I have been to several stone circles, and they do feel like special places. but I am not sure I can say anything clever about it.
Anyway, I got inspired today to write a double drabble about a very special Midsummer as celebrated by Ensi, only it turned into a sixtuple-drabble instead. Here it is!
***
Ensi set out on her journey as soon as she felt the nearby trolls retreat from the first rays of the sun.
Nobody saw her leave–most people were fast asleep, resting up before the next nights’ big celebration–but that was for the best: there was no need for anyone to know how frivolous she was being, heading far beyond her usual scouting range for no reason. After all, there was no real reason to visit the northern lehto, not apart from satisfying her curiosity to see a far-off place she’d been hearing about for years. But then, there was no reason to stay in the village, either, not now that she had no family left to celebrate Midsummer with.
She did not blame Veeti for moving to Keuruu, not after the previous year’s tragedies. It did bother her that his letters already spoke of a new wife, but that was probably just because the appeal of marriage continued to elude her. Or because he had referred to the new wife as a new mother for his children, as if people could be replaced that easily.
Ensi missed the children. She’d been looking forward to teaching them about the world, and seeing it anew through their eyes.
At least the forest was there as ever, bringing its usual comfort as she ran through it, and through the longest day of the year.
***
She reached the lehto in good time, and it was just as perfect as she had imagined, full of healthy plant and animal life and of hidden magic. It had only one flaw: the man who had arrived there before her.
Ensi did not want to be rude, so she greeted the man with a nod and stayed out of his way, finding her own spot to rest, away from his firepit. When the sauna was ready, they used it together, in polite silence punctuated only by a couple of prayers to the gods. She could not help feeling his power, so similar to her own.
Once they were finished, he offered her his flask of liquor.
“If I had wanted to drink with people at Midsummer,” she told him, “I would have stayed in my village.”
Still, she took out her own flask, as she’d been planning to, and joined him at the fire. They even spoke, a little, of life in the forest. He came from the north, where winters were both harder and safer, and seemed like a person with sense.
After a while she became aware of the way he looked at her.
She took a long pull from her flask, and thought it through.
The situation was not without appeal: a man she’d never see again, who lived two long days’ journey away would never get weirdly possessive. Or even if he did, well, she’d never know. And he was not bad-looking, and the way they’d moved around each other, in silence but not without understanding, was promising.
There was only one problem: Ensi knew her body well, and so she knew that this was one of the days on which she would normally avoid sex, to avoid complications. On the other hand…
On the other hand, she had been missing Veeti’s kids. This could be a chance to start a family of her own. She was no longer young; she would not get many more such chances. Especially not with a man like this one: a skilled, immune scout, a mage of some power, whom she was unlikely to ever see again.
Ensi set her flask aside, and returned the man’s warm gaze.
***
