Completed A day out

[Sorla]

25th of Spring 517

She was woken by the soft weight of Rikar landing on her feet. He had spent the night perched haphazardly on the door handle and was eager to get on with the day. She would have to get him a perch. And something to eat - even if she was able to claim any mice the inn's resident cat left lying around, it wouldn't be enough to keep him fully fed. She sighed. Living on her own was going to be expensive. Time to get a job.

She remembered that the woman at the Sanity Centre had suggested a tailor's shop called... The Torn Thread? The Threadbare Something? She couldn't remember the exact name but she would recognise it when she saw it, and as there was no way of asking directions in this crazy city anyway she might as well just walk until she found it. She washed her face as best she could at the fountain in the inn's courtyard. If she was going to ask for a job she should probably look her best. She combed her hair and redid her plaits, and wrapped her father's silk scarf around her neck. It would have to do, although her worn, dusty, patchwork travelling clothes didn't exactly scream 'hire me'.

She headed out into her new city with a mixture of excitement and apprehension, Rikar perched happily on her shoulder. She had found him as a tiny abandoned chick and raised him herself - with some help from the falconry teacher in Wind Reach, of course - and he was more like a family member than a pet, let alone a mere hunting tool. Like all Inarta she was able to connect with birds on a level that most others couldn't even imagine. As they walked she made a mental note to keep an eye out for anything she might be able to find and repurpose as a perch.

For the first chime she seemed unable to get away from the Cubacious Inn. The first time she turned a corner to see its spinning yellow cubes, she merely laughed. She had been warned to expect craziness, after all, and this didn't seem too bad in the grand scheme of things. But by the fourth time it came into view, she was feeling pretty fed up. Was this a trick Ionu was playing on her specifically? Or had the city actually shifted during the night so that there was simply no way out of the area? If so, how long would it last? She had no idea what the normal length of a shift was - if it could be described as normal at all. The fifth time she decided to go back into the inn and ask. The innkeeper looked at her with pity. 'Don't expect sunrise at dusk,' she said cryptically, and went back to her papers. 'Would it help if I prayed to Ionu, do you think?' Sorla asked after a pause. The woman smiled even more cryptically. 'It depends on your definition of help.' That was clearly all she was going to get, so Sorla thanked her uncertainly and headed back out.

She wasn't sure she wanted to get involved with the trickster deity for now. The city was enough to contend with on its own. She started walking again, and noticed that the ground looked different. All morning it had been cobbled, and had looked surprisingly normal - except for the way it kept looping back on itself without her noticing. But now it was glinting strangely. The cobbles looked wet, although there had been no rain. She bent down to touch a stone and felt that it was smooth, like warm ice. It was as if all the cobbles were enveloped in a thin film of glass. It was strangely beautiful.

When a chime later she had still not been sent back to her starting point, she allowed herself to hope she had escaped the loop. After another thirty bells she was in what felt like a completely different part of the city. There was a large building visible down a side road, much bigger than she had seen before. It had no windows but there were people pouring in and out of the entrance. She was intrigued. And when she stepped inside, she couldn't repress a gasp. As big as the building had looked from the street, it was at least twice that size now, and absolutely packed with the most colourful and disparate array of people and goods she had ever seen. Row upon row of more or less well-built stalls stretched into the distance, although once she started walking she quickly found herself in a maze of small, zigzagging alleyways instead of a long row. There were shops selling jewellery, drums, rope, fishing bait, dried fruit, ornately beaded pointy slippers, daggers with carved bone handles and a bewildering array of things she didn't even have names for.

She stopped when she saw a single bag on a table in the middle of an alley. When she reached out to untie the drawstrings and have a look inside, a sharp voice warned her to stop. She pulled back, embarassed. She hadn't even noticed there was anyone there, but sure enough a wizened old man emerged from the shadows of a nearby stall and approached her.

