Mini-Challenge: Hostile
You saw it coming.
This is set about sixty years before Stefran/Melysse's time in the Iron Hold, by the way. Not counting the beginning snips, which are a different time again.
Oh, and there are another two challenges coming soon, but this was the only one I typed straight into Horatio the HP ;)
In his mind, he retreated to the river - the river as it had been, straight and strong and cold. That was how he should be. He would be. As a child he'd had to stay close to the banks and the trailing willow-braids, but that time had long passed.
Now was the time to leave the iron-dark behind and let the currents finally show him where they wanted to go.
He was unsure. He was afraid. But that wasn't enough to keep him here, because in his cell - in the iron-dark - he was simply alone.
She moved automatically. She didn't know why the word had suddenly whispered in her mind - today - but it felt right. It felt like a suggestion from the outside, and perhaps it was. She still believed in destiny.
Sliding off her bed, she knelt on the chilly cell floor and smoothed the hard stone with her hand. Then she began to sing, to unmake, quietly keeping the lovely jewel-words to herself, delighting in the feel of them, and even delighting in the sight of her filmy-thinning hand.
It had been the picture. Someone had brought her a picture of the sky - a kind person, but a cruel person - and although she'd had many, many gifts like that over the years to brighten her cell, something about this one had made her cry.
It had been the night sky. Beautifully, beautifully painted. The artist had loved it enough to sprinkle real constellations amongst the rest of the random paint-spray stars: the River, the Running Mouse, the Tree.
She was still crying. She knew now that she would never stop, because pictures were all she would ever have of the night sky again, until ...
And then she decided to complete the thought.
The cell door closed again, at last, and the echoes grumbled away into nothing - but for how long?
Arathalian snorted to himself, tossing the book he'd been 'reading' onto the floor with an underhanded flick. Five visits in the one morning already, and not a single one from one of the less tedious researchers. Was there some kind of Convention for the Terminally Dull coming up in Talton?
Whatever the reason, the next clod to stick his head through the door was going to have a bad day.
Mildly cheered by that promise - and hoping it would be that toad Trant Scarren - he stood up from his chair to stretch his legs. It was tough to hold that pose of lordly disinterest for so long on a busy morning. I wonder how they'd react if I greeted the next one with a few star-jumps? he wondered. Would they decide it was Dangerous Demeanour and leave me alone?
The peepslot in the door had opened. It always did when someone heard him moving around. Arathalian bent down to give them a wave - it was just that kind of mood - and then began his daily exercises with the cell's thin magic. Strange, now, to think there'd been a time he couldn't even have made one lap of his iron cell in the quicksilver sprint.
Clang-clang at the cell door. "Arathalian."
He stopped, the colourless vision of extratemporal motion fading back to the near-colourless true vista of his cell. "You must be joking! Another?"
"Another. Stand clear."
He felt his former annoyance come crowding back in force. Moving back from the door, he sat down on his bed instead and maintained a flat glare on it until his guards had opened it again. Yes, a sixth time.
After a moment, the long-nosed face of Aina Wellis appeared. She was one of the older Holders, good at hiding nerves, brazenly indifferent to having written her name sixth in line on his timetable outside. She was probably the worst possible candidate for a decent hazing. The worst he could do to Aina Wellis and her ilk - well, no, not the worst, but the worst he wanted - was offer zero cooperation.
And he did. "Morning," she said, and he nodded irritably, his suspicions about the time confirmed.
She snorted and tweaked back a hair-comb. "You're looking fine and chirpy."
"Why, thank you. Go away."
"Don't be like that. Have an apple." She pulled the fruit from the bag she was carrying.
"I thought they only worked on doctors."
Aina Wellis continued to hold the apple out a few seconds longer, smirking only slightly at his retort, before sighing and giving up. "I know you've had a trying morning. That's why I brought you all these things. Look - I come bearing books!"
"Excellent," he replied, refusing to be amused by her today. "You may also leave bearing books."
