Story recap
After days of forging the new battleaxe at Torbjorn Shatter-Shield’s request, Jastinia left Windhelm to gather wood for its handle. Also, to clear her head after receiving news that reminded her of her mother’s violent death years ago. Wracked by self-doubt and dark memories, the orphaned Imperial made her way to the mining village of Kynesgrove where she camped among the town’s itinerant laborers, reflecting on the path that left dreamers like herself and the workers around her fading away in labor camps like this. A morning roar snapped Jastinia from her reverie. A brown bear, spurred by food or fear, had lumbered to Kynesgrove’s borders. Miners fled in panic, hiding as the animal came closer, screaming for absent guards to save them. Not Jastinia. She knew what she had to do. Armed with her greatsword, determined to prove herself to Eastmarch’s people, she charged the beast and slayed it in single combat.
Unfortunately, her victory celebration was short-lived. After reflecting on lessons from her Argonian mentor Stands-In Shallows, Jastinia realized it had been reckless to rush into battle against this lost, frightened creature. Burdened with guilt, she left Kynesgrove to chop elm for the battleaxe in a forested area to the south, ultimately finding quiet, contemplative peace under Skyrim’s stars and moons. She returned to Windhelm where she planned to finish her axe, present it to Torbjorn, and continue her quest to pass the Stormcloak initiation on Serpentstone Isle.
(continue reading Chapter 5: Battleaxe on the blog)
Series background
Welcome to Jastinia of Windhelm’s legendary edition Ultimate Skyrim/Take Notes playthrough. My name is Anna and I'm blogging her playthrough on my WordPress page, Unearthed Arcanna, but posting all the content here too. Got questions about Jastinia? My modlist? Our roleplaying approach? Check out all the “playthrough links” below for more information about the series.
Playthrough links
- Ultimate Skyrim, other mods, and MCM setup
- Character backstory
- Character creation and build
- Self-imposed roleplaying rules
- Jastinia of Windhelm journal index
- Jastinia’s combat clips
Heartfire, 13th, 4E 201
Sailor’s Rest. Windhelm.
Early evening.
-----
You’d think after all the rent I’ve given the Duskstars they could at least upgrade me to a room with a window. Looking out over sky or harbor, even just watching rats scurrying over ship masts below. Any view would be better than staring straight into the same ashen slats I’ve been staring at for four years. Was it really just a day ago I was lying under the stars, marveling at Skyrim’s moons and their jade veil? But now I’m back. You’d think after so many years of Windhelm life I’d remember what it was like to return to this hole, but the wilderness leaves a deeper impression in a single evening than this city does after years of living in windowless boxes. From the vaulted sewer tunnels, to the cramped Assemblage, to my current closet: many homes over the years but no windows.
Still, living dockside has its advantages. Today that was bathing access; gods, did I need it. But my afternoon wash was different this time. As I dipped beneath the current, I didn’t just flail back to shore seconds after entering. I allowed the White River’s frozen jaws to shut around me, welcomed a frigid vice too arctic for most fish as it clamped on muscles and tried to punch the wind from my body. I expected to sputter and spit but I just floated. Existed. Embracing water that was merely cold, watching clouds of riverborne grime drift away from my body. For the first time since beginning Scouts’s training I was able to breath down to my diaphragm without feeling like every Argonian in the Assemblage had piled all of Torbjorn’s shipments atop my chest. I wasn’t comfortable, I wasn’t warm, and I definitely didn’t have a good time, but as I bobbed in the water I knew I could’ve stayed for longer. Maybe not as long as Captain Lonely-Gale, but probably long enough to satisfy Scouts. And definitely long enough to swim to Serpentstone from shore. Now if only I could get my fingers and toes functioning a little faster after I climb out.
After scampering back to warm blankets, I saw the axe-head still waiting in my trunk. Still incomplete. Just laughing there, mocking me. Say now, it asked, why so glum? Wait, you didn’t think Hermir would sneak up here and finish me, did you? …did you? Um, no comment. And so what if I did? There’s nothing wrong with hoping I’d return to find a battleaxe-shaped parcel waiting on my bed. Better than the welcome-home party I got instead: a grunt from Tabiah when I walked through the inn doors, a fog of charred salmon hanging around my bed when I got upstairs.
