By the time the Kicking Horse stagnates and reaches the ocean, the river has lost the ferocity which garnered its name. It has evolved from the violent, crystal clear rapids that crash down from the Icewall and become a wide, meandering channel, heavy and brown with the sediment it has carried with it from the mountains. Where the land meets the ocean, it flattens further and disappears into the expansive Slumbering Marshes.
Thrasher’s Mound is the only habitation within the Marsh, perched upon a small hummock only accessible by barge or canoe via the ever changing waterways. Fully half of the town’s buildings teeter on stilts, neither fully committed to the land or the black waters of the swamp. The people of Thrasher’s Mound choose to live there either because they seek respite from the outside world, require privacy from prying eyes or have simply known nothing else, having been born into the pervasive gloom.
…………………..
Sioned Obrea never knew her Elven father save by seeing the occasional smile of remembrance play across her mother’s face. Her mother and two aunts lived together on a floating barge a small distance from the Mound. There they practiced witchcraft, making their services available to the local people; potions and curatives, readings of the future and midwifery services.
A hot and humid night found Sioned kneeling before a gasping woman in a pool of blood. The mother-to-be was limp and spent after hours trying to deliver her baby, and the last attempt had torn something inside. Any healing would delay the birth and likely kill the child, but further pushing would cause the woman to bleed out too quickly to be saved. Sioned’s family, her coven, had temporarily divided to collect those materials and components which would see them through the coming wet season. Now Sioned was alone to help this woman, at least 6 weeks ahead of her time, and she was not skilled enough to prevent what she saw happening. Sioned kneaded her fists into her bloodied apron, and steeled herself.
She told the woman to push. First she coached in a gentle voice, and then begged, sobbing. Unable to elicit the required effort, Sioned found herself shaking the woman by the shoulders and screaming. In a matter of minutes it was over. The mother had rallied her strength and sacrificed herself for the life of her son. But it had been in vain. The rigors of birth had placed too much strain on the tiny life and it survived for only the barest of moments.
At the end of the wet season, Sioned left Thrasher’s Mound and made her way up-river towards the Icewall. In a village so small, there was no other way to escape the recriminating glances and Sioned needed some space of her own. She eventually found herself in Camlin, a universe away from her home, and found work applying her arcane skills on behalf of those adventurers passing through on their way to the Frostlands.
