Re: Midou Harue's calling card
Because the ST is a lovely person, and I'm an utter reviewhore.
“Wake up, child.”
Mama smells of apples and roses; she is also scrubbing my face with a wet towel. I sputter; she laughs, and easily slips off my sleeping-clothes, wrapping a silk bodice around my flat chest. “You are performing today,” she whispers; and I smile at her, half in longing, and half in fear.
Grandma is praying at the altar; she whispers murmured silences to the Dragons, to the gods, and to Grandpa above. Mama clasps my hands before me, and I join them in the words. I don't really remember Grandpa; he died when I was very young, and now I wonder if my prayers would reach him, guided only by the scent of sandalwood and soap. He had kind hands; I remember that. Callused and warm.
Grandma seems to be praying more, nowadays; she says that, at this time, it was better to stack up a little currency with the gods. Mama says it'll bring us good luck, and so I pray too, whispering words or praise to the drifting incense. I hope it works.
Papa is already outside, shouting at Jewel and Whisper to hurry out. I give him a hug; he bends over and kisses me on the cheek. “Good luck, little one,” he smiles; and I smile back. I am not afraid.
When I climb the ladder, the applause begins; higher, and higher, with every step I take. It is dizzying up here, but Papa winks at me, and I am alright. Downstairs, Xiri is making the crowd cheer for me; he winks as well, and my heart leaps in my chest. I think I may be in love with him. Jewel says I'm much too young right now, but she says in a few years, I'll be prettier than anyone else in the troupe. I hope it's true.
The knives are cold in my hand, but I steel myself, and hook my legs around the trapeze. One more breath, and I will fly.
**
Papa smells of charcoal and leather; his is the forge, and I sit beside him, watching the fires flame and flicker as the bellows go. “See here? The blade must be worked until its white hot—not red, mind, but white—and then we can start to fold it, metal against metal, like paper against itself.” He smiles. “You wouldn’t be able to do this at most forges; this one is a gift from Boss Heron herself. There’s red jade in there to keep the fires hot.”
Obediently, I bend in closer, and he wards my head off with a laugh. “The fire’s still on! Ye won’t be able to spot any darn thing in the flames now, would you?” He smoothes my hair back, and kisses my brow. “First thing to learn; you might be able to work with fire, but she’s always her own girl. Looks cheery, warms you, heats the steel, but take yer eyes off and she’ll burn your house down.”
He swings me up, and I giggle. “Papa!”
“I know, I know. Yer’re thirteen, and too good fer me now.” But he doesn’t put me down. “Soon enough, ye’ll learn to be old and cranky at yer old papa, and be too heavy for me to carry besides.”
“I won’t!”
“Grow too heavy? Well, ah think it’s a tad eahly to start worrying ‘bout your figure…” He runs his fingers down my side, and I shriek.
“No! I won’t grow old and cranky!”
“Mmmm. Well, this old man surely hopes so. He’s running out of little daughters like you.”
I punch him, but gently. “You only have one daughter.”
“And that’s why ah think ahm runnin’ out.” He winks. “It’s onhly logical, no?”
**
“Looks like you didn’t get to turn old and cranky, after all.”
Papa has four voices; the posh, the commanding, the working, and the family’s. He’s using the posh voice now; there are Dragons around, and he doesn’t want to lose face for the family.
Mama’s somewhere, talking and laughing; I hear her saying what a beautiful little girl I was, how obedient I am, and for a moment I hate her. Don’t sell me. Don’t give me away. But everyone is watching now, and I can’t say that in front of them; not here.
He is… a very handsome man. Jewel’s envious of me; she says I’ll have my own bathroom, and gardens, and servants to help wear my clothes and shod my feet. It’s… a nice dream, I guess. A beautiful dream, and maybe I’m being very silly to hate it, but.
I don’t want to go away.
Papa told me I was being silly. All little girls have to go away some time—it’s called growing up. But I didn’t want to be this grown up, this fast. I don’t want to leave.
His hands are kind, and caring, and he smells of heady incense and steel. He smiles when he sees me, smiles when he takes my hand, and smiles when I look away. Perhaps he thinks I’m shy.
Boss Heron nudges me, and I curtsey before the m—my husband. My husband. “Pleased to meet you,” I say, and it is barely a lie.
**
Mama was right. He is a good husband. They told me he was a warrior, of sorts, and I have seen the evidence in his flesh; but I have never evidenced any hardness in his eyes. Perhaps he is like Papa; one man at home, and another outside. Mama said many men are like that; and sometimes, it was best never to see the other at all.
Life is sweet, for a time. I do indeed have my own bathroom; my own garden; but I drew the line at dressing and shodding my own feet. I… I wasn’t a highborn lady, and it felt wrong to be otherwise; and it reminded me, a little, of life back before I wore perfumes. I wasn’t… unhappy.
In time, I even got bored.
