#she had already brushed on the kiln wash
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didn’t think to take a picture of the bottom or the top layers lmao but the kiln is filled!
#I should unload monday evening#and hopefully I’ll get pictures and stuff done tuesday#then surgery on wednesday#and my spouse starts work again so I’ll keep busy with pottery stuff#I’m so tired you guys#why is loading kilns so exhausting?#shout out to the studio tech though she is a wonder#the kiln shelves were sparkling#she had already brushed on the kiln wash#and she’s so organized#kiln stilts and cookies organized by size#all the cookies were brand new#AMAZING
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Let Me Touch You Pt 5 | Feysand
High school AU. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 6
Feyre didn't know quite what to feel after that day in Mor and Rhys' kitchen. The irritation over Rhys' antics in class had evaporated, since finding out the only reason he did it was to buy Mor time. Now that she paid attention, it was obvious. Mor would drift off sometimes, or suddenly start writing really fast once the teacher declared they were moving on and she hadn't finished. Other times she would drop things, or rummage loudly in her bag and not be able to find anything, or laugh a little too loudly. And Rhys was always there, covering for her. Laughing louder. Distracting the teacher before they rubbed the notes off the board. Dragging out discussions so the teacher had to repeat themselves.
And of course she had met Bryaxis, the gutter dog who was needy as all hell and didn't like being left alone all day. Who lived a short walk from school and could be visited in the space of a lunch break.
So on the day they were due to hand in their art projects, Feyre sat opposite Rhys, and didn't hate him. Couldn't hate him, with what she knew now.
That left only the roiling, restless feeling that crawled over her whenever he was near. This part stumped Feyre. How could this still be happening, when she no longer hated Rhys? The prickling goosebumps that she had associated with sheer loathing now had no explanation, which meant she was more bothered than ever. She stared moodily at Rhys' face, rendered in acrylics, and wondered if it might be better that they get some distance after this project was over.
“Rhys?” she asked nervously.
“Hmm?” Rhys had his back mostly turned to her, hunching over whatever he was making. Completely absorbed in his work. Art was the only class that Feyre had with Rhys and not Mor, and the difference in his behaviour in this room made so much sense now. You barely heard a peep out of him in art class.
“Can you just look at me one more time?”
Rhys lifted his strange eyes to her, and the room went fuzzy. His expression was soft and unfocused. Now that she didn’t hate him, she felt like she was drowning in it.
“Could you, ah, frown a little?”
Rhys’ mouth quirked in amusement, then he obliged her. She watched his dark brow lower, then nodded.
“Thanks,” she said, and hid behind her canvas again.
The thing was, she was suddenly a bit sad to leave this project. She stared into paint-Rhys' eyes, and felt like she understood this 2D version better than the real one. And he really was just beautiful.
Feyre's heart clenched slightly, and she picked up the brush. Better make it a bit less real, so she remembered the face she knew very well was not the person sitting across from her.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Rhys despaired. He now had no less than six mini Feyre figurines, and wanted to throw himself out the fucking window. The project was just supposed to be one, but once he started he couldn't stop, and he also couldn't bear to throw any of them away once they had her face. If Feyre saw them, she'd run screaming. Maybe he'd get lucky and they'd explode in the kiln. Fuck it. Failing art would be worth keeping his dignity in tact.
Rhys scooped up the clay Feyres and walked them to the firing ovens. At least Feyre wouldn't go looking inside. He walked back into the art room, just as Feyre was cleaning her brushes. And he saw it. The foot high canvas with his face on it.
Rhys stopped half way across the room, and stared. She had painted him scowling, which he had to admit was fair enough. But in his eyes, she had dotted dozens of little white stars. No pupils or whites, just a violet galaxy swirl where his eyes should be.
The final bell pealed out through the school. Feyre moved her canvas away, and everyone started packing up around him. Rhys washed his hands, and left the classroom. It was only when he was closing his locker and walking down the hall that he remembered this meant the portrait project was over. He stopped in his tracks.
And Feyre walked right into the back of him.
"Oh! Sorry," she said, at the same time as Rhys said "Fuck shit sorry!"
They stared at each other for a second.
"Are you, ah, going home?" Feyre asked him.
"Yeah," he said. "Are you studying with Mor today?"
"Yes. But she had a test today and finished early, so she's already home."
"Right. Well. Do you, um, want to walk with me?"
Feyre opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, and then said, "sure?" like she wasn't sure at all.
Rhys didn't quite know what to make of that, but he did have to walk home either way, so he just gave her a lopsided smile and started walking again. She followed, and fell into step beside him.
Or rather, walked in the same direction but six feet away. Rhys looked strangely at her.
"Sorry," he said, "do I smell or something?"
Feyre let out a brittle laugh. "No, I just..." she looked away. Rhys blew out a breath.
"You really don't like me, do you?"
"No! I mean, it's not that I don't like you I just... I feel kind of... weird around you." She looked over at him hopelessly.
"Weird how?" Rhys asked. Feyre just shrugged, and looked sort of lost. "Okay," Rhys said slowly.
Weird was not bad. She didn't outright hate him. He could make this work.
"Well, then maybe we just have to spend some time together," he said cheerily. "You know, so you can get used to me. Then maybe I won't make you feel so weird." Feyre barked a laugh, and hugged her arms around herself.
"Um, okay?" she said.
"First, do you want to try not walking like I have the plague?"
Feyre winced. "Sorry," she said, and drifted closer.
As she came up to his side, several things happened at once. First,
she tossed her hair over her shoulder away from him, and the scent that wafted over was like a punch in his guts. The bare neck she now had toward him, and the lilac and pear smell of her had him rocking a fucking semi right there on the footpath.
Second, the air quality seemed to change as she got nearer, like feedback when you moved a microphone too close to a speaker. Even though she wasn't actually touching him, something crackled between them, startling in intensity, and Rhys jumped back instinctively. They stopped walking.
"Woah," Rhys breathed.
"See?" Feyre said with a wry smile. "I think we're allergic to each other."
Rhys shook his head back and forth. When he finally looked up at her, he had a broad grin on his face.
"That was cool," he said.
"Not weird?" Feyre asked.
"No," Rhys said. "I definitely think we should hang out more."
He resumed walking, and when Feyre followed arms length away, he stepped in closer. The radio hum resumed between them, and she gave him a shy smile. Oh yes. He wanted much more of this. They walked the rest of the way to the house like they walked a live wire.
****
I'm SORRY I tried to even out Feyre and Rhys' halves but I can't help it, smitten Rhys has my heart.
TAGLIST: @ghostlyrose2 @highladysith @stardelia @feysand-babies @tillyrubes10 @ratabrasileira @live-the-fangirl-life @maybekindasortaace @annejulianneh111 @teddytdr
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Harvest Ritual
The air of the Eluthane valley was warm and cold at the same time as summer waned. The daylight hours were still longer than the night, but today Hiereus and his people worked together to bring in their harvest before the hard autumn frosts.
“Hey,” his friend Luso called as he came up behind Hiereus, “Why are you wearing a tail sock?” his friend asked.
“What? It was cold this morning,” Hiereus said defensively as he thrust his sickle into the barley.
“Right,” said Luso, sounding skeptical, “It’s always cold in Eluthane, but you are literally sweating while wearing winter clothing in the summer.”
“Hmm…” Hiereus grumbled at Luso’s chiding, “I like to stay warm?” he responded as if asking a question.
“Uh huh…”
Hiereus’ ears drooped and tail sank, but still he stopped to unclasp and remove his tail sock and tie it around his waist before returning to work. The cool air came as a relief though he wouldn’t admit it. Still he grinned deeply as Luso walked beside him.
“Done with the squash already?” Hiereus asked as he cut again at the grain.
“Oh yeah,” Luso said, and Hiereus’ tail swished as his friend spoke. “We just finished hauling it into the temple; it’s almost time to prepare the Thuometha meal.”
Hiereus sighed, “By the Flame,” he said, as he looked at the extent of the barley fields remaining to be harvested. “Always the last to come in.”
“We do eat a lot of it.” Luso said with a chuckle, scratching behind his horns.
“Still, now that you’re here at least I’ll have someone nice to work with,” Hiereus grinned.
“Uh... most people are nice Hiereus.”
“Yeah, um right.” Hiereus' tail sank. He’d never had the will to tell Luso that he liked him. “I mean,” he said itching his ear, “it’s nice to work with a friend.”
Luso looked at his feet, “I’m not here to work the barley field.”
“What?” Hiereus wilted further as he realized his friend hadn’t brought a sickle.
“Sorry,” Luso said, “I just came to see what you were doing. I drew for meal prep after we brought the squash in.”
Hiereus put on a smile as his heart sank, “We each work for the liberation of all,” he recited the mantra.
“Right.” Luso chuckled, “As labors are shared, by the Flame we are blessed,” he recited in return. “Alright then I’d best be going”
“Right,” Hiereus said, “Um… I’ll be performing in the sacrifice tonight. Save me a seat for the meal?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” Luso smiled, “I’ve got to go, see ya.”
Hiereus waved “May the light of the Flame guard your path,” he said as he watched Luso go.
***
When work on the barley field finally wrapped up, Hiereus’ arms and back were sore and thoroughly worked. He stretched as he made his way up through the town green past the Temple and the step kiln to his family’s small home.
Once inside he stripped out of his work clothes and washed from a pail of tepid water. He shivered from the coolness yet compared to working in the sun, even in Eluthane, he found it a relief.
He found his priestly garb on a hook near the stove, and as he reached for them his hand brushed the robes left by his sister. It had been just over a year since Moira left. They still received the occasional letter from her. The last one came from Edrez where she searched the temples of the world’s gods.
The city was sometimes called the Hub of the World, being the home of a goddess, and a center of trade and learning. Hiereus trembled thinking about it, he would feel lost in such a city and he worried about his sister out in the world.
She had been gone so long, and yet part of him still expected to see her when he went out, or to greet him when he went to the temple.
He sat for a moment after he finished dressing, and surveyed his family's belongings and took in its emptiness. Then standing, he rested his hand on his sister’s vestments. “May the light of the Flame guide you home,” he said before leaving.
Outside the smells of food wafted up from the green. The meal of the community sacrifice would start soon and he had his role to play. This festival was probably his favorite of the year. It wasn’t the most holy–that was Longest Night–but the communal meal, sharing in the culmination of his people’s labor for the year, they were always the part of the liturgical cycle he loved the most.
“Ah, I see the Flame has finally led you here,” said Mutha, the recently-elected chief priest.
“By the Flame, I’m sorry, the barley harvest, it ran late,” Hiereus apologized breathlessly.
“Aw, pay her no mind,” said Molu, Mutha’s wife, as she waved him into the Temple. “You’re here now, and it’s not like we’d start without you child.”
“I’m a priest too you know,” he protested with a grin already knowing their answer.
“We know, child,” Mutha said patting Hiereus on the back, “But we’ve been in the priesthood for over 62 cycles.”
“To us you’ll always be child,” Molu finished.
Hiereus chuckled, “I guess being called child is my fate,”
“You and most of the priesthood, my dear,” Mutha said.
“You should go meet your mother,” Molu said, “I think you’re the last one here. Let her know it’s time to start the ritual.”
Hiereus nodded and headed off toward the central Flame under the oculus. His mother had been the chief priest in the last cycle of seasons and tonight’s sacrifice would be her last act in that role as it was handed over to Mutha.
His mother Phose smiled and then pulled her son into a hug when he approached. “Good, you’re ready. How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Um… fine?” Hiereus answered.
“Glad to hear it,” she responded cheerfully in a way that let Hiereus know his answer hadn’t been satisfactory. “Do you feel practiced enough? You were given an important role tonight.”
“Yeah ma, I practiced. It will be good.”
“Good, I’m glad you feel confident,” she pulled him into another hug, “I know you get nervous leading a ritual.”
“Ma,” Hiereus sounded abashed, “I’ll do fine.”
“I know you will, sweety, I just want you to know you will.”
Hiereus felt his face flush, and he smiled, “Thanks ma, I really think I’ll be fine.”
“Good, we should get going. The people are waiting, and hungry,” Phose said to Hiereus and the priesthood gathered in the Temple.
He followed his mother with the others out to the town green. It was dusk and brazers had been lit, speckling the assembly of his people in the Flame’s light as daylight waned.
They stopped before a pyre and Phose opened a pouch of ash and began marking a circle round them and the pyre, sanctifying the space for the ritual. When this was done each of the priests came to her and washed their hands as the ritual began.
It was now Hiereus’ turn to speak. Unfastening his lamp from his belt he watched the crowd that had gathered. His people numbered little more than what the rest of the world called a small town, but even still a few thousand people occupied the green in front of him.
He trembled a little removing the cap from the end of the horn lamp and adjusted its wick. These people all knew him and he knew them. Still it was an effort to keep breathing and nerves even. Then he smiled as he saw Luso in the front with a space saved beside him, and he felt ready.
“The light of the Flame brings liberation; its way is freedom through benevolence,” Hiereus recited as he lit the wick of his lamp. Its light turned crimson as the blessing was uttered, and he could feel its warmth reflected in his soul.
“The way of the Flame is given,” Phose picked up the next line, “and as we keep it our labors are blessed.”
The momentum of the ritual carried Hiereus now, and he turned to the pyre and stooped and lit its kindling with the others. At first smoke bellowed through the logs but soon gave way to the Flame’s deep red light as the fire spread.
