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2020-07-17
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2024-03-30
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in firelight and smoke

Summary:

Non-sequential Rowan of Rin and DQ ficlets for fanfic 100 prompts. To be updated as and when inspiration strikes. Title inspired by Molly Drake’s I Remember.

Notes:

‘Zeel’ really does mean waterfall apparently, in several Indian languages. I’ve chosen this because most of the other names in RoR, such as Ogden, are real names which are based on Old English/Germanic words for aspects of the natural world.

‘Japa’ also means hibiscus (or mantra) in Sanskrit.

Chapter 1: in firelight and smoke

Chapter Text

Fire:

“The spells may be cunningly concealed, designed to show up after years, when the child is grown,” says Japa suspiciously.

Ogden looks into the toddler’s half-shut eyes, so unusual yet so trusting. Absurd, to suspect a foundling of spycraft. The Zebak would hardly be so astute: for centuries now they have tried land invasions of Rin, despite being beaten back time and again.

But there is the question of how she has survived in such treacherous waters. He puts aside his personal feelings, his desperation for a child. This is, after all, his tribe, and a lapse of judgement now might mean a price paid in Traveller, Rin and even Maris blood.

He takes a deep breath before stoking the small fire with crushed laurel and bay leaves. Show me what you are hiding, he thinks, concentrating with all his might on the swirling smoke. Show me your secrets.

To his private relief, the fire remains orange, and the smoke unfocused. Nor is there any response to his mental search, except that the girl begins to squirm and whimper in her sleep.

“I have checked her twice over for every possible Zebak magic and found none,” Ogden murmurs, when he is sure. “Besides, I cannot explain how, but I feel she is sound.”

Hours: Within three hours after the augury, the foundling’s ridged brow, light brown hair and pale face, which so mark her as Zebak, have been festooned with bright marigolds, smeared with cedar paste and kissed and cooed over by every adult in the tribe, until she is almost indistinguishable from any other Traveller child.

Water: “Zeel,” says Stellan. “Her name shall be Zeel, waterfall, for the water that bore her to us.”

Thanksgiving: As the tribe sings the child’s name over the roaring blaze, to welcome her into the family, Ogden is too overcome to chant with them. He can only give mute, tearful thanks to fate for his little pale-eyed daughter, so unexpected and so precious.

Chapter 2: two by two

Notes:

I’ve tried to couch ‘aspec’ in Roddeian/Rowanverse terms. Obviously the situation in real life is a little more complicated.
Definitely don’t mean to lump aspec people in with celibate people, I just couldn’t figure out how to explain the difference between arospec and acespec, celibate, allo but single, etc. without... y’know, mentioning sex.

Chapter Text

Why?:

“Ogden,” asked Annad, tugging on Jonn’s hand as he gathered blue hoopberries into a basket for the Travellers. She had lost her shyness in front of the storyteller who told such enchanting tales before the campfire. “Why do you not have a wife? Mamma’s husband is Strong Jonn, and Bree is married to Hanna, and Timon is married to Rosa…”

“Hush, Annad,” said Jonn, blushing scarlet and glancing at Ogden. “Run and fetch some more baskets for these berries. And it is not polite to ask such questions. Ogden, I am sorry.”

“Peace, Strong Jonn of the Orchard,” Ogden reassured him. He smiled after Annad as she skipped away to the storeroom. “I have had enough curious young ones of my own that I am used to questions. And besides, we Travellers do not believe in concealing answers from children for the sake of propriety.”

“It is not just for propriety,” said Jonn. He had turned his face further towards the hoopberries than was strictly polite. “Marriage and — and…” He cleared his throat. “Marriage and affection are treasured in Rin. They are seen as private matters, between a husband and wife.”

Not so private, if you mock all who lack them, thought Ogden. Why keep treasured feelings under lock and key, sealed away from prying eyes, only to boast about them?

