements and corrupted areas – it went between Garadar and the Ancestral Grounds, ultimately. Even here, there were forge camps, although the demons that manned them had been sleeping for a year or more now; the corrupted land remained, and it would not do to take the bodies of the deceased by those dreadful areas. The same went for the old orc settlements, still overrun with displaced ogres and deluded Broken. Those were places that Stoneweaver, nor any other passed on Mag'har, would like to see on their last journey; they wanted to see the grass, the trees, the sky, the majesty.
And so it was those things that we were walking through on our return journey. On our way there, when we had the body, we had been in reverent silence – now, we made quiet conversation, the gentle breeze and early afternoon sun caressing our skin in soothing, comforting gestures. There were eight of us and we all walked in pairs – six Mag'har, and two greenskins.
At the very front, there walked Takan and his partner – a female who was probably just breaching thirty winters. They walked in silence, but she was holding his hand; it was unclear whether this was for his comfort, or hers. I had not seen her before, but I had it on good authority that she, along with Takan, was the last of the Clan that Stoneweaver's line had come from. The two of them would mourn together, as a clan was to do when one of their clanmates passed. I now knew in my mind and in my heart that I carried their clan's blood in my veins, but only in half-measure; such things were seen as shameful, and as such, I would let them have their grieving to themselves.
Not to say, however, that I was absolving myself of responsibility. I would ensure that Takan could take time out from his duties without needing to worry himself that they would not be taken care of. I do as he would – hunt, care for orphans, gather reagents. I would make sure that his position was preserved until such a time as he was ready to return to it.
Walking behind the two of them was a pair of old shamans. Again, a man and a woman. More than anywhere else, you could see in Mag'har society the equality of the two – man and woman were valued as each other, and as individuals based on their merits rather than their gender. These two were here speaking to each other as equals – as they had spoken with me, earlier, when telling me what the ritual was to entail.
The way the body would be carried by its clanmates, then placed on the clan pyre; how we would let Takan speak a coronach to his grandfather's spirit, one last time, before the body was consumed by flame; how we would then dance and sing and shout at the top of our voices to hearten the Stoneweaver's spirit on his journey. I didn't dance, but I joined my voice in the short lok'amon that commemorated Stoneweaver's line. It was a very long line, according to the use of language in the song. It was an ancient and obscure Orcish dialect, the likes of which I was not accustomed to using.
Now, the shamans were not speaking about the ritual. It was still something that I had asked them, though. I was only catching snatches of their conversation, but it was to do with a question I had off-handedly asked of them how I might keep blood fresh between the vein and the Mountain. They were talking with half-remembered concurrence about enchanted leather pouches, and trying to piece together the parts of the ritual that I had reminded them about.
Behind those two, and just in front of me, were an apprentice and a patron walking side-by-side and exchanging simple anecdotes. The patron was likely in his early fifties, and his voice cracked with fondness as he told the young shaman about how Stoneweaver used to entertain the orphans with tales from older days, illustrated with little cantrips. The apprentice – one of those who used to learn under Stoneweaver, but who had since been transferred to another teacher – would smile and nod, and tell of how she wished one day to be like that herself. They spoke of the possibility that she might teach the children, one day, about the shamanic ways.
And then there was me, and the man that I was walking next to.
I knew the reason why I was at the back – it was because I had known Stoneweaver for the shortest time. I suspected hidden racist views may have been being harboured by those who chose the orders, but I dare not accuse them of such. My views were cemented when the man who was now walking next to me was also chosen to walk at the back – another greenskin. I didn’t recognise him at all. At first, I’d suspected he was trying to infiltrate the ceremony, and I had treated him with great suspicion; although such was not outspoken. The Mag’har, however, had displayed a trust of him – and then, so did I. I trusted them to judge character well.
The greenskinned man – although his skin was a pale green that spoke of age and weathering – wore simple robes. His short, white-grey hair was pulled back into an undecorated ponytail. He kept a long, old beard; his eyes, which were green, were weighted with the bags and wrinkles of old age. After staring for a while, I determined that one of the wrinkles on his neck was in fact not a wrinkle but a great, deep-rooted scar that ran all under his chin.
I looked back into his eyes and was startled when he met my eye contact. I blurted out words.
“Who are you?”
He looked at me properly. I realised quickly that he knew I’d been staring.
“A shaman,” he said. His voice cracked and split like autumn leaves underfoot, but it was deep and assured nonetheless. I nodded a little and looked away. There was something about him that made me a little uneasy.
“Ah, meant to say, what is your name?” I looked at my feet as we walked.
“Rokik,” he stated with a polite smile. “And yours?”
“Ursala Earthwielder. Ah, of Dagger and Totem.”
I stopped bluntly. He was making me feel nervous, but I couldn’t place why at all. We walked for a few more moments in a quiet before he let me pose my next question.
“Did you know Stoneweaver?”
“Not personally, no. I only asked if I could see the funeral.”
“I understand. Is good, seeing old ways. Wish could show others, but would be different, if was not small.” I gritted my teeth and scratched my cheek, acutely aware of my awkward speech patterns. Thankfully, he seemed not to notice them. “Do visit here often? Ah, you, that is?”
“No,” he grunted, and then his demeanour changed – it was his turn to lower his voice, but only a little. It was the kind of tone that was used to protect others from hearing, not to keep a secret. “There have been rumours that the lake spirits in Skysong have been becoming more animated of late. It's cause for concern, yes?”
“Ah, ha…” I offered him a smile. “Did orphans tell you that?”
“Yes.” He didn't return the expression.
“They say that all times,” I shrugged. “Is just them being pups. Like stories, yes?”
“Not when the matrons saw it, as well. Not when it left lasting injuries on those involved. Not when the lakeshores are becoming dangerous to even walk near.” He grunted again, looking me in the eye. “It is cause for concern, indeed, and it is what I have come here to investigate for myself.”
“Oh.” I swallowed nervously, aware that I'd made a bit of a fool of myself.
He lowered his voice further, and then added, “We suspect the Twilight's Hammer.”
For a beat, I stopped walking to stare at him – feeling very cold inside for a flash.
“Twilights? Here? Wh... What makes you say so?”
“Ogre-mage sightings by the lake, just before the attacks.” He paused, looking at me with meaning through those green eyes which made me feel afraid. “I’ll need aid in investigating this. If it is ogres, then they are formidable foes. Regardless of whether they’re also Twilight Cultists, yes? I need competent aid if this matter is going to be solved at all.”
“Ah…” I looked at the sky a little and swallowed. Garadar was supposed to be a retreat from all of this – not another battlefront. I didn’t want to get involved. “Have clanmates, in Garadar. Arrived yesterday. May be able to help, yes? Chieftain Gulgrim hates the Cult, and the ogres; sure he would see use in clanmates using time to oust Cult from safe places. Yes?”
The old man nodded. “Do you have their names, these clanmates of yours?”
“Mm.” I frowned a little, then decided that the pair could take care of themselves. “Tixou and Dorince. Is difficult to miss them – are Troll and Goblin, yes?”
“Heh. I’ll remember.” He nodded, and looked at the sky.
We walked the rest of the way in more quiet. It was not entirely uncomfortable – the ambient chatter from the others made it better. But there was just something I felt I was missing about this shaman. I stared at him sometimes, but tried to be more subtle about it than the first.
When we reached Garadar once more, we parted ways with textbook salutes – but I had the feeling that this was not the last I would see of Rokik.
Category:Story