Holding the welded iron in my hands, I realized the unfinished head was even less finished than I’d remembered. Unquenched and untreated. Dull and dimpled, caked with iron flakes. Totally unready to receive a handle, much less strike a target. Damnit. I have so much work to do before I can saw and shave the elm, never mind call this thing done. I hope I can finish it. That something bad doesn’t happen, that I don’t shatter it in the oil, have to start over, that Torbjorn…
I stopped myself. Paused, breathed, reined in my racing thoughts.
I don’t have to worry about all that. I won’t let this axe stop me, and I won’t allow this endless second-guessing to sap my confidence. My toughness. Jastinia the Dockwaif: tougher and grittier than even a loaf of Sailor’s Rest bread. Tough and gritty enough to forge this dumb weapon even if it’s a waste of time. Finish its head, finish its handle, and then present the final product to Torbjorn before he and Scouts crush me under any more of their busy-work.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I wonder why Torbjorn wanted me to waste my time on this waste of iron in the first place. What’s the point? Probably some training trick to beef me up from days of hammering iron, push me out of my comfort zone, reinforce the value of hard Nordic work and grim Nordic determination. Blah, blah, blah. Consider the lesson learned and your student graduated. I’m an adult. I’m ready to do something instead of just preparing to do it. And you know what? By the end of the week, either Torbjorn is going to turn me loose or I’m just going to paddle straight to Serpentstone myself. All warriors stand alone, right? Well that’s exactly how I’m going to stand if I have to jump through anymore of his hoops. I’m ready. After years of training, the challenges of the last weeks, and the final steps of this axe, I’m even readier now than I was on Last Seed 31st. And soon, everyone else will know it too.
Heartfire, 14th, 4E 201
Sailor’s Rest. Windhelm.
Early morning.
-----
Last night’s dreams blurred together. Icy wraiths that became wraithlike bears, battleaxe weapons and battleaxe wives. Dying on Serpentstone in frozen teeth or disintegrating into wisps of green light on a Kynesgrove bedroll, surrounded by bearblood and mining dust, anvil sparks and forge smoke. Trapped in the sewer as a smiling Nord butchers mom before Galmar and Ulfric butcher me, all while I’m both living the scenes but also watching them from the audience, an apple pie in one hand and a bowl of mammoth curds in the other. Not distinctive, not logical. Just strained visions leaking out from all my internalized fears, the same doubts I keep hiding and denying even as they deny me the strength I know I have. You can’t do this. You won’t succeed. Whispers in waking and sleeping moments, You’ll lose, You’ll fail, You’ll die. Other words as well. A formless, female whisper at the edge of the churn.
Don’t listen to them, Jastinia. Listen to me.
Thanks, but I’ll reject you too, whoever you are, just as I’ve rejected every whisper before. I don’t need them and they’re all wrong anyway. Despite their insistence, I know I can do this. I know I don’t need to rake myself through the coals of doubt every night and morning like I’ve done every day of every year for most of my life. Just like I know the convictions I journaled about last night have only grown hotter.
It’s been 15 days since I woke up to receive the Argonian’s present and volunteer for Stormcloak service. 15 days since the fateful birthday where I should have fulfilled that fate. Enlisted, met Ulfric’s and Galmar’s challenge, joined this war. The Jarl opened the Stormcloak door to let me in. Me! An Imperial outside, welcomed to an army of Skyrim’s true children, and how did I thank him? How did I show my eagerness to stride through that door into his ranks? Screwing around with axes and training exercises instead of kicking it off its hinges.
16 years before even that. A life where I’ve met every challenge Scouts, Shallows, Torbjorn, and all of Windhelm threw my way. 16 years and now 15 extra days to prove I’m even stronger now than I’ve ever been. Stronger in arm for Torbjorn, in mind for Scouts, and in heart for all my friends. All the doubters can screw off. That means you, Hod and Rolff. You too, whispering nightmares and ghosts of the past. I know what I can do and I’m tired of listening to all of you telling me I can’t. I don’t care how cold the White River or Windhelm is today and tomorrow. I have enough inner fire to melt a blizzard. A blaze to insulate me in the waters, fuel me at the training bag, and heat this axe-head. Watch out, Serpentstone. This inferno is coming for you soon. Very soon.
