The Etra Anthology

130th of Gnielm, 336 EA

Citadel of the Athalial League, Athal

Svaljna worked to temper the echoing rush she was feeling, to make sure that the elation that she felt at the course of sveida that had flown through her was masked behind a face of impassive stone. Gods above and below it did feel good though, that release.

She worked harder than she needed to at it. The other members of her party were not focused on her. Her name was drawn across their lips, but it was as though she were not even in this space with them. They were arguing, speaking over one another. They argued amongst each other and against this Mepka, figure of authority as she was.

“How could you possibly think this was a good idea?” Mepka laid into them. “Do you think that guild membership is some formality? That we should just hand out contracts to anyone, like they’re fucking candy?”

“No, of course not-” Snekde’de started, sheepish.

“Of course not.” Mepka repeated with emphasis. “Why? Because they’re dangerous.”

“If it wasn’t dangerous, it wouldn’t have been worth it. That’s the definition of glory.” Broneimir held his chin up indignantly.

“For glory?” Mepka asked incredulously. “You all have people who care about you, right? And you’re going to throw all that away, for glory? You were down the hall from been eaten by a goddamned nothic! The only one of you to show any amount of competence was being actively hollowed out!”

“That’s not fair.” Xochit flared.

Mepka seemed ready to bite back, but instead looked around at the mounting situation. She stopped herself and took a reasoned breath.

“It really is.” She spoke now in an appeal. “If your friend hadn’t had the magic she does, she’d be dead right now.”

Svaljna felt the room’s eyes turn on her.

“What are you talking about?” Xochit tempered, though Svaljna still felt the heat radiating off of her.

“Sval doesn’t have any magic,” Broneimir pressed fingers into his temple. “She’s a fighter.”

“I was fighting.” Svaljna stood suddenly, pursing her lips at Mepka. “I fought the creature off, by strength of arm.”

Mepka, in turn, seemed to really regard her for the first time. Her fingers drummed across her staff, and she took a step back.

“How, though?” Xochit was only incidentally accusatory. “I mean, as deep into the aether as Mepka said you were, you’re barely even a person anymore. Against something that hunts there, lives there if that’s even possible. How could you have, without some sort of magic.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Svaljna growled.

“Snek?” Xochit turned to the erudite kobold. “Is that right?”

“Well, um.” He began to stumble over his words, eyes darting back and forth between Svaljna and the others, “I mean, there’s still a lot left to study about the aether, and this creature itself is new to me, and there’s not- there’s not really a hard stop to-”

“Just answer the question, Snekde’de.” Broneimir pressed him, eye glowing gold with divine weight.

“Sval has some weird connection to the aether!” Snekde’de blurted. He turned to speak only to Svaljna then, fast, a look of instant regret folding across his face. “I’m sorry. I’ve known for a little while now. It’s all over you, divinatorially speaking.”

And then it was out there, and the tightening around Svaljna’s heart cinched. It was happening again.

“Why would you hide that from us?” The way Xochit looked at Svaljna told her everything she needed to know. In those firey eyes she read the echoes of the revulsion she had been shown all her young life over this way of being that she was so entranced by.

“I’m not a liar.” She spoke with dread. “It’s not that simple.”

“Nobody said you were a liar.” Xochit got more frustrated the less was said.

“I’d say that,” Broneimir interjected, “You did lie to us. I mean, what. All those times we were scrapping it out together in basements and sewers, you were holding back? You let yourself get all scarred up? Are you insane? Do you just like the pain, is that it? Who under the gods great sun are you?” 

“You’ve always been the one that keeps to themselves, out of all of us.” Snekde’de agreed with a hurting sort of quiet. “We barely know you, really.”

