Lin of Ba Sing Se
Ba Sing Se, 93 AG
"Lin!" Mama calls, her voice faint through the floor.
"Almost done!" I yell back, carefully weaving the last hair stick through my hair.
That done, I take a moment to nervously smooth down the front of my dress. The one piece shenyi shiju style is a bit of a contrast to my normal two-piece ruqun dresses. [5]
I'd been worried about the fit when I realized it was one piece, but a quick glance again down at my hem confirms that it's long enough - if only barely.
There's a reason I've gone for ruquns since I sprouted like a weed, even though they're less popular in the city, and that's because with the two piece set, it's easier to rearrange the waist - something that was made to be worn up over my breasts can be pulled down to my waist proper for more room.
In addition to the odd-to-me cut of the robes, the dye is more expensive than anything I own. I recognize the shade from the uniform Mama wears to her job at the spa - a muted green color light enough to pass for Middle Ring. It goes in and fashion, in when nobility go for the cheap, one dye phase option, out when they decide to flaunt their wealth, in again when they decide that only dying the cloth once gives a more even color, and so on.
I have fond memories of wearing little dresses made from Mama and my sisters' hand-me-downs in the color when I was younger, though admittedly by the time the fabric got to me it was always more of a muddy brown than the clear green I'm looking at. And I've also got my own version from the times I've worked with Mama at the spa, though my dress is a different green than Mama's as prices had shifted enough that for a short while there had an acceptably Middle Ring green cheaper than the spa's usual.
I pull up on my outer skirt again anxiously, double checking the colors.
I'm lucky that my under dress doesn't clash with the color. The office hadn't provided me with one, telling me that my own under dresses would do fine, and I'd been a little worried that the blues of my wardrobe - a contrast to the usual Earthy lean towards yellow - would go as poorly with the uniform as they had with the dresses I had patched together out of my mother's old uniforms. The clear green tone, unmuddied by washings, has enough blue for the combination to look alright, but I'll have to be very careful washing the uniform dress if I want them to keep matching.
Satisfied, I nod to myself and drop the skirt so I can carefully climb down the ladder from the small loft bedroom that I call my own.
"Ah, Wenzi!" Mama exclaims as I hop down the last several hands to the ground, and I hear her smack Baba on the arm. She has her uniform on already, the same green as mine. "Wenzi, look! Your last child has found a good job for herself, aren't you proud of her?"
"Very proud," Baba says, not looking up from his congee. His shirt is a good, strong dark green, but his pants are an undyed, naturally brown ramie-hemp cloth that can stand up to the constant washing necessary due of the dust and mud from the road as he pulls his rickshaw.
I catch the edge of his lopsided smile, and I wrinkle my nose. I know they say you're supposed to 'mind the wisdom of your elders' or whatever, but I really wish arguing wasn't Mama and Baba's favorite activity and way of flirting.
"You're not looking!" Mama scolds. "Look, they even managed to find an outer dress that fits her!"
"Mama, he's walking her to the training center," Zan says exasperatedly. Her dress must be new - I don't recognize it. By the way it falls, it might be ramie-hemp like Baba's, but it's been dyed a good green that must have made it cost much more. It's not quite a light enough green for the Middle Ring, but it's definitely good enough to show that she's doing well from someone in the Outer Ring. I'm glad to see it - and it's nice to see her husband in the same green next to her. "He can look at her outfit on the way. Besides," she turns a critical eye on my clothes, and I can see her fingers twitching to alter them, "it may be long enough, but by the ways it falls, I wouldn't say it fits ."
"I'm just glad it's long enough to cover the hem of my under robes," I tell her, making a face as I walk over to the table and steal her untouched congee bowl. "With how strict they are, even pulling on one of my normal outer skirts to make up the length would get me removed for indecent dress."
"Isn't that in fashion right now?" Baba asks.
"It's a uniform," I say though half a spoon of the congee, even as Mama starts scolding him all over again.
"Honestly Wenzi! No respect for fashion!"
Mama comes towards me to take the congee from my hands and place it back at my sister's table.
"Respect, respect," Baba mutters, rolling his eyes. "I'm the head of this house hold, aren't I supposed to get the respect?"
