Post by Seek on Dec 24, 2021 22:08:18 GMT 10
Title: Book of Days
Rating: PG
For: mistrali
Prompt: 2. Polyam, post-Daja’s Book. I like Polyam x Daja or Polyam x OFC if you’re inclined to write shipfic. Reading something about Polyam’s relationship with other members of her caravan or perhaps her travels would also be nice.
Summary: Polyam comes over for dinner. Daja asks her to stay for the night.
Notes and Warnings: None that come to mind, but the title is based off the Enya song.
“In the long ago, Trader Koma and his Bride Oti saw that they had no savings in their account books, no warm memories laid up for cold times.”
—The Creation of the Tsaw’ha, as told by Third Ship Kisubo
Polyam’s mother never apologises. Polyam understands, and she does not. An apology, just like gratitude, implies debt, which implies obligation to repay. And if there is any fault in that, Chandrisa Idaram has always been gilav of Tenth Caravan Idaram first, and her mother second.
It was one thing when Polyam was the best with the caravan horses, and another when Polyam was wounded in the landslide. The Tsaw’ha do not concern themselves with heroics, only with profit, and in any case, it was not heroics, just bad luck, a bad turn of Gambler Anam’s dice.
Trader Koma’s son had turned his face from Polyam that day, and she remembers the feeling of going down, of slipping, of sliding, the loss of control.
Nothing had stayed the same that day. The rock took her eye and laid open her leg to the bone, and Polyam thinks she could have stomached the scars, but it had taken from her her place as the one who was best with the horses.
Another log in Oti’s Book of Days, Polyam thinks. Another line in the account books.
If only it could be so simple. If only the wirok’s lot could be so easy to accept with grace.
The wirok brings no profit to the caravan, and Polyam lies awake at night, wondering how long her accumulated zokin can last; how long before the pages in Oti Bookkeeper’s accounts condemn her. She imagines them: page after page of non-profit, or even worse, of debt, of obligation.
She imagines, when she feels especially maudlin, when Faharan puts the horses through the paces, but she is less attentive, less sure with them than Polyam had been, the fires of pijule fakol waiting for her, at the end of a lifetime of pain and humiliation.
But Polyam doesn’t complain.
Tsaw’ha never do.
Part of Polyam will always be grateful to Daja Kisubo, Oti log that in the books of their days.
“I would like to be friends,” Daja had said.
“We are friends,” Polyam replied, then. “We will always be friends.”
There are few the Tsaw’ha count as friends, even saati. Polyam remembers the tale of Aranka the Navigator and Imahisi the Cook, who were so close Oti logged their deeds in the same account book, and set them in the stars at the end of their days.
But there are no debts between friends; no obligations. For them, the books are always already balanced.
Part of Polyam wants to protest that is unfair; that Daja Kisubo has given her back a chance at her old life. (“Only a chance,” says the voice in her head, eerily like her mother’s. “You must make the most of it, girl!”)
But Daja has insisted that Polyam has given her a chance to restore her name, to become Tsaw’ha again, and—and Polyam can’t deny that one way or another, it is better to be Tsaw’ha than trangshi, infinitely better.
All debts between them have been paid, even if Polyam straps on the living metal leg in the morning and feels the warmth of the brass against her skin, feels her leg respond as though it is part of her, and feels—wonder, Oti Bookkeeper log it, not gratitude, there are no debts between friends—that she has a chance to reclaim her life again.
And she does.
The horses learn to tolerate her. They are skittish at first. Perhaps it is the magic surrounding the leg, but patience has always been important to one of the Tsaw’ha working with horses, and her long durance as wirok has been an exercise in patience.
She is still the wirok, still not the caravan’s horse mistress.
But it takes time.
And Polyam has time.
The pages in her account book, in her Book of Days, turn, and a new page begins.
