For the first time in ages neither Vetle nor Hedvig wanted to sleep. There had been plenty of occasions where one or the other wanted to stay up longer, though it rarely happened thanks to Hedvig’s strict schedules. This however was the first time that neither of them wanted a break from life, wanted to sleep it all away, because the next day they would start having purpose again beyond each other. Hedvig gave Vetle a heartbroken look as the time came for her to rest. She had spent much of the day trying to explore her abilities. Having been Worldsinging for so long, it was largely instinctual. She needed to figure out how best to explain it beyond those instincts. It is hard to explain how to breathe or walk unless you yourself break it down as you do it. She still didn’t entirely know how to explain the most important part, controlling one’s own boulderbone. Vetle had spent years researching the Worldsong of Boulderbone. The two of them had concluded that the ability to magically control the deadly growths as if they were normal skin was entirely unique to the two of them. Thus all of the literature explaining how to do Worldsinging spoke specifically about external materials, stone, iron, water, etc. This was the first time they had met someone else whose worldsong would control the material of their own Boulderbone condition. Though Nils was rare in his boulderbone mutation and not his worldsong abilities, opposite of the two of them.
Vetle hugged Hedvig and said: “You’re going to do great, you’ve trained hundreds. The boy is gonna get here, and it will just snap into place. But you can’t do that if you don’t rest… and hey this is your fucking system Viggy, use it.”
Hedvig appreciated his words more than her slim smile let on. She responded, “I know you’re probably right, but I trained people to fight, to kill, to do whatever it took to survive. You’re the teacher, the one who invented a half dozen medical thingies, the one who taught the most brilliant girl I’ve ever met. I’m just a rocky old soldier” Her lack of confidence shocked Vetle, and open vulnerability shocked herself.
“You taught people how to survive anything, do whatever it takes. Is that not what this boy needs? You understand more than anyone else in the whole of Caerica what it means to keep going no matter fucking what. Sure I’ll teach him about his mutated Boulderbone, but you’re the one who’ll instill survival into him. Also…” He paused a moment, debating whether he should continue. She hadn’t been like this with him in some time, and he didn’t want to break her trust by bringing this up. Her confused and curious looks pushed him to continue anyway. “I know you’re more than what you think, because I remember you thinking yourself unable to be a mother. You said that maroia, your maroia, was the mother, and that you weren’t prepared for that. And look at our girl, you mothered the shit out of her. Also you’re not just a soldier because apparently you’re a fucking author now!” Vetle knew the little joke about the memoir would help soften the blow of bringing up her wife.
“Heh, yeah a real Rau myself, writing all sorts of literature now,” Hedvig responded, smiling. She wanted to be upset that he brought maroia up, but his words had actually done a little good for her. He was right. Hedvig had joined in parenting their daughter more out of a sense of responsibility for her situation than anything else. Her current feeling of underpreparedness was miniscule to the mountain of dread at the idea of raising a child. Her smile shrank and she continued to him: “What if this goes wrong Vet. What if it turns out like Leonora? I can’t do that to Mar, not again.”
Vetle was struck with emotions as he heard the woman’s name again. He guessed it was a fair trade for his mentioning Hedvig’s maroia. It took him a moment to recollect himself, which Hedvig pretended not to notice. He finally said, “I don’t think it will go that way Viggy. We’ve grown so much since then. If something does go poorly, which I really insist it probably won’t, then it will be ok. Maroia knows we will do our best, and she is a strong woman now.” Hedvig seemed appreciative but unmoved by his words. Thus Vetle pulled her in close, grabbed 3 of her hands with his, and said, “Viggy this is not you taking her mother all over again. This is us doing our best and she will appreciate that alone more than we’ll likely know. She does not, and will not hate you!”
“It’s time for me to sleep. Don’t let me sleep in again” she said to him. Vetle knew she appreciated his words. She tried to take his words to heart, and repeated “she does not and will not hate me” in her mind as she dozed off. That night she had dreams. She likely had dreams most nights, but this time she would remember them vividly in the morning. She dreamt of an ursine figure covered in blood. When Hedvig reached out, trying to save her, she instead held a Bravin woman, holding a child. The woman’s hands were red with blood as she handed Hedvig the babe. She slit the mother’s throat, and suddenly it was he love’s instead, her large Urbaxa body dwarfing the tiny braving babe she was handing Hedvig. The dream went on and held more images of her past, mixed together, truth and fiction, a roiling storm of emotions.
