Hrafn had to admit; the little giggle was, at least, very cute.
The tiny thing walked from one side to the other with such simple happiness that it seemed satisfied merely by existing, and that, by all indications, was making Edvard deeply regret still being alive. The little mandrake used the old man as a walking park, climbing his shoulders, leaping from one side of his head to the other and clinging to the robe with the intimacy of one who already judged itself at home.
Hrafn had not yet decided what to feel about her, he was surprised, sour and satisfied, a strange mix of emotions. Surprised because he had discovered only a few hours earlier that he had slept for an entire week after the battle. He was sour as well, his invaluable grain of light was now little more than a dry and gray pit, without the slightest trace of the megin or the little divinity it once carried, but despite the loss he was satisfied.
Because the cause of the loss seemed to have been that little thing. A mystical creature, rare to the point that not even Edvard knew anything similar, and that one day might perhaps become very powerful. Hrafn knew that better than anyone, the two mandrakes against which he had fought had killed five good warriors, Liv among them and two more during the battle, the other two in the days that followed, consumed by the wounds the forest had left them as a gift.
It was hard to reconcile the tally, hard to look at something so small, so cheerful and so strangely adorable and see there the promise of branches, hatred and violence. Even more so when the little wretch seemed to see him as some kind of father., or mother, Hrafn preferred not to think too much about that part.
But the bond was there and he felt it clearly, it was a thin connection, through which confused impulses escaped from the creature. Not whole thoughts, nothing so human, they were emotions, needs and loose wants without language. Hrafn was beginning to suspect that the life of a voroir consisted in great part, in adapting to a growing quantity of absurdities until all of them began to seem normal.
Soon they came again, a great amount of joy, much curiosity, small doses of wariness, attachment and hunger. Barely had the thought formed in his head and the little thing seemed to feel it. It interrupted its antics on Edvard and ran back to the bed, to the evident relief of the butler, who let out a discreet sigh.
Upon arriving, the creature touched Hrafn's skin, he then felt a small will groping at the entrance of something he did not know how to name, like tiny fingers seeking a door. It was another of those phenomena he understood almost by instinct, and which for that very reason, disturbed him more than they should have.
Hrafn opened the door and the creature drank from his megin with greed, through the bond came joy and delight, then came satiety, and at last, sleep. The little mandrake curled up beside him and fell asleep almost at the same instant, while the wood of its little body creaked from time to time, in something Hrafn thought was the deep breathing of a mandrake.
"My lord," said Edvard, already composed enough to return to being himself. "It does not seem wise to me to allow that creature to take from your essence in that way."
"Come now, Ed," Hrafn replied. "I cannot imagine why." He lied.
He could imagine it very well, could even imagine in quite vivid detail how a mandrake could kill a man. He had already seen branches pierce flesh only to break inside it, grow where they should not and leave behind a slow death. Even so, the grain of light was lost. He suspected that the creature had used the union between the relic's energy and his own megin to complete its birth.
And Hrafn, being as petty as he was, refused to come out of a calamity with less than what he had suffered for it, it remained therefore, to bet on the little mandrake and hope the bond would suffice to keep it under control.
Besides that, she needed a name. "What do you think of Mavis, Ed?"
Edvard looked first at the creature, then at Hrafn. "Mavis?"
"Yes. Mavis." Hrafn laid a hand on the little one. "It seems a good name."
"It seems a name," Edvard answered. He hesitated for an instant before continuing. "But it would be best to choose well, my lord, for names have power. My ignorance does not reach how much, but it reaches enough to understand that they do."
Hrafn let out a brief sound through his nose. "Nanna used to say similar things." He let his eyes pass over the room, over the sleeping creature and over his own miserable state. "Bring me coffee. I will think better awake."
"I am not certain it would be prudent to leave you alone with—"
"Yes, Ed, I imagine."
The butler adjusted the sleeve of the robe, cast one more look of cautious disgust at the mandrake, another at his lord, bowed and left.
Hrafn kept looking at the creature. At first he wanted to dismiss all that importance given to names, it sounded too much like the sort of vague advice superstitious people liked to offer without ever properly explaining, but he had been growing ever more reluctant to ignore Nanna's lessons.
"Thora," he said to himself, trying to see whether the tone in the name would enlighten him. "Like the strong."
The little mandrake stirred and emitted something very close to a no.
Hrafn raised an eyebrow.
"Ingrid? Like the beautiful?"
There came another no.
"Helga?"
No.
"Brynhild?"
No.
"Sif?"
"Eydis?"
"Signy?"
The little one seemed to disapprove of all of them with a surprisingly firm displeasure, and Hrafn was already beginning to run out of ideas when the door opened.
"Your coffee, my lord," announced Edvard, entering with a tray. There was coffee, milk, bread and a meat soup whose smell almost made Hrafn's stomach growl like an ill-mannered animal.
"Very good, Ed," he said.
"Hey, boy."
Another voice crossed the room before the tray even reached the bed. Dagny passed by Edvard without asking leave, crossed her arms and stared at Hrafn with the familiar lack of reverence as always.
"When will you be good to go?"
"Leader Dagny," said Edvard, in a tone much harsher than he usually used. "I ask due respect."
Dagny shot him an ugly look. "I already had respect for a week." Then she spat on the floor. "A week waiting for your boy to come back to life."
Life. The word lit something in Hrafn, he turned his head a little. "What was the girl's name again?" he asked lightly, out of respect for Dagny's loss. "Your apprentice."
The woman watched him with suspicion before answering. "Liv."
At the same instant, the little mandrake woke with a jump, a current of excitement crossed the bond with such intensity that Hrafn almost felt it as his own. Dagny, on the other hand, reacted like one who recognizes a threat even before understanding it, her hand dropping to the short sword at her waist.
"What is that?" she asked, there was hatred in her voice.
The tone was enough to frighten the creature, which shrank and hid behind Hrafn's body.
"I'm still trying to find out," he answered. "But it is harmless."
"As harmless as the other one that killed Liv?"
Dagny still did not understand the whole situation, but understanding was not necessary for the warrior's anger, it was enough to see beside the voroir a creature far too similar to what had made them pay such a high price. The little mandrake, however, seemed more confused than guilty, it was wary, but far from hostile, and when it heard the name again, it brightened.
"Liv," Hrafn repeated, testing it.
The creature hopped, pleased.
"Liv," he continued, now with more certainty. "Like the one who guards. Liv, like life."
The satisfaction that came through the bond was so intense that it overflowed, the little mandrake began to sway from one side to the other, and giggles just like a child's leaked through the room. Neither Edvard nor Dagny needed to share the bond to notice. The thing's joy was far too visible for that.
Dagny kept the sword in her hand for one more moment, and her eyes went from Hrafn to the creature and from the creature to Hrafn, as though calculating the exact weight of each choice. Perhaps she thought of attacking it, of seeking the axe, and perhaps of killing right there that smiling little thing, that little vegetal devil, and accepting afterward the voroir's wrath as part of the price.
In the end, however, she sighed and sheathed the sword. "We need to talk, boy."