"'Modern Trends in the Judicial System'? 'Excavations in Hainmarra's Meethan Heights'? 'Axton and Talton: Across the River'?" She drooped when he didn't give her even a blink. "Five heavily censored newspapers from last month?"
"You can talk until you turn blue - as usual - but you'll be holding out conversation with my chair, Aina Wellis. Goodbye."
She sighed again. "I knew they'd given me short straw today. Why don't I just leave all this with you for now? I'll go bother Issue outside. If you happen to be struck by a sudden bolt of magnanimosity, you might consider answering just one or two little questions."
He didn't reply, but she hadn't expected him to. Gathering up her satchel, minus the pile of books, the papers and the apple, she left him alone without further ado. It was one of her better points.
Peace at last. Arathalian leaned forward once the door had closed to take a paper from his chair. It was, like all of the newspapers he saw, mutilated by the Hold's censors and irritatingly difficult to read. About the only untouched section was sport, which was a pretty useless thing for someone who'd never seen human sports played. He always 'supported' one of the rugby teams anyway, purely out of boredom. They'd lost this week.
He kept fighting the mangled pages back, going through the society pages and all their blanked-out addresses - what would I do with those, you idiots? walk in on a formal dinner? - and passing without any interest through theatrical advertisements.
Flaring block capitals gave him pause three pages in.
The Seven of the Hold
In Seven Acts
Seven Sweeping Tales of Magic, Deception, Love and Betrayal!
A block-printed woman in a feather-winged costume swooned in front of a sketchy castle, frowned down upon by a bat-winged man. Arathalian winced slightly and went to turn the page - it wasn't the first such atrocity he'd seen, and it wouldn't be the last.
Then he stopped. The Seven of the Hold? Why seven?
Facts were never very (or at all) important to Talton theatre, he knew. But dramatic numbers were. Why go for seven if you could have the nice, round ten?
No.
What had happened to the other three?
And when?
And who?
He realised his hand was crushing up the corner of the page in his closing fist. He released it carefully, smoothing out the creases, looking down at the words without reading them. His skin was prickling with cold, cold anger now, so he rubbed at one arm while he sat and thought.
None of his busy little contacts down here had seen fit to tell him, then. That would have to be addressed. The researchers had is Tassicas still alive? said nothing either, but that was to be expected. The only way another three dead to find out would be to ask directly, and hope the question wouldn't send them scurrying away why is there nothing I can ever do ...
Arathalian folded up the paper and rose, raising his voice as well. "Aina Wellis? Are you still there?"
Of course she was. She was one of the stubborn ones.
"Yes, Arathalian," her muffled voice called, surprised and pleased.
"Good. Come back in."
It wasn't a completely unheard-of concession for him to make - particularly when he was bored - but he knew she'd be wary anyway. He laid the paper carefully to one side, locking away his fury but not his hate, and sat back down to present as innocuous a front as possible.
She entered a little while later, lying broadly with a smile. Her eyes were not quite so casual. "What have I done to deserve this?" she joked.
"I'm going to ask you a question," said Arathalian. "You can stand close by the door if you like, but don't be too quick to bolt off. I might not want you in here again if you do."
"Have I annoyed you?" she asked, even-voiced.
"No more than usual," he replied. "How many fae in the Hold?"
Her expression became openly confused. "How many?"
"Yes. You should probably answer fairly carefully, I might add."
"Seven."
She said it casually - as much so as circumstances allowed, at least. Arathalian stifled the fleeting urge to make her care, reminding himself it wasn't constructive. "And how long has that been the case?"
"Well, as long as I've been here, certainly." The confusion felt genuine. "Arathalian, I don't understand where this is going."
"Who died?"
"What?"
"Since the Ten became the Seven. Who died?"
He didn't move from his chair, or raise his voice to any threatening level, but the banked alarm began to build in her eyes. Death was not an accepted topic of discussion, for obvious reasons. Certainly not fae death. "I honestly don't know. I don't study much history or literature."
"They are not history and literature," he said.
It came from deep in the back of his throat this time. He let it stay there.
