Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter XXVII - Heida

Tonight would be the first immersion of darkness they would have since summer had fully taken root, finally heralding the season's incipient decline. She could almost feel the shadows lengthening beyond that which had so long been denied them. Last night's twilight had fallen almost imperceptibly, but this eventide was already far duskier than its predecessor. 

There was already a chilling piquancy in the air.

Reaching down towards her feet, she plucked at a silvery dandelion ball wedged amidst the long grass, and blew at it gently. The white, tufted seedlings sailed instantly along the wind towards the blackening horizon.

The towering bank of clouds in the west seemed to reach towards the sky's zenith, further blotting out the heavens with its sooty mantle, where the stars were already blinking into view. There was no array of reds, golds, blues, and violets that banded across the sky this evening as ought to have accompanied the sun's disappearance. Just a wall of clouds and encroaching nightfall.

When Heida turned to leave the cattle where they were resting, she was met with empty silence, Brenna and the others having by now returned to the house no doubt. But as she approached the longhouse, Epona rushed out, furiously searching the grounds at Heida's back. When she discovered the hushed environs to be as vacant, save for the birds and livestock, as Heida herself had found them, her ire soon evaporated and dread discharged itself across her features.

"Where is Brenna, lass?" She grabbed hold of Heida's arms with whitened fingers, dark eyes angled up to Heida's face.

"I thought she had retired." Heida patted Epona's hand placatingly, silently rolling her eyes at the woman's propensity to obsess over her only child. She was a tenacious cynic who pestered and scolded her daughter incessantly and needlessly. "Perhaps she is with Renic."

However, this thought nowise becalmed her. She became, conversely, all the more agitated. "Considering that he and his demoniac brother too are absent," was her pithy response, "I cannot claim any relief from that possibility."

"And Aila? Where is she?" Usually their chief was the only one capable of assuaging Epona.

Epona bit her lip and crossed her arms over her chest. "I never know where she disappears to of a nighttime." The falsehood slipped easily from her lips and her one eye twitched perceptibly.

What are you not telling me?! Where could Aila be? But Epona was a closed-mouth beldame of few words, and it was therefore useless to pry. The trees would talk long before Epona did. Very few people, save those that lived here, took the time to converse with her longer than was necessary. She was a frightening woman. Aila had told her that Epona had once been very pretty and her features not so twisted with acerbity and bile as it was now. 

Poor Brenna. "Let me search the woodland nearby," Heida offered, eager to mollify Epona and perhaps save her friend the trouble of being discovered by her overwrought mother. "I believe I know where to look."

Epona looked up at her hopefully. "You're a good girl, Heida. Thank you." She availed herself of another apprehensive look around before adding, "But do not tarry long; this is not the night to be out alone." She pointed up into the firmament at Heida's back.

Heida glanced around to see the moon rising full and heavy over the horizon. "Tis just Máni."

Epona's jaw tightened when she faced her again. "No," said she. "It is so much more than that. Go and find my daughter and get home immediately."

By Frigg, but the woman is confounding. Heida nevertheless nodded obediently and hurried off towards the jagged tree-line of conifers. In this light she thought they resembled teeth jutting out from the earth. The color was nearly gone from the forest. Only the moon illuminated their muted, crimson spires.