#the nice part is i have the whoooooole first part drafted

[sabraeal]

A Heart Like Stone Turned to Flesh, Chapter 1

[Read on AO3]

Written for @onedivinemisfit, who has been waiting quite patiently for this little birthday gift for a few months now 😅It was originally supposed to be based on one of her Frimmel artworks-- which, technically, it still is-- but I decided to include one of her other too, and the whole project grew into a multichap with a first chapter that addresses...neither of them. BUT I WILL GET THERE SOME DAY.

“Well.” Fog curls up from Sein’s mouth, sprawling into the same delicate lace as smoke. It's so familiar Frieren half-expects the cloying scent to follow, tobacco clinging to her clothes like a child does his mother’s sleeve. “I’ll give your friend this: that Himmel guy certainly got around.”

She has to crane her neck to catch his face— more than she ever did when he was alive. But this pinch is what’s more familiar to her now, habit narrowing her eyes to a squint against the sun. It’s him, alright; even with the morning light prying its way past her lashes, she can see the cocky tilt to his chin and the sly slant to his smile. “He liked helping everyone. It made him popular no matter where we went.”

Sometimes too popular. More than once she’d caught him sneaking out a window, just to avoid the crush of young girls lingering outside their inn, eager to meet The Hero they’d heard so much about.  He’d been shy about it, nervous those first few times— funny, for a boy his age; she’d always thought human adolescents were supposed to be eager for that sort of exploration, their short lifespans spurring them toward procreation before their brains fully finished developing enough to understand the consequences.

You won’t tell anyone? he’d asked, hanging there by the bedsheets, hair a haystack blown to the four winds. She’d only answered, who would I tell?

The girls, of course, which she did as soon as they’d crowded her at the door. And Heiter and Eisen, once she’d caught up with them in town. They’d laughed for a full quarter hour over it, winding down one moment only to work right up to a full guffaw the next. And when Himmel joined them, tunic sticking to his skin and lipstick smeared across his cheeks, thoroughly harassed— well, they’d started right back up again.

I didn’t say I wouldn’t, she would remind him when he turned those wounded eyes on her. And he’d only whine, I didn’t realize you were being hypothetical!

“If there’s one of these here, then the village must be nearby.” Fern furrows her brow— the way Heiter never would, not unless he was quoting scripture three sheets to the wind and tripping over one of those trumped up Empire words, like pervicacious or abnegation or, on one memorable night, copulation— and peers down the road. “Maybe those directions weren’t so useless after all.”

“See?” Sein thrusts out a generous hand, looking every inch the benevolent priest he isn’t. “Northern wisdom. No one knows this land like the people who live here. If you’d only let me finish talking to that nice older woman, then maybe we would have—”

“We still were wandering for almost three days,” she says, as cold as the mountain pass they’d trudged through trying to get to this valley. “Either that nice older woman didn’t know what she was talking about, or you were too busy staring at her to pay attention.”

Frieren rocks on her heels, just a little smug. “I think I know which one it is.”

One glance at her sends Sein sputtering, tripping over himself to insist, “I’m sure she said she knew a man who went this way once. A merchant, I mean. You know, a regular traveler.”

“I’m sure she did.” The chill in Fern’s tone could give a flame frostbite.

It certainly seems to burn Sein’s hide, since he hurries to add, “She’s given the same directions to other travelers too, and never had any complaints.”

“Complaints aren’t a bad thing.” Frieren tilts her head, gaze sliding up, up, until she meets Sein’s furrowed brow. Not a bad look on him, she has to admit. Thinking looks good on just about everyone; it’s a pity most people don’t do it more often. “It means the directions weren’t so terrible they couldn’t find their way back.”

“Well, sure,” he huffs, more steam rising from his mouth, consternation turning to storm before roiling away into the afternoon air. “But if they found their way, they wouldn’t come back either, unless, er…”

“They were just visiting?” It’s not that she enjoys seeing Sein squirm, it’s just— well, it is funny. A big man like that, a priest— the goddess’s chosen as they used to say— standing around and stammering, his cheeks discovering deeper shades of pink. Doesn’t really get old, no matter how many times she’s seen it. Or who she’s seen it on. “And then they’d be sure to come back the same way, wouldn’t they? To say thank you, at least.”

“H-huh.” His eyes squint— she wouldn’t have noticed, all those months ago, when they first began dragging him along behind them. But now his deflection is like an old friend, one fondly missed in all those years away. “Well, I suppose, uh…”

It’s impossible to meet his eyes— he’s head and shoulders taller than her for one thing, and not inclined to stoop down right now, for another— but she leans in, new snow crunching beneath the thick soles of her boots, and smiles. “Did she then? Have people come back to thank her for the good directions?”

“I didn’t inquire,” he sniffs, arms folded forbiddingly across his chest. “Her credentials seemed unquestionable.”

Fern snorts. “Her cup size, you mean.”

“It just seems like an odd place to put it, doesn’t it?” Stark says, sudden as always, his head still cocked to match his hero’s. “The statue I mean. Don’t they usually like to have a whole town square around these things? Put some garlands on and have a whole festival about it?”

“Not always.” Fern might not spare Himmel another glance, but she does fix one to Stark, for all that he notices. “I’ve seen plenty on roadsides, and more than a few in some glen or gully, all forgotten and worn down.”

