Cider by Candlelight

Cider by Candlelight

Postby Rance » Sun Jan 19, 2014 8:28 pm

With two tin cups of cider cradled in the crook of her arm and her three-candle lantern rattling in a bandage-bound hand, Gloria Wynsee wended her way out of the Broken Dagger not long before the Crawl Moon promised to reach its highest peak. The starlight of winter set the snow glistening, and as she crunched quickly toward the stables, she fancied herself a dragon, blowing great bursts of cloudy breath out in front of her.

The door to the stables was a challenge with her hands as full as they were, but with a few inspiring nudges of her elbow, the cloaked figure found her way into the squat stables. Within, horses prattled senselessly in their sleep, occasionally nickering with almost thunderous volume at the prairie-fantasies clogging their dreams. Despite her dislike for the beasts, she skulked precariously across the hay-packed floor, daring not to awaken a single one of them as she angled herself for the splintering ladder that stretched from the loft above like some ever-sagging tongue. A few splatters of cider steamed on the wool of her sleeve.

When she reached the bottom of the ladder, she looked toward the furthest stall -- Stay asleep, Caliir! she begged in her mind -- before lifting up her chin, that she might peer into the darkness of the hayloft above.

"Cherny," she said, her voice a delicate hiss. "Cherny, are you awake? It's me. It's your sister. I can't sleep." She locked the heel of her boot against the bottom rung, scraping dung and snow free.

"Send down your bucket on a knot, won't you? My hands are full. I cannot climb with just my feet, and I come bearing gifts."
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Cherny » Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:24 am

The stables are never entirely silent, even at night - the beasts breathe and shift in their stalls, and there are countless smaller rustlings among straw and rafters and thatch; these latter fall abruptly silent as the girl wrestles with the stable door, and the shadows hold countless beady eyes that spark in the flickering light of her lantern.

Late enough that the stables are settled, the beasts slumbering and the stablehands gone to homes or the town's taverns for the night; not so late that the squire was quite asleep, given the small delay between Gloria's whispered query and the stirring from overhead. He peers down a moment later, blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and grins at the sight of his visitor before disappearing from view.

It's not long before the pail descends on a rope looped over a beam, as if hauling water from a well; this vessel, however, promises something altogether more warming to drink, and he hauls up once the mugs are secure within, careful to keep its ascent as steady as possible. He leads the way to his end of the loft with a light tread in bare feet, familiar with which boards can be trusted not to creak underfoot; he claims a corner under the rafters as his own, divided from the rest of the space by sackcloth curtains now held courteously aside for the girl to precede him with her lantern. Beyond, a nest of straw-stuffed bedding and patched blankets; his squire's garb in a neatly-folded pile to one side; a little stack of dog-eared books, his library, to another; a plate from the tavern bears scant witness to his supper in the form of a few crumbs.

"C-careful with the l-light." A whispered caution, and by light he means flame; the building is well-constructed, rebuilt after being destroyed by a dragon, so the stablehands told him, but it means the straw stays dry, and the boy is ever watchful against sparking a fire.
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Rance » Mon Jan 20, 2014 10:06 am

She deposited the mugs of cider into the bucket, then watched as Cherny lifted them toward the loft. Managing the ladder was much easier with only the lantern. As she climbed it, she straddled it with her thick knees as if she feared that at any moment it might collapse, give way, send her plummeting to the stable's floor.

Up in the loft, she led her way with the lantern, her cloak clenched at her breast by her gloved hand. She hunched over the light, the sweat-blackened hem of her nightgown tangling around her feet as she passed through the burlap that separated a makeshift anteroom from the squire's secluded corner of the loft.

"Of course I'll be careful. If I wanted to burn down your home," she whispered, her eyebrows smiling before her lips ever could, "don't you think I'd have set fire to it outside?"

She hung the three-candle lantern and its tin carriage from a rusted nail driven into the slanted eaves, then blew a breath into her palms and scrubbed her dry hands with what little warmth it could afford. Her shoulders were tense, galvanizing herself against the bitter cold that snaked its way in through the gaps of the barn's wallplanks. Carefully, as not to disturb the order of his stacked books, she lowered herself down to sit on one corner of his hay-filled ticking and tucked her elbows between her knees, trying to ward off the chill.

