The North (Closed)

[KieranSoares]

"Only the most recent part," the Fox murmured, motioning toward the portion that contained Fiona's story. "My family has been working on this for centuries now."

Sam looked at Fiona before turning to fully face the young Fox. "What's your name, lass?"

"I'd rather not say." The little Fox hurried over to the tools as Fiona backed off, gathering them up quickly in a leather roll.

"We appreciate your work... A lot."

The Fox paused at that admission from Sam, looking at the relief under construction and back to the pair. "Who are you?"

 

[heartofcourage]

"Just admirers." Fiona murmured. "Nothing more. We knew about the glen from our time in Inverness. We haven't been through this area in a very long time and wanted to come see it again. We won't harm you, young one. In fact, can you tell us what were still live around the city?"

 

[KieranSoares]

"You fled with Clan Ghis," the Fox said, earning a nod from Sam. She was too young to know their faces personally, which he was grateful for. "Are you part of the Northern Armies?"

"Not at the moment," Sam muttered, keeping his accent light. "We'll see. But the werefolk... How are things?

The young Fox seemed at least a bit heartened that they were neutral and from Scotland before the war. "Most of the people, human and were, fled to Scandinavia and spread out across the northern parts of the continents," she murmured. "Handfuls of the Gol Dun and Corel people remained. Those that weren't hunted down banded together and created my little tribe, the Novi. While the Empire was still in charge, we hid in the deepest reaches of the old growth forest. When Mateo Emile took the isles in his rebellion, we started to trade with people again. And then Royer came along and tried to unite Scotland. He promised us werefolk that if we lived by his laws and paid his taxes, we'd be safe. That promise lasted all of a month. My people have been living in secrecy and rebellion for almost a year now, refusing and hiding from the tax collectors and enforcers until Royer outlaws hunting for slaves and pelts."

 

[heartofcourage]

"Part of Suara's family might still remain." Fiona said softly to her husband, knowing that he had always had a special connection to the tribes and had worried about those left behind more than anything. "My dear, tell them that Ionnan sends her regards. Perhaps if we find what we are looking for in a timely manner, we will visit."

 

[KieranSoares]

Recognizing an Erygonian name, the girl perked up. "They'll be glad to hear from someone from the old days." Looking to Sam, she added, "The Corel family is still around. Some of Suara's grandnieces and nephews remained behind. Talian Corel is our Head Elder now."

"I remember Talian," Sam murmured. "Give him our regards. But you should head home, kit. Things are uneasy around here right now. Best stay out of sight for now."

The young Fox gathered up her tools and tucked them away, but hesitated to go as she took another look at Fiona and paused. "Um... If you talk to the Northerners... Tell them that if they need a guide or scout in Inverness when they arrive, Zira is ready to help."

With that, she disappeared back into the forest at a jog, leaving the pair to stare after her.

"She realized it was us," Sam muttered with a sigh. "I don't think she'll tell anyone who'd hunt is, but better t'find what we need at Skolgeir's grave an' move quickly."

 

[heartofcourage]

"She realized it was me." Fiona said as the little fox disappeared, looking up at Sam. "But she won't tell. They are just as much prisoner as the rest of us were when Inverness originally fell."

Turning to look up at her husband completely, she took his hand in her own and gave it a squeeze. "Let's go, love. Skolgeir is with the old ones."

 

[KieranSoares]

Heading off toward the beginning of the long stone relief where moss had grown thick toward the cliff base, Sam walked alongside Fiona scanning for signs of graves. They could see the area was well-kept, moss and dirt carefully cleaned out of the reliefs, but the occasional lichens settling in the deepest cuts. As they continued following the cliff face til the stone gave way to dirt and grass in a steep hill again, Sam gently pulled Fiona to a halt and turned her attention toward a long, flat hump in the earth that was certainly out of place. Stepping over, Sam nudged it with a boot and found that a thin layer of dirt and moss and clover came off easily, revealing worked stone beneath. Kneeling beside it, he dug his gloved fingers into the fresh spring greenery and peeled it away, revealing more and more til Elder Futhark runes began to become legible.

"It's a runestone..." Sam murmured. They'd seen a fair number across Scandinavia, marking graves of revered and beloved people, or commemorating battles and the places where legends fell. "Looks like it fell over a long time ago."

Taking his knife out, Sam used the dull back to scrape more and more away across the entire six-foot stone. It was quick and easy, and revealed a massive spiraling text framed by Old Norse knotwork dragons, longships, and a hammer and chisel design inscribed at the bottom with a Sowilo rune.

