kjera

Halfway up, a crisp clanking drifts down from on high. It's fast one moment, slow the next, reverberating through the valley, as if a giant sits in the pass hammering his weapon out.

Kjarr remembers this sound.

When she reaches the summit, so too is the sound's source revealed.

He is no giant, and what he beats is no weapon at all.

He's but a lone, wizened hunchback, chipping a hammer and chisel away at a prominent jut of stone.

The old man, his hammer and chisel, everything comes off dwarfed compared to that stone. Not that he seems to mind. He simply carries on hammering, chiseling.

Phew...

For some reason, Kjarr lets out what feels like a sigh of relief.

And thereafter, she takes a set of spare tools from the side, draws next to the old man, and together with him, begins to chip away at the looming stone.

He asks nothing, and Kjarr says nothing.

The silence is no awkward one, but instead brings on a kind of mutual understanding, one that defies words.

Chisel, then hammer. Chisel, then hammer.

*huff*—

He remains silent, and simply shuffles to the side, where from his rucksack he pulls a swig of water.

After that, he takes out two lovingly parchment-wrapped grain cakes, and hands one of them over to Kjarr.

Kjarr hardly refuses. Taking it, she sits down beside him and digs in.

The old man unwraps the other cake, meanwhile, and begins to devour it in great bites.

What is it you're doing here?

What are you here for, if you don't know?

It looked like fun.

For generations, our family has done but one thing, and that is trim Kjeragandr's Claws for Her.

Claws...? You mean, the fingernails?

He lifts his head, and jabs a finger at those faraway peaks, the loftiest and most endless of them all. Then he points to their neighbors, a run of peaks that seem quite modest in comparison.

Those ranging mountains are Her Back. All those little peaks that bulge up alongside them, those are Her 'Claws'.

Well, isn't Kjeragandr a woman? They're erecting a statue of her on the lake island right now.

That is the human form She takes to reach out to Her people. That, yes, is Kjeragandr.

But these mountains, too, these are Kjeragandr.

My ancestor witnessed it. The scene. There in the black rains was She, and cast forth divine might, and rose a shield to protect the people of Kjerag.

And in the end, She was victorious, but paid a hefty price.

Grateful for Her protection, my ancestor sought to tend to Her Claws.

And so, that became your family tradition.

If word of any of this got out, I worry the entire Vine-Bead Court would trip head over heels to meet you.

I assume you came in my son's place, girl.

Go and tell him. I will not give him what my forebears left behind.

I'm not your son's messenger.

I just feel it's a shame. It seems like neither your son nor your grandson plan to take up your mantle.

...Hammering away in the mountains is all I've known, all my life.

I did assume Kaj would follow after me, just as I did after my pappa, but—before I even realized it, he became this way.

I'm bad at words, and I had no idea what to do, so into the mountains I went to hide.

*sigh*.

If I remember correctly, Kaj turns forty this year.

His childhood was right when the last Silverash head, Olafur, came back from study abroad...

Mmm. You probably remember. That's when they started building these railroad whatever-you-call-its.

Yes.

But you probably didn't know that Olafur brought back more than technologies. He brought ideologies.

His free-thinking brought Kjerag into total dispute around then. And I've no doubts that out of them all, it was the young who were most easily impacted.

I think... it must have struck Kaj deeply.

But his family was generationally bound to tend to Kjeragandr's nails.

I can only imagine he found himself quite trapped.

I can't know what thoughts he had after that, or what actions he took—

But perhaps, by thinking along those lines, you can figure out what made him the way he is now.

Damn me.

No. It's not your fault.

You took on your hammer and chisel from your father, and your father took them on from his father, all the way back to your ancestor—

You've all been devoutly, wholeheartedly doing what you had to do. What mistake was it that you ever made?

You see—

Your grandson says he plans to go and learn a few new things, all so you can better polish Kjeragandr's claws.

...Noah, the boy, always visits me.

But the things, that he gets for me, those communicating terminal sorts of machines, I don't understand them one bit.

Do you truly hate these new things?

I watch as they lay the railroad bit by bit from east to west, and I watch as they build their tall buildings bit by bit ever taller.

If it was true that Kjeragandr didn't like it, She would have but to roll over to shake it all off.

I... trust Kjeragandr.

Well, keep trusting in her, then.

There's one thing I can promise you.

If Kjeragandr does roll over and get up from the mountains one day, then those fingernails you've tended to will be the part of Her that glitters most.

Watching Kjarr depart, her back turned, the old man is hit with a sudden sense of familiarity.

For an age, he sifts through his mind. And finally, he realizes. Her appearance is akin, in ways, to that of the figure passed down by his ancestor in tradition.

The one who walked and saw a land of deep disaster, who walked and saw despair twined with grief, who walked and saw branches bud in the thawing frost, who walked and saw the warming sun. The one who brought hope to Kjerag.

A streak of bewilderment flashes through the old man's clouded eyes.

By Kjeragandr, by Kjeragandr.

He pulls the comms terminal from his grandson out of his pocket.

Though he can't get used to it, he's made an effort to learn, in order to make his grandson happy.

In the terminal are saved two numbers. One is home. One is his grandson's. He calls the latter.

Noah. Yes, it's me.

Kaj is there, isn't he?

Tell him for me, I'll give him what he wants.

But, he must let you go.

Yes, that's alright.

Good. Now, give the terminal to him.

I have to talk to him—

After just a few steps, without knowing why, Kjarr comes to a standstill.

She lifts her head and looks to the mountain range afar. At some point, a strange stone has floated to her side.

My, my, silly you.

Could you imagine saying any of that back in those times?

Kaj's faith, devout yet blind. Noah's drive, zestful yet reckless.

And Dag, that type of human you once appreciated—

How many nights you laid in the mountains' cradle, lulled to sleep by the sound of clinks and clanks.

Silly you. You forgot how to be grateful, and talked Dag's ear off to boot. Now you've done it. Who could like you after this?

Kjarr cups the stone in her hands, her tone as if resentful at the person behind it, yet in some way as if looking in a mirror.

The stone subtly trembles, then begins to sound.

It is her voice.

My, my, silly you.

You still won't admit just how much you've changed, ever since getting to know the girl?

You have friends, now. A berth, now. Wants, now. As naturally as natural comes, you have a standpoint now.

Isn't that the one thing you used to hate most?

Didn't you always hope the Kjerags would go on to live with minds of their own?

Wasn't keeping watch over them all you wanted to do?

Silly you, and this family of Silverashes too, for tormenting you so!

Babbling about hope, blathering about future, making a sorry fool out of you!