He preferred the Travellers’ practice of taking lovers (male, female or those who did not fit either sex) for a week, a season or their whole lives. Some, like Ogden, took none at all, for they found no one who suited or attracted them, and did not desire to be partnered. This openness, too, fit handily under Slip - an all-purpose slur that put Ogden in mind of pond-slime and slugs. He had learnt to confound those who used it against him with an enigmatic grin. But in the right hands it was like a devil-tree branch to the face. 

When the Mountain berries had come in, Neel had gabbled about the Travellers’ curse, his arms jangling with charm bracelets. To be sure, many townsfolk had laughed in his face, but a very few had muttered amongst themselves.

“Neel need not fear the curse at all!” Allun had joked, with his usual smile, to much hilarity. “The Travellers are such lovers of jewellery, they will take all his bracelets and leave him entirely alone! Perhaps you might stand in the fields like a scarecrow, Neel, and save Jiller the trouble of making a new one?”

Ogden chuckled under his breath at the memory, even as his heart smote him. Allun was one more casualty of a decades-long rift.

But scratching at newly-healed wounds would help nothing. It was not Jonn’s fault that his people valued marriage over all other bonds. Any more than it was Annad’s fault that unmarried adults were rare in her village: odd, cold and closed-off even by Rin standards. If he had grown up with Neel the Potter, Sheba the Wise Woman, Val and Ellis of the Mill and Bronden of the Woodshop as his only examples of unpartnered folk, he too would think it strange not to marry and have children.

Chapter 3: birthday

Chapter Text

“It is your birthday!” exclaimed Marlie. “But why did you not tell me?”

Allun winced. Since coming to Rin he had hated celebrating his birthday. Other children had had parties in each other’s gardens, and chattered and giggled about them under the Teaching Tree. They had gorged themselves on Sara’s cakes and Polly’s toffees, jellies, and aniseed humbugs. They had played chasing and climbing games.

Allun, the friendless half-Traveller, had been invited only once. He had spent the day huddled in a corner, homesick and ignored. Now, even as an adult, parties made his stomach churn with remembered humiliation.

“Ah, Marlie, some of us have no wish to be reminded of our advancing years!” Allun combed through his dark brown curls, and widened his eyes in feigned shock.

“White as snow! Have you any dyes to hide the colour?”

Marlie laughed. Allun, emboldened, dared to trail his fingers through her ponytail.

Chapter 4: alike

Summary:

The timeline has always been a bit confusing to me. It’s possible Marlie wasn’t even born during the War of the Plains.

Chapter Text

“We should give some to Sheba,” said Jonn. “It is the first wedding of the summer.”

A general murmur arose, and died down. Most folk still sneered at Sheba, but since the Cold Time no one skimped on gifts for her, however grudgingly given. 

Reluctantly, scowling and muttering, others came forward to add to the growing pile of offerings under the Teaching Tree: Jonn’s honeycomb, Rowan’s ripest cheeses, Marlie’s warmest bukshah-wool cloaks.

Norris sympathised. He had learnt to tolerate the throng around the Travellers’ fires. He had even grown accustomed to Rin’s numerous parties, weddings and festivals. But he still baulked at Sheba’s presence, with its sour-herb smell. Her hut seemed to crawl with shadows and spirits. Firelight did not dampen the illusion. Far from illuminating, it smudged the corners of her hut with darkness.

“Why does Sheba never attend these festivals herself?” he asked. “She takes pleasure in demanding tribute only to throw your generosity back in your faces.” 

“The years have made Sheba into a well of bitter water.” That was Lann - as the oldest, she had been given a seat under the Teaching Tree, alongside the bride and groom. “But even she was not always so. In her youth she was… like your sister. Timid, gentle, given to solitary crafts. Prone to dreams.”

“I cannot believe that. Sheba and Shaaran are nothing alike!” exclaimed Norris, stung on behalf of his sister and his late grandfather. “Shaaran has no enemies. She does not insult all who cross her path! She has never even lost her temper! Why, it was her tears that saved us in the Vale of Horrors!”

He halted and made a face. He had let his tongue run away with him again!

But Lann only nodded. “She does not. But she is young, and has not grown up the laughing-stock of a village.”

