Herbalists' Cache so I can watch your face as I take it all away

Wardruna watches as she rises from the cold earth into a position upon her haunches, his functioning eye sweeping over her once more. She responds with an airy ‘yes’ to his question, the word rolling off little more than a breath but he hears it all the same with cupped and attentive ears. She introduces herself as Akirea and he tries the name out in his head, metaling sounding out the syllables. He knows that when he goes to repeat it that it will not sound as she has spoken it: his accent will add his own soliloquies to it. “Akirea.” It is not a name native to his mother tongue, the northerner thinks. He could be wrong but the name feels different on his tongue: it sits and rolls in a way that is inconsistent with the fluidity of northern names, as Noma’s, Sif’s, Hella’s or his own. “I am Wardruna.” He offers his own name to her though she does not ask for it; and his offering of it is not strictly without reason and certainly not because he is attempting to conform to social obligations.

“In my culture,” Wardruna begins, salmon pink tongue drawing across his jowls as he thinks through his words and translations though he finds that the longer he stays in these Wilds the more easier it is becoming. “Seeress are of great standing,” They are coveted and trusted and constantly with work, thus Wardruna struggles to understand why she smells lone. He scents at the air, just to be sure. There is a mingle of medicinal plants that he doesn’t recognize: faint but laced so intricately with her scent that he doesn’t think much of it; but there are no scents of others and if there is they are not constant or strong enough to have stayed in her presence for very long. “Why are you alone?” He inquires with a curious, bird-like cant to his head as if she is a puzzle he is determined to figure out. Perhaps, in a way, she is.

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