Sam began to translate it, knowing enough of runes to read it fairly confidently. "Beneath these trees I lie, the man blessed with a decade of marriage to Margaret the Dragon Shield, and cursed with five decades alone after she and Ulf found glory in battle too young. My name means nothing without her, so let my grave stand as a monument to the Blackstone Caller, sleeping in the warmth of Folkvangr til Ragnarok. I pray her Valkyrie saw her to a realm of peace and endless wayfaring for her nomadic spirit, for Valhalla is unworthy of her. Let Midgard remember she once walked these shores."

Sitting back on his knees, Sam took a deep breath. He didn't have to say it aloud for Fiona to know he was deeply struck by the poetry and heartache in Skolgeir's words, left to live fifty years a widower and grieving father. Skolgeir's life was one of Sam's worst nightmares.

"We remember her," Sam murmured. "And we remember you." He rarely spoke to those passed, but he felt a connection with Skolgeir in that moment. Taking his knife, Sam dug it into the eye of a knotwork dragon in the upper part of the stone. Prying carefully, a piece began to dislodge. Sam couldn't get a good hold on it, so he dug into his bag for a pair of pliers. Pulling the piece out, it revealed a compartment filled with water that had seeped in over time, and Sam withdrew a rusted, ancient piece of iron with a strange four-pronged shape at one end, and a ring at the other. Drying it on his cloak, Sam offered it out to Fiona. "There's our key."

 

[heartofcourage]

Fiona found it hard to concentrate in the glen, her attention pulled to the drawings as she saw flashes of times gone by. It took everything in her to not become lost in the stories that wanted to pull her in, the voices that hadn't spoken in centuries calling out to her. She would have to come back to them in due time, she told herself, following behind Sam as they searched for the one grave that they were after.

Watching as he cleaned the stone, she saw the encounters that Skolgeir had that brought him to this lonely place. She had seen him deal with Ulf's death, but he never quite focused on Margaret. The memory was still too painful for the man to even entertain. The words that Sam translated were eerily similar to the words that he had told her so many times before. History was repeating itself in their own story, Sam and she connected just as Margaret and Skolgeir were.

When Sam presented her with the key from the gravestone, Fiona was stunned. She took the piece of iron and looked it over, her mind instantly placing where she had seen the shaped end before.

"My Ma had this tattooed on her footpaw. It was the only one she ever had." Fiona said softly. "I remember it clear as day."

 

[KieranSoares]

"How would your Ma know what it looked like?" Sam asked, rising and brushing moss and dirt off himself. "Especially if Ephriam left a lot o' these stories behind. I didn't think Owen'd know them either. Besides that... no one's seen this key in centuries, probably.

Reaching into his bag again for the handful of smithing tools he'd brought, Sam drew out a wire brush. "Here..." he muttered, taking the key back and using the metal brush to scrape off a layer of rust til dark iron showed through and he doused it in water from his canteen. "The lock this goes into must be damn near impossible to pick," he mused, letting her take the key back. It was about the length of her hand from fingertip to the heel of her palm, and the teeth and neck were thick, likely able to stand up to turning a massive, heavy lock. "I just hope the lock still works, wherever it is."

 

[heartofcourage]

"I'm certain this is her tattoo." Fiona murmured as Sam cleaned up the key and then handed it to her, letting her look it over. "Maybe it's a Norse thing? A shieldmaiden symbol? I just know that she had this on her."

"Reven told me that Margaret was the sword and Skolgeir her shield. He could forge by dragonfire just about anything that she needed or wanted. Grandpa said that he set his cabin in a central location to the legends and poems that he had collected. Perhaps we would start there? See what's left of the old building."

 

[KieranSoares]

"Makes sense why he an' that Karides Caller got along, then... both artisans creatin' for Margaret," Sam muttered, giving Fiona a nod. "Lead the way, love. I think I only ever saw where tha' old cabin was once."

Before stepping away, he carefully replaced the piece of stone in the dragon's eye on the grave, giving the surface a long look. He turned to follow Fiona, having only a vague sense of the direction of the cabin.

 

[heartofcourage]

Fiona slipped her arm through Sam's as they walked, leaning into his side. If anyone saw them, they were a couple taking a casual walk through the woods. She was using him to ground herself, letting the voices of the glen slowly fade as the woods grew a little darker the further they went.

"They all reached out at once. Maybe I'm just more aware lately." Fiona said softly.

 

[KieranSoares]

"I don't know if that's good 'r bad," Sam murmured, incredibly vigilant of his wife's mental state as of late. "You tell me if we need t'leave some o' these places an' give you a break, love. Please. I don't want t'risk your health."

