Post by devilinthedetails on Jul 28, 2022 13:27:39 GMT 10
Series: The Sun in Splendor
Title: Voices of Sand and Waves of Change
Rating: PG-13
Event: Sun, Sand, and Sea
Words: 1923
Summary: Lianokami, the ocean, and the desert that shape Tortall.
Voices of Sand and Waves of Change
From the first time she smelled the salty brine air of the sea and heard the swelling music of its waves breaking against the beach, Lian had loved the ocean. She supposed that was only natural because she would never have been born–never breathed any salty sea breeze or listened to its watery melody–if her ma hadn’t crossed the Emerald Ocean to marry her father.
Sailing away from the Yamani Islands. Leaving them in fading mountainous mist behind her forever. Facing the unknown tides and uncharted depths of a sea churning with waves that had caps white as the snow crowning the highest Yamani peaks.
Even when they were many miles from the ocean in the palace where Da governed the south of Tortall, the sea found a way to shape their lives. When Lian’s younger sisters–Kalakami and Hanakami–were born, Lady Haname served Ma bowls of steaming miso broth speckled with jade flecks of seaweed.
Curious as ever, Lian asked Lady Haname, her prim and proper governess, why she did such a thing. Only to be informed in loftiest tones–higher by far than any mountain celebrated in Yamani poetry–that seaweed soup was the best food for a woman recovering from childbirth. That it restored flagging strength by infusing body and blood with key nutrients.
Seaweed, of course, had other uses than as a rejuvenating base for miso soup to be served to a woman recently delivered of a child. For instance, Lian had the ingenious idea of creating hedges from it to decorate the gardens she wished to encircle the sand palace she was building beneath a golden summer sun on a Port Legann beach.
A palace she intended to be a replica of the imperial one in the Yamani Islands. Or as near enough to a replica as she could construct with the stories and memories of her ma and Lady Haname as a foundation.
“That’s a beautiful castle you’re building in the sand, my love.” Grandmama was smiling as the sun above as she beamed at Lian and her architectural project.
“It’s not a castle,” Lian corrected matter-of-factly. Ignoring the sharp, in-drawn breath from Lady Haname that suggested without speaking that Lian should have been more deferential. That she should never have dared to contradict a queen even though she would be one herself one day. “It’s a palace. A copy of the imperial palace in the Yamani Islands.”
“Ah, of course.” Grandmama’s smile only grew until it threatened to swallow her entire sun-wrinkled face. She, apparently, didn’t mind being corrected on this detail. “I see the resemblance now.”
“Your father enjoyed building sand castles when he was little,” Grandpapa chimed in from the blanket where he lay. Letting the sun soak into his skin like warm water. His face sparkled with a reminiscent grin. “I remember one time he was determined to build a castle with a moat. He kept trying to make it too close to the sea and became more frustrated every time the waves destroyed it. Until he reached the boiling point and started hurling fistfuls of sand around in his temper.”
“I don’t remember that.” A frown formed in Da’s brow. Lian wasn’t sure whether he was perturbed by his lack of memory or by Grandpapa sharing an account of his childish mischief.
“No.” Grandpapa’s tone was light. Teasing. “You were very little as I said. No more than five years old. I wouldn’t expect you to remember.”
A cloud shadowed the brightness of Lian’s mind. She was six. Barely more than five herself. Did that mean she would forget this day? Forget being on the beach with her parents, sisters, grandparents, and Lady Haname? Forget building her sand palace? The cloud vanished when she decided, stern and stubborn, that she wouldn’t forget. That she would never allow herself to do so.
“If it was so long ago–” Da’s voice was cold as the ocean in winter as if he didn’t appreciate embarrassing tales of his youthly exploits washing ashore like driftwood– “I don’t know why you brought it up now. What relevance it has.”
“It was a memory of a happy time.” Grandpapa sounded less light and more weary now. “Nothing more than that, son.”
“Your definition of a ‘happy time’ seems to come at my expense,” Da noted stiffly. There were undercurrents and undertows to this conversation that could drown a person, Lian thought.