“Wounds of the mind,” put in Marlie, with a meaningful look at Lann that Norris could not decipher, “can leave scars, also. Or do you not remember Minna?” She put an arm around Allun, who had abandoned all pretence of eavesdropping and was now listening openly. “You and Sheba were friends once, were you not?”

Lann frowned at her. “There is no need to lecture me on scars, Marlie the Weaver. As I recall, you were knee-high to a grasshopper during the War of the Plains. But I am not too old to admit when I am wrong. I know good advice when I hear it. Very well, I will visit Sheba. No doubt it will please her to send me away with a flea in my ear, as she did sixty years ago.”

Chapter 5: reciprocation

Notes:

To the two people reading this - sorry, I suck at romance.

Dain/Lief.

Chapter Text

Writer’s Choice:

“You care much for Jasmine, I think,” said Dain quietly, his voice pitched even lower than usual, so they could listen for any approaching Ols in disguise.

He was looking away from Lief, at where Barda lay sleeping in his bedroll on the other side of the banked fire. Lief had taken the first watch and Dain, claiming he could not sleep, had sat up with him.

“Why should I not care for her?” Lief asked, dumbfounded. “We have travelled together for months. She has saved my life many times, and I hers…”

It occurred to him that this was not precisely what Dain had meant. He trailed off in confusion, hot with embarrassment, and pretended to be rummaging through his pack to avoid Dain’s eyes.

“I am sorry,” said Dain. “I should not have pried.” His fair cheeks had flushed crimson; long lashes hooded his eyes as he gazed into the fire. “Only, it is no secret,” he said sullenly, “the way she looks at you.”

Lief could not ignore his prickling sense of unease: all his senses seemed heightened. What was Dain up to? In the three nights since joining the companions he had seemed eager to reach Tora, but Lief had not realised he was observing their trio so closely. It was not Dain’s business what was between himself and Jasmine.

Yet why should he not be observant? Lief chided himself. He is alone and unarmed. He did not become a Resistance fighter without using his eyes and his wits to keep him alive. For all he knows, we might have been replaced by Ols in the night.

“There - there is one other thing I have not told you,” whispered Dain. He bit his lip and steepled his long delicate fingers in his lap.

Lief’s spine tingled. In the moonlight, cloaked by darkness and without Jasmine’s tree-sense to warn them of intruders, he felt very vulnerable. Evidently Dain was about to reveal something about his past, one of the closely guarded secrets that gave him such an air of mystery. Almost Lief felt for the Belt at his waist, such was his nervous anticipation. He closed his eyes and pictured the gems in his mind: the bright topaz, stone of faith, the ruby for happiness, the opal for hope, the lapis lazuli, recovered at such peril from the Hive, the emerald from Dread Mountain.

Lief opened his eyes. Dain was looking at him curiously. “Lief? Are you ill? I have some willow bark in my pack — ”

“I am sorry,” said Lief quickly. “I am just tired. All this talk of Ols has made it hard to sleep. What did you have to tell me, Dain?”

The boy looked up at him, eyes burning. “Jasmine... is not the only one who harbours such feelings towards you,” he breathed. With unearthly swiftness he darted forward and pressed his lips to Lief’s.

Lief gasped; euphoria surged through him, making his whole body tingle. It was not unlike drinking Queen Bee Cider, he thought in helpless wonder, as he pulled Dain closer.

Chapter 6: trust

Notes:

Prompt: Enemies

Chapter Text

After two whole weeks, Doom still does not trust me. Dain wondered at the stab of dull rage that followed that thought. He was the Shadow Lord’s creature, sent to carve out pockets of dissent in Withick Mire. What did he care for Doom’s regard?

“Doom does not trust anyone,” boomed Elvira, when Dain confided in her. “I am sure he suspects the rest of us of being Shadow Lord spies.”

Dain lowered his eyes to hide his glee: Doom was more right than he knew. “Of course. Leading a resistance must narrow one’s circle of friends. And expand one’s pool of enemies.”

Chapter 7: read you like a magazine

Summary:

A group of Resistance strongholders play a game, and Dain learns what kissing is. Set during Maze of the Beast.