A ways on through the forest as late afternoon set in, they arrived in a portion of the old growth that seemed particularly quiet and peaceful, the only sounds being the chirp of birds and the occasional chitter of squirrels annoyed at the intrusion. Then, the trees gave way to an old, overgrown hunting trail, and a small clearing full of ground foliage. A veil of ivy before them nearly made a structure blend into the vibrant greenery, a thin mist clinging to the ground and helping moss hide the stone foundation. The majority of the old cabin still stood, only one corner of the roof beginning to collapse. Even the door still stood, though ajar and crooked. The windows had been mostly broken by weather long past, but the shutters had protected a few panes.

Sam, who'd only seen the cabin once and never gone inside, paused before it. He was reverent, and almost felt like it would be terrible to disturb the peace there. The image of the warm cabin from Fiona's dream was still vivid, down to the decorative curl of the hinge plates on the door. But now everything was rotting, rusty, or covered in greenery.

 

[heartofcourage]

Standing in front of her grandfather's cabin, Fiona felt a warmth creep over her. It was like she was home, in every sense of the word. The house where she had lived with her parents had always felt confining and suffocating. Here, she could be a child, exploring to her heart's content. Even after Ephriam was gone, she had given Will protection within the walls of that cabin, feeding him and taking care of him as best as she could.

"Gone to time." She murmured softly as she touched the door gently with her gloved fingers. "As it was meant to."

"Come on." She reached back and took her husband's hand, leading him through the doorway and inside for the first time.

 

[KieranSoares]

The interior wasn't quite as overgrown as the exterior, the stone floor only partially covered in lichen and ivy. Old furniture still stood where it had been left, fragile with weather and age. The chairs by the fireplace were right where Fiona remembered, and the cabinets still held a handful of clay and glass dishware, anything of value long since sold. The door to the tiny root cellar in the kitchen was rotted through and collapsed, the space below filled with water gathered from rain. A few plants grew in it, and little tadpoles could be seen around the edges.

Sam paused in the middle of the space, glancing around. "Never been here, but with all the stories you've told... It feels familiar. Welcoming, even," he muttered.

 

[heartofcourage]

"Grandpa would have welcomed you here." Fiona said softly, her fingers gently moving over the back of the chair closest to her. "I'm sure that your Da came here when I was little. I remember meeting him once before I came to live with Grandpa full time."

She looked towards the two tiny rooms, seeing the one that she had once called her own was the one that had collapsed in. Her grandfather's room was still the same, shrouded in darkness and musty.

"It got too hard to keep the cabin up, so Will and I started to camp in the woods. We really only came back when the winter was too harsh." She explained. "I can't get too stuck in my past. We have a task to take care of."

 

[KieranSoares]

"Well, if Ephriam was t'have notes or somethin' precious... Where would he keep it?" Sam asked, looking toward Fiona. "Did 'e have a safe or a hiding place?"

 

[heartofcourage]

Fiona surveyed the cabin, considering where her grandfather liked to write and where he was most likely to have kept his most precious things. She didn't know if there was anything left, but it was worth searching. It was easy enough to imagine him sitting in front of the window with his cup of tea, writing quietly in his journals while she played quietly elsewhere. In his bedroom, she thought to herself. That was the most likely place.

She moved into the other room, looking around the space. Floorboards had started to rot away here and there, but there was one space that was still holding up. Beneath the wood, there was stone and beneath that, a concrete vault. There was the most likely spot for Ephriam to hide his most valuable papers.

"Help me lift the vault lid." She called to Sam.

 

[KieranSoares]

Sam stepped over, taking a look at the slab before taking a chisel from his bag to lift up the edge so they could get a grip on it. Once they both had hold of it, they lifted up the heavy piece to reveal a dry, dusty space full of old notebooks and little keepsakes like stones, feathers, and dried flowers. They were all things Fiona had brought to him as a girl, and the notebooks were his rough drafts of practically everything he'd ever written. Sam carefully started pulling the books out, finding they were still in fairly good condition if yellowed. Glancing over them, he noticed one was different from the others, half-blank and not used for poetry, but notes.

Still in the little vault, all the objects that were not worth money but worth the world to Ephriam in life, were organized neatly into jars to make sure the more delicate items stayed whole. And in a small box off to one side, there were a few odd pieces of jewelry. None of it was very expensive, most pieces made of steel or pewter with semi-precious stones. But Fiona would recognize silver rings in the mix that Ephriam had been given when his wife passed and when Tatiana died. Even if Owen had tried to keep his father out of the dark parts of his life, Ephriam had loved Tatiana dearly. It spoke volumes that even in hard times, he'd never let go of the rings that symbolized the loss of two very important women in his life.

"Look here, love," Sam murmured, showing her the notebook written mostly in Erygonian. The notes were old, likely from Ephriam's youth before Owen was born. They talked about different projects he had worked on, but the most recurring subject was about searching around Inverness. Sam had opened to the end of the notes where Ephriam had made one final entry.