Even with his third of the day keeping the slumbering Hedvig alive, he hadn’t finished his research. He had looked through every tome and text there was on Boulderbone. Half of them were useless. They just restated obvious knowledge he already knew over and over. He knew that it was a genetic disorder that the entire Bravin race suffered. He knew it spread from wounds, where scabs were made of a high mineral bone like material never went away. He knew the material wasn’t actually bone, nor stone, but a mineral concentrate akin to both. And he damned well knew that it slowly spread across the body, metastasizing. Vetle needed studies or examples of it mutating. He needed examples of what removing Boulderbone and keeping the wounds from healing did, but he himself had written most of that research. Eventually he switched from Boulderbone research to Ironsong studies on controlling the iron within a person’s blood. Those gave him far better results. Things weren’t solved of course, but it was a start. By the end of his eight hour shift, he had just started a tome on cases of Iron poisonings that seemed promising for Nils.
“Hedvig, you’ll be upset if I don’t wake you, but I’m not going to sleep here for a bit. I’m almost done with this last bit of research” Vetle explained to the groggy Hedvig. As usual, she quickly awoke and rose up in bed, slowly replacing his hand on her chest with her own. Then she stretched one of her other hands over the one Vetle had searching for something in the book.
She said gently and firmly, “Go to sleep Vet, you’ll finish it up in the morning while I’m working with Nils.” He was going to argue, but Hedvig used a dirty trick. She hugged him, and held his hands holding the book, before using her 4th hand to grab the tome from him, slipping the bookmark out from it, and closing it, in one swift action. With that Vetle gave in and went to bed, though Hedvig let him hold her hand until he fully fell aslumber.
Hedvig tried to continue writing the memoir. She was finally able to write about her wife maroia. She explained that her wife was the kindest, most caring person she ever knew. Hedvig’s tears wet the pages, but she continued to explain the love of her life. That is when her struggle began, she was unsure of how much detail to put. She feared she was going on too long about her, and so she erased and started over. It was on the fourteenth rewrite that she decided she was allowed to ramble. This woman was the crux of Hedvig’s entire life until the girl she was named after came along. She couldn’t explain the important part of the memoir, the part about why she had done what she had, without this basis for all of it. By the time sunrise came along, she had gotten to the point where maroia first proposed to Hedvig. They had been together for some decade by that point. Hedvig would have been satisfied going on the rest of their lives that way. Marriage didn’t mean anything special to Hedvig. The most she thought about it was having an excuse to playfully call her friends bastards. The thing was that they could only legally adopt if the two of them were married under Thandrian law. Hedvig hesitated to explain that she said no the first time because she didn’t want kids. Well because of that and it being such a sudden huge thing put upon her that she couldn’t help but instinctively say no. If Maroia could handle Hedvig killing her birth mother, she could handle hearing that Hedvig hadn’t wanted a child. Thus, she continued on with her writing.
It was an hour before she was to wake Vetle, when a knock came to the cabin door. “Uh, I, well, sorry if I am too early, I wasn’t sure when exactly you had said to get here, and I guess perhaps I am late, but I did mean to be here on time, I promise, and if you give me a time then I promise I’ll be here right then on the day after ‘morrow,” Nils rambled from the other side of the door.
“Nils come in. There is no lock” Hedvig replied. The kid sheepishly opened the door and walked inside. She continued: “We had only said to come mid-morning, so you didn’t forget anything. Take a seat anywhere you like. There are leftovers in the Frostove, or I can make you a fresh breakfast in around an hour.”
Nils finally noticed the sleeping Vetle on the bed, and quickly said, “Oh am I being too loud? I’m sorry, I don’t want to mess up your schedule, Ms. Roia told me all about it. Should we talk outsi…. Nevermind stupid question.”
Hedvig loudly laughed and snickered: “You could scream for your life and there is only a half and half chance of Vet waking up.” Relief washed over Nils’s face as he sat at their dining table. Hedvig explained, “He takes Nightcotton in the mornings when he goes to sleep. Has a whole medical explanation for you if you wanna ask him about it.”
