Venla Thiel

Venla Thiel

Lettucewielding foreman
“They say there’s a stone in the grove past Hallmund's field that won’t touch the earth no more. Just hangs there, a hand’s height above the ground... spinning real slow."

The tavern was crowded by dusk, full of heat, breath and noise. Ale sloshed. Laughter cracked sharply across the big hall and leaked outside. Men leaned too close. A boy spilled stew and got cuffed for it. All of it normal. Venla moved between tables, tray balanced on one shoulder, skirts brushing ash-dusted planks. Her apron was damp from spilled mead and wine, and her temple throbbed with a headache she had since morning.

“Vasti found a tree a few nights ago... one near the river path... flipped upside down! Not struck by lightning! Just turned over, roots in the air, trunk sunk into the soil like it had grown that way all its life. Sap oozes upward now, thick and red as blood. They say if you stand close to it, you can hear it breathing...”

She smiled when she was meant to. She nodded. She fetched tankards. Her shift had just begun. But something already felt off.

"Three households now... all their milk curdled overnight, turned thick and white as chalk. But it’s not spoiled. It’s salt. Crusted to the rims of the jugs. Cows seem fine. Little Thordis spilled a bit and her hands blistered like frostbite."

A merchant flagged her down. Flushed from drink, his voice too loud. "Another! For me and the lads!!" he said, and reached to press a coin into her hand. His fingers brushed hers. Venla blinked. The room… tilted. Just for a second. It felt like fainting, like something underneath her had shifted. The man jerked his hand back. He dropped it on the table and it made no sound. "What in the gods’!?" He was staring at his coin. His friends peered at the coin, their smiles fading.

It had blackened. Not burnt. More like it had been left in a grave. The surface was oily, almost soft. Dulled to a matte absence of color. It looked wrong. Like shadow given weight and shape. Venla stared at it. She hadn’t done anything. Had she?

Then one of them snorted. "What’s this then, Tavid? You passin’ off cursed coins now? Eh? Tryin’ to cheat her with fake silver, is that it?" There was a bark of nervous laughter... too quick, too sharp. The merchant didn’t answer. He was still staring at the coin. His hand rubbed against his trousers like he was trying to scrub something off.
 
Something spooky was happening in Arrowdale and no-one seemed to know why.

It started out small, as these things often did, with rumours and hearsay and the like. Idle gossip, easily discarded. The first tale to be spun was that of a headless chicken, which had been spied wandering the butcher's yard for well past a tenday, still clucking and flapping about, as chickens were wont to do. The second story came from a milkmaid who claimed that milk was going bad before it ever reached the pail. Most folk considered this a fallacy, the result of a poorly animal. Nothing more.

Come the third tale, people were starting to pay attention.

The tavern door had been left open. Crossing the threshold, Syr Willard of Dawn took to beating the mud from his boots as he took a look around, head lowered so as to avoid notice. Packed, with nary a place to sit. A shame, that. But then he hadn't come all this way just to laze around, lured as he was towards the hearth, where there was a commotion. Or rather a lack of one.

'Hate to be the bearer of bad news, friend, but you've been had.'

Appearing before the table at which the merchant and his hired help sat, Willard stooped to pluck the blackened coin off of the floor. A strange heat radiated from the small disk as he raised it up for closer inspection. Even wearing gloves, his skin prickled, as if exposed to an open flame. 'Yep. Definitely a fake!' Turning, he cast the coin into the flames as the merchant looked on.

'Are you certain it were a fake?' Even drunk, the man seemed prepared to argue. 'Only, I know money, and there weren't nothin' wrong with that u-until-' A raised hand had him stuttering to a stop. Eyes flitted to the longsword at Willard's hip. The merchant blanched. 'M-my apologies, syr. I did not mean to suggest- I wasn't-' Words failed him, then. Will smiled, shook his head.

'Do not be alarmed, sir. I took no offense at your questioning. I'm merely trying to sort out the predicament we find ourselves in.'