“Villages move, plans change.” It’s her third time on this road in a century, and it never ceases to surprise her what things move, and what things carry on just the same, as if the years had never passed. “Especially this far north. People put down roots, and then a river changes, or the harvest doesn’t come in quite right, and they pull them right up again.”

Stark squints. “So this is where the village is supposed to be?”

“Who knows.” Frieren lets her eyes linger where the sweep of Himmel’s hair cuts across his forehead, the work so delicate she’d swear the barest breeze would ruffle it. “Maybe they just liked how it looked.”

“I’m just surprised they had someone around who could make a statue.” Sein’s hands hook behind his head; support for his surreptitious surveying. They’ve been missing that too the past few years— his casual curiosity, a welcome change from Fern’s weary antipathy and Stark’s unreliable attention. An eagerness to dig deep and turn up worms, instead of hurrying along to the next mark on their map. “Nice as some places might be up here now, we Northerners aren’t really known for our fine artisans, if you know what I mean.”

Fern stoops down, one robe-covered hand reaching out to wipe frost and years from the plinth, scowling when all she uncovers is blank stone. “Well it looks like he found one, at least.”

“You’d be surprised what you can turn up in these small villages. A girl who paints masterpieces on cave walls. An innkeep that single handedly slays demons before trudging back to serve his next pint.” She casts a knowing look toward Sein, her mouth taking a sly slant. “The best healer of the age.”

“And some farmhand sleeping in a barn who can sculpt like the great masters?” If he hears the compliment, Sein certainly doesn’t take it. He just snorts instead, shaking his head. “If there’s one thing that Himmel was, it was dedicated to being carved out of stone.”

She can still remember the smell of that workshop— wood shavings and clay, and some other sour note that stung her nose, clinging long after they left— and the way dust motes had eddied around Himmel’s cloak as he turned to her. I just thought I’d like everyone to remember me.

That would have been reason enough; humans were impulsive, short lived. They got tangled up in their sense of mortality, agonizing over legacy, over that second death, when a name is last spoken and all about them fades from memory. But Himmel— Himmel lets the light catch him, the ice of his eyes softening, melting as he tells her, but the biggest reason is so that you won’t be alone.

“Well,” she hums, lingering on the still familiar angles of his jaw, the delicate swoop of his nose. “He did like wasting our time. Almost as much as helping people.”

When her gaze drops, Sein’s is waiting for her, so amused— no, so fond that Frieren can’t help but wonder if he missed them all just as much as they did him.

“We should get going,” he says, both firm and gentle. Confident, maybe; knowing he’ll be heard. “Night’s not going to wait around for us, and I don’t have to tell you, it gets cold when the sun goes down around here.”

Frieren shivers just thinking about it. “Good point.”

Heiter might have teased her about her height— unfair, when Eisen was even shorter; size doesn’t matter when it comes to getting underfoot, that corrupt old priest would say, ruffling her hair— but it’s easy to tuck close to Sein when he walks, to let the heat that escapes even his thick coat warm her through hers. He’s a furnace compared to Heiter and his marble-cold hands— funny, she’d always heard drunks were warmer— and he complains less too, just stilling his arm with a sigh as she settles beside him. As long as the village isn’t too far, they might make it before he even—

Stops. Just like he does now, leaving her to lurch back on her heels to miss his elbow. “Stark?”

There’s tracks in the snow: four of them leading to the statue, making a muddle of slush around the base of it. But there’s only three leading away, the second largest set stuck beneath Stark’s thick boots, lingering right where they left him. Staring— no, squinting up at Himmel the Hero, jaw slack enough even snow might stick.

Fern heaves a sigh, arms folding into their most frustrated angles. “What’s wrong with you?”

Sein just barely stifles a groan. This, she suspects, he hasn’t missed.

“I dunno.” His head tilts, red and black shifting in its starburst. “Do you think…?”

“More than you, certainly,” Fern snaps. “Are you coming, or should we just leave you here?”

“Now, now, give the kid a minute.” Sein may put on his most peaceable tones, playing his priestly part to the hilt, but Frieren doesn’t miss the way his mouth curls, one side of his benevolent smile hitching to a smirk. “We all have our crushes now and again.”

“I don’t have a crush!” Stark yelps, whipping wide-eyes toward them. “It’s just— isn’t there something weird about this statue? You know, something different about it?”

It would be easy to brush off his concerns— Stark might be the strongest of them, but he’s the first to make shadows out of sunshine too, trembling right down to his boots at the smallest creak in the floorboards— but Frieren finds herself turning, blinking up into the late morning sun, tracing her eyes over stony flesh, counting two ears and ten fingers, hair artfully blowing in a wind eighty years gone.

“It looks like every other statue,” Fern informs him, utterly implacable. A fitting look for a mage of her skill— so long as it isn’t aimed Frieren’s way, of course. “Now let’s get going. My feet are going to get cold if we keep standing around in this snow.”

“But isn’t it…?” Stark squints up at the statue, stymied. “Isn’t it more, I dunno…detailed?”

Fern clicks her tongue. “Detailed?”

