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This is a companion piece to my fic, "There were days when Lune was a younger man." You may want to check that out for this to make sense, although this can be a stand-alone.
Tash and Wooden Tables
Colin watches his wife. Her hair falls in thick waves against her back, and her skin is smooth and dark from a half Calormen heritage. Time has callused her shortened fingers and Colin watches them as they scrape a rag along the roughly hewn wooden table. She is compact and sturdy; the combination of hard Archenland sun and soil, and fleetingly lithe like the Calormen sun. The thick skirts swish in time with her movement. Woolen fabric bends and stretches around her frame, and Colin's fingers tighten around the thick clay mug.
Colin's wife has black eyes and wild hair and tanned skin, somehow still strewn with innumerable freckles.
Something catches in his throat. Colin sets the brassy mug on the table with a hollow thud, and walks away without a second glance backwards. Innumerable childhood memories flick like a torrent against his brain. Col and Colin, Helen, Jarmak and Asareal and Ahoshtashje and Dar. The thick wooden swords crack against each other with glee. And the boys pretend to control the very thunder in the air. Helen and Asareal flee into the brush, Dar pushes the rustling grass away as he scrambles quickly behind. Colin falls quickly in line with Ahoshtashje, otherwise known as Ash, or as a similar word without the h, as Jarmak likes to call him on particularly miserable days.
The children form a cohesive unit; and as much as Col and Colin are twins, Ash and Colin cling to each other like brothers in arms. As the years stretch forward, the three form a happy trio. Jarmak on the other hand has buried himself in a library of books, and only resurfaces at Col's gentle prodding's. Soon he goes to the sea as a merchant, and a scholar, but the alluring eyes of a red headed Terebinthian root him to the isles. Ash and Colin fight and learn to ride and teach Dar the proper way to skin a deer. Col fights with double broadswords and becomes thick friends with the young Prince Lune.
Asareal peers after Col through thick lashes and promptly snubs him after an incident involving pickled herring, a bovine, yellow clay and her grandmother's pet goose. Colin wipes the thick mud off of her arm with a heavy woolen rag, as Lune and Col scower the castle for the missing bovine. Ash has left for a moment, scampering after rolling jars of a suspiciously yellow looking jam.
Colin is alone with Asareal. His whole frame has frozen and words spill stupidly from his mouth as he stutters, "…Are… are you alright?"
Asareal peers at him through a dripping yellow face and simply pulls a piece of pickled herring from Colin's blonde locks. A mutual understand appears and the day ends in laughter and stifled giggles. Colin has loved Asareal for a very long time.
Then the influenza comes. It takes thirteen year old Dar and leaves him pale and thin. Asareal heats wet woolen rags and presses them against skin and draws up thick pillows and throws open windows and boils so much soup that her stomach begins to turn at the very sight of boiled water. Her mother wastes away, and Dar survives, but the King dies. Lune ascends the throne and political alliances are made and Helen becomes a Queen and Col speaks in low whispers to his friend as the world changes around them.
Colin doesn't see Asareal for some time. A schism is beginning to appear between those of Calormen birth and those of Archenlandish blood. Sadly though, neither of them sees this yet.
Asareal's father makes a bad deal. Sick and frail from the influenza, he sends his eldest available son to pay off his debts; and so Ash begins to work for a man the king despises.
It's in the thick of the battle before Ahoshtashje truly begins to comprehend what is going on. At first they say that they need to protect the young prince. And then Ash's Uncle sits him down. It's his mother's brother. The young prince lies in Ash's arms and they are rushing Ahoshtashje towards a creaking boat. Ahoshtashje is in the water before he begins to understand what this new allegiance means. It means his father's life, and it means the young prince's fate as well. A blessing from Tash falls from his Uncle's lips, before an arrow lodges itself through his neck. Ahoshtashje repeats his mother's fervent prayers through his childhood faith, and in a moment of desperation cries to Colin's lion to keep him safe.
A lion pushes the boat to shore as Ahoshtashje closes his eyes for the last time.
Asareal is alone when Colin smashes through the front door of her father's home.
"Where is he…?" The cry of rage rips through Colin's mouth as Asareal hold's Ash's 6 month old son her arms. Her lips fall open in a look of pure fear and confusion.
It takes time for the shock to wear off and the dull knife of grief to press through her heart. Her brother is a traitor. Her father conspired with traitors, and her Uncle was in the pay of the Tisroc (may he live forever). Split loyalties and split lines fill the silence. Colin doesn't trust her, and now, due to her bloodline's sway with the remaining Calormen bloodlines in Anvard, she is his wife.
Asareal cleans off the roughly hewn wooden table. Ash lingers like a ghost between them. Colin's nephew is gone and she is Ash's sister. Asareal hisses in pain as a splinter catches through her thickly callused hands. Between the confusion and the blame, she has been quietly carrying on her mother's household, and making herself a home.
Oblivious to Asareal, Colin watches her as she scrapes the rag along the roughly hewn wooden table. She is compact and sturdy; the combination of hard Archenland sun and soil, and fleetingly lithe like the Calormen sun. The thick skirts swish in time with her movement. Woolen fabric bends and stretches around her frame, and Colin's fingers tighten around the thick clay mug.
Colin has loved Asareal for a very long time.