“For inasmuch as a person cannot meet all their needs alone, you shall share your labors so that you may all have your needs met. For in sharing your work you shall be free from any one becoming your master,” Hiereus recited once the Flame reached its full height.
Mutha took the next line bringing a cup, and handing it to Hiereus as she spoke, “Let none perish from lack or inability.”
Hiereus nodded in thanks as he accepted the cup, and he could smell the sweet grain wine, fermented in the mine below the Temple.
Next his mother brought a loaf of barley bread. “Be generous with each other and let each who can, aid their fellow with vigor,” she said as she offered her son the loaf, and he exchanged his lamp. Not so much as part of the ritual, but to free his hands.
He held aloft the cup and loaf, and uttered the blessing the meal was named for. “Thuometha, tō panti, ek pantos,” or in the common tongue, “For ourselves we sacrifice, for all, from all.”
“As we have kept the way, our labors have been blessed. We give thanks to the Flame; we give thanks to the land.” As he spoke, he poured some of wine onto the embers of the fire.
After sipping from the cup himself, he offered it to his mother who drank and in turn offered it to Mutha.
Hiereus then tore the loaf. “May we now all share the blessings of our labor, in the light of the Flame.” He placed a part of the loaf in the fire and watched for a moment as the red flames began to consume it.
Then, as with the cup, he ate first before giving the loaf to Phose, and she partook then gave it to Mutha. The ritual not only marked harvest but also the past cycle of sessions and the formal passing of office between the two.
Upon its completion, half of the priesthood took baskets of bread and the other half wine skins to give to all assembled, and officially the harvest meal began.
After helping to distribute the loafs, he returned his basket to the Temple when his mother found him to return his lamp.
“You did really good tonight,” she said, handing him his lamp.
“Thank you,” he grinned, reflecting on the ritual.
“I mean it,” she said, “I was really proud of you as you performed the sacrifice,” and she squeezed his hand.
“We were all proud of you,” Mutha had come up behind him, “We’ve seen you grow a lot since joining our number. I wanted to thank you for the role you played tonight, and not just because I took your mother’s job. Keeping Thuometha is important for our people.”
“Thanks,” he responded, shyly scratching the stump of his horn. “It’s always been my favorite,” he added, before stooping to give the older woman a hug.
“Hiereus,” his mother said as he stood up, “you didn’t happen to see where pa and Rai were sitting did you?”
“I didn’t notice,” he admitted.
“We should go find them so we can eat.”
“You go, I was going to sit with Luso.”
“Oh,” she looked surprised, then smiled, “I think I saw him up front. You have fun then.”
“Thanks ma, I’ll see you back at home.” He waved as she went off into the crowd.
He turned back to the new chief priest. “Hey thanks again Mutha,” he said, “Your opinion means a lot to me.”
“You’re a fine young man Hiereus, I’m glad to have people like you in the priesthood,” she said patting his arm. “Now go find your friend, I’m sure he’s waiting. I ought to find Molu, knowing her, she’s probably already started eating.”
“Alright, I’m sure I’ll see you later. Enjoy your dinner.”
Mutha waved and went off as Hiereus went over to meet Luso. His friend smiled as he approached. “So what’s good?” Hiereus asked, sitting down.
“There's a spicy bread pudding I think you’ll like. It’s a bit too hot for me, but you liked those chilies the traders brought back last cycle.”
“Oh, I’m glad to hear that crop worked out even if they didn't turn red. I never know what to expect from new crops.” Hiereus said as he sat down and started serving himself.
“Yeah, new seeds usually fail this far north, but these took well enough.”
“Mmmm,” Hiereus savored the spicy bread pudding, “You’re right, I do like it. Mmmm.”
“I think I’ll stick with squash and potatoes myself,” Luso said flatly.
“Your loss,” Hiereus’ tail waved vigorously as he took another bite. “I thought you liked spicy food?”
“Hmm, not the chilies. Their heat does something weird to my tongue.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“I’m not sure what you’re sorry about,” Luso said, “I just don’t eat them.”
“Fine, I’ll just be sure to eat your share of them then.” Hiereus grinned thinking about it.
Luso laughed, “Whatever you say bud.”
The air became cold as the stars started to appear, and Hiereus shivered. For a moment he wished he had his tail sock on, then his mind drifted and he wondered what it was like where Moira was.
“Hey, are you alright?” Luso shook his shoulder.
“Hmm?” Hiereus muttered, returning to the present moment.
“I was just saying that I was going to join the foresting team this autumn, and you didn’t seem to hear me.”
“Sorry, I was wondering how Moira was,” Hiereus smiled apologetically.
“Oh, yeah.” Luso frowned, “Have you heard from her recently?”
“Her last letter came with the returning caravan a few weeks ago,” Hiereus said. “She was in Edrez when she wrote it. She was going to try and find her way toward Ikurad soon.”
“Oh wow,” Luso responded, “she's gone a long way.”
“Yeah, I don’t think our trading caravans have seen as much of the world as she has. I’m not sure any Eluthanai has.”
Hiereus paused, staring up into the night sky. “Speaking of the caravans, did you like the cinnamon candy they brought back?”
“Oh yeah, it was good. Spicy, but not like the chilies. I finished mine a bit ago.”
“Well I saved some; if you like you can have one.”
“Wow, thanks Hiereus,” Luso said, taking a candy and popping it in his mouth. “I love these things.”
Hiereus chuckled, “Good, I’m glad.”
“You, know I could have traveled,” Luso said. “Or I thought I could. I wanted to join the caravans, but the world’s big. I’m not sure I’m up for it.”
“Me neither,” Hiereus said. “Still I always find myself wondering about the places Moira has been.”
“Yeah. It’s weird having her gone. I think the whole town misses her. But to be honest I had a mind to court her before she left. I never had the nerve to ask though.”
Hiereus’ heart sank as the meaning of Luso’s words set in, and his whole body drooped.
“Hey, something wrong?”
Of course Luso wasn’t like him; so few people were. He didn’t know why he imagined Luso would feel the same way he did. He realized he was trembling and tried to still himself. “It’s nothing,” he answered, realizing his eyes were getting hot with tears.
“It’s not nothing,” Luso said, “I think about it all the time, that perhaps if I had been a little braver maybe Moira would have stayed and you and I would have been brothers,” Luso chuckled.
Hiereus forced only the smallest semblance of a laugh in response, “I’m sorry” he said, “I just realized it's time to start cleaning up inside the Temple. I need to go.”
“Oh right,” Luso said, stunned by Hiereus’ sudden change in mood. “It seems a little early, but I’ll see you later then.”
He rushed into the Temple and as soon as he was out of sight started crying as he sank to the floor. His unease compounded as he heard someone approach from outside.
“Hmm,” He heard the voice of an older woman behind him. “You liked him a lot didn’t you?” Mutha said, patting him on the back.
“What?” Hiereus said, wiping his eyes.
“Tears like that only come from death or heartache, and no one’s died,” Mutha answered. “I don’t think I realized before tonight that you were like Molu and I. Should have seen it, the way you moon over your friend, but I didn’t give it any mind until you went off to sit with him tonight. Would that I had, I could have given some advice.”
“Advice?” Hiereus asked.
“Oh,” Mutha said sitting down next to him, “Molu and I were lucky to find each other. It’s not our way to make such things taboo as other places do, but there are so few like us that we seldom talk about it.”
Hiereus frowned; the only man Hiereus had suspected to be like him died alone. He knew his chances in Eluthane.
“You need to make yourself known,” Mutha said. “I suspect there are more of us than we think but because no one speaks of it, we feel alone.”
“I...” Hiereus started, but Mutha cut him off.
“I know it’s an awkward thing to bring up, explaining that your romantic interests aren’t typical. Trust me, I know. But by the Flame Eluthane won’t hate you for it, and you’ll never know if others feel the same way unless you're visible.”
Hiereus smiled, “I’ll try,” he said drying his eyes.
“At very least mention it to your mother. The other day she was asking if there were any young ladies you were interested in.”
Hiereus sighed and looked up at the ceiling, “I guess I can start with that.”
“I’ll understand if you need some time to cry and miss cleanup, but you might want to hide in one of the ritual rooms. The others will be coming back to the temple soon.”
“Thanks, Mutha. Thanks,” he said and he hugged the new chief priest.
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Harvest Ritual
The air of the Eluthane valley was warm and cold at the same time as summer waned. The daylight hours were still longer than the night, but today Hiereus and his people worked together to bring in their harvest before the hard autumn frosts.
“Hey,” his friend Luso called as he came up behind Hiereus, “Why are you wearing a tail sock?” his friend asked.
“What? It was cold this morning,” Hiereus said defensively as he thrust his sickle into the barley.
“Right,” said Luso, sounding skeptical, “It’s always cold in Eluthane, but you are literally sweating while wearing winter clothing in the summer.”
“Hmm…” Hiereus grumbled at Luso’s chiding, “I like to stay warm?” he responded as if asking a question.
“Uh huh…”
Hiereus’s ears drooped and tail sank, but still he stopped to unclasp and remove his tail sock and tie it around his waist before returning to work. The cool air came as a relief though he wouldn’t admit it. Still he grinned deeply as Luso walked beside him.
“Done with the squash already?” Hiereus asked as he cut again at the grain.
“Oh yeah,” Luso said, and Hiereus’ tail swished as his friend spoke. “We just finished hauling it into the temple; it’s almost time to prepare the Thuometha meal.”
Hierues sighed, “By the Flame,” he said, as he looked at the extent of the barley fields remaining to be harvested. “Always the last to come in.”
“We do eat a lot of it.” Luso said with a chuckle, scratching behind his horns.
“Still, now that you’re here at least I’ll have someone nice to work with,” Hiereus grinned.
“Uh... most people are nice Hiereus.”
“Yeah, um right.” Hiereus' tail sank. He’d never had the will to tell Luso that he liked him. “I mean,” he said itching his ear, “it’s nice to work with a friend.”
Luso looked at his feet, “I’m not here to work the barley field.”
“What?” Hiereus wilted further as he realized his friend hadn’t brought a sickle.
“Sorry,” Luso said, “I just came to see what you were doing. I drew for meal prep after we brought the squash in.”
Heireus put on a smile as his heart sank, “We each work for the liberation of all,” he recited the mantra.
“Right.” Luso chuckled, “As labors are shared, by the Flame we are blessed,” he recited in return. “Alright then I’d best be going”
“Right,” Hiereus said, “Um… I’ll be performing in the sacrifice tonight. Save me a seat for the meal?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” Luso smiled, “I’ve got to go, see ya.”
Hiereus waved “May the light of the Flame guard your path,” he said as he watched Luso go.
***
When work on the barley field finally wrapped up, Hiereus’ arms and back were sore and thoroughly worked. He stretched as he made his way up through the town green past the Temple and the step kiln to his family’s small home.
Once inside he stripped out of his work clothes and washed from a pail of tepid water. He shivered from the coolness yet compared to working in the sun, even in Eluthane, he found it a relief.
He found his priestly garb on a hook near the stove, and as he reached for them his hand brushed the robes left by his sister. It had been just over a year since Moira left. They still received the occasional letter from her. The last one came from Edrez where she searched the temples of the world’s gods.
The city was sometimes called the Hub of the World, being the home of a goddess, and a center of trade and learning. Hiereus trembled thinking about it, he would feel lost in such a city and he worried about his sister out in the world.
She had been gone so long, and yet part of him still expected to see her when he went out, or to greet him when he went to the temple.
He sat for a moment after he finished dressing, and surveyed his family's belongings and took in its emptiness. Then standing, he rested his hand on his sister’s vestments. “May the light of the Flame guide you home,” he said before leaving.
Outside the smells of food wafted up from the green. The meal of the community sacrifice would start soon and he had his role to play. This festival was probably his favorite of the year. It wasn’t the most holy–that was Longest Night–but the communal meal, sharing in the culmination of his people’s labor for the year, they were always the part of the liturgical cycle he loved the most.
“Ah, I see the Flame has finally led you here,” said Mutha, the recently-elected chief priest.
“By the Flame, I’m sorry, the barley harvest, it ran late,” Hiereus apologized breathlessly.
“Aw, pay her no mind,” said Molu, Mutha’s wife, as she waved him into the Temple. “You’re here now, and it’s not like we’d start without you child.”
“I’m a priest too you know,” he protested with a grin already knowing their answer.
“We know, child,” Mutha said patting Hiereus on the back, “But we’ve been in the priesthood for over 62 cycles.”
“To us you’ll always be child,” Molu finished.
Hiereus chuckled, “I guess being called child is my fate,”
“You and most of the priesthood, my dear,” Mutha said.
“You should go meet your mother,” Molu said, “I think you’re the last one here. Let her know it’s time to start the ritual.”
Hiereus nodded and headed off toward the central Flame under the oculus. His mother had been the chief priest in the last cycle of seasons and tonight’s sacrifice would be her last act in that role as it was handed over to Mutha.
His mother Phose smiled and then pulled her son into a hug when he approached. “Good, you’re ready. How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Um… fine?” Hiereus answered.
“Glad to hear it,” she responded cheerfully in a way that let Hiereus know his answer hadn’t been satisfactory. “Do you feel practiced enough? You were given an important role tonight.”
“Yeah ma, I practiced. It will be good.”
“Good, I’m glad you feel confident,” she pulled him into another hug, “I know you get nervous leading a ritual.”
“Ma,” Hiereus sounded abashed, “I’ll do fine.”
“I know you will, sweety, I just want you to know you will.”
