There was an intimacy between Hedvig and Vetle that few understood. The two had friends, though most had now passed, who could never quite figure the two out. An old war buddy of Hedvigās had, of course, compared it to their own relationship with Hedvig: ābonded through the hardship of a shared missionā. The confessor, a childhood friend of Vetleās, told Maroia in confidence that the two were ātraumatized individuals surviving through shared coping mechanismsā. Maroia had reworded the jargon to āthey lean on each other to deal with their problemsā, leaving out the fundamental part about their ātraumaā. One distant relative of Hedvigās had claimed the Dozen deities had personally made the pair for each other. The thing is, as much as Vetle might have liked the idea, they then implied Hedvig was never meant to be with her wife maroia, so she broke the relativeās jaw. A research paper that a colleague of Vetleās published, without the twoās permission, claimed they had a ābiologically codependent relationshipā. Maroia always thought she understood it. That understanding tended to shift back and forth, over and over, but no matter what the current theory was, she knew it was right about them. Somehow, she was usually right.
Anyone else in Hedvigās position would have been dreading trying to explain the situation between her and the one she currently kept breathing. Hedvig hadnāt had a second thought about it. She in fact had skipped ahead in her memoir, as to avoid thinking about the part she truly dreaded. They were simply stuck with each other, bound by a child who needed them, and abilities they both needed from the other. Vetle always thought about how their Worldsinging brought them closer, but Hedvig didnāt believe that. Hedvig still, decades later, associated her controlling the boulderbone of another bravin, with ending a life, doing a duty, and protecting her people. What had made Vetle one of āher peopleā wasnāt him pumping her blood and breathing her lungs while she slept. It was how he noticed beauties in the world she hadnāt put together, and chose to share them with her. It was how he couldnāt imagine her as the terrible person Hedvig knew she was, even after Leonora. It was instilling a kindness in their daughter that was stronger than anything the Sundering could throw at her. She didnāt need or want a word for Vetle, for whatever he called it, or their daughter, or their friends now gone. He was one of her people, and that was all that mattered.Ā
What angered Hedvig about Vetle claiming their duty to each other was what made their bond, was the lack of specialness to it. Both Vetle and Hedvig had used their Worldsinging to keep others alive while they slept long before they met. Hedvig knew that he had been doing it since childhood, thanks to his religious fanatic parents. He gave thousands of people just a few days more, so what was so special about giving each other a few decades. The first person she had kept alive was the biggest asshole in the entire imperial army. Kethyr Nurau had criticized and mocked Hedvig since she joined, how she needed her unholy powers to keep up with the real soldiers. He had miraculously survived a lance through his ribcage. Even though it had missed his heart, the boulderbone of his healing wounds would kill him in a number of days. Nurau was an asshole, but he was also a brilliant strategist, and as long as he lived then imperium had a chance of retaking the colonial capital. She had stayed up for nearly 9 days, just keeping his heart beating. The bastard had screamed for her to keep him alive every time she near fell asleep. By the end of the 9th day, his screams couldnāt keep her up any longer. She later learned that rebel Arima casters had snuck through camp that night, knocking people out on their espionage mission. The official report puts that she was knocked out by enemy forces, that Nurauās death was on their hands, but Hedvig knew it was a gracious lie. Hedvig knew that there was simply a point in which she couldnāt keep hearing his screaming and berating. There was always a point in which an exhaustion, outside of just the physical, couldnāt be overpowered by any commitment or motivation or duty. A point Hedvig knew all too well.Ā
Hedvig realized she had let her memories drift onto the page. She had jumped from speaking of Maroiaās third armoring day, straight to describing Kethyr Nurauās last words and the report she wrote the next day. The memoir needed to be written and finished, but she couldnāt bring herself to keep thinking about what she had to. It was her duty to Maroia to finish it, but then she remembered the new commitment her daughter had lovingly forced upon her. Nils would be back the next day, and she needed to prepare as best she could. For the first morning since she started, Hedvig stopped writing in the memoir. She couldnāt exactly get up to practice her worldsinging. Hedvig didnāt want to mess up their schedule, wake up Vetle early. He needed his sleep far more than she did. Then it dawned on her, Vetle was the perfect way to practice her worldsinging.Ā