Heartfire, 14th, 4E 201
White River. Windhelm outskirts.
Early morning.
-----
This morning, like every other morning before, I knelt to offer a prayer to Kynareth. For the energy to suffer through my swim and persevere through the long day. For her wind at my back, her sun on my face. All those same blessings twice over for the friends and family who had given me so much without expectation of return. Silent prayers and hopes I’ve offered every dawn since a curious Breton pilgrim met a wild-haired 11 year-old bounding along Windhelm’s outer roads. “You fly as if on Kynareth’s wings, my child,” he’d said. No, just Scouts making me run his errands, and I’m not supposed to talk to strangers out here anyway. But I still asked about these wings. Liked what I heard. I hadn’t parted from Kynareth since then, even if our relationship always felt a little one-sided.
Not this time, however. For the first time since I first knelt in her name, there was nothing silent about her response. This time, she listened.
After I’d bowed and said my words, lowered my head and made those same appellations I’d offered daily for five years, the wind heightened. Gusting around me, twigs and snow and dirt shifting then whirling as an unnatural warmth settled on my hair. Onto my face, down my body and into me from above, a radiance brighter than any sunrise I’ve felt but still blue and pale as Nature’s morning touch. It raced and quickened, drawing breath as wind pulled inwards towards me as if air rushing through an open door before it expanded. Exploded. Debris and wind and light cascading from where I knelt in an audible boom, a ground-shaking thunder, as something changed. As someone smiled. Brief and gentle, a mere touch as she drifted away just before I could look up and see her face.
I have no more answers or ideas about this now than I did while kneeling in the snow. No clue about why that was the moment where she decided to reach out to a lost girl who had been reaching to her for years. Has Kynareth been the whispering voice of my dreams? Were these the wings that pilgrim saw me riding years ago? Unknowable questions with unknowable answers, and perhaps that’s all they need to be for now.
Since that moment I’ve felt renewed. Restored. Vindicated in my own confidence, basking in my own convictions. Self-assuredness forged within and now tempered by Kynareth’s brilliance even if she only brushed me for a second. I’d thanked the goddess in the past for her aid, whether against the brown bear or just surviving my training sessions, and maybe this time, on the dawn of something greater, she wanted to give me the nudge I needed to race through the Stormcloak door. I won’t let her down.
Heartfire, 14th, 4E 201
War-Anvil’s Forge. Windhelm.
Early evening.
-----
Oengul always jokes that if he had a Septim for every piece of good iron he’s seen novices like me or Hermir crack in the quench, he’d buy Markarth’s silver mines and retire. Liar. First off, he’d never retire. He’ll be sharpening skyforged blades in Sovngarde complaining about their inferior steel. Second, Hermir’s never cracked anything on a quench as long I’ve seen her forging. Me? That’s another story. But a Septim for each of my failures still couldn’t buy Markarth. Maybe Kjeld’s mine in Kynesgrove, but not Reach silver.
Thankfully, Oengul’s proverbial riches didn’t get any richer today. Not from my mistakes at least. Not after I withdrew the white axe-head from the forge, snowfall steaming off the heat-treated chunk as my tongs guided it to the oil. Not after I plunged it under with a hiss. Not as vapor and fire danced from the trough as the metal hardened, tightened, a fist clenching its knuckles to fight all of Skyrim while I pulled it free and the oil dripped away. No cracks. No fissures, folds, or defects. From disconnected hunks of iron to a completed axe-head even Ysgramor might be proud to wield. That any Windhelm blademaster will be proud to inspect after their student presented it.
I caught Oengul peeking, nodding his head. But even as I was just opening my mouth to ask his opinion, he scowled. “Took you long enough,” he said, returning to the wolf-pelt. Hermir’s wink told me all I needed to know. Thanks. Both of you. It’s not done, I still need to finish the handle tomorrow, but I know I did something right this time.
I’ve said it before but I need to say it again. Thank you. To Oengul and Hermir who guided my hands as I finished this axe-head. To Kynareth who guided my spirit from afar until a strange moment today when she decided to finally offer a touch. To all the teachers who guided my growth as I rose from the sewers to something more.
