.

Second Thread Tied

"Come on, Grulli, we won't catch anything more today."

Grulli and her father usually fished with nets, of course, but every seventh day, they would spend some time line-fishing together. Not really to catch any fish, although they did of course, but to spend time together. It had been necessary since mother had died and father had spent so much time coming to grips with his own grief. But they were mending, the small family of two, and Grulli loved him for it.

"Father, is there any chance we'll… well…" She batted her eyelashes at him.

He chortled and said, "Yes, Grulli, we can open the bottle of spiced wine tonight."

Grulli was a bit young to enjoy alcohol, but her father sometimes permitted her small delights, like this one, spending the evening by the fireplace, enjoying a mug of hot spiced wine. The small things could be so wonderful, and Grulli pitied the people who only cared about gold and fame and power. She had all she needed here, with her father and their small cabin at the edge of the village.

With a smile, she tied her fishing rod to the jetty, like her father had done – no one would steal them this far out anyway – and scooped up the basket of crushed ice, two fish tails sticking out of the frozen chunks. They'd have a nice dinner tonight, but the time they'd spent together had been most important.

As she turned to leave, she saw something that looked… out of place.

"Father," she asked, pointing, "is that…?"

Berkku stopped and looked where his daughter was indicating, squinting through the gently falling snow. "Stay here, Grulli," he ordered, sliding his hatchet out of his belt.

Slowly, he moved closer to the strange shape, Grulli looking on in trepidation. What if it was a wild animal? Her father could probably run from the occasional horker, or put down a snow wolf or two, but anything more dangerous than that, and he might never drink spiced wine ever again.

"Father," Grulli called at Berkku's back. "I don't… I have a really bad feeling about this."

Berkku ignored her and advanced, he and his hatchet slowly fading in the thickening snow. Grulli felt her stomach knot, and she began shivering, not from the cold. She really didn't trust this. If something happened to her father, there was no way she'd be able to get help fast enough – after all, they were more than a mile from the village, on an icy shore.

She set her hands to her mouth and shouted, "Father please, come back! Whatever it is, it's not worth taking risks over."

She saw her father being swallowed by the white snowfall and felt her breath become faster and more shallow. She reflexively hugged herself against the shivers, the basket of fish at her feet completely forgotten.

No sound or movement came from the curtain of snow.

"Father?"

What if something had soundlessly pounced on him and was devouring him right now? Her stomach hurt from the tension.

Then he reappeared, plodding through the snow, axe in hand, and Grulli felt herself let out a long, ragged sigh of relief.

"I need your help with this, Grulli," her father said, his face grim. "But I'll need you to be a big girl. Can you handle that?"

Grulli nodded. She was so relieved her father was unharmed that she couldn't imagine feeling fazed by anything at all. "I'm fourteen, father. I am a big girl."

Her father gave a nod and said, "Come on."

She followed her father through the falling snow, in the direction of the shape she'd seen before the snowfall had become heavier. She was no longer worried or nervous, but simply curious. It wasn't dangerous, so what was it?

"It's… not a pretty sight," Berkku warned. "But we can't just ignore it."

Grulli silently acknowledged his warning.

A few more steps and they were close enough to see what it was, and despite her feeling of unassailability, she felt her breath stall in her throat. She had to gasp for air a few times, her mitt on her chest.

It was the first time she'd seen one, and this one was in terrible shape.

She could still recognize that it had been a male human at one point, but apart from that, she could tell very little about the dead body half-washed up on the ice. He lay face down, his arms splayed, his hair in clumps on his skull, some of the skin torn away. The robe he wore had at one time been bright and gaudy, but now the colours had dulled, the limited light only serving to further flatten them. From what she could tell from the exposed skin on its arms and legs, the body hadn't at all rotted, but rather mummified due to the low temperature.

That hadn't deterred the fish and other scavengers, however, and bite and tear marks were everywhere, the skin and muscles at points torn off to expose mottled bone.

"Come on," Berkku grunted, grabbing one of the body's arms and pulling. "I need your help, get the other arm."

Even though she wore mitts, she still grimaced when she took hold of the half-eaten hand, feeling the half-frozen skin slide and crack against the bones, and pulled. The feeling made her shudder, but her father was right, they couldn't just leave this person there, no matter who it had been. The way the body moved, along with some gruesome crunching, made it clear that it had been broken in several places, either from a fall, or simply by the waves smacking it against the rocks.

Still, the body got out of the water on one piece, and Grulli's father turned it over with his boot.

The man's face hadn't fared better than the rest of him, the skin torn away in places, and riddled with bite marks everywhere else. The eyes were gone, one of the eyelids ripped away, the other drooping over an empty socket.

"You alright?" Berkku asked gruffly.

She wasn't, not really, but she still gave a shaky nod.

"Good girl. Strong, like your mother."

Berkku dragged the body back to the fish basket, which had almost completely snowed under. Grulli picked it up, shaking the snow off it, and followed her father as he pulled the body over to the edge of the forest. There, he took his hatchet out again, and began chopping at the ground. Grulli helped where she could, using her knife to further soften the earth, and then a flat piece of tree bark to shovel it out. The snow lessened again.

It was dark by the time they were done, and the cold had started to become unbearable. Only once had her father spoken, to ask her if she was coping with the cold. She was freezing, but had still said it was fine. Berkku had continued chopping, saying this person, whoever it had been, had been left exposed to the elements and the cruelty of the wild for too long. Grulli agreed.

The rolled the body into the pit and shovelled the earth back on top of it.

Grulli took off his fur hat and held it against his chest. Grulli felt equally solemn, but taking her hood down would mean letting her ears freeze off, and she had a feeling that this dead guy didn't exactly expect that of her.

"I don't know who you were," Berkku said hoarsely, still panting from the exertion, "but you can rest now. I hope your life was full and happy, and that your last moments were moments of peace and acceptance."

Silence fell, and Grulli felt she should say something too. In her timid voice, she spoke, "I'm not good at this, but I hope we were able to do some good for you by caring."

She felt her father's arm around her shoulder, and she knew he was proud of her.

"Come on," Berkku said, a warm smile on his face. "He's dead, but we're not. We should praise the Nine that we're still alive and together. Now let's go home, eat our fish and heat you up some wine."