Hiereus felt his face flush, and he smiled, “Thanks ma, I really think I’ll be fine.”
“Good, we should get going. The people are waiting, and hungry,” Phose said to Hiereus and the priesthood gathered in the Temple.
He followed his mother with the others out to the town green. It was dusk and brazers had been lit, speckling the assembly of his people in the Flame’s light as daylight waned.
They stopped before a pyre and Phose opened a pouch of ash and began marking a circle round them and the pyre, sanctifying the space for the ritual. When this was done each of the priests came to her and washed their hands as the ritual began.
It was now Hiereus’ turn to speak. Unfastening his lamp from his belt he watched the crowd that had gathered. His people numbered little more than what the rest of the world called a small town, but even still a few thousand people occupied the green in front of him.
He trembled a little removing the cap from the end of the horn lamp and adjusted its wick. These people all knew him and he knew them. Still it was an effort to keep breathing and nerves even. Then he smiled as he saw Luso in the front with a space saved beside him, and he felt ready.
“The light of the Flame brings liberation; its way is freedom through benevolence,” Hiereus recited as he lit the wick of his lamp. Its light turned crimson as the blessing was uttered, and he could feel its warmth reflected in his soul.
“The way of the Flame is given,” Phose picked up the next line, “and as we keep it our labors are blessed.”
The momentum of the ritual carried Hiereus now, and he turned to the pyre and stooped and lit its kindling with the others. At first smoke bellowed through the logs but soon gave way to the Flame’s deep red light as the fire spread.
“For inasmuch as a person cannot meet all their needs alone, you shall share your labors so that you may all have your needs met. For in sharing your work you shall be free from any one becoming your master,” Hiereus recited once the Flame reached its full height.
Mutha took the next line bringing a cup, and handing it to Hiereus as she spoke, “Let none perish from lack or inability.”
Hiereus nodded in thanks as he accepted the cup, and he could smell the sweet grain wine, fermented in the mine below the Temple.
Next his mother brought a loaf of barley bread. “Be generous with each other and let each who can, aid their fellow with vigor,” she said as she offered her son the loaf, and he exchanged his lamp. Not so much as part of the ritual, but to free his hands.
He held aloft the cup and loaf, and uttered the blessing the meal was named for. “Thuometha, tō panti, ek pantos,” or in the common tongue, “For ourselves we sacrifice, for all, from all.”
“As we have kept the way, our labors have been blessed. We give thanks to the Flame; we give thanks to the land.” As he spoke, he poured some of wine onto the embers of the fire.
After sipping from the cup himself, he offered it to his mother who drank and in turn offered it to Mutha.
Hiereus then tore the loaf. “May we now all share the blessings of our labor, in the light of the Flame.” He placed a part of the loaf in the fire and watched for a moment as the red flames began to consume it.
Then, as with the cup, he ate first before giving the loaf to Phose, and she partook then gave it to Mutha. The ritual not only marked harvest but also the past cycle of sessions and the formal passing of office between the two.
Upon its completion, half of the priesthood took baskets of bread and the other half wine skins to give to all assembled, and officially the harvest meal began.
After helping to distribute the loafs, he returned his basket to the Temple when his mother found him to return his lamp.
“You did really good tonight,” she said, handing him his lamp.
“Thank you,” he grinned, reflecting on the ritual.
“I mean it,” she said, “I was really proud of you as you performed the sacrifice,” and she squeezed his hand.
“We were all proud of you,” Mutha had come up behind him, “We’ve seen you grow a lot since joining our number. I wanted to thank you for the role you played tonight, and not just because I took your mother’s job. Keeping Thuometha is important for our people.”
“Thanks,” he responded, shyly scratching the stump of his horn. “It’s always been my favorite,” he added, before stooping to give the older woman a hug.
“Hiereus,” his mother said as he stood up, “you didn’t happen to see where pa and Rai were sitting did you?”
“I didn’t notice,” he admitted.
“We should go find them so we can eat.”
“You go, I was going to sit with Luso.”
“Oh,” she looked surprised, then smiled, “I think I saw him up front. You have fun then.”
“Thanks ma, I’ll see you back at home.” He waved as she went off into the crowd.
He turned back to the new chief priest. “Hey thanks again Mutha,” he said, “Your opinion means a lot to me.”
“You’re a fine young man Hiereus, I’m glad to have people like you in the priesthood,” she said patting his arm. “Now go find your friend, I’m sure he’s waiting. I ought to find Molu, knowing her, she’s probably already started eating.”
“Alright, I’m sure I’ll see you later. Enjoy your dinner.”
Mutha waved and went off as Hiereus went over to meet Luso. His friend smiled as he approached. “So what’s good?” Hiereus asked, sitting down.
“There's a spicy bread pudding I think you’ll like. It’s a bit too hot for me, but you liked those chilies the traders brought back last cycle.”
“Oh, I’m glad to hear that crop worked out even if they didn't turn red. I never know what to expect from new crops.” Hiereus said as he sat down and started serving himself.
“Yeah, new seeds usually fail this far north, but these took well enough.”
“Mmmm,” Hiereus savored the spicy bread pudding, “You’re right, I do like it. Mmmm.”
“I think I’ll stick with squash and potatoes myself,” Luso said flatly.
“Your loss,” Hiereus’ tail waved vigorously as he took another bite. “I thought you liked spicy food?”
“Hmm, not the chilies. Their heat does something weird to my tongue.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“I’m not sure what you’re sorry about,” Luso said, “I just don’t eat them.”
“Fine, I’ll just be sure to eat your share of them then.” Hiereus grinned thinking about it.
Luso laughed, “Whatever you say bud.”
The air became cold as the stars started to appear, and Hiereus shivered. For a moment he wished he had his tail sock on, then his mind drifted and he wondered what it was like where Moira was.
“Hey, are you alright?” Luso shook his shoulder.
“Hmm?” Hiereus muttered, returning to the present moment.
“I was just saying that I was going to join the foresting team this autumn, and you didn’t seem to hear me.”
“Sorry, I was wondering how Moira was,” Hiereus smiled apologetically.
“Oh, yeah.” Luso frowned, “Have you heard from her recently?”
“Her last letter came with the returning caravan a few weeks ago,” Hiereus said. “She was in Edrez when she wrote it. She was going to try and find her way toward Ikurad soon.”
“Oh wow,” Luso responded, “she's gone a long way.”
“Yeah, I don’t think our trading caravans have seen as much of the world as she has. I’m not sure any Eluthanai has.”
Hiereus paused, staring up into the night sky. “Speaking of the caravans, did you like the cinnamon candy they brought back?”
“Oh yeah, it was good. Spicy, but not like the chilies. I finished mine a bit ago.”
“Well I saved some; if you like you can have one.”
“Wow, thanks Hiereus,” Luso said, taking a candy and popping it in his mouth. “I love these things.”
Hiereus chuckled, “Good, I’m glad.”
“You, know I could have traveled,” Luso said. “Or I thought I could. I wanted to join the caravans, but the world’s big. I’m not sure I’m up for it.”
“Me neither,” Hiereus said. “Still I always find myself wondering about the places Moira has been.”
“Yeah. It’s weird having her gone. I think the whole town misses her. But to be honest I had a mind to court her before she left. I never had the nerve to ask though.”
Hiereus’ heart sank as the meaning of Luso’s words set in, and his whole body drooped.
“Hey, something wrong?”
Of course Luso wasn’t like him; so few people were. He didn’t know why he imagined Luso would feel the same way he did. He realized he was trembling and tried to still himself. “It’s nothing,” he answered, realizing his eyes were getting hot with tears.
“It’s not nothing,” Luso said, “I think about it all the time, that perhaps if I had been a little braver maybe Moira would have stayed and you and I would have been brothers,” Luso chuckled.
Hiereus forced only the smallest semblance of a laugh in response, “I’m sorry” he said, “I just realized it's time to start cleaning up inside the Temple. I need to go.”
“Oh right,” Luso said, stunned by Hiereus’ sudden change in mood. “It seems a little early, but I’ll see you later then.”
He rushed into the Temple and as soon as he was out of sight started crying as he sank to the floor. His unease compounded as he heard someone approach from outside.
“Hmm,” He heard the voice of an older woman behind him. “You liked him a lot didn’t you?” Mutha said, patting him on the back.
“What?” Hiereus said, wiping his eyes.
“Tears like that only come from death or heartache, and no one’s died,” Mutha answered. “I don’t think I realized before tonight that you were like Molu and I. Should have seen it, the way you moon over your friend, but I didn’t give it any mind until you went off to sit with him tonight. Would that I had, I could have given some advice.”
“Advice?” Hiereus asked.
“Oh,” Mutha said sitting down next to him, “Molu and I were lucky to find each other. It’s not our way to make such things taboo as other places do, but there are so few like us that we seldom talk about it.”
Hiereus frowned; the only man Hiereus had suspected to be like him died alone. He knew his chances in Eluthane.
“You need to make yourself known,” Mutha said. “I suspect there are more of us than we think but because no one speaks of it, we feel alone.”
“I...” Hiereus started, but Mutha cut him off.
“I know it’s an awkward thing to bring up, explaining that your romantic interests aren’t typical. Trust me, I know. But by the Flame Eluthane won’t hate you for it, and you’ll never know if others feel the same way unless you're visible.”
Hiereus smiled, “I’ll try,” he said drying his eyes.
“At very least mention it to your mother. The other day she was asking if there were any young ladies you were interested in.”
Hiereus sighed and looked up at the ceiling, “I guess I can start with that.”
“I’ll understand if you need some time to cry and miss cleanup, but you might want to hide in one of the ritual rooms. The others will be coming back to the temple soon.”
“Thanks, Mutha. Thanks,” he said and he hugged the new chief priest.
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Kuan
By Emma Angela Cayton
The word 'kuan' had been an arguably, great part of our daily lives. It had spread just like a virus, in which any person can be infected. "Shhh! Dili lagi magsaba saba ba kay makuan ka sa kuan." The word 'kuan' had been one among the same old words that at all times I hear. 'So what is the purpose of your study?' our research adviser asked 'Uhm... Kuan ma'am... Kuan...The purpose of our study is kuan.. " Kuan here, kuan there, kuan everywhere.
So for now, let us all see how does the word 'kuan' being used. The word kuan is applicable in hesitant speech, or in order to show uncertainty in reference to something. The word kuan is used as a placeholder name on occasion of a thing, person, time, quantity, quality, place, is temporarily forgotten, unknown, irrelevant, deliberately being avoided, or understandable by means of the context to the people involved within the conversation. The proposed meaning can also be understood depending on the preposition or article used. For example, si kuan will always refer to a person (For the word si in Bisaya means he/she), while sa kuan can refer to a time, place, or thing (depending on context and its position in the sentence).
Different situations where we usually face the word 'kuan'.
'Asa man nimo gibutang ang kuan? Where did you put the whatdoyoucallitagain? Instead of saying, "Asa man nimo gibutang ang charger?" (Where did you put the charger?) The situation here is that someone is actually looking for the charger but has forgotten the word for "charger". And what does he use as a filler for the word "charger"? He used "kuan." This it the kind of situation that I wanted to avoid as much as I can. Let me just illustrate to give you a broader understanding about this situation. My mom would say, 'Kuhaa sa tong kuan kaw' then I just stand there waiting for her to finish the sentence she wanted to convey. But ofcourse since she already forgot that she did not actually said the word, she will just scold at me and I need to shut my mouth and absorb all the things she wanted to say. Sometimes 'kuan' is also used to replace a word that is something that you don't want to mention, especially in the event of the word has a sexual meaning or if the word is actually inappropriate or offensive. She is such a flirt. Kuan kaayo siya. Another situation is when of the people involved in the conversation already knew who or what they are actually talking about. 'Hoy nakita nimo tong myday ni kuan? ' (Have you seen his/her facebook story?) Familiar? Or even when the people involved in the conversation and the person they are talking about is around. 'Hoy naa si kuan sa imong likod oh! ' (Hey he / she's behind you!) More likely my friends and I usually get involved in this kind of situation when their crushes are around.
In this part of my essay we would try to see how he word 'Kuan' is being used in the Chinese culture. Surprisingly the word 'kuan' is kinda popular in their country. Since the word 'kuan' is used to name a child in China, I have included a statement that would explain why in their cultures names are important. Names in China are very crucial since it gives you a great insight into their family and background. Unlike the other countries, (where names are often chosen based on whether the parents happen to ‘like’ the name). Sometimes parents name their children based on their forebears. Where parents recycle their forebear's name in naming their children. But let us all try to focus why does name play a very crucial value in Chinese culture. According to Paul Chong (2010), "Since history began, Chinese have always believed in the significance of one’s name. They have developed a very comprehensive system of naming their children as it is believed that the name of a person strongly influences one’s destiny and fate. Astrologers, fortune tellers, academics and monks are often consulted when choosing a name for the new born. The other cultures, however do not really believe in it and tend to brush it off as superstition." This just show how inclined the Chinese in their culture are. The word 'Kuan' had been used in China as a name. The true meaning of ‘Kuan’ (in China) cannot be described with just a few words. Kuan is a name that means a highly charged personality that attracts potent ideas. Kuan are diplomatic, gentle, intuitive, cooperative, and might even be a psychic.