“Don’t brood, Roald,” Grandmama cut in. Song and steel in her words. Charming but not to be trifled with or defied. “It blackens our day at the beach.”
“Forgive me. It wasn’t my intention to brood.” Da inclined his head. Began to rise from the blanket. “If Your Majesties will excuse me, I will stretch my legs.”
As Da sought what he doubtlessly considered to be more amicable company in Lord Imrah and Lady Marielle, who were strolling arm-in-arm along the shoreline, letting the waves lap at their ankles, Grandpapa sighed. Staring after him with an almost wistful regret. “I didn’t mean to offend or hurt him. I never do. Yet somehow I always do. The story of our relationship.”
“Don’t you start brooding too.” Grandmama elbowed him. “He was too quick to perceive an insult where there was none. Too eager to be injured without cause. I will tell him so later. Have him apologize to you.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, my dear.” Grandpapa took her hand in his. “It would only make him resent me more. The exact opposite of what I wish.”
“He doesn’t resent you.” Grandmama kissed Grandpapa’s cheek. “That oversensitivity and prickled pride. Not resentment. Resentment was what I felt for my father. Not what Roald feels for you.”
Lian didn’t know what any of this meant. It was over her head as if she had waded too far into the ocean. She only knew that it hurt her to see the pain etched into Grandpapa’s expression so she flung her sand-crusted arms around his neck in a wild embrace. “Da might not like your stories about when he was little, but I do. I love all your stories, Grandpapa.”
“Don’t get too inspired by them.” Lady Haname had to offer a warning. She couldn’t permit even an hour to pass without issuing some sort of admonishment to Lian. “I do not want to see you do anything so unladylike as throw fistfuls of sand.”
From this, Lian gathered that Lady Haname did not approve of Grandpapa’s account of her da’s mischief much more than Da himself did.
The sand of the beaches that lined Tortall’s coast were one wonder of Lian’s world. Another was the vast expanse of the Southern Desert. While the sand by the Emerald Ocean was soft and sea-smoothed between her toes when she removed her shoes, the sand of the Southern Desert was rough. Worn down by the endless winds that swept through the barren, harsh landscape. The waves were the shifting yellow-orange dunes, and the only water for miles around were the oases that Bazhir alone–with their inherited wisdom–could find.
Grandpapa often took her and Da with him and Grandmama when he made his regular journeys to the desert as Voice of the Tribes. Grandpapa’s Champion, Sir Zahir ibn Alhaz, often accompanied them on such trips being of Bazhir blood himself.
With the shrewd eyes of a child, Lian realized that it weighed on Grandpapa that he hadn’t yet trained his successor as Voice. That this grief and worry was aging him.
Lian, therefore, set herself the task of resolving this problem for Grandpapa. After a visit to the shared tent of the Bloody Hawk’s chief and shaman, Lian was reminded of how much she liked their grown daughter Khalida, who had Shaman Kara’s magic flowing through her veins.
When Lian, Da, Grandmama, and Grandpapa had returned to their own tent and settled into pillows, Lian remarked, “You should name a woman to be Voice after you, Grandpapa.”
“By a woman–” Grandpapa’s lips twitched– “you mean Khalida bint Halef.”
“She is brave and clever like her parents.” Lian squelched the impulse to emphasize her argument by bouncing on her pillow. Lady Haname would no doubt dismiss such behavior as undignified. Unbefitting of a princess of the realm. “And her mother has schooled her well in magic. She would be kind and fair in her judgments like her father.”
“Hmm. That is wise counsel.” Grandpapa stroked at his gray beard. Then glanced at Grandmama and Da. “Your thoughts?”
“I would always defer to you in matters pertaining to the Bazhir, but–” Da clasped Lian’s shoulder. Squeezed it gently. “For the record, I agree with Lian.”
That was the strongest endearment, the staunchest support, her father could give. Lian understood that.
“So do I.” Grandmama gave a decisive nod. “Too often, women’s voices go unheard in Tortall and among the Bazhir. What better way to ensure women are heard in Tortall and among the Bazhir than to appoint a woman as Voice of the Tribes after you?”