Word spreads among the Tsaw’ha of the once-trangshi mimander who works wonders in living metal, and Tenth Caravan Idaram’s own horse mistress attests to it, with a leg of metal that responds as well as one of flesh.
Daja Kisubo sends words via the usual networks that she has returned to Summersea, and so Tenth Caravan Idaram makes the long journey there.
“It isn’t customary,” gilav Chandrisa says, as the caravan confers. They do not usually do business with Summersea itself, but there is always trade to be found in a large city, always profit to be made. They will have to plan for a new route, but mimander Kisubo’s living metal works are worth the hassle, worth the expense.
They have always exchanged letters, Daja and herself. Hers stained with grass, and Daja’s soot-streaked. Perhaps knowing this, her mother always sends her to bargain with Daja, rather than a high-status daka.
Daja does not mind.
It is a Tsaw’ha thought: sending a friend to bargain with another, and more respect than if Tenth Caravan Idaram were to dispatch their daka to formalise trade agreements with Daja. Daja does not take advantage. Neither does Polyam, but Daja seems to find the best ways to frame a sale of her living metal creations for mutual advantage, and Polyam acquires zokin.
In truth, Polyam has never been the hardest of bargainers. Her talents lie elsewhere, in the coaxing and management of horses. She has a sense for them and their temperaments that Faharan has always lacked, but people are a different beast altogether.
Daja, however, has a stolid sensibility to her, and she feels—if she will never say it—that Daja Kisubo, in another life, would have become a daka, or even a gilav herself.
Number 6 Cheeseman Street.
Polyam swings off her horse—an easy, graceful movement she has once again begun to take for granted—and hitches the mare to the post in the courtyard. An expensive street, Polyam knows. Daja has done well for herself in the world.
She moves up the step and knocks on the door.
For a few minutes, Polyam thinks that Daja might be out. But then the door swings open and a stranger stands there, braids damp, and in a clean tunic and leggings, with the tang of hot metal still clinging to her.
It has been two years since they’ve met in the flesh, and Polyam still finds herself stricken. Daja has grown, again, and filled out. A long way from the sweaty, soot-streaked girl working at the small village forge from years ago.
She smiles, then, and then Polyam sees the girl who made her leg, who has and will always be her friend. “Polyam! Come on in, I’m sorry, a project got out of hand, and I was running a little late.”
She ushers Polyam right in, and into a sitting room furnished in a strange fusion of Tsaw’ha style and Emelanese. Polyam’s sharp eyes notice Tsaw’ha signs for fortune and prosperity and good health worked into the grilles of the window and the fireplace, and suspects there are more she can’t recognise.
“How has the trading season gone?” Daja asks, offering Polyam a plush cushion in deep maroon.
“Do you mind?” Polyam asks, fingers hovering over the straps of her metal leg.
“Not at all,” Daja says. “It chafes?”
“Sometimes the muscles cramp,” Polyam says, honestly. The scars ache, and the muscles still cramp. But she isn’t about to complain about Daja’s work to her. Oti logs politeness just as Oti logs rudeness, and being unkind to a friend—to Daja Kisubo, of all people—is something Polyam does not want written against her, in the book of her days. She adds, “It’s an old injury. I’ve written to you about how amazing the leg is, but it’s been a long day, and I needed to rest my leg.”
Daja frowns, but in thought, rather than as a negative response. “Let me talk to my brother-saati,” she says, slowly.
“The one who is a danger around ladies?” Polyam asks, dryly. Daja’s letters have been very vivid, and she feels as though she knows Daja’s new family from beyond their brief acquaintance at Gold Ridge.
Daja smiles, ruefully. “Yes. That one. The one who works with plants. He might be able to brew up a batch of good salve for the cramping.”
“Will he trade for it, then?” Polyam wants to know. She finds her hands squeezing on the plush tassels of the cushion. Daja speaks casually of favours, but Polyam does not want to presume. Not now, not ever. He may be her friend’s saati, but no one of the Tsaw’ha would so presume and take advantage.
