"Not quite yet. One more day, perhaps two."

Her professional judgement handed down, Skorrin Halvar flicked the long braid of blond hair back over her sinewy shoulder, then removed the tap from the barrel full of pale, fragrant ale. Carefully, she shoved the wad of cork into the hole made when they bored the tap, used her long fingers to smear beeswax all around the aperture to prevent seepage. Without so much as a grunt, she casually lifted the entire keg, one-handed, and placed it back on the shelf. It had taken two beefy men to gently lower it to the ground. 

Her workers had long ceased to wonder at these displays, instead accepting them as commonplace, expected. Her manager, Lund, nodded. He was a thin, acerbic man, destined from birth for a life of clerking. Numbers and facts were what he understood- that which made him so valuable to Skorrin was also what made him frustrating to be around. "Madam," he said delicately, his voice little more than an extended cough. "I seem to recall you saying it would take thirty days for this batch to ferment. It has been thirty days exactly, and now you feel it is not ready?"

"Lund, my dear, this is an art, not a science," she said, then laughed. Skorrin Halvar's laugh was not the ladylike titter preferred by the other women of her age, the rich landed countesses she met at balls and other gatherings. Her laugh was ill-suited for high society. It was a horse-like guffaw, starting deep in the pit of the stomach and then radiating throughout the shaking limbs until every inch of her body seemed to be sharing in the laugh. She slapped the thin man on the shoulder, not seeming to notice the pained look or sudden jerk forwards he made. "You're one of the cleverest men I've ever met, but some things can't be found in a book or ledger, old friend."

"Very well, madam," Lund said, the small note of displeasure in his raspy voice cheerfully ignored by Skorrin. "Does madam wish to inspect the other batches?"

"May as well. With everything going on in this city, half our laborers are afraid to unbar their doors long enough to come to the brewery."

"And yet madam continues to pay them half wages."

Skorrin frowned at the sour note in Lund's voice. "Lund, dear friend, those men have families to support. I very much doubt they are simply at home sitting on their asses, they are busy protecting their children and fearing for their wives. I have no intention of compounding their miseries by withholding their bread as well. Really, Lund, it's quite simple. . ."

Her words drifted off as her head began to feel light, as droplets of sweat forced their way up from under her skin. "It's really quite. . ." she tried again before her eyes rolled back into her head and her tongue failed her.

And then she was there again. 

This time it was bereft of the blood and violence and fear that had marked her last visit, and was instead empty- which, somehow, made it worse. She had only physically been in this room once, but had visited it many more times on nights when she couldn't sleep. There were some things that could not be forgotten.

The light, and the sphere. That horrible, horrible sphere. She was transfixed, looking at nothing else. And then a voice, a voice he had never heard but somehow knew belonged to oldest Halvar, the one who had marched on the towers.

[b]Unlocked.[/b]

And then, just as suddenly, she was once more in the comfortable, cool cellar of her brewery, Lund looking at her intently, the two apprentices apprehensively. She looked at the handprint she had left on the stone wall, perfectly formed by the sweat on her palms. "I'm alright, men," she said quietly, struggling to get the words out between pained gasps, greedily sucking in far more air than she needed. "I'm alright. For now."

"I can fetch a physician," one of the apprentices offered, before being silenced by a dismissive wave from Skorrin.

"Thank you, that won't be necessary. Lund, I'm afraid I will have to leave the brewery in your care for a few days. There is something I must do."

The thin man made no comment, only a curt nod. "Understood, madam."

"Continue on as normal. And make sure to seal the barrels of coriander, I have no wish to find mice living in our spices again. There. . . there is something I must do," she said, her words faltering. "I think my friends might have need of me."

"Madam?" Lund asked her quietly.

"I had been offered a certain position. I turned it down, I wished to focus solely on my business, but now I think that may have been unwise," she said dreamily, wiping at her damp forehead with a sleeve. "Most unwise indeed. Yes, yes, something is happening and they will need my help." She thought of her armor, still carefully oiled and polished, sitting in a closet at home, waiting to be used. Her gigantic iron truncheon- they had called it an [i]oslop[/i] back home, far away to the north- sitting beside her bed. Perhaps there would once again be need of these things, quite soon. But at the moment she could offer her counsel. Without further comment, she started for the stairs leading out of the storeroom.

"Madam," Lund's grating voice called after her. "If we should have need of you, where shall we look?"

Skorrin turned back, a broad smile on her face, and that spark that had defined her life was once again dancing in her big green eyes. "You may ask for me at the Hall of Guardians."