Despite the blazing heat that blanketed the land, Katja had made the trek through the brown, withered grass to the edge of the tall cliffs she'd seen from the distance. She was panting and overheated when she arrived, her tongue uncomfortably swollen in her mouth from the heat and her body peppered with stinging scratches from the brambles she'd pushed through, but Katja embraced the mild pains. "Gaman ? leiden," she murmured aloud, speaking her family's motto like a benediction upon her own small suffering.
Now, as to why she was there. The search she and her older sister had undertaken for their erstwhile cousin was not going as well as she had hoped. She had thought that upon tracking him to the land he had chosen to run away to, it would be a simple enough matter to find where he chose to make his home, but he was proving elusive. Either he was being unusually clever, he was already dead, or she'd completely mistaken the trail she'd followed. Of the three, she was not so arrogant in her own abilities as to dismiss the last possibility, but she found it hard to believe that the gods would have forsaken her so thoroughly. Could they possibly be helping Jaegar? She had thought her quest to be gods-given... could she have been wrong in that too?
She raised her eyes searchingly to the sky, then lowered them to gaze into the still waters far below her. She had hoped to feel closer to the gods here, to ask Freya what she wanted of her. But she felt no less troubled than before. What sacrifice would be great enough to please the gods? For them to once more favor her quest? Did they simply wish her to stay here longer, and so kept her cousin out of reach? The straight-forward warrior did not often understand the intricate politics of gods - she was no philosopher, and so generally was not much bothered by it - but just now she wished she had some inkling of what they might want of her.
"Siehe, da sehe ich meinen Vater," she whispered to herself, "siehe, da sehe ich meine Mutter und
Meine Br?der und meine Schwestern, siehe, da sehe ich die Linie meiner Leute zur?ck an den Anfang,
Siehe, da Sie haben rufen Sie mich,
Sie bieten mir meinen Platz in den Hallen von Valhalla nehmen unter ihnen ,
Wo deine Feinde wurden besiegt ,
Wo soll der tapfere ewig leben ,
Auch werden wir trauern, aber f?r diejenigen freuen, die den glorreichen Tod gestorben." (German: translation: an old norse prayer "Lo, There do I see my Father
Lo, There do I see my Mother and
My Brothers and my Sisters
Lo, There do I see the line of my people back to the begining
Lo, They do call to me
They bid me take my place among them in the halls of Valhalla
Where thine enemies have been vanquished
Where the brave shall live Forever
Nor shall we mourn but rejoice for those that have died the glorious death.")
She continued to stare into the depths, reflected sky and cliffs in the still waters, but her intent gaze was interrupted by a sound that had her spinning fluidly, her warrior's body at the ready for a possible ambush.
"Speech"
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