Entrance Post and Continuation
[Pre-Milliways: Sorve meets the Envoy.]
---
It had been months since Genly Ai's arrival at the Hearth of Estre, and months since his departure for Erhenrang. Months of changes to the world, but only a few weeks since the Hearth was altered, since the many-years leader Esvans succumbed at last to age and cold and gave back his bones to the land that bore him.
And now Sorve was his Domain's Lord, as his father-parent had been, as his mother-parent -- his father's brother -- should have been. Many things should be yet are not. It is the way of the world. And now Estre had a Lord not yet 21 years old. A quiet, passionate echo of his father's spirit, but so like his mother in appearance.
Which is why, when Sorve steps through the door to his Hearth and finds instead a Bar, although his father-parent has never seen him, never held him, never known more than his words on paper, Therem sees him, and knows him, and rises from the chair at his table, his dark eyes wide. For a short eternity he cannot move more, tracing with his eyes the shape of the young man (but neither man nor woman) who stands before him, not looking back, dazzled by the immensity of what he sees before him. But when that short eternity is ended, Therem hears his own voice calling--
"Sorve. Sorve..."
Sorve looks, and meets those dark eyes with his own, and he knows his father. He knows his father the way he remembers his father's brother Arek whose womb he grew in, whose heart stopped beating when Sorve was only six years old. He knows the face he has never seen. To see it now is to have an answer one always knew, to finally snatch the word that was on the tip of one's tongue but would not let itself be spoken.
Now there is nothing around them but one another. It is hot, Sorve notices idly as he stumbles away from his door, steps quickly, lightly, darting like a quick fish around tables and chairs. It is like womb-heat, perhaps. He goes to his father, and his father to him, and they stand poised at the edge of a touch neither can believe in quite fully enough to connect.
"You... you're dead," the young Lord whispers.
Therem shakes his head. "No. I am alive. I--" But the pain in his child's eyes silences him.
"Genry told us," Sorve insists. "Genry came to the Hearth almost a year ago and said how you crossed the Ice together, and how you skied into the foray-guns. He held you as you died. Oh! Am I dead? What has happened...?"
Therem reaches to grasp his child's hands. "No. Feel my flesh. It is warm, like yours. Look at me, Sorve. Sorve..." He reaches up to brush back his child's long hair. It is lighter than his own, like Arek's was. He looks so like Arek, though he smiles less.
And then it no longer matters to either of them how or why this is possible. Therem pulls his child into his arms and holds him as he weeps, whispering "hush, hush..." through his own quick tears. Therem holds his child until he is quiet, then takes him towards the door out to the lake, one arm around his waist. They go out into the grass, and away from the bar to the trees, away from the usual wanderers' paths. They leave behind boots and coats and shirts in the morning heat and walk along the lakeside, Therem in the loose yoga-pants he has gotten from Bar, and Sorve walking nude. Quietly, slowly, Therem explains how the Bar is a place between worlds, between all worlds, and between all times, how strangers from anywhere or any-when may come here and spend a day or a lifetime away from their worlds. And then Sorve tells his father how Genly said he died, and speaks to him about the Hearth, about Esvans' death, about the fog on the mountainside and the children born lately and by the time they return some hours later, they are laughing over the deeds and misdeeds of elder folk Therem had known as a child, children he had grown with who now had children of their own.
They reclaim their clothing and go back inside. Therem shows Sorve the rats and Bar. They get clothing better suited to Milliways than the heavy boots and pants and the fur-lined hieb Sorve had arrived in. Therem takes his child up to his room to bathe and to sleep.
---
Hours later, in the evening, two curious, quiet people are down in the bar. At first glance, they may seem to be mother and daughter: both dark-skinned (the elder, whose age is difficult to tell, darker than the younger, who looks about 20) with downward-tilting eyes and a subtlety of expression that makes them both difficult to read; and both under five feet tall, though the elder has a stockier build than the younger. The elder wears plain pants and a shirt, clothing loose enough that it might well hide curves of body that might be proof of gender. The younger, sitting behind on the table twisting little braids into the parent's hair, wears a garment reminiscent in design of a sundress, covering chest and hips but leaving hairless legs bare. Neither wears shoes. They converse in quiet voices, comfortable in one another's company -- but they would welcome strangers.
