Spring 4, 513 AV
Wright Manor, Zeltiva
--------------------------
…and so I simply left for the day. Most days I would not, Qalaya, I promise you. I know how much work, how much memory there is left, how much even my clumsy pen is needed. Some days, though… some days the hand must rest, and let the eyes live for a little while. And so I went down to Wright Manor, and I nibbled at my kelp fritters, as the gardener's set a bed of violas for the wintering over.
Minnie stopped, just a moment, and stared dully at the paper. Her eyes were inches above her old journal, her right hand set to the page of the blank book she was transcribing it into. Her right hand relied on muscle memory. This had been working fairly well, through the winter, but the melting snows had set a palsy into her bones, the fever of her sickness too strong, now to let her body rest the shiver away. Her handwriting was atrocious, now, she knew that.
"Some days the hand must rest, and let the eyes live for a little while," the words gurgled up her wet, battered throat in a low, cough-bitten alto, "but… not today. No."
She sighed, and set to work again. Her body ached - not the comforting, stiff ache of a normal day's copy work. That had so much familiarity to it, that feeling, the feeling of nights spent earning extra mizas as a shipper student, the feeling of long afternoons at the library, trying to prepare for a paper. No, this was the ache of joints worn through, wracked with infection, of a body that shivered hotly. She could feel the heat of her eyes, radiating out - the feeling in her eyes was keener than the damaged, near-gone sight. She had taken off her dress in the little office, despite the early spring chill, and sat now in only a petti, a chemise, and a thin white scarf around her neck. Even so, she took a moment and leaned, in the ancient leather chair that Kenabelle Wright herself had once inhabited, to press her face against the smooth frigid glass of the window.
The chill burned her skin, which felt divine, the cold burn by the hot, like a secret tryst between Morwen and Ivak. She closed her eyes, listening to the crack of her breath frosting on the pane.
"Minnie-Wren… wake up…"
The hand Minnie felt gently squeezing her shoulder was more convincing then it had been before, those long, thin fingers, as young and fine as they had been years ago, when Minnie would have felt the squeeze accompanied by a pregnant belly brushing against her back.
"Lanie, I don't think I can finish this."
A kiss behind her ear, "Minnie-Wren, do you remember? All the things you've done. You can. It is a few more days, that's all."
"I don't have strength enough, Lanie-mae."
"But you have love enough, Minnie-Wren."
Minnie turned, and of course Lanie was not there, had never been there. So she closed her eyes, and she could smell her again, the odd smells of foreign cities, and she leaned in and kissed her check, "Alright… alright."
And she turned back to the table. It mattered, this did. Perhaps nothing else she'd ever done mattered, not anymore. Her promises to Lanie, they were gone now. She might have loved hard enough to keep them, but even then would not keep Dira away long enough. Gypa she knew would hate her now, for she could not leave her notes secret forever. Would he go mad? Would he lose the last sparks of himself she'd seen in him? Shearsy and her Ensli, they were long gone, long dead, for she had not protected them. And Qalaya… Qalaya who she cried out to every night. Qalaya had her work, and her work… no. No, she would not think about that.
The copying was enough. Three copies of every word of her notebooks. She was on the last, now. One was with Gypa. One she was finishing now, and would give to the Sailor's Guild. And one more, that she had hidden away. And then, the originals, put in trust in case, perhaps, she was wrong, in case, perhaps, one of her little ones came home one day.. And Gods help her, please make sure that at least one made it through, at least one could help her city. In the end, she had dreamed so many lives for herself - she had wished to be a scholar, a discoverer, a poet, a priestess, and what was she? A copyist. This would be her final noble task: pages and pages of her own minuscule hand.
The afternoon was cold, it felt good on my neck. The scar still fresh and sore…
"Not now… give me…"
"Yes, sister-mine. ITs alright. Work on the other."
Minnie pushed the two books away, and with the delicate hands of a priestess with a holy relic, drew out the page of Kenabelle Wright's diary she had been copying. She had put a flag of paper where she had stopped. The work was painstaking, painful, and wracking, for the alphabet was truly unfamiliar, so much so she was afraid to do anything but reproduce every mark on the page. She had penned carefully tiny nips of black that, to be honest, in her heart she thought were just slips of Kena's long ago pen, but she could not be sure. Everything was foreign, who was to say these marks weren't… something? This was not copying or transcription. IT was more like copying a painting. And Minnie was not a painter. But it was technical work, it emptied her heart out, and let her rest in some part of her. She penned long strings of strange markings, sure that later, someone would find them and they would be indecipherably wrong. But all she could do was try.x
Wright Manor, Zeltiva
--------------------------
…and so I simply left for the day. Most days I would not, Qalaya, I promise you. I know how much work, how much memory there is left, how much even my clumsy pen is needed. Some days, though… some days the hand must rest, and let the eyes live for a little while. And so I went down to Wright Manor, and I nibbled at my kelp fritters, as the gardener's set a bed of violas for the wintering over.