One of the hired hands snickered. 'Ha! Pre-dick-a-ment. Now, ain't tha' a funny word!' Laughter returned. Tension ebbed from shoulders. Ignoring the others, Willard nodded. 'Perhaps you are right,' he said. 'I could be mistaken. Have you another coin that we might look at, 'fore your friends all perish of thirst?' There was more laughter as the merchant produced another silver. He passed it to Willard. The knight nodded.

'Huh. Well, will you look at that.'

Glancing to his side at Venla, the dawnling smiled knowingly. 'Here you are, miss. A silver for your troubles.' Taking her hand, he placed the coin in her upturned palm, fingers retreating the moment he felt her own curl about the silver piece.

Can't be having a repeat now, can we?
 
Willard had stepped in before anyone could think too hard about it. Calm voice, knight’s bearing, easy smile. And they wanted to believe him... of course they did. Believing him was safer than believing what they had just seen. He had reached down and picked up the coin she had cursed... accidentally! He had touched it, held it, lied about it. Burned it before anyone could examine it more closely. He had shielded her.

The noise of the tavern swallowed her. Voices slurred into one another. Someone lost in a game of dice and swore. Somewhere near the hearth, a dog was whining, low and steady. No one else seemed to hear it. Someone had spilled something near the counter. The mead or stew soaked into the floorboards, sticky and dark.

Venla stood with the tankard tray still balanced on her shoulder. The ginger didn’t move at first. The silver lay in her palm. Cool, smooth. Just silver. Honest silver. It caught the firelight, bright, clean. Not like the first one. Not like the thing that had blackened in her presence. Her fingers closed around the silver coin slowly, cautiously, like she half-expected it to melt the moment it touched her skin. Willard’s touch was gone just as quick, just enough pressure to settle the coin, then retreat.

The silver coin in her hand felt heavier now. Or maybe it was just her guilt pressing down on it? She forced a breath through her nose and offered him a small smile. Her heart ached with gratitude.

And fear.

Because he’d seen it. Felt it.

Her voice didn’t rise above the clatter of the room, but he would hear it. “You didn’t have to do that. But I’m grateful you did.” Green eyes flicked up to meet his. Venla forced herself to smile back to the merchant and his company.

Be the wench. The good girl. The harmless one.

"Let me go get yer drinks now then. Syr, anything for you? Or just the pleasure of my company?"
 
Crisis averted. For now. 'A beer wouldn't go amiss,' he admitted. 'Nor would the pleasure of your company.' Nodding, Willard glanced over Venla's shoulder to the bar. 'Is there somewhere we can sit and... talk?' He asked her quietly. 'Somewhere private, perhaps?' He could barely hear himself think over the raucous laughter and the constant clattering of steins. And the smell! Stale sweat and vomit. Woodsmoke and...

Chamomile?

Willard's gaze alighted on Venla a moment. She looked better than she had the last time they'd laid eyes on each other. Brighter. Less bloodstained. And yet Willard could see the sorrow held within her gaze, enough guilt to drown a soul with. Oh, Venla, he thought, what has happened to you?

Turning, he followed after Venla as she sauntered back towards the bar, skirts swaying with every step. She seemed in her element here, amidst all the chaos, even with her mind on other things.

Helps her feel normal, Willard surmised, unable to keep himself from pitying the redhead, she whose life had been upturned in the space of a single night. As if I would cope much better, were I in her shoes. Lingering by the counter, he watched Venla relay orders to the young man stood opposite. The knight saw an uncanny resemblance there, but spoke nothing of it.

'How do you make sense of this madness?' He questioned aloud, eyes narrowed, taking in the room as well as everyone in it. The merchant and his men were joking amongst themselves, the incident with the coin apparently forgotten.

Hopefully, it'll stay that way.
 
Venla gave a little snort at his question. “How do I make sense of it?” she said, stepping behind the bar. It was chaos she could carry on a tray. Her fingers found a mug, then a second, moving automatically, muscle memory working. She filled both mugs from the cask, foam rising to the lip. “Same way you’d make sense of a skirmish, Syr. Keep your hands steady, hope nobody pukes on you or grabs your arse,” she said while offering the beer with a small, crooked smile.

