All Tomorrow's Parties

All Tomorrow's Parties

Postby Niabh » Thu Apr 06, 2017 5:40 pm

At dawn she trotted back to her den, bow swinging from her hand, sweat drying on her back, a fresh brace of clawmarks crusted shut across her shoulderblade, nails black with dirt, and hair a bright red cloud full of tree sap. In the back of her mind, she was already considering spending tomorrow making a fresh set of arrows—she’d lost one and snapped another, leaving her with seven plain and two iron-headed. And a bath. Definitely a bath. But time enough for that tomorrow—or, judging by the pale pinkness to the sky, later today.

She arched her spine, stretched her arms and folded them back behind her head, and yawned wide enough to crack her jaw. It was nearly a chore to see to Toirneach, but she must, even though the horse snorted and tried to shy off from the smell of her before she puffed up his nose to assure him of who she was. Then he sneezed all over her front. Grand. Well, it wasn't as if she didn't have a mess of laundry to do as well. Tomorrow. All things could wait until tomorrow. She petted and talked the black shire calm again, checked his water, hauled her tired arse all the way to the lake to top him off, stripped the vest off her back and gave him a good polish. Poor patient beast. When a rider took a lover, either horse or lover was going to end up neglected, sooner or later, and it had been Toirneach's turn long enough. Another thing she could do tomorrow: take Toirneach for a nice long run. With a promise and a pat on the shoulder, she bid him good night.

The raven perched, with odd sullen delicacy, upon a loop of the blackberry bramble that barred the way to her den. The prickly brown branch bobbed but did not bend under its size. And this was remarkable not because the raven was so large—for it was; half-again as large as a common raven—but because the branch on which it sat was wrought of pure glamourie. Her secret passage through the thorns.

The bird fixed a glass-grey eye on her, shifted foot to foot, and let forth a gravelly, impatient croak that rang harsh in the pre-dawn mist.

Now. It’s happening now, she thought, and as in an echo: now? It’s happening now? Now, of all nows?

This is how the world turns: not in a day, a neat stack of hours, but in an instant. It is rarely the thrill of glancing up at the right moment to see the lightning flash, but the sudden shock of realizing that the woods are already burning.

She first put her hand on its satin back, gently pinning its head still between finger and thumb. The black bird shuddered and cut her an ugly glare, but put up no other protest. With her other hand she carefully lifted and spread its wing to reveal the colorful, unmistakable fan of red and gold coverts hidden on the underside.

She snatched both hands away as if the bird had turned hot as the sides of a forge.

What are you called?” Her tongue felt thick and furred, and her words slurred as if she were drunk. Rarely had she felt more sober. The pleasant haze of exhaustion had whipped clean away, and the world was bright and glittering, full of sharp glassy edges. Set your foot down in the wrong place and be gashed to the bone.

Leering forward, the bird gathered in its breath and let it out in a sibilant hiss, followed by a rough, gulping garrrp!

Well, that’s helpful.” She rolled her eyes. “Who sent you?” Tradition demanded the question. Three questions, and the third one would be the truth, and the truth was the message itself. But she already knew the answer, had seen it painted on its wings. Red-and-gold were clan colors. Her bard would have sent the blue-and-white. Any other color and she would fled without packing.

In answer, it puffed up its breast and pumped both wings hard enough to fan her hair in its wake. Angrily she brushed a strand away from her eyes. Insolent thing, not fit for a messenger, whoever sent it. Why was she still pretending she didn't know who sent it?

This is what you wanted, isn't it? You wanted it ten months ago, you wanted it ten days ago, and now that it's before you, you're dreading it. What was all that talk about the worst thing being the waiting, the not-knowing? Good news, bad news, you claimed not to care, so long as you knew something. Your boasts were bigger than your mouth, girl. There are worse things than ignorance and one of them sits right there staring you in the eye.

Third question. Do it all at once, like ripping off a bandage: brace yourself and say it. “What is the message?

The ebon beak fell open with a click and hung agape, like a broken hinge, but the bird's pale eyes was rapacious. Its scaly lids blinked to swallow down her reaction as her father’s rich, implacable voice issued from the raven’s throat, clear as if man himself stood over her shoulder—that voice that never failed to stiffen her back in self-defense and swell her tongue for a sharp retort. Disembodied, it had the same effect. She shrank, seeming to lose inches of height and years of age, shocked into girlish helplessness. Of course, it would be Father, the font of all bad news. Father enjoyed lacerating people with words. She'd bet he only wished he could be here to see how badly he could cut her this time.

But he was beyond reaching. She could only listen—first with dull bovine idiocy and slack jaw, then, as the message went on, with dawning despair—as the walls closed around her.

When the raven fell silent, there were immeasurably more tomorrows.
Anything can be magic if you're gullible enough.
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Niabh
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