SYR AND HÖRN: THE SPACE IN BETWEEN
Hörn was always watching the boy.
“I’m sure you remember what you promised me—the consequence should Bell discover your lie. You may not speak to Bell again. Do not even attempt to enter his sight.”
In accordance with her goddess’s order, she observed Bell as he clumsily fought on the grounds of Folkvangr. Either with her own eyes from a high-up window or through the senses of Freya herself.
As a result, she spent more time watching Bell than anyone else, and this was the conclusion she always came to.
“…What a foolish boy.”
The other first-tier adventurers would beat him down and make him sputter blood until he collapsed to the ground with tears in his eyes, but still, he wouldn’t relent. What was he fighting? Was it them, or was it this very world? This world that so thoroughly spurned the idea of a Bell, who was a member of Hestia Familia, and substituted its own? He would struggle, scream, and cry no matter how uncivilized it made him seem.
Hörn could only watch with eyes of scorn. But nor could she tear her eyes away.
“This is your punishment,” she muttered. “You made my goddess suffer. You left her with no other choice.”
This is what you deserve.
For some reason, Hörn couldn’t bring herself to say that. Was this what she had wanted all along? She couldn’t say.
Her attempt on Bell’s life during the Goddess Festival had ended in failure. Her plan to have Bell kill Syr with his own hands was also in tatters, though Hörn wasn’t sure whether to call that a failure or not.
On the one hand, Bell had rejected Freya’s feelings, and that left the goddess unable to go on pretending. It turned Freya into what Hörn wanted all along—a divine, transcendent being fated never to cross paths with lowly mortals.
And yet even that had not been enough to end Freya’s obsession with the boy. If anything, her madness had only grown deeper, taking on the form of something truly abhorrent.
Hörn had escaped execution.
She was prepared to face any fate for her goddess, even death, but Freya had shown mercy. Or perhaps this was too cruel to be called that. The goddess was forcing Hörn to live with her shame.
And live with it she did. Not a second went by without Hörn feeling unbearable guilt for what she’d done to Freya. No matter how much she worked herself to the bone, making good on her commandments, she could never look her goddess in the eye again.
The other chamberlains’ gazes felt different now, too. They didn’t ostracize her or pick on her, but what they did was far worse. Whenever she passed, they would whisper to each other in hushed yet unmistakably piteous tones. Freya had told them exactly what Hörn had done, deepening her torment. Worst of all was Allen, who said to her, “How come you’re still around anyway?”
With all that in mind, Hörn couldn’t help but see the boy as a fellow sinner. Their crimes differed, but she and Bell were both equally despicable.
But just as this strange sympathy conspired to etch a faint smile into Hörn’s lips, she stopped herself.
“What is so joyous about finding common ground with a pauper like you?” she spat. “Ridiculous.”
She peered down once more at the boy, exhausted and lying splayed out on the ground.
And although she didn’t know it yet, the other chamberlains had added a new rumor to their repertoire of hushed gossip.
“Lady Hörn has been speaking to herself more frequently as of late.”
One day, Hörn was to leave the city as Freya to focus on keeping up appearances within the goddess’s miniature world. She was walking through the halls of the home when she suddenly heard whispers from around the corner.
“Erm…Ms. Heith…? Is Ms. Hörn a part of Freya Familia…?”
“Of course she is, Bell. She’s our goddess’s attendant. Surely you haven’t forgotten even that?”
Hörn immediately pressed her back against the wall and ventured a peek around the corner, where she saw Heith and Bell having a chat. Because of the outing, it seemed the boy was spared his usual daily ordeal.
For some reason, hearing her own name out of his mouth had made her jump.
“Why do you ask, Bell?”
“Erm…well, I go to Lady Freya’s chamber every night, but I never seem to see her around. I was just wondering why that is…”
As Hörn strained her ears to eavesdrop on the conversation, her lips took on a slight frown. Hörn had been forbidden to show herself before Bell, but the boy himself was unaware of this command. Bell couldn’t be allowed to realize what had really happened during the Goddess Festival. Hörn knew that. But it seemed that Bell sensed something was amiss regardless.
Now how would Heith handle this delicate situation? Hörn gulped and listened in.
“Oh, well, there’s a reason for that. You see…you once walked in on her getting changed!”
“Whaaat?!”
Pffft?!!
By some miracle, Bell was so shocked by this revelation that he didn’t notice Hörn half-choking to death around the corner.
“Yes, your timing was almost godlike,” Heith went on. “She had just stripped down to her black lace underwear, which she always wears, by the way!”
“B-black lace?!”
“And then, of course, according to an unwritten law of nature, you accidentally tripped and fell face-first into her soft bosom!”
“Did that really happen?!”