“My da was a brewer,” she said as the foam settled. "Our yard have always been a riot every harvest." Barrels rolling, fires stoked, boys shouting, songs and spills and fights turned to hugs by morning, uncles sleeping it off under the table. “Noise, spills, shouting men who don’t know their limits.” She gestured at the tavern. “This is home.”

She finished passing the orders to Timos behind the bar. When she finally turned back to Willard, her expression was carefully pleasant. “Come on,” she said. “There’s a spot out back where no one listens in.” And then she turned, beer in hand, and led the way. Winding her way past barrels and kitchen hands, ducking through the curtain separating the kitchen from the rest of the tavern. The heat back there was worse, sweat and steam and garlic, but the air cleared fast once she cracked the back door open. She nudged the door open with her hip and stepped outside. The tavern noise thudded behind the walls now, muffled and distant, like it belonged to someone else’s life.

Venla led him past the stacked firewood and the worn fence, toward the little hut tucked behind the ash trees. “Staff quarter,” she said. “For when the shifts run too long, or the storms come fast." The little hut was dim and warm, quiet. Coals glowed low in the hearth, casting long, flickering shadows against the stone. Two narrow beds on either side of the shared fireplace, a table, a few mugs. A place to sleep when the late shift ended after serving breakfast.

That blasted headache still pulsed behind her eyes.

Venla set her mug down and moved toward the fire, crouching to prod the coals until they sparked a bit of life. The fire popped softly and she stood up, leaning with one hip against the table, fingers curled around the rim of her mug.

“I- " she started, then stopped. A breath, shallow.
 
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It was a good joke, he would grant her that. 'Been in many skirmishes, have you?' He replied in turn, a rare grin tugging at the corner of his lips as Venla kept on pouring. When the moment came to leave, he followed her out, steps soft and true. Old habit.

He tried to ignore the way the hairs on his neck stood up, as if they were being tailed by a dozen pairs of eyes.

This will get some tongues wagging, sure as sure, he thought, fighting the urge to sigh as they passed through the kitchens and out into the tavern's backyard. Silence descended, then, golden as the dawn, though the muted voices coming from within the tavern spoiled the effect somewhat. At least it doesn't stink of piss out here, thought the knight, nose wrinkled at last minute's memory.

The staff quarter was a different beast altogether. Homely. Absent of the chaos Venla seemed to revel in. Latching the door behind him, Willard waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. A fire simmered low in the hearth, warm and inviting. Venla's shadow stretched languidly towards him as she crouched before the coals. Stepping aside, he settled into the half-light opposite the barmaid, just another ghost come to plague her thoughts.

And plagued they were. He could see it in her eyes, the way her face sunk as she took off her mask. One less wall between them, if only for so long as they remained. Alone.

'I-'

'Aye,' said Willard. 'It's good to see you, too.' Smiling, the dawnling sought to relieve Venla of her woes. No doubt they had festered some since last the two of them had met. Grown heavy in the interim of their lives.

'I'd ask how you've been, only-' This time it was his turn to pause, frown forming in the space betwixt. 'How are you, Venla? Honestly?'
 
I...
I know I need to leave...

Venla had known it for weeks now, felt it gnawing behind her ribs every time something wrong happened near her. The stone who refused to touch the ground. The tree bleeding upward. The way the shadows sometimes stretched the wrong way when she blinked. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what wild magic did to people. Turned good folk to ash and madness.

And she was trying so hard to stay good.

But she was tired. Tired of pretending the world hadn’t shifted. Tired of hiding her shaking hands and the way iron never felt right in her grip anymore. The silence in the hut pressed around her, thick as cellar dust. She wanted to say something else, anything else, before those soft, traitorous words had slipped out: “It’s good to see you.” It should’ve been: “I didn’t think I’d see you again. And part of me hoped I wouldn’t." She tore her gaze away from the fire. Willard was still watching her.

