Byna's Blessing

It was winter when she first came to me.

People didn’t go out in winter. Not usually. Usually they’d sleep. But I would always make sure to come back with some game if I went out with Cadace. Usually, I could get something in the summer on my own, but, when winter came, I would go out with Cadace. It was safer that way. He had very sharp senses, my brother. He could find his way in snow. Usually, I wouldn’t be able to.

One day, Cadace came down with a bug, a kind of seasonal bug. I would be hunting alone that week.

They didn’t want to neglect me; I think it was a test. Dressed in thick boots and furs, armed with my blade, I could hunt pretty well in the snow.

A hunting blade had been given to me in the summer of that year, however it had a been a pretty simple tutorial; Mother told me the mechanics of hunting were made up of more complex dictations than your weapon. The more complex dictations began to be digested with my first feed.

Still, I carried my blade with the utmost care; I knew to hold it properly when I was using it, but I usually held it like a sword when I wasn’t (oh, how I longed for a sword!), and could change its position in a second. I encased it in a leather scabbard which I attached to my belt, so it felt secure, and within reaching distance. Its hilt was ivory and I would spend a long time polishing it, and the blade, which was engraved with a wolf on one side and an eagle on the other (these were the sacred animals of my guardian goddess, Byna). Even bloodstained, it was an elegant piece of equipment. I would wipe it on the ground after every hunt, as a sacrifice to Byna.

In my thick boots, I trudged through the snow avidly, and ambushed some animals. Before I knew it, I had one hare and two rabbits. That was more than enough.

Holding the three corpses by the ears, I turned to the path home. A blizzard whipped up, but that would not stop me. I knew my way; often had Cadace and I played here in the summer.
However, the blizzard proved too much for me. I groped in the blinding snow, but I couldn’t find my way. I grumbled to myself. Why did I get stuck? I wanted to go home.

Suddenly, I bumped into a rock. Feeling my way around it, I found a crevice where no wind was blowing and barely any snow had settled.

It had seemed very small, but I fit quite snugly, and decided to stay there with my spoils until the blizzard went off.

Snow stopped swirling a short while after that. Quite soon, the clouds had cleared and the sun was out. I was rather bemused, but took the opportunity to get home, or at least assess how to.

Looking around, I found myself in the same field I’d got my hare and rabbits in.
Confusion clouded my mind. I’d been walking until my feet ached and had advanced what seemed like… three yards. I was small and a little ignorant, but I knew that wasn’t possible.
As I scanned the familiar but somewhat peculiar snowy landscape, I saw a woman, sitting not too far away from me.

Approaching out of curiosity, I was encouraged to come and sit with her.

Doing so, I wondered why she was wearing clothes usually worn for the summer hunt. Also, and that was a little perplexing, she was wearing a garland of golden ivy, which, for some reason, I did not question. She seemed perfectly at ease wearing little clothes, oblivious to the fact she was sitting in a snowy meadow; she wasn’t shivering, and, while her skin was fair, and it was not blue, as it would be in that environment.

“What have you been doing?”

“Hunting,” I said, gesturing to the three corpses.

“Did you wipe your blade?”

“I always do.”

“You live around these parts, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“My son, he recently got… taken. Suffice to say he’s not here any more. I remember you; I saw you being born. How would you like to be my son?”

“I’m not a boy, I… I’m a girl.”

The woman took my hood off. “Oh – of course you are. My mistake. How would you like me as a mother?” I wondered why she didn’t say ‘be my daughter’ instead.

“I already have a mother. Why would I want another?”

The woman was quiet for a while. “I forget how young you are. Do you know who I am?”

Her voice was gentle. I thought. I looked into her eyes. They were deep and brown, like mine, and commanding. Her hair was fair and her face delicate. She was very beautiful, but there was something else about her…

Hunting was one of the noblest sports, I’d been told. This woman shimmered with an air of understated nobility. This woman embodied the sport in itself, for this ‘woman’ was Byna.
My mouth open, I stared. I grew a little scared. I had contradicted the goddess once, and also refused a great honour from her.

Byna’s two sacred animals came into my head: the eagle signified the softness and sleekness of the way she carried herself during the hunt, and the wolf signified the ferocity in the way she hunted the quarry. The quarry was rabbit or hare, sometimes deer, and sometimes the enemy. It was only a fool who would make an enemy of Byna, and it appeared I had been a very big fool indeed.

She sighed. “Now, you say there is no use in two mothers. I see your point. I shall see you again, Latro,” she said to me, and gazed reverently at me.

So I had not angered her? That did not sound like Byna to me.

Slightly stunned, I made my way home. I heard nothing more, except a mournful eagle cry against the twilight silence.

*

Try as I might, I ended up contracting the same bug, and mother had to go out and hunt. More experienced, she went further afield than Cadace and I had ever gone, and somehow got guided into a snowdrift.

Though I had never told anyone about my encounter with the Goddess whilst I was hunting, I had an eerie feeling that Byna had been the one to guide Mother the wrong way. I did not realise how that might have helped her situation until I was older. At the time, I thought to myself, Why has she done this? I used to have a mother, now I have none.