I know I’m not technically done with this battleaxe, and I know there’s still plenty of opportunity for me to screw everything up and waste all my hard-earned Kynesgrove wood. Even so, I feel a sense of completion I haven’t felt in a long time, and I have this axe-head and all its contributors to thank. I’ll continue to honor them by completing its handle before finishing the entire weapon. I know their favor will stay with me at the forge. I know it will keep guiding me in the days beyond as I set out to Serpentstone and claim a destiny that has waited for me since I was born.
Heartfire, 15th, 4E 201
Argonian Assemblage. Windhelm.
Mid evening.
-----
It’d been over a week since I visited the Assemblage, and I knew it was well past time I said hi. I swear my empty pockets and empty belly had nothing to do with it too, even if Shahvee wouldn’t have cared either way. “You look famished, my child,” she said as I walked through the doors. She’d say it even if I’d gorged every cheese curd in Eastmarch. “Sit. Let’s get some meat on those warrior bones.”
Shallows joined me for the cheese and fishfry. Way better than anything I’d be eating elsewhere and way cheaper too. He asked about the final battleaxe. Just a half-day of labor left, I shared. He already wanted to inspect the piece. “Elm, you say? A fine wood. But does the final weapon do it honor?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? Guess we’ll find out if the bit cracks on impact or the shaft splits down a missed seam. But thinking back to the iron head, safely stored in the blacksmith quarters at Oengul’s offer (“so some clumsy girl doesn’t drop it off the docks”), I know it won’t. It might be Windhelm’s ugliest iron, but after I sharpen and polish it up it will also be its sturdiest. Especially its final handle.
I’ve always loved woodworking. Whether my recent bow and its arrows, rudder and mast repairs when I used to help the Argonians, or even the pieces Neetrenaza assigned me when I was just a girl. It’s the texture, the smell, it’s allowing the grain to guide your sandpaper or whittling knife as if you and the wood are still connected to the forest of its birth. Iron is as lifeless now as it has ever been. Inert and inanimate, spawned from holes beneath the earth instead of grown on grassy hills under the sun. Forging combines dead pieces into dead products that could not possibly exist without human hands. But whittling? It merely sculpts and shaves away pieces to create something no different than birds or ants could carve given enough time. Botched metal can be smelted again and again. Ruined wood just returns to nature. And if anyone knows something about ruined wood, it’s me.
I must’ve produced hundreds of ruined, functionless flutes for Neetrenaza those early years. “No, child,” he’d say as he hammered a piece at his table. “See the crack? The curves where it should be straight?” I never did unless he pointed them out: I’m still not confident I understand the intricacies of carving flutes in the ancestral Hist style. “Start over.” I did. A lot. But I eventually got better, good enough that he’d allow me to help him repair the visiting ships. He’ll be just as proud to see the axe’s final handle as Shallows. Perfectly tapered and shaped for its iron encasement even before I pinned and wedged it in tighter.
Finishing my last cheese wedge before heading back to Sailor’s Rest, I couldn’t imagine anything that could put out my fire. Not a hundred ice wraiths or a thousand Windhelm guards jeering at me as I burned through them all. Neither blizzard nor icewater nor even bad fox-meat. But don’t worry because just when I thought I’d melted off all those doubts, cauterized my old wounds, Scouts came to douse all my heat away.
“Once Wargirl finishes her axe, we must resume her training.” Wait, resume my what? More training? There’s nothing to resume. I’ve already finished it. I could swim laps in that river right now if you wanted me to. Just like I ran them around that sluggish bear back in Kynesgrove. And that’s exactly what I told him. Not to be ungrateful or to insult him. Really, I wouldn’t be here without his instruction. I’m just ready to do this. I’ve been ready and Kynareth’s blessing yesterday morning proves it. I’ll finish this axe like Torbjorn asked but then I’m leaving to fulfill Galmar’s quest.
