As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, and criticisms about the story feeling too fast or too slow let me know what to change for next time.
From Scanra With Love
Chapter Four: Galla Is Not Enough
Daine had spent her entire life never going more than a day from Snowsdale. She had thought that working as Hakkon's apprentice would be all she could want, but now she knew that Snowsdale wouldn't be enough. Why would she want to stay in a little town where no one would ever look past her conception? She didn't want to stay, anymore, not when there was an entire world of people that didn't care. She might go back to see her ma one more time in the mortal realm, but there would be few other goodbyes to make. The animals had understood that Daine might not come back to Galla.
Living with her da would be different, and she still couldn't believe she would be able to enter the Realms of the Gods when Blayce was gone. She would be a goddess, however minor, a goddess that could heal animals and bless those that treated them well. Her ma's reach as a goddess would be just as small, but Sarra would help in childbirthing and healing for all of northern Galla.
Until then, Numair Salmalín was teaching Daine how to use her own magic.
He was a very patient teacher, and he had even started to speak Common in a way she could mostly understand. He would stop to explain the occasional strange word, and she was slowly but surely building up a vocabulary that could let her be the equal of any Gallan noble. She was imitating his speech bit by bit, as she imagined that a goddess wouldn't speak quite so much like a country bumpkin. He had been very nice about saying that intellect rarely had a thing to do with dialect. She had needed both words explained, but the sentiment (another of his words) was very kind. He followed that by saying that George was one of the most intelligent men that Numair had ever met, and he'd started out as a dirt-poor commoner. It was easy to like Numair all the more for his stories of how George had found Numair poorer than dirt working as a street juggler. She hadn't imagined that a man with a black opal hanging from one ear could ever have been poor.
It helped that Numair's lined, tense features softened to animated happiness whenever he talked about wild magic or coaxed her through some new lesson in the philosophical meanings. She'd never imagined that a noble could be so at ease when helping someone like her. He looked far younger than thirty-one when he smiled properly, and he was smiling more and more as the lessons went on. She still tangled her tongue on half of the concepts he explained, but he was thrilled with her progress and what he called a natural perspective. Numair liked to talk with her about right and wrong, good and bad. She liked his grand explanations of morality and ethics. Daine wasn't sure why he gave their rough conversations about good and bad people such weight, but she supposed it was something about being a scholar. She could picture him in a library surrounded by books more than she could on horseback, and that was while she watched him attempt to keep his seat on Bandit, his stalwart steed. Daine rather liked the word 'stalwart,' and had managed to use it four times in one day to Numair's great amusement.
In exchange for his lessons, Daine taught things of her own. She spent at least an hour a day talking Numair through several exercises about improving his balance and finding his best posture on a horse. She rearranged Bandit's tack to find a better place for the saddle, consulted with Bandit and Cloud about the optimal stirrup length, and let Song observe progress from up in the sky. By the time they reached Scanra, Numair could ride along at a trot without wincing or wobbling.
Cloud noticed the changes in Daine's magic well before she did. The pony had agreed to serve as a research subject as well as an advisor. Daine spent half an hour a day attempting to command her stubborn pony to follow Daine's will, and spent very little of that time winning. Matching wills with Cloud took all of her focus and power, and was the best practice a fledgling wildmage could hope to have.
Slowly but surely, meditation was helping. Daine started out focusing her mind for just five minutes at a time, but by the end of their first week traveling together, it was easy to think of nothing while on Cloud's back. Cloud knew more than enough to keep them moving in the proper direction, and approved of anything that would make Daine stronger.
Two days into Scanra, when Daine could win one in two battles of wills against Cloud, Numair had her start commanding more than one animal at once. Cloud and Bandit together were the first subjects, then the two mounts and Song at the same time. Herds of deer were all too easy, as were flocks of birds. Lone birds like the eagles were harder, but when Daine explained things, they agreed to let her try commanding them. She even had permission from a curious alpha wolf to test her will against his pack. Bandit had sweated and shied with so many wolves around, but Cloud had been unruffled. She had only twitched her tail when one of the wolves got a little too fresh.
