daughter of the blood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blackjewels) wrote2009-08-11 03:44 pm
blackjewels) wrote2009-08-11 03:44 pm
~*CANON*~
SEVEN YEARS OLD.
"How did you get here?"
She fluffed her hair and frowned at the rocky ground between them. Finally she shrugged. "Same way I get to other places."
"You ride the Winds?" he yelped.
She raised a finger to test the air.
"Not breezes or puffs of air." Lucivar ground his teeth. "The Winds. The Webs. The psychic roads in the Darkness."
Jaenelle perked up. "Is that what they are?"
He managed to stop in mid-curse.
Jaenelle leaned forward. "Are you always this prickly?"
"Most people think I'm a prick, yes."
"What's that mean?"
"Nevermind." He chose a sharp stone and drew a circle on the ground between them. "This is the Realm of Terreille." He placed a round stone in the circle. "This is the Black Mountain, Ebon Askavi, where the Winds meet." He drew straight lines from the round stone to the circumference of the circle. "These are tether lines." He drew smaller circles within the circle. "These are radial lines. The Winds are like a spider web. You can travel on the tether or radial lines, changing direction where they intersect. There's a Web for each rank of the Blood Jewels. The darker the Web, the more tether and radial lines there are and the faster the Wind is. You can ride a Web that's your rank or lighter. You can't ride a Web darker than your Jewel rank unless you're traveling inside a Coach being driven by someone strong enough to ride that Web or you're being shielded by someone who can ride that Web. If you try, you probably won't survive. Understand?"
Jaenelle chewed on her lower lip and pointed to a space between the strands. "What if I want to go there?"
Lucivar shook his head. "You'd have to drop from the Web back into the Realm at the nearest point and travel some other way."
"That's not how I got here," she protested.
Lucivar shuddered. There wasn't a strand of Web around Zuultah's compound. Her court was deliberately in one of those blank spaces. The only way to get here directly from the Winds was by leaving the Web and gliding blind through the Darkness, which, even for the strongest and the best, was a chance thing to do. Unless...
TEN YEARS OLD.
"Two years ago, the Warlord my daughter was serving decided he wanted a prettier wench and turned my daughter out, along with the child she'd borne him. They came here to me, not having any other place to go, and Lady Alexandra let them stay. My girl, being poorly at the time, did some light parlor work and helped me in the kitchen. My granddaughter, Lucy--the cutest little button you ever saw--stayed in the kitchen with me mostly, although Miss Jaenelle always included her in the games whenever the girls were outside. Lucy didn't like being out on her own. She was afraid of Lord Benedict's hunting dogs, and the dog boys, knowing she was scared, teased her, getting the dogs all riled up and then slipping them off the leash so they'd chase her.
"One day it went too far. The dogs had been given short rations because they were going to be taken out and they were meaner than usual, and the boys got them too riled up. The pack leader slipped his leash, took off after Lucy, and chased her into the tackroom. She tripped, and he was on her, tearing at her arm. When we heard the screams, my daughter and I came running from the kitchen, and Andrew, one of the stable lads, a real good boy, came running too.
"Lucy was on the floor, screaming and screaming with that dog tearing at her arm, and all of a sudden, there was Miss Jaenelle. She said some strange words to the dog, and he let go of Lucy right away and slunk out of the tackroom, his tail between his legs.
"Lucy was a mess, her arm all torn up, the bone sticking up where the dog had snapped it. Miss Jaenelle told Andrew to get a bucket of water quick, and she kenlt down beside Lucy and started talking to her, quiet-like, and Lucy stopped screaming. Andrew came back with the water, and Miss Jaenelle pulled out this big oval basin from somewhere, I never did notice where it came from. Andrew poured the water in the basin, and Miss Jaenelle held it for a minute, kjust held it, and the water started steaming like it was over a fire. Then she put Lucy's arm in the basin and took some leaves and powders out of her pocket and poured them in the water. She held Lucy's arm down, singing all the while, quiet. We just stood and watched. No point taking the girl to a Healer, even if we could have scraped up the coin to pay a good one. I knew that. That arm was too mangled. The best even a good Healer could have done was cut it off. So we watched, my daughter, Andrew, and me. Couldn't see much, the water all bloody like it was.
