Post by Seek on Dec 25, 2021 0:51:22 GMT 10
Title: Quarter Moon
Rating: G
For: Tamari
Prompt: 5. Faithful/Pounce chooses a new companion, and it's someone we know.
Summary: Kourrem just wants to see the world. So, apparently, does the Cat.
Notes and Warnings: Nothing I can particularly think of, but happy holidays! Dana'a not mine - it's based off Max's gift fic ages ago, The Fox Boy. Also, title based off the Cheryl Wheeler song.
The cat comes one night to Kourrem’s fire, as she begins to lay out the signs for a circle of protection.
There are always dangers in being a woman, in this world. There are always dangers associated with travelling alone, even in the desert.
Kourrem was a shaman of the Bloody Hawk and is a mage come fully into her Gift. She is not afraid, and saffron fire wells up in a slow circle from each of the glowing sigils of protection that she sketches into the sand.
She learned the warding circle from the wisewomen of the Sunveiled Spear, the Tribe That Is Not A Tribe, perhaps the only ones who could possibly understand a woman alone, travelling.
She has sipped from the waters at the great delta, the Dana’a, named for the fist-sized, lustrous pearls the divers of old pulled from the deep as the Tyran dukes wedded the sea. She has seen the sun rise in the snow-capped mountains of the Roof of the World and tasted the wind off the Saren plains.
She has sipped tea with the clansmen and clanswomen of the K’miri Hau Ma and learned from them the knots to calm horses and spook them, in battle, to conceal a lone woman or a warparty from sight, signs for fertility and luck and blessing.
She has learned the sharp gesture to summon the Knife of Winds from an old Bazhir shaman north of Persopolis, and the warding gesture to dismiss it from a midwife of the Sleeping Lion tribe.
But she returns, time and again, to the fires of the Bloody Hawk.
(“You will be welcome,” Kara says, fiercely, drawing her into a tight hug. “You will always be welcome.”)
The cat mews and curls up before her fire. A sleek black cat, with—
Kourrem freezes as she is about to call Gift-fire into the next of the symbols.
She knows those eyes. She has seen those eyes before.
Years ago, Kourrem and Kara knew only that those eyes were the same as Alanna’s. Now, Kourrem has tasted the salt-wind off the whale-roads and even ventured into the snow-deserts of Scanra to try their fermented fish (awful, that) and to learn of the bloodrunes from their shamans.
Hestaka, the hillmen would call him.
Swallowing the bitter enmity between the hillmen and the Bazhir to learn from them, walk amongst them, had been…difficult. But before the Woman Who Rides Like A Man had come to the Bloody Hawk, Kourrem would have said that the hostility between the Northern King and the tribes of the Bazhir ran too deep to be so easily bridged.
She was a lone woman, with grey in her hair, and the healing Gift in her hands. The hillmen took her in—grudgingly, and then with greater respect as she delivered babies and treated wounds, and tasted their food, worked their metal, and learned from their shamans.
“Wandering One,” she whispers.
Please stop that, the Cat mews. The stars are out, and the constellation is missing tonight. Kourrem remembers the last time it was missing. But she is older now, and she remembers, too, the first time Yazmin of the Weeping Jackals named the stars for her, one by one, and pointed to the Cat.
“I remember you,” she says. The cat that travelled with Alanna, and those striking purple eyes. They gaze at each other, wandering stars and travelling mage. “What do you want with me, hestaka? Why here, and why now?”
It has been a long time since someone called me that, the Cat says, though he takes his time replying. His tail droops. A very long time.
She wonders if she is dredging up old memories.
“The Banjiku say that Lushagui made you, and that you wander the earth when the gods seek deeds of mortals,” Kourrem informs him. “Is that—do I—”
She was not made for great deeds. She does not think she is.
She has only ever wanted to travel, to be a wander-mage, to see the world and to learn new wonders, new magic. No more, no less.
The Cat yawns. Lushagui did not make me, he says, haughtily. And I do not always show up for mortals the gods are interested in. He tilts his head at her. Sometimes I just want to see the world. Our interests are aligned.
For some reason, she doesn’t doubt that he is telling the truth.
You were a kit when we first met, the Cat adds. Alanna’s kit. No more, now.
“Do you want to see her again?” she asks, slowly. She could take a detour, back towards Pirate’s Swoop. But she does not think so. She thinks if the Cat had wanted to look in on Alanna, he could have done so at any time.
The Cat begins to wash a paw. More than you can guess, he says, wistfully. But there are rules, and our time has ended.