But wait there's more. Kuan had been also a name of a Chinese pottery of the Sung period in the 12th century. Let us try to know the origin of 'Kuan' pottery in China. The editors of encyclopaedia Britannica explains that, "Guan kilns, Pinyin Guan yao, or Wade-Giles Kuan yao, Chinese kilns known for creating an imperial variety of stoneware during the Song dynasty (AD 960–1279). After the Song royal court moved to the south, Guan kilns produced ware from about 1127 at Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. One of the official kilns, Jiaotan, has been located by scholars near Wugui Shan (Tortoise Hill); many rich examples of the ware were unearthed there. Guan ware was characterized by a wash of brown slip and by glazes varying from pale green to lavender blue. Artisans often applied brown pigment to emphasize a wide-meshed network of cracks."
I have found out that the word 'kuan' is also referred to a goddess of compassion in Chinese Bodhisattva. (A bodhisattva is defined by Kosho Uchiyama (2016) as an "ordinary person who takes up a course in his or her life that moves in the direction of Buddha.") Goddess Kuan Yin or Quan Yin is again referred to the goddess of compasion and mercy. Because of this Quan Yin/ Kuan Yin is portrayed in pouring wisdom and compassion from a sacred vase, also she you can also see images of her holding children or giving something to those who are in need. She is also defined by Rodika Tchi (2019) as "one of the major deities in Buddhism and one of the most popular deities used in feng shui." Rodika Tchi also stated that "The One with a Motherly Compassion, She who Hears the Cries of the People are the Quan Yin's attributes. A great protector and benefactor, her heart is full of deep compassion and unconditional love; her energy is God-like. As such, Quan Yin is welcomed in many feng shui applications and is one of the most popular (and sacred) feng shui cures. Due to her commitment to helping humans, she is approached with any concerns, troubles, or worries. Be it family, career, health or relationships, no trouble is too big to be brought to the motherly and all-powerful energy of Quan Yin." I know you have been really fascinated at the same time infowhelm by how the word 'kuan' had been used by the Chinese but wait there's more! The word 'kuan' is also a courtesy name of a Chinese landscape painter of the Song Dynasty. The Travelers among Mountains and Streams, a large hanging scroll, is Fan Kuan's best known work and it had been given idea to the new generation painters (in which it have been given them an inspiration). The historian Patricia Ebrey explains her view on the painting that the: "...foreground, presented at eye level, is executed in crisp, well-defined brush strokes. Jutting boulders, tough scrub trees, a mule train on the road, and a temple in the forest on the cliff are all vividly depicted. There is a suitable break between the foreground and the towering central peak behind, which is treated as if it were a backdrop, suspended and fitted into a slot behind the foreground. There are human figures in this scene, but it is easy to imagine them overpowered by the magnitude and mystery of their surroundings."
Too bad for the word 'kuan' due to the fact that in our culture 'kuan' more likely to be used as an interjection. Unlike in the Chinese culture where using the word 'kuan' are used on the occasion of naming a child that is incorporated with a certain personality. Also the word 'Kuan' in China had been also a part of their culture in the terms where, China used to call a type of pottery as 'Kuan'. Although hearing the word 'kuan' again and again might be really annoying, but it was really fascinating to learn that this word actually means more than what we already knew. After all the information that I had throughout this essay. I've remembered the quote 'Never stop learning because life never stops teaching.' This made me realize that we should never settle for the things that we already knew and always yearn for something new.
Lastly, may the 'kuan' be in your favor.
References
https://www.google.com/amp/s/paulchong.net/2010/09/02/the-significance-of-chinese-names/amp/
https://www.britannica.com/art/Guan-kilns
https://tricycle.org/magazine/what-bodhisattva/amp/
https://www.thespruce.com/quan-yin-statue-as-feng-shui-cure-for-your-home-1274917
https://www.comuseum.com/painting/masters/fan-kuan/
@queenlupitajones
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She has no throne. Girls without thrones should not have knights, but hers won’t go. Princess Zelda – the girl who killed Calamity – would love to fade into legend, but Link’s bought a house, he’s fighting off monsters, and he’s selling giant horses to strangely familiar Gerudo men. She'll never have any peace now. (ao3)
There’s only one bed in the house at Hateno and the first night there, he tries to give it to her.
It’s very normal of him. Like she’s a visitor. Like she’s just stopping by. Link shows her where she can hang her cloak (his cloak) and stow her shoes (by the door) and where the extra blankets are (in the closet). Zelda isn’t sure how to explain without embarrassing him that she already knows the layout – has ghosted these simple hallways, kept vigil on the blood moons. She knows this modest kitchen, knows the creak in the third step up. She knows the stains in whorls of the table top, which ones are wine and which are blood.
Link smells like clean cotton and grass, which seems strange.
She thought he’d smell of black powder, resins, metal – the hard scent of battle and the road. Strange that it doesn’t stick to him, or maybe he took a special effort to scrub it off before coming back into the house. His hair’s damp. He left his boots by the door. The window’s open and distant thunder almost hides the sound of his breathing. When she listens close, his breath sounds loud in her ears, a disharmonizing with the thump of his heart. If he was uncomfortable with her request to sleep next to him, it never reached his face.
Not that much does. Even at the end of things, a century past, she had trouble reading him when he didn’t try to be read.
Link sleeps for a full two days. On the third, he wakes in a panic. She must pry his fingers from the grip of a broadsword and, for ten minutes straight, convince him that the battle is over. He sleeps for another two days. She gardens, straightens up the house, sweeps, sits in the grass outside and rolls around in the wild flowers. Does laundry. Rolls in the grass again. Does more laundry. She borrows a pair of trousers and a shirt that (to her chagrin) are a little too small for her.
The man at the general store is curious about her.
“So, you came in with Link last week. That so?”
Zelda looks up from the grains in the basket, finger worrying the braid in a single head of wheat. “Oh, yes. I’m from… out of town.”
“Well that’s nice,” he says, thoughtfully stroking the brush of his moustache. “Good to see new faces. When he bought the Bolson house across the bridge, we were wondering if he intended to bring family out here.”
Zelda hesitates, not sure if that means she is family or just that the town, generally, assumed that was why Link might buy a house.
“Nice guy,” continues to shopkeep. “The shepherds on the hill pay him to keep Bobokin off the beaches and grazing lands. You also a swordhand or…?”
She’s flattered he might estimate her a co-worker of Link’s, but also not sure she should start lying without his consult. She says she’s a friend. Link is helping her with a survey she’s conducting. (That is true. They talked about that.) The shopkeeper nods.
“Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Would you do me a favor? Nothing big, I have something for Link.”
“Of course.”
The man ducks behind the counter and stands up with a basket heavy with vegetables and grain. He looks at the basket, then back at her. “Sorry. This might be a bit big for you…”
Zelda loops two arms around the basket, the weave-work creaking as she hefts it up onto her hip. “No. It’s fine. Thank you.”
“You sure?” The shopkeeper appraises her biceps for the task. “Meant to send it along the week before last, but he didn’t come by.”
Zelda pauses. “He was… busy.”
Blood on the atrium floor, ozone and fire, the blue light banked silver in the blade. There’s a window in her head that she can look through and he’s still there in that tomb: armored in ancient metal, breathing magic like heat from a kiln, lightning behind his teeth. He’s also where she left him this morning: snoring gently with terrific bedhead and a quilt tangled in his legs.
This is where she finds him when she returns to the house. She leaves the basket on the table in the living area and pads back up the steps to the loft. She avoids the creak in the third stair. A warm square of sunshine is making its way lazily across the comforter onto Link’s lower back; it sets a glow to his cotton shirt, puts sections of gold in his hair. For a moment looking down at him, Zelda is overwhelmed by a paralyzing weight behind her breast bone, sudden and vicious, taking hold of her so tight the muscles in her throat clench and burn. Then the moment passes and she clears her throat.
“Link,” she whispers, hovering near the bed.
Nothing.
“Link,” she says at regular tones.
Snores.
“Link,” she says rather loudly.
He wrinkles his nose and rolls over, taking the edge of the blankets with him and thus cocooning himself in quilts. It’s… probably the most childish thing she’s ever seen him do in their travels together and she stands there, nonplussed, for a moment.
“Well then,” she says, “I will… just make a proper breakfast without your input.”
It’s ten minutes later as she’s well into burning a trio of speckled eggs that Link – very much awake now – jumps the loft bannister to rush her and snag the smoking skillet from her hands. He gives her a look.
“I tried to wake you up,” she says.
He takes the billowing pan to the door and hucks the contents into the yard.
“I was going to fix it.”
He turns and shows her the charred bottom of the pan and gestures to it with his other hand.
“Okay. Perhaps not.”
Zelda stews over a small mug of tea (provided for her when Link became alarmed by her use of the kettle somehow) and acknowledges that food, of course, was the thing to break Hyrule’s light out of his post-battle catatonia. Obviously. Link scraps the burnt food off the cast iron and sets about making a real breakfast. The small house immediately smells of… burnt egg and aroma of grilling ham, eggs, onion, and mushrooms. The hot scent of spices from a handful of glass bottles. He drops a perfect omelet on a plate in front of her a few minutes later and, yes, there it is, gives her another look.
“I thought I had it,” she says.
He takes a seat, shaking his head.
“Oh. Hush,” she says, picking a mushroom from her plate and flicking it at him.
He eats the mushroom off the back of his knuckles where it landed and Zelda rejoices (silently) the tiny boring familiarity of it. Link dedicates the rest of his attention to eating breakfast.
“I sealed Ganon you know.”
Link looks her straight in the eyes, then rolls them.
“Hush!”
She cleans the dishes. Link goes outside to wash up. When he’s done, she listens to the faint sound of her housemate changing clothes upstairs, glances up to catch him pulling his hair into a fresh knot at the back of his neck, studying the small ritual of muscle memory as he combs his fingers from his forehead and temples and pulls back a few times, gathering it where he can tie it. Link is, according to the housewives of Hantero, ‘So pretty you don’t even want to take him home. That kind of pretty.’ Zelda isn’t sure what that’s supposed to mean or why it sounded a little like an insult. He finishes with his hair, then notices her watching and tilts his head at her.
She waves his concern away. “It’s nothing.”
He leans against the banister, looking down at her, one brow arched.
“Honestly. It’s nothing. I’m glad you’re up, is all.”
His expression crinkles a little, apologetic.
“You know,” she says, giving her attention to the dishes, “for one hundred years I didn’t have to eat anything. Or sleep. Its… so strange sitting down to a meal now.” She says this directly to the dish she’s drying. “I didn’t realize I missed it. Can you miss things retroactively? I didn’t think you could, but now it’s as though… I remember all those times I didn’t have breakfast and it makes me sad. How silly!” She stacks the plates. “Ignore me. I’m just… I don’t know…it’s not as though time was linear for me when I was… I don’t know why I’m even talking about it.”
She senses Link’s coming down the stairs to stand near her elbow, like a shadow with weight. She looks over her shoulder.
“There should be a word for that look,” she says.
Link takes the plates from the counter puts them away in a cabinet.
She has no throne.
It goes without saying, but Zelda’s still not sure how to say it. Link saddles a horse for her at the Dueling Peaks Stable – a pure white mare so like her old horse that she momentarily believes her to be that every mount. But it’s a trick of the tableau. Somehow, against all odds, Link has recovered the purple and gold riding accoutrements of her house and a wild horse from Castle Town bloodlines. He outfits the horse for her, murmuring softly to it, and she doesn’t know how to tell him to re-tackle her mount in lesser gear. To take off the colors of Royalty. His gesture is too great. The gift too impossible to refuse.
He smiles, patting the mare’s velvety nose while she gingerly feeds it a sugar cube.
Link’s own steed, a mare as well, is a stocky animal with dark coloring and mottled hide. It snorts and stomps impatiently in her stall. There are chunks missing in the spotted coat of her hind quarters. A Bokokin branding. Link explains, later, that he prefers her for travel because she won’t spook at the scent of Bokokin and is already trained for bridle-less combat. Zelda knows, only because Link told her a century ago, when they were first mounting up for travel, that he only rides horses he can break to take guidance from his knees, not the bridal.
At the time, this had only annoyed her and so… “They don’t teach that in the Guard.”
Link hesitated.
Looking back, she can see now that was a symptom of mutism, not uncertainty, but his silence irked her back then, so she’d raised her voice a little. “Why don’t you ride a stallion? You’re a knight now. They’re bigger. Better for mounted combat. Do you mean to protect me or not?” And at another hesitation, she added, “Never mind. I don’t require an escort for this outing. You should report back to the Guard.”
And then she left him in the stable.
Zelda lies awake thinking of this conversation, one hundred years in the past and still clear as the day it happened. Link dozes by the embers of their fire and the soft nickering of his mare, Epona, keeps off the quiet. She shakes her head. Tries to throw off the memory, the condescension, the slights. Petty moments she knows Link has forgotten but she cannot, even in after the war’s been won. Later, she re-saddles her horse with a sizable saddle blanket and bags. This mostly hides the house colors. If Link notices, he doesn’t comment.
The first trouble arises in Hebra.
They’re settling in for the night at the stable in Tabintha where the locals report six killings this season – the dismembered parts of travelers found by search parties. Consumed by wildlife but killed by much worse. Lizalfos most likely. The arctic air hides their unique method of killing – a nitrogenous breath that freezes the flesh on contact, causing limbs to crack off and shatter. Too tough to be eaten by anything but the biggest mountain wolves.
“I’ve a cantrip for that,” Zelda is saying. “It will stop them even freezing your thermal wear.”
Link, doing an inventory of his combustible arrow-heads by lamp light, nods, chewing a stick of jerky while sorting through the small arsenal on the table. It’s a soothing, kind of meditative routine for him so she can tell he’s only partially listening to her. He hums a little while he does it.