“You can see his mole!” One gloved hand swings out, jutting up towards a stony cheek. “Most statues don’t even bother with that. And his hair’s kinda all uneven in the back, like he cut it himself—”

“Heiter did.” They’d argue about it endlessly; Heiter, always too hungover to walk in a straight line let alone cut one, insisting that as an avatar of the goddess’s grace and kindness, his skills were unimpeachable, and Himmel, seized by an absurd and exacting bout of vanity, insisting that he try again, only actually good this time. “They were both hopeless with a pair of scissors. I don’t know why he never asked Eisen to try. He had steadier hands, at least.”

Stark juts a hand her way, pointed. “See?”

“Can’t say I see it,” Sein admits after a long moment, slanting a glance down to where she stands. “What do you think? You’re the expert on Himmel the Hero, here.”

The title pricks at her, like needles sinking into her skin. Expert, ha. That’s the whole reason they’re going north to begin with, isn’t it? Because she never really knew him at all.

She shrugs. “I can’t say. At this point, I’ve seen so many they all sort of blur together.”

But he’s right about the mole though. Most sculptors didn’t bother with the imperfections, fixing Heiter’s glazed over stare the mornings he showed up still soused to their sessions, or the kinks sleep put in Eisens beard, and sometimes even giving her one of those benevolent goddess smiles. This must have been a good one. Strange that she can’t quite remember it.

“Why are you spending so much time looking at these statues anyway?” Fern huffs as he finally tromps away, adding a fourth set of tracks beside their three. “It’s weird.”

“It’s not weird!” It’d be a better protest if his voice didn’t crack on the last word. “It’s obvious. Just because none of you have been paying attention doesn’t mean that I—”

Whatever he says is lost to the woods, swallowed up by the thickening firs and their hastening steps. Oh, she could hear them, if she wanted to— they’re not all that far away, and as Eisen always used to grunt, you don’t have all that ear for nothin’— it’s only…

It’s only when she looks at Himmel, she can see the way his mouth is just subtly open, poised not just to stand but to speak. As if he’s just one breath away from calling out to her, hand already half raised to greet her. As if all she might have to do it reach out, and stone might warm in her hand, becoming flesh, and she—

“Do you need a minute?”

She’s not the sort that flinches— never was, at least according to Flamme— but she does shake herself, like a sleeper shaking off a dream.

“No.” Sein lingers behind her, not close, but enough that she can see the furrow bridging his brow, concern burning as bright as any hearth. “Just thinking.”

*

The village isn’t much to write home about; just a smattering of houses that cluster up around a crossroads like nearly every other one they’ve seen since they strolled out of the Empire’s lands and into the deeper, bleaker North. It’s honestly not even too dissimilar from his own, though that’s a detail he’ll refrain from recounting when he finally does get to settle in and pen his letter back home. His brother may be a captive audience for the duration of three sheets of paper— even crossed, which Sein would consider a bridge too far himself— but he hardly needs to harp on the minutiae of being in a small village when that fool still lives in one.

No, he saves his spare inches for stories; ones he’s told by the toothless old men in taverns and the rotating roster of aspiring heroes he’s traveled alongside on his search for Gorilla. Ones he’s lived through himself, as well— nearly being flown off by some bird-monster took two pages of tightly-woven prose to relate, and wandering in some goddess-forsaken dungeon for three days with two hygiene deficient warriors had been a page and a half if only so he wouldn’t have to remember the smell.

The longest, of course, was the month they spent at the village on the Rohr Road, waiting out that cold spell.

I can’t take it much more, he’d scrawled, admittedly a little too deep in his cups. They might say that a little romance is the death of a party, but I’d take it over these two children dancing around each other, trying to find ways to twist the other into moving first! If I’d known I’d have to suffer a schoolroom flirtation, I might never have gone at all.

It’d been nearly four pages, front-to-back and crossed besides; every word of it spent venting his frustration at the futility of youth— and, more specifically, Stark’s inability to understand an implicit invitation. Not that Sein could blame him; Fern was just the sort of girl to roll up a welcome mat from under a man’s feet for nothing but the high crime of perceiving they could stand on it in the first place. He’d nearly burned the letter in the morning— who would want to read his drunken complaints about two romantically confused idiots they have never even met?— but…

He’d sent it anyway. They moved too often for him to get replies now that they’ve traveled beyond the civilized world— or at least, what he had always thought would be the boundaries of it, back in his small village, dreaming of bigger things. But Sein liked to think his brother enjoyed them, these letters from world’s end, smelly companions and luckless young lovers and all. That when he sat at the window of his parsonage, poring over letters by the morning light, he might smile and shake his head, wondering at the strange sights his brother saw.

It was the least he could do, anyway. Give a little of the world back to the brother who gave his up for him.

“That’s the headman’s house.” Stark hops up from his crouch, too young for his knees to creak the way Sein’s would. The lucky bastard. “Right there, on the corner. The big one.”

He thrusts out an arm, finger fixed to where a large log building sits, lintels well-carved and chimneys merrily pushing out smoke.

“That one, huh?” Sein squints, hands hooking on his hips. “I had that pegged as the village hall. Just look at the size of it.”

“Big family, maybe.” Frieren trots up to his elbow, hooking close like a child to their mother’s apron strings, afraid they might get lost on market day. But there’s no market out here, just children playing in the muddy streets and folk lingering at fence posts, wondering at the crowd of strangers that just rolled in. “I’m not sure, but Stark’s sources are unimpeachable.”