"After a while, Miss Jaenelle leaned back and lifted Lucy's arm out of the basin. There was a long, deep cut from her elbow to her wrist... and that was all. Miss Jaenelle looked each of us in the eye. She didn't have to say anything. We weren't about to tell on her. Then she handed me a jar of ointment, my daughter being too upset to do much. 'Put this ointment on three times a day, and keep it looseley bandaged for a week. If you do, there'll be no scar.'
"Then she turned to Lucy and said, 'Don't worry. I'll talk to them. They won't bother you again.'
"Prince Philip, when he found out Lucy'd gotten hurt because the dogs were chasing her, gave the dog boys a fierce tongue-lashing, but that afternoon I saw Lord Benedict pressing coins into the dog boys' hands, laughing and telling them how pleased he was they were keeping his dogs in such fine form.
"Anyway, by the next summer, my daughter married a young man from a fine, solid family. They live in a little village about thirty miles from here and I visit whenever I can get a couple of days' leave."
Daemon looked into his empty mug. "Do you think Miss Jaenelle talked to them?"
"She must have," Cook replied absently.
"So the boys stopped teasing Lucy," Daemon pressed.
"Oh, no. They went right on with it. They weren't punished for it, were they? But the dogs... after that day, there was nothing those boys could do to make the dogs chase Lucy."
TWELVE YEARS OLD.
Her face was the coldest, smoothest, most malevolent mask he had ever seen. Her sapphire eyes were maelstroms. The power in her didn't spill out in an ever-widening ring as it would have with any other witch whose temper was up, acting as a warning to whoever approached. No, it was pulling inward, spiraling downward to her core, where she would turn it outward, with devastating results. She was turning cold, cold, cold, and he was helpless to stop her, helpless to bridge the distance that was suddenly, inexplicably, between them. She twitched her shoulders from beneath his arms, and with a grace that would have made any predator envious, began to glide in front of him.
Saetan glanced up. Helene would enter the great hall at any moment--and die. He summoned the power in his Jewels, summoned all his strength. Everything was going to ride on one word.
He thrust out his right hand, the Black Jewel ablaze, stopping Jaenelle's movement. "Lady," he said in a commanding voice.
Jaenelle looked at him. He shivered but kept his hand steady. "when Protocol is being observed and a Warlord Prince makes a request of his Queen, she graciously yields to his request unless she's no longer willing to have him serve. I ask that you trust my judgment in choosing who serves us at the Hall. I ask permission to introduce you to my housekeeper, who will do her utmost to serve you well. I ask that you accompany me to the dining room for something to eat."
He had never taught her about Protocol, about the subtle checks and balances of power among the Blood. He had assumed she'd picked up the basics through day-to-day living and observation. He'd thought he would have time to teach her the fine points of interaction between Queens and dark-jeweled males. Now it was his only leash he had. If she failed to answer... "Please, witch-child," he whispered just as Helene entered the great hall and stopped.
The Darkness swirled around him. Mother Night! He'd never felt anything like this!
Jaenelle studied his right hand for a long time before slowly placing her hand over it. He shuddered, unable to control it, seeing the truth for just a moment before she kindly shut him out.
...
"Witch-child," he said in a carefully neutral voice, "why were you going to strike Helene?"
"She's a stranger."
Rocked by her cold response, Saetan's weak leg buckled. Her arms immediately wrapped around his waist, and he didn't feel the floor at all. Somewhat bemused, he looked down and tapped the floor with his shoe. He stood on air, a quarter inch above the floor. If he walked normally, it would take a keen eye to realize he wasn't walking on the floor itself. That and the lack of sound.
"It will help you," Jaenelle explained, her voice so full of apology and concern that the arm he'd been sliding around her shoulders pulled her to him in a fierce hug.
...
Helene was a stranger, true. But he had a score of names on a sheet of paper locked in his desk drawer, and all of them had been strangers once. Because Helene was an adult? No, Cassandra was an adult. So was Titian, so was Prothvar, Andulvar, and Mephis. So was he. Because Helene was living? No, that wasn't the answer either.
In frustration, he replayed the last few minutes, forcing himself to view it from a distance. The sound of footsteps, the sudden change in Jaenelle, her predatory glide... in front of him.
He stopped, suddenly, shocked, but got tugged along for a few more steps before Jaenelle realized he wasn't trying to walk.
