Merle

Merle

The Queen's Alchemist
Character Profile
Profile
Outside, the wind howled like a beast. Nothing larger than a bush stopped it from rolling across the icy fields and battering the low-slung houses of the village. Animal horns and sea shells were strung between tall poles along the outskirts of town, clattering a warning bell against any who approached, though none did. The landscape belonged only to the cold and the moons.

Inside, all was warm and merry. Every single resident of Jannaskaro was huddled within the village's great hall, which was about fifty all told. Young and old sat together on either side of the long fire that crackled down the center of the hall. With free and unmeasured hand, mead, bread, and berry jam was being passed around.

Merle was dressed in the attire of a southern Ilician. Where the Lapvonans had furs, he had layers of felt and knit wool. Their boots were laced up high and oiled well against the weather, while his were peeled off and drying by the fire. He was clearly not one of the villagers, but all same, the woman next to him still filled his cup when he tapped the pitcher with it.

The wind found its way inside. One of the heavy double doors at the end of the hall was thrown open. A cold chill pulled heat from fire and breath from bodies. All conversation stopped, overwhelmed by the etheareal clamour of the storm outside. No person should have been out in that weather.

They all held their breath to see if it were man, or demon, who entered the hall.
 
Upon the storm winds, he howled. Novo laughed like cracks of thunder come from the great clouds above as wings of gold burned bright across the dark sky. Like embers let fly. The fairies light shift as it swirled with snow and ice that rode the torrents of night.

Come sweep through the cracks with a bluster.

"Oh, it's just Jeb," one of the patrons voiced, hand raised in the air to the thick boned man who stood hooded at the door.

A harsh laugh, almost a bark, came from across Merle's table. A tankard held firm in long spindly fingers, and a dark stare burned at the foreigner, so full of mischief and malice.

"Cold, ain't it?" the stranger said with a voice like crumbling ice walls.
 
Cold, ain't it?

Merle hummed into his cup as he took a swig of mead. Wiped the damp off his whiskers with thumb and forefinger. Just Jeb looked to be full of trouble, but hospitality was sacred up here. And Merle knew well enough that he couldn't be the first to break it.

"Clear weather can't come sooner," he replied to the man across the way. "Storm's already delayed me a week."

Someone came round and scooped more stew into his bowl, thick and pale. At least that's what the locals called it, stew. If Merle had served the same at home, his family would have called it gravy and tried to pour it on their potatoes. A spoonful came up, and a chunk of boar sausage plopped back down into the bowl.

The woman at his side, whose name was Aise, poked him playfully in the ribs.

"The 'til is going far North to Laxvik Vatten," She explained to Just Jeb. "Can you believe that, Jeb? We keep telling him to wait until summer."
 
A slurp and a long pull from the drink. Whiskers came free from the draught with thick foam clung to wiry dark bristles. A low laugh.

"Laxvik Vatten?" long gnarled fingers stroked away the mess from the mop above his lips. "What's a round soft 'til such as ye doin goin so close to the moons?" his eyes gleamed with a cruel humor. "N'even have good boots to boot," he jabbed his tankard toward the flame where the thin coverings hung up to dry. "How's it you plan on crossin over, hmm?" he brought the tankard back to his lips, and pulled another drink. His eyes never quite leaving the foreign man.
 
Where moon's light touches the sea,
Turned grey by salt and spray,
When Winter's winds sing reverie,
The Faeries' dance will show the way.

— Song of the Mushroom
Unknown Seer, Kaninthveit Vind Covenant
​
A few spoonfuls of soup made it into Merle's mouth as Jeb spoke his jabs. The thick, warm milk combined with sweet mead was going to turn his gut, but he'd be loath to turn down a meal.

Merle smiled graciously at the bristly fellow across the way. He'd had this same conversation two or three times that week.

"A few frostbitten toes is well worth the prize I chase." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Have you ever heard of the immortal agaric?"
 
Dark eyes held fast the 'til's easy gaze. A bottomless thing. Cold and merciless as a midnight storm.