She reached for one of his tattered blankets, draped it like a robe across her shoulders, and opened an arm beneath it that he might join her.

"I try to sleep with her at the Rememdium. Zinniah," she said, holding out her cheesecloth-wrapped hand for the handle of a cider-mug. "But my mind plays tricks on me; I fear she hears what I think, that her Eye somehow sees through my skin and my skull and knows what words dance through my head. I toss and turn. She tosses and -- and turns."

The excuse dissolved in the air before she tried to squint beyond the radiance of the hanging lamp. In the orange light, ebbing and diminishing shadows played a scene across the wooden diorama of the loft.

"Is Son here," she whispered. "Or -- or is he out, Cherny?"
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Cherny » Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:15 am

"'S n-not about wanting to. To b-burn it." Uncomfortable with even the idea of it, an unconscious glance for the lantern to be sure it's secure. "It's m-more about accidents."

The squire plays host as best he is able - ensuring that his guest is comfortable, that she has the good blanket, handing over her mug of cider once she's settled. This corner of the loft at least is as free of draughts as a boy can make it, strips of rough cloth stuffed into the cracks between planks or nailed over the wider gaps; the better part of the warmth comes from the beasts sleeping in their stalls below, the air laden with the scents of horse sweat and old dung and sweet hay. Whatever small creatures infest the thatch and rafters tentatively resume their activities, a scratching sussurus that blends into the horse-noises from below.

Cherny accepts that offered arm, taking a moment to get comfortable against his sister's ribs, knees pressed against his narrow chest and toes curled into a fold of blanket. He listens as Gloria explains her misgivings, her fears, and he nods slightly.

"I think she's p-probably as m-mended as, as she's g-going to be. She w-won't need to stay there m-much longer." Which leaves the worry of where she'll live after that. Too cold for her to live in the woods, too cold and rumours of wild beasts besides - man-eaters, from the hushed murmurs he's caught here and there. "She c-could stay here, maybe - there's p-plenty of space - long as she c-can manage the ladder." It's an idea, but one he's yet to broach with Son. Not properly, anyway, for all that it seems to have crossed his mind as well.

Hope she likes fuckin' rats in her bed.

The seamstress' question has him shaking his head before taking a sip of cider, glancing towards the older boy's end of the loft, where he's made his own den.

"He's out l-late. Checking his t-traps, probably. He's h-having to, to p-put them further out in the w-woods now, he says. Too many p-people hunting close t-to town."
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Rance » Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:47 pm

He was the warmth of a hearthside; she was the heat of a blacksmith's furnace. He had always been so small, so deceptively diminutive, a needle of a boy; she had always been larger for her age, taller, wider, who'd barely been able to comfortably perch herself in the chairs at Rhaena Olwak's schoolhouse. Moments like these, size was an advantage. Her arm nearly swallowed him when it wrapped about his shoulder, and though her fingers were slick with tarsweat, they too were as hot as a Sun. They made a clumsy attempt to massage warmth into his bony limbs.

"Combining blind girls with ladders and lofts is -- is a misery in the making, no matter how careful either of you are. You could put her into the bucket to lift her up and down--" she tilted her tin mug of cider toward the pail, grinning from behind the steam, "--but you'd invite disaster. And Son..."

She took a long draught of the cider, preferring its burn on her lips and tongue to the touch of the bitter cold.

"I saw his eyes when he looked at her the other night, Cherny," the girl offered quietly, a careful assessment that tried to crawl its way around offense. "They had a flint-spark. Wary and unsure. Strung as -- as tight as a lute-hair. He's our friend, but -- but he's volatile at times. The way we all can be, but--"

Hope she likes fuckin' rats in her bed.

She shifted so that her cloaks and nightgown-folds were draped across his knees, another makeshift source of warmth. She clapped her mug very gently against his, a cheers, a salute, and watched the boy over the ribbon of cinnamon sticking like a lost oar out of her cider.