“No, my uncle takes it too, I understand. Since you can’t exactly move far from him, can I get you anything?” the kid questioned. Hedvig thought it was very kind of him, while suspecting it was just to curry favor with her. The truth was Nils would have offered the same to anyone, but would have offered to do literally anything for the people who had promised to save him. Hedvig simply smiled a headshake in response. After a pause that only Nils thought felt awkward, he said, “I think I’ll rummage through the frostove for something to eat if that’s alright. Thank you.”
For a little while, Hedvig made edits to what she had written in the memoir that morning, and Nils ate honeybread with stew as if it was his first meal in a year. Finally, after she finished her edits, Hedvig asked the kid: “What is your armor made of, and how did you make it?”
The kid gleamed with pride as he worked out his response. Hedvig was satisfied with this reaction, as she had been working out how best to connect with him. She and Vetle had both noticed his odd armor when he had shown up the other day. She knew he worked as an armorer for the Stone Legion, like her father once was, so she suspected there was a story there somewhere. Finally he began to explain, “Yes I made it while working with the Stone Legion before university. The company commander was friends with the man I apprenticed for, and he was friends with my parents. Anyway, the commander asked the armorers for a favor. See the commander was a part of the expeditionary force way back when, during the imperial war, towards the start of the sundering. He fought all over Thirea with the rebels. He was at the battle of the dozen's tears. He ev-”
Hedvig excitedly interrupted the kid to ask: “Was this commander by chance named Andreas Gorthand?” She had a feeling she knew where this was going, even if the kid had a tendency to ramble.
The astonished Nils replied: “You knew commander Gorthand?” Nils knew Hedvig had fought in the early years of the Sundering, but the chances of her knowing someone he did were astronomical. Hundreds of thousands fought across decades of different wars, what were the chances.
Somewhat smugly, Hedvig explained, “Yeah I know that bastard from two wars. Only one were we actually on the same side. I don’t know if he got the credit for it, but he won the revolution. Only reason I didn’t retake Itsargi with the 82nd was his force capturing our reinforcements. Back to your story, I assume you were going to bring up how he brought home one of the tears? You’re not telling me that armor is made from a fallen star are you?” Hedvig was fascinated by the idea. Hedvig had heard stories about the battle many times. On a field only a day’s march from the imperial city, Thandri itself, a massive storm wrecked the collected armies. However, more than just rain fell. Hedvig had always heard the event described as the heavens themselves falling upon the battlefield. Fireballs from the sky shattered the ground, and wiped out a third of the Thandrian imperial army. There were stories abound of members of the battle bringing back some piece of the fallen stars, but Hedvig suspected most of them were exaggerations.
“What are the chances? Ms. Roia had said you were a veteran, but I had no idea. Wait… does that mean. Holy shit,” Nils exclaimed as he started putting pieces together in his head. The kid had grown up around the military thanks to his parents' service. He heard hundreds of stories about the legends of the early Sundering. Most of the legendary stories he heard were of events and characters from his country, Gildren. There were around a hundred good characters, who he assumed were mostly based on real people, across the stories. One of the more interesting ones it seemed was sitting across the room from him right now. He finally caught up to his racing thoughts and began blurting out: “You, we’re in Gilthyra, of course you, and the singing, yeah, wow. You’re the Stone Sword. You sailed the legion from the Frostclaws to the sea without a single outpost noticing. You killed a hundred men at the battle of Kestral. You were in second command of the Stone Legion when my dad joined. You’re a living legend!”
Hedvig said, “Thanks kid, but most of the things you’ve probably heard about me were exaggerated, or the collective achievements of the legion at large. Let's get back to you telling me about your armor.”
Nils shrunk a little as he realized how excited he had gotten. The young man had just endeared himself to the Stone Sword of Gilthyra, and he, for some odd reason of his character, felt embarrassed by the event. He finally continued his explanation: “Well few smiths have ever really gotten the material from the Tears work with them. The meteorites were too dense and hard and brittle and generally annoying. Having been a part of the battle, and commander of the Legion, Gorthand had gained possession of an entire Tear. Not just pieces of it, the entire meteorite, the size of you or I. He wanted us to make him armor with it. If we managed to do it, then we could use the rest of the material for ourselves. My master armorer was also a part time tinkerer, a Runeforger in his free time. He managed to get the material hot enough to work into the crucible thanks to some runes he worked into the rock. We ended up working it like Wootz metal, but it kept coming out too brittle-”
Hedvig interrupted to ask: “What did you use to carbonize? Hilfyr wood has too much sulfur, that might have been your problem.”