A kaq might have insisted there was no obloigation. Daja Kisubo is Tsaw’ha to the bone, for all she lives among the kaqs now. She shakes her head. “It is too early to speak of trade and obligation,” she said. “Let us first see what is possible, before we talk of what is owed.”
Polyam’s own smile tugs at the scars, even now. “I never thought to hear that proverb from you. The daka teaching us to bargain used to say this over and over again and rap us on the ankle with her staff until we got it right.”
“She must’ve had the same teacher as our daka,” Daja says, making a face. “He did the exact same thing to us.”
For no particular reason, the idea of some ur-daka teaching both the daka of Tenth Caravan Idaram and the daka of Third Ship Kisubo cracks Polyam up. She starts laughing, and then Daja loses it as well and starts giggling, and then both of them are laughing, uncontrollably, and can’t seem to stop.
Dinner is more food than Daja or Polyam can manage to finish eating, and like the furnishings of the house, is predominantly Emelanese and Tsaw’ha, though Daja apparently favours Namornese dumplings as well.
There isn’t wine, but there is strong Tsaw’ha tea, and Polyam feels strange echoes of their first meeting, when she had undergone qunsuanen and had brought Tsaw’haw tea and her mother’s sister’s cooking to bargain with Daja over the living metal vine.
“More tea?” Daja asks, and they both reach for the Yanjingyi clay teapot at the same time. Polyam’s fingers brush Daja’s, and for that brief moment of contact, Polyam wonders if this is what it is to touch a forge-fire. Heat races through their fingers.
The moment passes, and Daja pours the tea. She refills Polyam’s cup first, and then her own.
“You’ve taken to cooking?” Polyam asks, for want of something to say.
Daja grinned. “My housekeeper,” she said. “My sister-saati used to cook here, but she’s since gone to Lightsbridge to study. My brother-saati is good for stealing food, not for cooking.” The crinkles at the corner of her eyes tell Polyam she is only joking. “And I’ve been told my skills at cooking would be better if I stopped treating kneading dough like hammering nails.”
“You don’t treat dough like nails,” Polyam says, automatically. Her mother’s sister has taught most of the caravan how to cook, though next to her mother’s sister’s skills, Polyam has always been considered a passable cook at best. “You have to take a firm hand with it and—and I’ll show you sometime,” she says.
Daja raises an eyebrow. “You sound like one of my former students.” She adds, at Polyam’s confused expression, “Cook mage. I welcome the lesson. You cook often?”
“Not as often as I’d like,” Polyam admits, “Though working with dough is a good way to work out frustrations.”
“So you do hammer on it, too.”
A brief flash of heat blooms in her cheeks at Daja’s amused gaze. “I’ve been told I’m not the best of cooks,” Polyam admits. “I wouldn’t have been the caravan wirok if my cooking skills had been nearly as good as my horse-handling skills.”
“And you want to give me lessons?”
“I think I can teach you a thing or two,” says Polyam. “You did like my mother’s sister’s cooking, after all.”
Daja laughs. “I did. How is Tenth Caravan Idaram faring, then? And what happened to that horse you wrote to me about, the one that wouldn’t stop biting everyone who came close to it? And what about the trading season?”
“Stop, stop!” Polyam chuckles, holding her hands out to forestall further questions. “Tell me about Namorn, and about your travels, too.” She has to ask about the living metal eventually, and both of them know this, but this evening, this meal—it is theirs alone. And every good Tsaw’ha knows that the best of bargains must take their time to be negotiated.
“I will, but you have to tell me about yours!”
Two years, Polyam thinks, and the evening flies past in a haze of good food, tea, and laughter.
“It’s late,” Daja says, as dusk descends like a curtain beyond Number 6 Cheeseman Street. Polyam should have been keeping better track of the time, but it has been two years. A very different thing—a very pleasant thing, meeting a friend. Letters can only tell so much.
