The Festival of Worth

==by Lissa Sigeing == In the morning I awoke in Anvil, I awoke at the camp of Sigehold, my home for over a year. I awoke and I knew that I had achieved my childhood ambition, I had a home. I had a name. I had built my home in the lands of Sigehold within the mountains of Skarsind which I had not seen but in my dreams since childhood. Therefore, to mark this achievement I decided I would do something.

I did not know what until the trader passed through our camp sometime after we had eaten breakfast. She sold runes carved upon reindeer horn, and one of them was Naeve, the rune of Ambition. I bought it and hung it upon a cord and wore it proudly around my neck. I had achieved my ambition.

I know what it is to be homeless, I know what it is to want and to need and to desire to return home. I know what it is to regain that home too. We were invited, as we sat in our camp for lunch, to come to the Imperial Orc’s Festival of Worth that night. I wondered what I could bring to the festival, what object of worth had I that the orcs would understand?

In the afternoon I saw an Imperial Orc taunt Wintermark with the Crown. I could see his anger and his pain, I had been homeless too. I chanted with the crowd that the Orcs were the fourth people of Wintermark and I knew it could not be an empty chant. One Nation, Four People. But then the Thanes asked for yet another Sacrifice and I thought my heart would break.

At the festival of worth I gave an Orc my Rune of Ambition to wear, for it was once again my ambition to find a new home for I had given up to him the one I had returned to. It is still my dream to build my home in the lands of Wintermark, and one day I will buy another sign of Naeve, carved upon another reindeer horn, when I have achieved that ambition.