That they both thought of those words -- rats in her bed -- at nearly the same moment was simply a matter of coincidence.

"Tell me about the rats, t'oddah," Gloria said. "About why he said what he said."
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Cherny » Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:57 pm

Without his coat, without his mailshirt, all pretense at mass is stripped away; he is a bundle of sticks, of skinny limbs for all that the summer's work has honed him. He feels the cold easily, so his sister's warmth is as welcome as the spice-heat of the cider.

"She m-might stay with Ser C-catch - I, I think th-they're friends again. She knows it w-was an accident. H-her eyes." Unwilling to be more specific, to think too closely upon the incident that had robbed the girl of her sight. Son, though.

"She s-saw into his head - n-not on purpose, but she s-saw something he d-didn't want anyone knowing, so he... h-he's careful of her now." Mistrustful, even fearful, a resentful caution against getting too close to the girl, lest she see more. Quiet for a time, before eventually he shrugs, ready as ever to make excuses for his friends, to be understanding of their difficulties, their flaws. "H-he's just hungry, m-mostly. S-same as everyone. It, it makes p-people quarrelsome."

The dull clunk of tankards rouses a small smile, drawing him back from worrying over the future - what will become of him, what will become of his friends. A slow sip of cider, as much for the fragrant steam as for the drink itself, and Gloria's question - her request - has him shrugging again, though there is something faintly evasive in how his gaze turns to the shadowed corners of the loft, the crumb-flecked plate and stacked books.

"Th-there's rats in the r-roof." Thin fingers unfold from around his mug long enough to gesture towards the rafters and battens above their heads, even now filled with a soft rustle of movement. "They're n-no trouble, though. They know t-to stay clear of, of h-him. They'd n-not go in his b-bed."
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Rance » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:54 am

"Would Catch know," she asked, "how to care for a little girl? She's different than -- than you or I, or even Son; there are needs that will vary for her. It's a struggle of its own color to -- to try to get Mister Catch to properly care for himself, let alone a child like Zinniah.

"And should her father return to find Mister Catch caring for her? It is best we do not invite additional problems. That," Gloria added, with sober simplicity, "would be a conversation that ends with blood."

All they had were their words. Occasionally, the wind blew against the walls, giving a great and protesting howl just behind them. She was careful with her volume as she spoke to Cherny, scarcely letting her voice raise beyond the threshold of a whisper. Clutching the handle of the mug as tightly as she was, she could feel the warmed tin burning against her knuckles, but in opposition to the chill of the loft, it was a welcome heat, a stirring, awakening satisfaction against her flesh.

"Rats in the roof," she repeated, before slanting her attention toward the dark corner where Son's bedrolls were bound to be. The scrabbling, scampering amid the rafters and eaves only then managed to draw her. Hundreds of little eyes, she imagined, peering down upon them, tails like worms slithering behind, a scraping army of vermin just beyond the edges of their sight. Her shoulders tightened. A wary heel pinned the edge of her dirty nightgown to the floor of the loft, afraid one might lunge from the shadows and use her leg as a climbing-post.

He gestured; she pinched the stick of rolled cinnamon out of her drink, sucked its edge free of any diluted cider, and then violently prodded at his cheek with it.

"You seem to -- to know a great deal about these rats. And like your friends, you seem to think they're capable of nothing untoward.

"But we all are, Cherny. So why," she quietly inquired, "would there have been rats in Son's bed?"
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Cherny » Tue Jan 21, 2014 9:28 am

"He w-wouldn't need to care f-for her. She just n-needs a, a roof. Somewhere t-to stay." Faith in the girl's ability to fend for herself, as if forgetting how she'd arrived half-frozen and on the brink of starvation. The matter of Zilliah, though, is a harder one to dismiss, and he sips at his cider to conceal his lack of answers.

"W-wouldn't even be a c-conversation." Blood like molten gold, crawling, writhing. He shudders at the memory, and pushes such talk firmly away.

Rats, then.