I'm afraid I'll have to give up the search for now, but it's for perhaps the greatest reason possible. We've wanted a little one of our own for so long, and when plague made my wife so ill that she lost our first before it could take its first breath, we nearly gave up ever trying again. It was too painful to think of losing another. But we've just returned from a checkup and everything's going so smoothly this time. I want to be at my love's side for anything she might need. Margaret has stayed hidden for centuries. She can wait a few more years til I have a little kit of my own to come wandering with me once they're big enough. We know where to pick it back up again: Inverness Keep. I think if I reach out to King Brogan and Queen Cassandra about my search in the name of history, they'll be glad to offer help. They've been incredibly gracious to our people thus far.

If it's a girl, we want to name her Marin. We've had that name picked out since we started talking about having a baby. We could never decide on a boy's name til recently. Owen. I think it's a dashing name for a Fox, modern and not bogged down with history or expectation like those named after ancestors. If I have my way, my child will be free to live as they please. I would like the name Blackstone to be just a name someday, nothing more. Even if I am curious about Margaret, I don't want that history laid upon my child's shoulders. Being a Fox is hard enough.

Sam looked at Fiona, murmuring, "He never got t'go to the keep to look for clues. The tomb might be in Queen Dianh's tunnel to Invah's cave after all, if no one's been down there since Dianh's time. I have a vague idea of where the entrance is... but it means we'll be walkin' right into the lion's den."

 

[heartofcourage]

Fiona sat beside the vault, looking through all of the precious little things that Ephriam had kept over the years. She could remember all the things she had brought to him from the forest and how excited he had been for each. She didn't know that he had been placing them away for safe keeping. Then she looked over the jewelry as Sam read through the notebooks and journals. There was nothing of value, but it was all worth something to her. The funeral rings for her grandmother and mother were there. The one that meant the most was the steel ring that had a beautiful piece of green glass inside. It was her grandmother's wedding band. She had a small smile on her lips as Sam got her attention, having her read the passage that Ephriam had left behind about where he thought Margaret could be.

"Without any risk, there can't be reward." Fiona said softly, looking up at Sam. "This is our home, Sam. We know it better than anyone else out there. I would say that it gives us an advantage."

 

[KieranSoares]

"I wish we could get into the tunnel from the opposite side," Sam sighed. "But even with Invah's help, it'd be dangerous fer us to go by water. As far as I know, the entrance should be hidden in the cellars. I remember there was a wall down there, not stone like the rest, but wood. Da didn't know what was back there. Neither did his Da. They were both just told it blocked a collapsed section under the garden, and the garden was filled in after it happened. If that's true... We're not gonna be able to get in. But maybe that was just what Dianh's children said to keep people out."

Rising from beside the vault, Sam glanced down at all the little objects. "We can reseal an' hide this, love. Come back in peacetime if you want t'move these things."

 

[heartofcourage]

Fiona pulled her glove free and put her grandmother's ring on her right hand, glancing up at Sam as he offered to reseal the vault for another time. She glanced down at the trinkets still held within and nodded. "For another time. It's for the best."

 

[KieranSoares]

Sam slid the slab back into place and the wood plank on top. For extra measure, he carefully moved a disintegrated rug over it just to keep it out of sight.

As they stepped out, Sam glanced back at the cabin and closed the door lightly. "I have no idea how we're gonna do this, love..." He admitted quietly. "This new clan king an' his men will know our faces. I know all the ways into the keep, but it was built so sentries on the outer walls could see all entrances. Even if we went in the dark, I don't know how we'd do it."

 

[heartofcourage]

"Let's get back to the dragons and think." Fiona said in a little bit of a daze from everything that they had encountered so far. "I'm not going to lie. I feel a little...hazy." She slipped her arm through his to steady herself as they walked, taking the moment to lean her head against his shoulder.

 

[KieranSoares]

"Sure, love. I need you clear an' steady when we get into th'keep." Sam kissed her forehead as they went, slowly winding their way back to where Schaller and Dzana were hidden. When they arrived, they found that the pair had cleared leaf litter and branches away from an area large enough for them to curl up and still have room for a camp for their Riders.

Dzana looked up as they arrived, Schaller asleep with his head on her arm. He was every bit as exhausted as Fiona. "Anything useful come up?" Dzana asked, her amethyst eyes watching the pair approach and recognizing Fiona wasn't all there.

"More'n I expected in one day. A key, and a heading." Sam brought Fiona over and let her take a seat by Dzana. "I'm gonna set up camp. Look after her, love," he said to Dzana, reaching up to place a hand on her maw. While it was quiet, Fiona had watched Sam crack Dzana's shell, cultivating the beginnings of a close relationship that he hadn't had with any other dragon, not even Invah and Gaiann. It seemed that like his fellow Riders, he'd found his dragon soulmate.