"I didn't mean it like that," she replied, her voice now almost as quiet as his. "Why are you asking me this? Are you angry that I don't know much about it? Because I -"
"I couldn't care less, ironblood. I'm asking because I don't know."
She stared at him, her heavy-shadowed brown eyes wary and sombre at the same time. By Hold protocol, he knew, she should have left already. It wouldn't take much more now to prod her to that decision. He had to tread more softly.
He'd been good at that, once. Once upon a time, before the Iron Hold had filled and then, slowly, emptied ...
"Don't know?" she echoed at last, softer still.
The question was facile. He'd have said something in a different situation. Instead, he simply shook his head.
"It's been a long, long time since they were here. At least fifty years, I'd think."
"I don't care how long it's been." He did care, though. Very much. Ghosts flying away silently in the dark, alone. "I didn't ask you how long ago. Just tell me who."
"But I said I don't know -"
"Use your head while you still have it! Tell me who's here as of now."
Aina Wellis was definitely wavering now. He caught her glance back at the door. He'd been careless.
"By my name, Arathalian, by the Flow itself and by the Circle, I swear to do you no harm so long as this Query lasts, until and including the time at which you open the door and leave," he said shortly. "If this my oath should be broken, may the Flow run dry, the Circle break and my name be as nothing. - Happy?"
"Happier," she corrected, a little of that styled Holder bravado back in her voice.
"So stop wasting my time. Who is here now?"
Even as he asked the question, he heard it properly for the first time, and was suddenly reluctant to hear the answer. Cochalyon isn't dead. I hear him in the spring. Of all of them he's the one who should have died, but they let him linger. Which three, then?
Was it the little girl who'd grown up in the iron? Fiannas?
Was it Tassicas? Was the last Quicksilver gone?
Had the beast fae lost Nebeshanin Stoneheart?
He was cold, freezing cold with the fear and the rage. It had been too long since the last death - he'd stopped expecting them. That was a mistake.
He almost asked Aina Wellis to shut up and leave. But then she began to speak, and he had to catch at each name as it passed him, following the links of a chain grown far too short.
"Cochalyon," said the ironblood, counting off on her fingers, "Arathalian, Nebeshanin -"
- ah -
"- Culundar, Ilinme, Ascalain, Fiannas."
Tassicas, he thought, Tassicas, Tassicas, Tassicas.
There were no more moon fae in Inyaron. Tassicas was dead.
Scorashain was dead. He had been a sucessionist in Corruth, but that was irrelevant down here.
Shanyulis was dead. She had been a wellspring-hunter in Hainmarra.
He had only known Tassicas, but they were still all his, and they'd all been waiting.
"Trying to keep numbers nice and balanced, were they?" he asked, putting his head to one side as he smiled up at Aina Wellis's subdued face. "Only keeping one or two of each fae species for the zoo?"
Her brows wrung together. "I'm so ..."
She almost said the S-word, which researchers knew they must never, never say to him. She was lucky she stopped. She was lucky he'd sworn that oath.
She was sorry that all the moon fae of Inyaron were gone.
"Well," said Arathalian, "that clears that up. Thank you." He really was going to they all died in the dark have to have words with those useless contacts no sky, no air, no hope.
"Should I go now?" she asked, steady.
"Just one last little thing," he replied. "Were they shot?"
"There hasn't been a shooting in the Hold for almost a hundred years, Arathalian," she said firmly, shaking her head.
"My word," said Arathalian. "Hasn't there? That's terribly, terribly good of you all."
"And that's not what I meant ei-"
"I'm afraid this is definitely the point where you should leave, Aina Wellis. Immediately and silently. I can't hurt you now, but I can save it up for next time if I want to."
She looked at him, a strange stare that he could almost feel on his skin, and finally turned back to the door, mute.
"Oh, don't lose any sleep, Aina Wellis," he called after her back. "I'm harmless, really. There hasn't been a death in this cell for almost forty years!"
He sent her out with laughter because he hated her, and he hated all the Holders, and he still hadn't done anything to stop them - and because down here in the dark, three more had stopped waiting.