As a mage, Kourrem is old enough and wise enough to know that rules are meant to be respected, not broken. Sometimes bent, if you are very clever. If you understand why the rule was made in the first place. The First Law of Unmaking, a Carthaki mage once told her, is that to unmake a thing, you must understand why a thing was made in the first place.
“Not how?” Kourrem had asked, then.
She shook her head. “That’s the Second Law of Unmaking.”
You should finish that circle of warding, the Cat chirps, jarring Kourrem from her thoughts. Immortals wander the desert now. And there are other dangers—bandits, snakes…
She nods. She shouldn’t have gotten distracted. She snaps her fingers, and the deep golden light of her Gift wells up through the last few sigils and the circle flares to life, walls of magical fire veiling them before vanishing again.
She doesn’t need a barrier, and while she could have maintained a constant barrier with a circle of wire and moonstone and used to, as a younger mage, Kourrem has since learned efficiency. She needs the barrier to only activate when something defined as hostile crosses the barrier.
Such as one of the ghilan, or a jinn, or a hunting roc. Or a bandit.
Not a desert mouse. And certainly not a cat.
Well, then, says the Cat. What’s for dinner?
“Rider rations,” Kourrem says, firmly. The pot of water is boiling over the fire and she fishes out the cloth balls from her packs. “Ah, that is, can you eat—"
Does it taste good?
“You’d be surprised,” Kourrem tells him. “The Yamani have suggested improvements to the dried noodles and the broth tastes better than camp cooking.”
There was a thought. She could go to the Yamani Islands, next, or beyond to Jindazhen, where Kourrem has heard that their priest-mages craft spells with written slips of paper and divine the future in incised bamboo sticks.
And their noodles are freshly-made from buckwheat flour and cut with a knife into spicy bone-broth…
Good plan, the Cat comments, curling up before her fire. I haven’t seen Jindazhen in a very long time.
“You’ve been there? Before?”
Yes, he yawns. Miles and miles of rice terraces, as far as the eye can see.
There was a time when the thought might have staggered Kourrem, but she has seen the plains of Sarain and the K’miri highlands and the idea of neverending lush greenery is no longer alien, no longer deeply unfathomable.
“Well, then,” says Kourrem. “The Islands and Jindazhen it is.”
Wake me up when it’s dinner, the Cat says, and settles in for a nap.
Rating: G
For: Tamari
Prompt: 5. Faithful/Pounce chooses a new companion, and it's someone we know.
Summary: Kourrem just wants to see the world. So, apparently, does the Cat.
Notes and Warnings: Nothing I can particularly think of, but happy holidays! Dana'a not mine - it's based off Max's gift fic ages ago, The Fox Boy. Also, title based off the Cheryl Wheeler song.
The cat comes one night to Kourrem’s fire, as she begins to lay out the signs for a circle of protection.
There are always dangers in being a woman, in this world. There are always dangers associated with travelling alone, even in the desert.
Kourrem was a shaman of the Bloody Hawk and is a mage come fully into her Gift. She is not afraid, and saffron fire wells up in a slow circle from each of the glowing sigils of protection that she sketches into the sand.
She learned the warding circle from the wisewomen of the Sunveiled Spear, the Tribe That Is Not A Tribe, perhaps the only ones who could possibly understand a woman alone, travelling.
She has sipped from the waters at the great delta, the Dana’a, named for the fist-sized, lustrous pearls the divers of old pulled from the deep as the Tyran dukes wedded the sea. She has seen the sun rise in the snow-capped mountains of the Roof of the World and tasted the wind off the Saren plains.
She has sipped tea with the clansmen and clanswomen of the K’miri Hau Ma and learned from them the knots to calm horses and spook them, in battle, to conceal a lone woman or a warparty from sight, signs for fertility and luck and blessing.
She has learned the sharp gesture to summon the Knife of Winds from an old Bazhir shaman north of Persopolis, and the warding gesture to dismiss it from a midwife of the Sleeping Lion tribe.
But she returns, time and again, to the fires of the Bloody Hawk.
(“You will be welcome,” Kara says, fiercely, drawing her into a tight hug. “You will always be welcome.”)
The cat mews and curls up before her fire. A sleek black cat, with—
Kourrem freezes as she is about to call Gift-fire into the next of the symbols.
She knows those eyes. She has seen those eyes before.
Years ago, Kourrem and Kara knew only that those eyes were the same as Alanna’s. Now, Kourrem has tasted the salt-wind off the whale-roads and even ventured into the snow-deserts of Scanra to try their fermented fish (awful, that) and to learn of the bloodrunes from their shamans.