"They k-keep to their own b-business." As if describing neighbours with whom he is on civil terms, unobjectionable; the seamstress' nervous fussing with her clothes is quietly noted with a grin. "And s-stay out of sight so they d-don't get--"

Whatever he might've been saying is interrupted by a stick of spice-bark jabbing at his face, which has him wrinkling his nose and rubbing at the damp spot left behind, an elbow for her ribs in the moment after.

"Th-they are my friends." An admission that's unlikely to delight the girl, certainly not without further explanation. "They know n-not to bother Son, I've t-told them. And, and they've s-seen him skinning rabbits and s-squirrels, so they know to s-stay clear."
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Rance » Tue Jan 21, 2014 12:24 pm

He elbowed her ribs, she blurted out a squeak, tucking her arm against the tender ridges of her side. A victorious smile followed. She raised the bitter edge of the damp cinnamon ribbon and crunched it between her teeth. Perhaps her lack of surprise or disgust at his expression of having rodent friends was telling. He was, after all, still a boy; like she still had husk-doll named Soodsy that she kept warm in her bedsheets -- a child's fare of comfort -- then so might he either imagine or reflect upon these vermin a likeness of friendship.

This domain was Cherny's. A private world in his loft, wherein he was king and the rats, the mice, were his vassals.

"You've told them not to bother him?" she asked. "Like how you did with the crows, to retrieve the buttons or the bits of bread?"

Her cider was finished not long after she'd started drinking it. The fluid heavied her gut like a hearth-warmed stone. She carefully placed the mug between her feet and squarely readjusted the edges of the blanket. Wherever it shrugged nearly off his shoulders, she raised it to better encompass him. While he might have offered to share the finer coverlet with her, she surreptitiously gave him more of it, trying to bundle Cherny's fragile arms in the folds of the fabric.

Behind her eyes, thoughts held hands in a jig. She averted her dull gaze toward the shadows of Son's loft-corner.

"A few weeks back, there was an incident. I can't be sure why or -- or how it came about, but Son was in a particularly miserable state. He and Noura and I were speaking; we were speaking, and he took the whole corpse of a bird -- without caring that it was raw, let alone simply ignoring that it had not yet been plucked of its feathers -- and ate it.

"His eyes," she said, "were off. He was frightened, angry, and furious, like a dog you might corner. Noura said he'd some kind of Hunger, not the type that simply comes about for want of food, but something more innate. As native as my tarsweat. As natural as your hair."

The reasoning was circuitous. Her volume was gentle, reasonable. She plucked at a few errant threads on a fraying edge of the blanket.

"The rats may be your friends, Cherny, but perhaps to Son they're -- they're just meat on bones."
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Cherny » Wed Jan 22, 2014 5:12 am

"Like w-with the crows." That she's made the connection herself makes things easier, means he needn't explain. She understands. "They've b-been learning tricks."

A subtle distance there; They've been learning rather than I've been teaching them. Something they've been doing of their own volition, rather than something he's made them do. Made them into.

He nurses his drink, valuing the warmth of the mug as it seeps into his fingers, the spiced fumes inhaled with each sip, listening as the seamstress recounts an incident. A few weeks back, and it doesn't take much for the boy to deduce what might have caused the older boy's foul mood.

"H-he was sweet on N-noura." His voice a quiet whisper, as if wary of Son overhearing even in his absence. "She's s-sweet on Sir Elliot and, and t-told him so. Told S-son." The rest he can leave to Gloria's imagination - she's seen the result, that particularly dark temper that had him devouring--

"He'd n-not." An immediate protest against what the seamstress suggests, a firm shake of his head in denial of the possibility. "He, he knows I've m-made friends with them, and th-they know not to bother h-him. So he'd not d-do that." Offended on Son's behalf, as if she's accused him of some manner of depravity - no matter that the townsfolk are getting less picky about their food as the winter deepens.

There's a way to settle the matter, though, to find the truth of it, and the boy sits up, dark eyes peering into the shadowed corners of the loft. Searching. Listening. After a moment of this he clicks his tongue against his teeth.

