Relentless Inquiry

“Iron?! Iron????”

She let out a low growl, at which he looked up quickly, expecting to see fangs and flews instead of her intent face.

“You make your magic from the rent bones of the earth, torn by violence from her living hearth? How is it that you LIVE?!

I could tell you of making a Honey Rope, gathered from the gift of a hive at the tended garden, heated molten with fire from ground-gathered wood sparked from a lightning struck tree, how it braids itself in the snow as you pour, and melts itself around your Beloved as you cast it round and call out to share the Blessing. I could show you how to borrow the dried grass of voles in their nests, and steep it for fierceness in your tea (leaving of course a lock of your own in its place). You could hold with me the stone and make the Water-Mark for the tide to fill, and bring your seed to be cleansed in the center, to grow Of The Earth and Of the Ocean, and show proper respect for the deluge and the balance. So many things I could share.

But how could these things be done with the Tree-Breaker and Grass-Taker and Earth-Render staring down, mocking us from the ancient form– here a glyph, there a skeg, elsewhere a cauldron. Your shamans will sneer. Our will shudder. Or all that has gone ill in the world, how did the world-breakers trick you into claiming Iron as your own?!”