#ECHO ZANE IS ALIVE AND WELL YALL

[raevenlywrites]

The Ties That Bind 12 of ???

Rei and I held hands as we emerged from the dark into--more dark. Zane had promised the  rsh  wasn’t as dim inside as it seemed, but I missed the sun. And I was grateful for Rei’s hand in mind as we moved through the tight press of netting and vines.

There was an uncanny beauty to it, this joining of intention of happenstance, a closeness that I might have found comforting if I hadn’t felt so stifled already. Rei’s hand seemed too thick and hot in mine, but I stuck close to him anyways, unnerved by the walls of the  rsh . They seemed to slither and switch, and it wasn’t until we rounded a corner back into the main room that I realized their movement came from the shifting shadows cast by a dancing flame.

Once a fire was lit in the central room, the entire space transformed. Where net and leaf began became much clearer, because the nets, I could now see, had once been bright, vibrant colors. Time had dulled them, and I could only imagine the brilliant jewels they must have once been, however long ago.

They say our peoples have been at war for over two thousand years.

They also say the falcon empress Cjarsa is older still than that.

It seems petty to doubt such magic when I myself have knit closed minor wounds with only the power of my voice and prayer. But surely, surely, some myths need not to be true. I didn’t want to believe our war was that old. And I didn’t know what to make of an empress that was supposed to remember a time we knew peace, but did next to nothing to help us return to it.

 Zane startled me from my thoughts, even as my mind played back the last few seconds and realized I had noticed my guards shift around me and had simply dismissed it. It wasn’t  Zane  startling me, it was the interruption from my introspection in general.

 “It’s eerie, isn’t it?” he asked, gazing at the wall and not me. “There’s a  rsh  just like this on the edges of the marketplace, with a central room just like this one, but...”

 He trailed off, dropping the hand he’d been reaching out to a broken twist of net. It amazed me how it still stood at all, and I said as much.

 “This one is more vine than net, I think,” he said carefully. “It takes time and patience to grow up walls like this. And even more to bring them back down.”

 I humphed under my breath.

 “Everyone keeps talking around me lately, in pretty metaphors--or obvious ones.”

 He turned wide eyes to me and I gave him back what I hoped was a single arched brow. It was a difficult expression to master, without screwing up the rest of my face to be comical. Apparently it was effective though, or Zane was being polite at my failure when he smiled with a soft shake of his head.

 “That one was for me, actually. If you feel the tearing down walls metaphor is apt for yourself as well, then hopefully it means we’ll be able to find more common ground before the week is out.”

 My stomach dropped at the reminder that I was expected to stay here, with him--and Rei--for an entire week. It had seemed like such a good idea at the farmhouse, staring into the triumphant face of Alasdair.

 “You said your dancers dance around the sign of the Anhleh,” I said, not caring how obviously I was changing the subject. “Do you think there’s one intact here, or...” I gestured lamely at the walls. Zane gave me another humoring smile.

 “This nest is dead, a relic. I’m afraid if you want to see serpiente dance before the Anhleh you’ll have to come back with me to sha’Mehay.”

 It was only my blood running cold that kept my cheeks from flushing. The terror at the thought of willingly entering the heart of the serpiente palace cooled any embarrassment at the thought that I might have been asking him to dance, here and now.

 You want to do this here, now? Rei’s voice echoed in my head and the blush won out. Zane chuckled.

 “Is the thought of merely watching others dance too much for you, pretty Danica? I knew hawks were prudes but--”

 “I’m not a prude!” I snapped, and instantly regretted it. Softer voices could be politely ignored in this close space. Quiet shouting could not.

 I felt Rei crowd closer behind me and suddenly wanted out of this hole in the ground.

 “Rei,” I ground from between my teeth, “you  cannot  hover over me all week. I meant what I said to Erica, and I’ll say it again to you too. I don’t need a soldier, I need a guard. Go fly a scouting circuit, see how obvious the smoke from that fire is above the trees.”

 It was almost certainly the wrong thing to say. But he met my orders with a tight, “Yes, Shardae,” and gave me the space I so desperately needed. Now if only I could order myself up and into the sun.

 Zane was studying my face, and didn’t have the manners to try to disguise it when I turned back to him. Or maybe it was a cultural thing. Maybe serpiente just openly stared at everyone. Either way, my emotions were too wrung out for niceties anymore. I’d spent the better part of a week either traveling or trapped in fruitless arguments, and I just needed a  break .

 “This is the most emotion I’ve ever seen from you,” Zane commented before I could speak. “It’s a shame it’s all tense and jagged like this. I have a feeling you’d have a lovely aura in more pleasant times.”

 At that, I could only blink.

 “W-wha?”

 Zane did that sad smile, headshake thing that was definitely starting to seem like his go to cover up for laughing at me.

 “In our scaled form, serpents taste heat. Life. Alive-ness. Like this, I can still taste your heartbeat, smell the sticky sharp closeness of panic on the back of my tongue--“

 “That’s disgusting,” I said, nearly sick from the thought of it. How could serpiente stand to be so close to one another if they were so aware of each other’s bodies?

 “It’s a metaphor,” he said lightly, colder than he’d been a moment before. “We sense it with a sense that isn’t taste or smell or touch, but it's like trying to describe a song to the deaf. I can hold your hand, tap out the beats, but you still miss the soaring of the melody, the finer notes that make it music and not just sound.”

 I nodded, contrite at having offended him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”

 He sighed. “It’s quite alright. I can only imagine it will be the first of many.”

 Something about that made me unspeakably sad. So sad that it changed my “taste” apparently, because Zane reached out for me, to brush my arm I think. But of course Erica was there, and I finally lost my temper completely.

 “Enough!”

 I snatched Zane’s hand in mine, earning startled cries from everyone in the room, even Adelina. I raised our joined hands and shook them, like brandishing a weapon.

 “Zane and I are going to touch. Zane and I are going to be close, because Zane and I are  trying  to have private conversations. If one more person comes within a foot of me without my express invitation I am going to send them home. So help me I will sit in his lap if that’s what it takes to get you all to  stand down .”

 Abruptly, I became  aware  of the fact that I was holding Zane’s hand, that I had taken it without his permission, and that the whole room was staring at us. I squeezed his hand tighter, not knowing how to get off this metaphorical dias.

 Zane squeezed back.

 “It’d be almost worth it to call your bluff,” he muttered, but then said to the larger group, “Is there something we can do to help make you all more comfortable? Among my people, we have elaborate rules and traditions for guests, and I do consider you all my guests, even as I consider myself yours. In my house, I would offer you food and drink, and you would know that no harm would come to you unless violence was offered. What is the way of it in the Keep?”

 In the Keep, violence was absolutely unheard enough. We had enough of that on the fields, on the training grounds. There was no violence in the Keep because it was our refuge from such things.But that wouldn’t help us here.

 “We are held by our word,” Raymond said. I startled, almost having forgotten the quiet raven in the press of so many louder personalities. “Words spoken by or to the Tuuli Thea have power, real power, especially in the halls of our Keep. I do not know how such oaths would hold you, but it is what we would do, if we felt the need.”

 Zane nodded. “We have our own words, codes of conduct, contracts.” He turned to me, pulling our hands closer to our chests.

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#raev does fic #the ties that bind #hawksong fic #hawksong