Solo Bandages

[Naiya]

Summer 514 Day 22

"Again Rue?" The scolding was secondary to the sharpness of the pain in her finger. She pressed the digit to her lips, the bitter tang of copper filled her mouth causing her to frown. Next would come the lesson, the correction, but it was so difficult to keep all the rules of the game in mind. More so when it was not one she played by choice.

"Always cut away from yourself, Rue, remember? And keep your fingers curled under so that you don't cut them.. again." She had heard the words so many times, but it was so much harder to chop the vegetables when her fingers were curled, she had so much less control. Herbs were even worse, they scattered all over the place when she tried to cut them, no matter how she bunched them, or which direction she cut in.

"Is it still bleeding?" The younger girl sounded concerned then, and Rue looked up at her sibling a moment before pulling her hand away from her mouth to check. Slowly blood welled in the cut but seemed to stop there, welling in the thin line of sliced skin, but without spilling over.

"It's alright now." Rue answered, picking the knife back up and ignoring the twinge that emitted from her finger. She looked at the meager pile of food and frowned. "How much more do we need cut?" She was still useless at this cooking thing, the proportions hardly made sense, and she could never remember how long it took to prepare.

"Cut all of that." Ara said uncertainly, and I added more to my pile slowly, more aware to not let my mind wander this time. I tended to slice my hands when my attention drifted, something that only added more to my sister's discomfort. It was hard enough on her being in charge of meals, but with the drought and the rations on supplies our pavilion was beginning to fear the length of the summer. Already rationing was in place, and there would not likely be more food come the colder seasons, so each meal was becoming a delicate balance.

Already her mind had wandered, so she carefully brought herself back to the work. One cut to make halves, two more to make quarters. The knife sounded loudly against the wood of the board she cut on with each cut. Next three cuts each short ways across each quartered piece. Twelve bites from one rooting vegetable. Hardly enough for a meal. But hard times had fallen on the pavilion before, and we all knew how to make less seem like more.

More small bites, soup thickened with flour to seem more filling, bread to fill stomachs when they would otherwise be empty. Times were not hard yet, but maybe they would be soon.

[Naiya]

Distracted again Rue pulled another vegetable to her board, wondering if it would not be better to just cut it into rounds. With that thought she turned the tapered root and began to chop. Knife tip down, the back end moving up and down with the heavy thudding of a knife in need of sharpening. She mumbled a curse under her breath - she had known there was something she was supposed to take care of before breaking her fast. Maybe Ara wouldn't notice.

Precise cuts were difficult, gnarled as roots grow, but she was careful to measure about the same thickness of cut in each piece as she went. She paused a moment, lifting her hand knife and all to wipe sweat from her brow before returning to the carefully measured rounds she was cutting. She came to the end, green and leafy, and after a quick glance at her sister she stuck it in her apron pocket. Later she would offer the treat to Wildfire, an apology for how little time she had to spend with him in recent days.

"Rue, would you stir the kettle?" She glanced up, startled for a moment in thinking she'd been caught. How was it that the younger girl held so much more authority that she? Rue couldn't have put the reason into words, too difficult, or maybe just too difficult to think about. All the same she placed her knife aside and moved closer to the blazing heat to give the cook pot a stir.

Ara bustled about the small room, opening vents and doorways as she went. Even with every possible fold flipped back to let air in, the cooking fire's heat was oppressive, just as much so as the heat from the harsh golden sun. There was not even the slightest breeze to be caught despite Rue's desperate wishing. She couldn't tell which was hotter, the inside or the out? She gave another slow stir of the pot before roaming back to her cutting board remembering that it wasn't long ago that she had only been allowed to stand by the fire and stir while Ara and her mother prepared all the food. She didn't want to be demoted back to the constant heat of the fire.

More chopping, the task was endless. Or at least it was mindless, because her pile of vegetables was rapidly dwindling, far sooner than usual and not for any improvement in Rue's cutting skills. There wasn't any meat in the mix yet, but the cured meat they had wouldn't take long to heat with the rest of the food. Rue slowed her cutting, becoming more precise in her slices as she realized that next she would mix herbs and spices to flavor the meal, something she dreaded.

