He looked at her unimpressed, scoffing a little, and knitting his brown. You are quite demanding, woman. he said, giving her a cold glare. Asking for things you have no right of knowing. he scoffed again, turning his head, but her question got him thinking again. What was it that she had seen?
He remembered when he had first heard the word. He was three years old and sitting on his mother's lap, pouting, because she wouldn't let him play with older boys. They were creating a make-believe battlefield in the garden of whichever friend his mother has been visiting that day, and he had wanted to play with them so bad, but his mother said it was too dangerous, so he sat, pouting, as he heard the scream 'Run!' The real soldiers were in town.
She could be asking about that. It was the sort of thing somebody like her could be worried about. They got away alright though, the friend's house being at the very edge of the town. They escaped into the forest, a whole bunch of them, women and kids, reaching their village at nightfall and...
The kids. It had not been a friend's house his mother was visiting, but her sister's family. And that got him thinking about another memory. A world covered with white...
Ah, that. he said almost absently, flicking his hand through the air, still annoyed, the dagger picking up on his mood and turning into a shortsword. It was nothing. They were just...someone. Or, more precise, someone's wife and children. He had wanted them gone, and I wanted him gone, he killed three of my best men... They just happened to be helped, that's all. he said, still glaring daggers at her as he played with the sword.
Of course, there was a bit more to the story, as he had found out some twenty years after the snow field world, when what was then a little bundle in his mother's arm tried to join his men. He had found out, through his stories, that they had been a distant descendants of the very sister his mother had been visiting that they (which, at that point, has been almost a century ago). The boy died 40 years later, leaving behind 7 sons and twice as much grandsons, none of them ever finding out that they have been connected. Einar took care of all of his men, as long as they allowed him.
Which, of course, the girl needn't know, as well as neither of that other stuff.
Humpf. he snarked the short sword turning into a long one.
