To catch a Tan
Short Story Fan Fiction by WhiteWinds Champion
"Tan, Tan, she ain't no man, she ain't no woman neither, and if it wern't for Tan to hide, we'd 'ave all already beat 'er." sang out the chorus of young girls and boys as they danced around a lanky boyish young woman who wore a scowl over her gray herald-trainee uniform. The "Blues" were at it again and she was bound and determined to do nothing but roll her eyes this time. She had already gotten scolded for beating up a boy earlier that week and she was not eager to be scolded again. She had just turned sixteen but that didn't help matters, no mater how old she was she still looked more like a boy than a girl, and it was from this that the "Blues" extracted their taunts.
There was very little that surprised her about their behavior these days, they were bored and she just happened to be a bit of an odd-feather which made her a prime target for them. She began to tap her foot as they started their little rhyme over again and heaved a heavy sigh.
"I am going to be late if you don't get out of me way."
She had been trying to learn to speak "properly" for the last year and a half but every once and a while that southern Sweetsprings accent slipped out, particularly when she was irritated. The "Blues" made and "ooooh"ing sound and they scattered in a flurry of harsh verbal jabs and mocking gestures. She sighed again, then adjusted her load of books and continued down the hall toward the Herald's wing. She had been running an errand for Herald Glen when she'd been stopped by the "Blues" and she was afraid that their antics had made her terribly late and that was bad, at least for her because she prided herself on always being on time or early to appointments.
To her delight she made it to Herald Glens room before she could be counted late and the older man nodded in thanks to her, offered her a bit of fruit and cheese as a snack and then went about his furious scribbling. He was doing research for Queen Lyra on some matter or another, and it didn't concern Tania so she didn't ask, leaving the Herald to his work and walking back down the hall while munching away at her cheese. She stopped just short of the trainees dorm and went out a side door into the garden beyond it. She had some free time right now and a stroll in the gardens would be pleasant. She settled herself down on a bench and leaned up against the tree behind it. It seemed like so long ago that she had come here but it really hadn't been all that long, in truth.
She took out the small carved horse that had been hand painted white which she always kept in her pocket, smiled, and remembered…
Tania Torstar was the sixth of seven children and only daughter of a southern Vlademaren farmer, Sevlen Torstar, and his wife, Mina Straitrath. Her mother died shortly after the birth of her younger brother Kiven when she was two and so she has very little remembrance of her. Her five older brothers: Handel, Darci, Felen, Sevlen (the 2nd), and Anenth, all worked hard to help their father raise both Tania and Kiven. However, despite their best efforts, Tania became a wildly opinionated tomboy.
She, from a young age, insisted on doing her own share of a hard days work and her body agreed readily to such a rigorous discipline. At the age of five she decided that she wanted to slay monsters like Vanyel Demonsbane, who she heard about in a song that a bard sung during the fall festival, and began learning to ride the plow horses while her father time and time again tried to get her interested in the things a lady should do, such as embroidery, cooking, and the mending of cloths. He and the ladies of Sweetsprings' were unable to interest her in anything but cooking, which she took to with an determined flare fed only by her appetite for good tasting food. All of the other "womanly duties" she typically avoided with roguish delight.
As she grew older her body, still physically more adept at farm work than anything delicate, became lanky and awkward and she was often mistaken for a boy even by those who knew her well because, though she was growing at a healthy pace, her body was not "filling out" the way that the bodies of most other girls her age would. Her bark-brown hair was continually cropped short by her own hand to keep it from getting in her eyes while she worked in the fields or barn. Her bright blue eyes, however, stayed sharp and large which was probably the only feminine thing about her appearance. She was taller than the average girl, and taller even then some of the boys, with long legs, and strong arms. Her aversion to tasks that a woman would usually perform continued on even into her early teens, though she did finally take to cloth-mending because she went through the knees of so many pairs of breeches that the women in town couldn't keep up with the mending. She grew to like other things such as: reading, and drawing pictures (based on the descriptions of places and people she heard of in bards songs), as she aged as well, even going so far as to train herself in jousting on the backs of the old plow horses on the evenings that she wasn't making dinner. Her imagination had run wild.
When she turned fourteen her father and elder brothers gave up trying to convince her to be more "lady-like." It was about that time when her gift of Empathy began to manifest, though she (like most other women) had always had a very primitive sense of it. Shortly after this gift began to manifest Handel, the eldest of her brothers, was blessed with his first child, a little girl that he named Danyela, whose life Tania growing gift saved when the baby almost strangles itself with its own blankets. Danyelas' distress reached Tania even out in the field and she ran to her brother to warn him of the danger.
