Lady Vera of Beit-Orane (v_eritas) wrote in adusta, @ 2010-12-23 16:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | the fifth child, vera of beit-orane |
A Bone Perch (narrative)
Rough, percussive scraping steel rung through the Simic Room. This morning deserved more quiet; it was early spring when the apple blossoms in the concourse of J'or were most fragrant. Vera tasted sweetness in the air with heavy breaths and she brought her sword up to block her brother. Faxril followed her around the circular mats as a serpent might, his eyes dead of emotion and his own breaths passing in and out of his body as nothing more than a quiet hiss. He was a few hands taller than she was. Faxril was just exiting the lanky awkwardness of adolescence that she had yet to enter, the muscles of his arms were defined and seemed more intimidating when he was effortlessly steering his sword blade for her throat. He was barely sweating when he came at her; all the while Vera’s muscles burned beneath her skin.
Rahmil shouted form at her. The large beast of a man, clothed in the black and red uniform of an Oranian Teacher lingered by the arches that opened up to the concourse. He was watching only her motions. He did not need to watch Faxril. Faxril, he said, was more ready than any of them to lead men. He did not need to spar with someone so young. But that was why she was here. It was why Vera challenged Rahmil to let her spar with her brother. Father’s eyes were most pleasant when they fell on Faxril. People smiled at him in the halls. And Rahmil did not curse at him or hit him after a match.
Vera wanted to show Rahmil that she could stand this. She wanted…
Faxril’s blade caught her arm and Vera bit hard on her cheek to avoid crying out. Blood flowed freely from the gash, but he did not give her a moment to cover or recover before he was coming at her again. Vera avoided him only barely. The blood was fast, running all the way down to her wrist.
“If your brain were faster you would not bleed!” Rahmil bellowed. “There is no where to hide with a sword. This isn‘t one of your sticks!”
She was not as fast as her brother nor as skilled, being poorly trained with blades. Faxril seemed to know she was weaker like this. There was a flicker of a smile that passed over his face. Anger burned hotter than Vera’s muscles, though, and hotter than her inexperience. Her mother always told her not to be angry. Focus, her mother said, came with the calm silence of the mind that could only be achieved by confronting oneself. Anger was a distracting force. She heard the lecture toned her mother’s voice, as if it had already been delivered to her mind.
Still, she wasn’t listening.
Switching to a double handed grip, Vera used the extra strength behind her own sword to slash downward and forced her brother to block. He was going to slide out of the way in a moment, but the wild way she pushed forward, her hot eyes looking up into his dead ones, was enough to make him back off. He hadn’t expected her anger? Vera did not think on it too much, the space between them gave her enough time to press a piece of silk hard against her wound so that it would stick to the blood.
FORM echoed against the columns of the Simic Room. Rahmil's voice became increasingly more agitated every time. Vera dodged Faxril's blade rather than met it, glanced steel rather than clashed against it. She was fighting as if she held her staff in her hands. For a brief moment it worked. Faxril could not read her and over-compensated in one, frustrated sweep of his blade. She ducked beneath him, cut his arm and then dropped down to sweep his feet out from under him.
Her brother looked up at her from the floor, surprise plain in his dark storm eyes, and Rahmil howled at Faxril for carelessness for the first time.
Vera felt the brief rush of victory before he rolled, not reacting at all to Rahmil’s cursing, and got to his feet again. She backed up quickly to gain some space, but Faxril didn’t give her a chance to adjust. He came at her with fast flourishes followed by a heavy battering of her blade. Vera just had trouble keeping up with his footwork. It took two twists of his wrist to send her sword to the floor. Vera was left to stare at the point of his blade.
“Luck,” Rahmil said with disgust behind her. “That vile Dwarven goddess tossing you a boon does not earn you the right to spar with your brother. This match shouldn‘t have taken place.”
“I would have lasted longer if you’d really teach me blades. I never get as much time as anyone else--”
The slap to the back of the head was expected, but it was hard to duck the long reach of Rahmil’s large hand. Normally avoiding it only meant he would surprise you later, somewhere, and in a way that only caused more agony. The moisture in her eyes was not from the hit, but…that it hadn’t been luck. She had lost, but it hadn’t been luck that kept her afloat. Creativity, High Lord Arand would have called it. He was always so kind when she failed.
Vera bit her tongue to keep her mouth shut. It was going to be worse, if she argued. Her mother had already tended her bruises once this week.
Rahmil took her sword, which was truly his sword. She had not been given one of her own. All Vera had was the staff her mother had given to her, which Rahmil often referred to as a “stick” with much contempt, even though her other siblings learned pole arms as well. Rahmil, however, was a swordsman. She wondered how he would have reacted if Vera sparred against Faxril with her staff and won.
Their teacher seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.
“Stop bleeding on my mats. Clear your eyes before I do. I will train you however I see fit,” Rahmil’s voice and the tempo of his commands were blistering. “And show your brother your respect.”
Vera bowed to Faxril, who did not return the gesture because he had won. She could not meet his eyes. Instead she turned on her heel and quickly left the hall. There was no doubt people would know of her shame before the day was out. There would be lectures on the dangers of luck for the rest of the week. But maybe, maybe she would be spared another visit to the Simic Room.
Nothing at all had gone right, she thought. Nothing at all.
*** *** *** ***
*** *** *** ***
Silence is not restraint,
reflection is not mimicry.
Young minds are the hardest to train
for the easiest way through the world
is through the voice,
through duplication of the elder.
Gardens and aviaries were acceptable forms of art within her family's home. Entertainment that strayed from the athletic or scholarly often involved walking through the odd corners of green, the strange rows of cages that reached up to hints of sky. Work of the land was considered worthy of recognition and every year Beit-Sad'r sent a new addition for their household. There were small courtyards and larger ones that housed different plants, different birds. She thought of each as a window into someone else's quiet moment. It was easy to be lost in these places. Easy to think that here, one's name could be forgotten.
