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"He looks like a boy, with red hair." He doesn't pay much attention to names and tends not to remember even when he does.
"Huh, I haven't met anyone like that. Is he nice?" She has so little time for people who aren't. (That people would say Horseriver is not 'nice' would astonish her.)
He half-shrugs, his definition of 'nice' wouldn't be particularly complimentary and he's sure he doesn't know what hers is. "He has been used by the gods, it does not seem to have made him cruel." He smiles slightly. "I have met many young men who would refuse to claim such a word, most of them were fools so I suppose that is one test."
"Sounds like he'd get my approval." She blows on Horseriver's toes a moment. "Does being used by the gods--being chosen--make most people cruel?"
"No, but it means a hard path, none who walk such roads come out unchanged. Sometimes it opens one to a new understanding, sometimes it is a wall, sometimes it is the destruction of all that was once worthy of merit. Sometimes it leaves them mad. This is true whether one has followed the purpose of the gods or gone through war or torture or any of a thousand different types of suffering."
"How do you know if you're being used?" She asks, not looking at him, not looking at his toes, but rather at the first day she became a wolf, and all the death and fire and torture that has come from it.
Horseriver doesn't touch easily. In part it's the disconnect between his mind and body, in part it's just his general reserve and sardonic distance from others. So there's more weight than just his hand when he rests it on her shoulder a moment. "Those who are tools of the gods may never know or might see in the ending as they realize the shape of the purpose they have given so much to. Yet, life is often simply hard and cruel, empty of any purpose but that you can see with unchanged eyes. For the ones who lives, there is no great difference, the pain is the same."
The pressure of his hand brings her gaze up to his, and for a second she lays her cheek against his knuckles.
"Are you free of your gods yet? Or is being dead the only way?"
"Are you free of your gods yet? Or is being dead the only way?"
"The hunt is done, I am now subject to the grasp of a different god." He is free of his gods, but he's not free. And not just because of the Admiral. "There are some curses that cannot be undone, even when complete."
"Curses aren't a thing in my world, I don't think." Unless being a wolf is the result of a curse. But if it is, it's the best thing that's ever happened to her anyway.
"Can you tell me?" All of it, she means, but leaves it open-ended for whatever he will share.
"Can you tell me?" All of it, she means, but leaves it open-ended for whatever he will share.
"They are not...frequent, not usually to great extent." Small curses are different. "The curse that kept me chained to existence, it is broken now but that does not change what my soul has become, does not remove all that has happened. I will not give my soul to the gods who let such a thing happen, I just wanted an end."
"What is your soul now?" She has never believed in such things, even on the barge. But with him, it's impossible to deny that they are real, even if just in his world.
"It's a corrupted thing, not even truly my own. It is the remains of all those whose souls were eaten by the curse, a mass of my dead, trapped ghosts that make what once might have been there less with every addition."
"So there are... You can hear them? Or- I don't understand. There's still some you there, but... How does that work?"
Because she can imagine a lot of dead in his life.
Because she can imagine a lot of dead in his life.
"The curse... Every time I 'died', my soul took over the body of my heir. First my sons and then their sons and then down through the long line. Sixteen generations of souls sacrificed unwillingly to mine." He ate his children, it doesn't matter that it hadn't been his will either, he knows what type of monster it has made him.
"That's horrible," she says, softly, scarcely forming the words. She's not horrified of him, but rather for the sort of weight that must put on him. Her hand rests on his, though she can't tell if he even remembers it's there.
Which makes more sense now. She knows full well that some losses don't ever heal, don't ever even get numb.
"How did you get cursed?"
Which makes more sense now. She knows full well that some losses don't ever heal, don't ever even get numb.
"How did you get cursed?"
He's too lost in the past to notice, even as he gives her his most ironic smile (the distance it offers might only be an illusion but it's one he holds to).
"It was to be a salvation. Our lands had been invaded, my people killed as they tried to destroy all that we were. We begged the gods for help but they turned away, prayers left unanswered. A spell was to be worked, one that would allow us to fight, immortal, against our enemy. A great ritual, three days and nights we worked and sang, I stood at the center as king and anchor. But they came upon us before the magic was complete, Audar and his men. They slaughter all who were there, warrior and camp follower alike. I feel that day, for the first time, and what was to be a spell twisted into a curse."
"It was to be a salvation. Our lands had been invaded, my people killed as they tried to destroy all that we were. We begged the gods for help but they turned away, prayers left unanswered. A spell was to be worked, one that would allow us to fight, immortal, against our enemy. A great ritual, three days and nights we worked and sang, I stood at the center as king and anchor. But they came upon us before the magic was complete, Audar and his men. They slaughter all who were there, warrior and camp follower alike. I feel that day, for the first time, and what was to be a spell twisted into a curse."
"You must hate the gods," she says, her voice still soft. What he describes is so large it's hard to even claim sympathy--that implies being able to understand it on some level. She's been desperate, she has done horrible things to try to save herself or her people, but she's never had it so thoroughly twisted back on her.
"Yes, I hate the gods and I spent four hundred years fighting their will. In the end, there is no victory over them but I could at least deprive them of their desire." The hatred had kept him going, in some ways, kept his mind together in focused rage as he saw everything lost. "Time is even crueler than the gods but it, at least, makes no promises."
"What did they want from you?" It's hard for her to imagine that gods could want nothing. Why exist, why be near, if not to gain something?
But she also can't fathom why a god would handle its subject this way.
But she also can't fathom why a god would handle its subject this way.
"My soul, as they wish to take the souls of all who die. That is the last choice, the truest choice in life - to join with your god or to turn your back and fade into nothing." He had made his choice, he will never forgive the fact even that was removed.
"You turned your back so you could...fade," this, she does have empathy for. "And instead you ended up here, didn't you?"
"Yes. It took a hundred and fifty years to create an end and then -" And then he'd found himself on the barge.
"Odd told me he wants to help you." She isn't sure how Odd could, or what help Horseriver would take, but intent matters a lot to her. Odd's intentions seem good.
He half-shrugs. Intent doesn't mean much to him, even in the negative, but he's grudgingly decided to give Odd a chance, not that he has any interest in sharing that decision with his warden. "He has some experience with ghosts, even if little experience with much else."
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