(WWG): The Greatest Gift, PG-13 (Cold Winds)

[devilinthedetails]

Series: Cold Winds

Title: The Greatest Gift

Rating: PG-13 for canon-typical, internalized racism. 

Words: 200. 

Summary: As a page, Zahir learns the greatest gift a knight can give his king and country. 

The Greatest Gift

“Zahir ibn Alhaz.” The strange way Lord Wyldon shaped the syllables of Zahir’s name made it sound foreign to his own ears. “What is the greatest gift a knight can give his king and his realm?”

Zahir had the sense of skidding on thin ice. Lord Wyldon’s eyes were hard as the frozen Olorun.

“His fealty,” Zahir guessed because northerners loved fealty. Their entire feudal society was built upon it with ties of loyalty stretching down from the king to his peasants and up again like a tree.

The tribal society of the Bazhir was different. It was built on blood and the worn heirlooms of tales passed from generation to generation before flickering firelight beneath clear, cold constellations.

Among the Bazhir, the right and only answer would have been his life’s blood seeping searing scarlet into the sand, but in the north, those words would brand him a savage sand scut.

“His life.” Lord Wyldon’s lips were a thin, cutting blade. “A knight is worthless if he won’t lay down his life for king and country.”

Blood had been the right answer after all. Perhaps the northerners and Bazhir weren’t so different. Maybe they both craved young, hot blood.

[Kypriotha]

This is an interesting look at the differences between Tortallan and Bazhir culture and how difficult it must be for Zahir to caught between the two and second guessing all his answers.

[mistrali]

I love your writing style here: no words are wasted. You’ve illustrated the similarity between the feudal Tortallans and the more communal, but still warlike, Bazhir. Yet the Bazhir are the ones who are discriminated against.

I liked the little detail about Wyldon pronouncing his name with a Tortallan accent. And I agree with Kyp that you’ve shown Zahir really having to weigh his words carefully.

A layered glimpse into the colonial mentality, in just 200 words.

[devilinthedetails]

Kypriotha, thank you so much for commenting! I always find the differences between the Tortallan and Bazhir culture and feel as if I'm only scratching the surface whenever I write about them, so I'm so happy to hear you found this to be an interesting look at those differences. I imagine that it is difficult for someone like Zahir who was born and raised among the Bazhir to try to integrate into the northern society of Tortall and forged a place for himself there. That would take a lot of work to try to balance those different cultures, I think, and as I was writing this story, I could totally imagine how challenging it was for him to feel caught between the two worlds and to feel as if he has to second-guess all his instinctual answers. When living among another culture, there can often be that second-guessing of wondering if one's instincts are right and appropriate, and I believe as well that for Zahir here he is feeling the burden of having to be a representative of his people to an extent in the north and of knowing he is constantly being judged by the Tortallans who live in the north, many of whom will harbor bigoted beliefs they wish to see confirmed about the Bazhir. So I think there is probably a lot going on beneath the surface of Zahir's experiences, and it was interesting for me to be able to delve into that a bit in this story.

mistrali, thank you so much for commenting! I'm so flattered that you loved my writing style here and that you felt no words were wasted. I really think the challenge of making this story only 200 words helped with that, because there were times that I had to chop out entire sentences to get this story to hit the 200 word mark, and the result to me is probably all the more impactful because all the chaff had to be cut away as it were.

Initially when the idea for the story came into my mind and I started to write it, I had mainly been thinking about exploring the differences between the feudal structure of Tortallan society and the traditional tribal society of the Bazhir, but as I reached the end of the story, I found that the story was also about the similarities between the two in terms of how they are both ultimately quite war-based societies and how both kind of rely on the blood of young warriors to survive. Yet the Bazhir are labeled as "savages" for traits that the Tortallans share and would probably call the foundation of civilization in themselves so there is a sort of lack of awareness on the Tortallan part there.

I'm so glad that you appreciated the detail of Wyldon pronouncing his name with a Tortallan accent. I admit that was sort of inspired by how many names that are deemed too "ethnic" or "hard to say" get butchered basically without apology in the US, and I got to thinking how grating it would be to have people constantly mispronouncing one's name and how potentially that could be something Zahir would experienced in northern Tortall.

I really wanted to show how carefully Zahir felt he had to weigh his words, and so I'm happy to hear that shone through in this story, and that you found it to be a layered glimpse into colonial mentality.

Hopefully, you'll continue to enjoy my writings about Zahir! For me, he is a fascinating character to write.