Zan's husband, who'd been watching the conversation like some sort of ball game, lets out a snort at that. Mama whips around and he quickly hides his expression behind his tea cup.
"Are you sure you're ready?" Mama asks, turning back to me and reaching out to smooth wrinkles flat. She frowns at the result, then tugs the robe a little more to adjust the way it's sitting under my belt, probably trying to get it to sit more normally.
"Mama," I say, catching her hands. "I'm sure. I double checked, and they said I don't need to be able to read for this position. And if I do well enough, they might even pay for my education, though I doubt that will happen."
"Yes, yes," Mama says, squeezing my hands. "I'm just so happy - one of my children working as a government official? I never thought I'd see the day - we never had the money to get any of you educated, and well, I thought there goes that dream."
"Weren't you going to give her something?" Zan's husband asks.
"Oh! Right!"
Mama pulls away and goes to the bamboo-grass basket that had been steaming in the wok above the congee. She tips the contents into a bowl and presents it to me.
"Bao!" I enthusiastically scoop the bun out of the basket. Mama doesn't like to make these, so I don't get them very often. "Is it chicken?"
"Yes, it is," Mama says, sniffing a little in disgust. "A treat, for your first day of work. But don't you go thinking this will become a regular thing."
"Oh? Is this like what you say to her every birthday?" Zan asks. "What will it be for this, one for every job change?"
"Of course not, thank you so much Mama!" I say, ignoring my sister as her husband laughs again.
"Good thing you can eat and walk," Baba says, climbing to his feet, "because we need to get going."
"Right." I follow him to the doorway and sit down to quickly pull on my shoes and socks, careful of the bao.
"Hey," Zan says, sitting down next to me and almost making me drop my bao in surprise. "Be careful."
"What? Why?"
"I've heard . . . bad things about the Ju Di program. It pays well, but . . . they are a branch of the Dai Li. And you know what the Dai Li are like."
"Yeah."
I glance up when I hear Zan gasp, and I follow her gaze to four seagull crows on the roof of our neighbor's house, their white feathers stark against the red roof tiles.
Four.
In most parts of the world that would be a good sign. Four for the four elements.
In the Ba Sing Se dialect of Earth, four sounds like death. In Ba Sing Se you try to avoid it. You talk not about the four elements, but the five of them, pulling Spirit into the cycle. Or even the six elements with Chaos if you want an even number. Five, six, it doesn't really matter so long as you don't say four.
Four seagull crows, white as death.
"Lin," Baba says slowly, "maybe you shouldn't-"
I turn slightly to sling an arm around Baba and reach out to put a hand on Zan's shoulder.
"I'll be careful. I promise."
Baba frowns as he looks down at me, but he nods after a moment.
"Say goodbye to your sister," he says, stepping down onto the path. "You took a while to get dressed."
"Right."
"You will be our ambassadors to outsiders," the teacher says, pacing in front of the class. His clothing is neat, and good quality. It looks like some sort of kudzu-silk blend by the shine where light touches it, and it's an unquestionable Middle Ring green with accent embroidery in white that almost manages to make him look like he's trying too hard. "Now. While we don't require the ability to read, you might want to find a friend who can read to help you because the first phase or training requires that you memorize all city laws and ordinances. This is because in addition to serving outsiders, you might be assigned to serve various offices all over the city and might be required to judge based on these laws and ordinances."
The teacher comes to a stop behind his desk and looks out across the classroom. "If you can read, feel free to sign out a copy of the text from the basket in the corner. For those who cannot, try to follow along. If you fail the recitation text in three months, you will be released from your contract without payment. Understood?"
"Yes, teacher," comes a ragged chorus, my voice blending in with everyone else's.
"Good. If you want a book, go get one now and return to your seat. I will be checking names afterwards, so don't think you can get away with taking a book and not signing for it."
I follow a couple of the other girls to the basket in the corner of the room to take one of the well-worn books. I can't read myself, but I figure the more copies the class has to study from the better. And maybe I can find someone in my neighborhood who would be willing to read to me.
Luckily, I do know how to write my name - if only just barely. My parents had hung their children's birth certificates proudly on the wall.
I'm hyper aware of the teacher's eyes cataloging everyone as we grab books. It feels almost like he's watching me in particular as I return to my assigned spot, and I suppress a shiver, keeping my eyes down. I don't know if extra attention is a bad thing or a good thing right now.