'Ten gold mizas,' he said. 'Will you buy?'
'What's inside?' Sorla asked.
The man looked shocked. 'How am I supposed to know?' he said in annoyance.
Sorla faltered. 'But... if you don't know what's inside, how do you know it's worth ten gold mizas? And how am I supposed to know if I want to buy it or not?'
'That's the point,' he said. 'Pot luck. Will you buy?'
Sorla thought she understood. 'I see, so whatever's in the bag is worth ten gold mizas, but I won't know what it is until I've opened it... that sounds interesting, I'll give it a go.'
She handed over ten gold mizas, picked up the bag, and eagerly opened it to see her prize. For ten gold mizas it was sure to be something fine... it was a plain, child's size leather jacket. She turned indignantly on the old man.
'You said it was worth ten gold mizas, this isn't even worth one! I want my money back!'
The man looked at her. 'I never said it was worth ten gold mizas,' he stated calmly.
'Yes you did, it was the first thing you said!' The anger was rising hot in her chest, and Rikar could sense it. He flapped his wings and eyed the man beadily.
'I said the chance to open the bag was worth ten gold mizas, not what was in it,' he replied in the same calm voice.
She opened her mouth to protest but realized he was right. After all the reminders she had given herself to be careful in this city of smoke and mirrors, she had been tricked by the first person she'd spoken to. She had no use for a child's leather jacket, and she had just wasted ten precious gold mizas, but there was no point getting angry with the man. It was her own fault. She reached up a hand to soothe Rikar and tucked the leather jacket under her arm defiantly. She might not need it, but she certainly wasn't going to abandon it. It was her prize, after all.
The man's voice echoed after her as she marched off down the alley. 'Next time you might have better luck...'

[Sorla]

The market stalls seemed to stretch away infinitely. Sorla half wondered if she'd ever be able to find the entrance again, but she was so captivated by the exotic displays, each more wondrous than the last, that she didn't really mind. A person could live in here and never lack for anything, she thought.

The next thing to catch her eye was a little shop selling cloth. The cloth was draped over poles running along the roof, so that to enter the stall was like entering a silken jungle. There were piles of jewel-coloured material stacked on the floor - ruby red, amethyst purple, emerald green, topaz yellow. She ran her hand over a long piece of mustard velvet, pushing back against the grain of the material to feel a satisfying tug on her skin. There were so many hanging drapes that the shop needed numerous candles despite the bright light outside, and the cloth seemed even more luminous in the flickering glow. Further in, a woman was sitting on a crate, sewing expertly. Sorla watched the deft, quick movements of her hands in awe. Here was someone who understood the art of tailoring, perhaps better even that Sorla's father. Hanging on a wall behind the woman were needles, thimbles, pins, scissors, bobbins, pin cushions... there were needles of a fineness Sorla had never seen before, and articles the couldn't even name.

The woman looked up from her work and appraised her with cool blue eyes. 'Can I help you?' she asked. Sorla hesitated for a moment. She thought about asking the woman for a job, but suddenly felt very aware of her dirty, threadbare clothes. They were covered in coarse patches that she had sewn on with a rough, loose hand, with no concern for neatness or regularity. How could she present herself as a tailor when she apparently couldn't even keep her own clothes together? And it would be good to practice with proper tools again before asking someone to pay her for what would undoubtedly be shoddy work until she'd got back into the rhythm of it. 'I'd like to buy a sewing kit,' she found herself saying. 'A basic one,' she added, glancing at the equipment arrayed on the wall. Some of it was clearly far more expensive than she was able to pay right now, from decorative carvings on thimbles to intricately engraved scissor handles.

The woman handed her a wooden box containing a variety of sewing tools, as well as some grey thread on a spool, a pencil and paper, some buttons and a sheet of instructions. They were for garments she had never made before - her experience was limited to the traditional Inarta clothing of loose, flowing bryda trousers and a simple wraparound or halterneck vinata top. She hadn't even started learning how to make a katinu overcoat by the time she left. Sorla thanked the woman and gave her 18 gold mizas. She also bought 5 square yards of green cotton and a spool of green thread. After looking longingly at the sumptuous fabrics for a little longer, she left the shop with her purchases stuffed securely into her backpack.

