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Fjord began this day in the comforting heat of Nicodranis, on the coast, so close to home. He ends it here: across the continent, standing atop the snowy Kavaarad, before the Kiln of the Allhammer, with his own sword buried in his chest.
A once cautious, timid boy now playing games with a god. Fjord briefly wonders what Vandren would think if he could see him now, before he remembers he wouldn’t care, and pushes the sword another inch deeper.
Through the blood and the pain and the tightness in his chest that won’t let go, Fjord feels a sense of serenity wash over him. It is wholly unfamiliar, and somehow more infuriating when he is unsure from whom it comes. Is this Uk’otoa telling him to stop his madness? Is this the Wildmother sending out her blessing? All of these divine powers asking for his hand, but not a single one will give him a sign. Maybe gods have the time to be coy, but Fjord is done being shackled and controlled.
He pulls the sword from his chest with a grunt. Blood oozes, thick and relentless, down his chestpiece. He extends his arm and holds the familiar weight of the Falchion over the lava, no matter how much his instincts fight the movement.
How much do you value me? He challenges. How much is my devotion worth?
This moment suspends in time, stretched across seconds that feel like minutes, that feel like hours, that feel like entire days were he waits for proof that he is powerful, that he is needed . Standing before the anvil there is an outpouring of light and heat, and the contrast between this and the cold, dark abyss of sea from his dreams is not lost on him.
He waits and he waits and he waits. His arm hair singes, and even that simple pain is a welcome distraction. A piece of him begs--the weaker piece, the piece that cowers, that says you will be nothing to them if you do this --for his patron to show him something, anything, because he refuses to back down from this fight but he can already feel the absence of his power and it is at once ravaging and terrifying.
But, as always, he is left in the dark. Fjord has seen the impact of the Traveler on Jester, the Wildmother on Caduceus, and knows that this relationship he has with Uk’otoa is not the same. They are symbiotic entities, he and the serpent, but there is no devotion. He stands here, ready to throw it all away, and there is no sign anyone is even listening. Where is this god he has sacrificed so much for? This god that gives and takes on whims of fancy, that threatens and constricts and binds? Fjord is abandoned and he is in pain and he is done .
The throw itself is weak, he has never been weaker in his entire life, this he knows with certainty, but it gets the job done regardless. The Falchion is just one thread tying him to this entity, but it is severed, and it is sinking.
The curved blade remains sharp and polished as ever, despite the heat, and Fjord sends out a quiet apology to Molly, wherever he resides. I know your reverence towards freedom , he thinks, I hope you realize that this is my version . This is my first step . If I can’t honor you with your sword, I will do this in your name instead .
There is a relief that comes with it. Hollowing and burden-lifting.
The Falchion sinks, the unblinking eye of Uk’otoa buried in the hilt the last thing Fjord sees before the lava gurgles and swallows it whole.
Consume , he thinks with a vengeance. If he wasn’t bleeding out, he’d be laughing.
Pressing a hand to his chest, he stumbles away from the kiln, refusing to turn back, because he knows that if he does then he will regret, and there’s no more time for such a useless feeling. He knew what he was going to do the moment he stepped before the pool, that there was no going back on the threats he was making. He took the sword from Beau’s back with the intent to destroy the leverage his patron had over him. He did what he told himself he was going to, for once in his goddamn life, and he’s not going to regret that. He’s not .
There’s countless sappy sayings, sick with positivity. After the rain comes the sun. After the pain comes the healing. He’s never bought into any of them before finding himself on his knees before Caduceus Clay.
“I need--” he chokes out, and before he can say more, the firblog is blinking groggily and placing a hand on the gaping wound. With a mere murmur, Fjord’s chest stitches itself back together, and Caduceus’s hand comes away smeared with his blood.
Tell me of Melora , he wants to say as soon as his breath comes back to him, tell me of your Wildmother . Does she take in strays? But he lets Caduceus lead him away from their sleeping companions and into a quieter chamber, where Fjord tells him what he’s done.
He’s halfway through speaking when he realizes it’s his accent he’s using, not Vandren’s. As though that was just another facet of himself he threw into the kiln.
Everyone else will ask him about this in the morning when he tells them, he knows, but Caduceus doesn’t seem to mind that in some ways he’s a deceiver, and Fjord doesn’t think he could ever thank him enough for that alone. So he thanks him for other things, through Caduceus’s confusion, for his relentless aid and open ears. And of course, the firblog handles the praise with grace. He tells Fjord that even him complimenting him in such a way makes what he does worth it.
Caduceus is not Vandren. Fjord doesn’t need another Vandren. But he does need a guide, because his path, once covered in bright yellow light, has gone dark. He fears that if he wanders for too long, he will be lost again. Something else will crawl from the depths and claim him as their own. Caduceus is not Vandren, but he is a lighthouse on the open sea.
Fjord admits to him that he fears for his place here, among the Nein. He’d never been all that secure in his powers in the first place, certainly not like Beau, not like Caleb, but now without any magic at all he is just a half-orc with a knack for accents and an inability to keep himself out of the clutches of dubious divine powers. His insecurity had taken root long ago, but now that he has people he truly wants to impress, wants to prove himself to, it grows like vines through his ribcage and tightens around his heart. He wanted peace, he’d told Jester, but he hadn’t meant like this.
Without even invoking her name, Caduceus is quick to assure him that the Wildmother has plans for him still. Fjord’s story isn’t over yet, and on the contrary, he is perhaps a greater asset to her--and to all of them--than ever before. Gods wouldn’t fight over a man without a purpose.
The words are mellow and spoken with the kind of assurance only piousness can achieve. And for tonight, they are enough.
Fjord lays down for the second time in as many hours--could he really have altered his entire fate in such a short amount of time? It seems so cruel to have spent so much time pursuing something, only for it to all to be severed in an instant--and tries to clear his head. Tomorrow he’ll show his friends the truth: prove he is powerless, speak in his real tongue, and hope that they are different than all the people he’s known before.
He sleeps at last, and it is dreamless.