We're being trained to act as an all-purpose public servant who can go almost everywhere, from the king's banquets to the Department of Waste. Someone like that could make a good spy.
It's an odd thought, like one of those stories I've listened to with some of the other girls on my street. Sometimes there are spies and political intrigue and romance, all of it far too dramatic for real life as we giggled over the descriptions of the handsome love interest.
I'd never wanted to be in that position myself.
I shake my head and look up at the rapping of the teacher's fan on the desk. "We will begin reviewing the city ordinances tomorrow. The rest of today is dedicated to your orientation. Right now, we are going to the tailor to check that your clothes are acceptable. Should you grow during your training period, you will be seeing her again to have your robes modified. You may stand and follow me."
It'll be fine, I tell myself, standing with the rest and tucking the book into my bag.
Baba and Zan's words and the four seagull crows refuse to leave my mind however.
I'll visit the temple on the way home for a blessing , I think.
"I've never been to a tailor before," the girl next to me says excitedly. "What do you think they'll do?"
"Ah?" I say surprised that she's talking to me.
I cast an assessing eye over her, lingering on the color of her under dress where it peeks out at the hem of her skirt and sleeves and around her neckline. She's wearing a strong leaf green, one that hovers right on the edge of Outer and Middle Ring, a step above what Zan had worn at breakfast. Though, I want to frown a little because it also looks like no one ever taught her color coordination - the leaf green of her under dress tips the uniform's color over into a warmer look, but her accessories - her fan, the pouch on her belt, her hair sticks - are a surprising shock of blue that looks out of place. If there'd been enough blue - maybe if she'd used a blue belt with the uniform, the blue could have perhaps worked as an accent color. As is, they look awkward and like a hasty afterthought.
"Hopefully, they can find me taller robes," I tell her, deciding to let the program's tailors tell her how to accessorize. "I think I'm done growing, but these ones . . . I mean they cover everything, but I wouldn't say they fit."
"Oh wow," the girl says, glancing at the wrinkles and the odd way the skirt falls as I indicate them. "I hadn't even noticed, you hid that well!" She bobs a shallow bow. "I'm Guo. Nice to meet you!"
"I'm Lin," I reply. "Nice to meet you as well."
Priest Yuan is sitting behind his vendor stand next to the Salt Rake Temple when I get there. He's wearing his normal robes - the patchwork of greens from clothes donated to him, stitched together with red thread that's only just visible at some of the seams. It's red for blood, red for the red salt that comes out of the salt marshes not far from the temple. It's not red for Fire, but I know it makes some of the refugees avoid the temple anyways.
Half the table before Priest Yuan is covered in the usual temple paraphernalia that people like to buy - incense in both stick and cone form; ghost money for the dead; cheap, fake-jade trinkets and sash ornaments that still manage to look nice; lucky tokens; small statues of both the Ladies and even a couple of Lady Era for home shrines; an open jar of blessed salt from the Blood Marshes to the north, the crystals gleaming red; even a few small perfume sachets embroidered with the temple's name in a manner similar to western omamori. The other half of the table has the last of the day's intricately carved fruit, some whistles, and the wood carvings of various animals or non-mythical figures that Priest Yuan makes and sells during the day.
"Lin!" Priest Yuan greets me cheerfully as I stop in front of his table, not setting down his knife and the small figure he's carving.
"Hello, Priest Yuan," I say, glancing down at the child in hand-me-down muddy green standing on her tiptoes next to me, peering at the array of items on the table, biting her lip and clutching a coin pouch in her hand. I spot her mother - Minchen, who sometimes comes in to pray when we're doing drum lessons at the temple - standing across the street when I glance around, watching them with an indulgent expression. I crouch down next to Fengchao. "Hey, do you want me to lift you up so you can see everything better?"
"Yeah!" Fengchao says enthusiastically, immediately turning to me with her arms raised.
"Alright." I stand back up to pick Fengchao up and prop her on my hip.