“That makes sense actually. I… I’m not sure what wood we used, that may have been it. But I will tell you the insane solution I came up with. My own blood!” The kid exclaimed to the Stone Sword of Gilthyra.
It took a moment for Hedvig to put together the pieces, but quickly she exclaimed, “THE IRON!”
“The Iron!” Nils responded, “It was perfect, I don’t entirely know why or how, actually been researching it some at the university, but the weird makeup of my blood with my odd Boulderbone made a perfect binding for the insane meteorite star alloy.”
“What about iron?” said a very groggy now conscious Vetle.
“Oh shit, sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you Vet. I was just getting to know Nils some,” Hedvig explained to Vetle. She continued to say, “How about you tell him about your armor Nils!”
It had been a few hours since Vetle had woken up. Nils had the basics of Boulderbone and Worldsinging explained to him. He obviously knew it, but Vetle, when teaching, liked to make sure there was a common understanding of things before making any assumptions. He went over the different Song organs of Bonesingers, Bloodsingers, and Breathsingers, and how each unique organ has natural runes patterned throughout their structure allowing a specific field of energy to generate through them. Vetle compared it to a magnetic field, and Hedvig appreciated the simple comparison. In reality much research had shown Magnetism was entirely unrelated and unlike Worldsong fields, but the comparison was a good way to teach it. The biggest detail that Nils actually needed clarification on was how it related to touch. Vetle explained that even in Breathe and Bonesingers, bits of the rune covered material flowed through a singer’s blood, meaning the energy field was largely the shape of the entire body. The field could only extend out from the body if it was in contact with the material of the Song organ.
Nils asked, “What does that mean for us though? We are always in contact with our material, how do we control it if not extending it out like normal?”
“Well it is somewhat complicated, see normally a worldsi-” Vetle began, before being cut off.
Hedvig interrupted: “Vet I got a better idea than just wording this whole thing out. Do you know where that silver serving tray is?” Both of them were confused by what she could possibly plan to do. Both of them helped her search for the tray for 12 minutes without questioning that plan. It took a few minutes more for Nils and Hedvig to polish the tray, until it was essentially a mirror. Hedvig finally explained, “Put this between your left arms and your right, to where you don’t see your left, and see both your right and their mirror selves. Now use your right sky arm to move the elbow back and forth on the right ground arm. Now in sync do the same on both sides for me.” Vetle had caught on to her little ritual when she called the tray a mirror. He had used this type of therapy to help even normal Bravin deal with Boulderbone.
“Woah, I can move my left lower elbow! I haven’t been able to in a decade! Thank you,” Nils exclaimed.
Vetle continued his earlier lecture: “Yeah it's a good trick. The reason it is working for you specifically is because it's tricking your brain. You see it work in the mirror and you feel it in the real ones. Normally it just helps with pain and minor movement, but your brain has more going on with it now, it’s got runes growing in it for that ironbone you have now. This is perhaps a bit esoteric, but the brain really is just an incredibly complex natural rune, just like the Songbone. It is incredible what a brain can do. You feel like you are controlling and moving that boulderbone in that elbow, right? You aren’t. It is in fact you worldsinging it using the movements of the rest of your arm. Imagine your Song field is a rope. When you shake that rope, the movement of that flows down the rope, like a wave. That is somewhat like how you control material of the song field, your body’s movements flow down the field like it is that rope, and the material within the field moves like it's attached to that rope. The key is figuring out how to extend your field. Just then we tricked it to include that section, so maybe we can just do that for everything, but I have a feeling that won’t be the best method. Then you have to understand how your movements affect the field. This will all take time, but you clearly have potential here.”
Over the next few hours Hedvig spent a great deal of time helping the kid figure out ways to extend control to the areas struck by Boulderbone. She had an incredibly detailed level of control for the Boulderbone parts of her body, which amazed Nils. Vetle continued his research while they worked. Soon Nils could move that elbow as if there were no Boulderbone at all. It was an achievement. Hedvig felt rather satisfied from her work with the kid, but it was hard work, and she grew exhausted. She let Vetle take over for the rest of Nils’s time there that day. She spent the rest of her time awake watching the other two work. Vetle had Nils remove much of his armor, so he could examine his Boulderbone. Normally boulderbone appears as a rocky scab-like thing across a Bravin’s skin, but Nils’s was like rusting nails.