Scouts stayed silent as I kept talking. Proving to him I was prepared for Serpentstone. That I was stronger than I’d ever been, strong enough to vault any hurdles the Stormcloaks put in front of me just like I’d leapt across all his barrels. He didn’t even shake his head to disagree. Just listening. Watching. Until I’d shared every persuasion I could think of, every victory, before it was his turn to do what he does best and push me right into the cold.
“You are writing your story, Wargirl. Be careful that you don’t let the story write you.” Of course he walked away as I just gaped at him. Not that I had any real questions to ask him. Nothing polite, anyway.
Don’t let the story write me? Um, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Actually, I don’t care. I don’t need any more of his cryptic Black Marsh wisdom. I know I could still learn more from him but for now, I have all I need to complete the task that Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak and Galmar Stone-Fist have laid before me. And I’m not going to let Scouts sow those same doubts I’ve worked so hard to burn away. I don’t need his approval or his blessing. I know what I can do. I know I’m going to finish this axe tomorrow and show it to Torbjorn. Show him I’m ready and not just for any more training. Ready for Serpentstone. To swear my Stormcloak oath. To write my own godsdamn story like I’ve been writing it my entire life.
Heartfire, 16th, 4E 201
Marketplace. Windhelm.
Mid afternoon.
-----
Damnit! First Scouts and now Torbjorn too? These two really know how to mess up my mood. “You aren’t ready,” that Nordic oaf said. Bullshit. How much readier can I get? In fact, you’re the one who was supposed to help me get ready so if I’m behind the curve maybe you’re the one who isn’t ready. Or maybe you just don’t want your star student running off to leave you with your awful daughters and worse wife.
I was feeling so good about the battleaxe when I tested it. It’s heavy, definitely the heaviest weapon I’ve ever wielded or swung, but it made me feel strong. Whipping 20 pounds of iron and wood in an arc to decapitate anything unlucky enough to get in the way. Damn strong. I took some practice slashes at the dummy, just to make sure it didn’t fall apart against straw and wood. Even with my tired arms, worn from weeks of nonstop forging and training, I embraced the axe’s strength. Its power. A true Nordic weapon for a true child of Skyrim, and although I’ll always prefer my greatsword, I understand why others have chosen this weapon. Just holding it, wrapping my fists around the leatherbound handle, shouting and exhaling with every blow, I feel like Galmar himself about to lead the Stormcloaks to Solitude’s gates.
Even Oengul the Ornery approved when I showed him the axe. “Not bad.” He held it in his hands, tested its balance, gave his own practice swing that almost lopped off Hermir’s head. “Reminds me of when I first started smithing.” High praise from a man who mostly speaks in grunts. Hermir squeezed my shoulder as I cleaned my workstation. “The Stormcloaks will be lucky to have a real smith in their ranks.” Hah. For making ugly axes and Argonian flutes? But I couldn’t joke off her sincerity no matter how much I wanted to. Thank you. I’ll remember your lessons when I’m out on the battlefield.
But that’s where the praise ended. Right when I walked up behind Torbjorn, glowing with smiles, radiant with Kynareth’s light and my own strength. “So now what? Can I make my daedric claymore yet?”
He turned but didn’t meet my smile. All business, grumpier than even Oengul. Gods, who peed in his flagon? So much for my grand reveal. He grabbed the axe from me, wringing the handle, running the edge along hair on his hand. Raised it high as if to swing and split the city streets in half before handing it back.
“It will do.” ….what? You’ve got to be kidding me. It will do? What kind of horseshit compliment is that after all the heart I’ve poured into this thing. A piece I didn’t even want to make but did anyway because you told me to. But before I could get even more fired up, he really went for the kill. “We’re behind in your training. You’ll leave tomorrow for the south.”
The where? The south? Serpentstone is north, not south. Uh-uh. Nope. No godsdamn way.
He continued “An old friend of mine has agreed to continue your training you in ways I cannot due to my obligations here, and she…” but I’d stopped listening. I was done.
I’m not going south to do shit, let alone more stupid training. If anyone is “behind” right now it’s you, Torbjorn. Behind in teaching me or behind in recognizing what I’ve become and who I’ve grown into. I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to him tell me what to do like everyone had been telling me for most of my life. I was done, I wasn’t going to some stupid mill to listen to some stupid woman, and I wasn’t going to stay silent any longer.
