Totentanz

Book 2 Chapter XI: Abscheulich

Warning: contains references to death by childbirth, suicide, child abandonment, kidnapping, and child rape. Also contains major character death (again).

ABSCHEULICH
German, "hideous; abominable; horrible"

We are all someone's monster. -- Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

"My name is," the man began, then stopped short and looked mildly uncomfortable. "My mother's name was Vanadel. You can call me that."

"Vanadel is a woman's name," Diarnlan said flatly. An Avallese woman's name, at that. Just what was this man? A half-glacier-sprite like Karandren?

"Well, of course," the man said. He sounded as if he thought she was very stupid. "My mother was a woman."

Diarnlan decided it wasn't worth the effort of trying to make him understand. "A human woman?"

He nodded. "She found her way through one of the rifts in the veil. For over a year she survived on the outskirts of the city, attacking everyone who came too close. My father was sent to stop her. They fought for days before their battle finally ended in a draw. My father brought her back to the city and they were married soon after. I was born a year later."

"Has she never tried to leave?" Diarnlan demanded suspiciously. The idea of a human willingly staying in this place -- and marrying one of these things; if Vanadel Junior was half-human then she didn't even want to imagine how unsettling the full-blooded ones were -- just didn't seem plausible.

Vanadel made a strange motion with his arms that suggested he was trying to shrug but didn't quite know how. "I don't know."

"Have you never asked her?"

"I can't. She died when I was born. My father killed himself after her death." He saw Diarnlan's shocked expression and explained, "It is our custom that a married couple must die together."

And what about their son? Diarnlan thought indignantly. Who do they expect to look after him when his surviving parent re-enacts Sioria and Ghirmar[1]?

She'd encountered some stupid customs in her time, but this one was by far the stupidest.

"I have always wanted to visit my mother's homeland. But my grandparents won't let me go in person until I'm two hundred. Until then I can only look through the veil. And that was how I saw you. It confused me at first, why you kept repeating the same days over and over. So I looked closer and noticed the time-loop. And you saw me."

Diarnlan had read enough atrocious novels to have a horrible suspicion of where this was going. A strange man interested in a woman who was unique for some reason, and whose interest prompted him to kidnap her? It was a premise favoured by many imbeciles who believed they were romance novelists and didn't realise they were much better at writing horror stories.

"If the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with love I will throw this chair at you," she warned him.

Vanadel just looked blank. "Why would I say anything about love?"

"You didn't kidnap me to propose to me or hold me prisoner until I agree to marry you?"

Now he looked appalled. "Certainly not! That's a jǫtnar custom. We don't do it."

This seemed like as good a time as any to ask, "What are you?"

He opened his mouth, coughed awkwardly, and said, "The best approximation in your language is Khaicinae. We have another name in our language, but... well..."