“Does it hurt? The oxidizing into your blood?” Vetle asked. He knew the answer, but he wanted Nils to corroborate his theories.
“It feels like a constant burning. Think of sitting on something too hot on a summer day and it overloads your senses, so hot it's cold. You get used to it.” Nils explained. Both of them knew the last part to be a lie, but Vetle pretended he didn’t.
After an hour or so of more questions and testing his Boulderbone, Vetle felt the energy of the day leaving him. As tired as usual, Vetle said, “We won’t be able to start on this until you have a better skill at Worldsinging. I know every day we don’t fix this is worse off on your systems, so I collected some rustweed for you to start taking. It tastes all kinds of awful, but it will help with the iron poisoning. Otherwise I think that is enough for today. When you come back I can start on slowing the spread and removing the larger portions of your Boulderbone.”
“I know Hedvig is going to sleep soon, but could we still talk for a bit? Is she a light sleeper?” asked Nils.
“Just don’t be too loud and I can ignore your voices,” Hedvig replied. If it had been a decade prior, that wouldn’t have been the case. Hedvig sleeps light thanks to her time in war. If she couldn’t trust her surroundings absolutely, any sound would wake her up.
Around half an hour after Hedvig fell asleep, Nils stopped asking about ideas for treating him or stories of the Stone Sword of Gilthyra. At this opportunity to change the subject, Vetle asked the boy, “What do you think of the university?”
“I enjoy it enough. Work is hard though. I know a lot of students who had problems, many understand how boulderbone affects you, but my unique case has put a particular strain on things. Ms Roia was the only professor who was willing to take my work so late. Even when it wasn’t my condition, when I just had fucked up, she forgave me and went on like normal. That is the only reason I have been able to continue my studies,” Nils explained. He felt he’d done well hiding how emotional he was about all of it. He had spent much of the last year feeling like most of his life was dealing with a body that seemed to hate him and the late work of professors who he knew hated him.
Vetle wanted to push further to really get to know the boy, but he was clearly a little emotional about the whole thing, so he decided otherwise. Thus he moved onto the last major curiosity he had about the boy, asking, “What is your area of study?”
“I am working on Runeforging, focusing on material science. I might be switching my focus to Rune Systems and Integration, though,” Nils answered.
“Why systems and integration?” Vetle asked, suspecting he knew the answer.
“Of course you know Ms Roia’s research is in that field. Obviously that's one part of it, I have worked so much in her projects that I know it better than the material stuff sometimes. It isn’t why I’m going to switch though. I like systems, not just runes, all kinds. Big puzzles coming together. I liked materials because working with alloys for armor feels like a puzzle, a system of different materials working together to be something bigger. It was like the legion itself, a big system of different jobs and units and people all doing different tasks as a part of big actions. Rune systems are the most interesting out there. One effect goes through another and another until suddenly you have a chunk of metal that you can control the temperature of near perfectly. Or Ms. Roia’s Eizrum project. You said earlier that the brain is like a natural rune, well we might be able to implement systems like a small basic brain into things. It would change the world,” Nils passionately explained.
Vetle asked: “You think you can change the world?”
“You don’t?” replied the boy.
“Not exactly. You can mold the world, shape it, but you can’t change it. I have done a lot and seen a lot in my time, and I’ve shaped the way things move and exist in this world, but I haven’t changed anything. I don't think mortals can, but damn can we hammer this place to our liking.” Vetle explained.
Nils responded: “I.. huh, I like that way of putting it. That does beg the question about people though.”
Vetle noticed the exhaustion on the boy’s face. He now more than ever could relate to the young man. He appreciated the company in the early part of his shift, but the boy had been there since before Vetle had been up. It was a long trip back to the university, so who knows how long the boy had been awake. Nevermind how exhausted his condition alone made him. Vetle finally grabbed Nils by the shoulder and said, “You’ve done very well today, and it was great getting to know you. You have a long way back to the dorms, and I‘d like to start experimenting with some of those newly discovered runes you showed me. Please be safe on your way back Nils. And do tell Maroia we love and miss her.”
Nils was disappointed to realize the day was over. They hadn’t yet solved all his problems, and yet he had hope, for the first time since his uncle was imprisoned. The boy felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. As he collected his things to go, he suddenly remembered the phrase Ms. Roia had told him to use as their goodbye: “I’ll be safe, see you later, and try not to die!”
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