“What better way indeed?” mused Grandpapa. Continuing to tug at his beard. Turning his focus to his Champion, who had remained silent throughout the discussion. “Your opinion, Sir Zahir?”
“Why should my opinion matter in this, sire?” Sir Zahir was never anything less than blunt. No matter how much time he spent at court, he never became a polished courtier. “The decision is yours. No one else’s. The Voice alone determines his successor. That is the rule and the custom.”
“His successor,” Grandpapa repeated. “Because there has never been a female Voice in the history of the Bazhir.”
“There are female shamans,” Lian interrupted before she could stop herself. “Like Kara and Kourrem of the Bloody Hawk.”
“And there is a northern Voice.” Sir Zahir’s expression was inscrutable. How he managed to be unfailingly and unflinchingly honest while revealing so little of his true thoughts and feelings was a mystery to Lian. “If the Bazhir can survive the change of a northern Voice, they can survive the change of a female Voice too. That is what the Bazhir do. Survive and endure like the sun and the sand dunes.”
“Survive and endure.” Grandpapa arched an eyebrow. “You speak as if these changes were evil, not good. As if they were something to be suffered, not welcomed.”
“Change always brings suffering to someone. The Bazhir more than most, Your Majesty.” Sir Zahir shrugged. “Change doesn’t need to be welcomed. It will come whether invited or not, and, in itself, is neither good nor evil. It simply is whether we fight it or not.”
A sorrow sliced like a sword through Lian at his words.
Some of that same grief seemed to flash across Grandpapa’s face as he asked, “And will the Bazhir fight this change if I seek to make it?”
“The Bazhir will not resist.” Sir Zahir shook his head. “No Bazhir can war against the Voice. That is a deep blood magic that binds the tribes to the Voice. One that cannot be broken or changed even if everything else breaks and changes. If that breaks or changes, we cease to be Bazhir and become something else.”
Breaks and changes, Lian reflected in that desert tent. That was all they were. Voices of sand swallowed by the relentless, pounding waves of change. Waves of change that she was part of, but that formed a tide far larger than she could fathom. She loved her country but suddenly wondered whether she would ever be able to lead it or if it would always lead her.
Title: Voices of Sand and Waves of Change
Rating: PG-13
Event: Sun, Sand, and Sea
Words: 1923
Summary: Lianokami, the ocean, and the desert that shape Tortall.
Voices of Sand and Waves of Change
From the first time she smelled the salty brine air of the sea and heard the swelling music of its waves breaking against the beach, Lian had loved the ocean. She supposed that was only natural because she would never have been born–never breathed any salty sea breeze or listened to its watery melody–if her ma hadn’t crossed the Emerald Ocean to marry her father.
Sailing away from the Yamani Islands. Leaving them in fading mountainous mist behind her forever. Facing the unknown tides and uncharted depths of a sea churning with waves that had caps white as the snow crowning the highest Yamani peaks.
Even when they were many miles from the ocean in the palace where Da governed the south of Tortall, the sea found a way to shape their lives. When Lian’s younger sisters–Kalakami and Hanakami–were born, Lady Haname served Ma bowls of steaming miso broth speckled with jade flecks of seaweed.
Curious as ever, Lian asked Lady Haname, her prim and proper governess, why she did such a thing. Only to be informed in loftiest tones–higher by far than any mountain celebrated in Yamani poetry–that seaweed soup was the best food for a woman recovering from childbirth. That it restored flagging strength by infusing body and blood with key nutrients.
Seaweed, of course, had other uses than as a rejuvenating base for miso soup to be served to a woman recently delivered of a child. For instance, Lian had the ingenious idea of creating hedges from it to decorate the gardens she wished to encircle the sand palace she was building beneath a golden summer sun on a Port Legann beach.
A palace she intended to be a replica of the imperial one in the Yamani Islands. Or as near enough to a replica as she could construct with the stories and memories of her ma and Lady Haname as a foundation.
“That’s a beautiful castle you’re building in the sand, my love.” Grandmama was smiling as the sun above as she beamed at Lian and her architectural project.