Her next focus was Rikar. She still hadn't got him a perch, and he would be hungry by now. She bought him some scraps of meat from a butcher's stall and tossed them in the air for him to catch. It wasn't ideal - she preferred him to have actual mice or other small animals to eat rather than pre-cut chunks of beef, because he seemed to enjoy being able to tear at the carcasses like he would in the wild. But it would have to do for now. She bought enough to feed him for the next day or two, but she couldn't buy more in case it went rotten. She was still on the lookout for a perch, but as she turned a corner and saw the entrance to the market, she realized that it was already late afternoon outside. The light inside the Bizarre hadn't changed at all - in fact, where was it coming from? She looked for windows but the towering walls were completely blank. Another Alvadas mystery. How had the day run away from her like that? Shaking her head, she went back out into the city. If she didn't start heading back to her inn now, she might not get there before dark.

[Sorla]

After about half a bell of the aimless wandering she had learned to trust would eventually lead her to her destination, Sorla’s attention was drawn by a little crowd of children gathered around a small wooden booth. The wood was faded red, and painted with gold curlicues. She moved closer, intrigued. The children were all laughing happily, and she could see two little puppets bobbing up and down in the interior of the booth. One of the puppets, an old woman dressed in brown and green, with a rake in one hand and a large hat covered in apples on her head, was chasing the other puppet, a small boy. He was clearly meant to be the child of one of the rich families of Alvadas, with his tiny yellow bowtie and puffy blue shorts. Every time the old farmer woman caught up with him, she would smack him on the bottom with her rake, provoking a high-pitched squeal from the boy and a wave of laughter from the watching children. Sorla couldn’t help noticing that most of the audience seemed very grubby, and many were dressed in little more than rags. She smiled to see the poor things enjoying themselves on a sunny late afternoon, and couldn’t suppress a smile at the antics of the puppets either. After watching for a few chimes, she turned to continue her journey. As she left, a serious-looking child with bright pink eyes appeared out of nowhere and stood in front of her, holding out a floppy hat for coins. She didn’t speak, just stared at her with those strange eyes. Sorla had just spent what felt like much too much money at the market, and anyway she’d only watched for a couple of chimes, so with a small shake of her head and an apologetic half smile, she walked away.

Several bells later, she still hadn’t found her way home. Night had well and truly fallen by the time she turned a corner and saw with astonishment that the little puppet stand from that afternoon was in front of her again, although she was not walking along the same streets as before. What a strange coincidence, that it should have shifted but still remained in her path. There were no children in front of it this time, just a few shifty looking adults, and as she got closer she could see that the puppets were very different from the whimsical, slapstick ones she had been so amused by earlier. She was about to walk on, in a hurry to get home, but a puppet with flame-red hair caught her eye. It was wearing loose green trousers – just like the ones she planned to make, she realised with a start. She pushed to the front, unable to take her eyes off her tiny likeness, although still trying to convince herself that this, too, was a coincidence.

[Sorla]

With mounting horror, Sorla realised that the puppet was supposed to be her. The girl puppet with the red hair and green trousers had green eyes, too, like hers, and a tiny black crow perched on its shoulder. She glanced around at the audience, embarrassed in case anyone had noticed the resemblance, but nobody was giving her a second look. Or perhaps she was imagining the resemblance... as she watched, she was forced to admit that it was no imagination.

The Sorla puppet was walking alone through a stone hall - just like the caves in Wind Reach - represented by a backdrop of rough grey paper. When it reached the end of the stage, it turned round and started walking back the other way. Two other puppets popped up at the far end so that she was now walking towards them. They were a tall, muscular young man, wearing nothing but a pair of loose black trousers, and a small, cowering woman wearing a grubby, shapeless brown tunic. Both had red hair like Sorla. She couldn't see the man's face, but the girl puppet had muddy green eyes. The horror was in her throat now, clawing at her like eagle talons. She knew with the certainty of intuition that the girl was supposed to represent her sister, Torva, and the man was Nolent, son of the current Tavina of Wind Reach and one of the most fearless young eagle riders in the city. Sorla tried to tear her eyes away as a sick feeling rose in her stomach - she knew what was coming next - but the pull of the puppets was as inexorable as the tragedy unfolding on stage.