He laughed at me; told me how utterly adorable I was; and then acquiesced, sending for a tutor and a gymnast, and, in time, even a smith. I think he was amused, a little, to see his little wife play at fire and steel; and, well, why not? It didn’t keep me from his bed, and it kept me busy when he was away. I think I was vaguely expected to fritter my time with embroidery and music; but no. It wasn’t who I grew up to be.
**
In time, he got married, too.
She? She was… strong, and beautiful. One of Danaa'd’s children; touched by the grace of water, and carrying with her the salt-spray scent of the lakes. There was a time when I dreamed I could be friends with her; when she smiled at me, or spoke, or sometimes winked in teasing jest against the man that she loved. But perhaps that wasn’t to be.
She was the one that taught me the dance of the sword and blade; for her, every woman should know how to fight, and my interest in the forge and in steel suggested a certain strength in her eyes. She complained incessantly of the weedy flesh cows and breeding tits of other manors, suggesting that our husband at least had the decent sense to choose an actual woman for his concubine, and I think I would’ve been flattered but for her constant, aggravating pity for one of my station. Perhaps that was entirely my fault—my pettiness, my jealousy—but I never had any pretensions to perfection.
No, that was reserved for the Dragonblooded. Of that, she could not but remind me, day after day.
**
It happened in the training pen; where else could it be? She was… fighting, blades flashing, eyes grinning, and I was trying (as hard as I could) to match her impossible grace. Last week, I had defeated her once; then again; and thereafter, I could do so no longer. We would fight, and we would fight, until the air begin to sparkle with essence; and once I tasted the sea-spray, I knew full well I was lost.
I had complained once, sulkily; she had laughed, and told me to be honoured. “It’s not often that a mortal can so threaten a Princess of the Blood. He had been watching then, and he had laughed, too; and that had hurt.
(He apologized later, in the deep night; and it was only when he left that I wondered; why does he come to my bed less often?)
(I can hear them in the night; laughing, joking. Sometimes they talk about me.)
Our blades sing in the dawn, one two three four, and I am pressing her back; she smiles, a hard-pressed warrior’s smile, and…?
(There are some things a mortal can’t do; and that is, to compete with the Dragons in any endeavour.)
The taste of salt and water is bitter on my tongue, and suddenly she is fast, so much faster; I parry a hit, and the blade almost falls from my hand. But he is watching, isn’t he? and I refused to back down. Let her beat me. Let her cheat and beat me. Again.
(I wasn’t unhappy.)
The storm and surf are roaring now; it’s like looking into the great rain-machines, staring into the hose as pure Essence streamed forth to bathe the elephants and the tents. Salt stings my eyes, my ears, my mouth; the hilt of the blade shifted;
(Why did I have to leave, anyway)
(All little girls have to go away some time)
I’ve been waiting for you to come home.
**
I killed her. At least, I think I killed her. The blade was suddenly… golden in my hand, and the strike tore through the leather like a gutting blade. The spray suddenly turned red; and then there was an immense fire at my back, shearing down through bone, cloth, flesh.
It hurt.
It hurt.
They told me they had killed my parents. They weren’t really meant to—not really their fault, scum, for their daughter to be a demon—but he had hunted them down, after my… change, and slain them in a fit of righteous anger. It was his right, because the Dragons laid claim to my life.
My lucky lucky life.
They said he was acquitted of any wrongdoing. Because it was his right, see? He had a right to take his vengeance—and underneath, I knew full well why he had the right. Because he was a Dragon, and nobody else did.
Sometimes I dreamed maybe he didn’t kill them that maybe they told me this just to break my heart but then I woke up and well what difference did it make
So they set me to work. They didn’t want me near the blades—I think they felt… naked, after a death of their own… so they gave me all the worthless jobs, all the difficult but menial tasks, and made sure I was never so allowed to touch anything with an edge. So I smiled at them, of course. I smiled, and told them I was sorry.
“First thing to learn; you might be able to work with fire, but she’s always her own girl. Looks cheery, warms you, heats the steel, but take yer eyes off and she’ll burn your house down.”
I didn’t give them any trouble. No, no. I learnt that fast. Any trouble meant a beating. Any trouble meant a dark room and a hungry night and, more often than not, some low voice grunting in my ear. If I smiled, it’s be in a soft bed, with warm lights. I liked soft beds. They weren’t all hard and stuff.
Sometimes I dream of a sunrise, a bright red warm light coming out of the top of the world. it tells me it loves me. it’s waiting for me to come home.
And so I smile. In time, they let me dance for them; and I do. I dance as they love me to dance; and let them watch me, and imagine me, as I imagine dancing with them. I smile and I dance and they will smile back, laughing and hooting, and perhaps they will forget the circle in my head; and I will smile and I will dance and maybe someday I’ll come home and I’ll bring a little present, won’t I, Papa, Mama, I’ll bring a present for you too. I’ll bring a present up to where the sun will rise, and Grandpa’s watching me (did I mention that) Grandpa’s watching from above.
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