"monachopsis" for Hakona?
monachopsis: n. the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach
On AO3.
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Aedyr is nothing like the Land. Yarma is far to its south, and here, south means a growing warmth, not cold. A haze of hot and wet meets Hakona’s perpetually simmering skin, and in the corners of her eyes, the air wobbles like steam above a cooking fire. Behemoth white clouds cast long, creeping shadows, and buildings climb high and towering too, more dwellings than Hakona has ever seen in one place.
The chapterhouse is one such building, though it stands simple and austere, next to the ornate and open-aired architecture that Aedyrans here seem to favor. The heat must escape through all of those gaps, Hakona thinks, but that must be the point. Warmth is no precious commodity here. It spreads in abundance and makes her new black-armored compatriots sweat.
It doesn’t bother her. She’s always run hot.
She doesn’t see any godlike in the streets. Many elves, some folk, an aumaua or two. Some pale, some dark, but none touched by a god. She’d known how populated cities could be, from books and adventurous traders, but no description had really prepared her for it.
And yet, Hakona doesn’t glimpse a single glow or horn that isn’t her own.
The people here wear loose clothes that would freeze them to death in the Land, and their eyes turn her way as she passes. Most of them curious, a few awed. None of the hostility of other Glamfellen, witnessing unquenchable flame within their ice. None of the reverence of Tide’s End and its people, whose fires she’d kept burning.
Maybe she shouldn’t have left them. And yet, she couldn’t have stayed. The air is warm here, and so is her gray stone skin. She’d hardly felt the cold, back in the Land. But here, the heat is welcoming.
There is an altar to Magran burning within the chapterhouse, alongside altars for Berath and Galawain and Woedica. In an office as austere as the rest of the building, Torryn presents Hakona to a hard-faced Sceltrfolc woman whose brown skin is carved with scars, who wears the same midnight armor dedicated to the Pallid Knight, who bears an emblem of Magran on her shoulder that speaks of high rank. The Prior-General, Torryn had called her, and he explains how Hakona had offered to act as their guide through the Land, when she’d learned who their company’s mark was. How she’d led them unerringly through the treacherous cold and helped to kill the raiding band with all of Magran’s radiant fury. How she’d saved Torryn’s life.
And then she’d asked to come along.
The Prior-General regards Hakona in much the same way that Torryn does -- like opportunity has just unfolded before her. It makes something itch in Hakona’s spine, makes her straighten and square her shoulders. Cold doesn’t bite at her heels here, doesn’t sap at her flames, and people walk carelessly in the streets, their clothing loose, their buildings open, unafraid of what sky and water and ice might bring, what raiders and beasts might come galloping out of the dark.
People do not look over their shoulders here. Perhaps Hakona won’t have to, either. And yet, something in her braces for a fight.
But all the Prior-General says is, “You must be comfortable with death.” Mild, like an idle observation of the weather. Her Aedyran is easy, but her accent is different, unfamiliar.
“Have you ever been to the Land?” Hakona asks, with more fervor than she means to let slip. Like she is on the defensive. Like she wants to garner approval. She isn’t sure which. Her accent is thicker, but her Aedyran is just as smooth. She’s spoken to many traders and read many books. “I have seen more of death than some of your people here, I promise you.”
The Prior-General’s smile is faint, halting just shy of her eyes. “You’ll see more than that, with us,” she says, like Hakona has said something amusing. “And I must ensure that our Walkers can handle it without breaking.” She nods and begins rifling through parchments tucked away in a bookcase. “You will be permitted a trial period under Torryn. If you prove capable, you will serve with his company until you are granted a promotion.”
Torryn’s hand comes to rest on Hakona’s shoulder. He's strange for a Bleak Walker, kinder and more open than Hakona expects. “Shouldn’t take long, then,” he says lightly, and something passes between him and the Prior-General, as he accepts the parchments that she hands to him.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” he’d said, back on the ship, “but I will. There’ve been some power struggles in our order. Some bombs waiting to go off, and gods willing, they won’t. That’s what the Prior-General will be thinking about when she meets you. One of your kind in the frozen wastes, looking out for my whole damn company? You’re going to look like a sign from Magran to a lot of people. You’ll be a foreigner with no ties, and as long as you prove yourself, they’ll want to get you on their side or control you. The Prior-General’s going to need a successor soon, and it won’t be me. If she manages a retirement, it’ll outlast me.” Torryn chuckles. He’s a fair-skinned folk, and he’s no longer young by the timeline of his kind. “But it could be you. The Grand Masters tend to like fresh blood.”
Hakona isn’t familiar with loose clothing and open buildings, with sprawling cities and their soft peoples, with the regimented structure of paladin orders. She doesn’t want to be anyone’s successor or carry a title as unwieldy as Prior-General. But she knows the opportunistic look in Torryn’s eyes, in the Prior-General’s. The desire for survival isn’t always a struggle against snow and ice. Sometimes it’s seeking to secure a legacy beyond oneself, and for some reason, this man whose life she’d saved now sees it in Hakona. This Prior-General of the Bleak Walkers now sees it too.
Hakona had only wanted to leave the Land. To follow this company that had helped her to destroy the raiders threatening her home. To strike hard and merciless at anyone who dared to do the same.
She draws herself up further and says, “Within the decade.”
A brief turn of the Wheel, to a Glamfellen. To a Sceltrfolc too, and the Prior-General’s smile creeps a little closer to her eyes. And perhaps it’s a short time for a man of the folk, because Torryn nods his approval, like he expects her to follow through.
Hakona doesn’t know what political games they’re playing and hardly knows what to do with wide open dwellings and the strange clothes she’s borrowed. Her quarters in the barracks, at least, are not so open, almost too small for living and almost too utilitarian to be serviceable. It’s nothing like her family’s home in Tide’s End, built to keep warmth and provide what comfort could be found in the Land.
But Hakona sits on her cot and makes herself adjust to its stiff edges and tells herself that she isn’t in over her head.