“No.” I interrupted him as he was adding a bunch of errands he needed me to run because he was too lazy to handle them himself. “I’m done training.”
And I thought his earlier scowl was bad. His added headshake was worse. His grimace. Stupid girl, his expression said. Useless girl. “Done training? Girl,” weak, pathetic, craven girl, “you will never be done training. But maybe in a few weeks you might be ready to-“
Whoa there. A “few weeks?” He’s lost his godsdamn mind and I’d lost all my patience for this patronizing bullshit. “I said no. I’ve done all your and Scouts’s stupid drills, I made your stupid axe, and now I’m ready.” For Serpentstone, for the Stormcloaks, for all I’ve been preparing for. “I’ve been ready.”
Torbjorn looked at me like I’d just told him Friga was marrying an Argonian. “You aren’t ready.”
Now I’m ready to smash this handle into your ruddy nose. “I’d beat that wraith right now if you put it in front of me. I don’t need anymore of this kid-crap. I’m not a child anymore. I’m a warrior.” Jastinia the Stormcloak. Jastinia of Windhelm. Wargirl. “I’m ready for this, ready for Serpentstone, and I’m sick of waiting.”
He was silent, like Scouts last night but with a cold anger simmering under his beard instead of just the Argonian’s cold. I’d seen enough brawls at Candlehearth and the Cornerclub to identify his eyes scanning me. Sizing me up. What are you made of, Imperial? Let’s see if you’re half the fighter you think you are. “Alright, ‘warrior.’ Got your chainmail? Your precious greatsword?” Always. Always here, always ready, bundled in my bag just in case I need to prove to milkdrinkers like you what I can do.
“Good. Armor yourself and meet me below,” he gestured to the sewer cover. “30 minutes and if you make me wait while you cry about all this in your little book, I’ll make sure Galmar never allows you into the Stormcloaks.” He stormed off before I could punch him right in his bearded face or chop it off altogether.
That godsdamn piece of motherf… I’ll show him. Give him something to cry about, show him who the real warrior is, not some has-been Nord trapped in his frigid marriage, taking it out on Argonians just trying to scrape a living and the girl who could be their champion. Show him and Scouts and all of them that I’m sick of people holding my hand and protecting me from their own doubts when I’ve eliminated all of mine. I’m armored, I’m armed, and I’m even readier now than I was 30 minutes ago. Ready to dance whatever dance he demands, go down to the sewers and carve up every spider and skeever and mudcrab below. I’m ready for Serpentstone, for anything, and the only thing holding me back is you.
Heartfire, 17th, 4E 201
House Shatter-Shield. Windhelm.
Late morning.
-----
Two weeks ago, I sat in this same spot after journaling about what happened behind the Shatter-Shield doors. Reflecting on my conversation with Tova. Her cold. Her cuts. I didn’t see her yesterday evening or this morning and yet, here I am again. Sitting to reflect. Hurt. In new ways, with purple arms and ribs. Crippling gashes now magically closed but still tender. In the same ways as before, after hearing cold words and harsh truths. But also in new ways. .
I didn’t give a shit about Tova. But I did care about her husband. Trusted Torbjorn. Do I still? I guess so. Maybe. To some extent, because I’m still alive and still have all my limbs attached. But facing him in the sewers like that, feeling him cut me up with my own sword, hearing him mock me, threaten me…
Yeah. It really hurts.
I wasn’t suspicious when we descended into the marketplace sewers and Torbjorn asked for my claymore. “Oh, so now you want my precious sword?”
At the time I couldn’t read his face. Too many shadows from torch sconces, their golden hue flickering off uneven stone. I didn’t realize the significance of the half-smile, eyes staring through me. “Do you know why I asked you to forge the battleaxe?” he asked as he took my blade and strapped the sheath across his back.
So you can bankrupt me on Oengul’s overpriced iron? Blast my arms and shoulders on an anvil so I’m not screwing around in the river with the Argonians? Waste my godsdamn time? But I was sick of playing games with teachers who treated me like a child, so I didn’t bother. “Does it matter?”
He chuckled but like his smile was forced. “I suppose not.” Thin even in the wide tunnels where his boisterous boom should’ve been audible from the surface.