During the civil war, Hedvig fought a lot of Bravin Bonesingers serving the Statue King. She had learned the most about Worldsinging during that time. She hadnāt known you could transplant a Songbone until she learned of the Statue Kingās Choir. The Choir was a special force of soldiers loyal directly to the noble house of Kawtor, who were implanted with the Songbones of sacrificed Worldsingers. Naturally it is extremely rare for multiple Songboneās to exist in one body, but when it happens, each is made of a different solid compound, iron, stone, amber, or silk. The Choir were specially trained to wipe out larger forces using their implanted Worldsinging. Hedvig was tasked to protect the Stone Legion from Choir attacks. She usually just occupied their attention long enough for the rest of her comrades to overwhelm them, but not always. Usually she could just hold onto them long enough to spread their boulderbone through their body, to lock them in place. One night however, she couldnāt manage to get a grasp on a few Choirmen, and was forced to improvise. She used the wide spread boulderbone in the one she had managed to take down to control his worldsinging. It was extremely difficult, but she had gotten lucky. The man was already trying to worldsing his way out of Hedvigās grasp, but she could manipulate his body to change the motions of the materials. It was a rather gruesome death for the Choirmen, as they wore Iron armor for the purpose of being able to manipulate itā¦ the lot of them were crushed in their own armor by the hands of their own man.Ā
Hedvig continued to live for Vetle, but she also began to move his arms through his boulderbone. It was an odd experience. Her goal was to control his arms, to Worldsing the boulderbone of his left leg into a spear like shape. At first the leg contorted right to her will, but she realized she had done it with her own worldsinging, and not Vetleās. If she could just figure out how to do it, then she could use that to show or explain it to Nils. She continued trying for some time, and still each time she was just extending her own worldsong instead of manipulating his. Then Hedvig had a wretched thought. Perhaps they had been connected for so long that his Worldsong, his energy field or whatever, was merged with her own. She hated the idea. Not only because it meant she couldnāt practice in this way. She long feared losing part of herself in this way of living. There was part of her that saw the romantic beautiful perspective of sharing a worldsong with Vetle. That part wasnāt her, it was the pieces of Vetleās being that somehow wormed their way into her. She needed to figure this out. She needed the idea to be wrong.Ā
After an hour of messing around with Vetleās body, she hadnāt gotten anywhere with his Worldsong. She had even done the tiniest bit of blasphemy and prayed to his twelve gods for the first time since she abandoned that bloated faith years ago. Nothing was working. Then she accidentally moved the tiny portion of boulderbone within his head, and suddenly she had done it. She giggled with delight at the victory, and then at the ridiculous image of Vetle with a Legion spear instead of a left leg. She repeated the process back and forth, shifting from spear to leg and back again. Hedvig methodically felt out how she was moving his body to sing. Hedvig didnāt realize it, but Vetle dreaming had allowed her to achieve this. Vetle had taken a lower dose of Nightcotton than usual. It meant he was more awake during both the day and the night. He dreamed that it was the start of the Sundering, he was working across the sea in Thirea. His father had connected him with the Horned-Crows sisterhood, who did charity and aid work across the imperium. He dreamed that he had actually joined the sisterhood, instead of just volunteering. The idea was ridiculous, he was a Mendacist at that point in his life, no belief in the dozen deities whatsoever. In the dream he was helping the goddess Infra herself, working through his odd gifts, to save the victims of the Sundered coast. In his dream the tidal wave that started it all just loomed in the distance. It didnāt matter how many lives he saved, the wave would return, and they would all drown. He dreamed that he Worldsang the water out of a victimās lungs, though he was not a Bloodsinger, a miracle of Infaraās doing of course. Then the oddest thing happened, and his legs turned to spears, pinning him to the ground as the wave finally crashed upon him. He was drowning, but he kept diving deeper, as he was tired of the weight of land. Hedvig finally noticed Vetleās eyes twitching in the theater of dreams, and hoped his dreams were kinder than hers ever were.Ā
Vetle spent his morning with a weird feeling in his boulderbone, an odd thing for a material that usually had no feeling in it whatsoever. Hedvig had said something about practicing on him while he slept, and surmised she meant that passing mention of it to be some sort of apology. It was like being aware of and manually breathing or blinking, though he had been dealing with the former for years now, but across all his limbs. For decades now, moving the statue like bits of his body only took the most minor of muscle twitches. Today those little twitches were more like the movements they were in his youth, contracting whole muscles and stretches of skin, contorting whole lengths of his body. Worldsinging was like the moons rolling out the tides, except the tides were an unnatural cosmic energy flowing across the body, and the moons the Song organ and body itself. It was a bad analogy, but Vetle hadnāt been awake long, and Nils had seemed to understand when heād said it to the boy. For some odd reason whatever Hedvig had done with Vetleās body last night had messed with his Worldsinging. As he often did, Vetle spent the first bit of his morning stretching and exercising, this time helping to fix his strange state of Boulderbonesinging. Within a half hour it returned to normal, but it was as if his muscle memories had been replaced with those of another. Now that it was finally all back to normal he could focus on the night priorās research. That was until Hedvig interrupted.
āNow what are you doinā Vet? Aināt you supposed to be praying, it's Sompanthei,ā Hedvig asked him, while handing him a plate of stuffed Fangpeppers and eggs. She largely knew why he wasnāt going about his weekly day of prayer and rest. If she still worshipped that lacking set of so called gods, sheād be ignoring the order to not do shit today too.