“Give me your hand, I’ll put it on your sword arm.”
He stretches out his arm, absently, then whips it back when he feels her start to push his sleeve up. He gives her a suspicious eye.
“It’s not going to hurt, you big baby.”
He continues to eye her, a long blue glare.
“That was one time and it’s not my fault you didn’t listen when I told you it would sting.”
She’s about to really dig into why, honestly, it won’t even tickle this time when a largish sort of man in a heavy doublet and snow gear moves toward their table. Zelda, facing him, notes that three other men hang back but seem to be with him nonetheless, watching. Link, for his part, gives no sign that he hears the man other than to place one hand in his lap. His lap where his sword rests across his knees. He looks over his shoulder only when the man is close enough to be un-ignorable.
“Hello,” Zelda says.
The man ignores her, staring down at her companion. “You Link?” says the man.
“Yiga?” says Link. The jerky stick is still between his teeth so it’s not with any kind of… fear that he says that.
Zelda tenses, but the man just looks confused, the wind-red skin around his eyes crinkling.
“What?”
“Never mind.” Link does not take his hand from his lap.
“You Link or not?”
Link shrugs. Its kinds of infuriating from an outside perspective.
Zelda pipes up. “Sorry, sir. But what business do you have?”
“None, unless one of you is Link.” His lip curls. “Now that I’m up close, I can’t rightly tell which of you is the woman.”
“Thanks,” says Link, ripping the jerky in half between his teeth and chewing. Zelda gives him a look of her own.
“Okay, smartass, I think you’re Link.”
He shrugs again. It makes her want to laugh. It should not. There is a large person with a threatening demeanor hovering over her partner and he appears to have a large ax strapped to his back. To her younger self, this would be cause for alarm, but to this new version of herself, this situation seems exactly as laughable to her as it must to Link who has the divine blade in his lap and no interest in tavern cock fighting. The man’s friends are beginning to make their way across the room now though. Zelda sighs.
“Sir, you’ve found your man. What is it you want?”
“You always speak for him, girl?”
“No. Just right now. What’s your business?”
“My employer needs to speak with him.”
“We’re here on a task of some importance,” Zelda explains, careful with her tone. “There’s been violence and death in the region. We’re here to remedy that. If there is some specific need your employer has of him, then relay it, and we can make our own way there when our tasks are at a close.” Zelda is on her feet now, hands on the table in front of her. Link, sitting still facing her, is looking up at her through his bangs. His eyebrows are up. Zelda ignores him. “So, sir, what is your business and how does it supersede the needs of the good people here?”
It’s only then the man seems to notice the rest of the room watching. The stable hands and inn keeps and small groups of local trappers and traders all eyeing the confrontation with the idle readiness of people with a stake in the outcome. There are swords now, staves, and casual weaponry suddenly visible, on table tops, by hand where they were previously packed away.
The man hesitates then, appraises her. Link, in his seat – Zelda watches his calm blue stare rove toward the man, a dangerous stillness in his stature. The man doesn’t notice.
“What’s your name, little miss?”
“Unless you tell me your business, I see no reason to tell you.”
The man points a finger. “You’re her.” He takes a step forward. “You the one calling herself Zelda, aren’t you?”
Link hits the man. Zelda doesn’t see him do it. He’s too fast. It’s just the follow through, the aftermath – a man twice Link’s size, flying staggering backward, clutching his gut and Link on his feet. The blade is out. The naked metal one hand, the sheath in the other. He doesn’t move to raise it, only stands there, feet apart, shoulders set, directly between her and the four men sent to find them. The blade doesn’t glow. No. It only does that in the presence of evil. But the light catches in the metal, give it a purposeful shine.
“Leave,” says Link.
He barely says it above a whisper, but into the dead silence it drops like a coin into a pan.
Zelda grabs his shoulder. He glances at her. He does not relax even slightly.
“Tell us who sent you,” she says to the men. “You might as well.”
The man holds up two hands. “No trouble, little miss,” he starts to say, but one of his man blurts, “I’d be careful using that name!”
“It’s my name,” she snaps, but the men are gone into the snow outside.
Later, she will tell Link she wishes he hadn’t done that and he will just shrug. This time, it’s infuriating.
They have a nightmare.
Zelda knows it’s ‘they’ not ‘she’ when the scream cuts out of her and, in the same instant, Link lunges up from his cot and buries a broadsword halfway through a tree. Epona, nearby, just looks up from a small bag of oats, snorts, and goes back to eating. The humans present stare at each other for a very long moment. Link is first to move. He wrenches the blade free, bracing one boot against the trunk and yanking. A sigh. He takes a seat, cross-legged next to her and plants the blade point down in the grass by her sleeping cot. He rubs two hands over his face. Then he just looks, tiredly, into her eyes with a question there.
“I dreamed that we lost,” she says. “I mean… that we lost again.”
Link shudders.
“You too?”
He nods, then kind of absently presses his palm to his throat, cupping the crushable curve of his windpipe like a ghost pain still plagues him. Zelda, watching, feels a cold prickle run up her spine and down her arms, raising the fine hairs all the way down to her aching hands. She stops clenching her fists.
“Calamity killed you in front of me.”
Link stops touching his throat, hand hovering uncertainly for a moment before he drops it in his lap. She can see him working up to saying something. He always mouths a word once or twice before pushing his voice behind it.
“It’s okay,” she says quickly. “It wasn’t real.” She pulls her hair back from her face, re-doing the band “Maybe… maybe it was me. I had a nightmare and I, perhaps, shared it to you. That’s possible. I maintained a certain level of… awareness of you all through my time interned with the Calamity. Those paths are still open to some degree. I apologize –”
He makes a cutting motion, interrupting her. Then he raises two hands and, in terse but fluid hand motions, signs, ‘Maybe it was my nightmare.’
She blinks. If he’s signing, he must be shaken. He hasn’t done that in a while.
He shrugs and goes on, ‘I have nightmares. It was probably mine.’
“Oh… I… I suppose, but I don’t think…”
He shrugs again. She’s not sure how each shrug has a specific meaning but it does.
“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not prophetic, I would tell you if it was.”
He nods.
“Link, we’re safe.”
He looks at her. The moonlight through the trees lays lines of silver across his forehead, misses his eyes.
“I swear it,” she says. This small panic rising… she doesn’t know it’s source but she continues, “I would tell you if we were in danger.”
His eyes widen and, after a moment, he says, “I know that.”
Link’s voice always startles her, even when Zelda has ample time to watch him work up to using it. It’s always both softer and deeper than she expects, usually rough with disuse, faintly kinked with an accent she’s only recently identified as a hybrid of eastern Lanaryian and, interestingly, the grammatical pacing in most Zora-learned Hylian. She’s not sure why, but hearing his voice now does damage to something inside her.
“You’ve done more than enough. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to fight anymore.” She shakes her head. “You know that, right?”
His expression smooths out, softens a little. He stands. Zelda watches him calmly pull the sword from the grass, wipe it on his trousers, then pick up the sheath from his sleeping cot and put it away. Then he comes back to her side, close enough to touch and he touches her shoulder, three fingertips pressed against the fabric for long enough that warmth bleeds through and sets gold lines to the roots of her. Fine wires of heat and regret.
Then, he says, very quietly, “I’m staying.”
She can’t say why that makes her want to hit him. Instead she says, “Thank you.”
When they reach Highland Stable, the inn keep says a Gerudo woman came looking for Link. Not Link specifically, but “the owner of the red and black stallion out back”. The innkeep also mentions, somewhat warily, that they will need to charge extra in boarding fee for an animal of his size and temperament and they would greatly appreciate it if Link would ‘settle him’ before taking off again. Link agrees, pays the fee, and heads back to the stalls.
Zelda, previously unaware of this animal, is stupefied by the size of the beast Link returns with, leading it to the large corral near the front of the inn with nothing but a hand on its massive flank. She can’t say what breed it is. The towering stallion stands a monolith stature beside Link, pure black save for the impossible red of its mane and tail. Broad as a Lynel. The middle of its back so high that Link must take a short running leap to mount. Once seated, the beast is comically too large for him.
The horse tolerates Link’s presence, snorting and stomping, massive hooves cutting deep furrows in the grass.
Zelda comes forward only when Link waves her the all clear. “What’s his name?”
Link just huffs and shrugs.
She lets the huge horse nose her palms. “No name? Are you thinking about turning him loose?”
“He’ll leave if he wants,” Link says, taking a handful of deep red mane.
He clicks his tongue, taps his heels and the great black monster trots out into the corral with the air of an animal that planned to do so all along. Zelda retreats to the fence, ducking outside of the ring so she can climb onto the first horizontal bar and lean against the top most support, watching Link take the giant horse through increasingly aggressive maneuvers around the yard. It’s not a fast animal. But its every move becomes a juggernauting force, unstoppable and uncaring. In motion, Link no longer seems too small for his mount.
“A beautiful animal,” someone murmurs.
Zelda jolts a little, startled because there is a very, very tall person in a traveling cloak and hood standing beside her. She didn’t hear them approach. From this angle, she can’t make out their face beneath the hood, only a sharp line of jaw, dark skin. The road-worn cloak and trousers are patterned in interlocking red and blue right angles along the hem. Gerudo Town make. Zelda re-assesses the person standing beside her – at least seven feet tall, biceps (very visible), broad shouldered, but leaned out by their height, large hands (rough with callouses), one forearm strapped with an archer’s guard. Zelda very carefully leans back a little, still searching…
There’s a scimitar-style sword on their hip.
“Sav’otta,” Zelda says.
The Gerudo standing next to her seems surprised. Then, in very deep Gerudo-tongue, says, “Do you speak the language?”
Zelda hesitates. “I’m a little rusty.”
“You are clear enough and well met, little sister. I am Draga.”
Zelda notes, puzzled, that Draga is using slight variant in conjugation she’s not heard before. “Nice to meet you. I am Zelda. I apologize if my Gerudo is antiquated. I’m out of practice.”
Draga nods, then reaches up and pulls the hood down. Zelda blinks. In the split second between the blink and the shock, Zelda knows it’s too late to hide her surprise. Annoyed with herself, Zelda says firmly, “I love your hair. I’ve thought about cutting it short like that, but I’m too set in my ways, big brother.”
Draga smiles at her.
Zelda realizes now what it was in Draga’s grammar that confused her – not linguistic drift, but male modifiers. She’d learned it, but never heard it used in conversation; before now, she had never met a Gerudo man. Draga’s hair, red as old copper, is short for a Gerudo, braided down against his scalp and clipped with intricate gold rings. Dark complexioned even for a Gerudo, high dramatic features. Now that the hood is off Zelda can see the start of very carefully shaved sideburns only just growing along the sharp line of his jaw, deep cheekbones, a heavy brow. He’s so tall and so broad in shoulder, that he reminds her a bit of Urbosa. His eyes are the same green.
In the distance, Link shouts something and the stallion rears up, then dives back down, hooves slamming into the ground so hard the impact vibrates in the earth. Then horse and rider bolt full speed around the edge of the corral, Link’s body ducked low along the beast’s spine.
“You can speak Hylian. I understand it fine. My accent is the trouble do you know the rider?”
“Yes, we’re friends and he’s the owner, actually.”
“Then I’d like to speak with him. I’d like to propose a sale, if possible.”
“I can flag him down.”
“I am in no rush.”
Across the corral, Link pulls the stallion out of its gallop and into a slowdown rotation. Afterward, he dismounts, patting the giant horse in a congratulatory manner and saying something to him. Zelda wonders what he says. He is always saying things, specifically just to horses. The black giant flicks its ears forward, then bends its head down to forcefully but affectionately push its gigantic head into Link’s chest, knocking him back a few steps.
“Link!” Zelda puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles, a high ribbon of sound. “Can you come here?”
Link leaves the horse to its own devices and jogs over. The giant horse trots close behind, like the biggest dog in existence and loiters intimidatingly behind him. There’s horse hair in Link’s clothes, his bangs are stuck to his forehead, mud splattered on his pants. He wipes his hands on his tunic, eyeing the stranger
“Link. This is Draga. He’s interested in the stallion.”
Link blinks. The giant horse noses the side of his head. He looks doll-sized beside it.
“Zelda, would you mind translating?” Draga says. “I want to be clear.”
“Of course!”
Link, hesitating, taps her arm. When he has her attention, he signs, “I don’t speak Gerudo. Can you…?”
“I was just saying that. I can translate. Of course.”
Draga frowns. “He doesn’t speak?”
“He does, but it’s troublesome for him.” Then in Hylian. “You wanted to ask if the horse is for sale, right?”
Draga nods, looking at Link as he does so.
Link thinks about it, then says, aloud, “Maybe.” He signs, “I’d have to see him ride and how Asshole likes him. He’s a bastard.”
Zelda paraphrases. “Link wants to see you ride and determine how the horse likes you. It’s a very temperamental animal.”
“This is acceptable,” Draga says in warm but carefully enunciated Hylian. He unclasps his cloak from his neck. “I would prefer….” He gestures, says in Gerudo. “No point in wasting sunlight.” Then in Hylian. “Now?”
Link shrugs. “Okay.”
Draga braces one hand against the top of the corral fence and vaults it in a single slow but easy motion. The whole fence groans under the brief weight. He lands heavily, straightening to his improbable height and without the hood, Zelda can see his outfit isn’t Gerudo-made. The leather work – bracer, light armor, and gloves – are Rito despite tooling in Gerudo script. The tunic and under-shirt – Faron Highlands. A series of short blades strapped to his thigh glint Eldin-mined amber, a Goron-styled finish.