We walked further ahead to a deserted section of the catacombs. A mudcrab scurried in the ankle-deep runoff. Rummaging among the drains, picking scraps with its claws, a cute little fellow, beady-eyed and-
“Kill it.” All the grim severity of his smile and laugh focused into a single command.
I know I said I’d carve up whatever he wanted to but this felt harsher than just a training exercise. Not “defeat it” or “fight it.” Kill it. Take its life and do it because I told you to do it. “Just like that?”
He shook his head, scowling like his wife at their fireplace. “How do you think you’re supposed to kill an ice wraith if you can’t kill this damn crab?”
He wasn’t even looking at me anymore when I agreed. “Fine.” Nodded, helmeted up, and did what I had to do. It’s just a mudcrab. Just a test. I knew he was doing this to assess my moves as much as my mindset and I didn’t disappoint. Clean cuts at the edge of my range. Force the enemy to commit before winning with superior reach. As few slashes as are necessary to end the fight, whether against a legion auxiliary or a hapless crustacean foraging for an early dinner.
I thought he’d praise me for my footwork and form. “Dead enough for you?”
Wrong. “Five blows to kill a mudcrab?” he asked. Weaker and even more useless than I thought. He wouldn’t even look at me as he walked way, as I wanted to sink into the sewers and vanish or sink this axe through his shoulder blades. “Follow me.”
I almost didn’t. I could’ve run off to Serpentstone instead and left him wallowing around in sewers so he knew what it was like for those born less lucky than a Shatter-Shield. But I knew I could still prove myself to him. Receive his blessing, his praise. So I followed instead, through the market sewers under the plaza. Into the underworks, the great cistern beneath the Palace of the Kings. Its braziers still burned, either from my last journey down here or from sewerfolk passing through as they made their way across town.
“Now what?” I asked. “Skeevers this time?” He didn’t smile or laugh. Didn’t even look at me. Just warmed his hands by the central fire. Moved his neck in circles as he curled his fingers, flexed his wrists and arms. “Or maybe you’ll really let me show off and fight something really scary like a slaughterfish.”
“You really think you’re ready for Serpentstone.” His words weren’t a question and that should have been another warning.
Oh, I’m sorry, was I not clear enough earlier? Or are my teachers just so doubtful of their own abilities they have to doubt mine too? “I am ready.”
I just thought he was staying warm as he stretched his legs, limbered up his arms and joints. “Tell me. What is the strongest foe you’ve faced? A dock-rat? A little spider that crawled in your bed?”
Piss off. I was over his attitude and even though I was suspicious about where these words leading, I was tired of them too. “Is that the game we’re playing down here?”
Now he laughed but it was deep. Dangerous. “Of course. It’s still all a game to you. Playing in rivers with lizards, sparring with vermin in gutters. Reading books, writing stories, and battling straw dummies.”
What the hell was wrong with him? But before I asked, he stepped back from the fire. Rolled his shoulders. Cracked his neck. “How many people have you really fought?”
“Plenty. You and Scouts, Rolff and Nilsine, all-“
He spit into the fire. “Child brawls. Play-fighting with wooden toys. Nothing real.”
What are you doing. I said it as he started to stalk. Circle.
“You think it’s all a game of tag with your friends.” Stop it. “But you’ve never crossed iron.” Stop looking at me like that, Stop it! “Never fought something real. So let’s see how ready you are. Let’s see how strong you are when you stand alone.”
No, wait. But his hand was already going to the hilt on his back. My own sword’s hilt, the one he’d taken from me before leaving me alone with this giant, slow axe. Stop, Torbjorn, what are you doing, what are you doing but it was too late.
“Here we go,” he sneered as the sword was out, up, and swinging at me.
I wish the most painful part of the duel was just the edge as it sliced my arm, the fuller as it smashed my nose and knocked me flat. My ribs when he kicked me after cutting me on the ground. Or even his words, sharper than the greatsword or Tova’s tongue. “Gonna cry now?” I don’t know how many times he asked me that. Maybe just once out loud but I heard it with every growl and exertion. Cry, little girl. Cry and run as I try to kill you or stand and fight to face your death like my True Nordic Daughters who you will never be. It could also have been my own stomach roiling as my axe bit Torbjorn’s skin, ribs, impacting whatever armor he had concealed under his robes. Play-fighting with wooden toys one day, iron on flesh the next. All of it was painful and all of it remains painful as I sit here on his doorstep holding my side, magically re-knitted like the rest of my wounds but still raw.
