All Hail the Shifter King
Title: Surprise, Part IV
Word Count: 2010
Notes: This is perhaps my favorite Kat / Ryder scene ever. For once, they're in the same room and not bitching at each other, though there's some playful banter going on. One more section to go in this story before it's over!
They stopped for the night at a small roadside cottage similar to the ones she'd seen lining the forest's edge close to Eli's home, though this one was smaller and obviously didn't see much in the line of routine maintenance. Little more than one room with a stack of bare hand-stuffed mattresses, the walls made of rough planks of wood lined with the fibrous bark of the squat tabin trees and the roof a thickly thatched mess of palm fronds and other foliage, it was less attractive than a garden shed - she was thrilled, though, to be spending the night. She'd asked Eli many times if she could camp out in the tiny buildings, but he'd given her the same argument every time - they were meant for the priests, for the caretakers of the shrines and those who maintained the sacred gardens, and they wouldn't take kindly to finding a mere human occupying their space. Standing in the cramped space as the storm raged overhead, a towel around her shoulders to ward off the chill after getting soaked on the sprint from the Jeep to the door, she felt a measure of victory that made her grin happily.
"What are all of these?" she asked, pressing her hand to the carefully carved symbols - like runes, she realized - that covered the walls of the structure. She recognized the shapes as ones she'd seen in Gavin's notes and carved into stones at the various ruins they'd visited, but this was the first time she'd seen so many of them in one place. The light from the propane lamp on the floor beside her cast her shadow in an odd, elongated shape around her, darkened when Ryder joined her.
"People who have stayed here," he told her, picking at one of the carvings with his fingernails.
"Like a guestbook?"
"Something like that, yes." His eyes skimmed the wall and he smirked, obviously amused at what he was seeing. "Some like to sign more than their name."
"You can read these?" she asked, not sure why she was so surprised. When he nodded, she tapped her hand against the wall. "What does this one say?"
"Eldin, son of..." He nudged her hand aside. "Son of Testra."
"What about this one?" She tapped on the wall a foot to the left.
"Caldi of Makina."
"No family?"
"It's not that," he said, shaking his head. "The men link themselves to their mothers. Women are linked to their home."
"Did you know any of these people?" she asked, looking around the small shack. Her eyes strained, in the dim light, to find patterns in the carvings, to make sense of the strange language, but if there was such a pattern she had yet to see it.
"Mmm, some." He turned, scanning the back wall. "Here's my sister," he said, and leaned over to run his fingers across a short, messy carving. "She always had terrible penmanship," he added, chuckling.
"It's still beautiful," Katrina argued, hugging her arms to her chest. "It all is, really. I wish I could read it."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I feel..." She bit her lip, trying to find her words. "I feel like I'm trespassing, you know?"
"You are. Humans aren't supposed to -"
"Yes, Ryder, I know," she interrupted. "That's not the point."
"Are you worried something bad will happen?"
"No, I just feel guilty."
"But they're just words," he said, and though the fact he clearly didn't understand what she was talking about annoyed her somewhat, it was definitely better than ridicule. What frustrated her the most, though, was that she couldn't think of the words to make him understand. How she could explain the loneliness, the fact that she hated feeling like such an outsider - that while it was just writing to him, to her the walls of the tiny cottage were a reminder of a major aspects of his life that she could never be a part of.
"You're right," she said, sighing, and backed away from wall. Folding her legs beneath her, she lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the lumpy bedroll and ran her fingers across the shiny exterior of her sleeping bag. "Forget it."
With the pounding of the rain on the thatched roof she didn't hear him move, so when the heavy gold coin swung into the edge of her vision she flinched away from it out of reflex, bringing up her hands to shield her face. The metal sparkled to life when it touched her skin, that strange crystalline hum that she'd only heard a handful of times before rising from it. Confused, she glanced at Ryder with an eyebrow raised, but as usual his expression was painfully neutral.
"Take it," he said, and when she delicately pinched the leather strap between her fingers, he released the necklace and let it swing from her hands. "You want to read it," he said, stretching out on his sleeping back and looping his arms behind his head. "So, read it."
Her first reaction was not to put the necklace on but to marvel at the fact that he'd actually allowed her to hold it. She could count on one hand the amount of times she'd even seen the coin out of Ryder's possession in the time she'd known him, and she'd only held it twice - neither with his permission. It felt strange, to heft the odd weight of it in her hands and feel the inviting pulse of heat radiating from it, and not fear any sort of repercussions.
"Are you sure?" she asked hesitantly. He chuckled and turned onto his side so that he was facing the wall, leaving her staring at his back.
"Just be quick about it," he told her, and yawned loudly. "I'd like to get some sleep tonight."