“Unim…?” Sein’s teeth snick shut as he traces the tilt of her smirk to find a knot of young girls giggling as they walk away. One waves, a corner of her pinafore caught up in her hands, and Stark hunches into his coat, the tips of his ears burnished a bright red.

“They made him play hero before they’d tell him,” she explains, voice nowhere near soft enough to escape Stark’s notice, no matter how much of a show she made of keeping it behind a hand.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” he says staunchly, giving the boy an encouraging nod. Around these two ladies, men like them had to stick together. “Stark already is one.”

For all his good intentions, Stark merely moans, sinking further into his collar. It’s Fern that clarifies, “They made him play hero to their forest lady. He had to pretend to get stuck in the mud and need saving at least three times before he begged them to let him go.”

“The hero needing saving?” That was certainly a new one, though by the smug little smirk on Frieren’s face, not unwelcome. “That’s not your friend’s usual narrative when he traipses through a town. You guys run into a little trouble here, once?”

“Not that I can remember,” she admits, and Sein doesn’t think he imagines the hint of disappointment. “But most of these northern towns blend together for me.”

“Really?” Fern tilts her head, wide eyes not curious but incredulous. “But you remember almost everything.”

“Not everything.” It’s Frieren’s turn to sink into her scarf, the ends of her ears twitching, like a cat well harassed. “We only went through twice, and I didn’t see the point of coming so far north, afterward.”

Their party might have a thousand year old elf, one of the handful of First Class mages on the continent, and a favorite of the goddess herself, but yet it’s Stark that thinks to say, “Did Himmel?”

Sein’s boots stutter beneath him, sinking into the muddy road as he turns to stare, stunned at the boy behind him. He’s hardly the only one; Stark shrinks back, hands raised like it might somehow shield him from a well-aimed Zoltraak. “W-what? It makes sense, doesn’t it? You were wandering around for fifty years, he was wandering around for fifty years…?”

“He does,” Fern starts, every syllable begrudging, “have a point.”

“It could be.” Those pale pigtails tilt, ribbons of silver slipping down Frieren’s coat before she shakes herself free of the thought. “I don’t think it’s likely though. It took long enough for us to get here the first time, never mind a return trip. Maybe it was some other hero. Plenty of them came up this way trying to get to the Demon King.”

But not many would have made it this far. “And what about the forest lady? Some local legend? A spirit we should be aware of?”

“Maybe.” Frieren slanted him one of her too-knowing grins. “Or it could be whatever survived of your goddess.”

He stares down at her, unamused. “Pardon me?”

“It happens sometimes, once you get far enough past the Empire’s influence.” She’s got a jaunty little spring to her step now, despite the mud splashing up the sides of her boots. “People settle, stories change, holy books are lost— if they were ever brought in the first place— and you get these sorts of spirits. Benevolent women living in woods and lakes and caves. One time, there was even a well where—”

“A well?” Fern frowns, as stern as Master Heiter never was. “I don’t think the goddess would live in a well.”

“Who’s to say she doesn’t?” Her smile is downright benevolent when she adds, “If church doctrine says that the goddess is everywhere, doesn’t that mean wells too?”

Sein sees the lightning before it strikes; Fern’s mouth furrows as deep as her brow, marshaling all of her best arguments together, a priest’s daughter, through and through—

“Don’t,” he murmurs, holding out a hand. “Trust me on this one.”

Now it’s him that her temper’s aimed at, glaring at the arm he’s held out in front of her. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no point in arguing doctrine with a person who predates it by a good hundred years.” His mouth tilts, only making hers furrow deeper. “Not unless you want her to start in on water closets too.”

The girl blinks. “Water…closets…?”

“We should go talk to the headman,” Frieren calls back, both her and Stark outpacing them now. “Are you two coming?”

Sein raises his hand in answer, hurrying to catch up to Frieren’s much smaller heels, but from behind him, he still hears the soft murmur of, “Water closets.”

*

“It gets colder from here,” the headman warns them, one hand digging into the thick pelt of his beard. He’s a hale man, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested— built like Master Eisen, only twice as tall. The sort of man who might have made a good warrior, Stark thinks, if only he’d been born in his village and not the back end of the world. “Hard to believe, I know, but even with all the snow on the peaks, we stay a good deal warmer than out past them.”

“It’s probably because of the mountains.” Frieren pops up on her toes, squinting toward the sky. Even lifts a hand up to shield her eyes, like she’s some kid trying to peek over her neighbor’s fence.  “They’re blocking you from the wind. This whole valley’s just a pocket of warm air.”

“I don’t know much about that,” the man— Gesund, he’d said, when he first started showing them around the place— says warmly. “But if you folks don’t want to brave the long nights and deep snows, you’re welcome to stay on for winter. We’ve got more than enough room.”

“Might not be a bad idea.” Sein’s got a speculative look on, taking in everything from the mountains peeking up above the tree line to the mud caking to their feet. Funny how they’d been walking in snow just this morning, and now that the day’s got a bit long in the tooth, there’s not a speck of it to be seen. “I don’t imagine there’s many other places around here to take us in.”

“Certainly not as nice.” The headman pats the side of one sturdy, log-hewn home, pride radiating off him. “There’s a few villages once you get out of the mountains, but the pass closes with the first frost.”

