Nan and Co-Nan

A tender moment in front of  Polearm Palace.

It shocks me to think it's been so long since Nan passed. She was the grandparent who let me get away with all the things Mom didn't-- which is how it goes, I guess-- but that's not why I miss her. She was tough. She lived through the Depression, so she had to be. She used to save plastic yogurt cups for drinking since it’s what her parents did when they had next to nothing. The family always thought it was weird, but not me. I never had to worry about not having warm clothes, enough to eat or a roof over my head. Yet, as a child, just before I went to sleep, I used to imagine what it might be like to have to live like that. Not because I did anything wrong, but that's just how things were.

Nan lived through her own Hyborian Age. Not unlike a barbarian, she felt the oppression of regional warlords, bartered with traders from foreign lands, and swung a bastard sword like a modern day Louisville Slugger. They called her Dorcas the Dealer of Death, but never to her face. To utter such things in her presence meant your ass. She was a devil or a deliverer of vengeance, depending on who you asked. She had her own moral code-- perhaps one not easily suited for life today-- based on a strong arm and the righting of wrongs, where she defended those who could not defend themselves by making examples of those who would enact cruelty or hardship. I'll never forget the first time I saw her lop a bald man's head from just below the nose. The BLOOD. Always she would throw back her head and shout to the heavens and the gods above:

"By Crom!"

When she got too old to swing the sword, our family petitioned a blacksmith to forge her battle hatchets, but it just wasn't the same. When she could no longer mount her horse and kill for food on her own, the Northern Tribes sent this young man to assist her. He kept her fed, bathed, and sang the Oaths of the Fathers as she dreamed of shearing flesh from bone. I suspect they, too, were lovers. What young warrior-- man or woman-- wouldn't wish to bed the Deathdealer?

After twelve days of mourning, as is custom with her people, he took to horse and vanished into the scrub waste. I have sent for word, by writ and by wire, but contact eludes me. In these days, it would be most comforting to look across the fire and behold his breast swelling with the Song of Dorcas. In the time they were together, him and my nan, I never learned his name. Now, I can't help but feel in her absence, he is lonely. He's not the only one.

May the great gong of Gwahlur shake the hereafter, Dorcas the Dealer of Death.

By Crom.