Earthly Hands

It slowly comes into view when her horse crests over the final incline of the mountainside. The rocky slope leads her and her steed around a corner tucked away between large boulders and a steep treeline. She’s stopped in her tracks and holds her horse’s reins in one hand, the other pulling the thick woollen scarf away from her face so she can take in fresh air.

This trail has given way to a thick forest of pine trees reaching their spindly trunks up towards a dull grey sky, the first snowfall of the year beginning to drift down past her face as she stands slack-jawed for a moment longer. There’s a part of her that’s convinced it will all vanish the second she looks away for too long, closes her eyes and doesn’t open them quick enough. 

She hasn’t seen the valley in so long, after all. A million footsteps led her right back to where she started. 

The mountains arrive at a collision, walls of black rock etched with crevices as old as time. The land dips downwards to cradle a clearing hidden away among the dark green of the pines and the gnarled surface of the rocks that enclose it, the earth’s hands gently holding steady the remains of what was once a thriving village in the biting wind. She can truly see it all from up here, even the weathered and withering houses that look minuscule from this far away. A river - her river and her family’s river and their families’ river - curves through the clearing just beyond the village itself, a snake with frosted scales that hasn’t fully frozen over yet. Winter’s coated everything in a layer of white by now. She counts her lucky stars that she made it before the whole scene became buried and unrecognizable.

Most of it is already hard enough for her to stomach. She’s trying to knit together the snow-covered landscape of today and the green pastures that once stood in their place, eyebrows furrowing in consideration when the pieces don’t reconnect like she wants them to. It’s a feeling somewhere between shock and longing, and it settles stone-heavy and frantic at the pit of her stomach. Another feeling grips her underneath it as well, a different sort that doesn’t want her to move forward or want to face what her home became.

Her horse snorts impatiently on the other hand - it’s cold, he seems to tell her. They’re both bone-tired, the smell of sweat and wood-smoke has long since tangled itself in the dark coils of her hair. It’s sensible to travel towards the village rather than continue along the mountains, if not for the waves of homesickness that crash over her then for the possibility of shelter before nightfall. 

There’s no smoke curling up from any of the chimneys, however. She keeps a tight grip on her horse’s reins and keeps a keen eye out for any movement other than their own, but there’s nothing in that regard either. The path twists downward, and she can see no new tracks leading in or out of the valley, her horse’s hooves and her own boots the first to leave imprints in the cold mud. 

So, no. Not exactly as she left it. 

Then again, perhaps it just depends on the memories she settles on. Her mind often delves into the softer ones first anyways, childhood lullabies and fresh bread. Someone's hands holding her face. They’re still vibrantly warm in her mind’s eye even after so many years. The village briefly disappears from view when the path curves down into the trees, and she clings to those memories in the temporary shade of the woods. Now that she has begun moving, she finds herself unable to stop. It’s a desperation of sorts. She hasn’t felt this need to travel so urgently in quite a while, but her horse keeps them steady the whole way down opposed to the break-neck pace her own feet wish for. 

Warm memories. Not the cold metal of the sword resting against her hip in its hilt, nor the ache of the leather armour across her shoulders and back. The other memories taste of iron and charcoal, make a sound of roaring embers and the collision of sword against shield whenever she dares to look their way, so she keeps those pressed up against the very back of her thoughts. Those ones burn to the touch in comparison. They will do her no good anymore, she tells herself often. 

Her other hip is heavy with a different burden. She tries not to think about that either, not now, yet the thoughts have a funny way of creeping up regardless. They break through the trees once more and the village comes back into her sight. Its silence welcomes her when she follows what remains of the stone pathways through the fields. What once held crops now sits unused and died out. She can still see the farmers and their plows if she squints hard enough.

Otherwise, things remain quiet and abandoned. Entering the village makes her stomach drop. Not a single sign of anyone living under a single one of these roofs since the day she left, each house bending at odd angles and missing bits and pieces of themselves from years of neglect. No footsteps down here, either. No light in the broken windows, no voices, just warping wood and cracking stone. The well at the village’s centre has been reduced to more of a mound with a large hole in its middle. When the houses around her groan in the howling wind, she feels for them in a way she didn’t as a child. She’s older, that’s it. She would have once scoffed at the elders of the village and their wisdom of creaky joints and greying hair. 

Now, it’s as if she and the valley are the same. Tired. Forgotten.

A silver lining pokes through one way or another. Her house is...somewhat a house, still. It's able to be made out among all the others simply because she knows its location relative to the well, a bit back to the left and closer to the paths that lead out to the river. She hadn't been expecting there to be a roof on it anyways, that had been burned up a long time ago. It does have enough shelter for her to settle and rest up when the night comes though, four walls standing with decent protection from the wind. The stable in the back remains untouched if not overgrown with weeds and tall grass. Suitable. She’s slept in worse before. It’s quick work to sweep away debris, lay down blankets and furs for the night to come, and build up the start of what will later be a nice fire.