She saw it. The little things. The way his hand always hovered near his sword, when they were alone. The way he looked at her, not just as a woman, not even as a friend, but as a task. A duty. The edge of his oath hidden behind every kind word. Brave knight of Anathaeum, who had seen what was festering inside her. What might bloom if it was ever let loose. He knew too much. Oaths. Secrets. Orders. Had he told anyone what she could do? Had he reported her?

She didn’t ask. Couldn’t bear to. Because if he had… the people wearing steel wouldn’t knock. His sword remained sheathed, but close. Always close. She doubted he ever let it out of reach. And somewhere in the back of her mind, she traced a line to the poker by the hearth. Not much. But better than nothing, if she had to...

I didn’t do it on purpose, she wanted to say.
I never wanted this.
I just wanted to be normal. Pour the beer. Wash the cups. Be a good woman.

But good women didn’t blacken silver. Nor did they dream of impossible pyramids in the sky, and they didn’t warp the world around them.

"I keep thinking, if I’d just gone to bed early that night, stayed with my sister, instead of stepping outside... maybe none of it would’ve happened." Maybe the power would’ve stayed sleeping and she would be free. But it hadn't stayed asleep. And now, it was waking her. Gods, the damned dreams. A black pyramid of glass, hanging upside down in a sky that wasn’t sky. She stood beneath it in the dark, barefoot, wrists dripping. Something inside the glass watched her. It didn’t speak. It didn’t have to. She understood anyway.

Come to me.

“And you? I mean... how have you been, Willard?” While waiting for his answer, she drank. Slow and careful, warm palms against the clay.
 
'Busy.' And so he had been. Patrolling the Vayd, making sure its boundaries had not been crossed by those with ill intent. Scouting, searching, finding trouble at every turn. There was always so much to do, he felt, and so little time in which to see it done. Arrowdale hadn't even figured into his routes, pre-arranged, so that if he fell in the field, his brethren might have some idea as to where to find his remains.

'You get to see a lot of the world, moving about. I've met a lot of interesting people.' He smiled, though there was a sadness in his gaze he just couldn't hide. Not from her. Or himself.

'What is it you think I came here to do, Venla?' He asked her softly. 'Hurt you?'

Willard never missed much, but when he did, he was quick to put the puzzle pieces together. She's afraid of me, he thought, stepping fully into the firelight. Just as I fear what she's capable of, so does she fear me, what I might do. Magic was an unruly beast, dangerous, no matter the hand that shaped it. Almost like a double-edged sword with no grip. Wield it wrong and it could cut you just as easily.

Slowly, he drew his steel, the blade coming to rest upon the bridge of his palm.

'Y'know, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been forced to draw this in anger.' Steel glistened as he held it up for inspection. Well-balanced, honed to a razor's edge, it was as much a tool as it was a trusty friend, offering protection to those in need. Reversing his hold on the sword, he held it out hilt-first towards Venla. 'I am not angry now,' he said. 'And you are not some foe I need be wary of.' He believed that, even if she didn't.

'A good heart will always prevail, despite the doubt that fills it,' he spoke calmly, his eyes on hers. 'I would help you, Venla, if you would allow me to. Failing that, I am not against listening to you talk.' She had a good voice, one used to chastising patrons or shouting orders.

'Promise, I'm not just here for a pint.'
 
Venla hesitated, the mug still in her hands, warmth from the fire brushing her ankles like a cat that didn’t quite trust her yet. The small fire crackled in the hearth, but everything else felt too still. He had drawn steel. Not with violence, not with threat, but it didn’t matter. The sound of it alone, the shhh of the blade leaving the scabbard, made something in her bones tighten. Didn’t matter that it wasn’t pointed at her. Didn’t matter that his eyes were kind. A drawn sword was a promise and the final word, whether it came with a smile or not. The mug touched the table with a soft thunk. She didn’t take her eyes off him.

It was a strange gesture when he reversed the grip, offering the hilt to her, and stranger still that her fingers reached for it. The weight of the sword surprised her. Heavier than it looked. Too heavy for her. She looked down at it for a long moment, both hands curling around the hilt.

“No,” she said, voice low and honest. “I don’t think you came to hurt me.”