Letters don’t address the shadow in Daja’s eyes, and Polyam has noticed that Daja shies away from too much talk about Namorn. She doesn’t press the issue, though.
“Do you want to stay for the night?”
Polyam hesitates. Yes, part of her says, lulled by the tea and the good conversation and the warmth. No, says the sensible part of her, because there are no obligations or debts between friends, but still Polyam is politely-raised, still Polyam is Tsaw’ha, and still, Oti log this, Polyam does not want to impose.
Not now, not ever. Not after she’s begun to work together the pieces of her life.
Every four years, Tenth Caravan Idaram travels to the Dashanyi province of Yanjing, where the famed artisans work wonders with broken pottery. Each cup and bowl and plate is painstakingly glued together in gold and silver powder and lacquer, outlining the sharp edges of the break. The Dashanyi do not seek to hide that which was broken. The fact that Dashanyi-ware has been once-broken and painstakingly crafted into a work of art only adds to the value of the piece.
She is still acquiring the zokin needed to balance the records of her qunsuanen from her ledgers, but Polyam is at peace with this new life she is handling, but by unruly bit. She cannot unmake the past. She can only craft something new.
“It’s no trouble at all,” Daja says, because Daja, too, is politely-raised, and Tsaw’ha once again. “The house is too big, especially now that it’s just me and my brother-saati, and Sandry wouldn’t mind you taking her room for the night.”
And her leg muscles ache, and Daja knows this, from the way her eyes flick to Polyam’s stump, even if she won’t say it.
The hardest lesson Polyam had to learn since her accident was when to respect the signals her body was sending her, and when to demand more. Here, in the company of a friend, Polyam admits it would be nothing more than pride to insist on departing for the caravan’s fires.
She is better than this.
“I’ll stay,” Polyam says. “For the night.”
“I’m glad,” Daja smiles.
A page in the book of Polyam’s days ends. A new page begins.
The rest is still unwritten.
Trade Koma bear witness, Oti Bookkeeper log every deed.
Rating: PG
For: mistrali
Prompt: 2. Polyam, post-Daja’s Book. I like Polyam x Daja or Polyam x OFC if you’re inclined to write shipfic. Reading something about Polyam’s relationship with other members of her caravan or perhaps her travels would also be nice.
Summary: Polyam comes over for dinner. Daja asks her to stay for the night.
Notes and Warnings: None that come to mind, but the title is based off the Enya song.
“In the long ago, Trader Koma and his Bride Oti saw that they had no savings in their account books, no warm memories laid up for cold times.”
—The Creation of the Tsaw’ha, as told by Third Ship Kisubo
Polyam’s mother never apologises. Polyam understands, and she does not. An apology, just like gratitude, implies debt, which implies obligation to repay. And if there is any fault in that, Chandrisa Idaram has always been gilav of Tenth Caravan Idaram first, and her mother second.
It was one thing when Polyam was the best with the caravan horses, and another when Polyam was wounded in the landslide. The Tsaw’ha do not concern themselves with heroics, only with profit, and in any case, it was not heroics, just bad luck, a bad turn of Gambler Anam’s dice.
Trader Koma’s son had turned his face from Polyam that day, and she remembers the feeling of going down, of slipping, of sliding, the loss of control.
Nothing had stayed the same that day. The rock took her eye and laid open her leg to the bone, and Polyam thinks she could have stomached the scars, but it had taken from her her place as the one who was best with the horses.
Another log in Oti’s Book of Days, Polyam thinks. Another line in the account books.
If only it could be so simple. If only the wirok’s lot could be so easy to accept with grace.
The wirok brings no profit to the caravan, and Polyam lies awake at night, wondering how long her accumulated zokin can last; how long before the pages in Oti Bookkeeper’s accounts condemn her. She imagines them: page after page of non-profit, or even worse, of debt, of obligation.
