In the Snow (Daske & Sable)

[Daske Baggywrinkle]

Something's crawling on my leg! He thought. He was lying on his back. It's moving up my leg, and it's not small. He jerked his knees up to his chest and threw back the blankets. Beady little sea otter eyes stared out from under the blankets at him as if to say, “Excuse me! I'm trying to sleep here.” One corner of the scarred man's mouth revealed a hint of a smile. Sib had managed to get two such smiles out of him in less than twelve hours. He heard scraping sounds above deck and deduced that Sable was up and about. He climbed out of bed, threw the blankets over Sib, threw some clothes on himself, and made his way above deck. There he stopped. There is a brief span of time – only a few minutes really – just before the sun rises in the East, that is magical. The eastern sky glows with soft hues; blue or red or possibly amber, depending on the weather. The western sky, on the other hand, is dark with stars still visible. Everything is silent in this magical moment, as though the whole world were holding its breath waiting for Syna to arise and flood the land with the light of her presence. Daske was usually oblivious to such things. But on this particular Winter morning he found himself caught up in it. It had stopped snowing sometime during the night, leaving several inches of snow on the Black Lady's deck as a reminder of its visit. The sky was cloudless. The monochrome grey of the previous evening had transformed into three colors: the white of undisturbed snow, the dark blue of gently undulating water and the green hues of evergreen trees. The birds were already greeting Syna with an early morning symphony. Daske inhaled deeply and exhaled. The air smelled clean and fresh. He felt like he was on the verge of some kind of discovery but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. A trail of broken snow led from the companion way of the Black Lady to the companion way of the Sea Sparkle, telling him where Sable and gotten off to. He hoped she had some food on her boat because he didn't have any on his. He didn't have a plan for fixing the food problem worked out exactly, but he was pretty sure it involved going hunting and getting really lucky. And if they were going to get really lucky, the earlier they got started the better. Their chances of finding game were greatest at dawn and dusk. “I wonder how we're going to do this.” He said out loud in Pavi to no one in particular.

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

“Barnacle balls,” a dark shape muttered, fingers singed in the flash and sunder of spark. The painstakingly sculpted ridge of an angular nose cast a line of light as tender fingertips adjusted the stove and finally flooded the area with frail illumination. Sable, large in the cramped space, found the last hunks of bread and cheese and quickly sliced them up. As they warmed and melted, she tossed a mushy apple hand to hand. She needed to eat it, the remaining nutrients were vital. But it was mushy. Like old people paste food. Putting it down, a provoking mystery shrank-wrap in red that needed to be left alone for solution, moldy cheese bits and crumbs found themselves brushed into a nicked wooden bowl and stored away. Bait, maybe? Flip the bread, prod the stubbornly solid cheese. Ah ha! A few quick nips with an eating knife and the sodden mess of apple meat turned into a spectacular apple spread. Unmelted cheese replaced with spread, she tried to find some spices but had none. Note: pick up spices. Cheese would just have to do. Concoction warmed, bread toasted slightly, Sable slid the cheese in between slices and extinguished the stove. Just as she popped on deck, Daske was eyeing her tracks and muttering gobbly gook. “Breakfast! And you thought that I was just super hungry last night…” she warned, handing over the sandwich and digging into her own with zest the flavor did not deserve. “No, don’t look at it, just eat. It won’t hurt you.” The bread was good, at least, and made up for the interesting texture of the apple paste. “So, the Soppysponge said there are an inordinate amount of seals up this way. She seemed to think I’d have no trouble bagging one even with no skills, said the ice isn’t bad enough to keep them from shore yet.” Sable shrugged, licking pasted fingers and producing a half spear that looked like it would do the job. “I guess we’re just supposed to float along until we see them and then double back to approach them on land. OH! One of us could try to get one on shore while the other waits with nets to trap some when they flee into the water!” Sable, nothing more than a big kid pleased and exuberant with her own novel idea, waited with baited breath, both hands clutching the spear to her chest, for Daske’s response.