Her most successful attempt at controlling animals came with the two horses carrying Scanran scouts from the capital. She felt a little guilty for warning the scouts in such detail about the mountain lions in the trees, but Cloud told her not to dwell on it. Cloud was more morally reliable than most people, so Daine took the pony's advice and kept the tactic up on several other scouting parties that drew a little too close to Daine and Numair.
At any given moment, Daine had at least four birds that agreed to scout for her. She could send her eyes along with any of those scouts, with Cloud to steady her and Numair to watch her physical form. She saw miles and miles of Scanra from the vantage points of eagles and hawks and falcons, and had the odd experience of seeing herself slumped on Cloud's saddle with a waist-tie holding her body in place.
When she returned from an abnormally long ride, following a vulture that had soared up as high as any falcon, Numair pressed the last of their bread into her hand. With the fresh bread gone, they'd eat trailbread with their dried fruit and jerky. "You were gone for two hours," he said, answering her usual question. "Song saw scouts, but we were able to avoid them."
The bread from the pub was hard, and not nearly as good as her mother's, but Daine liked hard bread when she was coming back from long trips away from her body. Cloud said it was because something that foolishly human reminded Daine just who she was, and Daine thought the pony might be right.
"Nobody's seen your queen yet, or at least not that they know. I told 'em to tell me when they found a body what didn't have blonde hair, and so far most everyone has." Daine gulped water from her waterskin before continuing. "I saw a couple trappers with black hair, but that was all for today. It'll get harder to scope out when we get near to towns, but Song said that she'd let me ride along. She's the best in villages."
Far above her, Song approved with a loud call that sent a flock of sparrows to scattering.
Numair smiled as he looked up into the seemingly empty sky. "Your control is already far better, Daine. You barely needed me, I think, but it would be hard to find proper training without a library of any kind."
"Most libraries don't know about wild magic, I'd think, even if I could've seen my lord's books and things." Books had been the most that she could hope to have, but now she had a teacher that knew more about wild magic than even her father. She had thought that her mission would all be about the bad times, but she hadn't realized that she would trust someone so completely. Daine definitely hadn't expected to become a friend to King Jonathan's most powerful sorcerer.
Numair could even teach her to heal, when she had a proper patient, and not just with bandages and splints and herbs. Daine could use her magic to heal, and with that, she could have saved any number of her friends, and she could have healed Cloud's leg well enough that the pony didn't limp after a long day's ride.
Three days into Scanra, Daine trusted Numair as much as she trusted her own grandda. He was a sweet man at heart, and he had been nearly as upset as Daine to find a badly wounded fox that a badger had savaged. He talked her through all of what she needed to do to mend a broken bone in the midst of a nasty bitemark, and how to knit the flesh together over that leg and in the deep gouges the badger had left. Daine absently touched the silver badger claw at her breastbone as she worked, but she could hardly blame her badger. It was much like any of the beasties to take an intrusion badly, and the fox had been after a newborn kit.
Her patient promised to be more careful in the future, and Daine smiled to watch the animal run off into the forest. She had been able to heal. A country-born girl without any Gift at all could heal animals, and it was enough for her to float on a cloud of exuberance for all of that day and into the next.
When they'd been in Scanra for five days, Daine worked up the courage to start a much harder conversation than their talks of wild magic and Numair's life in Tortall's capital. She knew that she'd have to tell her story sometime, and she wouldn't want to tell it to anyone else. Even her own ma wouldn't have wanted to hear the details, but she thought Numair Salmalín was made from sterner stuff.
She waited until they'd made camp, but didn't eat anything. She wasn't sure it would stay down after what she had to say.
"I don't remember where Blayce's keep is, really, because I was halfway to mad when I got out." Daine pulled the silver badger claw from her shirt for comfort as Numair set his dinner aside, and fixed her in place with his dark eyes. She knew him well enough to find the concern in that intense gaze, but she still had to swallow roughly before she said anything else. "I had to run out as an animal, when I hadn't known I could be an animal at all, and I fair lost myself going out as a mink.