She imagines, when she feels especially maudlin, when Faharan puts the horses through the paces, but she is less attentive, less sure with them than Polyam had been, the fires of pijule fakol waiting for her, at the end of a lifetime of pain and humiliation.
But Polyam doesn’t complain.
Tsaw’ha never do.
Part of Polyam will always be grateful to Daja Kisubo, Oti log that in the books of their days.
“I would like to be friends,” Daja had said.
“We are friends,” Polyam replied, then. “We will always be friends.”
There are few the Tsaw’ha count as friends, even saati. Polyam remembers the tale of Aranka the Navigator and Imahisi the Cook, who were so close Oti logged their deeds in the same account book, and set them in the stars at the end of their days.
But there are no debts between friends; no obligations. For them, the books are always already balanced.
Part of Polyam wants to protest that is unfair; that Daja Kisubo has given her back a chance at her old life. (“Only a chance,” says the voice in her head, eerily like her mother’s. “You must make the most of it, girl!”)
But Daja has insisted that Polyam has given her a chance to restore her name, to become Tsaw’ha again, and—and Polyam can’t deny that one way or another, it is better to be Tsaw’ha than trangshi, infinitely better.
All debts between them have been paid, even if Polyam straps on the living metal leg in the morning and feels the warmth of the brass against her skin, feels her leg respond as though it is part of her, and feels—wonder, Oti Bookkeeper log it, not gratitude, there are no debts between friends—that she has a chance to reclaim her life again.
And she does.
The horses learn to tolerate her. They are skittish at first. Perhaps it is the magic surrounding the leg, but patience has always been important to one of the Tsaw’ha working with horses, and her long durance as wirok has been an exercise in patience.
She is still the wirok, still not the caravan’s horse mistress.
But it takes time.
And Polyam has time.
The pages in her account book, in her Book of Days, turn, and a new page begins.
Word spreads among the Tsaw’ha of the once-trangshi mimander who works wonders in living metal, and Tenth Caravan Idaram’s own horse mistress attests to it, with a leg of metal that responds as well as one of flesh.
Daja Kisubo sends words via the usual networks that she has returned to Summersea, and so Tenth Caravan Idaram makes the long journey there.
“It isn’t customary,” gilav Chandrisa says, as the caravan confers. They do not usually do business with Summersea itself, but there is always trade to be found in a large city, always profit to be made. They will have to plan for a new route, but mimander Kisubo’s living metal works are worth the hassle, worth the expense.
They have always exchanged letters, Daja and herself. Hers stained with grass, and Daja’s soot-streaked. Perhaps knowing this, her mother always sends her to bargain with Daja, rather than a high-status daka.
Daja does not mind.
It is a Tsaw’ha thought: sending a friend to bargain with another, and more respect than if Tenth Caravan Idaram were to dispatch their daka to formalise trade agreements with Daja. Daja does not take advantage. Neither does Polyam, but Daja seems to find the best ways to frame a sale of her living metal creations for mutual advantage, and Polyam acquires zokin.
In truth, Polyam has never been the hardest of bargainers. Her talents lie elsewhere, in the coaxing and management of horses. She has a sense for them and their temperaments that Faharan has always lacked, but people are a different beast altogether.
Daja, however, has a stolid sensibility to her, and she feels—if she will never say it—that Daja Kisubo, in another life, would have become a daka, or even a gilav herself.
Number 6 Cheeseman Street.
Polyam swings off her horse—an easy, graceful movement she has once again begun to take for granted—and hitches the mare to the post in the courtyard. An expensive street, Polyam knows. Daja has done well for herself in the world.
She moves up the step and knocks on the door.
For a few minutes, Polyam thinks that Daja might be out. But then the door swings open and a stranger stands there, braids damp, and in a clean tunic and leggings, with the tang of hot metal still clinging to her.
It has been two years since they’ve met in the flesh, and Polyam still finds herself stricken. Daja has grown, again, and filled out. A long way from the sweaty, soot-streaked girl working at the small village forge from years ago.