Vetle somewhat taken aback replied: āI think sheāll understand, I mean, she sent Nils to us after all.ā One of the smaller reasons, among many, that Vetle liked the boy was that he seemed heaven sent from his prime goddess. He had restrained himself from bringing it up until now.
She couldnāt help but grin, at both the genuine faith in the man, and the stupid little smile that bloomed on his face. She lovingly responded: āYou really believe that, don't you.ā
āCan you blame me? Infara loves an oddity, and what is the boyās condition but that? Our daughter forced us to give the fatebreaker a little worship and do this case of charity for that odd boy in need. It just matches so perfectly. I know it sounds stupid and like Iām grasping at this, but surely you understand,ā He began explaining to her, before her kind smile crumbled into a hidden look of disgust. His hope and pride shattered upon her disapproval. Before Vetle could continue, she cut him off.
āIs that why you are doing this? Because the Fatebreaker wants you to, so you can be her bestest little believer?ā Hedvig hadnāt meant to spit to him with such venom. She couldnāt explain why she suddenly felt so passionate and upset about it. Sheād been a Dodecanite for more years than Nils and Maroiaās lifetimes combined. She understood what he meant clearly, the idea actually spooked the young dumb temple thumber in her, always trying to pull her back to the faith of her youth. Hedvig wondered if that was why she was suddenly upset, the idea that this all was the actions of the gods, not will of the universe, her own choices, or even mere happenstance. Truth was she often disliked thinking of her own Mendacist beliefs due to that same stupid voice. The voice that told her she converted for the wrong reasons, that fear, grief, desperation, and anger had pushed her away from her āactualā faith. The voice that said only guilt really kept her in her current one. In reality she had come to truly believe in life after death being rebirth, in one way or another, and that nothing of such power as the gods could both truly exist and be worth worshiping. Perhaps her path curved differently than the norm of Mendacists elsewhere, but it was no less correct then the path her maroia had walked years ago. The little voice in her mind often ignored the words of the Great Revealer: āMany spirits return to Sahti Tiangi for fear of death and hope of reunion with those gone, just the same as those seeking purification and enlightenment.ā Hedvig tried to suppress the out of the blue storm of emotions, but they both knew she was failing the attempt. Finally Vetleās words came out.
āDo you really think so little of me?ā Vetle bit back at her. He hated it, but on the āreallyā his voice cracked, just the tiniest fracture, still enough to catch Hedvigās attention. Vetle knew exactly why it happened, why her simple wretched question crushed something soft deep in his heart. Decades of his life to help those heād never met, when it was lucky to have scraps of food and a nightās shelter possibly be given in return. She saw the one time he followed religion over faith in the world itself, in its people. The statue king haunts his memories just the same as hers. Just because she let Dozenās guilt push her to action, just because she fought on the wrong side of a religious war, doesnāt mean he only acts when the heavens command it. He wanted to yell it to her, that she was being unfair, that they both knew the type of person he was, that he didnāt need to be forced to do the right thing by gods or mortals alike. He suppressed the urge to snap at her like that, but in doing so showed clear the intent on his face. It didnāt help her simmer down by any means.
Hedvig purposefully and meekly answered: āNo. You justā¦ I misunderstood.ā It wasnāt true. She understood completely, but her emotions and words often fought like Vedair and Aotheosians. He just seemed so smug, and confident about the will of the gods. She just couldnāt imagine doing something so personal, so important, as answering Nilās pleading call for help, in the name of the gods and not the name of their daughter. Even if clearly it wasnāt the main fuel in his forge, to even have it in the same hearth as Maroiaās request felt wrong to her. She continued to speak, through a cracking and crumbling voice, āIt just feels wrong, to place any responsibility for this on them!ā
āIā¦see,ā said Vetle, who felt the scorn on that last word of hers. With Hedvigās anger boiling to distress, his own began to simmer down. He wasnāt quite sure what she meant. He guessed at first that she was just still angry with them, more than heād thought her to be after all these years. To be fair, sheād seemingly been betrayed, how else does it look like when you fight in their name for nearly a decade and still lose, then lose your wife a few years later after having held onto faith. For a moment he wondered if it wasnāt actually resentment for the twelve above. Maybe it was more about the idea of this situation being a good thing, she never did seem to get over the idea of messing it up for Nils and Maroia. He laboured in thought for half a minute before Hedvig grew tired of the silence.
āMar made this happen, she found this kid worth saving, she admitted she needed help, and yet she still did everything she could for him on her own. She didnāt just stumble across him and bring him here after a conversation with a fucking crow. And that kidās shit, what youāve been researching day and night, it's not some oddity, some gift, it's just a shit hand of āEkaluka, full hand of stones.ā She cried out. She was raging again, but not at him, rather herself for letting her composure fall apart so quickly.
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