Ingirun (Runa) Durant née Nyström (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
volurofthehearth) wrote2019-06-03 08:00 pm
volurofthehearth) wrote2019-06-03 08:00 pm
Entry tags:
The Empty Hand
One was steel - A triangular rod brought down to a precise point.
One was silver coated - A raindrop reflecting a hundred angles.
One was wood - Decorated with a small, simple pattern.
One was polished quartz - There was a single chip near the top.
Each of my sisters received theirs on their sixteenth birthday. They were a gift from our mother, passing on her craft to us and nurturing our talents. All of us waited eagerly for our turn, and we often discussed what we would like ours to look like, and what spells we would cast first. As I watched my sisters get a specially made wand, each one suited particularly to them, I struggled more and more to imagine what mine would be like.
After seeing Carita’s quartz wand - the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes upon - I had thought that I might have one of elegantly twisted metal. When Ragna was handed her formidable steel companion, I decided that beautifully carved wood would be nicer. By the time Gry was given her expertly crafted wooden wand I was eyeing up Carita’s again. I wanted something beautiful that shone by candlelight. So when my mother gave Luna a wand of silver I was jealous beyond belief. I struggled to imagine what I might receive when my time came. It became harder and harder to be patient, and I often needled my mother for clues. Until I was fourteen, and my mother died.
Whatever plans she had passed away with her, and I was left behind. In the wake of her death I felt as though my life had been put on pause. My sisters were swept away by life, by their husbands and children, while I remained at home with my father. We needed each other. He was left a broken man by her death, and I needed something, some purpose to latch onto. But I was left trapped in a bubble where time stood still.
Walking down the aisle with Viatorus, I knew that I’d escaped. I had charted a safe course out of that eerie nostalgic wonderland and out into the world for good… But it still felt as though something was missing. I had escaped, but I wasn’t free.
My first thought when I saw the box in front of me was that Gry didn’t buy me jewellery. There were few things that fit a box so long and narrow, and a long necklace was the most reasonable guess. Except that it was coming from Gry who didn’t look twice at anything that didn’t have fur or feathers that she’d collected herself. After that one time she gave me a rabbits foot necklace and watched me bawl for a day she never gave me jewellery again. But here she was with this box, perched on the edge of the kitchen table, watching me intently.
“What’s this?” My suspicion, I felt, was more than reasonable, though I asked with a smile.
“A box.” Her answer was impossibly quick. She waved a hand at me. “Go on. Open it.”
I rolled my eyes at her smart response and turned my attention to the box. It had a single ribbon wrapped around it, and silk cloth inside. All the air left my lungs in a gasp when I unfolded the fabric. Black, polished iron glinted up at me. It took everything in me to tear my eyes away from that box and stare at my sister in disbelief. “I can’t.”
She nodded once. “It’s yours.”
I shook my head violently. “I can’t, Gry. I can’t!” Stepping back, I waved a hand at it. “Last time I touched that-!”
“Last time you held that you were fourteen,” Gry interrupted and shrugged. “You’re not a child anymore. We’ve all agreed. It’s yours now. It’s not right to have you using something you got at a market.”
The more she insisted, the more the shaking of my head turned into a tremble.
“It wasn’t right of Carita to keep it from you. She thought it was for your own good.” She gave another shrug. “Now it’s for your own good that you have it.”
“But I-!”
Again, she cut me off. “You were grieving. We all were. None of us were right. We all know that won’t happen again.”
My head had finally stopped shaking, but I’d shrunk away into my shoulders. “I nearly brought all the gods down on us.”
Gry watched me for a moment. “You just wanted your mother back. We all did.”
Shifting, she stood and walked over so that she could push the box closer to me. “But after this winter? After marrying that mage? We realised that you’re going to need this. Ragna demanded it. You’ve grown so much. And one day you’re going to have children of your own to teach. She’d want you to have this.”
Fear gave way to something else. Tears blurred my vision instantly and I covered my mouth with my hands, pressed together as if in prayer.
When I first saw it, I’d have thought it was ugly, but was too scared to even let that thought linger in my mind too long. It looked like something dragged out of a myth. The sight of it always terrified me, even when I grew up and pretended it didn’t. The iron rod was heavy and dark, and when my mother let me use the heirloom to practice it reminded me every second I held it of the weight of what I was doing. Yet my mother spun it with great fondness and care, as protective over it as she was over us.
Carita suited her quartz, Ragna her steel, Gry her wood, and Luna her silver, but I never thought my mother never suited the terrifying iron she held.
