A Sad Morning in the Day of the Life of a Lonely Lumberjack

A Story by SpookyMint

I saw some pictures of a lumberjack who was sad because he lost his wife - presumably. So he carved female figures into trees. I wanted to flesh out his story.

The sun shone in the Valley of Morning Light when Herkule had stirred in his slumber. Amber sunlight poured through a hole in his wall, illuminating the dust in the air, where it fell upon his face. This was planned. He had every reason to fix that hole, he hated being woken up by the sun, it let the cold in and the warmth out, and it was large enough to peer in through. “No,” he told himself every time he thought to fill it, “a dim house in the morning would be too miserable. Let the rays shine.” Eventually, the behemoth of a man sat upright and stretched his enormous arms into the air, unleashing a grizzly gasp. The floorboards creaked with every step as he sauntered toward the door. There he donned his bear-fur coat, boots and hat before wandering out to the frigid landscape, away from his village. The icy breeze stung his face like a swarm of wasps. He paused in the door frame, firmly grasping the handle. He let out a pained sigh, closed the door and began walking.

It took 10 footfalls in the freshly fallen snow for Herkule to realize that his hands were bare. He was wearing gloves, he felt uncomfortably incomplete. His left hand was without his axe, and his right without his love. He needed his felling axe, and his village needed wood. Retrieving his axe would prove incredibly menial for Herkule, if only his heart not been in his shoes.

He stopped dead in his path, and his gaze grew grim. He looked down, around, and after careful consideration, Herkule turned back to face his cottage. There it was, leaning against the outside door frame. He approached his abode. Herkule reached to grab his axe, but the moment his fingertips met the frozen haft, his face grew numb. His sight grew narrow. His breaths grew shallow and quick. He fell to the tundra beneath him. Herkule managed to bring his right hand before his face, which was trembling with unparalleled grief.

“Never again?”

Herkule thought to himself as his tears stained the comforting snow beneath him. Never again would she smile at him and squeeze his hand three times to tell him she loved him. Never again would her delicate and fragile skin meet his rough, calloused hide. Never again would he see the face of his beloved Hirta.

“Never again…”

His hand closed to a fist, and he placed it on his heart, covered with his left. His breathing was returning to normal. His tears had receded. His face once more had feeling. Herkule sat up, breathed in the morning’s chill, and stood somberly, axe in hand and sighed once more.

He was behind schedule.

“Where is Herkule?!” A thunderous bellow echoed from the center of the village, “We need to light the furnace!!”

Bjerg was the master blacksmith of their village. His face was like a slab of marble; stiff and stern, yet somehow managed to display his dismay. Though his hands were some of the strongest this village had ever seen, he knew that today, strength was not what his family needed. He knew why no trees had been felled ..." why no wood had been brought to the village. In silent anguish, Bjerg wept a single tear for his little brother. He feared that today would have difficult for Herkule. After all, today was the day nobody was looking forward to..." a day without a lumberjack.

It had been one year since Herkule’s love, Hirta, had died. He was decimated.

“Veldt!”

Bjerg hailed the village’s courier over with an oar-sized palm in the air. Veldt the postman quickly shuffled his way into conversation distance with Bjerg, as the monolithic craftsman gently requested a favor. “…could you check on Herkule? I’m worried”
“Yeah, Bjerg, I’m a busy man.” He quipped, nose deep in his address books. “I’m not free, either.” He held out an open palm.
Bjerg stood and crossed his brawny arms. His wide brow tightened, and he stared at mouse-sized messenger.

Veldt’s eyes glanced up to see a very angry mountain peering into the pit of his soul. Veldt nervously cleared his throat and had difficulty saying: “W-w-well I’ll only have a short while, so just pleasantries. A quick hello and a hasty goodbye.” He chuckled nervously eyeing his log. “So…I didn’t see any wood in the terrace, is Herkule ok?”
Bjerg stopped a whetstone halfway across the blade of an axe without averting his gaze.
“That brother of yours can be so laaaaa…“ the courier’s voice trailed off as he slowly looked up in self-disgust when he realized what he was saying. “My sincerest apologies Bjerg…I hadn’t…Of course I’ll go pay him a visit.” And he was off.
Bjerg sighed and placed the axe onto a weapon rack. He snorted and spat in the snow before heading back inside.

Veldt had forgotten (and quickly remembered) that today was the one day he probably shouldn’t poke fun at Herkule.