It’d already been harrowing enough getting through the first time; Stark shivers just thinking about another. A couple nights ago, it got cold enough for Sein to start talking about how some men in his village got lost wandering around their wood and gutted a fresh-caught stag for somewhere warm to sleep. Fern had scoffed, telling him to keep his gross old man stories to himself, but Stark—

Well, what bothered Stark was that it didn’t sound too bad. Not until morning, at least, which was way too long for him to be considering whether the goats around here might be just as warm, or if he’d have to kill two of them to fit.

“We don’t have much pocket money.” Fern’s mouth is strung as tight as their purse strings, voice pitched only to be heard by the four of them. “If we stay, there won’t be enough for—”

Snacks, that’s what she means to say. It’s the only sort of consequence Frieren understands, since time isn’t a limited quantity. But before she can eke out any kind of dire promise, Gesund says: “Don’t worry about that.”

A mistake on his part; worrying over their budget is one of Fern’s favorite pastimes. If anything, her mouth pulls tighter, brows dropping a dangerous degree. “Excuse me?”

Excuse you, she means, but if Gesund hears it, he waves it off with the rest of their concerns. “I’ve got a spare house. Built it for my son.”

He gestures to a boy who can’t be much younger than Stark himself, though he’s got a lot more limb, proportionally, and a lot less muscle. Nothing a few hard years working the land won’t change, but slower progress than throwing around an axe. Safer, though. By miles.

“For when he marries,” the headman explains, clapping the boy on the shoulder. The kid looks like he’d rather wither into the earth than sit through this particular explanation. “But no one’s caught his eye yet, and what young man prefers to keep his own house when he could have what his mother’s put on the table?”

It’s to Stark that Gesund turns his grin, as if this is some old chestnut all men his age must know: the sky is blue, water’s wet, and a bachelor never cooks his own dinner. And maybe it is; Stark wouldn’t know. He could barely remember his mother, honestly.

“As long as a few of you don’t mind pitching in a hand or two over the harvest, I’m sure it’ll all come out even,” Gesund assures them, the deep rumble of his laugh rolling over them like distant thunder.

“We have Stark,” Fern offers, catching him by the back of his coat. “He likes to lift heavy things.”

“What?” he squawks. “Why am I the only one getting volunteered?”

“You still have things growing?” Sein aims his furrowed brow down the road, as if he might be able to see them from here if he just squints hard enough. “We saw snow on our way in.”

“It’s the weather, I tell you,” Gesund laughs, leading them down the packed earth path. “It stays mild enough here that we can grow most of what we need up until the sun fails us. We’ve still got a week or two left before we’ll have to bring everything in.”

Sein’s frown pulls deeper. “One to two weeks…?”

“Come on then,” the headman says, smile bright as sun on snow. “Take a good look at where you’ll be staying. I’m sure we can work something out.”

*

It’s a nice little cottage, Fern has to admit; one made with quite a bit of thought and care. Even with a pace around the common room, she can’t find a single hint of a draft, nor one bit of the ceiling that might leak. The bedrooms seem fine too; just two— though there’s plenty of space for more, Master Gesund had said, quite pointed, should my boy see fit to fill them up— with windows sealed up tight. Glass, too— a luxury, all the way out here. It seems the headman does well for himself when he does make it down to the Empire’s markets.

“Can you imagine that?” Fern settles in front of the fire Sein helped her start, right before Gesund herded him and and Frieren right back out the door. To look at fields or some such. Adult things, she assumes, since the two of them have been left behind. “Having a house like this, and his son’s not even twenty.”

“I think what gets me is that he keeps talking like that kid should be married,” Stark sighs, heaving off his boots. They clatter beside the door, mud spattering over the towel Frieren left for them. “He’s even younger than us!”

Not even old enough to grow a beard, according to those bare cheeks of his. Or at least, not one worthy of the name. This far north, the length of the hair of your chin marked you as a man, and for someone to shave it off, well— it would have to be truly terrible. Fern had only seen the boy for a moment, eclipsed by the shadow of his father, but she can imagine it— piebald patches of red sprouting from under his chin, a wispy mustache. Nothing that would do his boyish face any favors.

“That’s how it is in places like this, I think.” She spreads her toes on the hearth, watching the wool of her stockings stretch between them “You get married young and start having kids to help out. More hands make quicker work, they say.”

“I guess so.” Stark shucks his coat at the door too, letting it slump to the floor like he’s some child fresh from playing in the snow. She’d scold him— honestly, they all have to live in this cottage together, he can’t just leave things places— but he pads over to her, the clinging fabric of his shirt stretching across his shoulders as he sits. “That’s kind of how it was in my village too. Well, as far as I can remember.”

He lays down— sprawls, really, like he doesn’t know how to keep his limbs all in one place without his coat to remind him they’re there. Another thing she could nip at, if she chose— he’s a buffet of problems, each one more meaty than the last— but Fern only tucks her chin between her knees, keeping an eye on where his toes curl, far too close to the flames. It’ll be his fault if he lets his stockings singe.

“They’d been talking about getting my brother married to some girl, you know?” She doesn’t, of course— how could she?— but she keeps her mouth shut, letting him settle into the warm stones. “At least, they were, before…”

Before. He lets the word hang, a warning and a wish all at once. “Was he very old?”

“Not really.” Stark shrugs, more hands than shoulders. “He was older than me though, by a lot. Maybe…fifteen? I don’t know.”