“Oh yes. And after shouting at you and teaching you a lesson, Hörn washed herself in holy water, then locked herself away in her room, not even eating or drinking for three days and three nights. She prayed to all the gods and Lady Freya that she would never look at you or even breathe the same air as you ever again!”
“Isn’t that a bit overkill?!”
Of course it is! Because it never happened!!
Hörn was screaming in her mind. She would never do something like that! Okay, maybe she would, but the point was she hadn’t!
Bell asked a few more questions, then staggered away, reeling with the implications. Completely red-faced, Hörn marched over to Heith.
“Heith!”
“Oh, hello there, Hörn!” She wiped her forehead. “Phew, that was a close one, don’t you think? Did you see my quick thinking in action?”
“I saw nothing of the sort!!” the chamberlain yelled, causing Heith to wince. “Is that what you call pulling outrageous lies out of your backside?!”
“I am simply covering for your mistakes, Hörn. Try to be reasonable, won’t you?”
Hörn had half expected to hear some sort of snide remark like, “Well, maybe if someone hadn’t…” but instead the directness of Heith’s answer gave her pause.
Then Heith, realizing this meant Hörn had been listening in on her conversation with Bell, asked a question in return.
“I know all about your special relationship with Lady Freya, but does that mean you’ve inherited her love for Bell as well?”
“Wha—?!”
“I can’t imagine what an honor it must be to have her emotions running through your veins…I’m a little jealous, to be honest, but don’t you think it’s time to put a stop to it?”
Hörn was about to lose it at this blatant misrepresentation when she stopped, noticed herself becoming outraged, and attempted to calm down.
“…What about you then, Heith?” she asked instead. “You seem awfully fond of that boy as of late.”
“Well, that’s because I am.”
“Wha—?!”
Heith ignored Hörn’s flabbergasted reaction and cheerily spoke on.
“Of course, I would never make a move on Lady Freya’s special someone, but even if I weren’t his healer, I wouldn’t mind spending time with him. He’s waaaay more charming and cute than our pigheaded captain and the other boys!”
“Grh…! Have you no shame?! Are you telling me you’ve fallen for the boy’s wiles like everyone else?!”
“I never said anything of the sort! You’re simply jumping to conclusions! It’s not like I said, ‘Oh, Bell. Oh, Bell! I love you, I love you, I love you!!’”
Heith sighed. “All that I am belongs to Lady Freya anyway,” she added.
Though her manners were graceful, the amiable nature of Heith Velvet never failed to shine through. In some ways, she was the polar opposite of Hörn, and even other women could sense her charm.
Her long, pale pink hair was tied up in two bunches, and she looked just like a nurse with her white pinafore worn over a red smock. She possessed the beauty of a goddess if one ignored the deep bags under her eyes from daily overwork, and she was charming and smart and less stubborn than Hörn (though, like most members of her familia, this came with the caveat that she turned uncharacteristically ruthless wherever Freya was concerned).
With her seemingly carefree yet hardworking personality, she would undoubtedly have been very popular and well-liked if she hadn’t been with Freya Familia. Hörn had even heard that adventurers referred to her and Amid of Dian Cecht Familia as the “Two Great (Pretty Girl) Healers,” with Amid often called the “Silver Saint,” and Heith the “Golden Witch.”
It was also only with Heith that Hörn ever spoke in anything less than the most carefully crafted words. She wouldn’t go so far as to call the healer a friend, but they were roughly peers, and perhaps Heith’s winsome personality simply got the better of her.
If Hörn was like ice, then Heith was a lone flower blooming carefree on a hilltop.
She and Lady Syr are both the complete opposite of me.
Was this the kind of woman that captivated that foolish boy? Hörn started to realize she had seen Heith and Bell together a lot…
Hörn was proud to be her lady’s attendant, and she’d never spared much of a thought for the other girls in her familia before, but now, for some reason, she felt slightly envious of them.
“Besides,” said Heith, “do you think you could stop breathing down my neck while I’m trying to have a normal conversation? Don’t think I haven’t seen you staring from the windows whenever we’re in the courtyard. It’s creepy.”
“Wha—?!”
Hörn couldn’t tell whether the girl had read her mind or not, but she was speechless. Not because of Heith’s perceptiveness but because Hörn hadn’t realized it herself until Heith pointed it out.
All Heith had been doing was her duty as a healer, accompanying Bell in Folkvangr, and yet Hörn had been glaring daggers at the two of them.
She couldn’t speak. Heith looked at her for a while, then sighed.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re the one who’s fallen for him, wouldn’t you?”
At that, Hörn went redder than ever before.
The days immediately after that were spent in shame. Because of what Heith had said, Hörn found her thoughts drifting to the boy more and more often. She’d become hyperaware of him, and it was all Heith’s fault.
No—it was Bell’s fault. Though the days went by in a flash, Bell’s spirit showed no signs of breaking while Hörn’s was put through the wringer.