Time and its claws
age the learning
into the learned.
Stillness lives inside every moment;
it is not the antithesis of life
but the space in which we gain momentum...
There were a set of ivory cages in the North Wing that were Vera's favorite. The bars were decorated with red gems and pieces of gold; they were said to be gifts from the nomads of the East. Inside were bright red feathered birds with black faces. Their tail feathers were long and their beaks were sharp and curved, almost like the talons they wore on their feet. Sometimes when the sun hit them just right, they looked like they were on fire and their black faces looked some otherworldly spirit, staring hard at her from some tear in the very air. Her mother once said when she was a baby, they frightened her. Uta and Seca would bring her here to see her weep.
Now Vera came to the stone garden that surrounded them to sit on a bench and watch them tear at the red meat the keepers hung from their bone perches. She thought they were beautiful. She thought if she could be a bird, she would be this kind: terrifying, yet caged. Pretty yet overlooked. Dangerous, if only let go.
Substance of the soul
channeled in paths of the mind,
black corridors created by our own shadow
take us from this thought to the next,
to the edge,
the long extended arm --
mortal and flawed and reaching
for an answer never promised us.
Vera looked down at the page on her lap. She was going to have to recite these words, but not in the way the poem warned against. Her mother knew about her attempt to spar with Faxril. Vera was to be tested on the meaning of stillness through demonstration. She didn't understand what it meant. She still did not understand how stillness was not giving up, how it meant anything other than not doing anything. How could someone live and learn without taking wounds? Without being in the field breathing in motion and the feeling of others surrounding them?
Maybe she was too young.
Maybe she was too unskilled.
Maybe, maybe it was just luck.
She stared at one of the black faced birds. She had the feeling it was staring back, but it was hard to tell. It was hard to see its eyes.
"Did anyone ever tell you what those perches are made out of?"
Vera looked up to find Faxril standing beside her. His eyes were on the cages, but then he turned his face toward her. She did not say anything in response. She did not normally talk to Faxril, much less look him in the eye. Out of all her siblings he was the most distant. She had heard Gavrie say that it was that he was full of himself, she had heard Seca rant with jealousy that he'd been allowed on a naval ship. He had always seemed cold to her. Vera never heard him say anything about anyone. At least, not while she stood in the room. She only knew that he was favored, that he was loved. And that alone, she thought, gave her cause to dislike him.
"The birds make them," Faxril said. He sat down beside her. "Out of the bones of other birds. Amehara...soul wasters. They don't leave anything of their prey except for the eyes. I used to come here to watch them too."
She looked down at the parchment on her lap. "What do you want?"
Faxril was silent. She wondered if anyone ever talked to him directly. She hoped he would be offended and leave. She hadn't thought she would have to see him again for at least a week.
"I didn't think it was luck," he said. There was no shame in his voice. No anger. His coat moved as he shrugged. "I didn't know what you were trying to do until you took out my legs. For someone who is seven years younger and lacking my training? I thought you did well."
"Tell that to Rahmil next time," Vera glared at him. "You let him tell me I was just lucky."
"Why should I?" Faxril asked. "You told him plainly. And look where that got you."
Vera looked away again. "But he hates me."
The sound of the Amehara's claws against the bone perches was almost musical -- high pitched and flute-like. It mixed well with Faxril's laugh. She didn't think she had ever heard him laugh either.
"He's afraid of you. A lot of people are. Funny, a ten year old being so scary."
"I'm a curse," Vera said, dryly.
"There is no such thing as curses."
"That isn't what Seca says."
"Seca is mindless when it comes to her reputation. She wants you to stay in your place. You're smart. You have High Lord Arand as a tutor, Vera. None of us would have been taken to Agethlea as children," Faxril pointed out. His laughter had disappeared. "You're good with pole arms and archery, mother trains you personally in psionics, now you want to pick up blades? You have no position. You have no land. You might be barred from the Competition of Towers, but you have a freedom that none of us can. You are a threat if you are special beyond your birth order. And that is why people like Rahmil are afraid of you."
She had never thought of it that way. She never thought she would be viewed as having an advantage over anyone... She never thought fear was behind the evil looks given to her in the hall. Did people really see her that way? Were they afraid of what she would take? What she would become? But they always acted as if she were cursed, not talented...
"Why did you come? Were you afraid of me?"
"No," He smiled. "Not of you."
Vera frowned.
"I thought about what you said to Rahmil about not receiving training. I thought about how different we are, how surprised I had been when you knocked me over. It seems like a waste to let Rahmil slow you down. And, well, father is going to give me a ship to lead soon. I can lead a group of men, but I...I have never taught another person how to do anything," Faxril said. He looked at her. "So I have a deal to make with you."
She set the parchment on the bench. This was likely the most she had ever talked to Faxril in her entire life and she didn't know what he really wanted. She eyed him warily.
"I will teach you everything I know about knives and swordplay. In return, you will use your staff to spar with me on off nights, so that I don't embarrass myself that way again," he said. "We will practice late at night, somewhere outside of J'or. And we won't tell anyone what we are doing unless it means the harm of the other."
"So...you are going to help me?" Vera asked slowly. "Really?"
Faxril stood from the bench.
"If so many people are going to fear you, you might as well give them reason," he said. "And in the end, if you do well, I can take credit by saying I taught you everything you knew. Think about it."
He glanced at her parchment.
"Good luck with mother."
With that he left the garden, tossing a piece of meat to the Ameharas. Vera watched him until he was gone. Gavrie was right. He really was full of himself.
She smiled when she was alone with the red birds, ripping at the meat that Faxril had given them. There might be something to sitting still and waiting, after all.