It wasn't that the smells bothered her, nor was it the fact that if she wasn't careful she could over flavor the meal or leave it too bland. No she had a natural taste for mixing flavors, what bothered her was the sting of the spices in the cuts she always managed to accrue while chopping. That was a whole new pain to Rue. Not the sting of a punch or the twinge of a sore muscle, but the burning intensity of peppers in a fresh cut. That was worse pain than any she faced in a sparring match, or it was to Rue anyway.

Her cutting had gotten sloppy, she realized with a frown, and some of her slices were too thin. Or was it that some were too thick? She pursed her lips deciding that it was the latter. She turned the slices so they were flat and cut them in half. Some of them were thick enough that she quartered them.

"All done with these, Ara. What's next?" Rue called, moving to scrape the vegetables into the pot. Ara intercepted her before she could do it.

"What is this?" She picked up a handful of the pile, some slices some chunks, and frowned at Rue. "This is a mess Rue. What did you do? Get half way through and decide to change things up?" Rue flushed, that was exactly what had happened. "This won't cook well, Rue." She sounded almost pleading. "The large pieces will be too hard, and she soft ones will be mush."

"I tried to make them all the same size." She said, ducking her head to hide her face behind the long copper locks of her hair.

"Rue!" Ara's beseeching tone drew the attention of Ara's mother who wormed her way into the room as quickly as she could.

"What is going on in here?" The stucatto signing of her hands spoke of dissappointment and angry excitement. She was ready to swoop in and take over the scolding.

Ara looked upset at her mother's arrival, but not enough to do anything about it, so she just explained what had happened. "They have to be the same, Rue. The same! How difficult is it to understand these things? Your younger sibling understands this, she even helps you with cooking, and still you mess it up?"

She took a deep breath, and I tried to speak in my defense, but she covered my mouth with her hand.

"Ara should be helping with the horses today, and looking after her sisters, but instead she took the time to come help you. How do you repay her for her kindness? By ruining a meal that she has put her name to. You think your father is going to blame you? No of course he won't, he'll blame Ara, because she not only shirked her other duties to help you make dinner, but she messed it up too."

"I didn't mean for-" Rue started to speak, but was cut off again.

"You never mean to mess up, yet everything you do is wrong. What do you think that says about you, Rue? How do you think that reflects on your mother?" Her angry words only came faster, and I cast my eyes to Ara, hoping for her to intercede on my behalf. She wouldn't meet my eyes, and I sighed. The exhalation was a mistake, as it caught more attention. "Am I boring you? Oh dear, I'm so sorry." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Do you want to go take a seat while we clean up your mess? Maybe you'd like us to just start all over?"

She snatched the food filled board from my hands, dumping the contents into the cook pot anyway. "Do you think you're so above everyone else that the food rationing won't affect you? Is that what this is about? Do you think we have food to waste just because you don't care enough to prepare it properly?" I shook my head, but my protests would not be heard. "Go tend to the children, they need someone to keep them busy while everyone else does your job."

[Naiya]

This was not a good place to be, on the one hand, she could escape to the main room and hang out with the others in the guise of babysitting, but that would mean further scolding and embarrassment as her failure was called out for everyone to see and poke at. Not to mention the consequences she would face for abandoning her job.

On the other hand, she could stay and finish cooking, but then she would be disobeying Ara's mother, and leaving Ara to finish cooking alone. Both of which were grounds for further punishment.

So which evil would she face? To Rue the best choice was to stay, but the consequences for it would be worse. There was really no way to win in this situation.

"I would really like to keep working in here." Ara's mother whirled to face her, indignation lighting up her face, so Rue spoke quickly to try and lessen the sting of her words. "Ara is trying so hard to teach me, I would hate to fail her and make her look like a poor teacher. I'm sure I'll pick up this cooking thing quickly with her help."

There was no softening in the face of her adversary, in fact she may have grown more angry. "Two seasons, Rue. Two! And in all that time you still can't even chop food properly? You haven't 'picked it up' quickly in all that time, why would now be any different?"

Trapped again. There was no good answer to that question. Luckily for Rue she was saved by a small voice from the main room.

"Mom, please don't make Rue come in here. I hate when she watches us, what if she rubs off on us and we all become as useless as her? Or worse yet what if she gets us into trouble?" There were a few calls of agreement from the room, and Ara shifted uncomfortably across the small kitchen.

Rue ducked behind the curtain of her hair again, letting the locks that brushed her hips fall around her in a haze of color separating her from the others. With a sigh of frustration the mother left, tossing her hands in the air above her head in case I had missed the anger she still felt with me.