‘I am unable to face this day’ Herkule thought as he heaved his axe, felling a tree in a single blow. ‘I don’t deserve what I have' Another tillwood hit the pile, Herkule kept his pace high and his spirits low. He didn’t have time to worry about his feelings. He had done too much of that already today, and look where that had gotten him. ‘I should have been there…she needed me…” Herkule’s tears froze the instant they began to fall. He recalled only what he could from that day. He remembered only fragments. He remembered sprinting from the village to where it had happened. He felt his hands freeze as he clawed through the snow in search of his wife. He had to get to the bottom of the avalanche, he could still save her, if he could just find her…

His soul was frozen. He wanted this pain to stop. Living without his love seemed to be better than not living at all. But to lose her in such an unfortunate and horrible way.

Hirta was a rare parturition. A pale-skinned, ivory-haired, scarlet-eyed maiden. All her life, she had been avoided. Shunned. Unwanted. Even in her final moments, she was alone. After she had reached adulthood she was excommunicated, and she took up living a nomadic lifestyle. Hirta traveled far, far away from her place of birth where she knew she would never return. She had been nothing short of an amazing feat of survival.

-

Accustomed to this disdain, she was prepared to live a life of solitude. She was short on words, but not by choice. She was born without the ability to speak. Preferring to stay out of sight during the day, often taking shelter in a cave if any inn would not have her ..." most would not. She went out to gather fruit and small game with the help of her owl at night. The taste of squirrel meat and elderberries was enough to fuel her travels for hundreds of kilometers, and for hundreds of moons. She had to travel light. Her clothes were made of deer hide and were lined with squirrel pelts she had bleached in the sun.

Hirta's owl companion Verr sat on a perch stemming from the right shoulder of her tunic. She carried two canteens, a dirk hidden in the folds of her cloak, and the pouch of moonstones she had “borrowed” from her family prior to her expulsion. Assisted by her staff, Hirta had set her sights on Lidvist, "The Village Where Everyone Is Your Friend!". She had her doubts that the village was not nearly as friendly as everyone claimed, but there really was only one way for her to find out. She had to take the chance. She had walked for nearly half a decade, and every hill felt steeper and taller than the last. As she ascended the final hill outside the village, she could hear a happy fanfare echoing through the foothills. She smelled the roasting meat, and could hear people shouting and revelling. At last, she saw it in the distance. "The Village Where Everyone Is Your Friend". Lidvist.

Herkule delicately grasped the faintly-glowing locket around his neck and cast a sullen gaze at the ground. Some leaves rustled in the distance. Something was here. ‘What is that?’ he thought without moving his eyes. Had he unwittingly become prey to a hungry predator? If he died here, what would become of the wood? What about Bjerg? Herkule knew he may have to defend himself here, but was it worth it?

“Hey there! Herk?!” Veldt uncovered his mouth from his scarf as he approached Herkule, who remained motionless and entranced in thought. Veldt, confused by the lack of a response approached him. “How are you fee- GOOD GODS Above! You look terrible...”
Veldt stared at Herkule with a mix of confusion, surprise and relief. Herkule, like his older brother, was a very large man. A follicular forest, twice as thick as the Restless Woods grew from Herkule’s chin. He had arms of iron from a life of lumberjacking. Thick skin, used to the abuse of the discordant blizzards of northern Heillgard. The two simultaneously snapped from their stupor when they realized that they were staring at each other, mouths agape, like two marble cherubs on a fountain. Herkule, back arched downward, blinked rapidly and straightened up when he came to. It was uncommon for someone besides him to be so far away from the village so early in the day.

“Oh…hello Veldt. Good Morning.” Herkule sat himself on a stump. He rubbed his face and spoke nervously. “I uhhhh-”
“Hey.”

Time nearly froze. As fast as Veldt had gotten to Herkule, he had interrupted him. A pause that felt endless meandered in the breeze. A breeze came and shook the leaves all around the two men.

“You don’t need to worry about anything Herkule. You have a, uh…very, very good reason to have not…erm…”

“You don’t have to cheer me up, Hermes. I can get this to the village without any help. I’m only behind by a little bit.”

Herkule rose sharply and lobbed his axe on to his sled, which was brimming with logs. He began toward his village, the morning’s yield in tow. His feet plowed aside the snow as they drudged through the freshly laden path. Herkule was not a man for conversation. He wasn’t a man of much today. Today…he just wanted today to be over. But he had to wait. Could he make it? He hoped he could.