#(&) stenvarr ➽; LIKE A FATHER TO ME.

[hawksblooded]

⤖ indie & selective ALIZEBETH KENWAY,  a fandomless original character from own lore.

⤖   generic fantasy & fandom verses available. strictly 18+ .  ⤖ sideblog to @henosiis. written by KAT ⤖ affiliated with @fishermcn, @swordluck

Exploring grief, DUTY, acceptance, friendship, misfortune, necessity, justice

[hawksblooded]

👤+ Stenvarr?

↣ A HUNTER'S THOUGHTS.

SHE’S NOT SURE JUST why they’re on the topic, why she’s thinking about him. Maybe it’s that she feels comfortable, sat in the hay of the tavern’s stable where they’ve taken refuge from the rain. Maybe it’s that she’s on her fifth drink of watered-down but not impotent grog, procured from a bandit’s hideout they’ve raided days before. They’re indulging in the last of the supply, now that they’re relatively safe, relatively warm. Horses placidly wait in their stalls, the smell nostalgic. Stenvarr was always the better rider.

“I’m not sure why I followed him,” she says, placing the dusky bottle safely down between the bales they're using as seats. “Then again, what else could I have done? I had nothing but some ratty clothes and the axe I’d just used to save my own skin. Suppose I had that, too. Skin and bones.” Alizebeth looks at her side, where the dreaded weapon still hangs. It’s a strange memento, she supposes, but it’s not her place to question where memory chooses to lay. “He was quiet. Not just at the moment, I mean. He was a quiet man. There were entire days where he wouldn’t talk. Some where we’d exchange but a few words. But I always listened. Because whatever he said, he meant it.”

She takes another swig of grog, makes a face. “This shite never gets any better, does it? Hah.” The hunter breathes in the acrid smell of the stable, looks out into the pouring rain. “Didn’t talk about feelings much, Stenvarr. One time, I… I asked him if I was going to have to kill him, too. I was just a child, you know? I asked stupid questions all the time. He usually just groaned, or didn’t answer. But after the usual silence, he put his big hand on my shoulder - like a bear’s paw it was, full of scars, his last two digits missing - and he told me, ‘If it happens, Alizebeth, you’ll do what needs to be done.’ “

She’s silent for a moment. She glances at Soot, waits for him to speak, but he only listens, bottle of bad grog in hand. You’re drunk, she thinks to herself. His eyes have a strange softness in them. It makes her want to keep talking.

“Stenvarr doesn’t believe in anything except being prepared. For every contingency, every possible variation of events. Doesn’t believe in luck, or talent, or the gods. Not spirits, either, not the way most people understand them to be. Of course, he knows they’re real, but he doesn’t believe in the strange things we say about them. About their powers, and the like. He believes in what he sees. And he saw something in me. He said that’s why he kept me by his side, instead of pawning me off to some orphanage. And I thank him for it, even on the hard days.”

“I saw him last a year ago, I think. We hadn’t hunted together in years by then. He’d raised me to be the best Hawksblood I could be, and we went our separate ways. Always preferred it like that. Nothing more I can show you, he’d said. But that time…” Something heavy chokes her heart, her voice hoarse, and not just from the alcohol. “He hugged me. Had never done that before. He was always worried, you know. I think part of him never wanted me to care for him, knowing the kind of lives we lead. But that time, he said, ‘I’m proud of you’. It… scared me. Like he knew something I didn’t.”

“No use dwelling on it, I suppose,” she empties her bottle, shakes it with reluctant disappointment.

“I don’t know if I could have done it. Killed him. He’s like a father to me.”