The male puppet grabbed the huddled girl, pushing his hand against her neck and forcing her down onto the floor. The puppets seemed to be able to move in ways that shouldn't have been possible for wooden toys controlled by strings. Did he have fingers? His other hand was tearing at Torva's tunic, and Sorla could hear the sound of whimpering. Her puppet likeness was running now, rushing to her sister's aid. Puppet Sorla put her hands on the man's shoulders and pulled him back sharply so he stumbled, while puppet Torva stayed in a shrunken heap on the floor. The man pushed Sorla, who was shouting incoherently. Puppet Sorla pushed past the man and stood protectively over Torva. Real Sorla knew what she was saying. 'I won't let you hurt her. I don't care who you are, you make me sick.' The man stalked away furiously, his words echoing in Sorla's memory: 'That worthless Dek isn't worth fighting for. But don't think you're going to get away with this.'

The scene changed, almost instantaneously. If Sorla's head hadn't been spinning with pain and nausea, she would have been intrigued by the tricks the puppet master used to make the show so seamless, as if the puppets weren't being controlled by anyone at all. The new scene, as she had known it would be, was a court room. The Sorla and Torva puppets were standing in the centre, Sorla's arm protectively around Torva, and Nolent was off to the side, sitting next to his powerful mother. She could see her own parents represented by two puppets on a bench at the back, clutching each other's hands. As the judge stood to announce their destiny, Sorla mouthed along. The words were etched into her mind; they repeated themselves every night as she tried to go to sleep.

'Torva. You dared to defy an order from an Endal rider.'
Sorla silently protested, screaming in her head. 'No, it wasn't her fault! She didn't do anything wrong! It was me, she didn't do anything!'
But the judge carried on. 'As you so clearly seem dissatisfied with your position, how would you like to try a different job for a while? Let's see, what about something in the aeries. I'm sure one of our riders could use a... helping hand.' He glanced at Nolent, a cold smile on his lips.

Torva turned to Sorla, beaming in her own gentle way. 'See Solly, I told you it would be alright. Assistant to an Endal, that means I won't be a Dek anymore!' Sorla just nodded, unable to speak. Unlike her sweet sand guileless sister, who was incapable of imagining bad intentions in anyone, she understood exactly what the judge meant. Torva would be assigned as Nolent's assistant, and become little more than his personal slave. And there was no chance of him treating her kindly, not when she had defied him once already. He would torment her until he was bored, and then... Sorla didn't want to think about what would happen then.

The judge carried on speaking, addressing himself to Sorla now. 'Sorla. You dared to prevent an Endal fulfilling the desires he has every right to fulfil. You, too, defied your station and rejected the system of castes that provides us all with order and safety. Those who do not know their place will find soon enough that their place does not know them. If you do not like the way we do things in Wind Reach, maybe you should find another home. I hereby banish you from Mt. Skyinarta. You are to leave with the next ship.'

The puppet show ended there, but Sorla did not need to see what came next. She was awash in a sea of memory, tears streaming down her face. Watching it had seemed so horribly real, as if she was there again. She had to get away. She turned blindly and pushed her way back through the crowd, who had noticed her now. Their faces leered at her in the darkness, she heard laughter, could feel people pointing and staring. She stumbled away as fast as she could. She had no idea where she was going and everything seemed blurred and misshapen through her teary vision. She felt like an arrow that had just been loosed from a bow, caught in the wind and spinning round and round.

[Sorla]

With no concept of time or direction, just a burning pain in her heart, Sorla wandered through the darkened streets of Alvadas. It was the first time she had been out in the city this late at night, but she was too immersed in her memories to notice much about her surroundings. Her thoughts were confused, but as she walked they gradually coalesced into two poles of emotion.