And yet, none of it was worse than that feeling of utter weakness as the teacher I trusted and loved tried to murder me.
I woke the next day, this morning, in the downstairs bed. Uvoo offered me some food. I don’t want your stupid breakfast I told the housekeeper as I collapsed back onto the Shatter-Shield guest mattress and sobbed. Cried it out as I felt the parts of my body the powerful poultice had stitched whole overnight. By the time I made it to the dining table downstairs and accepted Uvoo’s plate, I didn’t have anything left to cry. Just empty failure like the small, empty Imperial wasting Torbjorn’s and Tova’s food.
I eventually made it to Torbjorn’s fireplace. “I’m sorry,” he said before I could say anything myself. Yeah? Just what exactly are you sorry for? Ambushing me? Tricking me? Sinking my own sword into me while I tried to defend myself with a clumsy axe you knew I was too weak to wield? For what you said and how you said it, for all the terror I was filled with then and still feel now knowing you could kill me with that butter knife if you wanted to? Is that what you’re sorry for you piece of shit?
But before I could say any of it, he continued. “I know what I’m about to tell you won’t make you feel any better. I don’t blame you. And yet, it’s important you hear it.” He stirred his mead, but kept his eyes locked on mine. “I needed you to know you weren’t ready.”
Oh, so that’s what this is. Another bullshit test to prove your wife’s point that I’m some Imperial whore-daughter of low birth who can’t tangle with real soldiers? After all I’ve told you, all I’ve shared about myself, you think- “It hurt to show you like this, truly. It still hurts.” He stood and put his hands on my shoulder. “But now you know.” Bear-paws that wielded my own greatsword to cut me to pieces. Strong Nordic hands. Fatherly hands that would’ve held his daughters in this very room when they too were crying.
“You could’ve killed me.”
Those hands squeezed harder. “Never. But it would kill me to lose you, Jastinia, and that’s what would happen if you went to Serpentstone today.”
Part of me wanted to accept his hands and collapse into his chest. Another part wanted to pull the dagger off my belt and ram it into his chin. Or run out the door and hide in the sewers where I belonged.
Instead, I just said a single word. “Sorry.” Sorry I failed you. Sorry I’m so weak.
He squeezed again. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You are strong. And you will become stronger.”
He told me to get rest, recover. Return tomorrow morning. He returned my greatsword but told me to keep the battleaxe too. I’ll be needing it, he said. As I walked away, I sensed neither of us knew if I would really be back tomorrow. And in that realization, we also knew I would. After a bath and a night with myself and Potema. A cry on his steps and more in my bed. Tear-stained journal pages to commemorate a loss that would’ve been my last anywhere else, if Torbjorn hadn’t provided the enchanted medicine to bring me back after showing me how easily I could be taken away. Anyone smarter would would run and hide from this ordeal, a brush with death at the tip of their own sword as they swung around a weapon too heavy for the weak, craven arms that dared to wield it. Abandon this plan before they got killed for real.
But that’s not me. Torbjorn knows it. I know it. I’ve survived this long through this much and I can survive this too. I’ll be back tomorrow. Bruised everywhere I can think of but still back and ready for whatever training Torbjorn has planned. Still sorry for letting him down, him and all my mentors. Sorry I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was.
Commentary
I wrote a longer commentary section in the blogpost itself. To check it out, visit and scroll down: https://unearthedarcanna.wordpress.com/2021/03/24/jastinia-5-battleaxe-09-13-09-17-201/ Most of these thoughts were more about the video creation and staging today's fights, so I won't include them here because it's less story-driven and more game engine material. But sitll some interesting ideas for people doing their own runs!
Thanks for reading! We’re off to Mixwater Mill in the next entries for Jastinia to get all that training she clearly needs. Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed Jastinia’s really bad week more than she did. See you all next time.
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