Her eyes jump to his, surprised. “Young.”

“I guess when you fight demons for a living, every day counts. Or I don’t know, something like that.” His head turns, gaze falling on her with bald curiosity. That’s how he always is, wearing his every thought on his sleeve, too much. “How about you? You’re from the south, right? Was it the same?”

“I…I don’t remember,” she mumbles into her knees. Even her memories of her mother and father are patchwork, a composite of a handful of half-formed moments and none of them clear. What her village had been like— her home, her life— might as well be a mystery. Or it would be, if she cared about remembering it. “I think Master Heiter would have been happy if I never married.”

It must have crossed his mind once, even as young as she was. That’s what little girls did, didn’t they? Grow up and become women who got married, became mothers. And yet he’d never said a word of it. Only encouraged her magic practice, luring her out a teacher with his advanced age and utter shamelessness in taking advantage of it. If it was a father’s job to plan for his daughter’s future, Master Heiter must not have seen one where a man would willingly take on a girl as sullen as her, as unnervingly silent.

“Yeah, I don’t think Master Eisen thought much about it either.” He shakes his head, grin clinging to the corners of his mouth. “Makes sense, I guess.”

Fern casts him a long look. “You think so?”

“Well, I mean, none of them ever got married, did they?” he asks, wide eyes finding hers. “Master Heiter was a priest, right? So that makes sense. But Master Eisen never did either. Or Himmel the Hero. And Frieren, well…”

Pigs might fly before she figures out how something as complicated as love works. Humans already had in the time it took her to figure out friendship. “So you’re saying we were doomed from the start?”

“What? No! That’s not it at all. It’s just…” Stark trails off, distracted. Just looks at the ceiling like if he stares long enough, he might see what fate’s carved for him in the stars. Or at least whether the thatch is leaking. “It’s kind weird to think that if I stayed…I mean, if everyone lived, and my father didn’t toss me out for being a complete disappointment”—Fern valiantly does not remind him of the fifty foot chasm he procrastinated into a cliff side— “that kid might be me right now.”

She lifts her eyebrows. “Not finding anyone you like?”

“No, no. I mean the getting married part.” Skin above his nose wrinkles, knotted up with thoughts, and he mutters, softer, “Well, maybe that too.”

Fern spares him an irritated glare. They’re sitting here, her hip practically touching his shoulder, only the fabric of her skirt and his shirt between them, and yet—

“What? Because it’s impossible that you could ever find anyone you’d like?”

“Yeah, I guess. Out there…” His eyes widen, and he rolls toward her, rising up on his elbow. “No, wait, that’s not, um…I mean, I wouldn’t—”

Fern sweeps up to her feet, an itch scratching just under her skin where she can’t possibly reach. She’s heard quite enough. “You’re so stupid, sometimes, Stark.”

*

“Look at them. We leave them alone for a few minutes and already they’re not talking.” Sein huffs, breath steaming up from his mouth in a dragon’s lazy curls. He’d probably cross his arms for good measure, too, if they weren’t already walking at a brisk pace, trying to eat up the acres between Gesund’s house and his son’s. “They’re like children— siblings! Turn our backs and they’ve already started picking at each other.”

Fern marches along ahead of them, chin lifted high enough to make Frieren’s neck ache with sympathy, every line of her sharp, officious. All business, Kanne might have said with a laugh— that’s how they talked in the cities now, she’s found. Quick phrases that might have been kennings, were they born a few centuries earlier. She likes it, she thinks. It’s…nostalgic.

Stark, on the other hand, drags miserably behind. He might well be some sort of revenant for how he trudges along, arms limp and head bowed, groaning about how unfair it is to be ignored like this. Frieren hums, muffling her smile in her scarf. “I don’t think that’s the problem here.”

“What? Well, of course not!” Sein snaps, whisper pitched low enough to be kept between them. “Obviously the problem is that they both want to” —he gestures, though it looks more like an explosion, in her opinion, than any suggestion of sexual congress— “but just won’t, for some reason. I thought it might resolve itself in time, but honestly, I think it’s only gotten worse since I was gone.”

Frieren shrugs, just a twitch of her shoulders. It’s hardly her fault— she already told him she wasn’t an expert. “They have been better, mostly. But the winters…”

“Oh, of course. Everything’s fine and dandy when we’re traveling along, just palling around, but they start thinking about being cooped up together— about huddling for warmth, or sharing blankets, or what have you— and now they have to cause problems about it.” Sein tosses back his head and heaves a sigh so weary it settles in her own bones. “Don’t they know they can just have sex? They’re not children.”

If there was ever a time to lift one brow, it would be now. But Frieren never learned, and so she raises both, fixing him with her mildest expression. “Is that something a priest should recommend?”

He presses a hand to his chest, paper-pale in the autumnal chill. “My foremost concern is keeping the goddess’s peace. And she knows full well we won’t be getting any of that until they figure themselves out.”

Frieren settles herself deeper into her scarf and tucks into his side. “They will in their own time.”

“Well, it better be in time to behave at dinner,” he says, louder as they approach the door. “Otherwise I might have to take things into my own hands.”

He spares the both of them a warning look as he knocks at the door, stern as any father— or at least, so she assumes. Frieren doesn’t remember much of hers, and what she does is…distant. A soft presence, if at times disinterested. Like, after all, repels like.