The first was her guilt. If she had stopped to think for even a second before running down that corridor and pulling Nolent off her sister, she would have realised immediately that nothing good could come of it. Her sister had no right to refuse Nolent's advances; in fact she was expressly forbidden from doing so. And she herself was only slightly less lowly than her sister. There was no way her insolence in challenging the son of the Tavina would ever go unpunished, and she had known it. But she had let her temper get the better of her. Stupid, stupid, stupid she cursed herself. She would give anything to be able to rewind those few seconds, anything to have been able to control her hot head and force herself to turn around and look the other way. But like the petching fool she was, she had raced headlong into the biggest mistake of her life. She could have endured her own punishment, harsh though it was, but to have been responsible for Torva's misery, and then to abandon her to her fate... If it hadn't been for her, Torva might have got lucky; she might have caught the eye of someone kinder or someone might have taken pity on her, she might have had a chance. But now she was almost certainly doomed to a short, lonely and miserable life and an early, miserable death. Sorla would carry the weight of that guilt with her forever.

The second emotion in her heart was a blistering hatred of Nolent, who had used his power and strength to torment, and beyond him of all who wield their power like a weapon. Her anger surged against a world that allowed anyone to control another simply because they were bigger, or older, or richer, or stronger, or cleverer. She understood that her own actions had been reckless, but still, how was it possible that she was the one who had ended up wandering around a twisted city with tears rolling down her face, while Nolent was still at home, living a life of luxury? His actions hadn't been against the law, but they had been wrong, she knew it. And even worse, how could it be right that Torva, whose crime was no more than to have a foolhardy sister, was punished while her tormentor was rewarded for his cruelty? Try as she might, Sorla could not understood the logic of such a grotesquely reversed system of punishments and rewards, and she raged against her own powerlessness to fight it.

Somehow she was reminded of the first puppet show she had seen earlier that afternoon, to how the grubby street urchins had lit up in peals of laughter to see the little rich boy being smacked on the bottom. Was that all the consolation they were going to get for being unfortunate enough to have been born poor? A temporary illusion of revenge acted out by wooden marionettes, and as soon as the show was over the rich boys would go back to smacking everyone else wherever they felt like it? It was the same all over the world, and she hated it.

Out of the maelstrom of remorse and anger, the seed of a desire was forming. It grew and grew, and by the time Sorla had consciously taken note of its presence, it was firmly rooted. She would never be fully absolved of condemning her sister to live out the remainder of her short life in constant humiliation, but the only way she could face the rest of her own life with dignity was to try and atone somehow for the guilt that hung heavily around her heart. The children at the puppet show had given her an idea. She would devote her life to protecting those whose lives had been trampled and blotted by power and greed. She would be cleverer from now on; she wouldn't just go charging in and make things worse. She would hone her skills, watch and wait, she would be subtle and cunning. She would break the law if necessary. Law was just another way of controlling the weak; her own experience showed her that there was no guarantee that what was lawful was right, or that what was illegal was wrong. She could make her own mind up about right and wrong. She stopped in the street and sent a whispered vow to the sky. 'I swear on Priskil's light that I will not rest while there is injustice in the world.' It was just a small and simple vow, and her voice was tentative, but it grew clearer as she spoke, and she could feel the darkness clearing from her mind. The deep sadness was still there and always would be, but the simple fact of making a decision and having a mission gave her a sense of hope. She was in control of her own destiny again.

[Madeira Dusk]

Grades Awarded!

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Sorla

Skills

• Land Navigation: 1xp
• Negotiation: 1xp
• Persuasion: 1xp
• Socialization: 1xp
• Observation: 3xp

Lores

• Alvadas: changing layout
• Lore of Ionu: Trickster Deity
• Location: the Bizarre
• Location: Ionu's Stand
• A vow to Priskil: defend the weak

Awards & Retribution
1 child sized leather jacket (-10gm)
1 Sewing Kit (-18gm)
5sq yards of dyed cotton (-2gm 5sm)

Notes
Damnit, I was all geared up for a nice little shopping adventure and then you had to go and break my heart. You monster.

That was a great read! I understand Sorla a great deal more now. You write a very rounded and believable character and paint a lovely scene. I look forward to seeing more from our intrepid Inarta!

If you have any questions or concerns about you grade please let me know.