"Forzo." Hoarse voice raised from its previous whisper as if to call a comrade's attention; by no means the sing-song tones one might use to summon a pet. "Here, p-please."

The thatch, grown quiet for a time, now rustles with activity, a scratching and stirring among the close-woven straw. At length there comes movement at the sackcloth curtains, a dark shape at the periphery of the lantern's radiance; it pauses, sitting back on its haunches, eyes gleaming in the candlelight until the boy taps at his kneecap and clicks his tongue again.

What emerges from the shadows is a sleek buck rat, his fur dark and glossy where it is not marred by healing scabs and older scars. Large - perhaps a foot and a half long, though more than half of that is tail - and entirely fearless as he scrambles up to perch on the boy's knee, pink paws folded neatly over his chest; he inclines his head as Cherny lifts a hand to scratch affectionately between the rat's ears.

"Forzo, th-this is Gloria; she's my s-sister, and showed m-me threadwork." To the girl, then: "Gloria, th-this is Forzo."

The rat, at this introduction, fixes the seamstress with a gaze that glitters with unseemly intelligence, appraising, before dipping his head in a polite bow.
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Rance » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:30 am

All that she could say or offer, within the desire to seek out logic, was dashed away as this figure came forward--

Forzo. A loyal.

A rat.

Watch children play; observe their quarrels and rivalries, and how they taunt and tease one another; the fledglings shout and flap among themselves, a bluster of drab feathers and hoarse voices, but no dagger-beaks seek flesh, no claws rake or scratch. The victorious young crow baits its siblings with that scrap of bread, and is chased by a raucous pack in return until it finally gulps down the morsel when it seems as if it might otherwise lose it. The thwarted pursuers grumble and protest for a while before returning their attention to seamstress and mill-boy, jostling for the best position in anticipation of the next throw.

Months ago, a half-year past, it had been crows; now, as they sat huddled and siphoning one another's warmth beneath the folds of rough blankets, a black beast stood before them. Forzo, he was called; Forzo, a servant to a brilliant boy's tongue, perched on its hind legs like a rat'vak waiting to be bid to work; Forzo, with eyes like little darting oil-drops and pink forehands almost too human in their latent poise.

Her discomfort was ephemeral. Her heels shifted back, graciously limiting any opportunities for further inspection beneath her garments should the little creature have deemed such an act necessary. Instead, like a trained and observant student, Forzo darted up the length of Cherny's trousers and perched upon his knee.

Gloria, as she had when she'd seen the grackles peck, blubber, squabble, and obey, wheezed out a little laugh.

Rats. Cherny was introducing her to a rat.

"Hello, Forzo," the girl coolly retorted, rathering to play than be aghast, for in both birds and mice she'd known similar intelligence. "Hello, you fine little fellow," she said, another greeting, before she carefully lifted the curl of a gauze-wrapped knuckle for the black rat's continued appraisal--

"He reminds me of Morsel," she said. "Does--"

(Did it bow; did it just bow like a proper little man?)

"Does Son know," she asked her brother. "Of this. Of Forzo. Does he know?"
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Cherny » Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:16 pm

Rarely might one see a rat so close - or one might hope that it is rarely if not never, such is the common fear and mistrust of such vermin. This specimen, though, is exemplary; so close and so still it is possible to make an examination, to note the constant shiver of whiskers and nose as he scents the air; the subtle movements of rounded ears in response to the stirring and rustling in the loft's corners and shadows; the dexterity of those forepaws, claw-tipped digits well suited to climbing and gripping, hands in all but name; a glimpse of yellow incisors as he lifts his head briefly to the rafters, before returning his attention to the seamstress; the texture of that long tail as it curls about the boy's knee for balance.

And yet it is his stillness that marks him apart; his poise, sitting patiently as the boy strokes a fingertip from brow to tail. Watchful without being nervous, cautious without being fearful. Dignified. A brief look to Cherny as Gloria lifts her hand; a small nod from the boy, and Forzo accepts the girl's touch, should she dare. Tolerates, though the scent of tarsweat has him snorting and scrubbing his whiskers after an exploratory sniff.