[Daske Baggywrinkle]

Daske gratefully accepted the hot sandwich. He was starved. He took a big bite, chewed twice and stopped long enough to get his gag response under control. He carefully continued chewing and swallowed. She was watching him as she wolfed her own sandwich down, probably waiting for his reaction to her culinary wonder. “This is awful,” he said. He took another bite, chewed and swallowed. “Almost as bad as my stew.” Three more bites and the sandwich was gone. “I don't want to know what was in it.” He eye-balled her spear. Then he disappeared below deck and returned a few moments later with a bamboo bow and a dozen arrows. The bow and the arrows had obviously been made by an amateur. “Let's go find some seals,” he said. “Your boat or mine?” A few hours later … Daske peered over a large, weathered rock. A dozen or so seals were basking in the sun on a rocky beach. There was not much snow here. He looked over the water to where Sable stood on deck, spear in hand. He fitted an arrow to the bow string. Only two of the seals were within range of his poorly crafted bow and he didn't want to risk spooking them by trying to get closer. He drew the bow string back, sighted and released. The arrow made a surprisingly loud clattering sound as it skittered across the rocks several feet beyond the seal he had targeted. This, of course, startled the seals. Oddly enough they didn't rush for the water. They just craned their necks around this way and that trying to find the source of the noise. His second arrow embedded itself the nearest seal's right flipper. The seal let out an alarmed screech, which caused the rest of the seals to make a mad dash for the water. The wounded seal was also making its way toward the water but was having difficulty. Daske shot three more arrows at it, two of which missed. The third hit the seal in the haunches. It was bawling now in pain and panic. The other seals were in the water with their heads up, barking in response. Daske abandoned the bow and ran up to the injured seal with his cutlass out. He had to hack at it several times before it finally became still. Then he sat down heavily beside it, breathing hard. He put his head between his hands and felt like he was going to be sick. The remaining seals had fallen silent.

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

Sable hadn’t known what to expect, but as she watched the seal writhe around the shafts embedded within various fleshy parts of its anatomy, muscles straining to contract around foreign obstructions, she knew she would never go seal hunting again. And as Daske dealt with the ramifications of his actions, which expanded to include hacking it to death, she had her own troubles to deal with. Her net now bobbed fitfully. Dread chaining her to the deck, she advanced and peered into the depths of Laviku’s maw. Sib’s beady black eyes, reflecting each hew of Daske’s blade through steaming cells of flesh and stalks of bone, burned into the back of her head as she bent to haul in the net. The death contraption was heavy and wet, biting into the numb purple skin of her hands as she heaved. Breath hovering in a thick fog, Sable struggled to overcome the wriggling creature straining to return to icy insulation. Muttering curses under her breath, the woman squared off against sixty pounds of sibilant muscle, both working to for the same goal yet unable to come to terms with one another for its accomplishment. A jagged line, red and welting, smeared across the vast majority of her face where the creature had got a decent right hook in before disappearing overboard. Netting crawling across the deck like ivy, Sable leaned against the railing of the ship and eyed Daske’s morose figure. A hole, familiar and dismal, opened up within her, its void replacing heart and lungs, making each expansion and beat uncomfortably alien. Sirroco protected her from such things as she was just exposed to. The realization hit her in the gut, a low blow in a dirty fight. Yet lately he’d drifted away, preoccupied even from her and yearning for something in the distance. Life was dirty and unpleasant, and she’d have to face that alone from now on. A siren’s song echoed over opaque waters, suffocating like the thickest fog, stirring through memories and laying ghost hands on the back of her neck. A touch there evoked Tungsten’s steady artist’s hands reaching for her in lazy possessiveness during an afternoon nap. Here, and Sybil’s earthy scent, churned loam from dew-stained forests, wafted through bereft nostrils. Vrix…Vrix smelled of plump clouds cooking beneath Syna. They shouldn’t have split up. She needed Vrix now. Kicking off the railing, Sable swept a morose scowl across winter’s vampiric presence over the waters and shore, bereft of life save for Daske’s troubled soul. Upon reaching shore, the bulky bundle took Daske's rough bow and kneeled by the butchered seal. Hair sweeping forward, obscuring ragged and pained features, she bowed her head and offered silent apology. Silent and bitter thanks. Over her knees, the shoddy contraption rested within clenched purple hands. Their audience, nonplussed kin to this bloody body, still hadn’t moved, and Sable felt their loss and fear acrid on her tongue. Anger stirred, tempered only mildly by the hunter’s clear remorse regarding these events. It, more panic than reproach, escaped in silent tears…never had she felt so alone, cut off from even the natural world around her. Never had she felt it so wary and distrusting toward her. Finally, chin tucked into shoulder, attention swung toward Daske. As a matriarch, as laughable as her influence was, she felt responsible for the lost soul behind her. “You must thank Laviku and Caiyha and ask them to guide your actions better next time. You must sacrifice something in return for this.” Quivering, one hand extended the bow out to her side, offering it to him with clear meaning. For herself, she drew out a small blade and slashed it down her palm. Fist clenching convulsively around the searing wound, a thin spigot of viscous red dribbled and dripped to mingle with the earth stained by seal. A small portion of the pain felt by the creature, a small gesture for the part she played. Jerking at the material through the collar of her coat, she pulled off a roughly sewn red handkerchief and bound the injury.

