Valdis Seidkona

Of Dust

• Valdís Seiðkona, the Seid-Woman, is a witch of the North, a discoverer of ancient secrets and old magics. She is respected by warriors and chieftains, as all Norn are deserving of, yet she owes them her allegiance, and is at their service when they require it.
  
  Her home lies atop the lower peaks, shrouded in jagged crags and deep snows, with no steps to guide her visitors. Thus she is rarely approached save for in times of dire circumstance, when sons are ailed beyond the touch of a common healer, or when the winter yields too lean a haul. She is also sought, amongst others, for to witness the funeral processions of the most legendary hunters, when their breath at last stills and their breast no longer stirs.
  
  Garbed plainly, in tunic-dresses and furs to ward away the cold, she appears much like the next Northman's dottir. Her flesh is tough and pale and tattooed, and her hair long and raven-black, the coarse locks braided behind her head. Her eyes are bright and blue, peering from beneath arching brows, and she smells as the inside of her hut, of smoke and aromatic herbs.
  But when she bears the paint of the ghosts that walk the Otherworld, the facade of her apparent normalcy is lifted and she is become the Seiðkona.
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