"H-he's brave and, and clever. I'd l-leave crusts and s-stuff after supper and, and h-he'd come to g-get them. So I k-kept doing it, and m-made friends." A note of pride there, a small and furtive smile at having befriended such a fine little fellow. Tempered, however, by a frown of concern as his touch passes over some hidden wound, eliciting a flinch and chatter of warning from the rat.

"He k-keeps getting in f-fights, though." A more careful investigation follows, brushing back dark guard hairs and lighter undercoat to expose a line of raw flesh where teeth have raked close to the rat-captain's spine. Not deep, but still uncomfortable.

Gloria's question draws a momentary glance and a nod as he gently smooths Forzo's fur again.

"H-he knows. He's s-seen Forzo do t-tricks, he, he knows, so he'd--" The boy pauses as the rat interrupts with a burst of chittering, and with it - faint, like a moth beating its wings against glass - a fluttering of impressions, of thoughts arrayed into something like speech; not the strident mental bellowing of Many-Fights but similar, nearly too quick to follow.

Cherny listens; understands, as dark brows lift in mild surprise, and he speaks with the irregular cadence of an interpreter, struggling between hearing the message and translating it.

"H-he's tried to... to make friends with F-forzo before. With f-food." Another pause, listening as the rat continues. "B-but he - they, th-the rats - they've watched S-son eating, and he... he's t-too hungry for them t-to get close."

The boy wears a perplexed frown by the end of it, puzzling over this news; it's only after a moment that he seems to remember his audience, turning a hesitant gaze to his sister, uncertain as to the reaction this little display might provoke.

"Rats are c-clever." Wincing almost as soon as the words have left his lips, entirely aware of how unconvincing they are as any kind of explanation.
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Rance » Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:52 pm

Twitching whiskers, an inquiring nose; her touch was accepted, if begrudgingly, and those forepaws stroked with due diligence at the offense offered the creature's most valuable bastion of sense.

"Fights," she said, "are nature, aren't they? He will get into fights; I will get into fights. You can only wring it out of him as much as you can out of me, Cherny. Forzo is -- is a clever sort, but he's still a rat; I like to think I'm a clever sort, too, but I'm a Jerno.

"And here, there are a lot more rats that are a lot less clever than he is."

What she knew of rats had come mostly from what few books they'd been mentioned in. Often, they were vessels of sickness, carriers of yellow blood or bad air that were only as valuable as the grain they thieved or the goods they pilfered. They were fat, procreating, vicious little creatures that had no consideration except for their own kingdoms; and yet, they still fought, they still did battle amid one another, asserting their dominance and power among their fellows. A month ago, sixty days ago, these facts might have come out of her as quickly as water from a punctured bucket, but a Chairwoman's words--

Look at her! Look at the color of her skin! She arrived just before the Storyteller did, and she wormed her way into the government!

Reconsideration. A bout of patience, a chance for scarred Forzo to be more.

Cherny's judgment, afterall, was all too often impeccable, untarnished.

There was an exchange, and she sat by in the chill of the loft, hunched beneath a shared blanket as audience. The rat tittered, heckled, ground out noise from between his piercing teeth, and her brother -- impeccable, untarnished -- reflected the words with intermittent pauses. At first, as she mourned the last droplets of her spiced cider, she didn't understand, but it was Cherny's pace that brought the realization to fruition.

Another language. Nouns and verbs as twitches, croaks, and motions; descriptions and expressions carried on vehicles of chitters and tiny bursts of rodent-breath. And more, idiomatic phrases that Cherny seemed to see through, invisible to her but wholly logical to him. To any others, this would have been -- like dolls, like friends found in vermin and carrion-seekers -- fare for children; but to her, it was no game or jest because to Cherny, it was neither.

A thousand leagues away, disconnected from their quiet conversation, she observed the truth well before Cherny softly encouraged her to understand it:

Rats are c-clever.

"Ask him," she ventured, a purpose unspoken in the simplicity of her inquiry, "what he thinks of me already, Cherny, and bid him to be true."

She'd seen girls commune with ghosts.