Zelda extrapolates from this the gear he left Gerudo town with no longer suits him and he’s been on the road a very long time.
The black stallion snorts at his approach. Draga seems unperturbed. He offers one giant hand for the beast’s inspection. The stallion snorts again, shaking it massive head back and forth. Link seems relaxed, but Zelda can tell he’s primed to jump back in if the monster horse goes berserk. Draga just huffs, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Hello, great king,” he murmurs. Draga’s tone is familiar. “Whoa, whoa.”
The horse eyes him.
“You know me,” he says, for some reason.
Zelda’s nose itches as he says this, her fingers too.
“Settle down. There you go.”
The giant horse picks a cautious path forward, like its navigating unsteady terrain. After another moment, it pushes its nose into Draga’s palm, lipping at his fingers like it does indeed know him. Draga runs his other hand along the beast’s jaw. His face is close enough to the stallion’s nose, that its nostrils flare a little. Zelda thinks he’s still speaking, but she can’t understand the words. Rather, she feels she almost knows the words. Like she’s just forgotten them and is left with just… impressions of what he says.
She thinks, however, he said something like, “You know your nature now.”
Draga climbs onto the stallion’s back and, once seated, looks at his audience. Then he very casually digs his heels slightly into the beast’s flanks and it trots a tight, easy circle in front of them. Then, just for good measure, he takes two handfuls of the beast’s mane and the horse rockets forward at a clip at least twice the speed Link had it moving. Link laughs out loud, startling Zelda who looks at him with wonder.
“This,” Draga says, bringing the horse back around at a trot, “is a Gerudo horse. Certainly.”
Zelda claps. “Astonishing!”
Link gestures in that animated way that means he’s probably mouthing words, illustrating his amazement.
Draga brings the horse to a stop facing them. “If this is satisfactory, should we discuss price?”
Zelda taps Link on the shoulder. “He wants to know if he passes and if you have a price, Link?”
Link shakes his head. “No sale. He’s yours.”
Draga blinks, frowning. “I think I misheard him.”
Zelda laughs. “I don’t think you did. Link, are you sure?”
Link signs in big hyperbolic sweeps, grinning. “It’s his horse. Obviously. Right? Looks like destiny, doesn’t it?”
“He says the horse is obviously yours, Draga. He can’t sell what is not his.”
“I cannot possibly accept,” Draga says. “He should name a fair price.” He looks directly at Link and, in much louder commanding Hylian, says, “You should give a price.” He looks at Zelda. “Does he understand what this horse is worth?”
Zelda smiles. “Yes. He knows what the horse is worth. He just doesn’t care. If you’re concerned about our financial well-being, you needn’t be. And honestly, if you take the horse then we no longer need to worry for his board and care. Knowing he’s found proper ownership is more than enough.” She glances at Link who’s giving her the thumbs up. “Yes. That’s right. He insists.”
“Your friend is mad.”
“Link, he says you’re mad.”
Link laughs. It’s infectious, sending jolts of warmth through her face.
Draga, exasperated, says, “If he will not allow me to pay him for the price of the horse, then will he allow me to buy the both of you a meal tonight?”
“Oh, he will certainly tell you do that. I feel your wallet may regret it, however.”
Later, having watched Link eat an entire pot of stew, a loaf of bread, a bowl of fruit, and a whole mutton, Draga tells Zelda that he sees now where the tiny Hylian might get his impossible energy from. He says this despite the fact Link has folded his arms on their low table, laid his head down on them, and gone fast to sleep. Zelda is taking the opportunity to balance a small loaf of bread on the top of the Hero’s head, placing it painstakingly until she is certain of its stability. Then she reaches for a dinner roll.
“He is either impossibly productive or dead to the world,” Zelda assures Draga, carefully stacking the dinner roll on top of the loaf. “I catch up when he’s unconscious.”
Draga watches her finish her tower of baked goods, then says, “Forgive me, but how old are you, little sister?”
She’s practiced this one. “I’m eighteen now.” She folds her arms on the table top. “I’m not entirely certain about Link. He grew up around Zora and they don’t value annual celebrations of birth so he always forgets.”
His brows arch. “The Zora?” He enunciates it Hylian. “That is… unusual.” And in Gerudo: “You two are… business partners?”
“Yes, but we’re friends. We’ve worked together a long time.”
“What is the nature of your commerce together?”
“We protect each other. Link does most of the jobs to do with hunting and security and I’ve taken up as a healer. Between us, we can relieve all manner of suffering and people pay for that.” She hesitates, then adds in Gerudo. “Link has a wide-spread reputation and people all over this realm trust him implicitly to accomplish what others cannot. We are on our way to handle such a task in the next few days.” She shrugs, picks up cup and pours herself some water. “You’ve caught us in an interim period.”
Draga sits forward. He’s so large, that his doing so blots out a significant part of light from across the room. In Hylian, he asks, “Do you require additional hands in this endeavor?”
Zelda thinks his accent is really not that strong.
“Link and I should be fine. It’s quite straightforward. There’s a Lynel we’re bringing down east of here.”
Draga tilts his head. “You are Lynel-hunting?” He gestures between her and Link. “You two?
“Looks are deceptive, Draga.”
Link, still asleep on the table, mutters and shoves his face deeper into the crook of his elbow. This disturbs the dinner roll which slides off his head, bouncing on his shoulder. The bread loaf just wobbles, then settles. Draga, observing this, looks back at Zelda with some incredulity.
“A dozen Lynels he’s brought down.” Zelda sips her drink. “A dozen.”
“It doesn’t seem possible,” Draga says in blunt, skeptical Hylian.
“Link exists to defy expectations.”
Draga narrows his eyes slightly and Zelda is, again, struck by the likeness to Urbosa. “Then if I were simply curious how a Hylian the size of my arm brings down Lynels? Would that be reason enough that you might allow me to accompany you?”
Zelda frowns. “You don’t know us well, Draga. I feel I should be up-front about a few aspects of what we do. The jobs we take on are usually quite dangerous and even the missions that are not martial can be unusual. Our methods are somewhat unorthodox…”
“You have Hylia’s Gift,” Draga interrupts.
Zelda frowns. “Hylia’s Gift?”
He frowns back. “Do you not say that in Hylian?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Magic,” Draga says, in Gerudo this time and Zelda can see how that might translate literally, into Hylian. “You worry I will be offended or suspicious of it. I am not. My mothers were all versed in some aspect of spellcasting, rune-craft, or ward-work. It’s not unusual to me.” He jerks his head toward Link. “Even that one, I sense it. A breath of the wild.”
“Breath of the wild?”
Draga sighs. “Do you not say that in Hylian either?”
Zelda grins. “No.”
“Wild magic.” He ponders this. “In Gerudo teachings, magic draws on three elemental kinds – breath, blood, and bone. Your semblance is blood. His is breath. Breath is rawer stuff. Harder to harness, instinctive.” In Hylian he says, “Wilder.”
Zelda considers this. “In… Hylian teachings, the abilities gifted from the Goddess are of three elemental kinds, but we cite wind, water, and earth. All simply being… attitudes of magical practice all under the same divine source. Air is the most rare and volatile. I… supposed I did not categorize Link’s talents that way.”
Draga is tearing a piece of bread in half. He looks at her. “Why not?”
She frowns at her drink. “I don’t know. I guess… I always saw him differently than a… sorcerer.”
“I am surprised you did not see it. You both seem very alike.”
“We’re not related.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Draga uses the bread to wipe stew from the inside of the bowl. “I do not think there is a proper word for it. You seem both like parts of a larger thing.” He shrugs and eats the bread. “I do not know how to explain it. When I look at you with truth, that is how you seem.”
“Do you have Hylia’s Gift, Draga?”
“Yes.” He looks at her, picking an orange from the bowl. “Does that trouble you?”
She begins to say ‘no’, then pauses.
“Why are you trusting me?”
When he doesn’t answer, just peels the fruit in his hand, she elaborates.
“In Gerudo culture, magic is… there are rules about who can use it.” She keeps her tone soft. Concerned, not accusatory. She doesn’t specify in what way he is outside their parameters. She just stares up at him, this giant man who reminds her of Urbosa in ways she can’t quite quantify, who Link gifted a priceless horse for no reason than he felt it was natural. “Why are you so sure I am a friend? If the current Chief, Riju, heard word of it, she would be compelled to act.”
Draga studies her face for a moment. “Do you think Riju should act?”
Zelda lowers her voice. “No, I don’t… but I also just met you.”
Draga’s mouth pulls a little, almost a smile, then he goes back to peeling his orange. In Gerudo, he says, “You should not fret, little sister. The Gerudo are wary of magic, but Urbosa herself commanded thunder and much more besides. I am not outside Law if I return within the year and declare myself.” He levels a very calm look at Zelda. “Hylians don’t regulate that, do they?”
“Magic doesn’t regulate every well. But there were licenses you could obtain like any other business and penalties for practicing without proper credentials.” She pauses. “But that was one hundred years ago. It’s… died off somewhat.”
Draga concedes that with a tilt of his head. “And what kind of craft do you practice, Zelda?”
She thinks of rain.
Hot and impossibly heavy, the mud sucking her sandals under. She thinks of her fingers knotted in Link’s bloody tunic. The fucking sword in his hand. Glowing, but not bright enough to stop ancient machinery running them down, racing across the country to cleave their bones from their bodies. She thinks of her prayer – Goddess, take me instead. Leave the one of us worth anything alive. – and then how the Guardians, in that exact moment, found them.
She thinks of tithing. Alters burnt with fruit and grain. Her family, her kingdom, her champions, her own knight: The blood sacrifice Hylia required. She thinks how it hurt. How hot, how infinite, how indifferent the power that screamed through her skin and how none of it hurt as much as that moment when Link stopped breathing. Her nightmares look like this: The sword never speaks. She kneels there in that field until Calamity comes to crush her from existence.
“Healing and protection,” she says. Zelda reaches across the table for Draga’s wine.
“You’re not old enough for that,” he says conversationally.
“I am,” she says and drinks directly from the bottle.
.
.
.
go to part 2
#botw#legend of zelda#breath of the wild#legend of zelda breath of the wild#loz#lozfic#post game fic where the cycle starts all over again#and ganon just wants to buy that giant horse off link#basically#platonic until its not#the triforce always comes together#interim#rae writes#raewrites
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You’ll Rise Up, Free and Easy
Chapter Seven: “The Sheep May Safely Graze”
Summary: As Tony prepares to care for Jarvis during his last days, he’s reminded of the turbulent time following Ana’s death, when he was a teenager. In his youth, Tony reacted to grief with violence and self-destruction. Jarvis, however, trusted him to rise above these compulsions. With Jarvis’s life ending, how will Tony cope with the loss now that he’s grown up?
Trigger warnings for this chapter: alcohol misuse by a minor
Read after the break.
December, 1871
With his knuckles tightly bound and his face blotchy from crying, Tony sat at Jarvis’s kitchen table. Jarvis had chipped ice from the stone fence and wrapped it in a tea towel. He instructed Tony to allow it to set on his hand for five minutes.
Tony’s face was haggard; he looked to have the resilience of balding terry cloth. The Edwardian table linen, starched as it was, felt scratchy under his thumb. It was the only finger he could now move on his right hand; he callously dragged it over the stiff fabric until it left a welt.
Jarvis returned from the cellar with a crystal bottle of sherry. He poured a very small glass and set it down for Tony. “Just a mouthful until the doctor brings some proper pain relief.” He said temperately. Then, he removed the tea towel of ice and turned to retrieve some water for Tony to sip.
Tony sighed tiredly then took the sherry glass. At first he reached with his right hand, but jolted the swelling fingers on the glass and withdrew with a hiss. Using his left hand, he threw back his head and drained all of the fortified liquor. No wince or shudder passed over the youth’s face after imbibing.
Jarvis paused and concern crept into the corners of his mouth. Tony glanced at him when it became clear that Jarvis was staring. This had not been Tony’s first drink of alcohol; Jarvis knew that. Still, how accustomed to it had he grown? Tony saw the incredulous remark forming behind Jarvis’s teeth. Still, the man didn’t challenge him.
Tony sharply dropped his gaze. He didn’t want Jarvis to be disappointed in him. “J, can I lie down?” He asked with a deflecting tone. “I’m exhausted.”
“Only until the doctor arrives,” Jarvis said.
A glass of water entered Tony’s sight. He didn’t take it, instead glancing up as Jarvis drew on his woolen coat. Numbly, he wondered why a doctor was necessary. He’d only punched the wall. Flashes came to him of himself at thirteen, planting a fist dead on the sternum of a man in a Manhattan alleyway. The brawny man’s chest felt like a wall. But, hadn’t Mrs. Ana taken him to a doctor then, too?
“I shall return as soon as I’ve sent for one.” Jarvis interrupted his memories. The butler fastened his hat over his ears and left the cottage.
Tony heard the lock turn.
Being left alone took an effect on Tony that he had not anticipated. Suddenly his heart muscles seemed to enlarge, swelling like his tar and plum-hued knuckles, invading past the borders of his ribs. Tony emptied his lungs to make room. I’m tired, he thought pitifully, just so tired. He stumbled from the chair, rapping his knee on the table leg.