He'd wondered what her reaction would be to being with him in Kaeleer, being with him outside the Realm he ruled, and now he knew. She cared for him. She was ready to protect him because, to her anyway, a weak leg might make him vulnerable against an adversary.
Saetan smiled, squeezed her shoulder, and began walking again.
FIFTEEN YEARS OLD.
"Let's start with moving an object." Luthvian placed a red wooden ball on her empty worktable. "Point your finger at the ball."
Jaenelle groaned but obeyed.
Luthvian ignored the groan. Apparently Jaenelle was as much of a ninny as the rest of her students. "Imagine a stiff, thin thread coming out of your fingertip and attaching itself to the ball." Luthvian waited a moment. "Now imagine your strength running through the thread until it just touches the ball. Now imagine reeling in the thread so that the ball moves toward you."
The ball didn't move. The worktable, however, did. And the built-in cupboards that filled the workroom's back wall tried to.
"Stop!" Luthvian shouted.
Jaenelle stopped. She sighed.
Luthvian stared. If it had just been the worktable, she might have dismissed it as an attempt to show off. But the cupboards?
Luthvian called in four wooden blocks and four more wooden balls. Placing them on the worktable, she said, "Why don't you work by yourself for a minute. Concentrate on lightly making the connection between yourself and the object you're trying to move. I need to look in on the other students, then I'll be back."
Jaenelle obediently turned her attention on the blocks and balls.
...
A loud whoop sent them hurrying to her workroom.
Saetan pushed the door open and froze. Luthvian started to push past him but ended up clinging to his arm for support.
The table was slowly revolving clockwise and also rotating as if it were on a spit. There were now a dozen wooden boxes, some flush to the table's top, others floating above it, and all of them were spinning slowly. Seven brightly colored wooden balls were performing an intricate dance around the boxes. And every single object was maintaining its position to that revolving, rotating table.
With a lot of effort, Luthvian thought she might be able to control something that intricate, but it should have taken years to acquire that kind of skill. You just didn't start with one ball you couldn't move and end up with this in a matter of minutes.
Saetan let out a groaning laugh.
"I think I'm getting the hang of this thread-to-object stuff," Jaenelle said as she glanced over her shoulder and grinned at them all. Then she yelped as everything began to wobble and fall.
"How did you get here?"
She fluffed her hair and frowned at the rocky ground between them. Finally she shrugged. "Same way I get to other places."
"You ride the Winds?" he yelped.
She raised a finger to test the air.
"Not breezes or puffs of air." Lucivar ground his teeth. "The Winds. The Webs. The psychic roads in the Darkness."
Jaenelle perked up. "Is that what they are?"
He managed to stop in mid-curse.
Jaenelle leaned forward. "Are you always this prickly?"
"Most people think I'm a prick, yes."
"What's that mean?"
"Nevermind." He chose a sharp stone and drew a circle on the ground between them. "This is the Realm of Terreille." He placed a round stone in the circle. "This is the Black Mountain, Ebon Askavi, where the Winds meet." He drew straight lines from the round stone to the circumference of the circle. "These are tether lines." He drew smaller circles within the circle. "These are radial lines. The Winds are like a spider web. You can travel on the tether or radial lines, changing direction where they intersect. There's a Web for each rank of the Blood Jewels. The darker the Web, the more tether and radial lines there are and the faster the Wind is. You can ride a Web that's your rank or lighter. You can't ride a Web darker than your Jewel rank unless you're traveling inside a Coach being driven by someone strong enough to ride that Web or you're being shielded by someone who can ride that Web. If you try, you probably won't survive. Understand?"
Jaenelle chewed on her lower lip and pointed to a space between the strands. "What if I want to go there?"
Lucivar shook his head. "You'd have to drop from the Web back into the Realm at the nearest point and travel some other way."
"That's not how I got here," she protested.
Lucivar shuddered. There wasn't a strand of Web around Zuultah's compound. Her court was deliberately in one of those blank spaces. The only way to get here directly from the Winds was by leaving the Web and gliding blind through the Darkness, which, even for the strongest and the best, was a chance thing to do. Unless...
TEN YEARS OLD.