She'd seen Songs, in a Dream, herald Destruction and ensure Creation.

For all the curiosity etched on her dark face, for all the excitement bound inside of her as she and the boy hovered over this fantastic specimen of a creature, she never thought she'd believe that rats, however c-clever, could speak.

And she must be sure of it.
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Cherny » Wed Jan 22, 2014 3:10 pm

Fights are nature... and yet the boy dislikes them, resents them for the marks they leave in the flesh, in scarred skin and twisted bones. Fights are inevitable, and yet he cannot help but hate them even as he trains in scrapping and sparring, learns how best to end them.

He might have expected her to react with startlement, with confusion or fear; might have expected her to shun this show of cleverness as unseemly, unnatural. He is braced for this, and yet she responds with curiosity - cautious, yes, but ready to at least consider the truth of it, to explore what is, on the face of it, an impossibility.

Forzo watches her with bead-black eyes as she speaks, as she asks, and even before Cherny can begin to repeat her query the rat-captain is chattering again, tiny sounds too high for a human throat to imitate and yet - if one pays attention, if one listens - there is a rhythm to it, hints of syntax and inflection that gives rapid beast-sounds the impression of words.

"He says y-you... smell bad." The boy offers an apologetic grimace as he translates, but his sister had demanded truth. "L-like bitter... b-bitter burned wood and sick eggs. You d-didn't... didn't bring any f-food to share, but you've b-been... been kind and g-given me warm - warmth. So you're a f-friend and--"

The rat turns, lifts his narrow features to the rafters, giving voice to something that can only be a summons. A moment later another rat appears - smaller, younger than Forzo, his posture and movements clearly deferential as he halts, hunched and attentive beside Cherny's foot. The rat captain addresses his subordinate from his perch on the squire's knee, twittering speech punctuated by quick gestures to indicate the seamstress.

"He's t-telling that other one... you're a f-friend to the... to me, and to t-tell the others." No sooner has the boy finished his translation than the underling is dismissed by a flick of handlike paws, bowing deeply as he returns to the shadows.

The boy and his rat both turn back to the seamstress then with an air of quiet expectation, as if gauging her response.

"Anything else?"
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Re: Cider by Candlelight

Postby Rance » Thu Jan 23, 2014 4:00 am

There was a mesmerizing quality to the rat's speech. No matter how closely she listened, all she might ever hear would be the rhythm, the pace of the titters, the beginning and the end of rodent expressions. If she were to trust that this was happening at all -- even your brother can fantasize, Gloria; even Cherny can make-believe -- she was more inclined to cede to Cherny the responsibility of knowing, of translating--

She snorted into her emptied mug of cider while she smiled down at Forzo.

"Sick eggs," she said, feigning exasperation. She lifted from her tin mug the rod of cinnamon, and like an extension of peace, nudged it toward the scar-spined rodent. "And I bet, Forzo, were I to put my nose into your backside, it'd smell no better."

The rat spoke truth; Cherny, had the words been entirely his own, had he been left to imagine Forzo's response, might have overlooked or eschewed the matter of her odor; no, the rat's truth was necessary, and in that moment, she warmed with a kinship to the chittering, wary little being.

Another figure skulked and skittered from the shadows. An emissary. Where there were two, she imagined, there must be ten; where there must be ten, there must be a hundred. She looked upon Cherny with silent inquiry, her eyebrows lancing high. Here, in the audience of two rats, she knew she was in the court of so many more. Her gaze crept into the shadows beyond the circle of lantern-light that surrounded her and her brother, wondering if they all saw her, if they all heard, understood.

"I've not got much more food than this, Forzo," she said, finally tilting the edge of the mug toward him, "but what few drops of the cider remain are yours, if -- if it suits you. Consider it an offering for your honesty."

The messenger-rat vanished. The boy and the rat looked to her eagerly.

If this was a court, a kingdom, then she was a foreigner, a diplomat. And when Cherny asked, Anything else? she nodded.

"Forzo," she said. "Can you tell me if you know anything about the dead rats left in the other boy's bed?"
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