With a rusty, mechanical gait, he made his way to his bedroom— the guest bedroom. He stopped at the door, pushing the crown of his head into the wood. What if this was a nursery now? Converted to accommodate the unborn— daughter? Or son? He rubbed his forehead over the smooth white paint of the door. He couldn’t force himself to open it.
In there, was the single-sized mattress, with its iron rod frame, still covered with the delicate, floral-patterned quilt? Was the wardrobe, still unused, guarding the bed? Were there still wildflower field-guides on the bedside table? Inside, was the washstand, with its round vanity mirror, still smelling of soap and lavender that had speckled the wood when he would carelessly splash his face in the morning? Did the room smell of mothballs and honey and Ana?
Tony’s now oversized heart constricted. He gasped, quickly, softly. The baby would have probably slept in their room for a couple years after all, so there was no reason to alter this space. Eventually, maybe, but Tony could just sleep on a sofa or with Ana and Jarvis in their bed—
Tony nearly slapped himself— You idiot! What are you saying? Mortification blazed in his cheeks. I’m tired.
He spent the next few moments retraining himself to breathe. Were he not so weary, from traveling and crying, he may have descended into the cellar to take out his frustration on the punching bag. He could have read any of the books in the parlor to calm himself. He could easily recline on the sofa. Tony wanted badly to sleep!
But, there was the rocking chair and the bassinet— Why is that still in here? He wondered. Ana died two months ago. Surely Jarvis could have moved it out within two months. Why keep it? He’s sad he lost the baby, Tony determined.
Tony’s eyes drifted up to the spot where he’d struck the wall. Jarvis already had cleaned off the blood. And yet, how long until he would move out the bassinet?
He tripped in tight, bee-dance circles from the hall, around the parlor, and into the kitchen. If he could only slow his racing blood… lose his focus and succumb… dull the drone in his ears… He was too numb to cry despite the sobs locked in his chest. Stumbling to the kitchen sink, Tony retrieved the bottle of sherry. The glass, he left on the table.
January, 1903
May discovered Peter in the scullery at three o’clock in the morning on the sixth. He was draped over a kitchen chair, his arms slung across the high back, and his head nested within the hammock they created. Sleep haloed him.
Taking a few quiet steps, May peeked at his pottery wheel and assortment of jars on the little shelves behind it. She judged that his feverish work was nearly complete since so much had already been tidied. The candle that lit his endeavor waded in a reservoir of wax in its stand.
“Peter.” May touched his back. He was warm with slumber, snoring softly. When he didn’t stir, she kneaded her fingers on his scalp, calling. “Peter, you should be in bed, motek.”
After a shuddering inhale, he lifted his face. His eyes unpeeled as he stretched out the knots in his shoulders. “Hmm? May?” Realizing where he was, he looked at the kiln. “I shouldn’t be long, Aunt May, I promise.”
“Did you know the sun will rise in two hours?” May asked, but without reproach.
“I’m nearly finished. I’m only observing the cool down process.” Peter rubbed an eye. Then he smiled dreamily at her.
May hummed. She retrieved a stool from the kitchen and lowered herself— the decades of bending over washing basins was catching up with her; her hips we are stiff as a rusted pair of scissors. “I’m sure you won’t mind if I keep you company.”
Peter chuckled. “You only want to make sure that I actually make it to my bedroom.”
“Very observant,” May said.
Peter hopped up from the chair. “At least take the chair, Aunt May! I’ll have the stool.” Offering his arms, he helped May stand.
She touched his cheek. “You are the most loving boy I’ve ever known.”
Peter bashfully ducked his head. When she sat, he moved the stool so he could sit beside her. As they settled, she guided his head onto her lap and rested a hand on his temple. He exhaled deeply.
They sat like this for a while, with May’s little finger stroking his forehead. Then, Peter murmured: “Aunt May?”
“Yes?”
“When I was a kid, people always asked if you were my mother.” Peter confided.
May paused her caresses as she accepted the information. She’d had plenty of similar inquiries. Oh, is that your son? He must resemble his father, eh? She resumed her tender brushing of his cheek, humming for him to continue his thought.
“I told them the truth, that you were my aunt but that you were caring for me since my parents died. Then they would ask me so many questions about being an orphan that I…” He swallowed. “Finally, I just told people that you were my mother.” He let the silence grow heavy, waiting for a reaction. But, she was quiet and just stroked his hair. He meekly asked, “Was that wrong for me to do?”
May smiled in the dim candlelight. “No, sheifale.”
Then, even more quietly: “Do you think my Mama would be hurt by it?”
Quiet.
“No, sheifale.”
The truth was, she used to feel very guilty that she was living an unspeakably happy life with Mary’s child. She watched him grow tall, grow capable; she was read to when he was learning his letters; she received kisses every day, hugs every day; and, she saw him overcome his fears and develop his voice. Yet… She had not stolen him. How she wished the four of them— Richard, Mary, Ben, and she— could all be with him, together. She was not unkind, only life had been.
Peter’s voice dripped with drowsiness. “Is it all right to have more than one mother? More than one,” he said, “father?”
May didn’t answer directly; she chuckled and nodded. “I would have you surrounded by people who love you and who would protect you! There is no limit, as long as they truly care for you.”
This seemed to satisfy him, because he fell asleep.
December, 1871
Jarvis traversed quickly through the packed snow, toward the stables. There was a doctor, a brilliant man at that, who lived close by; though he hated Howard, he was a good man and could likely be persuaded not to gossip about Tony’s broken hand. He and Jarvis had an understanding; Jarvis was loyal to the Stark family, but a valuable consultant on household management— something the Pym estate had once struggled with greatly.
Howard had graciously offered Jarvis’s vetting services to Dr. Hank Pym as a peace offering after some public disagreement at a gentlemen's club. Jarvis was able to straighten out the Pym estate staff, recommend a suitable butler, and also gain Dr. Pym’s admiration. The alliance had proven mutually beneficial ever since, particularly this past year.
Dr. Pym had worked tirelessly to spare Ana’s life throughout the difficult pregnancy. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jarvis,” Dr. Pym had said when Ana died. “There was a reason she had never before made it to a second trimester. Honestly, it was a miracle— though cruel, perhaps— that she ever conceived at all.”
Dr. Pym offered to pay for her burial, but Jarvis refused.
An approaching succession of crunches broke his thoughts. Looking up, Jarvis saw one of the footmen lopping toward him. “Mr. Jarvis, Madam is requesting Mr. Anthony to—“
“He is at my cottage at the moment and I would not have him disturbed.” Jarvis continued his gait, impetuously.
“I know, sir, but Madam—“
“He is not to be disturbed.” Jarvis reiterated sternly. “He deserves time to grieve.” He stopped. Ahead of him was Mrs. Stark, walking his way, her black lace gloves distressed in her wringing hands. He sighed then instructed the footman to ride to Dr. Pym’s house. “Tell him I implore his attendance at my cottage and that Sir is not involved.”
The footman obviously had questions but knew better than to ask. As he hurried to his new task, Mrs. Stark reached Jarvis. Emotion sent a tremor through her face. “Mr. Jarvis, I understand Tony is at your cottage?”
Maria had begun to relate better with Tony now that he was older. She took a genuine interest in him as a person, and though he was guarded around her, she faithfully attempted to build his trust. With this in mind, Jarvis softened a little; however, he had no intention of relinquishing Tony against his wishes.
“He is, Madam.”
“Is he—“ Maria hesitated— “well?”
“At the moment he is quite exhausted and he has injured his hand, I’m afraid, but is resting.” Jarvis said. “I would recommend allowing him to remain until it is his prerogative to return to the house, Madam.”
“Did I hear you say that you’re calling Dr. Pym? How has Tony injured his hand?” She pressed, leaning toward him.
Tread lightly, Edwin , he told himself. “The young sir appears quite distraught. In an outburst, he injured his hand against the wall of my cottage.”
Maria blinked hard then sighed. “ Esaltato …” After letting this slip under her breath, she folded her hands and addressed him again. “I would like a report from the doctor once he’s seen. I agree that he should not be harassed while in a state ; I understand that Mrs. Jarvis was dear to him.”
“Very good, Madam.” Jarvis nodded.
“However, would you tell him that I want him to return to the house, before Christmas Eve at the latest. It is his home, after all.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“That would give him a few days.” She sniffed, absently. “And,” she added with some humiliation, “will you let Tony know that” — she paused and her eyes brushed the snow at their feet— “I am... sorry that he was unable to travel home in time to…” Her voice cut off and she finished with a stiff nod, relying on him to interpret.
“Very good, Madam.”
After a long glance toward the cottage, which was obscured from this angle by the evergreen hedges, she pulled her fur shawl closer and turned toward the mansion.
January, 1903
James “Rhodey” Rhodes lifted the last potted larkspur from the covered wagon. The smooth ceramic of the planter was frigid; to gain a good grip on it, he had removed his gloves. Winter chill licked his fingers until the tips seemed affixed to the stoneware. Carrying the fully bloomed plant, he felt that he was embracing a miracle. Pepper explained, as they stood in her jardin d’hiver, gathering larkspur and foxgloves to be moved to the cottage, that she could control the growing conditions for many different plants.
Tony had created a system for heating and humidifying that was centralized beneath the floor of the garden. Pepper demonstrated, showing him the panel of thermostats and levers. Seeing the tall larkspur, with its periwinkle blossoms, against the snowy backdrop, Rhodes was once again amazed by Tony’s ingenuity. Not that his friend had invented the concept of a jardin d’hiver, but that his design and construction were so successful.
Rhodey called to Happy that all the plants they had transported were unloaded and he could tie the flaps down. Hugging the heavy pot, he entered the Jarvis cottage, minding the height of the stalks so they didn’t brush against the doorframe. Inside, the cottage was warm and smelled of honey, dust, and radiators.
Tony met him in the kitchen and attempted to take the pot. “No, no,” Rhodey said. “I will carry it; you instruct me on where to place it.”
“Just alongside the others.” Tony said. His voice was weak and Rhodey noted the weariness that betrayed itself. Tony asked: “So that is the last?”
“Yes.” Rhodes disappeared into the master bedroom. When he emerged, he said: “It looks as close to an English garden in there as anyone could make it. Are you sure it won’t aggravate his condition?”
Tony sighed. “Not as much as moving him in the damn, frightful weather, but, it’s what J wants and I will be sure to keep him…” Here his voice failed. After a moment he resumed the thought. “As free of pain as I’m able.” There was irony in his expression, though his voice was somber.
Rhodey breathed then quietly clapped his hands. “I’ll start the coffee, then.” He moved to the kitchen. Though the cabin had been untenanted for years, Tony had brought everything imaginably needed for three days’ stay. He doubted they would be there for so long.
“Rhodes, go home.” Tony shook his head. “You should be with Carol.”
Rhodey snorted. “I’m not so sure she would agree with you. Only a few nights ago she threatened to eject me from the window if I didn’t quit asking if she was comfortable.” He crossed his arms. “She just may be the most belligerent pregnant woman I’ve met— and I was there for all four of my sisters’, six of my aunts’, and ten of my cousins’ pregnancies.”
Tony mustered a smile.
Finding the kettle, Rhodey carried it to the sink. His tone became gentler. “All that to say, I think Carol would approve of me lending my services here tonight.” He positioned the kettle. “Besides, it’s not such a far walk, if she did call for me.”
Wordlessly, Tony approached and clasped his shoulder. Then he breathed deeply. “I can’t promise I won’t eject you either, though, if you try to nursemaid me.”
“You protest,” Rhodey said, beginning to work the squeaky water pump. “Yet, I recall many distress calls over the years. The last time, in fact, I believe you called me all the way to Manhattan to help you make a guest list for some benefit.”
“Not just some benefit.” Tony interrupted. “It was a very important fundraiser for the Child Labor Reform Committee and of course Pepper had completely abandoned me for Germany—“
“Where she was building partnerships for Stark International and recruiting engineers for the railroad expansion?” The question came with a raised eyebrow and glint of playful derision. Tony only shrugged as though that were not an acceptable excuse.
Rhodey gave up on the pump, which was producing no water. He sighed. “I think I will go up to the house and retrieve some water from Cook.”
“While you’re there,” Tony said. “Thank the master of the house for his warm hospitality.” He smiled as his friend re-buttoned his heavy coat.
Rhodey tightened his muffler, rolling his eyes. “Tell him yourself.” He exited.
This was Rhodes Hall now; it, and the grounds, and Jarvis cottage, had been under the Rhodes family’s care for nearly twenty years.
In the quiet solitude created by Rhodey’s departure, Tony let his joviality die. He patted his sides uselessly. Dr. Pym and Jarvis should arrive within the next half hour; everything was prepared for Jarvis’s comfort. And yet, Tony was quaking from the inside, the fear and doubt that confronts every caretaker hanging from his shoulders. He looked around the cottage, desperately, searching for a task to occupy him.
He shouldn’t have allowed so much time for them to arrive. Tony hated free time, hated empty hands, hated the thoughts that crept into his overly diligent mind when idle. At least Rhodey could distract him, he thought gratefully.
Rocking on his heels, Tony examined the walls of the cottage. All its treasures had been removed from the walls when his father sold the Long Island estate and they had moved to Richmond. Jarvis, always careful of each detail, had lovingly packed his and Ana’s home into little boxes, according to where each item had been arranged.
All day he had arranged the items from the box marked “our bedroom” where they’d been, to the best of his memory. The rest of his home may be bare, but Tony wanted at least the room where Jarvis would rest to be as much a reminder of gentle days as possible.