This is set about sixty years before Stefran/Melysse's time in the Iron Hold, by the way. Not counting the beginning snips, which are a different time again.
Oh, and there are another two challenges coming soon, but this was the only one I typed straight into Horatio the HP ;)
In his mind, he retreated to the river - the river as it had been, straight and strong and cold. That was how he should be. He would be. As a child he'd had to stay close to the banks and the trailing willow-braids, but that time had long passed.
Now was the time to leave the iron-dark behind and let the currents finally show him where they wanted to go.
He was unsure. He was afraid. But that wasn't enough to keep him here, because in his cell - in the iron-dark - he was simply alone.
She moved automatically. She didn't know why the word had suddenly whispered in her mind - today - but it felt right. It felt like a suggestion from the outside, and perhaps it was. She still believed in destiny.
Sliding off her bed, she knelt on the chilly cell floor and smoothed the hard stone with her hand. Then she began to sing, to unmake, quietly keeping the lovely jewel-words to herself, delighting in the feel of them, and even delighting in the sight of her filmy-thinning hand.
It had been the picture. Someone had brought her a picture of the sky - a kind person, but a cruel person - and although she'd had many, many gifts like that over the years to brighten her cell, something about this one had made her cry.
It had been the night sky. Beautifully, beautifully painted. The artist had loved it enough to sprinkle real constellations amongst the rest of the random paint-spray stars: the River, the Running Mouse, the Tree.
She was still crying. She knew now that she would never stop, because pictures were all she would ever have of the night sky again, until ...
And then she decided to complete the thought.
The cell door closed again, at last, and the echoes grumbled away into nothing - but for how long?
Arathalian snorted to himself, tossing the book he'd been 'reading' onto the floor with an underhanded flick. Five visits in the one morning already, and not a single one from one of the less tedious researchers. Was there some kind of Convention for the Terminally Dull coming up in Talton?
Whatever the reason, the next clod to stick his head through the door was going to have a bad day.
Mildly cheered by that promise - and hoping it would be that toad Trant Scarren - he stood up from his chair to stretch his legs. It was tough to hold that pose of lordly disinterest for so long on a busy morning. I wonder how they'd react if I greeted the next one with a few star-jumps? he wondered. Would they decide it was Dangerous Demeanour and leave me alone?
The peepslot in the door had opened. It always did when someone heard him moving around. Arathalian bent down to give them a wave - it was just that kind of mood - and then began his daily exercises with the cell's thin magic. Strange, now, to think there'd been a time he couldn't even have made one lap of his iron cell in the quicksilver sprint.
Clang-clang at the cell door. "Arathalian."
He stopped, the colourless vision of extratemporal motion fading back to the near-colourless true vista of his cell. "You must be joking! Another?"
"Another. Stand clear."
He felt his former annoyance come crowding back in force. Moving back from the door, he sat down on his bed instead and maintained a flat glare on it until his guards had opened it again. Yes, a sixth time.
After a moment, the long-nosed face of Aina Wellis appeared. She was one of the older Holders, good at hiding nerves, brazenly indifferent to having written her name sixth in line on his timetable outside. She was probably the worst possible candidate for a decent hazing. The worst he could do to Aina Wellis and her ilk - well, no, not the worst, but the worst he wanted - was offer zero cooperation.
And he did. "Morning," she said, and he nodded irritably, his suspicions about the time confirmed.
She snorted and tweaked back a hair-comb. "You're looking fine and chirpy."
"Why, thank you. Go away."
"Don't be like that. Have an apple." She pulled the fruit from the bag she was carrying.
"I thought they only worked on doctors."
Aina Wellis continued to hold the apple out a few seconds longer, smirking only slightly at his retort, before sighing and giving up. "I know you've had a trying morning. That's why I brought you all these things. Look - I come bearing books!"
"Excellent," he replied, refusing to be amused by her today. "You may also leave bearing books."