[Daske Baggywrinkle]

Daske stood up abruptly. “She deserved a better death than that,” he hissed. “And her murderer deserves a worse death.” His face contorted with anger and he shouted, “He'll pay! Someday he'll pay!” He yanked the bow out of Sable's hand and stalked off down the beach, switching to Pavi as he continued his angry conversation with no one in particular. A couple hours later he returned, somewhat subdued. “I'm not much for gods, myself,” he said to Sable. “Never seem to be there when ya need 'em.” He stood looking out at the sea, his back to Sable. He was still holding the bow. The seals were gone. “I'm not going to destroy my bow,” he said gruffly. “Maybe that's the Svefra way, but it's not my way.” He turned to face her. His face had a grim, determined look to it. “I'm going to hang it up in my cabin to remind me every day what happened here. I'm gonna get a better bow and I'm gonna learn how to use it right. And next time I kill a seal, it's gonna get a better death than this one got here today. The kind of death it deserves. The kind of death I won't be ashamed of.” He paused, thinking. Then he said quietly, “Take me back to my boat, please. I need some time alone to figure all this out.”

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

Sable didn’t understand his words, and as she watched him stalk off she realized he needed a stronger, wiser touch than her own. More pressing, however, was the seal she didn’t know how to turn into meat. It couldn’t be wasted at this point. She blinked at the little knife in her hand, then the big mutilated seal, then the shrinking knife. Then Daske’s shrinking figure. Why had Sirroco left? He did this stuff. Even if he didn’t know how, he was competent and had good instincts. Or, at least, that’s what she liked to tell herself. Either way, he was a real man and protected her from this sort of thing. Thank Laviku she’d left Vrix back at the Flotilla. So, the woman, folded like a crane over the seal, poked and prodded. With fish, the guts had to go. Okay. Seal guts…where were seal guts? Well, first, the scales had to go. Okay. So, skin, then. Scales just scrape right off. Skin...? Sable tugged at the edge of Daske’s cuts. By the time Daske returned, he’d find she was in no mood to hear his irreverent excuse and decision. When he approached she lifted from where she’d been crumpled between piles of various seal parts. She didn’t turn to look at him until he had requested to be returned to his boat. Golden curls turned stringy and red at the tips swayed, and war paint, dried smudges, turned her features angular and severe. Her coat was covered in blood…and other things, as though she’d been rolling around. And, well, she might as well have been as she tried to work with what he’d left her with. Figuring out how to dismember a seal while already too upset to think clearly hadn’t gone well for her. As she’d worked, it’d occurred to her that she’d been planning on taking her kill back to the Soggysponges for help, but there was no way she could show her face with the evidence of Daske’s attempt. Her jaw worked, formidable muscle clenched, as she stared at the sorry little ant standing before her. “Maybe you’re mistaking the gods for yourself,” she finally ground out, spitting venom. She struggled to sift through personal anger and Svefran indignation to find parameters of comprehension for his behavior. She turned her back to him again, chunks of meat at her right heel and strips of skin at her left. She hadn’t been efficient in her cleaning. “Take this and wait for me on the Sparkle,” her voice cracked between reprimanding order and mild disappointment. One deep breath, centering. “We’re going to have a talk and then I’ll take you to your boat. You have much more than just the seal to think about,” she dismissed him in much better control of herself, stepping away toward where the other seals had migrated down the beach.

[Daske Baggywrinkle]

Who the hell does she think she is? Daske asked himself morosely. Just because she's some kind of Lia or something doesn't mean she can treat me like a child. Nevertheless, he hefted several hunks of meat on to his shoulders and waded out to the boat. It took several trips to move all the meat and skin from the beach to the boat. It was a disgustingly bloody, smelly job, and his mood grew darker with each trip. Then he had a thought. It would have been just as disgusting and bloody even if he had managed to kill the seal cleanly. There was more to her anger than his lack of skill with a bow. In fact, there was no reason to think she would have done any better herself. He thought back to what she had told him about her recent past, and it struck him that she had always had others around her who did this kind of work. "Okay," he said out loud in Pavi. "You've no reason to be mad at Sable. You might not be cut out for this Svefra stuff, but you don't have to be a complete jerk about it." He had stacked the meat and skins on the deck because the thought of raw seal meat stored below deck somehow seemed like a really bad idea. Better it should remain above deck where it was at least cold. He pondered the bloody, ragged mess. Then he went below deck and found a bucket. He tied a line to it, threw it overboard and pulled it up full of water. He threw the water over the pile of what used to be a living creature. He repeated this several times until most of the blood and gore had disappeared into the sea. Then he sat down with his hunting knife and began separating the meat from the blubber. The meat he cut into small manageable pieces. The blubber he tossed into the bucket. Soon he had a stack of neatly arranged seal steaks. Then he set himself to scraping the skins clean and cutting them into squared off pieces. The blubber would have to be rendered in a pot over a fire to reduce the it to semi-solid blubber biscuits and to extract wax for candles and oil for lamps and stoves. He had never actually done this, but he had seen a similar process done with land animals. The entire operation had taken him about two hours. He went below to wait for Sable to return. Soon he was sleeping soundly with a sea otter curled up on his legs.