Tony remembered being sixteen, listening to Jarvis weep as he sorted through a desk, removing Ana’s rulers, compass, and the granite and blue and white chalk pencils that she used for her architectural drawings. Drawings that were bequeathed to Tony, according to her will. Many of those designs were constructed throughout his young adulthood. Earth could not deny her legacy.
He remembered the music, too, that filled the home in the short weeks leading up to their move to Richmond. Music and weeping. The shifting of furniture. Or, some at least— there were still remnants of the parlor that was left intact.
Tony let his memories propel him to the cabinets. In a cobwebbed corner he found a tub of wax. Searching a little longer produced a bottle of linseed oil, nearly empty, but enough. Tony tossed off his outer jacket and rolled his sleeves away from his wrists. He bent over the kitchen table, also left behind all those years ago, and began to polish it. The smell of the linseed oil soaked into his soul. He surrendered to it.
December, 1871
The sherry bottle was empty.
Tony couldn’t hear anything. Nothing above a pressurized pulse in his ears, as though through cotton.
His knees were cold and moisture soaked into the corduroy.
The little finger of his left hand was blood-crimson as he dragged it through the snow, tracing the letters on Ana’s gravestone, barely prickling against the cut slate.
Ana’s name stood out, suspended, contrasting with the drift of white across the stone.
Tony sniffed.
No movement in his face. No tears in his eyes.
Blinking, he curled himself against the marker, forgetting how to or why he should move.
Blood throbbed against his broken knuckles once then relaxed.
“I did my job, Mrs. Ana. I did. I did my job... A lot of good it was to you.”
The wind scared up tears as it blew into his eyes. He closed them. “I did, I promise…” Then the sherry sang him to sleep.
January, 1903
Peter slept through the morning of the sixth, though he hadn’t meant to. In fact, he continued, cocooned in warm blankets, to sleep until after lunchtime. At noon, May tiptoed in and drew the heavier curtains open. She didn’t wake him, thinking he would have plenty that would demand his attention in the coming days. Then, she crept out and left the house to visit the market.
The sun filtered through the sheer curtains still across the window. Its rays fell on the small string-of-pearls plant that Pepper had given him for Christmas. Peter opened his eyes and saw the sunlight gleaming on the pearly stoneware planter. He sighed and resisted the curiosity telling him to check the clock.
But, his stomach rumbled.
Kicking off the sheets, he frowned as the air ran over his legs. He didn’t have any coherent thoughts, however, before the sound of a knock made him jerk up his head. He waited, but didn’t hear May; she would answer or call if she were there. Peter didn’t hear her; then he realized that he didn’t hear another knock either.
He tore his robe from the bedpost and threw it over his shoulders. “One moment, please!” He shouted, tying his belt, getting his wrists tangled in it.
Feet and heart were pounding in rhythm. Peter had a feeling— he had to open the door before the guest left. He fumbled the locks open and burst out the door onto the icy stoop. His breath poured out in a cloud. Then, it caught in his chest.
Receding toward the barn was Tony. He turned, having heard the door. “Ah. Kid! You are here after all.” He began to saunter back to the stoop and Peter.
Peter couldn’t find his voice and didn’t know what to say if he could.
Tony pointed at his bare feet. “If you promise to put on some boots, and consider a daytime outfit,” he said, and Peter noticed the sleepless circles under his eyes, “I thought we might go somewhere.”
July, 1874
Tony stormed to the Jarvis cottage in the late evening, after railing at his father.
“You can’t sell the estate!”
Howard glared at him in shock. Tony had stood from his place at the dining table, shoulders thrown toward his father. The footmen attending the family visibly stiffened at the commotion.
“Oh?” Howard intoned lowly. “Why’s that?”
Tony had no composure. Distraught, he screamed, tears already in his eyes, despite himself. “Mrs. Ana is buried here!”
That actually caused Howard to recoil. He blinked and lowered his eyes before clearing his throat. “I had not considered that, I’ll admit—“
“Of course you didn’t.” Tony spit.
Maria shrilled anxiously at him. “Anthony! Sta' zitto !” Tony held his tongue, but continued to scowl. Maria appealed to Howard. “We cannot expect Mr. Jarvis to leave his wife’s burial place. After all, you granted your permission for him to bury Mrs. Jarvis on the land.”
Howard chuckled darkly. “‘We,’ you said? Is this the new order of things? For my household to tell me what I can or cannot do?” Then his expression soured. Maria bowed in agitated submission. “ I will decide what’s to be done.”
Tony persisted. His words scraped through tight jaws. “What if your decision is wrong?“
Howard flared his nostrils, but tucked in his chin in an effort to remain in control. At that time in their relationship, Howard was mildly tolerant of his son. Tony had honored the Stark name, enrolling at the Boston Polytechnic University the past fall, when he was still fifteen. In private, he allowed Tony more leeway in disputing him, saying he preferred a man of conviction to a “limp-wristed” boy any day.
Yet, Howard could not abide such challenges of authority from Tony in front of his staff. From the corner of his eye he saw the footmen shuffling. “This is your warning, boy. I suggest—“
Tony then suggested something of his own and Howard slammed his hands on the dining room table, causing the dishes to leap.
The footmen gave their best effort to remain immobile. Maria, interjected—“Howard, he’s still just a boy!”— but, his father had a rule for his son now that he was a young man. If Tony disrespected Howard in front of others, he would be corrected, immediately, with those individuals as witnesses. The idea was equal respect lost, equal respect regained.
Tony ran his tongue over his tender lower lip as he stomped past the menagerie that night. Howard’s broad ring had caught his mouth, striking hard enough that the ring nearly clinked through the skin against his incisor. He entered the cottage, meaning to call for Jarvis, to demand he confront his father, to say something about the fact that Howard was uprooting them from the one place Ana still existed, but he halted when he heard the piano.
Jarvis had not played, at least not in Tony’s hearing, since Ana died. The sound seemed wrong, somehow. Tony rested his head softly on the door frame and listened for a while, a hand helping to brace him. Then, he sighed and slunk through the kitchen and into the parlor.
If Jarvis heard him, he did not cease playing or even look at the youth. The piece was a nocturne, Chopin’s Opus 9 no. 3. Listening felt like sleeping. The music matched the summer zephyr which played in the shades of the picture window. Tony sank dejectedly onto the sofa. Once again, the room, with only the two of them, seemed empty.
By the time Jarvis finally removed his gentle hands from the piano keys, and pivoted on the bench to look at him, Tony was exhausted from the decline of adrenaline. He slumped back, looking at his knees, then met the man’s gaze. Jarvis glanced down at his lip and Tony saw the pause in his chest, the concerned flicker in his eyes. For a moment, they were silent.
Then Tony rolled his head ironically to the side. “Mrs. Ana hated music like that.” He smirked and Jarvis returned it.
“Yes, she did.” Jarvis agreed. He stood and Tony knew he was going to get something to comfort Tony’s swelling lip. “Vastly preferred music that didn’t ‘require’ her ‘attention to enjoy it.’” Tony heard the water pump creak. “My counter, of course, to that assessment was that music that didn’t require your attention didn’t deserve it.”
He returned with a damp, cold cloth and held it to Tony’s mouth until the young man took it. “J,” Tony said, vocal folds straining against a swell of anguish. “Howard is going to sell the estate!”
Jarvis’s normally imperturbable expression faltered briefly. He turned and took a seat at the piano again. “You should not address your father in such a fashion, Young Sir.”
Tony shot from the sofa. He shouted. “What difference is it how I address him? Did you not hear what I said?”
“At your volume, Young Sir, I should think I did.”
“You have to talk to him! Make him change his mind.”
Remaining calm, Jarvis said: “I will discuss my feelings with him at our usual meeting.” He moved his legs to the other side of the bench and began to play the piano again. The piece was Bach, a cantata transcribed for piano— “Schafe können sicher weiden.”
Tony was not satisfied. “You’re just going to let him, aren’t you?” Appalled, he shook his head. “You and Mrs. Ana told me again and again not to behave as though my actions do not have consequences.”
Jarvis stopped playing.
“Where are Father’s consequences?” Tony challenged. “I’ve never seen him strive to meet anyone’s expectations.”
“That, Young Sir,” Jarvis said, “is because you disagree with the expectations that your father is striving to meet.”
“Do you not?” Sorrowful anger coursed into his words. “You’re afraid of him,” Tony said. “Like everyone else.”
“Over the years I have chosen my battles with your father. I challenged him when necessary and conducted myself in a respectable manner nevertheless.” Jarvis said. “I earned trust and made myself difficult to deny. It is a skill you'd behooved to learn, Young Sir.”
Tony flinched. Hurt deepened in him; he couldn’t stand the disapproval in Jarvis’s tone. He couldn’t bear to disappoint another parent. He paced the parlor but finally collapsed next to Jarvis on the bench. “I cannot understand you. Choose your battles? That’s what you’re doing? What about this battle? What about her ?”
Jarvis’s jaws trembled. He steadied himself. “I have spoken my intentions. I will meet with your father, my employer , and request—“
“No, J!” Tony raved, slapping his knees. “You must do more than that!”
Impatience ghosted Jarvis’s brow. “What would you have me do, Young Sir?”
“Dammit, J, fight!” Tony yelled. “What kind of fighter refuses to fight?”
“One who owns the choice and bears a responsibility.” Jarvis replied.
“A responsibility to what? You act as though you don’t care about her anymore!”
Tony felt the words rip from his throat. He glimpsed Jarvis’s face before the tears obscured him. However, Tony didn’t cry long; once he wiped away the initial tears, none replaced them. “Sitting here playing piano…” He grumbled.
Jarvis’s hand touched his shoulder.
“No.” Tony whined and shrugged him off. “How...?” His accusation trailed away. How can you just forget her? He had meant to hurt Jarvis, to spur him into action. Yet, he couldn’t do it a second time.
“The responsibility to which I was referring, Young Sir, is to you.” Tony sighed, humbled, though it pained him. If Jarvis left, what would happen to him then?
”Ana,” Jarvis said, as though reading his thoughts, “would expect us to rise up from the loss. She was not one to tolerate sullenness, you may recall.”
Frowning, Tony brought his elbow down on the piano keys and dropped his cheek onto his palm. Jarvis shooed his elbow from the keys. Tony compiled but huffed bad-temperedly. Ignoring this, however, Jarvis began to play again.
“I find it a shame that your music education was so abbreviated. I doubt that you study composition at University.” Jarvis mused and Tony moodily shook his head. After a moment of playing, Jarvis removed his hands. “No matter. Why not show me what you remember from grade school?”
With a sigh, Tony lifted his right hand. He plodded through the upper clave of Kinderszenen op. 15 no. 1 by Schumman. Jarvis joined with his left hand, giving full justice to the romping runs of the melody bar. He played the piece at its intended, spritely timbre. Tony corrected his glum pacing and fell in with Jarvis.
After a time, Jarvis’s voice coaxed him from his clinging armor of rage. “It is part of our jobs as the ones who loved her most to live lives of peace,” he said. “I cannot say that we will meet her again, but regardless of that fact, we shall have her for the remainder of our time on earth, here, in our hearts. Far be it from me to live violently alongside her memory.”
Tony gulped. He wasn’t sure he agreed with Jarvis. Yet, hearing the youthful music, in his childhood sanctuary, with the man who had always been his true father, in spirit if not biologically, Tony resolved that he would honor the choice Jarvis made. Tony trusted him, in that moment, just like many before, just like many times ahead, purely and sweetly, like a child.
“Much sooner than you think, Young Sir, you will be master.” Jarvis said. Encouragement was laced by sobering realism. He challenged Tony with the responsibility of his statement. “Of yourself before all else. The decisions you will make may feel far into the future; however, you will begin to make them now, without realizing.”
“What do you mean, J?” Tony was helplessly curious despite his irritation at Jarvis’s “riddles,” as he thought of them. He left off playing.
Jarvis ended the song as well. He regarded Tony with an emotion that Tony didn’t recognize. “Tell me, how often when you spar is the bout dictated by your mental state going into the match?” He paused to let Tony think.
This was something that Ana did without fail. She gave Tony long, long spaces to think after asking a question. A serious question anyway— not a reprimand like “what in hell’s name were you thinking?” But it began when he was in the nursery and she would read books and ask him questions about what he thought a character felt what he thought would happen next. For years he didn’t realize what she was doing. He thought the questions were rhetorical. So, he sat in silence and assumed her attention had wavered.
Mrs. Ana never answered for him or gave him hints as to what she wanted him to say. If he didn’t answer at all, she moved on without an answer, but she would ask again when they read that book the next time. Eventually, Tony began to share his own ideas or feelings or complaints or wonderings. So, when Jarvis asked him this question, Tony deconstructed his mind, like he would an engine, and sought an answer.
He didn’t like the answer, so he shrugged. “I suppose every single time, Jarvis.”
“It is difficult to feel during a match. Difficult to guide your emotions from one track to another. Your brain is occupied entirely by thoughts of your actions. You have significantly more success if you examine and address your emotions before the bout begins.”
Tony considered this.
“So, too, before gaining power.” Jarvis insisted. “You will be free one day, my young man, and it will be easier for you now than later to choose who you will be.”
That sounded nice to Tony. It really did. He wished he could be even half the man Jarvis seemed to believe he could be. If he could make Jarvis proud, he would. It was idealistic, though, wasn’t it? He sat there as his stomach fell. He was cold throughout gut with hopelessness; there were parts of him that even Jarvis didn’t know. Wouldn’t like. Couldn’t believe in.
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