---
It had been months since Genly Ai's arrival at the Hearth of Estre, and months since his departure for Erhenrang. Months of changes to the world, but only a few weeks since the Hearth was altered, since the many-years leader Esvans succumbed at last to age and cold and gave back his bones to the land that bore him.
And now Sorve was his Domain's Lord, as his father-parent had been, as his mother-parent -- his father's brother -- should have been. Many things should be yet are not. It is the way of the world. And now Estre had a Lord not yet 21 years old. A quiet, passionate echo of his father's spirit, but so like his mother in appearance.
Which is why, when Sorve steps through the door to his Hearth and finds instead a Bar, although his father-parent has never seen him, never held him, never known more than his words on paper, Therem sees him, and knows him, and rises from the chair at his table, his dark eyes wide. For a short eternity he cannot move more, tracing with his eyes the shape of the young man (but neither man nor woman) who stands before him, not looking back, dazzled by the immensity of what he sees before him. But when that short eternity is ended, Therem hears his own voice calling--
"Sorve. Sorve..."
Sorve looks, and meets those dark eyes with his own, and he knows his father. He knows his father the way he remembers his father's brother Arek whose womb he grew in, whose heart stopped beating when Sorve was only six years old. He knows the face he has never seen. To see it now is to have an answer one always knew, to finally snatch the word that was on the tip of one's tongue but would not let itself be spoken.
Now there is nothing around them but one another. It is hot, Sorve notices idly as he stumbles away from his door, steps quickly, lightly, darting like a quick fish around tables and chairs. It is like womb-heat, perhaps. He goes to his father, and his father to him, and they stand poised at the edge of a touch neither can believe in quite fully enough to connect.
"You... you're dead," the young Lord whispers.
Therem shakes his head. "No. I am alive. I--" But the pain in his child's eyes silences him.
"Genry told us," Sorve insists. "Genry came to the Hearth almost a year ago and said how you crossed the Ice together, and how you skied into the foray-guns. He held you as you died. Oh! Am I dead? What has happened...?"
Therem reaches to grasp his child's hands. "No. Feel my flesh. It is warm, like yours. Look at me, Sorve. Sorve..." He reaches up to brush back his child's long hair. It is lighter than his own, like Arek's was. He looks so like Arek, though he smiles less.
And then it no longer matters to either of them how or why this is possible. Therem pulls his child into his arms and holds him as he weeps, whispering "hush, hush..." through his own quick tears. Therem holds his child until he is quiet, then takes him towards the door out to the lake, one arm around his waist. They go out into the grass, and away from the bar to the trees, away from the usual wanderers' paths. They leave behind boots and coats and shirts in the morning heat and walk along the lakeside, Therem in the loose yoga-pants he has gotten from Bar, and Sorve walking nude. Quietly, slowly, Therem explains how the Bar is a place between worlds, between all worlds, and between all times, how strangers from anywhere or any-when may come here and spend a day or a lifetime away from their worlds. And then Sorve tells his father how Genly said he died, and speaks to him about the Hearth, about Esvans' death, about the fog on the mountainside and the children born lately and by the time they return some hours later, they are laughing over the deeds and misdeeds of elder folk Therem had known as a child, children he had grown with who now had children of their own.
They reclaim their clothing and go back inside. Therem shows Sorve the rats and Bar. They get clothing better suited to Milliways than the heavy boots and pants and the fur-lined hieb Sorve had arrived in. Therem takes his child up to his room to bathe and to sleep.
---
Hours later, in the evening, two curious, quiet people are down in the bar. At first glance, they may seem to be mother and daughter: both dark-skinned (the elder, whose age is difficult to tell, darker than the younger, who looks about 20) with downward-tilting eyes and a subtlety of expression that makes them both difficult to read; and both under five feet tall, though the elder has a stockier build than the younger. The elder wears plain pants and a shirt, clothing loose enough that it might well hide curves of body that might be proof of gender. The younger, sitting behind on the table twisting little braids into the parent's hair, wears a garment reminiscent in design of a sundress, covering chest and hips but leaving hairless legs bare. Neither wears shoes. They converse in quiet voices, comfortable in one another's company -- but they would welcome strangers.