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18th Autumn 517 AV
The house was quiet in the autumn morning, where the early light filtered through the narrow panes of the window and flickered across Saiyin's sleeping face. She lay in her bed with her hair spread across her pillow from her erratic twists and turns in the night. A slight smile drifted across her lips as she began to wake. A bird, outside, sang a pretty song in the willow tree. Two women's voices in chattering conversation passed by outside, their voices brightly pitched but muffled all the same. In her little bubble, Saiyin began to stir and stretch.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and spent the next half bell preparing herself for her morning's trip to visit Hessel. They'd met a few days previously in the city, a chance encounter, and the Eypharian had invited her around. The young woman had been looking forward to it ever since, and now that the day had actually arrived she was even more enthusiastic. Hessel was, or used to be, her step-mother, but now she was simply a good friend. She was a fascinating person, and one that Saiya generally admired, for she was skilled and full of wisdom and stories of her travels. "Saiyin," she would say, "Do you want to hear the story of the sand fights?" Or she would regale her with information instead, about glass, about travelling, about her language. All of it was intriguing to Saiyin, who had somewhat of a fascination with the city of the Eypharians and the scorching hot land they came from.
But first she had to cook herself something to eat. She hadn't eaten since midday yesterday, and her stomach was complaining. There was a tub of oats and just enough goat's milk to make porridge, so she began preparing the fireplace. Morning's sunshine poured in through the window and the woman took a moment to appreciate the glistening back of the ocean that she could just see in the distance, before turning back to the task at hand. Her father had been the one to teach her how to light a fire. On first glance it was a simplistic task, but young Saiya had found it frustratingly difficult until her da had placed his hands over hers and guided her flame to the right part dry tinder. After that he'd sat back and prompted her when and how to place the logs. "You have to start off small, Saiya, then you can get bigger logs. But you must never stifle the fire, for she's a tricky beast, and won't play your game if you deprive her of air. She needs to breathe, just like you and me."
That tidbit of knowledge had impressed the young Saiyin mightily. After all, who would've known that the fire was actually a person? She'd grown older and realised it was just fancy speak, but the lesson had stuck in her mind. Now, she placed dry tinder on the fireplace and arranged it so that there were enough gaps to let air into the heart of the fire. She was still terrible at building a fire, most of the time she had to relight it a few times before the wood would catch and burn adequately. But at least she knew what she was supposed to be doing, even if it didn't quite work each time.
She took the flint and tinder that lay beside the fire in its usual place, and struck it hard and outwards so that the spark would fly to the tinder. Her aim was off, so she tried again and again until she conjured a bright spark that spat into the dry wood. Now she was reminded of another of her da's lessons. His voice, distant but warm like sunshine, spoke in her head. "Now, remember that this fire's only a babby. It's a poorly babby too! You need to breathe it to life. That's right Saiya, blow into the tinder. Not too hard so as to blow it out, but not too gentle that the babby doesn't get enough air and suffocates." Her fire flickered with flame, but although it was a promising start she knew she had to follow her da's lesson and so she blew steadily but gently into the small bundle of tinder.
The flames flickered agitatedly, and she scrambled to place a slightly larger log onto the baby fire. She waited to see whether it would catch whilst starting to pour oats into her cooking pot and putting the last of the goat's milk in as well. To her relief, the log had started to burn, and so she fed it a few more loose, dry twigs to aid it on and put another log of the same size to the side of the fire, ready to be added to the flame once the fire had grown a little.
With that started, the woman placed the cooking pot over the fire and splashed cold water from the bowl over her face. Her hair, she noted with dismay, was a tangled mess not too far removed from a bird's nest. It would be a pain, but she had to brush it. She got up and walked through the house to reach her bedroom, looking for her comb. Finally she found it and moved back to the kitchen. The fire was steady and the cooking pot felt hot to the touch. It would be a little while yet that she'd be able to eat her morning's meal, but in the meantime she had another task to attend to.
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