Fern sniffs, turning her chin away from Stark’s desperate, “But—!”

But whatever case he means to make for himself is cut short, the door swinging open, to reveal—

Not Gesund. Not even an adult. Sein drops his gaze and his knees, crouching to meet the rounded eyes that peep around the door’s edge.

“Hello there.” It’s a charming smile he cants the young girl’s way, the kind that says, I mean no harm at the same time it says, but I’m no stranger to trouble. The way Heiter used to— only without the last part. Both priests may have their vices— had their vices— but Heiter’s had always been alcohol, and Sein’s was…everything else. “My name is Sein. I believe your father invited us to dinner?”

Her eyes widen further, white all the way around, and with a gasp, she slams the door in his face.

“Well,” he mutters, rubbing at his nose. “That’s not quite what I expected.”

“I can’t blame her,” Frieren says mildly. “I think I’d do the same thing if you smiled at me like that.”

Her grin must be peeking out over her scarf, since Sein scowls at her as he stands. “There truly is no accounting for taste.”

*

“You’ll have to forgive her.” A smile tugs at the headman’s mouth when he has them seated all around his table, aimed fondly at where his daughter sits, trying to disappear into the bench. “Scheu isn’t much used to strangers. We don’t get many people who travel up this way.”

“And even fewer who stay on long enough to be seen,” his wife adds, a smiling woman who calls herself Froh. They’re all no better than strangers at this point, but when she shakes the bread basket in his direction, urging him to take another roll before it travels around the table, Stark finds himself liking her already. “You’re the first guests we’ve had for a good while.”

Scheu might be shy, hiding behind her hair now that there’s no door to do the job, but the rest of her siblings are loud, squabbling over everything from the best cuts of mutton down to the last bread in the basket. There’s five of them by his count, starting with the kid they met earlier— a younger, ganglier, beardless copy of his dad— and ending with the skittish Scheu; well-behaved bookends for what seems to be a rowdy crew.

It’s…a lot, he’s got to admit. He’d never thought of himself as a quiet kid— not when his father spent most of their dinner reminding him he had to stay seated if he wanted to eat the meal, and Master Eisen learned to distill all that scolding down into a single, disappointed yet devastating glance— but Stark watches one of the girls grab a fork straight out her brother’s hands and eat off it, and well…

Maybe he’s a little more well behaved than he thought. And if he is overwhelmed, then—

Fern’s stiff beside him, plate half-empty and hands knitted neatly in her lap. The picture of poise, the poster child for manners, but— her eyes are all wide, darting between every dish, unable to get a word in edgewise and too polite to just grab. He nudges her— just the littlest bit, one knee knocking gently into hers— and smiles. Maybe if he can help her, she’ll—

“Excuse me,” she says, the steel in her voice hiding its quiver. “Do you mind passing the turnips?”

The kid across from her— a boy, part of what looks to be a matching set— stops bickering with his sister long enough to stare. She nods, encouraging, and he pushes over the dish, jaw slack the whole time. Fern dollops a pointed spoonful right next to her greens before passing it back.

“Hey,” he murmurs, ducking his head down to his shoulder so she might hear. “Good—”

She wrenches her head away with a sniff and asks, pointed, “Master Sein, do you think you could pass me the beef?”

Ah. Stark slumps. So he’s still not forgiven. For…well, whatever he said.

“Gesund says you’ll be here for the harvest,” Froh says, looking him over with an appraising— and approving— eye. “Good for us, I say. We’ll have plenty to bring in.”

Stark swallows down his dinner and shoves a smile on his face. “G-great. I, er, love picking stuff up and putting it down. A bunch.” At least it’ll give him something to do besides wonder just how he screwed up this time. “Is there, uh, someone I’m supposed to talk to…?”

“Well, usually that’d be me, but this year Rustig’s running it. My eldest here.” Gesund elbows the boy, who only startles under his attention. “The one whose house you’re staying in. May be young, but he’s got a lot of experience under that belt of his. He’ll be well-established when the day comes to take a wife, won’t he?”

Stark glances at the kid—still withering the longer his father goes on— and tries a real confident, “Sure.”

“You’re giving him every opportunity to grow,” Sein slides in smoothly, wearing his most benign smile; the one that doesn’t look like a smirk or a grin at all, but just…priestly. “I’m sure he’ll be a real catch for whatever young lady has the pleasure of drawing his eye.”

It’s impossible to say if his father ever puffed with pride over his brother the way Gesund does over his son; Stoltz was younger, his natural talent expected rather than discovered, another illustrious warrior-to-be in their family’s long line of demon killers. If there were marriage talks, there must have been some frank discussion of what Stoltz would bring to the table— other than an eventual mangled corpse— but Stark can’t picture it. Not his stoic father, boasting about his son, his prowess, the home he could give them provided he lived long enough to make it to the altar.

“Well, I’m glad to hear you say it, Master Sein,” Gesund laughs, pounding his boy on the back. “He’ll make a fine husband one day, I can tell. Now Miss Fern”—the headman swivels his great head toward where she sits, interest quivering like an arrow— “Mistress Frieren tells me you’re a first class mage. Even worked in the Empire!”

“Yes.” She sets her utensils gently aside, hands folding over her lap, every inch a proper young lady. All those lessons at Vorig must of have paid off, at least in Stark’s opinion.  “For a short time.”