"Song found me, as soon as I was out of the keep, and she was the one what bit at me until I'd go where she wanted. She hopped along on the ground, like no falcon's keen to do, and called out until Cloud made her way over. Cloud wouldn't let me go anywhere until I changed back to human, and then Song stole me a shift from somewhere. I'm not sure how, but I don't remember much of anything.
"I think Song talked to other animals, because I almost remember a cat coming. From there, Cloud near herded me until I came to myself enough to ride on her back. I know we were a week from the border when I started thinking at all, but Cloud and Song should know the way back to the castle that Blayce was keeping." Daine had been holding the badger's claw tight enough that the sharp end had bitten into her hand, but she didn't ease her grip. The pain of it helped her to focus.
"I went mad because of the dungeons of Blayce's place. Blayce killed children for the machines he made, and I'm sure of that. When I got caught by that tower, Stenmun picked me up right by the neck. He would've killed me there if Blayce hadn't said to leave me live awhile. He said he'd use my soul for the best of his new designs."
Daine didn't know when Numair had moved, but he had been on the other side of the fire last she looked. Now, he had taken her free hand in both of his much larger hands, and that contact was enough for her to loosen her grip on the silver claw, just a little.
"The dungeons would've been bad enough. I was alone, there, and they only gave me a cup of water now and again. No food. I dunno how often Stenmun came with water, but he came at least nine times, and he kept saying what he'd've done with me afore I died. Blayce wouldn't let him, though, or Stenmun would've had me.
"That all were bad enough, but I wasn't all they kept down in the dungeons. After Blayce killed those children, they left the bodies there. That would've been enough, and I still can't take the smell from my memory, but that all weren't the worst. The worst was the rats.
"Rats'n'chickens never have listened to me. Chickens are too dumb to think of much at all, but rats… they're not under Weiryn's keep, and all of 'em know it cold. They have their own goddess, they told me, and their goddess was patient. I slept too light for 'em to bite me more than a few times, but they said they'd eat me when the nothing-man was done with me.
"With the children, they didn't have to wait. Rats drink blood, when they can get it, and there was a fresh body near every day down in that dungeon. Some of those bodies were already down to the bones, but most of them… they just looked like they was asleep, Numair. Just asleep, and then the rats…"
Daine didn't realize she had been crying until he pressed his handkerchief into her hand, but she didn't use it. She looked up at him, and that was all she had to do. He pulled her into a hard hug, because he knew she didn't want gentle. She didn't want soft. She wanted somebody that wasn't going to tell her it was going to be okay, because it wasn't.
"You don't have to talk about it," he said, and it was okay if his voice was quiet. She knew that Cloud and Song were listening close, because Daine never had spoken of the time between being taken with the Snowsdale children from that schoolhouse and leaving that castle as a mink.
Song couldn't fly indoors, really, and Cloud couldn't hope to sneak through a palace when Daine was too weary to call out for help. There had only been six children from Snowsdale, all together, but she and the children had been kept drugged the entire way to Blayce's keep. When she finally woke, she hadn't known where she was at all, but she was in the midst of dozens of young children, and all of them had started to think of her as an auntie. She'd never had children like her, before, when their parents wouldn't, but she couldn't have fun with them.
"I want to talk about it, I think, so's I won't start it all again. I guess I could start up where I was helping with the kids whose parents would let them learn to read. All six of 'em got taken, and me with them when I tried to fight off Stenmun with a chair. I don't remember a thing 'bout the journey, 'cept waking up with a dozen children staring at me. There had to be twenty kids, there, and there were more coming in every while from what they all said.
"The food was drugged. I know because I always slept too deep at night, when I've always slept light as a cat. I didn't eat for two days to be sure, then I snuck around in the night. I can see 'bout as well as a cat at night, too, and always have. I saw light in the stairs leading up to that tunnel, and when I got up to the top, Stenmun had one of those poor little kids held down while Blayce kept chantin' words that made my teeth hurt and my bones a shake.
