Post by Seek on Apr 4, 2015 21:01:56 GMT 10
Series: A Pale View of Hills
Title: Hestaka
Rating: G
Event: Fantasy Fencing
Competition: Decathlon
Words: 300 words
Summary: A conversation with the hestaka that Mattes soon forgets. Mildly AU.
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The hestaka says, “You don’t have any,” and Mattes at that point in time is disappointed. But the hestaka holds up a finger and says, “I think.” She adds, dryly, “It’s clear that you don’t have the star-fire, or I’d have seen some sign of it by now.” No speaking with the voices of the star-spirits, listening to the ancestors; no seeing by starlight or waking the earth and calling fire. All of which Mattes is more than happy to leave to someone else.
“Then why?”
The hestaka turns dark eyes on him. A scar bisects her left eye, where a makhaira came too close in one of the yearly raids on the cattle of a neighbouring clan. By all accounts, she was a spitfire as a young woman, before the ancestors and the stars called to her.
“Magic,” she says, finally, “Is a gift, but also a curse. It sets you apart, closes off certain paths you would rather walk.”
“Hestaka?”
“There are those who devour magic,” she adds. “Who take power and turn it to their own ends. And who can say what they leave behind in their wake? There is an emptiness that must be filled, like a crack in the earth. And dark things can be unearthed that way. Having a Gift makes you vulnerable to the eaters. Remember that.”
He’s sixteen then, enough to know not to take the hestaka lightly, enough to forget because she’s the hestaka and his fortune has been read in the stars and he doesn’t have a Gift; these matters aren’t his.
Still, the Yamani roses bloom beneath his touch, and one night, years later, he wakes up, strangely bereft, strangely afraid, and, for no particular reason he can voice, decides to betray his new family for a noble’s promise.
Title: Hestaka
Rating: G
Event: Fantasy Fencing
Competition: Decathlon
Words: 300 words
Summary: A conversation with the hestaka that Mattes soon forgets. Mildly AU.
-
The hestaka says, “You don’t have any,” and Mattes at that point in time is disappointed. But the hestaka holds up a finger and says, “I think.” She adds, dryly, “It’s clear that you don’t have the star-fire, or I’d have seen some sign of it by now.” No speaking with the voices of the star-spirits, listening to the ancestors; no seeing by starlight or waking the earth and calling fire. All of which Mattes is more than happy to leave to someone else.
“Then why?”
The hestaka turns dark eyes on him. A scar bisects her left eye, where a makhaira came too close in one of the yearly raids on the cattle of a neighbouring clan. By all accounts, she was a spitfire as a young woman, before the ancestors and the stars called to her.
“Magic,” she says, finally, “Is a gift, but also a curse. It sets you apart, closes off certain paths you would rather walk.”
“Hestaka?”
“There are those who devour magic,” she adds. “Who take power and turn it to their own ends. And who can say what they leave behind in their wake? There is an emptiness that must be filled, like a crack in the earth. And dark things can be unearthed that way. Having a Gift makes you vulnerable to the eaters. Remember that.”
He’s sixteen then, enough to know not to take the hestaka lightly, enough to forget because she’s the hestaka and his fortune has been read in the stars and he doesn’t have a Gift; these matters aren’t his.
Still, the Yamani roses bloom beneath his touch, and one night, years later, he wakes up, strangely bereft, strangely afraid, and, for no particular reason he can voice, decides to betray his new family for a noble’s promise.