The Birth of Vali Himmelsson

There is a story told in some of the outlying steadings by midwives to expectant mothers when the seasons turn and the Northern cold brings winds that howl like hungry wights out of the Himmelhorn Mountains. When the worry of birthing an infant in such a harsh time sets the girl to fretting despite the midwife's presence, they stoke the fire, pull up and chair, and tell the story of how Vali Himmelsson was brought into the world.

Vali’s parents were good folk, the epitome of Dornish practicality. When the winter brought starving wolves out of the forests that devoured their livestock, they made the same decision that many of the mountain people had made before. Rather than staying and trying to live off the meager winter stores, Vali’s parents, Arngeir and Inga, decided to strike out for his familiar homestead despite Inga’s state of heavy gravidity. Though her pregnancy was advanced, it was a simple matter to return to Arngeir’s family farms, a journey of little more than a week on foot. After all, they reasoned that if they left there was a chance the baby would die, but if they stayed, there was a certainty that they would all starve before winter was over. They gathered the possessions they needed and set out under a clear sky.

It is said that there are two things no man may rely on: plans made of necessity, and the weather. Never was this more true than the journey of Arngeir and Inga. The skies that had been as clear as Danmier glass turned grey and foul during their third day on the road. The winds blew like vicious daggers, and trees burst in the night, their sap frozen hard. Now, being good Dornish folk, this did not stop Vali’s parents. It did not stop them, but it did slow them, and after the allotted week they were scarcely more than halfway to their destination. Heedless of winter’s hungry maw, they trudged onward, into the beginnings of the worst blizzard anyone in those parts had ever seen.

It was a few hours into the storm that Inga felt the beginning of her birth-pangs, little Vali announcing his arrival despite the inhospitable weather. Arngeir, once a spearsman of the mountain guard, was still cunning in his knowledge of the land and found a cave for them, shallow and cold but offering some shelter from the storm’s chill fury. It was here, after some hours, that Vali Arngeirsson was born, the light of their small fire flickering wetly off of his slick skin, his crib made of the bones of the Himmelhorn Mountains, his swaddling the icy blanket of snow swirling all around them. Arngeir and Inga shielded his body as best they could, holding him near the feeble flames, but both had grown and lived in the mountains all of their lives. They knew, like all who live in Dornheim, that whether the child Vali lived or died depended entirely on his own strength of body and will.

This is usually true, and many children are lost who would have prospered in more temperate climes. Indeed, the shock to young Vali was too much, and, as the minutes passed, the howling winds stole his breath and replaced the heat of his small heart with the cold of the Himmelhorn winter. It is usually true that a child’s life depends entirely on its own merits; however, sometimes this is not the case. Now, as was said, Vali’s parents were good Dornish folk, he a warrior and farmer, she mistress of his homestead. They knew nothing of the mysteries of the world, of the ways of magic and the rivers of energy that flow through the ground they walked upon. These rivers criss and cross, flowing this way and that, and sometimes, just sometimes, they meet. On that intersection, many strange things are known to happen. The little cave that Arngeir had found to shelter his wife and son happened, by the grace of the gods, to be just such a place.

These rivers of energy, the flow of pure magic in the firmament of the world, pulse with their own beat. It was this beat, then, that took the place of Vali’s infant heart the instant it stopped. Fluttering at first, the growing in strength, the magic of the Himmelhorn Mountains took root in his body. Inga, holding her son to her chest with Dornish dignity, noticed it after a moment, this heartbeat that quickened Vali’s body, even without his breathing. Then, just as the gale reached its highest point, there was a flash of bright blue light, winter’s power made manifest, and the infant Vali gasped his first breath.

This breath was no normal inhalation, not the sputtering, mucous laden cough of a newborn. No, this was the inhalation of an old power made incarnate. His eyes open and glittering in the low light, Vali breathed in and in, taking the winds and the snow and the cold majesty of the Himmelhorn Mountains into himself while his parents watched. He breathed in the storm, turning the night around them quiet and as calm as the first day they had set out from their own steading.

With that, Vali slept. Arngeir and Inga, both practical people, accepted that something here had happened outside of their understanding, said a quick prayer of thanks to the gods of the mountain people, and, wrapping Vali as best as they could, set off in the clear cold of the night for Arngeir’s family.