[Witches' Horses] Falcons' Feathers
Title: a burning curiousity
'Verse/characters: Falcons' Feathers; a navigator, a young Kavin (aka Sajal, aka many things)
Prompt: 90B "frown", 'questionable ethics' (dormouse_in_tea)
Word Count: 452
Notes: So I promised dormouse_in_tea some Falcons' Feathers. She gave me 'questionable ethics'; klgaffney gave me 'an old frayed star chart'; coastal_physics gave me 'you did what with the nav charts?'; billradish gave me a funny look. *solemn*
Edit: and bopped me on the head with a couch cushion.
Some notes on the tribe--there's two levels of literacy. There's the literacy of horse-navigation and maintaining daily life, and then there's the literacy of tribal histories. Maaaybe 20% of the tribe has the history-literacy, mostly elders, shamans, the like. Almost never war-leaders.
"Grandfather, what are you doing?"
The boy's tone was curiousity itself, until he slid inside the tent and caught a handhold that lifted boy-frame high enough properly see what was being done with a pair of terminals and one of the old, tattered charts that had recently been recaptured.
Even without looking at the boy's face--his current milk name was probably Bikram, but the boy changed names as often as he changed shirts, slippery as his great-uncle and probably destined for the same fate--he could hear the frown begin, and then the iron poured into the kid's voice, every span his fathers' son.
"What are you doing?" the boy demanded, as he carefully spanned another old grazing spot with the terminals and burned it out of existence.
The sponge hissed as he cleaned the terminals, then put them away neatly, turned to face the boy, who was bristling, not yet afraid.
"If you saw something that looked like a camp, or the remains of one, that wasn't on our charts, what would you say?" he inquired.
The boy blinked. "It's not one of ours--I'd avoid it. No telling what tribe holds it, and what protections they've cast."
He smiled. "Exactly."
"But that doesn't make sense--" the boy swapped his hands, reached down to point with his new-freed fingers to the edges of the ragged sheet, before he withdrew out of easy smacking range. "That's our clan marks, our writing, no one else's--"
Someone had taught the boy to read. He owed whoever it was a punch and possibly even a lash. That would make life even more difficult--bad enough a curious second son, but far worse when the son wouldn't just take spoken words at their face value.
"Ours, yes," he agreed, "but unused in living memory. Would you like to bet on the charms remembering us? Or the lady of the camp?"
It took a moment for the story to swim through the boy's mind to his eyes, but it was gratifyingly obvious when it did. "Oh. Forget the right songs, and she'd burn us, for pretending to be what we really are, but can't prove."
The boy frowned, then, thinking. "Why not leave the markings, just add a warning? It's wrong to leave someone to the cold and the dark."
"Not everyone can read a warning," he replied, thinking 'you shouldn't, after all' as he picked up the burner again and began marking off another ancestral campsite that didn't appear in the current maps. "Care to bet a horse and a rider on someone keeping rein on their curiousity?"
Sneaking a glance at the boy, he had his 'no', because the boy was staring intently at the map with hungry eyes.
'Verse/characters: Falcons' Feathers; a navigator, a young Kavin (aka Sajal, aka many things)
Prompt: 90B "frown", 'questionable ethics' (dormouse_in_tea)
Word Count: 452
Notes: So I promised dormouse_in_tea some Falcons' Feathers. She gave me 'questionable ethics'; klgaffney gave me 'an old frayed star chart'; coastal_physics gave me 'you did what with the nav charts?'; billradish gave me a funny look. *solemn*
Edit: and bopped me on the head with a couch cushion.
Some notes on the tribe--there's two levels of literacy. There's the literacy of horse-navigation and maintaining daily life, and then there's the literacy of tribal histories. Maaaybe 20% of the tribe has the history-literacy, mostly elders, shamans, the like. Almost never war-leaders.
"Grandfather, what are you doing?"
The boy's tone was curiousity itself, until he slid inside the tent and caught a handhold that lifted boy-frame high enough properly see what was being done with a pair of terminals and one of the old, tattered charts that had recently been recaptured.
Even without looking at the boy's face--his current milk name was probably Bikram, but the boy changed names as often as he changed shirts, slippery as his great-uncle and probably destined for the same fate--he could hear the frown begin, and then the iron poured into the kid's voice, every span his fathers' son.
"What are you doing?" the boy demanded, as he carefully spanned another old grazing spot with the terminals and burned it out of existence.
The sponge hissed as he cleaned the terminals, then put them away neatly, turned to face the boy, who was bristling, not yet afraid.
"If you saw something that looked like a camp, or the remains of one, that wasn't on our charts, what would you say?" he inquired.
The boy blinked. "It's not one of ours--I'd avoid it. No telling what tribe holds it, and what protections they've cast."
He smiled. "Exactly."
"But that doesn't make sense--" the boy swapped his hands, reached down to point with his new-freed fingers to the edges of the ragged sheet, before he withdrew out of easy smacking range. "That's our clan marks, our writing, no one else's--"
Someone had taught the boy to read. He owed whoever it was a punch and possibly even a lash. That would make life even more difficult--bad enough a curious second son, but far worse when the son wouldn't just take spoken words at their face value.
"Ours, yes," he agreed, "but unused in living memory. Would you like to bet on the charms remembering us? Or the lady of the camp?"
It took a moment for the story to swim through the boy's mind to his eyes, but it was gratifyingly obvious when it did. "Oh. Forget the right songs, and she'd burn us, for pretending to be what we really are, but can't prove."
The boy frowned, then, thinking. "Why not leave the markings, just add a warning? It's wrong to leave someone to the cold and the dark."
"Not everyone can read a warning," he replied, thinking 'you shouldn't, after all' as he picked up the burner again and began marking off another ancestral campsite that didn't appear in the current maps. "Care to bet a horse and a rider on someone keeping rein on their curiousity?"
Sneaking a glance at the boy, he had his 'no', because the boy was staring intently at the map with hungry eyes.