All of her other brothers, with the exception of Anenth and Kiven, had moved out of their fathers house and were now living either on farms of their own or in the town of Sweetsprings with their own wives. This left more to do for less people and old Sevlen Torstar was forced to send Tania and Anenth on a long journey to Deercreek to pick up a stud-colt that he and several other farmers in the Sweetsprings area were going to share for their draft stock. Tania was ready and willing, never having been more then a days' ride in either direction of Sweetsprings, though Anenth expressed much displeasure in being torn away from his courting of one of the neighbors daughters.
This news of her leaving, though it was only a "short trip" left poor twelve year old Kiven in a rather depressed mood and Tania spent all the days, from the day she was told of the errand to the day she left, reassuring him that she would be back and that she would bring him a gift. Tania and her older brother left Sweetsprings after the spring festival for Deercreek. Much to Tania's displeasure this would mean that she would turn fifteen while she was on her way back from Deercreek to Sweetsprings.
When Tania and a sour Anenth arrived in Deercreek three weeks later they were met with an odd site. It was apparent that the owner of the tavern in Deercreek was having trouble with one of his regular customers who had gotten himself falling-down pissed much to early in the day. Anenth ran to help the disgruntled tavern owner and when the drunk threw a mean punch that sent the sixteen year-old sprawling, Tania jumped in. At her appearance the drunk just laughed but soon found himself under hoof when a huge white stallion barreled him over. To the gathering crowds amazement, as well as to the shock of Anenth and Tania, the stallion chased the drunkard down to the creek, from which the town derives its name, and pushed him in.
The people of Deercreek were used to seeing Companions as many Heralds came and went from Frost Reach, which was only a few days ride from there. Anenth and Tania, however, rarely saw the fabled white riders of Valdemar except when one came riding though on circuit, and even then they never stopped longer then to check on the situation in town before they moved on.
Tania knew, though she was not really sure how, that this white stallion was a Companion and not just some lose horse having a romp through town. For one she could feel him, his emotions were as clear as her brothers, and he if he had been human he would have been laughing quite light heartedly with amusement as he stood on the creek-bank and watched the drunken man flounder around in the knee deep water. And for another, not a soul in all of Deercreek attempted to stop the large white stallion as it trotted back up the bank and onto the beaten dirt road that went though the town. He had an almost unearthly shine to him and his silvery hooves chimed musically even on the soft grass. The stallion walked up the road and stopped just before her brother, whose surprise and underlining hopefulness was obvious to even those without his sisters gift. The Companion however merely brushed Anenth aside lightly and dropped his soft pink nose into Tania's flat chest.
She would never forget the words he said to her while his mystic blue eyes stared into her own, he said: "May name is Tuck, dear Tania, and I Chose you."
Tania sighed as she turned the little white wooden horse over and over again in her hand. Kiven had carved it for her when he found out that she had been Chosen. Apparently after she had left for Haven with Tuck Anenth had gone back to Sweetsprings and told their family that she had ridden off without him though he didn't tell her father or her other brothers where she'd ridden off to or that she'd ridden off astride a Companion. This had sent her whole family into a panic and when the messenger from Haven came to formally deliver a message from the Heraldic Collegium stating what had happened her older brother Anenth had been severely punished. Kiven sent her letters every couple of weeks, keeping her updated on what was happening in their family and in the town Sweetspring and the farms that surrounded it. Kiven was likely never to forgive Anenth for his half-truth and Tania wouldn't blame him. It was horrible of Anenth to give the family such a fright just because he was jealous that she was Chosen and not him. She might have pitied him but he didn't deserve it.
A soft nudge on her shoulder brought her attention to a pair of bright blue, magically enticing, eyes. It was Tuck.
'I see that you are alone again, Tania, love. Have you such a hard time making friends that you fell more comfortable with the flowers?'
"Oh no Tuck, I was just thinking."
'Hm." Said Tuck to her mind in a soft but strong masculine voice. He knew better than anyone that Tania was lonely without her brothers, trouble though they may be, and he did what he could to ease that loneliness but there was only so much one could do in the body of a horse.
"Don't worry Tuck, I'm fine, really."
'You are brave Tania." a mental sigh humming in Tania's mind.
Tania looked into her Companions eyes and arched an eyebrow. "What makes you say that." she asked pointedly, and she "felt" Tuck smile broadly with her empathy and saw it in his eyes.
'I would never be able to sit alone in a garden, thinking such serious thoughts when there is dinner to be had.'
Tania started, she hadn't even noticed that it had already started to get dark, dinner was most definitely being served in the kitchens by now and her stomach chose now to make itself heard as well.
"Oh no." she groaned, slapping herself on the forehead. "I have to go Tuck, or their wont be anything left!"
'Go, eat, and I will see you tomorrow.' Tuck "smiled" again and Tania got up and sprinted off across the lawn waving to her Companion and sending feelings of love and happiness along the mental link between them. And if Tania was happy, Tuck was happy.