Holding her breath - and she wasn't sure why she did that, just knew that it felt like the right thing to do - she looped the necklace over her head and let the coin fall against her chest, the long leather strap letting it settle between her breasts where it sat, heavy and warm, against her damp t-shirt. She looked around the room and, while she didn't know exactly what she was looking for, she was a little frustrated when she realized the symbols on the wall were still just symbols.
"It's not working," she said, pursing her lips.
"Grow some patience," he murmured sleepily.
"Do I have to do something? Tap it or talk to it or -"
"If you start talking to it, I'll be very worried."
"You talk to it all the time," she pointed out, smirking.
"I don't think 'stop fucking around, you piece of shit' counts."
"You don't!" she gasped, horrified. When he twisted to look at her, confused, she couldn't help but laugh. "You do not talk to it like that, do you?"
"It's a chunk of gold. It doesn't have feelings," he said pointedly.
"Maybe it does, you know, and that's why it doesn't work all the time."
"Maybe it needs to be melted down," he countered, smirking despite himself.
"That's awful!" she remarked, laughing. "Doesn't this thing have a part of your soul or something in it?"
"I'm willing to part with it."
"You're terrible."
"And you're keeping me awake," he said, turning back onto his side. "We have to get going at sunrise," he reminded, "so you really should sleep soon."
"But it's still not -"
"Okay, if you really want to bribe it, kiss it."
"What?" She hooked her hand beneath the coin and held it up in front of her face, studying her warped reflection in the uneven surface. "Really?"
"Sure."
"Huh." She shrugged and pressed the coin to her lips, flinching in surprise when she felt a gentle buzz through her mouth and tongue, but when she looked around the room she still couldn't make sense of any of the writing. "Are you sure?" she asked.
"Nope," he said, laughing. "Was just the closest I'll get to a kiss."
"The closest..." she repeated, shocked, and then laughed and playfully kicked his leg. "You're awful!" she exclaimed. "What makes you think..."
The light in the room softened suddenly, as if a haze of smoke had fallen across her vision, and she stepped back from the mattress and looked around the room with her head swimming. The symbols on the wall twisted and spun in the fog, breaking apart and rearranging themselves to form new patterns, until the walls were covered in carved English letters, lists and lists of names and villages laid out in careful and precise lines.
"Oh my God," she breathed, a giddy smile breaking across her face as she leaned against the closest wall, running her hands over the words. Rastlin, son of Purjra. Hekaia of Azinsi. Madsa of Azinsi, with her sister Hekaia. She scurried to the other side of the shack, giggling with every new name she read, finding the same names carved in different locations, and she moved around and around in circles until she fell on the name Ryder had pointed out. Mea of Makina. "Mea," she murmured, tracing the letters with a sort of reverence. "Your sister's name was Mea?"
"It was," he said.
"So you're from Makina?"
"Originally, yes."
She looked around the room, then, looking not for new names but for any mention of Makina. There weren't many unique ones - Mea's name appeared a few times, and some other scattered women, but the most prominent was a name that was repeated countless times across the walls.
"Aldea," she said, rolling the name across her tongue. She heard Ryder shift, then, sitting up so he could watch her. "Was she your mother?"
"Yes," he said, and if he was at all surprised at her guess he didn't show it.
"Why did she come here so much?"
"She maintained a garden. This was where she would stay."
"A garden?"
"You're not the only woman who likes flowers, you know," he teased, and then yawned again. "Now can we please get some sleep?"
"I..." She looked around the room longingly, wishing she could spend some more time studying the names, but even after her nap in the Jeep she felt heavy with exhaustion. "I guess so." For a moment she considered taking some photos of the walls, something to show Gavin when they got back, but the more she thought about it the more she felt like she wanted to keep the building a secret, something that was just hers, just this once. Smiling a little at the thought, she sat down on her mattress and took off the coin, then scooted across the small space between them until their knees touched and dropped the necklace around Ryder's neck. His skin was chilled from the storm and she let her hands rest on either side of his neck, the curve of his shoulders beneath her palms and the scent of rain heavy in the air between them.
It was a closeness that was oddly comfortable - despite how much they bickered and how he drove her mad on a good day, she relished having him to herself, like this, if only for a few minutes. Like the magic of seeing the ledger of names scrawled across the walls, there was an honesty about him and it felt like a precious secret, something that could just be hers, that nobody else would believe existed.
Smiling, she straightened the twists in the necklace and then pressed her palm to the coin, pinning it between her hand and his chest, and for a moment she was unsure if the pulse she felt was the energy of the coin or the beating of his heart - or maybe it was both.
"Thank you," she said, and when he covered her hand with his own there was a warmth in his odd-colored eyes she wasn't sure she'd seen before - for a split-second it made him look so incredibly human.