Ara glanced up from the fire, not quite meeting my gaze as she began cooking again. "Rue if you could just chop up some herbs... try and make sure they are small enough not to be noticed."

"Of course." Rue answered putting aside the insults and the harsh words from moments before, they would only grow worse if she showed that they bothered her. More so with the younger girls and boys, they had little upbringing where Rue wasn't looked down on, and viewed her poorly for it.

What she would give to be in a place where that wasn't the case. Where she could start fresh. Quickly she snubbed out those thoughts, it was that kind of thinking that had put her in this position, lower than even the youngest children in the pavilion and removed from her job and her training. She had made such plans once, with promises of seeing the world, and those same thoughts had driven her father to let her see little outside the pavilion for months.

She shook her head, ducking into the tins of spices and reaching for strings of drying herbs. She would bury that all in the back of her mind, let it sit there undisturbed until they came to her in dreams. It wasn't the most effective plan, for she spent many a restless night for that reason, but she found she had little other option.

Turning her mind back to the task at hand she ground coriander seeds into powder and lined up leaves of basil and sage for chopping. She stared warily at the green hued leaves before deciding to take a break from cutting. She pulled a few sprigs of thyme, happy to tear the tiny leaves from the woody branch and add them to the powdered coriander. The small leaves would compliment the tang of the spice, and the sage and basil would only add to the flavor even more.

One leaf at a time she pulled apart the herb, and when all the leaves were in the mortar she bruised them softly with the pestle to help release the oils that would flavor the mix. Cutting the larger leaves had the same effect as bruising the smaller ones, but was far more difficult for Rue.

She turned to her block and lifted her knife, making cuts longways across the leaves with just the tiniest bit of leaf intact at the stem side. A small turn and she began cutting perpendicular to the first cuts, a trick that gave her a much better starting place for having the herbs cut small enough.

She repeated the process with each leaf until she had a small roughly chopped pile of herbs. All that was left to do was make the cut more fine, and that could be done simply by placing the tip of the knife down and moving the rear across the pile one cut at a time.

Up, down.
Up, down.
Up, down, up, down.

The sound of the knife hitting the board was lulling, the crunch of the leaves soft enough that it was more of a feeling than an actual sound.

Up, down, up, down.

But her skill with the knife was poor and the tip of her knife left the board as she slid it forward across the pile of ever smaller leaves. The still sharp tip cut into her finger almost as easily as it cut the herbs, and she dropped the knife to the table with a soft gasp.

Ara started at the sound but Rue was already reassuring her.

"It's fine, the knife just slipped." Rue soothed, lifting the digit to her lips.

[Naiya]

Rue may have lied about the second cut she gave herself that afternoon, although she didn't realize this until after Ara had left her to finish the cooking alone.

The only hint she had toward this was the continued bleeding of the wound, since her knowledge of wounds and medicine was all but naught. Sure it had hurt slightly more than the first, but the first cut had been on the knuckle of her first finger, almost on her palm, and she had assumed that the tip of her finger was just more sensitive than the palm.

She glared down at the pad of her third finger as she stirred the pot beside her, trying to determine the severity of the injury. Blood welled from the cut once more, spilling forth until it began to send a trail of crimson down her finger. She pressed the wound to her mouth once more, she could only imagine the response were she to stain something in the pavilion.

She kept the finger pressed firmly to her lips as she stirred, choosing to ignore the inconvenience while she finished the meal. She would have someone look at it once supper was served assuming it hadn't stopped bleeding by then.

Ara had helped her to finish prepping the meal, but she had bowed out to tend to the horses before supper. It left Rue alone in the sweltering heat of the kitchen, the cook fire nipping at her bare legs.

Really she could have been better dressed for the work, but knowing she would not leave the pavilion, accompanied with the heat that sent rivulets of sweat down her back, she'd decided that she could pass by the task wearing only her simple tan tunic, the length of which left her covered well enough to pass by in her own home. It was short, even for a summer length dress, but but with a gaggle of reluctant girls her only company, she figured it was worth the comfort she gained.

She would, of course, dress more appropriately for dinner, she couldn't imagine the repercussions of arriving half dressed only to find another of her father's suitors awaiting her at the table. No, it wouldn't do for dinner, but it would make the time until then far more bearable.