She smiles, then, and then Polyam sees the girl who made her leg, who has and will always be her friend. “Polyam! Come on in, I’m sorry, a project got out of hand, and I was running a little late.”
She ushers Polyam right in, and into a sitting room furnished in a strange fusion of Tsaw’ha style and Emelanese. Polyam’s sharp eyes notice Tsaw’ha signs for fortune and prosperity and good health worked into the grilles of the window and the fireplace, and suspects there are more she can’t recognise.
“How has the trading season gone?” Daja asks, offering Polyam a plush cushion in deep maroon.
“Do you mind?” Polyam asks, fingers hovering over the straps of her metal leg.
“Not at all,” Daja says. “It chafes?”
“Sometimes the muscles cramp,” Polyam says, honestly. The scars ache, and the muscles still cramp. But she isn’t about to complain about Daja’s work to her. Oti logs politeness just as Oti logs rudeness, and being unkind to a friend—to Daja Kisubo, of all people—is something Polyam does not want written against her, in the book of her days. She adds, “It’s an old injury. I’ve written to you about how amazing the leg is, but it’s been a long day, and I needed to rest my leg.”
Daja frowns, but in thought, rather than as a negative response. “Let me talk to my brother-saati,” she says, slowly.
“The one who is a danger around ladies?” Polyam asks, dryly. Daja’s letters have been very vivid, and she feels as though she knows Daja’s new family from beyond their brief acquaintance at Gold Ridge.
Daja smiles, ruefully. “Yes. That one. The one who works with plants. He might be able to brew up a batch of good salve for the cramping.”
“Will he trade for it, then?” Polyam wants to know. She finds her hands squeezing on the plush tassels of the cushion. Daja speaks casually of favours, but Polyam does not want to presume. Not now, not ever. He may be her friend’s saati, but no one of the Tsaw’ha would so presume and take advantage.
A kaq might have insisted there was no obloigation. Daja Kisubo is Tsaw’ha to the bone, for all she lives among the kaqs now. She shakes her head. “It is too early to speak of trade and obligation,” she said. “Let us first see what is possible, before we talk of what is owed.”
Polyam’s own smile tugs at the scars, even now. “I never thought to hear that proverb from you. The daka teaching us to bargain used to say this over and over again and rap us on the ankle with her staff until we got it right.”
“She must’ve had the same teacher as our daka,” Daja says, making a face. “He did the exact same thing to us.”
For no particular reason, the idea of some ur-daka teaching both the daka of Tenth Caravan Idaram and the daka of Third Ship Kisubo cracks Polyam up. She starts laughing, and then Daja loses it as well and starts giggling, and then both of them are laughing, uncontrollably, and can’t seem to stop.
Dinner is more food than Daja or Polyam can manage to finish eating, and like the furnishings of the house, is predominantly Emelanese and Tsaw’ha, though Daja apparently favours Namornese dumplings as well.
There isn’t wine, but there is strong Tsaw’ha tea, and Polyam feels strange echoes of their first meeting, when she had undergone qunsuanen and had brought Tsaw’haw tea and her mother’s sister’s cooking to bargain with Daja over the living metal vine.
“More tea?” Daja asks, and they both reach for the Yanjingyi clay teapot at the same time. Polyam’s fingers brush Daja’s, and for that brief moment of contact, Polyam wonders if this is what it is to touch a forge-fire. Heat races through their fingers.
The moment passes, and Daja pours the tea. She refills Polyam’s cup first, and then her own.
“You’ve taken to cooking?” Polyam asks, for want of something to say.
Daja grinned. “My housekeeper,” she said. “My sister-saati used to cook here, but she’s since gone to Lightsbridge to study. My brother-saati is good for stealing food, not for cooking.” The crinkles at the corner of her eyes tell Polyam she is only joking. “And I’ve been told my skills at cooking would be better if I stopped treating kneading dough like hammering nails.”
