The Long Road Home

## by Liissá Sigeing

My name is Liissá Sigeing, my mother called me Liissá, though I do not remember her now. I am one of the Children of Od, we who are called the twice lost. Though now I suppose we are three times lost, or at least I am.

We of the Children of Od are the last of the line from the Semersuaq hala taken in by the Skarsindian chief, Athan. He did this because of the Atalaq oath that was made between our forefathers following some warring between the Suaq people of Od and the Steiner of Athan. The stormcrows who ensured peace followed this warring also ensured that a friendship bound those two halas through generations.

When the Thule all but destroyed Odhala leaving but children and refugees on the ice they took from me my memories of my mother. They took from me my memories of my father. His foster-brother, Hervarðar Athanson from Skarsind, I remember, and I called him Father and I called Théowyn his wife Mother.

The Thule were not done with me, they burnt the Hall of Athanson to the ground. I heard my Father and my Mother crying aloud and sobbing as they burned. I am a child of winter but I was but nine years old, the folk of Athanson and the folk of Od took us children and fled. I was not there when Skarsind fell. Skarsind was the name that those on the road told each other when we spoke of home. I do not really remember Temeschwar, only the way that the ladies of the League in their fine dresses looked at us on the road, as if we were not worth the soles of their boots.

I wished my dress looked as fine as theirs, but we kept walking for we were not wanted there. Skarsind was the word that spoke of grassy mountainsides and the scent of summer flowers, of balmy climes and winters that were heaven to those of us born in the icy wastes of Semersuaq. Skarsind was the place where summers were beautiful mountains and winters were as picturesque as if an artist had painted them.

I remember parts of Miaren and Upwold, in vivid greens of forests such as I had never seen. Trees do not run so thick on the grassy and rocky slopes of Skarsind, nor is there such variety in the trees, pines and stiff spiked leaves were all that I had seen as a child. But there were juicy leaves and greens and browns in the autumn that fell on the roads we travelled. Such kindness there, such hospitality. The Marchers gave us more sympathy than the League had though the Navarr did not understand our sorrow for our homeland. There were children of Od who settled there, in the forests so far from the icy plains that we had been born upon. I do not know why I did not, only that the kind folk who had walked us out of the Thule’s desolation kept walking and I continued to follow.

So many of us had run, had been too young to fight, more liability than bravery we would have shown on the battlefield and so we walked. I remember Tassato and Sarkos being just as unfriendly as Temeschwar had been. Those I was with kept walking and so did I, growing to adulthood with the songs of Skarsind in my blood and in my ears. I remember the change in the people when we came to the Brass Coast, we sold and bartered our way through Madruga, through Feroz, there were so few of us still walking by the time we came to Feroz. In Madruga many settled, many joined the strange eyed traders who would give money in exchange for anything. In Feroz I found my trade and I left the last of the Children of Od who walked with me. I wandered, selling my wares for years. I had not heard another but I sing the songs of the mountains of home for a long time. I was still Liissá, named on the icy plains and grown strong in the Wintermark fashion, in my glorious mountain home of Skarsind and I swore to myself that I would walk home again. The road though, seemed very long.