A small ember bit at her foot as it drifted away from the fire and Rue jumped slightly with surprise. She frowned down at the lumpy brown soup, stirring it again now that her attention returned to it. Hot soup was the last thing she wanted to eat after the prolonged heat of the day, but it was the best way she knew to feed so many mouths. Surely there were other ways, but Rue was no chef to know them, despite her family's best attempts to change that.

Watered ale would accompany the meal, since she had already used up so much of the day's allotted water. She would have to learn what else to cook that required less water than soup, at least until the rains came.

Maybe Ara would teach her to roast food like she had the other night, that had been delicious and seemed easy enough to put together. Then again, soup was supposed to be easy to make too, and just look at the state of her.

She pulled her finger from where she pressed it to her mouth, glad to see that it no longer welled with blood as she released the pressure from it. That was a good sign if she had ever seen one. A soft smile crossed her face as she imagined Maybell's reaction to seeing her hands, butchered as they were. They woman would chide her softly before falling into laughter at her clumsiness. She was so easy to make smile, Rue regretted the loss of her work at the elder woman's shop.

She sobered then, swiping the back of her hand across her forehead before the droplets of sweat could roll into her eyes. Maybell had told her that her job would wait for her, but she had hardly made any progress towards being allowed back to work.

Well that wasn't entirely true, she reminded herself as she moved toward the open flap to the side of the fire. She had changed in the seasons since she had stopped working, and hopefully her father would recognize that and allow her to return. Or maybe Ara's mother and the other wives would soon grow persistant enough in their complaints to convince her father that it was better let Rue work - if only to gain peace in the household.

The thin walls of the tent did little to keep her from overhearing those conversations. One of father's wives or the other bemoaning her fate. 'Do I have to teach her to spin? Surely she should learn to dye first' and later 'Dyeing? She hardly needs to worry about that when she can't even look after the girls alone, imagine what would happen to a child in her care!' And on it would continue, with one after the next. 'She's such a bad influence on the children, I don't want them to think the way she behaves is okay. Maybe she should learn to cook.'

That was how she'd gotten stuck in the kitchen, doing this or that to help whoever was cooking the next meal. Surely now that would change, Ara's mother would be after father as soon as he arrived home, beseeching him to send me off to be someone else's burden.

That was her role in the pavilion, the burden. No matter how she tried to be better, to please everyone with my efforts, she always fell short in some way. Today it was with the oddly shaped vegetables, and the strained look on Ara's face as she looked over the meal she helped me to make. Tomorrow it would be something different, but it would happen because Rue seemed to blunder every new task she took on - at least in the eyes of her pavilion. Even if it wasn't anything obvious, there was always the looming fact that she had failed so greatly to please her family that they had pulled her from the public eye lest she embarrass them further.

The name Rue had become a taint on the Nightsong line, and they were doing everything they could to remove it.

[Naiya]

"This soup is gross." Though the words were whispered, they were also meant to carry, something the girls had perfected.

"I know! What did she do to it?" Soft laughter followed, and Rue's face pinked at their words. It didn't taste bad, it was just a little unevenly cooked, but all the same Rue found she had failed to preform once more. She stared down at her hands, now wrapped with several small cloth bandages, and watched her food grow cold.

"What happened to her hands? Do you think she got blood in the food?" This time it was one of her brothers, always happy to add a little gore to a conversation.

"Maybe that's why it tastes so bad." More soft laughter, and Rue's cheeks darkened to a true blush. She shifted, letting her hair fall around her, a barrier between her and the rest of the world. She picked at the weave of her breeches, not really pulling on the strings, but giving herself something to focus on aside from the remarks of her siblings.

They were of an age that they knew they were being cruel, but young enough to still get away with it. Her older siblings, and the ones closer to her age all just sat silently, nearly as uncomfortable as Rue.

"I'm going to go check on Wildfire, I haven't had time to groom him today." Rue spoke when she could take no more of the torturous dinner. She left her bowl full of soup behind and quickly escaped from the dinner.

"I expect you'll be back to clean up." Her father's voice chased her out of the pavilion, and she didn't respond, just continued in search of her strider.

She was running when she rounded the corner and came upon the pavilion's horses, and having sensed her distress Wildfire was waiting to meet her at the hastily built corral. She didn't smile at the stallion, just ducked through the rope lines and wrapped herself around his neck.