“You don’t treat dough like nails,” Polyam says, automatically. Her mother’s sister has taught most of the caravan how to cook, though next to her mother’s sister’s skills, Polyam has always been considered a passable cook at best. “You have to take a firm hand with it and—and I’ll show you sometime,” she says.
Daja raises an eyebrow. “You sound like one of my former students.” She adds, at Polyam’s confused expression, “Cook mage. I welcome the lesson. You cook often?”
“Not as often as I’d like,” Polyam admits, “Though working with dough is a good way to work out frustrations.”
“So you do hammer on it, too.”
A brief flash of heat blooms in her cheeks at Daja’s amused gaze. “I’ve been told I’m not the best of cooks,” Polyam admits. “I wouldn’t have been the caravan wirok if my cooking skills had been nearly as good as my horse-handling skills.”
“And you want to give me lessons?”
“I think I can teach you a thing or two,” says Polyam. “You did like my mother’s sister’s cooking, after all.”
Daja laughs. “I did. How is Tenth Caravan Idaram faring, then? And what happened to that horse you wrote to me about, the one that wouldn’t stop biting everyone who came close to it? And what about the trading season?”
“Stop, stop!” Polyam chuckles, holding her hands out to forestall further questions. “Tell me about Namorn, and about your travels, too.” She has to ask about the living metal eventually, and both of them know this, but this evening, this meal—it is theirs alone. And every good Tsaw’ha knows that the best of bargains must take their time to be negotiated.
“I will, but you have to tell me about yours!”
Two years, Polyam thinks, and the evening flies past in a haze of good food, tea, and laughter.
“It’s late,” Daja says, as dusk descends like a curtain beyond Number 6 Cheeseman Street. Polyam should have been keeping better track of the time, but it has been two years. A very different thing—a very pleasant thing, meeting a friend. Letters can only tell so much.
Letters don’t address the shadow in Daja’s eyes, and Polyam has noticed that Daja shies away from too much talk about Namorn. She doesn’t press the issue, though.
“Do you want to stay for the night?”
Polyam hesitates. Yes, part of her says, lulled by the tea and the good conversation and the warmth. No, says the sensible part of her, because there are no obligations or debts between friends, but still Polyam is politely-raised, still Polyam is Tsaw’ha, and still, Oti log this, Polyam does not want to impose.
Not now, not ever. Not after she’s begun to work together the pieces of her life.
Every four years, Tenth Caravan Idaram travels to the Dashanyi province of Yanjing, where the famed artisans work wonders with broken pottery. Each cup and bowl and plate is painstakingly glued together in gold and silver powder and lacquer, outlining the sharp edges of the break. The Dashanyi do not seek to hide that which was broken. The fact that Dashanyi-ware has been once-broken and painstakingly crafted into a work of art only adds to the value of the piece.
She is still acquiring the zokin needed to balance the records of her qunsuanen from her ledgers, but Polyam is at peace with this new life she is handling, but by unruly bit. She cannot unmake the past. She can only craft something new.
“It’s no trouble at all,” Daja says, because Daja, too, is politely-raised, and Tsaw’ha once again. “The house is too big, especially now that it’s just me and my brother-saati, and Sandry wouldn’t mind you taking her room for the night.”
And her leg muscles ache, and Daja knows this, from the way her eyes flick to Polyam’s stump, even if she won’t say it.
The hardest lesson Polyam had to learn since her accident was when to respect the signals her body was sending her, and when to demand more. Here, in the company of a friend, Polyam admits it would be nothing more than pride to insist on departing for the caravan’s fires.
She is better than this.
“I’ll stay,” Polyam says. “For the night.”
“I’m glad,” Daja smiles.
A page in the book of Polyam’s days ends. A new page begins.
The rest is still unwritten.
Trade Koma bear witness, Oti Bookkeeper log every deed.