Hemma Laroni the Shadow, Breathless Binder

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Role

Chapter 5

I seek redemption. This path I am on is so difficult, though. I have spent decades
alone trying to demonstrate to a goddess who does not deem me worthy to be in her presence.
I have had a goodly number of people who would vouch for my changed nature, but
I will die long before the gods will confirm it.

So this is what despair looks like. Despised, pitied, cursed, with hope like
a morning mist. I carry the water up the mountain, and the pebbles threaten to take my feet
from me at every step.

Role

Chapter 4

The Lady Rarywey asked, and the dream returned. Me mum walked ahead
of me along the trail that snaked through the mountains, our soft-soled
boots silent despite the gravel and snow that might threaten
to betray our position. The path opened up to a valley, but
our circuitous route put us near close to the yurt where
Torm lived.

He was taking breakfast when the loop closed around his neck
and cinched tight: despite what the blustering fools might say
a good blood choke can put someone down before they know to put
up a fight, and Torm crumpled onto the floor like a discarded
sock. Mum smoothly trussed him up and put a gag in his mouth, and
then we dragged him so close to his hearth that Torm's beard was
in the warm ashes. Then we waited.

When he woke, his eyes searched the room for his tormentors, and
his vision must have been filled with the distorted view of two
wiry women looming over him in black clothed masks. Mum quickly
redirected his gaze by stoking up the coals with a bit of kindling
so the fire crackled back to life.

"Your rents are past due," me mum stated. "Where do you keep the silver?"
When he mumbled through his gag, she shook her head and gestured to his
feet. I pulled off his moccasin and stocking and bared his lily-white
foot to the ruddy glow of the fire. With my knife, I sawed through his
smallest toe to the chorus of his howls, and when I was done I handed it
to me mum like a trophy.

"I guess your rent is not in your shoe. I guess we will have to search in
your trousers next.

Fifteen minutes later we were making our way back to Udgaard.

Role

Chapter 3

Yesterday I spoke with Athald, the Marshall of the Fortress. My initial
impressions of him is that he is cautious of the potential of betrayal, but
he was not disrespectful nor disparaging, and I think I can work with him.
Of course he wants to see intent through action, and I understand that.
I do not know what those expectations look like, though. It is much easier to see a black
speck on a wall than to prove that a wall is white.
It is going to be essential that I seek the guidance of acolytes, because from my
perspective it is hard to see the differences between those of the Fortress and those
of their enemies, like the Empire.

This reminds me of an epiphany I had when I spoke with Adozo regarding death.
He was lisping about Borrowers and Collectors while we were floating in the river,
and as we spoke of the cycle between the two, it occurred to me that physical death,
as he described it, was a moment of transformation: the old life is transformed
into the new. I have committed myself to helping those of the Fortress, but I know
they will struggle to accept me unless I transform into something new.
I am terrified, as I do not know how I could do this on my own.

Role

Chapter 2

Yesterday I had the first of two surprising conversations.

While I was happily playing tag with children in Evermoon,
a voice called out of the shadows and began speaking to me
about Protectors of the Light, and how I should join them.
This came to me as something of a surprise, as the last thing
I had expected was a zealot to reach out to someone with as
little renown as me, but then it hit me: this was an
opportunity--he was reaching out to me because he needed
help.

I tried reaching back out to this assassin, Tsali or some
other sneeze of a name, but he did not respond. I suspect it
was out of his embarrasment, but I decided that I would remember
the vulnerable moment and help his cause anyway.

So, frustrated but with a renewed purpose, I returned to my
previous entertainments, and that same afternoon a saurian
came up to me and introduced himself as "Adozssso, Acolyte
of the Fortressss." I find it unnerving to talk to those
snake people, but he reeled me in when he welcomed me as
"Collector of Weh." I had not had any prolonged conversations
with religious fanatics or with Acolytes, so I had no idea
about Sra and Weh, nor had I heard about Borrowers and
Collectors, but the two of us went to my Lady Raryweh's shrine
and talked for a large part of the day. My interaction confirmed
my suspicion: the Fortress needs me.

Role

Chapter 1

"Hemma," my mum said to me one day out of the blue, "the world is hard."
There was a twinkle in her one good eye, the other long ago lost in what
she referred to as a little misunderstanding. "You are old enough now to
understand what it is we do out the back of our little shop. As you might
have guessed, I am not making my money selling knitted sweaters."
I had figured that much out before my seventh winter, for she would disappear
for weeks at a time as she went out on a delivery, but she never took more
than a satchel and seldom even took the family horse. I knew, however, not
to admit as much.

She draped an arm around my shoulder and we walked past the loom toward the
small windowless room where we kept empty bobbins and completed fabrics.
She then reached toward a knot in the trim near the ceiling, and watching for my
reaction, she pushed a button and pulled. A section swung away from the ceiling
to reveal her leather traveling bag with neat black laces around its closure.

"I like to refer to myself as a fixer," she said as she retrieved the satchel.
"Customers come to me with a problem they would like to solve, and I see what
I can do to find a solution. Sometimes, the problem has not come to be yet,
and my job is to help ensure it remains that way. Do you follow?"

I did, and I said as much. Her fingers smoothly untied the leather cords
securing the satchel closed, and when she handed it to me I looked within.
Inside were a worn rawhide rope, a length of knotted cord with wooden
handles on both ends, and an oblong weighted leather bag. She picked up the
leather bag by the slender end and swung it into her open hand. "Our services
often require us to detain a particular person to accomplish our goals. These
were my tools, and if you prove to be a good student, they will one day be yours.

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