Her horse seems content to stay behind in the far warmer stable as she settles him in, brushes the tangles from his mane, and finally relieves him of his saddle after a long day's journey. She is just as content to continue off towards the river alone. Any of the older dirt paths that would have led to the riverbanks have been overtaken, hidden beneath the flow of time. The effort it takes to travel through the tall grass is an excellent way to ground herself in the present. She’ll need that for what is to come.

One hand goes instinctively to her hip at the reminder. Not the sword like it’s done many times before, but to a round bundle wrapped in cloth and rope. She slides down a slight incline and arrives at the water’s edge, pebbles and sand crunching underneath her boots before she finally comes to a halt. The river is only partially frozen over, a winding length of it still flows freely in between the patches of ice beginning to form. 

The small clay pot tied to the belt around her waist rests comfortably in her hands now that it’s unwrapped. She cups it like the earth has cupped her village for so long, takes in the swirled engravings carved deep into its surface and traces them idly with her thumbs. It remains unscratched and smooth unlike the callouses that cover her own fingers and the lighter scar tissue that stands out against the deep brown of her skin. Years of scrapes and cuts hastily tended to. 

Still, the sight of it brings the slightest of smiles across her face. Her wife was the one who shaped it after all, though that had been for far simpler purposes. Collecting spare coins, perhaps. Something pretty and delicate that had sat in their windowsill through the final few months of peace they hadn’t even known would be final. One of the only things salvaged from the rubble.

The ashes laying within it for six years have been shockingly well-protected, to say the least. Her wife deserves nothing less than the best, even in death.

Ah, yes. Those memories pushed away earlier are bleeding back into the forefront of her mind now. They sting worse than the biting chill of the wind here, dig deep under her skin and remind her of just how exhausted she is. 

When the first signs of war had breached into the valley, no one was exactly prepared for it. It had only been some riders on horseback the first time around, fully dressed in battle gear and armed to the teeth who did nothing the first time they arrived beyond circling around the village before going back the way they came. That was that. The next time they came by, it was far more of them. Things blur into a mess of bloodshed and fire beyond that. A lot of fire, ash and steel. The taste of iron in her mouth. Screaming. Her wife lying in a slash of crimson just on their doorstep and the blood won’t stop flowing and-

Deep breaths. 

She forces herself to blink away the dizziness that has suddenly overcome her, instead focusing on the mountains surrounding her as they loom in the distance. She remembers enough, even if she doesn’t want to. It had been simpler - or so it had felt at the time - to pick up a sword and charge after them than it had to sit back and grieve. The deepest of anger had been easier than the darkest of sadness, the restlessness of it all spurring her forward. So far forward in fact, that eventually the way home became an afterthought. Until she felt as if she couldn’t even turn around and head back even if she wanted to. Six long, long years spent with a rage brewing so deeply within her that it blocked out the agony - and most other things along with it.

Something’s changed, though. Like the landscape, like the village, like herself. Wildfires are bound to extinguish themselves eventually, and so did that rage which fuelled her for so long. Puttering out as the war between two selfish kingdoms came to an end that she only witnessed on the outskirts, and then all she found herself left with again was her grief again. A widow, not a mercenary. Tarnished sword at one hip and clay pot at the other, two burdens balancing each other out and slowing her down. Never mattered where she travelled or how many rolling fields she crossed, or cities she walked through, or corpses she walked over as their armour still gleamed in the dying sunlight. So many steps taken forward, yet she doesn’t feel like she’s gotten anywhere different. The world's moved on without her.

In the end, the village finds her one more time, and she is no less shattered than the day she poured ashes into a small pot found on what remained of her windowsill. She knows now that walking a million miles more won’t take her any farther away from the pain. Not if she doesn’t let go first.  

Her grip on the pot tightens ever-so-slightly, as if she’ll feel familiar hands clutch her own in return. The air in her lungs hurts to breathe in, and out, and in...

It was a custom of sorts, to have one’s ashes thrown into the river after death. She and her wife never lingered on the topic of death too long when it seemed so far away at the time. The pot’s tightly-fit seal pops off after some gentle force. The wind beckons her closer to the flow of the river, as if offering to take this weight and hold it instead. Her wife had said she would want nothing more than to be laid to rest in the same place that raised her. Unlike herself, her wife never ran away.

Her hands hesitate. They hover uncertainly with a minuscule shake to them, the pot held out to the cold surrounding the valley but not quite tipped forward. She is nothing if not fearful these days. Somehow the act of forcing her grip to loosen and allowing the ashes to spill past the lip of the pot takes more strength than swinging the heaviest of swords.

They pour downwards in a cascade. The ashes settle onto the river’s surface, swept away within seconds down the current. It's finally done. She takes a deep breath, tilts her head back and closes her eyes to the sky above, chokes down the burning lump forming in her throat. There's still much to do. This is a temporary resting spot for the night in the long run, nothing more. She’s a long way from the next town on her map if the coordinates turn out to be true.

When the morning comes, only the ghost of her presence will remain among all the others.