Notes:

Normally I’d feel skeevy writing a bunch of adults discussing their sex lives when a kid’s around. But I think we can safely make an exception for Dain.

Prompt: ‘How’

Chapter Text

“For two tokens, you must kiss someone of the same age for a count of three hundred,” recited Dain, turning the card over with his good arm.

“I’ll wager you’ve never kissed anyone but your mother, stripling,” said Jinks. “You’d be too bashful to look a stranger in the face. I regret to say that in any case we have no youngsters here - unless you are inclined to lock lips with the prisoners!” He chortled at his own jest.

Dain had learnt a little about kissing during his Shadowlands training, but could not fathom why it should be important for their game. So he ducked his head, shook it, made himself blush and smiled shyly. It was becoming his stock reaction, and seemed to be an acceptable substitute for speech in a bewildering variety of situations.

“I suppose that by the time you were his age, Jinks, you had kissed half the boys in Del, bedded the other half and made admirers of the girls,” said Neridah, with heavy sarcasm that Dain could not interpret. ‘Bed’ and ‘admirers’ were yet more human-language enigmas. Dain tucked them into his mental word-list for further scrutiny.

Jinks smirked. “Well, I’ve certainly had more tumbles in my time than the two of you put together. Professional and otherwise.”

“Acrobatics. Pah!” Glock narrowed his eyes. “We Jalis prefer our own company.”

“No wonder,” hooted Jinks, “for by the looks of you, no one else will have you!”

Twice he evaded Glock’s lunge with a nimble sidestep. Glock fell back, snarling, and dived for him a third time. Jinks pirouetted away at lightning-speed, then somersaulted and landed on his hands. At last Glock seemed to remember Doom’s injunction against fights. He stormed off to another corner of the cavern.

There was scattered, ironic applause. Humans, as Dain had ample cause to know, hated strangers. Evidently Glock and Neridah, the newcomers, were regarded even more poorly than Jinks. Neridah, so sly under her mask of naivety, had not moved to stop her friend, but had watched the proceedings with a little smile.

The game resumed. To Dain’s relief, Petronne and Thalgus offered to take his turn for him.

Mimicry and mirroring were instinctual to an Ol. So Dain observed, as he always did. His internal senses extracted and processed dozens of new data points - Petronne’s dilated eyes, Thalgus’s groans, the sounds of their mouths smacking together, the rise in body heat, the spikes of oxytocin in their biochemical signatures, their breathing patterns, the way their noses flared. He memorised the smile lines around their eyes, for later use.

One more weapon in his arsenal. He would use their own bliss against them.

Chapter 8: wages

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“You would do better to speak to Jiller about extra help in the fields," Lann had told him, in the blunt way he was coming to appreciate. “There are few warriors left in Rin.”

Outdoor work suited Norris. As he had been the hardiest of the slaves, the Zebak had often spared him beatings to save his strength. So he was in better condition than most slaves would have been.

“Wages are fifteen silver pieces a year," said Jiller. Already there were crow's feet at her eyes, and she had to pause to rest after every few rows. Although she was still strong, as Rin-folk were, even Norris could see that tending three fields alone was too much for her.

“Wages?”

Jiller’s brow knit. “A wage is a fee. In exchange for services. You may use them to buy… clothes, and food."

Notes:

Prompt: outsides

Chapter 9: trance (pt 1)

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was high summer again in Rin. Children sweated at their books under the Teaching Tree, longing for two o’clock. In the shaded gardens, Hanna and Bree tended their vegetables and fruits. Strong Jonn crushed blue hoopberries by the hundreds in his orchard-presses to make juice and wine. Val and Ellis bent their backs over the great mill wheel, turning Jiller’s sheaves into flour. In the bakery, Allun sang a Traveller’s ballad as he shaped loaves of fruitcake into strange, fabulous creatures to take to the coast next week — dragons, goblins, winged horses and, as a present for Perlain, half-coiled sea serpents, with fangs poised to bite. His dour friend would not be amused at the joke, but Allun delighted in harmless fun. It made life greener and more wholesome. Marlie joined in — note-perfect, for she had developed a taste for campfire songs on their honeymoon. She had only admitted to it when Allun had caught her singing one at the washing-up.