"They're just words," he said, and smiled softly.
Word Count: 2010
Notes: This is perhaps my favorite Kat / Ryder scene ever. For once, they're in the same room and not bitching at each other, though there's some playful banter going on. One more section to go in this story before it's over!
They stopped for the night at a small roadside cottage similar to the ones she'd seen lining the forest's edge close to Eli's home, though this one was smaller and obviously didn't see much in the line of routine maintenance. Little more than one room with a stack of bare hand-stuffed mattresses, the walls made of rough planks of wood lined with the fibrous bark of the squat tabin trees and the roof a thickly thatched mess of palm fronds and other foliage, it was less attractive than a garden shed - she was thrilled, though, to be spending the night. She'd asked Eli many times if she could camp out in the tiny buildings, but he'd given her the same argument every time - they were meant for the priests, for the caretakers of the shrines and those who maintained the sacred gardens, and they wouldn't take kindly to finding a mere human occupying their space. Standing in the cramped space as the storm raged overhead, a towel around her shoulders to ward off the chill after getting soaked on the sprint from the Jeep to the door, she felt a measure of victory that made her grin happily.
"What are all of these?" she asked, pressing her hand to the carefully carved symbols - like runes, she realized - that covered the walls of the structure. She recognized the shapes as ones she'd seen in Gavin's notes and carved into stones at the various ruins they'd visited, but this was the first time she'd seen so many of them in one place. The light from the propane lamp on the floor beside her cast her shadow in an odd, elongated shape around her, darkened when Ryder joined her.
"People who have stayed here," he told her, picking at one of the carvings with his fingernails.
"Like a guestbook?"
"Something like that, yes." His eyes skimmed the wall and he smirked, obviously amused at what he was seeing. "Some like to sign more than their name."
"You can read these?" she asked, not sure why she was so surprised. When he nodded, she tapped her hand against the wall. "What does this one say?"
"Eldin, son of..." He nudged her hand aside. "Son of Testra."
"What about this one?" She tapped on the wall a foot to the left.
"Caldi of Makina."
"No family?"
"It's not that," he said, shaking his head. "The men link themselves to their mothers. Women are linked to their home."
"Did you know any of these people?" she asked, looking around the small shack. Her eyes strained, in the dim light, to find patterns in the carvings, to make sense of the strange language, but if there was such a pattern she had yet to see it.
"Mmm, some." He turned, scanning the back wall. "Here's my sister," he said, and leaned over to run his fingers across a short, messy carving. "She always had terrible penmanship," he added, chuckling.
"It's still beautiful," Katrina argued, hugging her arms to her chest. "It all is, really. I wish I could read it."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I feel..." She bit her lip, trying to find her words. "I feel like I'm trespassing, you know?"
"You are. Humans aren't supposed to -"
"Yes, Ryder, I know," she interrupted. "That's not the point."
"Are you worried something bad will happen?"
"No, I just feel guilty."
"But they're just words," he said, and though the fact he clearly didn't understand what she was talking about annoyed her somewhat, it was definitely better than ridicule. What frustrated her the most, though, was that she couldn't think of the words to make him understand. How she could explain the loneliness, the fact that she hated feeling like such an outsider - that while it was just writing to him, to her the walls of the tiny cottage were a reminder of a major aspects of his life that she could never be a part of.
"You're right," she said, sighing, and backed away from wall. Folding her legs beneath her, she lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the lumpy bedroll and ran her fingers across the shiny exterior of her sleeping bag. "Forget it."
With the pounding of the rain on the thatched roof she didn't hear him move, so when the heavy gold coin swung into the edge of her vision she flinched away from it out of reflex, bringing up her hands to shield her face. The metal sparkled to life when it touched her skin, that strange crystalline hum that she'd only heard a handful of times before rising from it. Confused, she glanced at Ryder with an eyebrow raised, but as usual his expression was painfully neutral.
"Take it," he said, and when she delicately pinched the leather strap between her fingers, he released the necklace and let it swing from her hands. "You want to read it," he said, stretching out on his sleeping back and looping his arms behind his head. "So, read it."
Her first reaction was not to put the necklace on but to marvel at the fact that he'd actually allowed her to hold it. She could count on one hand the amount of times she'd even seen the coin out of Ryder's possession in the time she'd known him, and she'd only held it twice - neither with his permission. It felt strange, to heft the odd weight of it in her hands and feel the inviting pulse of heat radiating from it, and not fear any sort of repercussions.
"Are you sure?" she asked hesitantly. He chuckled and turned onto his side so that he was facing the wall, leaving her staring at his back.
"Just be quick about it," he told her, and yawned loudly. "I'd like to get some sleep tonight."