She didn't cry, or sob, or shake, although she was suddenly glad she hadn't eaten, because she felt sure that if she had she would have lost the food in that moment. Instead she stood, her face buried in the white and cream mane, whispering kind words to her companion, and breathing in the warm sunny scent of horse.

She tried, she really did. Yet her efforts came to little, and she spent so much time making up for her mistakes. At least when she had been working in Maybell's shop she had felt like she had accomplished something at the end of the day. Here a day's hard work got her harsh words and scoldings.

She could only take so much.

Wildfire was quiet for a long while, resting his head lightly on Rue's shoulder in the best form of comfort he could offer her. Once he felt she had spent enough time wallowing in self pity he lifted his head away from her and pushed strongly against her chest. He stomped. Then snorted loudly. Finally he walked her over to the bucket of grooming tools that hung just on the outside of the fence.

Rue smiled softly, pushing her hair back off her face as she trailed after the horse. He made a pleased sound as she lifted a curry comb from the bucket.

Grooming was almost as therapeutic as crying would have been, but she much preferred to put her energy into her strider. She took the sulfur stone and began to make the small circles on his neck that would loosen the hair and dirt and leave it lying on the surface. She was careful to make the hair she brushed stand on end, knowing that it would look so much better for it when she was done brushing.

She curried his entire body, slowly so as to be sure she didn't miss any spots, even going so far as to gently curry the spots on his legs where dirt had caked in sweat. Then she returned to the bucket, searching for a medium bristled brush to remove the dirt she had just brought to the surface.

Quick flicks of the brush sent the dirt and loose hair air born, smoothing the hair beneath it and leaving it relatively clean. This brush followed the path of the curry comb, just as carefully, and continued to brush off the whole of Wildfire's legs.

She was taking more time than she usually would to groom, but she wanted to be sure everyone was done before she returned. She would slip in and clean up and fall into her bed without facing anyone else for the day. She didn't think she could stand another chastising today.

She finally grabbed a soft brush, using long solid strokes to bring the shine back to the red of his coat, and even brushed loose hair and dirt from his face.

Her fingers combed the largest of the tangles from Wildfire's mane and tail, and then she braided some small sections to match the small braids in her own hair.

"There, all done. Just let me pick your feet, and we can call it a night." Wildfire obliged, though it was his least favorite part of being groomed, lifting one hoof at a time for her to pick the dirt and rocks out of.

She patted his cheek and then climbed back through the fence, brushing dirt and horse hair from her hands.

All too soon, she ducked in through the kitchen, stepping into the dining area. To her surprise the mess from dinner had been cleared, and when she peaked back into the kitchen she found that it had been cleaned as well.

Apparently she wasn't entirely alone.

[Khida]

Rue Nightsong

Skill	Points
Cooking	+3
Cosmetology	+1
Herbalism	+1
Horsemanship	+2
Larceny	+1
Medicine	+1

• Cooking: means of stretching food
• Cooking: pieces of equal size cook evenly
• Cooking: rough cut and rough chop
• Herbalism: crushing leaves with mortar and pestle
• Horsemanship: grooming with currycomb, brush, and hoof pick
• Medicine: apply pressure to staunch bleeding
• Spices: basil, coriander seed, sage, thyme

Notes

Rue really did quite a lot in this thread. It's also an interesting look into how her family treats her -- I think this is the first of your threads I've read which actually details that. I awarded Larceny for swiping the greens and Cosmetology for the hair-braiding. I think everything else should be transparent.

I have some minor critical comments. First, there are a few points where you slip from third person into first. Please try to check for this in future threads and correct to a uniform perspective. Second, I notice you specifically mention the currycomb is rubber. I don't think I've ever seen this as an available material in the lore, and to the best of my knowledge, rubber IRL is largely sourced from tropical plants. In which case it probably isn't available in Cyphrus. A quick search suggests that iron was a common material for medieval currycombs; bone and wood also seem likely alternatives. Finally, although there is not an authoritative statement to my knowledge, I am personally doubtful of any Pavilion having a wood-slat corral; that's a lot of scarce material which could be used for other things. Looking at the lore page, I would expect rope and canvas, perhaps with wood supports, for pretty much any construction; additionally, I would think a bonded Strider is unlikely to wander in the first place, while the Pavilion also has the advantage of the Web for finding animals which do stray.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please PM me. Also, please edit your request to show this thread has been graded.