"Two years ago, the Warlord my daughter was serving decided he wanted a prettier wench and turned my daughter out, along with the child she'd borne him. They came here to me, not having any other place to go, and Lady Alexandra let them stay. My girl, being poorly at the time, did some light parlor work and helped me in the kitchen. My granddaughter, Lucy--the cutest little button you ever saw--stayed in the kitchen with me mostly, although Miss Jaenelle always included her in the games whenever the girls were outside. Lucy didn't like being out on her own. She was afraid of Lord Benedict's hunting dogs, and the dog boys, knowing she was scared, teased her, getting the dogs all riled up and then slipping them off the leash so they'd chase her.
"One day it went too far. The dogs had been given short rations because they were going to be taken out and they were meaner than usual, and the boys got them too riled up. The pack leader slipped his leash, took off after Lucy, and chased her into the tackroom. She tripped, and he was on her, tearing at her arm. When we heard the screams, my daughter and I came running from the kitchen, and Andrew, one of the stable lads, a real good boy, came running too.
"Lucy was on the floor, screaming and screaming with that dog tearing at her arm, and all of a sudden, there was Miss Jaenelle. She said some strange words to the dog, and he let go of Lucy right away and slunk out of the tackroom, his tail between his legs.
"Lucy was a mess, her arm all torn up, the bone sticking up where the dog had snapped it. Miss Jaenelle told Andrew to get a bucket of water quick, and she kenlt down beside Lucy and started talking to her, quiet-like, and Lucy stopped screaming. Andrew came back with the water, and Miss Jaenelle pulled out this big oval basin from somewhere, I never did notice where it came from. Andrew poured the water in the basin, and Miss Jaenelle held it for a minute, kjust held it, and the water started steaming like it was over a fire. Then she put Lucy's arm in the basin and took some leaves and powders out of her pocket and poured them in the water. She held Lucy's arm down, singing all the while, quiet. We just stood and watched. No point taking the girl to a Healer, even if we could have scraped up the coin to pay a good one. I knew that. That arm was too mangled. The best even a good Healer could have done was cut it off. So we watched, my daughter, Andrew, and me. Couldn't see much, the water all bloody like it was.
"After a while, Miss Jaenelle leaned back and lifted Lucy's arm out of the basin. There was a long, deep cut from her elbow to her wrist... and that was all. Miss Jaenelle looked each of us in the eye. She didn't have to say anything. We weren't about to tell on her. Then she handed me a jar of ointment, my daughter being too upset to do much. 'Put this ointment on three times a day, and keep it looseley bandaged for a week. If you do, there'll be no scar.'
"Then she turned to Lucy and said, 'Don't worry. I'll talk to them. They won't bother you again.'
"Prince Philip, when he found out Lucy'd gotten hurt because the dogs were chasing her, gave the dog boys a fierce tongue-lashing, but that afternoon I saw Lord Benedict pressing coins into the dog boys' hands, laughing and telling them how pleased he was they were keeping his dogs in such fine form.
"Anyway, by the next summer, my daughter married a young man from a fine, solid family. They live in a little village about thirty miles from here and I visit whenever I can get a couple of days' leave."
Daemon looked into his empty mug. "Do you think Miss Jaenelle talked to them?"
"She must have," Cook replied absently.
"So the boys stopped teasing Lucy," Daemon pressed.
"Oh, no. They went right on with it. They weren't punished for it, were they? But the dogs... after that day, there was nothing those boys could do to make the dogs chase Lucy."
TWELVE YEARS OLD.
Her face was the coldest, smoothest, most malevolent mask he had ever seen. Her sapphire eyes were maelstroms. The power in her didn't spill out in an ever-widening ring as it would have with any other witch whose temper was up, acting as a warning to whoever approached. No, it was pulling inward, spiraling downward to her core, where she would turn it outward, with devastating results. She was turning cold, cold, cold, and he was helpless to stop her, helpless to bridge the distance that was suddenly, inexplicably, between them. She twitched her shoulders from beneath his arms, and with a grace that would have made any predator envious, began to glide in front of him.
Saetan glanced up. Helene would enter the great hall at any moment--and die. He summoned the power in his Jewels, summoned all his strength. Everything was going to ride on one word.
He thrust out his right hand, the Black Jewel ablaze, stopping Jaenelle's movement. "Lady," he said in a commanding voice.