Hestaka, the hillmen would call him.
Swallowing the bitter enmity between the hillmen and the Bazhir to learn from them, walk amongst them, had been…difficult. But before the Woman Who Rides Like A Man had come to the Bloody Hawk, Kourrem would have said that the hostility between the Northern King and the tribes of the Bazhir ran too deep to be so easily bridged.
She was a lone woman, with grey in her hair, and the healing Gift in her hands. The hillmen took her in—grudgingly, and then with greater respect as she delivered babies and treated wounds, and tasted their food, worked their metal, and learned from their shamans.
“Wandering One,” she whispers.
Please stop that, the Cat mews. The stars are out, and the constellation is missing tonight. Kourrem remembers the last time it was missing. But she is older now, and she remembers, too, the first time Yazmin of the Weeping Jackals named the stars for her, one by one, and pointed to the Cat.
“I remember you,” she says. The cat that travelled with Alanna, and those striking purple eyes. They gaze at each other, wandering stars and travelling mage. “What do you want with me, hestaka? Why here, and why now?”
It has been a long time since someone called me that, the Cat says, though he takes his time replying. His tail droops. A very long time.
She wonders if she is dredging up old memories.
“The Banjiku say that Lushagui made you, and that you wander the earth when the gods seek deeds of mortals,” Kourrem informs him. “Is that—do I—”
She was not made for great deeds. She does not think she is.
She has only ever wanted to travel, to be a wander-mage, to see the world and to learn new wonders, new magic. No more, no less.
The Cat yawns. Lushagui did not make me, he says, haughtily. And I do not always show up for mortals the gods are interested in. He tilts his head at her. Sometimes I just want to see the world. Our interests are aligned.
For some reason, she doesn’t doubt that he is telling the truth.
You were a kit when we first met, the Cat adds. Alanna’s kit. No more, now.
“Do you want to see her again?” she asks, slowly. She could take a detour, back towards Pirate’s Swoop. But she does not think so. She thinks if the Cat had wanted to look in on Alanna, he could have done so at any time.
The Cat begins to wash a paw. More than you can guess, he says, wistfully. But there are rules, and our time has ended.
As a mage, Kourrem is old enough and wise enough to know that rules are meant to be respected, not broken. Sometimes bent, if you are very clever. If you understand why the rule was made in the first place. The First Law of Unmaking, a Carthaki mage once told her, is that to unmake a thing, you must understand why a thing was made in the first place.
“Not how?” Kourrem had asked, then.
She shook her head. “That’s the Second Law of Unmaking.”
You should finish that circle of warding, the Cat chirps, jarring Kourrem from her thoughts. Immortals wander the desert now. And there are other dangers—bandits, snakes…
She nods. She shouldn’t have gotten distracted. She snaps her fingers, and the deep golden light of her Gift wells up through the last few sigils and the circle flares to life, walls of magical fire veiling them before vanishing again.
She doesn’t need a barrier, and while she could have maintained a constant barrier with a circle of wire and moonstone and used to, as a younger mage, Kourrem has since learned efficiency. She needs the barrier to only activate when something defined as hostile crosses the barrier.
Such as one of the ghilan, or a jinn, or a hunting roc. Or a bandit.
Not a desert mouse. And certainly not a cat.
Well, then, says the Cat. What’s for dinner?
“Rider rations,” Kourrem says, firmly. The pot of water is boiling over the fire and she fishes out the cloth balls from her packs. “Ah, that is, can you eat—"
Does it taste good?
“You’d be surprised,” Kourrem tells him. “The Yamani have suggested improvements to the dried noodles and the broth tastes better than camp cooking.”
There was a thought. She could go to the Yamani Islands, next, or beyond to Jindazhen, where Kourrem has heard that their priest-mages craft spells with written slips of paper and divine the future in incised bamboo sticks.
And their noodles are freshly-made from buckwheat flour and cut with a knife into spicy bone-broth…
Good plan, the Cat comments, curling up before her fire. I haven’t seen Jindazhen in a very long time.
“You’ve been there? Before?”
Yes, he yawns. Miles and miles of rice terraces, as far as the eye can see.
There was a time when the thought might have staggered Kourrem, but she has seen the plains of Sarain and the K’miri highlands and the idea of neverending lush greenery is no longer alien, no longer deeply unfathomable.
“Well, then,” says Kourrem. “The Islands and Jindazhen it is.”
Wake me up when it’s dinner, the Cat says, and settles in for a nap.