“You want to know me?” Something snapped inside of Svaljna. “I’m a broken person. I broke myself. Or maybe the world broke me, I don’t know. Ever since I was small, all I ever knew deep down in my core to be true was that to be involved in sveida was to be anathema. To do that, it means you can’t have a place in the world. People would reject you from their halls, you would not be clothed or fed or granted any hospitality, and that you’d deserve it because that part of you had made you disgusting. That’s all I had been told. And then, lo and behold, young Svaljna is touched by the aether. Made sveida, put upon by woman’s magic, and nobody in my village knew about it. They called me hrin before that, effeminate and weak willed. I was taunted and jeered at already, beat. I knew it could get bad. So I hid my stain and then eventually I left, what else could I have done?”

There was a long pause as they processed what she was saying, a whole lifetime of trauma bursting out from beneath the surface.

“I said, what else could I have done?” Svaljna repeated in aggravation.

“You could have told us.” Broneimir was the first to speak up again. “Owned your power.”

“Yeah, Sval.” Xochit wrung her hands, “I know you have these hangups, but you’re not on Dultha anymore. Nobody here is going to call you those things, or hurt you.”

“Your power is really valued here.” Snekde’de added hopefully.

“You think I don’t know that?” Svaljna snapped, eliciting a recoil. “You think I don’t know I’m the one that’s wrong? Always fucking wrong. I came here for a reason, to escape all of that. But it followed me here, because it is a part of me. One of two, always fighting one another. And it takes a lot of work to hold that all in.”

“Then don’t hold it in. Holding it in means that it comes out now, right in time to deal with all of this shit?” Xochit grew frustrated once more, motioning to their surroundings. The failing lights, the toppled equipment. “You could have talked to us about this at any time, and the first we’re hearing about it is now, here?”

“I didn’t tell you, because you all act as children!” Svaljna realized that she was shouting now. “You all come here like life is some fanciful storybook. You think you can break all the rules, and it will get into the league’s good graces. You think that your plans will never go wrong, and that treating me as expendable won’t effect me at all, and that there is no danger lurking around the corner. You’ve just all come from such ease, and I can’t keep up anymore. Pretending to be like that, it’s fucking exhausting.”

The three looked at each other mutely, and Svaljna looked at all of them. Broneimir had his fists balled up, his tattoo starting to flare into a searing light. Xochit had silent tears running down her cheeks. Snekde’de was panicking, head darting around one to the other to the other.

“Come on.” Broneimir gritted out with a commanding presence. “Were leaving. We’ll figure out some other way to get sponsorship.”

And with that, he stormed out of the room and back towards the stairs. Svaljna felt nothing but a release of pressure with him gone.

Snekde’de was the next to go, looking back over his shoulder at Svaljna with a simple crestfallen, “I’m sorry.”

She felt a sudden pang over his leaving, because he was kind and she knew that she had hurt him more than he deserved. It was better though, that he was away from that thing in her that would continue to lash out of him. He deserved better than that.

Xochit was the last, and before she made her away she was sure to get into Svaljna’s face.

“You think that you’re the only one on these gods-forsaken planes that’s suffered.” Her tears had charred away to a look of pure spite. “My home is burning. Get that through your head, you self-centered bitch. My home plane is burning itself to the ground, and you’ve fucked up my shot to get off the ground and help my people. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

When she pushed away and left, she brought all the heat out of the room with her.

Alone with her now, Svaljna suddenly remembered that Mepka was still there. She breathed heavily, giving a sigh of tension. “Well fuck. That was tense.”

She crossed the room from where she had sat briefly to put a hand on Svaljna’s shoulder in an awkward attempt at comfort. 

“It’s not your fault.” She said as Svaljna shrugged the hand off. “I know how you feel, kind of.”

Svaljna narrowed her eyes, reading the intent off the unexpected shift in tone from the Athalial representative and finding only earnestness. “You do?”

“I do. My home was not a kind-” Mepka said, and right as she took her next breath to continue a sudden rending sound tore through the halls. It dissipated, and Mepka instinctually reached for her quarterstaff from where she had left it leaning against the wall.

“What was that?” Svaljna whispered.

“The aetheric net, it’s broken down.” Mepka answered, “Stick with me. Let’s get the hell out of here.”