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“Kjarr?”
She turns. The name isn’t hers — at least, not in the sense that she thinks of herself as “Kjarr”. It was a name bestowed upon her in ages past by people who did not understand the weight of its meaning nor the shoulders of the one who would bear it. She has answered to other names throughout time, but right now, to this soft woman asking for her, she is Kjarr. “Saintess?”
Enya frowns slightly as she clutches her heavy cloak around her, limned in flickering gold lamplight as she stands in the open door. The meaning of the frown is a mystery to Kjarr. Maybe the Feline had not expected the honorific — why not, she cannot tell, as it is customary to refer to Kjeragandr’s highest priestess as such. Kjarr does so often. It is only proper. Of course, it may be simple concern, as Enya’s eyes wander over Kjarr’s light gown and bare arms. “Are you not freezing out here like this?” She pulls her furs even more tightly around her, as if feeling the chill she thinks her head maid should be suffering.
Enya can be so difficult to read. There are times when Kjarr is all but certain she knows, that the accusation lingers on the very tip of her tongue. There is a sparkle in Enya’s eyes in these moments, as if the two of them are sharing a clever joke without uttering it aloud. But there is no sparkle now, just the soft silver of a young girl worrying about her servant. If she knew, if she really knew, then she would know that Kjarr has not once been cold in her life. “Fret not, Saintess. I only needed some air. The party has grown rather raucous for my tastes.”
As if to punctuate the statement, laughter erupts from behind Enya. She wrinkles her small nose and steps out into the snow, pulling the door shut. “You’re not drunk, are you?”
“When have you ever known me to be intoxicated?” Kjarr straightens her gown crisply. “I am the very picture of a proper maid, am I not?”
Enya finally smiles, and even in the fresh dark of the street, Kjarr can see every crinkle and crease of her lips and cheeks as the woman strides out to stand beside her. “You are. That said, I thought you might surrender to the celebration a little more than usual. It’s a monumental occasion.”
“It’s just a statue.”
“Of Kjeragandr, Kjarr,” Enya adds, deepening her voice with reverence. Kjarr fails to suppress a snort and Enya chuffs in response. “You’re still insisting that it isn’t an accurate visage.”
“Of course it isn’t. It looks nothing like— Her.”
“You’re rather convinced of that,” Enya replies, her tone now dubious. “And what, praytell, would a maid know of the great Kjeragandr?”
“Head maid,” Kjarr corrects with a huff. “To the Saintess, no less. Besides, does not every soul of Kjerag know the visage of Kjeragandr in the depths of their hearts?”
“It is certain,” Enya nods solemnly, though Kjarr catches a glimpse of those sparkles in her eyes. “Though, ‘every soul’ would naturally include Her sculptors.”
“Did you come out here merely to taunt me, Saintess?”
Enya shakes her head. “Not merely, Kjarr.” The Feline snakes an arm through hers and draws the pair of them close. For a handful of seconds she quietly gazes up at the statue, its horrible un-likeness hidden in shadow and swirling snow, and then she sighs and wiggles herself even deeper into Kjarr’s side. “How do you feel?”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
Kjarr chuckles. “That is quite the question, Enya. Are you sure that’s what you wish to ask of me?”
Enya shifts against her, and Kjarr looks down slightly to find the woman’s eyes fixed on her — no sparkles, no softness, but instead a hard, appraising sort of look, as if Kjarr’s response has been at once unexpected and totally, completely expected. The moment passes, and the Feline’s eyes soften once again. “No, I suppose that’s too broad. I meant current events. This ceremony, the Victorians, the—” She looks away, past the collection of benighted buildings and out over the frozen surface of Lake Silberneherze that she cannot see but nevertheless knows is there. “The world has become so much larger these past few years.”
Kjarr feels a very foreign chill crawl down her spine. It has indeed grown far beyond their tiny circle of mountains.
“It’s my brother’s fault… and it has absolutely nothing to do with him. The world has been hungry to meet Kjerag for a long time, longer than we’ve even known about it.”