Jaenelle looked at him. He shivered but kept his hand steady. "when Protocol is being observed and a Warlord Prince makes a request of his Queen, she graciously yields to his request unless she's no longer willing to have him serve. I ask that you trust my judgment in choosing who serves us at the Hall. I ask permission to introduce you to my housekeeper, who will do her utmost to serve you well. I ask that you accompany me to the dining room for something to eat."
He had never taught her about Protocol, about the subtle checks and balances of power among the Blood. He had assumed she'd picked up the basics through day-to-day living and observation. He'd thought he would have time to teach her the fine points of interaction between Queens and dark-jeweled males. Now it was his only leash he had. If she failed to answer... "Please, witch-child," he whispered just as Helene entered the great hall and stopped.
The Darkness swirled around him. Mother Night! He'd never felt anything like this!
Jaenelle studied his right hand for a long time before slowly placing her hand over it. He shuddered, unable to control it, seeing the truth for just a moment before she kindly shut him out.
...
"Witch-child," he said in a carefully neutral voice, "why were you going to strike Helene?"
"She's a stranger."
Rocked by her cold response, Saetan's weak leg buckled. Her arms immediately wrapped around his waist, and he didn't feel the floor at all. Somewhat bemused, he looked down and tapped the floor with his shoe. He stood on air, a quarter inch above the floor. If he walked normally, it would take a keen eye to realize he wasn't walking on the floor itself. That and the lack of sound.
"It will help you," Jaenelle explained, her voice so full of apology and concern that the arm he'd been sliding around her shoulders pulled her to him in a fierce hug.
...
Helene was a stranger, true. But he had a score of names on a sheet of paper locked in his desk drawer, and all of them had been strangers once. Because Helene was an adult? No, Cassandra was an adult. So was Titian, so was Prothvar, Andulvar, and Mephis. So was he. Because Helene was living? No, that wasn't the answer either.
In frustration, he replayed the last few minutes, forcing himself to view it from a distance. The sound of footsteps, the sudden change in Jaenelle, her predatory glide... in front of him.
He stopped, suddenly, shocked, but got tugged along for a few more steps before Jaenelle realized he wasn't trying to walk.
He'd wondered what her reaction would be to being with him in Kaeleer, being with him outside the Realm he ruled, and now he knew. She cared for him. She was ready to protect him because, to her anyway, a weak leg might make him vulnerable against an adversary.
Saetan smiled, squeezed her shoulder, and began walking again.
FIFTEEN YEARS OLD.
"Let's start with moving an object." Luthvian placed a red wooden ball on her empty worktable. "Point your finger at the ball."
Jaenelle groaned but obeyed.
Luthvian ignored the groan. Apparently Jaenelle was as much of a ninny as the rest of her students. "Imagine a stiff, thin thread coming out of your fingertip and attaching itself to the ball." Luthvian waited a moment. "Now imagine your strength running through the thread until it just touches the ball. Now imagine reeling in the thread so that the ball moves toward you."
The ball didn't move. The worktable, however, did. And the built-in cupboards that filled the workroom's back wall tried to.
"Stop!" Luthvian shouted.
Jaenelle stopped. She sighed.
Luthvian stared. If it had just been the worktable, she might have dismissed it as an attempt to show off. But the cupboards?
Luthvian called in four wooden blocks and four more wooden balls. Placing them on the worktable, she said, "Why don't you work by yourself for a minute. Concentrate on lightly making the connection between yourself and the object you're trying to move. I need to look in on the other students, then I'll be back."
Jaenelle obediently turned her attention on the blocks and balls.
...
A loud whoop sent them hurrying to her workroom.
Saetan pushed the door open and froze. Luthvian started to push past him but ended up clinging to his arm for support.
The table was slowly revolving clockwise and also rotating as if it were on a spit. There were now a dozen wooden boxes, some flush to the table's top, others floating above it, and all of them were spinning slowly. Seven brightly colored wooden balls were performing an intricate dance around the boxes. And every single object was maintaining its position to that revolving, rotating table.
With a lot of effort, Luthvian thought she might be able to control something that intricate, but it should have taken years to acquire that kind of skill. You just didn't start with one ball you couldn't move and end up with this in a matter of minutes.
Saetan let out a groaning laugh.
"I think I'm getting the hang of this thread-to-object stuff," Jaenelle said as she glanced over her shoulder and grinned at them all. Then she yelped as everything began to wobble and fall.