In a barbarian tribe, scars had to be earned. Children who fell and scraped their knees were taken by their parents to a healer, who spoke a few words to the tribe’s god and left the child good as new. For adults, injuries received in honorable battle were treated with a stinging salve that left a raised red reminder of the injury even after the bone and flesh had been knotted together by the healer’s magic. A warrior wore their life story on their skin and could tell anyone who asked how each scar came to be.
Enna’s parents had the barest sort of accountability for her, but it was an accountability nonetheless. They had to provide food, shelter, clothing. She had to be given a name and the gift of language. If she ever grew sick or was injured, they would be responsible for taking her to the healer. The child never seemed to get sick, and some in the clan whispered that this meant one day she could be the strongest of all the warriors, but she always seemed to be sporting one injury or another. None of the elegant slices the warriors got from the sweep of an enemy’s blade or the dramatic bruise-blossoms proud barbarians earned from the punishing beat of battle. Just small things. Bruises from rocks thrown by cruel children. Scrapes from being pushed down, kicked to the side. Once, a jagged cut on her palm from trying to grasp at a blade that was pulled away from her too late. Others feared to touch the black blood that flowed from her, but her parents only snarled in frustration and dragged her to the healer. The healer always treated the child’s wounds with the same care as he would any other child. He was less generous with his sympathy, but Enna never noticed, too busy holding up her hand to watch the way the skin would knit itself together. Because of this, Enna survived her first fifteen years unblemished by the years of abuse she had suffered.
She hadn't prepared for living alone. She had prepared herself emotionally- getting out of the tribe was the best thing she had ever done, and the first few days after she escaped from the camp were dizzying in their freedom. She could eat as much as she wanted, she could ride wherever she pleased, and best of all, there was absolutely nobody around but her horse. It seemed perfect.
But she was fifteen, and nobody had ever taught her how to manage herself. The second week of her freedom she was dismounting her horse after an exhilarating ride through a rainstorm. Her foot came down on a slick rock and she slipped, her stomach twisting as she tried to get her hands under herself to catch her fall. She managed to keep herself from splitting open her skull, but a jagged rock caught her on the mouth and she cried out at the pain. Her horse reared back, startled, and she had to roll away to keep from getting trampled. She scrambled through the stinking mud away from her horse and scrabbled to her feet. Her black blood ran freely down her face as she held up her hands, murmuring to the horse to keep it from bolting. She finally managed to calm it down and walked over to it, petting its flank soothingly. She poked out her tongue to taste the blood on her lips and grimaced at its sharp taste. Well, she'd probably be fine. It’d heal over in a day or two.
It didn't. The wound kept tearing every time she opened her mouth to eat or drink, and it healed so slowly that Enna prayed- really, truly prayed- to whoever would hear her for it to stop bleeding and give her peace. Then, after weeks, she could run a finger over the gashes without wincing. After that, the wound healed better, fading to two thin lines curling up over her lip. She hoped that that would be the end of it. But luck was not on her side, and two months later she was racing her horse over the vast plains, her eyes closed in pure enjoyment of the wind whipping past her face, her fists clenched in its mane and her knees locked around its sides, when she felt the horse’s gait falter and swerve. Panicked that it was falling, she opened her eyes and sat up, only to see a blur whip past her face. Pain blossomed from her cheek and she cried out, bringing a hand up to cover the injury. Enna looked behind herself to see one of the few trees on the plains, its black branches gnarled by wind and weather, fading into the distance. She snarled and spat behind her. Tugging her horse to a stop, she swung off its back (carefully this time- she hadn't forgotten the pain of her last failed dismount) and tugged a piece of cloth from her pouch. She'd found the scrap on a pile of bones nearly picked clean by scavengers, and it had been one of the first things she’d ever been given by the harsh plains. Now she pressed it to her cheek to staunch the bleeding and thanked whatever god it was that had given her foresight.
This wound didn't take nearly as long to heal. It still scarred over, of course. The next time she injured herself (nicked her hand while skinning a hare with a stolen dagger) she knew better what to do, and washed the wound before wrapping it in a clean bandage this time. That one healed cleanly, and she smiled when she removed the bandage to see an unmarked palm.
At seventeen, she rejoined society. The kinds of injuries she got in her time with the Bat’s Wing adventuring company were far worse than any she’d suffered alone in the plains, but none of these gave her scars. Olenna, their healer, had none of the stinging salve her tribe had treasured, and looked at her oddly when she asked for her to leave the scars Enna earned in her first battle. She'd refused. Adventurers, Olenna explained, measured success in gold, not in injuries. A battle well-fought was a battle paid for. You built your reputation through success. Nobody cared what you looked like. Anybody could get scars, she said, looking pointedly at the thin pink lines on Enna’s lip. Not everybody could survive them. Enna nodded and let Olenna patch her up without further complaint. She could survive without scars. After all, it wasn't like anything really bad had happened to her.
Author's Notes:
Written 09/16/17. I did so much worldbuilding for the barbarian tribes in our setting. I thought it would be badass to give Enna some facial scars, and then I thought it would be funny to have them be from something innocuous like falling off her horse, and then I thought I could make even that angsty.