[Fic] "Wash Us Clean" -- original, Firsthome
Summary: Ekanu spends the summer on the shores of the Inner Sea in Nivenos. (350 words)
Note: This ficlet is set when Ekanu is in her late thirties, after she's attempted to settle down in Pythas and start a family with Ain Taylak. That fell apart for various reasons and she's been doing University chapterhouse inspections again, this time in Nivenos rather than Yanomy, until she got shipwrecked in a spring storm near the western coast of the Inner Sea. Jou Shaha Vagyu found and saved her, and they've been living together while Ekanu heals.
---------------------------------------------
Wash Us Clean
---------------------------------------------
Jou's little house on stilts sways now and then with the force of wind and wave, like a ship at anchor here in the saltwater marshes that edge the Inner Sea. Even on calm days, the endless, ragged rhythm of waves in the shallows echoes up against the floorboards.
Summer has crept in, gradually, like a thief among the reeds, and tomorrow will be solstice. Jou has rolled back the woven screens that run along the outer circle of her house, making the rooms into one vast, open porch that catches sunlight from dawn to dusk. Only the inner room with its little hearth remains walled, and even there the roof itself can be raised on sticks to let light in beneath the ceiling.
They are adrift on an ocean of light.
"Now my home, winter," Ekanu says, fumbling for words and grammar in the language Jou has patiently been teaching her. "Long time winter. Dark night, no sun, all cover ice. But here, sun." She stretches her arms wider on Jou's fishing raft, soaks in the warmth and revels in her newfound lack of pain.
"Ice has its beauty, too," Jou says, her fingers carding lighting through Ekanu's unbound hair. "But I prefer water. Water moves. Ice breaks. Water heals." She makes a gesture with her free hand, as if casting chaff onto the lazy summer breeze.
"Yes," Ekanu says. She thinks of the scraps Jou has let her see of her own life, of her husband dead one winter past and the calm emptiness on her face when her children came, worried, to visit after a storm. She thinks of her own daughter, little Svayet with her night-dark hair and rain-gray eyes, abandoned in Pythas with Ain and growing into a stranger. She rests her hand on Jou's ankle, feels the heat of blood under weatherbeaten skin and thin, downy hair. "Water sings."
She hums under her breath, a Hlaenish folksong about a woman who married the sea, until it's time to pull in the nets and make their way back home in the slanted evening light.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 12/21/14
15_minute_ficlets word #215: solstice
---------------------------------------------
I have been wanting to write these two together for years, and ha! I finally managed it. :-) The actual full-length story may end up being from Jou Shaha Vagyu's POV -- I have an opening paragraph to that effect, written longhand a few years ago -- but for the moment I'm just glad to plant a little signpost toward future goals.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)
Note: This ficlet is set when Ekanu is in her late thirties, after she's attempted to settle down in Pythas and start a family with Ain Taylak. That fell apart for various reasons and she's been doing University chapterhouse inspections again, this time in Nivenos rather than Yanomy, until she got shipwrecked in a spring storm near the western coast of the Inner Sea. Jou Shaha Vagyu found and saved her, and they've been living together while Ekanu heals.
---------------------------------------------
Wash Us Clean
---------------------------------------------
Jou's little house on stilts sways now and then with the force of wind and wave, like a ship at anchor here in the saltwater marshes that edge the Inner Sea. Even on calm days, the endless, ragged rhythm of waves in the shallows echoes up against the floorboards.
Summer has crept in, gradually, like a thief among the reeds, and tomorrow will be solstice. Jou has rolled back the woven screens that run along the outer circle of her house, making the rooms into one vast, open porch that catches sunlight from dawn to dusk. Only the inner room with its little hearth remains walled, and even there the roof itself can be raised on sticks to let light in beneath the ceiling.
They are adrift on an ocean of light.
"Now my home, winter," Ekanu says, fumbling for words and grammar in the language Jou has patiently been teaching her. "Long time winter. Dark night, no sun, all cover ice. But here, sun." She stretches her arms wider on Jou's fishing raft, soaks in the warmth and revels in her newfound lack of pain.
"Ice has its beauty, too," Jou says, her fingers carding lighting through Ekanu's unbound hair. "But I prefer water. Water moves. Ice breaks. Water heals." She makes a gesture with her free hand, as if casting chaff onto the lazy summer breeze.
"Yes," Ekanu says. She thinks of the scraps Jou has let her see of her own life, of her husband dead one winter past and the calm emptiness on her face when her children came, worried, to visit after a storm. She thinks of her own daughter, little Svayet with her night-dark hair and rain-gray eyes, abandoned in Pythas with Ain and growing into a stranger. She rests her hand on Jou's ankle, feels the heat of blood under weatherbeaten skin and thin, downy hair. "Water sings."
She hums under her breath, a Hlaenish folksong about a woman who married the sea, until it's time to pull in the nets and make their way back home in the slanted evening light.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 12/21/14
15_minute_ficlets word #215: solstice
---------------------------------------------
I have been wanting to write these two together for years, and ha! I finally managed it. :-) The actual full-length story may end up being from Jou Shaha Vagyu's POV -- I have an opening paragraph to that effect, written longhand a few years ago -- but for the moment I'm just glad to plant a little signpost toward future goals.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)