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Monthly Weekend Quest #2


Josie
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On my forums we have a Weekend Quest once a month, and I thought I'd give them a go here! If you complete the weekend quest by about 11 AM my time (GMT + 1) on the 12th, then I'll stick your site's button in my signature (both on here and any other resource sites I'm on) until next month's weekend quest is done with!

 

Your tasks for this weekend are:

  • Describe a mythical beast from Scandinavian lore!
  • Share a post you're proud of!
  • Post a picture of your desktop background!
  • Post 2 riddles!
  • Invent a new candle scent!
  • Link to two songs you heard this week!

 

Reply to this thread, and be sure to include the button BBCode for the site you want me to advertise!

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This is brilliant!  I particularly enjoyed getting lost in the Scandinavian lore for a time. ~

 

  • Describe a mythical beast from Scandinavian lore!

The fossegrim takes the form of a young, handsome man.  He is a remarkably talented fiddler and can be found sitting naked under waterfalls.  There he plays the songs of nature, with sounds of water and wind coming from his fiddle.  It is said that the fossegrim will share his skills in exchange for food offered in secrecy on a Thursday evening: either a white, male goat thrown into a waterfall flowing northwards or smoked mutton stolen from a neighbour four Thursdays in a row.  If there is not enough meat, he will only teach his would-be pupil how to tune the fiddle.  If he is pleased, however, he will draw the person’s fingers over the strings until they bleed, thus passing on his musical gift.  Interesting, Torgeir Augundsson (a renowned fiddler from Norway) was rumoured to have sold his soul in exchange for the fossegrim’s skills.

 

  • Share a post you're proud of!
Quote

Goodbyes were inevitable, whether the partings that followed were mercifully brief or painful in their permanence.  Kvasir had bade farewell to people and places alike on so many occasions that it wasn’t often a casual severance was accompanied by a bitter sting, yet something wrenched painfully inside him to depart from Kophas and Fritz.  Something that felt like guilt and tasted like remorse.  He had stepped forward, hooking his good arm around the younger lad’s neck, tugging him close enough that they were temple to temple.  It was as much of an embrace as he could manage, between his sling-bound arm and Fritz’s lacerated back.  Breaking away, suppressing the shudder that even now stubbornly protested contact, he had offered Kophas his closed fist.  A moment of hesitation, then knuckles rapped against his own.


Sometimes having no voice – or one not worth hearing, at least – was a blessing.

His path took him through streets he had come to know well, the exile walking hurriedly but mindfully, fearful a passer-by would clip his injured elbow.  The closer he got to his destination, the faster and more reckless his gait became, until he turned the last corner and broke into a tentative jog.  Running proved difficult, between his newly re-broken arm and the weariness in his legs.  Weeks, he had been gone for weeks, though surely Rian and Líknví knew that he would never leave them of his own volition.  If he ever failed to return, it would be because he couldn’t.  And the only way he couldn’t would be if he was either imprisoned or dead.  Maker, they must have been eaten up with worry.

His feverish knock on the familiar door went unanswered, Kvasir’s heart sinking to his mud-splattered boots.  Rian wasn’t home, and that meant he wasn’t home.  Not yet.  He wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, until they were reunited.  Luckily, the green-eyed lass had entrusted him with a key – he had been unspeakably touched by that gesture – which was tucked carefully into his right vambrace, having survived the horrors of their incarceration unscathed.  Its usual spot was in his left guard, but that been removed to make way for the cast and was now safely nestled in the bag slung over his good shoulder.  The makeshift backpack was a saddlebag, plucked from Ecru’s wide-eyed and stiff remains as he and Fritz stumbled towards Bree in their desperate bid for freedom.

Teasing the key from its leather confines was an ordeal, Kvasir’s tongue straining in an effort to poke from between his lips as he fumbled with his clumsy, splinted fingers.  Its silver surface glinted tantalisingly and, when at last he had worked it free, it quickly slipped from his shaking hands, seeming to tinkle with laughter as it bounced harmlessly on the ground.  For a long moment Kvasir stared, swallowing down a frustrated and overtired sob.  Hissing through his teeth, he bent to retrieve it.  Stars exploded in front of his eyes when he straightened, forcing him to splay his uninjured hand on Rian’s door and steady himself.  A deep breath later, the key was rattling into the lock.  Then, at last, the door swung open.

Boots were pulled off by catching the heel of one with the toe of the other.  The saddlebag was dumped unceremoniously.  His cloak – still marked with Fritz’s blood, the stains refusing to lift with river water alone – was hung on a hook.  Perhaps it was instinct or sheer force of habit that saw him drift over to the stone cold hearth, as though the memory of flames would be enough to warm him.  Distantly, he considered lighting the fire so he could boil water for tea but for a menial task it seemed arduous to the point of being unconquerable.  Instead Kvasir eyed the bed, tucked into an alcove in the corner furthest from the door.  It beckoned him.  Yet even with his upbringing, with women and children sleeping wherever they were able to find a space, sometimes squished flush together on beds that groaned under their combined weight, it felt like something of a violation to take Rian’s without her knowing.

Peeling back the covers, the exile sat a moment on its edge, debating inwardly with himself.  He was exhausted, and surely Ri wouldn’t mind.  He would rest, but not sleep.  Maybe they could grab a bite to eat together, and then he would go to see his little Dove – just as soon as the colour that had been washed out of his cheeks returned, his complexion made pale when Óin carefully cracked and reset bones that were only just beginning to knit together.  Truthfully, Kvasir didn’t want to worry Líknví needlessly, though he knew from experience that she made an attentive and diligent nurse.  

Just as Rian was the only one made to endure his voice, now she would be the one to weather his suffering.  And not for the first time, Kvasir realised with a pang of regret.  It seemed that blessings and curses could walk hand-in-hand.

At last he lay down, awkwardly tugging up the blanket to cover him.  Although he would sooner lie on his side, it seemed a difficult feat to accomplish, and it was testimony to how safe he felt that he did not hide his face in the crux of his elbow as he normally would.  Blue eyes focused on the ceiling for moments that felt long but were in fact short, before fluttering closed.  As his breathing slowed and grew steady, his uninjured hand shifted upwards, fingers creeping beneath the rim of the woollen hat he wore, searching fruitlessly for hair to bury themselves in.  Even on the cusp of surrendering to slumber, Kvasir sighed.

I won’t sleep.

Kvasir slept.

 

 

  • Post a picture of your desktop background!

Currently rocking this Gravelord Nito as my wallpaper.

 

  • Post 2 riddles!

As a Tolkien fan, I simply have to share two of his:

 

It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.

 

and

 

Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.

 

  • Invent a new candle scent!

Oh man, I would love to see something capture the scent of tres leches cake I bake.  Something with notes of vanilla, rum and condensed milk.  Yum!  Why yes, I like it when my house smells like dessert.

 

  • Link to two songs you heard this week!

Titenic: The JonSong ft. Schmoyoho) and I Hate by Passenger (swear warning)

 

Finally, my code:

 

[url=http://www.thehobbitroleplay.com/][img=http://thehobbitroleplay.com/Themes/default/images/headers/other/aff1.png][/url]
Edited by Ulmo

aff.png affiliate.png

Ever wanted to explore Middle-earth?  Check out these wanted canons.

What about Attack on Titan?  Go here!

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