story_kjera_1_1

Hey! Been to the printing house now they've refurbished it?

No, I haven't. What about it?

I went with someone to see yesterday, and it blew my mind.

Everything in there's brand-new, and the sheer amount of space! Nothing like the crappy little place it used to be.

Look, their manager gave me a sample. Look at their print quality now.

Oh, wow, this paper... and the type is so detailed... How did they get this good?!

Right? It pumps me up just knowing whatever we write, they're turning into books!

Really? What a blessing—think how out of date their place used to be. Almost unusable.

You're telling me! And the manager's thrilled too. Says they'll chew right through it no matter how much we ask to print.

Hahaha, we'd better not fall behind then! We don't want to waste printing this good with bad writing.

I'm here! Sorry, the kitchen was a little short-handed this morning.

Gosh, hi there, Kjarr.

You should hear yourself, though. Aren't head maids busy enough? You shouldn't have to go to all this trouble for us, we'll be fine.

Oh, but I should. I went and asked the Saintess for this job—I'd be furious at myself if I was sloppy.

Plus, she has a lot of interest in the Kjerag Guidebook. It's part of how the outside sees our lovely place, you know.

We were saying! Ooh, doesn't it just feel like Kjerag gets a little better every day these days? Our crew can't be falling behind now.

Is there another Tri-Clan Council meeting today?

Yes.

They can't help it. Victoria's position is a major hassle.

My. So we're finally reaping what Enciodes sowed over there.

At this point, it's all we can do to think on our feet.

Oh, Kjarr.

There's something I want us to discuss.

Yes?

I'd like to make an appointment with Her—

Kjarr? Kjarr? Hello, are you in there?

Hm? Oh, I'm fine. Come to mention, where's our dear old Chief of Tourism? He hates even the mention of falling behind.

Huh, true. Kaj's barely ever late.

Is this the Department for Tourism?

Who might you be?

Oh, aren't you Kaj's wife?

Yes, yes! Oh, wonderful, I found the right place.

What's the matter? You look pale.

Could you let me meet the Saintess? It's urgent business.

What happened?

You're Head Maid Kjarr, aren't you, the one always by her side?

Oh, thank Kjeragandr! It's about my spouse, you see.

He's always hated the idea of my son studying abroad, but my son doesn't like to back down either. He's been pulling the tuition fee together all on his own, without my spouse knowing, so he can go still.

I... *sigh* I'm soft at heart. He asked me to hide it from Kaj, and so I did.

Kjeragandr knows how, but Kaj found out anyway. He's off to the station now to catch the boy.

He's a temperamental one, he is, but my boy's no less. If they let this become a full-on fight, I—honestly, I don't know what I'll even do with myself.

Kjarr, could you please ask the Saintess to help us?

She isn't staying atop Mount Karlan today. I'm afraid it'd be too late to find her there, even if I do go.

Wh—Well, now what?!

Oh, it's all my fault! If I could've just stopped Kaj for a second...

Here. I'll go with you.

What?

One of my duties is standing in to split the Saintess's load, you know.

In cases like this, I can deliver some words in the Saintess's name.

Right, right, right, of course. All us townsfolk know how close you and her are, Madam Head Maid. I'm sure whatever you say would reach them.

We'll want to hurry, then. I'd have to guess Kaj's already at the station by now.

Mm. Let's go.

Oh, by Kjeragandr, how do we find Kaj in a station this busy—

I'VE TOLD YOU AND I'VE TOLD YOU AGAIN! You'll have NO thoughts of foreign schooling as long as I live and breathe!

I think he's saved us the search.

Heavens, there's a crowd already! He'll be the laughing stock of the neighbors.

And I'll keep saying it back, I'm going to this school, and that's final.

Genuinely, it's beyond me where you got this malarkey about being 'advanced' into your head.

It <i>would</i> be beyond you. All you care about is your faith—oops, no, I mean, how to work your so-called 'faith' to your own benefit.

YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!

You sneak off to the station without telling your own father, and now the nerve to talk to me like this! Aren't you embarrassed enough?!

What, me? You're the embarrassing one here, Chief Kaj of Tourism!

You horrid little—!

Please, Kjarr! Anything, quick!

(*sigh* The mettle in Enya to handle these issues every single day. Let me leave... Let me go back to she who swore to split the Saintess's load, because I have a nice round slap to give her.)