“Caurus Hildr!”
“Ughhh!!”
The sun lit up the western sky, and the white elf’s lightning burned Bell to a crisp.
“Grh…Rrrrghhh!!”
After the light of healing engulfed him, he stood up once more, even as tears rolled down his cheeks. As if he knew that if he fell down here, he would never be able to stand up again.
Hörn, as always, was watching this scene from a window of the mansion when she suddenly placed a hand on her breast.
“…I don’t understand,” she muttered.
The Bell that Hörn saw through her own eyes was uncouth, unrefined, and desperate.
Surprisingly enough, it was a new experience for her. Usually when Hörn watched Bell, it was through the eyes of her goddess, filtered by Freya’s thoughts and feelings. Without that filter, all she felt when she looked at him was a painful longing.
I always thought he was just like me…
He was alone, just like she had been when she went by the name Syr. Spurned by the world, with nobody to validate his existence.
Seeing him trapped here in endless struggle, Hörn thought he must be feeling the same as she once felt—cold and helpless.
But she was wrong.
There was no one he could call a friend in any true sense of the word, but he fought on alone no matter how futile it all seemed.
And he still didn’t know what he was fighting for.
Back in the slums, on that fateful, snowy day, Hörn had taken the goddess’s hand without a second thought.
But Bell…He continued to refuse it even now.
He was strong. Stronger than she’d heard. Stronger than she had ever imagined. Stronger than her. And it hurt.
Hörn was forced to admit that for the first time, she was seeing Bell not through the goddess’s eyes but her own.
“…I don’t like it. I hate it. How could I ever fall in love with a man like that?!”
Hörn screamed at the floor. She tore her gaze from the window and retreated into her solitary room, inhabited only by the evening glow, where she shook her head in denial.
“These are Freya’s feelings! They cannot be my own!”
Nobody agreed or disagreed. There was no one there. But no matter how many times she repeated it like a chant, her own heart did not believe her.
“They’re…not…mine…!!”
If Syr was not Freya.
If Hörn was still Syr.
Would she have been able to love him then?
Would she have been allowed to run out onto the battlefield and protect him from the swords and spears of the einherjar?
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Hörn wanted to break her goddess’s order and end her own life.
In the distance, the thunder rumbled.
The boy cried out in pain once more.
And a single teardrop fell and struck the ground at Hörn’s feet.
After that, the goddess changed, too, as if recognizing the anguish in Hörn’s heart.
“………”
After the boy departed for the night, Freya’s emotions drifted out of her chamber and took root in Hörn’s mind.
At first, she thought she was imagining it. But she wasn’t.
When Bell complimented Freya’s dress and when the goddess silently stared into her wine, Hörn had felt it then as well.
It’s my right eye…
When Hörn first received Freya’s blessing upon her back and obtained the power to change forms, it came with a change to her physical appearance as well.
Her right eye.
Whenever she channeled her goddess, Hörn’s eye transformed from its usual color to a silvery gray, the exact shade varied depending on which way one looked at it.
Hörn thought of it as the price paid by a lowly mortal seeking to imitate a god.
It was through this eye that Hörn, at times, felt the goddess’s feelings. Although she was not using her spell, Vana Seiðr, a piece of Freya remained with her nonetheless.
And so it was that Hörn came to see a part of the goddess that even Freya herself didn’t know—a girl crying and standing all alone in a field of flowers. She didn’t know what to say.
She’s weeping.
She’s suffering.
She’s hurting.
But that means, she…
“What are you doing?”
Hörn had just activated her magic to feel the goddess’s emotions more deeply when a voice broke her out of it.
“…Master Hedin.”
On the other side of the wall, Freya stood in her chamber, holding half of a pair of accessories to her breast.
Hörn ran back to her room, locked the door behind her, and slumped to the ground.
“Was what I did not enough…?” she muttered, shocked speechless. “Even now, the goddess is…”
Her nails dug into her arms. Her body was shaking.
She had to decide.
Would she go on observing, never interfering?
Or would she spit on her goddess’s mercy, feign ignorance, and betray her once more?
She stood at a crossroads.
One path, to go on as Hörn.
The other, to go back to being Syr.
To forget her promise and appear before the boy, just once, as she truly was.
Could she bring herself to accept her own feelings?
“…It couldn’t be more obvious.”
After what seemed like an eternity, Hörn lifted her head. The light of the moon illuminated her features.
“I am Hörn. A child of the gods.”
She smiled.
“My first love is and always will be the goddess. It is that love that brought me this far.”
She smiled through the tears.
“You saved this life, and now, in your hour of need, I offer it once more in your service.”
She chose to be a goddess’s attendant.
She would never choose “Syr” again.
She clasped her hands, closed her eyes, and swore an oath in the moonlight—to give all that she was, her feelings for the boy included, back to who they truly belonged.
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