“It’s not a castle,” Lian corrected matter-of-factly. Ignoring the sharp, in-drawn breath from Lady Haname that suggested without speaking that Lian should have been more deferential. That she should never have dared to contradict a queen even though she would be one herself one day. “It’s a palace. A copy of the imperial palace in the Yamani Islands.”
“Ah, of course.” Grandmama’s smile only grew until it threatened to swallow her entire sun-wrinkled face. She, apparently, didn’t mind being corrected on this detail. “I see the resemblance now.”
“Your father enjoyed building sand castles when he was little,” Grandpapa chimed in from the blanket where he lay. Letting the sun soak into his skin like warm water. His face sparkled with a reminiscent grin. “I remember one time he was determined to build a castle with a moat. He kept trying to make it too close to the sea and became more frustrated every time the waves destroyed it. Until he reached the boiling point and started hurling fistfuls of sand around in his temper.”
“I don’t remember that.” A frown formed in Da’s brow. Lian wasn’t sure whether he was perturbed by his lack of memory or by Grandpapa sharing an account of his childish mischief.
“No.” Grandpapa’s tone was light. Teasing. “You were very little as I said. No more than five years old. I wouldn’t expect you to remember.”
A cloud shadowed the brightness of Lian’s mind. She was six. Barely more than five herself. Did that mean she would forget this day? Forget being on the beach with her parents, sisters, grandparents, and Lady Haname? Forget building her sand palace? The cloud vanished when she decided, stern and stubborn, that she wouldn’t forget. That she would never allow herself to do so.
“If it was so long ago–” Da’s voice was cold as the ocean in winter as if he didn’t appreciate embarrassing tales of his youthly exploits washing ashore like driftwood– “I don’t know why you brought it up now. What relevance it has.”
“It was a memory of a happy time.” Grandpapa sounded less light and more weary now. “Nothing more than that, son.”
“Your definition of a ‘happy time’ seems to come at my expense,” Da noted stiffly. There were undercurrents and undertows to this conversation that could drown a person, Lian thought.
“Don’t brood, Roald,” Grandmama cut in. Song and steel in her words. Charming but not to be trifled with or defied. “It blackens our day at the beach.”
“Forgive me. It wasn’t my intention to brood.” Da inclined his head. Began to rise from the blanket. “If Your Majesties will excuse me, I will stretch my legs.”
As Da sought what he doubtlessly considered to be more amicable company in Lord Imrah and Lady Marielle, who were strolling arm-in-arm along the shoreline, letting the waves lap at their ankles, Grandpapa sighed. Staring after him with an almost wistful regret. “I didn’t mean to offend or hurt him. I never do. Yet somehow I always do. The story of our relationship.”
“Don’t you start brooding too.” Grandmama elbowed him. “He was too quick to perceive an insult where there was none. Too eager to be injured without cause. I will tell him so later. Have him apologize to you.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, my dear.” Grandpapa took her hand in his. “It would only make him resent me more. The exact opposite of what I wish.”
“He doesn’t resent you.” Grandmama kissed Grandpapa’s cheek. “That oversensitivity and prickled pride. Not resentment. Resentment was what I felt for my father. Not what Roald feels for you.”
Lian didn’t know what any of this meant. It was over her head as if she had waded too far into the ocean. She only knew that it hurt her to see the pain etched into Grandpapa’s expression so she flung her sand-crusted arms around his neck in a wild embrace. “Da might not like your stories about when he was little, but I do. I love all your stories, Grandpapa.”
“Don’t get too inspired by them.” Lady Haname had to offer a warning. She couldn’t permit even an hour to pass without issuing some sort of admonishment to Lian. “I do not want to see you do anything so unladylike as throw fistfuls of sand.”
From this, Lian gathered that Lady Haname did not approve of Grandpapa’s account of her da’s mischief much more than Da himself did.
The sand of the beaches that lined Tortall’s coast were one wonder of Lian’s world. Another was the vast expanse of the Southern Desert. While the sand by the Emerald Ocean was soft and sea-smoothed between her toes when she removed her shoes, the sand of the Southern Desert was rough. Worn down by the endless winds that swept through the barren, harsh landscape. The waves were the shifting yellow-orange dunes, and the only water for miles around were the oases that Bazhir alone–with their inherited wisdom–could find.