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

For long bells, interpretations of Daske’s behavior and words squatted much as the boulder beneath Sable’s perched body. Her own feelings provided weight to grind productive reasoning to a halt, and the many facets convoluted to turn the surface angular. So there she sat with her boulder, knowing it had to be moved but not yet wise enough to grab a log and use some leverage. Syna rotated in the sky, and Laviku’s kisses rolled ashore. The snow-dusted shore sat mute, a plane for movement to paint, but the one brush within sight sat frozen by her own thoughts. His words, so wrong and provoking on so many levels, repeated verbatim. Over and over, a schism between realities that must be integrated. Leverage. Egyptus. There’d once been another young man that turned to the Sea in his moments of need. Well, the Sea claimed him whether or not he wanted it, but the end result was the same. But Egyptus had been open, malleable, trusting. Daske was surly, staid, and stilted. Sable had saved the former’s life, maybe that was the key to their bond. No, there had been something innate to him, a curiosity and sincere receptivity to the world around him. Daske…Daske had curled into himself at the first hint of hurt, turning his back to her and the help she could offer. The fetal position wasn’t comfortable for long. But being a baby was his choice, she had no ties to him. She would do as promised, take and introduce him to his people, allow him to make connections with a positive introduction and sounding board for questions. If he insisted on shutting her out based on some misguided notion that he had any clue what he was doing and didn’t need anyone, then he could go his own way. May Laviku never kiss his hull again. When she sauntered past the fruits of his labor, she wasn’t sure that he hadn’t completely abandoned ship to walk back to his Casinor. It wouldn’t have surprised her, and feelings remained ambivalent upon spotting his reposed figure below deck. By the time she came to collect her traitorous Tavan, she’d cleaned and refreshed herself. Hair, dark with water, swept back from her crown, baring pink-scrubbed features. He was out, and Sib slithered to the deck, pattering after her lump as Sable disappeared topside once more. The guts had already been thrown into the sea, offered to replenish that which they’d taken this day, but Sable tossed over another two steaks in supplication for some extra help. Sib sniffed at one before disappearing to find a more palatable meal. From Laviku, from the Water Father and the Ever Mother, came all and returned all. Daske was nothing but a child, a blank slate scarred by another people and a life of slavery, but he must learn the basics and learn how to return to his people, his home. Sable would have kissed Egyptus had he been aboard at the moment. If Egyptus had been the first step on her journey to collect lost sheep, Daske was the next level in difficulty but the premise was still the same. At the time, sitting opposite the scholar, the words had simply fell from her lips like rain, coalesced mysteriously but there nonetheless. Even if she hadn’t seared the Svefran laws into her pupils mind, the circumstances of their experience had indelibly imprinted them upon Sable. The matriarch lit various lamps and leaned against the bulkhead at the foot of the bench Daske had appropriated for himself. She’d written in Fratava at first, unconsciously connecting to the language at the base of their existence, but there had been room beneath the chunky paragraph for a translation in common: Laviku is the All Father, the Sea is the Ever Mother. You honor him before and above everything, you protect her first. From her we coalesce, and to her we return. She is the Ever Mother. On her we rest and within her we live, to harm another’s means of doing this, their ship, is to sever them from her. Do not take that lightly. From her depths, Laviku summons one of his Pardisa to bestow upon new Pods. There is no Pod if there is no Pardisa, seek and honor it. There is no Pod if there is no Lia. She is the matriarch, the eldest female, and her word is law. If you do not abide by her rules, you will be dismissed. If we do not respect one another, we have nothing. We are one, stretched thin from one horizon to the next. When one of us is in need, we will respond en masse. Answer the call for Nal’lyeo, and descend upon the land that threatens a Svefra. Avikki birds bear the call, they bear the burden of uniting a disparate nation. They are our children, and as all adults shoulder responsibility for the safety and rearing of children, so we do for Avikki. The scrap of parchment felt like summer wheat. He’d woken up as she moved around, but it took her a few ticks to speak. Not because she was too angry to think clearly, but because there were just so many places to start. Anger had been shed with her coat. She was resigned to her role with him, but hopeful that he would react positively. Perhaps she was even looking forward to it a bit. There was no life better than that of a Svefra, and he had come home to them. He must be ready. “On the beach, you said things. You were wrong to say them, and you’re wrong to believe them.” She expected him to react negatively to her candid tone. She went down the list in the same order as the statements he’d burned into her consciousness. “Your transgression was not in the way that seal died, and your absolution is not in some nebulous idea of vengeance. The gods are everywhere, and they serve you even when you don’t deserve it.” This point was particularly touchy for Laviku’s blessed, but she managed to bury her personal zeal for the topic. She continued on, breaking the rest with gentle affection sheathing iron will. He needed to hear these things whether or not he wanted, but she hoped that he wanted. “You don’t have the right to attempt judging what is Svefra and what is not, what is ours and what you can ignore. You’re not part of my Pod, and there’s a chance you never will be, but while you sail with me, you defer to me. My ways are your ways.” This was key, Daske had come home, and his people were claiming him with open arms, there was no trial period, no tests, he just had to unbend and learn. “You don’t even know if bow and arrow is the best way to hunt seal. The last thing you need to is to perpetuate a misguided world view by thinking things through alone. You’re not alone, no matter how many days you spend with only your Casinor or other races.” The lanky woman, a rutilant stretch of honey, kicked off the bulkhead and neared to sit next to him. “Which do you want to talk about first?”