"'Modern Trends in the Judicial System'? 'Excavations in Hainmarra's Meethan Heights'? 'Axton and Talton: Across the River'?" She drooped when he didn't give her even a blink. "Five heavily censored newspapers from last month?"
"You can talk until you turn blue - as usual - but you'll be holding out conversation with my chair, Aina Wellis. Goodbye."
She sighed again. "I knew they'd given me short straw today. Why don't I just leave all this with you for now? I'll go bother Issue outside. If you happen to be struck by a sudden bolt of magnanimosity, you might consider answering just one or two little questions."
He didn't reply, but she hadn't expected him to. Gathering up her satchel, minus the pile of books, the papers and the apple, she left him alone without further ado. It was one of her better points.
Peace at last. Arathalian leaned forward once the door had closed to take a paper from his chair. It was, like all of the newspapers he saw, mutilated by the Hold's censors and irritatingly difficult to read. About the only untouched section was sport, which was a pretty useless thing for someone who'd never seen human sports played. He always 'supported' one of the rugby teams anyway, purely out of boredom. They'd lost this week.
He kept fighting the mangled pages back, going through the society pages and all their blanked-out addresses - what would I do with those, you idiots? walk in on a formal dinner? - and passing without any interest through theatrical advertisements.
Flaring block capitals gave him pause three pages in.
The Seven of the Hold
In Seven Acts
Seven Sweeping Tales of Magic, Deception, Love and Betrayal!
A block-printed woman in a feather-winged costume swooned in front of a sketchy castle, frowned down upon by a bat-winged man. Arathalian winced slightly and went to turn the page - it wasn't the first such atrocity he'd seen, and it wouldn't be the last.
Then he stopped. The Seven of the Hold? Why seven?
Facts were never very (or at all) important to Talton theatre, he knew. But dramatic numbers were. Why go for seven if you could have the nice, round ten?
No.
What had happened to the other three?
And when?
And who?
He realised his hand was crushing up the corner of the page in his closing fist. He released it carefully, smoothing out the creases, looking down at the words without reading them. His skin was prickling with cold, cold anger now, so he rubbed at one arm while he sat and thought.
None of his busy little contacts down here had seen fit to tell him, then. That would have to be addressed. The researchers had is Tassicas still alive? said nothing either, but that was to be expected. The only way another three dead to find out would be to ask directly, and hope the question wouldn't send them scurrying away why is there nothing I can ever do ...
Arathalian folded up the paper and rose, raising his voice as well. "Aina Wellis? Are you still there?"
Of course she was. She was one of the stubborn ones.
"Yes, Arathalian," her muffled voice called, surprised and pleased.
"Good. Come back in."
It wasn't a completely unheard-of concession for him to make - particularly when he was bored - but he knew she'd be wary anyway. He laid the paper carefully to one side, locking away his fury but not his hate, and sat back down to present as innocuous a front as possible.
She entered a little while later, lying broadly with a smile. Her eyes were not quite so casual. "What have I done to deserve this?" she joked.
"I'm going to ask you a question," said Arathalian. "You can stand close by the door if you like, but don't be too quick to bolt off. I might not want you in here again if you do."
"Have I annoyed you?" she asked, even-voiced.
"No more than usual," he replied. "How many fae in the Hold?"
Her expression became openly confused. "How many?"
"Yes. You should probably answer fairly carefully, I might add."
"Seven."
She said it casually - as much so as circumstances allowed, at least. Arathalian stifled the fleeting urge to make her care, reminding himself it wasn't constructive. "And how long has that been the case?"
"Well, as long as I've been here, certainly." The confusion felt genuine. "Arathalian, I don't understand where this is going."
"Who died?"
"What?"
"Since the Ten became the Seven. Who died?"
He didn't move from his chair, or raise his voice to any threatening level, but the banked alarm began to build in her eyes. Death was not an accepted topic of discussion, for obvious reasons. Certainly not fae death. "I honestly don't know. I don't study much history or literature."
"They are not history and literature," he said.
It came from deep in the back of his throat this time. He let it stay there.