There was a pause. A breath.
Then she tilted the blade. The point drifted toward him. Just enough that the point hovered near the ties of his jerkin, above the steady beat of his heart.

“But I reckon you’re here to see if I’ve started hurting anyone else.”

“Help...” she repeated. “That’s what you said. You want to help me... That’s a fine offer, coming from a man wearing steel and an oath." After a beat, she let the blade fall, until it kissed the floor. The tip thudded gently against the floorboards before she handed the weapon back to him.

“So” she rubbed her palm where the sword's hilt had pressed into her skin.“...what does help mean when it comes from a Knight of the Anathaeum?” A pause. Then she smiled, thin, tired, and clever as a knife. “Is it a cell with extra straw?” she asked. “A rope? A quiet pyre, if I ask real pretty?” She wasn’t baiting him. Not really. Just laying out the bones of what she feared most. No mockery. No venom.
 
'It means whatever you want it to mean,' replied Willard, sheathing his sword. 'I did some asking around after we parted ways, learnt some things. You're not going to believe this, Venla, but it turns out there are people out there who understand the shroud better than I,' he said, deadpan. For all her doubting, the redhead was at least willing to listen to him before consigning herself to the hangman's noose.

'Shroudweavers. Magi. People born with similar gifts, haling from villages as remote yours.'

A smattering of hope to stave off the despair. Venla certainly seemed like she could use some, given the way her thoughts tracked, leaping from one grisly conclusion to the next, as if all that awaited her in this life was death.

'How do you think they felt, pray, when their powers first manifested?' It wasn't a rhetorical question, though Willard did not expect an answer. Terror took many shapes and forms, and Venla was not unique in that regard. Sipping his beer, the knight settled down on one of the beds nearest to the fire, so that the barmaid might witness the sincerity etched upon his face. 'I can't help you control your powers,' he said, then. 'But I can point you to those who can.'

If only you'd let me.
 
“Aye,” she said, gaze flicking toward the door, then back to Willard. Venla watched him sheath the blade, and only when it clicked into place did she let her shoulders settle. “I know.”

Shroudweavers. Magi. She’d met one, once. A quiet man with a glass eye, black as like frozen river water and hands that summoned ice. His magic had been beautiful and terrifying. Meeting him was meeting the living stories her mother used to whisper to her when the nights were long. Her eyes narrowed slightly, not from suspicion, but thought. If there were teachers ... people who knew what this was... and how to control it... Venla turned the words over in her head, like the coin she wasn’t sure was real.

Venla hadn’t moved from where she stood, watching how the fire painted golden flickers along his jaw. “Where are they, then?” she asked. She’d never been farther than the river bend in the north, never stepped beyond the last stone wall of Ramshorn unless there was a reason. The roads beyond was for merchants. Her whole world had fit inside a few muddy fields and the tavern’s crooked walls. Leaving wasn’t just travel, it was stepping off her map.

"Would they just… teach me?" Without demanding she swear oaths or vows, or spill secrets, or pay with coins she can't afford? Knowledge, if she kneel first? Not want something in return? No, there’s always something. No one does things just to be kind. “What would they want in return?” No one gave away power for free.
 
'Some would,' nodded the knight, leaning forwards, the heat from the fire dappling his brow, deepening the shadows around his eyes. 'Most will expect something in exchange. Coin, rare gems, a pledge of loyalty or service, to never spill their secrets.' In many cases, knowledge was power, and power was the currency most Schools of Magic traded in. With Lords and Ladies, and if they were really lucky, the Crown Herself.

'The nearest School I know of is in Drachenberg, three days hence.' He gestured at the walls around them. 'Depends how far you're willing to go for answers.'

And therein lay the real question. How far was Venla willing to go in order to settle her magic, erratic as it was? Was it understanding she was after, or just a means of control? A way for her life to return to its normal pattern, pouring pints and fending off drunk fools who got too handsy?

Glancing over at her, Willard studied the barmaid's face. There was a hint of a scar, there, below her left eye. No doubt it came with a story. Most scars did.