Holding her breath - and she wasn't sure why she did that, just knew that it felt like the right thing to do - she looped the necklace over her head and let the coin fall against her chest, the long leather strap letting it settle between her breasts where it sat, heavy and warm, against her damp t-shirt. She looked around the room and, while she didn't know exactly what she was looking for, she was a little frustrated when she realized the symbols on the wall were still just symbols.
"It's not working," she said, pursing her lips.
"Grow some patience," he murmured sleepily.
"Do I have to do something? Tap it or talk to it or -"
"If you start talking to it, I'll be very worried."
"You talk to it all the time," she pointed out, smirking.
"I don't think 'stop fucking around, you piece of shit' counts."
"You don't!" she gasped, horrified. When he twisted to look at her, confused, she couldn't help but laugh. "You do not talk to it like that, do you?"
"It's a chunk of gold. It doesn't have feelings," he said pointedly.
"Maybe it does, you know, and that's why it doesn't work all the time."
"Maybe it needs to be melted down," he countered, smirking despite himself.
"That's awful!" she remarked, laughing. "Doesn't this thing have a part of your soul or something in it?"
"I'm willing to part with it."
"You're terrible."
"And you're keeping me awake," he said, turning back onto his side. "We have to get going at sunrise," he reminded, "so you really should sleep soon."
"But it's still not -"
"Okay, if you really want to bribe it, kiss it."
"What?" She hooked her hand beneath the coin and held it up in front of her face, studying her warped reflection in the uneven surface. "Really?"
"Sure."
"Huh." She shrugged and pressed the coin to her lips, flinching in surprise when she felt a gentle buzz through her mouth and tongue, but when she looked around the room she still couldn't make sense of any of the writing. "Are you sure?" she asked.
"Nope," he said, laughing. "Was just the closest I'll get to a kiss."
"The closest..." she repeated, shocked, and then laughed and playfully kicked his leg. "You're awful!" she exclaimed. "What makes you think..."
The light in the room softened suddenly, as if a haze of smoke had fallen across her vision, and she stepped back from the mattress and looked around the room with her head swimming. The symbols on the wall twisted and spun in the fog, breaking apart and rearranging themselves to form new patterns, until the walls were covered in carved English letters, lists and lists of names and villages laid out in careful and precise lines.
"Oh my God," she breathed, a giddy smile breaking across her face as she leaned against the closest wall, running her hands over the words. Rastlin, son of Purjra. Hekaia of Azinsi. Madsa of Azinsi, with her sister Hekaia. She scurried to the other side of the shack, giggling with every new name she read, finding the same names carved in different locations, and she moved around and around in circles until she fell on the name Ryder had pointed out. Mea of Makina. "Mea," she murmured, tracing the letters with a sort of reverence. "Your sister's name was Mea?"
"It was," he said.
"So you're from Makina?"
"Originally, yes."
She looked around the room, then, looking not for new names but for any mention of Makina. There weren't many unique ones - Mea's name appeared a few times, and some other scattered women, but the most prominent was a name that was repeated countless times across the walls.
"Aldea," she said, rolling the name across her tongue. She heard Ryder shift, then, sitting up so he could watch her. "Was she your mother?"
"Yes," he said, and if he was at all surprised at her guess he didn't show it.
"Why did she come here so much?"
"She maintained a garden. This was where she would stay."
"A garden?"
"You're not the only woman who likes flowers, you know," he teased, and then yawned again. "Now can we please get some sleep?"
"I..." She looked around the room longingly, wishing she could spend some more time studying the names, but even after her nap in the Jeep she felt heavy with exhaustion. "I guess so." For a moment she considered taking some photos of the walls, something to show Gavin when they got back, but the more she thought about it the more she felt like she wanted to keep the building a secret, something that was just hers, just this once. Smiling a little at the thought, she sat down on her mattress and took off the coin, then scooted across the small space between them until their knees touched and dropped the necklace around Ryder's neck. His skin was chilled from the storm and she let her hands rest on either side of his neck, the curve of his shoulders beneath her palms and the scent of rain heavy in the air between them.
It was a closeness that was oddly comfortable - despite how much they bickered and how he drove her mad on a good day, she relished having him to herself, like this, if only for a few minutes. Like the magic of seeing the ledger of names scrawled across the walls, there was an honesty about him and it felt like a precious secret, something that could just be hers, that nobody else would believe existed.
Smiling, she straightened the twists in the necklace and then pressed her palm to the coin, pinning it between her hand and his chest, and for a moment she was unsure if the pulse she felt was the energy of the coin or the beating of his heart - or maybe it was both.
"Thank you," she said, and when he covered her hand with his own there was a warmth in his odd-colored eyes she wasn't sure she'd seen before - for a split-second it made him look so incredibly human.
"They're just words," he said, and smiled softly.