"I didn't mean it like that," she replied, her voice now almost as quiet as his. "Why are you asking me this? Are you angry that I don't know much about it? Because I -"
"I couldn't care less, ironblood. I'm asking because I don't know."
She stared at him, her heavy-shadowed brown eyes wary and sombre at the same time. By Hold protocol, he knew, she should have left already. It wouldn't take much more now to prod her to that decision. He had to tread more softly.
He'd been good at that, once. Once upon a time, before the Iron Hold had filled and then, slowly, emptied ...
"Don't know?" she echoed at last, softer still.
The question was facile. He'd have said something in a different situation. Instead, he simply shook his head.
"It's been a long, long time since they were here. At least fifty years, I'd think."
"I don't care how long it's been." He did care, though. Very much. Ghosts flying away silently in the dark, alone. "I didn't ask you how long ago. Just tell me who."
"But I said I don't know -"
"Use your head while you still have it! Tell me who's here as of now."
Aina Wellis was definitely wavering now. He caught her glance back at the door. He'd been careless.
"By my name, Arathalian, by the Flow itself and by the Circle, I swear to do you no harm so long as this Query lasts, until and including the time at which you open the door and leave," he said shortly. "If this my oath should be broken, may the Flow run dry, the Circle break and my name be as nothing. - Happy?"
"Happier," she corrected, a little of that styled Holder bravado back in her voice.
"So stop wasting my time. Who is here now?"
Even as he asked the question, he heard it properly for the first time, and was suddenly reluctant to hear the answer. Cochalyon isn't dead. I hear him in the spring. Of all of them he's the one who should have died, but they let him linger. Which three, then?
Was it the little girl who'd grown up in the iron? Fiannas?
Was it Tassicas? Was the last Quicksilver gone?
Had the beast fae lost Nebeshanin Stoneheart?
He was cold, freezing cold with the fear and the rage. It had been too long since the last death - he'd stopped expecting them. That was a mistake.
He almost asked Aina Wellis to shut up and leave. But then she began to speak, and he had to catch at each name as it passed him, following the links of a chain grown far too short.
"Cochalyon," said the ironblood, counting off on her fingers, "Arathalian, Nebeshanin -"
- ah -
"- Culundar, Ilinme, Ascalain, Fiannas."
Tassicas, he thought, Tassicas, Tassicas, Tassicas.
There were no more moon fae in Inyaron. Tassicas was dead.
Scorashain was dead. He had been a sucessionist in Corruth, but that was irrelevant down here.
Shanyulis was dead. She had been a wellspring-hunter in Hainmarra.
He had only known Tassicas, but they were still all his, and they'd all been waiting.
"Trying to keep numbers nice and balanced, were they?" he asked, putting his head to one side as he smiled up at Aina Wellis's subdued face. "Only keeping one or two of each fae species for the zoo?"
Her brows wrung together. "I'm so ..."
She almost said the S-word, which researchers knew they must never, never say to him. She was lucky she stopped. She was lucky he'd sworn that oath.
She was sorry that all the moon fae of Inyaron were gone.
"Well," said Arathalian, "that clears that up. Thank you." He really was going to they all died in the dark have to have words with those useless contacts no sky, no air, no hope.
"Should I go now?" she asked, steady.
"Just one last little thing," he replied. "Were they shot?"
"There hasn't been a shooting in the Hold for almost a hundred years, Arathalian," she said firmly, shaking her head.
"My word," said Arathalian. "Hasn't there? That's terribly, terribly good of you all."
"And that's not what I meant ei-"
"I'm afraid this is definitely the point where you should leave, Aina Wellis. Immediately and silently. I can't hurt you now, but I can save it up for next time if I want to."
She looked at him, a strange stare that he could almost feel on his skin, and finally turned back to the door, mute.
"Oh, don't lose any sleep, Aina Wellis," he called after her back. "I'm harmless, really. There hasn't been a death in this cell for almost forty years!"
He sent her out with laughter because he hated her, and he hated all the Holders, and he still hadn't done anything to stop them - and because down here in the dark, three more had stopped waiting.