A pit forms in Kjarr’s gut. In recent years She’s often wondered if perhaps She’d slept too long, daydreaming away about the lives of Her beloved little people clambering over Her mountainous spine and making homes in the sheltered depths of Her valleys and forests, all while the world grinds and churns around Her, out of Her reach but growing ever closer.
“Are you scared, Kjarr?”
Always.
She won’t say that. Not to anyone. To say it is to invite ruin — upon Herself, upon Enya with her crinkly smile and knowing eye-sparkles, upon the revelers Kjeragi and Victorian alike behind the closed door. But it is nevertheless true. She may not feel the chill of winter, but the icy grip of fear has ever been around Her heart. It is Her people that instill it in Her — not of them, for She could never fear the people who give so much of themselves in Her name. No, it is for them — fear that they might suffer misfortune, that they might starve, that they might fail in the face of cruel winters.
And now a new fear. Fortunes can be reversed, bellies can be filled, and fires can be lit against the cold and the dark. But what can halt the march of the invaders along Her spine? Can Her love stop the coming bullets in mid-air? What miracles could She ever offer Her people to stay this mass execution?
And so the fear remains, poisoning Her heart and faltering Her steps.
A warm hand squeezes hers, melting the ice of her somber reverie. Kjarr blinks, and Enya smiles, smiles as if she has heard the echo of her innermost ruin and somehow — somehow — has a miracle to fix it. “It’s okay, Kjarr.”
“Is it?” When did her voice grow so ragged and hoarse? To hear it would be to think she’d never had a sip of water in her life. She clears her throat and returns to it a semblance of control. “Are you scared, Saintess?”
“Of course I am.” She says it calmly and with such a surety that Kjarr cannot believe they are speaking of the same fear. The Feline looks back out over the lake. “All things are as fragile as fresh ice at the start of winter, and yet we blindly hope it holds beneath our feet as we stomp and blunder our way across it. Even my brother, who prides himself in his craftiness and foresight. Even me.
“More often than not, the ice bears us just as we expect it to, and even when it doesn’t—” Enya grips Kjarr’s hand tightly, as if for dear life. “—there are always those at our side who will reach their hands down to pull us from the freezing waters and light the fire that will restore to us our warmth before we are ready to continue on.”
“And what—” Kjarr stops as a lump rises in her throat. It takes a great amount of effort to swallow it down, and when her voice returns it is muted and treacherous as it betrays the barest edge of the thing She dare not admit. “And what if it is Kjeragandr Herself that falls through the ice instead?”
“Kjerag overflows with ready hands and warm fires, Kjarr. How many does She require?”
Kjarr stares at the Saintess for a great while, long enough that the outer edge of her furs have cooled to match the night air and accumulate a dusting of snow. She releases Enya’s hand and brushes it over the woman’s shoulders, knocking the snow loose in a flutter of white. “I wouldn’t dare to know, Saintess. I’m only a maid.”
“A head maid. To the Saintess, no less.” Enya shakes herself off, sending the light snow swirling all around her as if she is the center of her own tiny blizzard. “Well, you may not be cold out here, but I certainly am. I’m going to return to the party.” Without waiting for a reply, she swirls the cloak from her shoulders and wraps it over Kjarr, tucking it neatly around her. She pats Kjarr’s breast once. “Just in case my head maid was a bit too full of bravado earlier when she said she wasn’t cold.”
“Thank you, Saintess.”
Enya nods and spins, crunching her way back through the snow. The mirth of the party explodes out into the street as she opens the door. Enya gives Kjarr one final look, unreadable in the shadows cast upon her face by the light within, and then the door closes behind her, drowning the world once again in darkness and silence.
Kjarr clutches at the fur trim of the cloak, drawing it closer to her. A cacophony of new smells surrounds her. The earthy scent of skin. The musty aroma of the warm fur. A faint breath of perfume made from the lupin that dot the slopes of Mount Karlan in the summer. Heat and a touch of sweat. The essence of what it is to be people, of what it is to be Enya. She pulls the cloak tighter still, straining the fabric, willing it to become a part of Her, willing Herself to become a part of them.
Kjerag overflows with ready hands and warm fires.
Kjarr laments that she has no faith and no god to beseech, for how she longs to pray to someone, anyone, that such a thing may be so.