Minnie stopped, just a moment, and stared dully at the paper. Her eyes were inches above her old journal, her right hand set to the page of the blank book she was transcribing it into. Her right hand relied on muscle memory. This had been working fairly well, through the winter, but the melting snows had set a palsy into her bones, the fever of her sickness too strong, now to let her body rest the shiver away. Her handwriting was atrocious, now, she knew that.
"Some days the hand must rest, and let the eyes live for a little while," the words gurgled up her wet, battered throat in a low, cough-bitten alto, "but… not today. No."
She sighed, and set to work again. Her body ached - not the comforting, stiff ache of a normal day's copy work. That had so much familiarity to it, that feeling, the feeling of nights spent earning extra mizas as a shipper student, the feeling of long afternoons at the library, trying to prepare for a paper. No, this was the ache of joints worn through, wracked with infection, of a body that shivered hotly. She could feel the heat of her eyes, radiating out - the feeling in her eyes was keener than the damaged, near-gone sight. She had taken off her dress in the little office, despite the early spring chill, and sat now in only a petti, a chemise, and a thin white scarf around her neck. Even so, she took a moment and leaned, in the ancient leather chair that Kenabelle Wright herself had once inhabited, to press her face against the smooth frigid glass of the window.
The chill burned her skin, which felt divine, the cold burn by the hot, like a secret tryst between Morwen and Ivak. She closed her eyes, listening to the crack of her breath frosting on the pane.
"Minnie-Wren… wake up…"
The hand Minnie felt gently squeezing her shoulder was more convincing then it had been before, those long, thin fingers, as young and fine as they had been years ago, when Minnie would have felt the squeeze accompanied by a pregnant belly brushing against her back.
"Lanie, I don't think I can finish this."
A kiss behind her ear, "Minnie-Wren, do you remember? All the things you've done. You can. It is a few more days, that's all."
"I don't have strength enough, Lanie-mae."
"But you have love enough, Minnie-Wren."
Minnie turned, and of course Lanie was not there, had never been there. So she closed her eyes, and she could smell her again, the odd smells of foreign cities, and she leaned in and kissed her check, "Alright… alright."
And she turned back to the table. It mattered, this did. Perhaps nothing else she'd ever done mattered, not anymore. Her promises to Lanie, they were gone now. She might have loved hard enough to keep them, but even then would not keep Dira away long enough. Gypa she knew would hate her now, for she could not leave her notes secret forever. Would he go mad? Would he lose the last sparks of himself she'd seen in him? Shearsy and her Ensli, they were long gone, long dead, for she had not protected them. And Qalaya… Qalaya who she cried out to every night. Qalaya had her work, and her work… no. No, she would not think about that.
The copying was enough. Three copies of every word of her notebooks. She was on the last, now. One was with Gypa. One she was finishing now, and would give to the Sailor's Guild. And one more, that she had hidden away. And then, the originals, put in trust in case, perhaps, she was wrong, in case, perhaps, one of her little ones came home one day.. And Gods help her, please make sure that at least one made it through, at least one could help her city. In the end, she had dreamed so many lives for herself - she had wished to be a scholar, a discoverer, a poet, a priestess, and what was she? A copyist. This would be her final noble task: pages and pages of her own minuscule hand.
The afternoon was cold, it felt good on my neck. The scar still fresh and sore…
"Not now… give me…"
"Yes, sister-mine. ITs alright. Work on the other."
Minnie pushed the two books away, and with the delicate hands of a priestess with a holy relic, drew out the page of Kenabelle Wright's diary she had been copying. She had put a flag of paper where she had stopped. The work was painstaking, painful, and wracking, for the alphabet was truly unfamiliar, so much so she was afraid to do anything but reproduce every mark on the page. She had penned carefully tiny nips of black that, to be honest, in her heart she thought were just slips of Kena's long ago pen, but she could not be sure. Everything was foreign, who was to say these marks weren't… something? This was not copying or transcription. IT was more like copying a painting. And Minnie was not a painter. But it was technical work, it emptied her heart out, and let her rest in some part of her. She penned long strings of strange markings, sure that later, someone would find them and they would be indecipherably wrong. But all she could do was try.x