Gesund nods, impressed. The way anyone would be, faced with a girl like Fern. “Always like hearing about young ladies with an occupation. Getting some experience out in the world.” He clears his throat, stroking a hand over the burly bush of his beard, “You thinking of settling down in the Empire, when all’s said and done, or would you be open to somewhere a little more out of the way?”

Fern coughs. “Excuse me?”

“Well, you’re young yet,” Gesund says, working his way around to some point, Stark’s sure, even if he can’t figure out just what. “But in a few years—”

“That’s a fine statue you have outside of town,” Sein breaks in with a strained smile. “We noticed it on the way in. Just about knocked me out of my boots to see such a good depiction of Himmel the Hero all the way out in these parts! You must have had quite an artist here, and only a few generations ago.”

“Oh, well, it’s only to be expected, isn’t it? The hero did our town a great service.” Gesund draws himself up, proud. “Not just killing the demon king either. Oh no, we had a bit of our own problem, the kind that takes more than just a few good men to go hike out and solve.”

Sein’s shoulders don’t quite sag, but they do drop; a small ceding of ground to relief. “Is that so? We hadn’t heard.”

“Near around eighty years ago, some boy got stolen off by some monster that lived right out of town.” The headman juts his chin toward where Frieren sits, smiling. “Just our luck that the Hero’s Party showed up only a few days earlier and hadn’t yet moved on. The Hero went off in search of him one evening, and came back the next morning with child in tow, none the worse for wear.”

Stark glances at her, waiting for Frieren to get that faint smile she always does whenever someone mentions Himmel’s name, but instead—

Instead, she seems…concerned. “Did he?”

“So you recognized Frieren, did you?” Sein lets his mouth hook into its most compelling smirk. “I wasn’t sure if you had, but your offer to stay for the winter was so generous…”

“Recognize is a bit strong,” Gesund laughs, waving a humble hand. “I wasn’t around then, that’s for sure, and can’t say I’d have picked her out of a crowd. But when an elf comes wandering this far north, knowing all about the road through the mountains, well…I may not be a scholar, but I can string a few lines together.”

“You might have said something,” Fern says, not sharp but conversational. “Most people do, when Mistress Frieren comes through. If they know her, that is.”

“Ah, well, sure, but it was years ago now.” It’s strange to see a man so tall, so broad turn bashful, but the tips of his ears go as red as his beard. “I thought it might be too long to remember. It was just some boy, and the hero went off by himself—”

“That’s not how Paw tells it.”

It’s strange how sometimes all it takes is a soft, little voice to break right through the noise. Scheu sits on her bench, every inch of her quivering from the effort of speaking up, brow knotted up right above her button nose. “He always told me that it was—”

For a big man, Gesund’s gentle as he says, “That’s how it went.”

“But—”

“Scheu.” Froh glances at her husband, uneasy, before turning back to her daughter. “Looks like Paw forgot to come down to dinner again. Do you think he might be gettin’ hungry around now?”

The girl frowns. “I guess so.”

“Why don’t you go bring him somethin’?” Froh grabs a plate, loading it up with meat and turnip. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”

Scheu doesn’t seem even half-convinced, but her small hands stretch out dutifully, taking the trencher between them. That’s the thing about being that young— it doesn’t matter what you know or what you think, you just have to do it because someone said so.

“It was your father that Himmel saved that day?” Sein asks, once the girl’s tromped out of the room, her tiny feet thundering up the steps to the second floor. “The one that was stolen by the monster?”

“Grandfather,” Gesund sighs, the force of it rattling his lips. “So as you see, Mistress Frieren, we owe you quite a debt. None of us would be here if you all hadn’t come into town when you did. Well, except my Froh here.”

He makes to pinch her cheek, but it seems the headman’s wife is practiced at fending off his affection, waving him away with a laugh and a flush of her cheeks. Sein, however, isn’t as easily put off.

“Your grandfather is still with us?” He sets down his spoon, eyes wide. “He’d have to be well over eighty years old.”

Gesund shrugged, his enthusiasm banked. “Nineties, the last time anyone bothered to count.”

Sein lets out a jaunty laugh, the way men do when they’ve been telling stories over emptied mugs. “Then he must be as hale and hardy as you are!”

“In body, yes.” Gesund grimaces. “In mind…he wanders. And sometimes that means the rest of him goes along with it.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” Sein's not often priestly, but right now he practically shines with sincerity. “It’s hard when that happens.”

“That it is, that is it.” Gesund shook his great head. “The man practically raised me after my parents died. Sometimes now, it feels like I’m raising him.”

“I’d like to talk to him,” Frieren says suddenly, as welcome as a draft blowing through a window pane. “If you don’t mind.”

“It’s not his best time,” Froh’s quick to offer, darting off a concerned glance toward her husband. “In the summers he can be quick as a whip, but once autumn rolls around, and we start losing the daylight…”

Frieren cocks her head, considering. “Well, we are staying until spring.”

“That you are,” Gesund says with a sincere, if stiff smile. “I suppose there’s time.

*

In the end, she doesn’t have to wait long at all. Funny how things work out like that sometimes.

Well, not for the sheep, really. But as Eisen used to say: sometimes you had to break a few bones to make a good hamburger steak.

Just, er, with sheep this time.