Grandpapa often took her and Da with him and Grandmama when he made his regular journeys to the desert as Voice of the Tribes. Grandpapa’s Champion, Sir Zahir ibn Alhaz, often accompanied them on such trips being of Bazhir blood himself.
With the shrewd eyes of a child, Lian realized that it weighed on Grandpapa that he hadn’t yet trained his successor as Voice. That this grief and worry was aging him.
Lian, therefore, set herself the task of resolving this problem for Grandpapa. After a visit to the shared tent of the Bloody Hawk’s chief and shaman, Lian was reminded of how much she liked their grown daughter Khalida, who had Shaman Kara’s magic flowing through her veins.
When Lian, Da, Grandmama, and Grandpapa had returned to their own tent and settled into pillows, Lian remarked, “You should name a woman to be Voice after you, Grandpapa.”
“By a woman–” Grandpapa’s lips twitched– “you mean Khalida bint Halef.”
“She is brave and clever like her parents.” Lian squelched the impulse to emphasize her argument by bouncing on her pillow. Lady Haname would no doubt dismiss such behavior as undignified. Unbefitting of a princess of the realm. “And her mother has schooled her well in magic. She would be kind and fair in her judgments like her father.”
“Hmm. That is wise counsel.” Grandpapa stroked at his gray beard. Then glanced at Grandmama and Da. “Your thoughts?”
“I would always defer to you in matters pertaining to the Bazhir, but–” Da clasped Lian’s shoulder. Squeezed it gently. “For the record, I agree with Lian.”
That was the strongest endearment, the staunchest support, her father could give. Lian understood that.
“So do I.” Grandmama gave a decisive nod. “Too often, women’s voices go unheard in Tortall and among the Bazhir. What better way to ensure women are heard in Tortall and among the Bazhir than to appoint a woman as Voice of the Tribes after you?”
“What better way indeed?” mused Grandpapa. Continuing to tug at his beard. Turning his focus to his Champion, who had remained silent throughout the discussion. “Your opinion, Sir Zahir?”
“Why should my opinion matter in this, sire?” Sir Zahir was never anything less than blunt. No matter how much time he spent at court, he never became a polished courtier. “The decision is yours. No one else’s. The Voice alone determines his successor. That is the rule and the custom.”
“His successor,” Grandpapa repeated. “Because there has never been a female Voice in the history of the Bazhir.”
“There are female shamans,” Lian interrupted before she could stop herself. “Like Kara and Kourrem of the Bloody Hawk.”
“And there is a northern Voice.” Sir Zahir’s expression was inscrutable. How he managed to be unfailingly and unflinchingly honest while revealing so little of his true thoughts and feelings was a mystery to Lian. “If the Bazhir can survive the change of a northern Voice, they can survive the change of a female Voice too. That is what the Bazhir do. Survive and endure like the sun and the sand dunes.”
“Survive and endure.” Grandpapa arched an eyebrow. “You speak as if these changes were evil, not good. As if they were something to be suffered, not welcomed.”
“Change always brings suffering to someone. The Bazhir more than most, Your Majesty.” Sir Zahir shrugged. “Change doesn’t need to be welcomed. It will come whether invited or not, and, in itself, is neither good nor evil. It simply is whether we fight it or not.”
A sorrow sliced like a sword through Lian at his words.
Some of that same grief seemed to flash across Grandpapa’s face as he asked, “And will the Bazhir fight this change if I seek to make it?”
“The Bazhir will not resist.” Sir Zahir shook his head. “No Bazhir can war against the Voice. That is a deep blood magic that binds the tribes to the Voice. One that cannot be broken or changed even if everything else breaks and changes. If that breaks or changes, we cease to be Bazhir and become something else.”
Breaks and changes, Lian reflected in that desert tent. That was all they were. Voices of sand swallowed by the relentless, pounding waves of change. Waves of change that she was part of, but that formed a tide far larger than she could fathom. She loved her country but suddenly wondered whether she would ever be able to lead it or if it would always lead her.