Blinking, the knight looked away, lest Venla be accused of casting a spell on him.

'You don't have to decide tonight,' he told her, sipping at her beer. 'Mull it over. Your magic is being repressed, for now. Nothing bad will happen unless you want it to happen. Or your life is threatened.' That's what had triggered it in the first place, Willard suspected, when he'd-

No, best not to dwell on that, he mused, phantom pain sneaking across his back.

'Good beer, by the way,' he smiled, attempting to take her mind off things. 'Local brew?'
 
Venla glanced at the mug untouched on the table, like it was calling her back. She stepped toward the table and picked up her beer again. With a soft sigh, she crossed the room and lowered herself onto the edge of the bed opposite him. She took a sip, then let the mug rest in her hands. Her eyes shifted, found his.

“How far am I willing to go?” she echoed. So she would be going in poor and owing. Sounds about right. Venla didn’t look at him as she spoke, gaze fixed somewhere just over the hearth. "I might need to pop into the woods, slay a dragon or two, and come back with a chest of rubies. Something shiny to buy a mage’s time.”

Her long fingers tightened slightly around the mug. She didn’t have large sums of coin. No sparkling gems tucked away in secret folds of her corset. No heirlooms. No name that meant anything. Pretty, though. She had that. Enough to earn tips. Maybe it would be enough? Maybe that was a kind of currency, too? The thought didn’t sit easily. She drank again, this time deeper. Debts of coin she could live with. But to owe someone obedience and silence, that was more than she was ever willing to pay.

"No,” she said, a little quieter. “I don’t need to sleep on it. I already knew I had to go. Just didn’t know where yet.” But the world didn’t hand out answers for free, and maybe Drachenberg was the path forward. "Might as well try my luck in Drachenberg.”

Venla glanced over the rim of her mug, a faint smile flickering to life. "Glad you like it. My family brewed it. My da always said a good pint should feel like coming home, warm, a little bitter, and strong enough to make you forget why you left in the first place.” The red head leaned forward lifted her mug, tilted it slightly toward his with a chink.
 
'Sounds like a wise man, your da,' replied the knight, reaching out until his mug met Venla's in a toast. To what, exactly, he wasn't sure. Good beer, perhaps. Or else to a family worth having. 'I'd take a keg or two of this stuff over fighting a dragon any day,' he continued, examining the contents of his cup as the fire crackled and spat in agreement. 'I mean, I'm good, but I'm not that good.' Humility was an old friend of his, pride a distant cousin.

Even so, they had dealings, from time to time.

"A warrior without pride is no warrior at all," he had heard it argued once, by some fool or another. Maybe they were right. Willard barely spared any thought to the matter. 'Drachenberg it is, then. Your family will be able to visit you there. Assuming they don't get lost along the way.' If they were anything like Venla, chances were they had never travelled beyond the closest town. The very concept of staying in one place felt foreign to the dawnling, though he found himself in no position to judge.

Listening to the low roar of the fire and Venla's hushed breathing, Willard started to think that it might not be so bad, after all. A little boring, maybe, but peaceful.

And who doesn't want that? He wondered, head tilted back as he gave the beer another try.
 
“Aye, he was,” she said softly, eyes drifting to the shadows dancing on the walls. Venla stretched her legs out, the weight of what lay ahead settled like a wet cloak. The fire’s glow cast a shaky light, revealing the dust motes drifting in the air.

She hesitated, then asked, “What about your family? Are they all in servitude like you?" Did they all bear the same oath, the same burdens? His father, perhaps hardened like Willard; maybe his mother? She thought about siblings, too. Did he have a brother or a sister, maybe one sheathed in armor beside him?

Venla watched him quietly, the softening of the lines of his face. For a moment, she hesitated, not wanting to break the fragile calm that had settled between them. Eyes flicking toward the door while she took a slow sip, then set the mug down with a little more care. She sighed, the breath heavy with all the things left unsaid. “I’ve got a lot to do before night’s end. Pack my things, say my goodbyes.” With that the ginger pushed herself up from the bed. The wooden floor creaking softly beneath her boots.
 
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