And far to the south, Sheba’s fire leapt up and flared a bright, poisonous green.

Rowan was in the coolhouse storing the last of the curds when he heard bellowing. It was faint, but Rowan’s sharp ears, always alert for danger to his beloved bukshah, caught the sound instantly. It was Treasure’s alarm call, and she was as wise as her aunt Star had been.

Before he could think, he had dropped the curd and was hurtling towards the field. Ice creeper, he thought, with a rush of panicked loathing straight out of his nightmares. Or was it the Zebak come to recover their captives, just five years later? Had they redoubled their attack with an enemy too strong for even the dragon of the Mountain?

His wooden whistle was halfway to his lips when he stopped short and felt a slow flush creep up his cheeks. What is the matter with me? Ice creepers cannot abide the heat. And the dragon has not made a sound. It would fight any attacker to the death, Zebak war-machine or no…

He ran on, albeit with less haste this time. If the herd needed him, he must go.

Rowan felt the blood drain from his face as he approached the field. Unos barrelled towards the herd on four powerful, brutish legs. Three spiked tails whipped the air. Claws furrowed the long grass.

“Willow! Move the calves!” shouted Rowan, sprinting for all he was worth. Why had they failed to budge? All their instincts should be afire. Even young bukshah in their prime, hardy as they were, could not withstand a tonne of armour-plated fighting grach in full fury.

But Willow snorted, tossed her head and trotted towards Unos, with seven other adult females in tow. They surrounded the grach, curtailing her flight. They were not just herding her, Rowan realised in astonishment, but crowding and lowing, as they would close in on a frightened calf.

Quick as thought, Unos reared. With a deep moan, she flailed an immense clawed foreleg at the grey mass in front of her. But Rowan’s cry died in his throat. For the blow had shorn nothing but wool from the bukshah’s matted flanks. He was close enough now to see the yellow eyes glazed in pain. And he had heard those bellows before.

“Unos,” he murmured, “What is the matter? Are you hurt?” Gradually, Unos quieted enough to accept nuzzles from her companions, although she was still restive. The herd moved back to give her space and returned to their grazing.

Together they hastened to Sheba’s hut. To Rowan’s shock, the fire was down to embers and Sheba lay asleep beside the hearth.

"It is only a trance, Unos," he said soothingly. But he did not believe it himself. Nothing was amiss: there was no threat on the horizon, no warning from the Maris or the Travellers. No reason for Unos to react so strongly, unless something else were afoot, as Rowan's instincts had been telling him all along.

He shuddered at the sight of her stillness. His mother had lain just so, when she had been poisoned. Then he steeled himself and put a hand on Sheba’s medallion.

It felt like being submerged in Mountain-lava, pain beyond pain. Was it ice or fire in his veins? He cried aloud with the agony and ecstasy of it. Dimly he heard Unos whuffle, but by then the hut around him had rippled and faded, like one of the silks.

A hot drink was cupped in his hands. Someone was embracing him. "Joel," he heard himself say, "you will make a fine Wise Man one day, like your old grandfather." Then the world blurred again and again. He did not know how many lives he had lived before he felt himself being shaken. Someone was sobbing into his ear; water dripped onto his neck. He was a slave again, in the Zebak compound, watching his brother beaten… no, he was watching a silken kite as yellow as daffodils… his mind clung to that image, noting the warp and weft, understanding the loom's susurrus with the training born of long afternoons spent weaving in secret.

Zeel. The first friend of his own age he had ever made. The first friend, apart from the bukshah.

Zeel! Ogden! It was a last desperate cry, in chorus with another voice.  

Rowan! What ails you? We are here. The Keeper was in his mind, damming up the great tide of visions. The Crystal blazed like a lighthouse beacon. The images lifted, leaving Rowan feeling all of ten again, mouth dry as old cheese, quivering like the rabbit Sheba had named him.