A crack across features that had seemed to freeze. The corner of the lips thawed to show long and yellowed teeth. A slow roil of a laugh, bubbled up from the depths of Jeb's throat. Singular knocks of cruel humor.

All at once, the broad man broke. Through his head back and hollered his loud laugh. Foot stamped. Fist pound. Like snow come loose from a mountainside. His body rocked back, rocked forward, his eyes wide, his teeth bared. He stared again at the 'til.

"You mean to find it?" he tested. Looked about, then fixed on Merle once the more. "You?" a chuckle under his breath as tears rolled down the side of his hood shadowed face. "And pray tell, fair 'til," his hungry smile showed the more. "What do you know, of the Faeries Gift?"
 
Another poke in the ribs from Aise caught him by surprise. "Merle, you're so rude!" she scolded him as the boisterous intruder laughed long and loud.

Merle's cheeks were burnt ruddy from the wind. They'd been that way since crossing into the Highlands. But somehow, they got redder. "What have I done this time?"

"Don't be so down-to-business, asking people big questions a'fore you've even given a proper introduction." The heavy baubles at the end of Aise's twin braids bounced as she sat up straighter. She squinted her eyes and draped a finger across her upper lip. Her impression, Merle realized, of him. "You should say, 'Goodaytayu, I'm Merle 'til-something and I've just arrived, thank you for having me in your village.'"

"That's not what I sound like—"

"And you, Jeb--" Unfazed, Aise turned her rebuke onto the man across the table, waggling a finger at him. "Say: 'Hullo stranger, welcome to Jannaskaro, have you enough to eat?'"
 
A grunt from the wild eyed Jeb. A groan, and a swig of drink. Turned glug and chug. The tankard came clack against the wood of the table.

A burp errupted from his mouth, and he grinned all the more satisfied.

A smack from on side. "Jeb!"

A cruel little chuckle. "Pardon, Aise, the cold's gone and frozen mi manners," his eyes fixed on the southern man. "Welcome, stranger, cannae help you to a round of somethingyedlike?" He smiled again with long yellowed teeth.
 
The belching wave of honey-rot wafted across the table and slapped Merle in the face. His nose wrinkled up in a grimace. These northerners, and their gruesome table manners. But, when in Lapvona...

The bottom of Merle's clay cup came up so high that one could see the potter's mark*. Its contents were drained with a single smooth tug of Merle's jaw. The cup stayed in his hand.

He shook it side to side to show its emptiness, the last foamy remnants of mead sloshing listlessly at the bottom. "Cold as it is - and thin as my boots are - I wouldn't say no to something a mighty bite stronger than mead."

"But wouldya say yes?" Aise chimed in with a teasing grin.


*The mark belonged to Hroska of Vargthvengr Skugga, who had put down her axe and made herself a potter's wheel after her third child was born. She had no letters and instead signed her work with a cluster of sharp, feathery scratches depicting a Hver Hawk in mid-dive. Her works are widely coveted in Aetochi for their rare, rich purple color.
 
A dark laugh from Jeb's mouth went and fell out in a tumble. "Wouldn't say no, would ye?" his smile tilted all lopsided like as he made a pleased hum. "Wouldn't say no," he growled with some thought. "Well then, ye ever have Janna's famed spirit?" his smile turned smirk. "Burns liek the bite of the Glass Sea, and is' clear as the moons' light come off the silver ice,"

A pair of flat fingers jammed into his mouth and a sharp whistle pierced through the din of the crowd.

"Two Spirits proper, if ya'd be so kind!" he let out. Laughed a little. "nay, make it the bottle, to give the 'til a real welcome, and a mighty warmth to boot,"
 
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"Hm, that sounds good," Merle said, but he didn't seem to be talking about the spirit. He produced a small journal from his coat pocket, as well as a wrapped stick of charcoal. The journal was not bound in leather, and the pages looked damaged from their long journey.

"Clear as the moons' light upon the sea..." The words were repeated slowly as Merle wrote them down in a looping hand. "Where have I heard that before?"

He turned back a few pages, which crinkled damply with the movements of his thoughts.