(I may as well say something or other. Enya can take the rest after that.)

Kjarr?

*sigh* Very well—

So what? If you can't get what you want from Grandpa, you'll settle for making me in your image instead?

YOU SAY THAT ONE MORE TIME!

Do you know where Grandpa is right now?

What?

No, no you don't.

You've never understood him.

I don't understand him? HE doesn't understand ME!

Hmph, keep telling yourself that. I'm not giving my whole life to the mountain weeds and rubble he way he did, but I actually LIKE Grandpa.

I'll go and I'll learn all that advanced stuff, then I'll come back and help him, and once I do, he can polish Kjeragandr's claws that much faster and easier.

I'm not like you, stepping on everything he's left behind, everything everyone before him left behind, just so you can climb on up!

YOU—

Sorry, can I just check who Kaj's father—

His pappsen? Odd man, spends all year up in the mountains hammering away, rarely even comes home.

They were already on awful terms when I married Kaj. I'd like to get along with him, but I've never found the chance.

One time while drunk, Kaj said that apparently, my in-law's under the impression he's doing Kjeragandr's fingernails, and that's why he stays up in the mountains all the time.

...So what does Kaj think?

He... He says he'll never follow his pappsen's example as long as he lives.

Calls him a moron, says he hasn't the first about faith.

Well, then.

Kjarr, where are you going? Didn't you say you'd step in and help?!

I have someone better for the job.

(Mutter) ...At least, maybe.

By one means or another, as they grow, most people of Kjerag come to know the names of the mountains that surround this place we call Kjerag.

For one reason or another, they'll set foot into those mountains for themselves, but always the more well-known ones.

The ones no one talks of... those are seldom intruded, even by locals of the land.

Yet the mountain Kjarr scales now is one of the unnoted—a peak so obscure it was never even named, a height you wouldn't assume anyone dwelt on.

And if anyone else is on this mountain path at this moment, she might frankly be a little surprised.

For a very simple reason. Aside from the peaks Karlan Trade promotes for sightseeing, no mountain's paths could claim to be as smooth as this one's.

—No, even the most tourist-magnet peaks struggle to have paths this pristine.

Yes. Pristine.

The trees are trimmed, the grass seems to grow in its designated place, and there are no loose rocks to be found.

It's practically a garden.

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!

The plateau's hoary winds sweep through the ranges, and on with a brush past her lobes. To her ears, it is the sound of Her laughing.

A touch teasing, a touch mocking, a touch self-defeated, a touch helpless.

Who is She laughing at? None but Herself, of course.

If you want to bring up friends, you're guilty of making some yourself back then.

If you want to bring up relationships, you've never once been able to stop yourself getting involved.

You want to help, yet you tell me I shouldn't lay a finger.

You feel they're wrong, yet you think they should arrive at their own judgments.

Silly you. Can you honestly not tell why she was the one?

Is she so special she'd stand alone for an eon before and after?

Or just, plain and simple, she's done for you what you always wanted?

Kjarr, where are you?

I'm... You'd have no idea even if I told you.

I'll take that. I hear you showed yourself and solved a little issue for me?

Oh, my. Word does get around to you fast, Saintess.

I don't care to hear, but they keep insisting I do anyway.

*sigh*...

Tell me what's on your mind, Saintess.

How are you feeling about my question from before?

What question? Your dinner tonight?

Kjarr, I'm not asking as a joke!

The appointment?

Mm.

Victoria's about to send their people here.

Once they arrive, I want Her not to get involved, no matter what happens.

It's not the time for Her to act yet, is it?

No.

If we can't even make it through this little crisis ourselves, well, I'll just go and dive into Lake Silberneherze.

Good grief. You really put your brother's stubbornness to shame at times, you know.

And thank you very much for saying that.

Will you be back at the Vine-Bead Court tonight?

I'm on my way back now. I have your dinner to make, Saintess—I can't be dilly-dallying.

Just a hunch, but are you in a good mood?

Is it that obvious to you?

After how long we've known each other? Of course.

It's nothing much, just saw nice weather today and went for a little walk.

Good evening.

Mm-hm. Good evening.

Pfft. My, my, silly me.

A laugh like bells takes to the wind, and on with brush after brush past the mountaintops. This time, it's her laughing.

She lingers no longer, and sets off for Mount Karlan.

It's time she got home—there's work waiting for her.