Yet taking it up in my hands, tears streaming down my face, all I could think of was her.
One was silver coated - A raindrop reflecting a hundred angles.
One was wood - Decorated with a small, simple pattern.
One was polished quartz - There was a single chip near the top.
Each of my sisters received theirs on their sixteenth birthday. They were a gift from our mother, passing on her craft to us and nurturing our talents. All of us waited eagerly for our turn, and we often discussed what we would like ours to look like, and what spells we would cast first. As I watched my sisters get a specially made wand, each one suited particularly to them, I struggled more and more to imagine what mine would be like.
After seeing Carita’s quartz wand - the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes upon - I had thought that I might have one of elegantly twisted metal. When Ragna was handed her formidable steel companion, I decided that beautifully carved wood would be nicer. By the time Gry was given her expertly crafted wooden wand I was eyeing up Carita’s again. I wanted something beautiful that shone by candlelight. So when my mother gave Luna a wand of silver I was jealous beyond belief. I struggled to imagine what I might receive when my time came. It became harder and harder to be patient, and I often needled my mother for clues. Until I was fourteen, and my mother died.
Whatever plans she had passed away with her, and I was left behind. In the wake of her death I felt as though my life had been put on pause. My sisters were swept away by life, by their husbands and children, while I remained at home with my father. We needed each other. He was left a broken man by her death, and I needed something, some purpose to latch onto. But I was left trapped in a bubble where time stood still.
Walking down the aisle with Viatorus, I knew that I’d escaped. I had charted a safe course out of that eerie nostalgic wonderland and out into the world for good… But it still felt as though something was missing. I had escaped, but I wasn’t free.
My first thought when I saw the box in front of me was that Gry didn’t buy me jewellery. There were few things that fit a box so long and narrow, and a long necklace was the most reasonable guess. Except that it was coming from Gry who didn’t look twice at anything that didn’t have fur or feathers that she’d collected herself. After that one time she gave me a rabbits foot necklace and watched me bawl for a day she never gave me jewellery again. But here she was with this box, perched on the edge of the kitchen table, watching me intently.
“What’s this?” My suspicion, I felt, was more than reasonable, though I asked with a smile.
“A box.” Her answer was impossibly quick. She waved a hand at me. “Go on. Open it.”
I rolled my eyes at her smart response and turned my attention to the box. It had a single ribbon wrapped around it, and silk cloth inside. All the air left my lungs in a gasp when I unfolded the fabric. Black, polished iron glinted up at me. It took everything in me to tear my eyes away from that box and stare at my sister in disbelief. “I can’t.”
She nodded once. “It’s yours.”
I shook my head violently. “I can’t, Gry. I can’t!” Stepping back, I waved a hand at it. “Last time I touched that-!”
“Last time you held that you were fourteen,” Gry interrupted and shrugged. “You’re not a child anymore. We’ve all agreed. It’s yours now. It’s not right to have you using something you got at a market.”
The more she insisted, the more the shaking of my head turned into a tremble.
“It wasn’t right of Carita to keep it from you. She thought it was for your own good.” She gave another shrug. “Now it’s for your own good that you have it.”
“But I-!”
Again, she cut me off. “You were grieving. We all were. None of us were right. We all know that won’t happen again.”
My head had finally stopped shaking, but I’d shrunk away into my shoulders. “I nearly brought all the gods down on us.”
Gry watched me for a moment. “You just wanted your mother back. We all did.”
Shifting, she stood and walked over so that she could push the box closer to me. “But after this winter? After marrying that mage? We realised that you’re going to need this. Ragna demanded it. You’ve grown so much. And one day you’re going to have children of your own to teach. She’d want you to have this.”
Fear gave way to something else. Tears blurred my vision instantly and I covered my mouth with my hands, pressed together as if in prayer.
When I first saw it, I’d have thought it was ugly, but was too scared to even let that thought linger in my mind too long. It looked like something dragged out of a myth. The sight of it always terrified me, even when I grew up and pretended it didn’t. The iron rod was heavy and dark, and when my mother let me use the heirloom to practice it reminded me every second I held it of the weight of what I was doing. Yet my mother spun it with great fondness and care, as protective over it as she was over us.
Carita suited her quartz, Ragna her steel, Gry her wood, and Luna her silver, but I never thought my mother never suited the terrifying iron she held.
Yet taking it up in my hands, tears streaming down my face, all I could think of was her.