"The little boy asked for his mama, right afore this… mist, I guess. This white mist came out of him, and then he slumped right down. Stenmun let him fall to the floor, and that's when I snapped. I don't know much of what was in that room, aside Blayce and Stenmun and that boy's body, but there was metal and wheels all over and these empty-eyed shiny metal things lined all along a wall.
"I threw something near the door, some glass globe, and it smashed against Blayce's head. Another white mist came out of that, and that 'un had a girl's voice calling out something I couldn't hear over Blayce yelling and Stenmun fair roaring at me. Stenmun had me a moment later, and that's when he said Blayce's name and offered to kill me there.
"Blayce said no, even when he'd lost control of his mist and lost two souls at once. From the sound of it, the little girl was happier leaving that glass bubble than she'd been in it, so I didn't feel too bad. Blayce said that he'd use me, to make up for losing, and that's when Stenmun took me down all the way to the dungeon. I saw Inar a few times, too. He was the one that helped Blayce with things, and he came to look at me with his real eye shut. He laughed, then, and said that half-a-goddess would be a fine bit of magic to take.
"I think he might've tried taking me, too, but he said he wanted me undamaged for what they'd do later. He said he'd help Blayce, and that he'd not miss that for the world. He's the one what called the horrible machines something—clockwork monsters, he said.
"I wouldn't've gotten out, because I didn't know how to shapeshift and Stenmun took my whole necklace with him. Badger can only find me when I have a piece of him, like a claw, so he had to give me another when I got back to my ma. Ma was fair frantic by then, and about to have my da step through to hunt me for all that it meant that he'd need to pay later.
"I only got out because there was a mouse in that castle. He got through all those rats and all those passages to get down to me, when nothing else could've done it. He was a little'un, barely old enough to have all his fur on and just old enough to be interested in girl-mice. Berry—that was his name—told me I had to get out of there, and that he'd asked the lady mouse-god for help in how to get me out. The mouse-god went and asked badger, and he said to tell the mouse that I could change into anything I wanted.
"The mouse told me that it was too dangerous for me to be his kind of small, and told me to be something with better teeth that still was skinny. I thought of a mink, first, so that's what I was when he showed me the way out. I think we passed Inar and Stenmun comin' down the big stairs, but that's when I forgot most of what happened and had to put most focus on not eating Berry when he'd helped me. Minks eat near everything, and that'd include mice, but I lasted long enough to run outside.
"Song said she could still hear my lifesong, a little, and that's how she knew to come and hop along so I'd go and chase her. I knew not to hurt her, neither, and Cloud was too big for a mink to be a bother even when I bit her once."
Daine's tears had dried, by the end of her story, and she was too drained to be embarrassed that she was sitting in Numair's lap like a little girl. "And that's all of it," Daine finished, leaning her head against Numair's shoulders while his big arms circled around her like he'd protect her from the world. "Song knows the way, and we should get there fast to stop him from killin' more, but we need to get your queen asides if'n she's near."
"Thank you for telling me," Numair said into his hair. With her head against his chest, she could hear his voice rumbling through her. His voice was nice, like a baritone in Snowsdale's times when the men would sing at harvest and the ladies would dance. "You're one of the bravest women I've met, Daine, and I know women legendary for courage."
It was a fair nice thing to say, and Daine was almost sure she thought to tell him. She heard him say something in reply, anyway, and felt the change when he stood up slowly. She'd already set out her bedroll, so he had no troubles in putting her right to bed, tucking her in with hands so gentle she barely could feel his touch. She thought he kissed her forehead, but that might've been from Cloud nuzzling at her shoulder or Song taking watch with all the seriousness a sparrow-hawk could muster.
Daine did know she heard him say "sleep well, magelet," and knew that she'd have a word with him in the morning about just what 'magelet' was supposed to mean. Until then, however, she slept, and she slept without a single nightmare.