"What're you up to over there, Jeb?" Someone across the hall yelled, when the rowdy man let out his horse whistle. A broad-shouldered, round-bellied man hollered in response. He came to sit next to Jeb. A dark glass bottle thudded against the table, the man strangling its neck with a meaty hand.

Glass blowing wasn't a common art in Lapvona. Was the bottle an import? It didn't occur to Merle to simply ask the question of anyone present. Instead, he scribbled the note in his journal, to investigate later.

"Summoning the Spirits on a night like this..." The man's hair was red and fine, shaved close to his head to hide the beginnings of baldness. He shook his glossy head, reprimanding. It was all an act however, because in his other hand he clutched a few shallow clay cups. "I'll only allow it if we're drinking to someone's health. Can't open a whole bottle, without good intentions. The Spirit's'll know."
 
Jeb's brow twist and turned the more with each scratch of quill and murmured word that passed across the til's lips. Like so many brambles grown rampant upon the garden of his expression, watered well by the rain. But 'for he could spit his poison, Yenles called out.

Came and sat right next to Jeb with a plant and a shake of meaty girth.

Made his intentions clear.

Jeb grumbled. "Aye then," he said, pact bound. "To the good health of Ser Til," he said, as he grabbed up one of the shallow cups, and slid it toward the visitor. Quick to take the next for himself. "That good enough for ya, Yenles?" he smiled his crooked smile. Little joy, save for the trouble that might come, in the pit of his eyes.
 
The gathering of new names and the passing around of cups went on around Merle without much notice from him. It wasn't until Jeb gave a toast to his health that he looked up from his notes.

"Good enough for a poor bastard, sure, but here's sitting at our table a noble 'til!" Yenles lifted the heavy, fat-bottomed bottle and poured more cups for Aise, and then himself.

"You know, I only work for the crown, right? I'm not a 'noble til', as you put it," Merle mentioned, more bemused than irritated. And certainly not a Ser, he thought only to himself. Being a knight was a respectable occupation, but Merle had little patience for the protectors of the realm.

"What's the difference?" Aise asked. She pinched the cup in front of her between thumb and forefinger. It must be powerful stuff, for the hardy people of Janna to be drinking it out of thimbles.

"I still have to pay taxes." The notebook was stuffed back into an inner pocket. Merle hadn't been paying attention to which drink had been poured for whom, and they were all sitting on the same side of the table. He grabbed Yenles' instead. Raised the mouthful up in a southern-style toast.

"The glass is brim. The hearth is bright," he recited. "May we all find friends to see us through the night."

The spirit was colorless and cool, and burned like ice. Merle made an awful face as he tilt his cup back. Had to clear his throat against the fire now dripping in his gut.
 
A twitch of the brow. A split of the lips. Flesh pulled back to show long and crooked teeth. Novo took Novo's cup. The spirits there in, the work so toiled over, so cared for, so danced about by spirits proper, of death, of life, of revelry and mourning.

And he hadn't taken the right cup.

Novo knocked it back. Grumbled too pleased as his wild brows pinched, and his lips spread wide with a cat's glee.

"'Sa fine toast, 'til, a fine toast," he nod as the spirit went down smooth. "Not so fine as Yenles' vodka, but fine all the same," he laughed. A cruel sound. A dark sound. A sound that told all he knew something they could not.

"Oh Jeb, whats'n so funny then, that'd you laugh such a laugh?" Aise asked. Lips puckered and cheeks rosied by the drink.

"Remembering an old story is all," he purred like an old cat.
 
The gravy-soup and the spirits were twisting in his gut, a tangle of strange food that fought like enemies. Covering his mouth with a hand, Merle let a burp of air out under his breath. He would stand strong against the onslaught, an alchemist's pride keeping the concoction from coming back up.

The local's banter was good distraction for his recovery. He reentered the conversation as smoothly as the vodka was rough.

"Share it with us. It's easier to remember a story if you tell it aloud," Merle prodded.

"Don't fall for that, Jeb!" Aise said, apple-cheeked and smiling. "The 'til will write you words down in that book of his and steal 'em from you, like the fairies do. I've seen him do it!"

Merle raised his palms up, pleading innocence. "My hands will stay still, I promise."
 
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