Notes:

Prompt: Summer

Chapter 10: trance (ch. 2)

Chapter Text

Rowan woke to a warm, snuffling breath and a wet tongue licking his cheeks. "Stop it, Star," he mumbled, laughing and batting at the dark shape above him. "The sun has not yet risen."

"Rowan! Thank heavens you are awake!"

He gaped at the girl for a minute, then memory realigned itself.

"Shaaran," he blurted, sitting up in such haste that Unos withdrew her muzzle, affronted. "It was you. I was in your head."

Her eyes widened. "I did not mean - I did not know what else to do. I touched you thinking only to shake you out of your daze, and… I could not free myself of the current." She shook her head as though clearing water from her ears, then snatched up the contents of her workbasket, which she had scattered all over the floor when she dropped them in her fright.

"And you would be there still, drooling like invalids, if not for that Keeper," rasped Sheba, her mouth stained blue with berry juice. "What a fine haul my grach has brought me. A skinny little rabbit, and a silk moth who flutters at her own shadow. It is my fate, it seems, to be burdened by weaklings and fools."

"Very well. We will burden you no longer. Come, Shaaran," said Rowan shortly. He turned, staggered and just managed not to cling to the lintel for support. He felt he had not slept for weeks, and could not even bring himself to feel relief that Sheba was alive. Suddenly he longed to lie down with the bukshah again and whisper his woes and secrets into their flanks, as he had not done since he was a small child. He had joined the herd at their noon rest, nestled into the huddle of mothers like a calf himself. It had been more tranquil than tossing and turning at home: he never had nightmares outdoors. It was better than enduring the taunts of the other children as he crossed the field for his midday meal and nap. "Run home to your Mamma's milk!" they would cry, and Rowan's ears would burn with shame.

But Shaaran was frozen in place. She still gazed at Sheba. "He came to see you in the late morning, for that is when he sets the curds; now it is twilight. You have borrowed his strength to sustain your own life," she said, in a voice that trembled.

"So what if I have?" spat Sheba. "He is such a great hero, he has strength and to spare. Like his father before him!"

Tears sprang to Shaaran's eyes. "Rowan's father sacrificed his life for his son. You are to be pitied, Sheba. You squander your days on insulting those who show you compassion."

Sheba's nostrils flared. "You dare rebuke me about sacrifice, Shaaran of the Silks? You have grown bold like the rest of your fool compatriots. Too late for that, too late by far. One lifetime will not be long enough to learn all you must know."

"What must we know?" asked Rowan, despite himself. He knew to be wary - he knew he should not stay to be ensnared by Sheba's tongue and barbed by her wit. And yet, she had always spoken the truth - veiled in riddles and prophecies, maybe, but horribly clear when all was done.

Sheba's eyes closed and she did not move for a long time. With head bowed and hands clasped in her lap, she looked older than Jiller, older than Lann, in the waxing darkness. "There is much - so much knowledge to pass on, and the time to learn it grows scarcer. You both laid hands on the medallion," she intoned. "You are the next Wise Man and Woman."

“You should not have reprimanded her. Time passes... differently, in Sheba's hut," said Rowan, much refreshed by several of Sara's apple buns and a deep sleep in her spare bed. He tried for the same soothing tone he had used with Unos. “It is draining to wear the medallion. Besides, she has done this before. Fallen into a trance. Before the Cold Time, she - "

“This was no ordinary trance!” snapped Shaaran. She clutched at his arm. “Sheba will die by autumn's end, Rowan. I wove it! Unos knows it too. Sheba must have seen it. Here, you see, I - oh! This is not my basket: both are dark, but mine is made of covered wicker, not cloth," she said in dismay. "I must have taken Sheba's by accident. My silks are inside." She bit her lip. "I suppose I will have to go and fetch it at first light - it is too late now, and Sheba will not thank me if I disturb her sleep."

"If she is dying, she has little time left. I do not think Sheba is sleeping, but scheming," muttered Rowan, remembering how she had cloaked herself in heat during the Cold Time. If the Maris could brew Death Sleep and the Mountain berries enchant a whole town with their sweetness, surely some equally powerful powder, potion or plant had the opposite effect.