[Daske Baggywrinkle]

Daske bristled as the lecture began. He made himself relax as she went on. He was silent for several minutes after she finished. “I killed a man, you know,” He said quietly, looking at the floor. “It was the price of my freedom.” He paused. “I'm never going to give that up.” He paused again and looked at Sable. “But I do get that freedom and authority, uh, independence and dependence … I get that these things can exist together. Hell, maybe they have to exist together. I don't know. This whole freedom thing is hard to figure out.” He paused again. "Part of me wants to be self-sufficient, dependent on no one, and another part of me wants to belong somewhere." There was anguish in his confession. The boat's rocking motion had picked up strength as they talked. The tide must be coming in, he thought. Seagulls were crying out to each other as they circled overhead. He looked around the boat and was struck by the realization that this was Sable's home. Yet somehow it was supposed to be his home too. And when she had first come aboard the Black Lady, she made herself right at home as if it was her boat too. Once again he felt like he was on the verge of understanding something that kept eluding him. But he couldn't quite get hold of it yet. “Tell you what,” he said. “Take me back to my boat and on the way you can tell me what you think about that horrible seal kill, and then how we Svefra think about killing for food and supplies in general.” He produced a grimace that might have been an attempt at a smile. “And I promise that no matter how weird it gets, I really will try to understand.”

[Sable Baggywrinkle]

His admission didn’t surprise Sable, which she noted in turn. The slip of folded parchment, a rarity on the sea, crinkled as she put it in his gristled hand. Her fingers closed over his, forestalling any studying of it. They had much to discuss, little nebulous life lessons and ideologies floated through the cabin, thickening the air and glinting to be plucked. He opened up a whole other field with his confession, and she wondered how much her own ideals would be tested by him, how much he would listen to. Would the little golden lessons floating by be extinguished or strengthened? Golden locks dipped as she nodded assent to his suggestion and stood. She led the way topside and set about hauling up anchors and preparing the sails. The wind passed in their favor, and soon they whisked along at a decent clip, the shore just out of reach. “I think we both learned something we needed to,” Sable finally broke the silence, eyes as dark as the sluggish sea. “I think you got further than I would have been able to. I don’t think I would have been able to even stab one. I think, ideally, I would have caught one in a net and taken it to another pod to be taught how to kill and clean it. If I didn’t let it go before reaching them. Either way, I’m going to travel with some Soggysponges and have them take me on a hunt, learn proper methods.” She sighed, a turbulent release of self-reproach. “But that was more and less than you asked. I think you should thank the gods, as I first suggested, and ask them to guide your actions better next time. If you want to interact with the world around you, you’re interacting with them, you know.” “I can’t speak for the entire Svefran nation. We revere the sea, and the sea sustains us. It’s cyclical. We take but we must give back.”