"Look!" she says, thrusting the coin pouch into my face and forcing me to do some fast readjusting to take it too. "Mama let me have some money to buy something because I'm always asking her if I can because Priest Yuan always has really pretty stuff! But now I can't figure out what I want to get, because all the fruits look so pretty, but once I eat it I won't be able to look at it anymore. And then I also wanted to get a perfume pouch that's supposed to help with friendship for Fuhe because he really wants to be friends with some of the other boys on our street but he's always too scared to approach them, so maybe if I do that he might figure it out! But then I don't get to have something for myself again. And so then I was looking at the statues, and look, look, there's an owl cat!"
"I can see that," I say, shifting my grip again as Fengchao wiggles, reaching for the little owl cat carving on the table.
"Okay! Well, it's really cute! But then, there's also the fox lion, and that's really cool-"
I listen to Fengchao babble on about the different options, ready to buy something one second, then getting distracted by something else the next. I smile as I listen to her, noting the things she keeps going back to.
"How about you get this?" I ask in a pause between words, hefting her up slightly as I reach out to grab one of the carved wooden figures.
It's one of the human ones from the more temple related side of the table, a version of our Lady of the Blood Marsh with fanciful robes painted bright colors that look altogether more like something you'd see in a play than real life. It's intricately detailed, the folds of the robes rendered with delicate precision, but it's all carefully close to the body, without any parts that would break off easily. Perfect for a child. "Look, you can play with this one. And maybe, if you lend her to Fuhe sometimes, some of the other boys might want to become his friends so they can play with her too."
"Ohhh! Oh yeah! And she's really pretty!" Fengchao says, grabbing the figure and looking it over. "Good idea! Hey Priest, Priest Yuan!"
"Why yes, Fengchao?" Priest Yuan asks, setting down the figure he's arving to rest his chin on his hands and smile at her.
"Priest Yuan, how much is this?"
"Well I don't know," Priest Yuan says teasingly. "She looks very nice, so she must be worth a lot, right?"
"Yeah!" Fengchao says. Then she frowns, probably remembering how much money she has, making me stifle a laugh. "I mean no! Not that pretty! Just a little money!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!" Fengchao nods. Then she brings out her best card. "You're ancient, so you probably can't see her as well! She's not that nice."
Priest Yuan, who is only twenty five and younger than Fengchao's parents, lets out a startled laugh. Then he shakes his head. "Of course, of course, I am indeed ancient. Well then, how much do you think it's worth?"
"Uhhh," Fengchao thrusts the figure back at me and grabs the coin pouch she'd handed me from where it's wedged between my hand and her side. She counts out the coins. "Ten!"
"Of course, of course," Priest Yuan nods seriously, leaning in. Since I spot a higher value coin on Fengchao's hand, that's actually enough to buy one of the more intricate figures on the table. Mincheng must have been saving up. "But you know what, you're one of my favorite customers, so how about I let you have it for those six medium coins instead. Our secret."
Fengchao giggles, looking delighted as she counts out the coins and holds them out to Priest Yuan. Then she pauses, looking down at the four coins left in her other hand as Priest Yuan tucks the six coins away. "Ummmm, Priest Yuan, how much are the fruit flowers?"
"They're two coins," Priest Yuan says.
"Mm! Then can I get . . . this one! And this one!" Fengchao says, pointing at two of the carved apples. "One for me and one for Mom!"
"Of course, of course," Priest Yuan says, accepting the last coins. Sorting through them, he says, "But you're still my favorite customer, so how about I give you both for these three coins?"
"Alright!" Fengchao says happily, tucking the last coin back into her coin pouch and grabbing the two fruit carvings she'd picked out. "Lin, down please!"
"Of course," I say, letting her down carefully. "And here's your figurine."
Fengchao looks at the two pieces of fruit that she's holding, then back at the figure. "Can you put it in my bag?"
"Of course," I repeat, and she turns slightly so I can tuck the figure into her coin pouch where she'd tied it on her hip.
She makes to leave, then pauses and turns to bow to me and Priest Yuan. "Thank you!"
Fengchao scampers across the road to her mother, calling, "Mama! Mama look! Look what I got!"
Mincheng mouths 'thank you' at us before looking down and holding out her hand. "I can see that! How did it go?"
I watch them leave for a moment before I turn back to Priest Yuan.
"Hello Lin," he says. "I thought you said you'd be busy today? You missed drum practice earlier."
"It is rather late, isn't it?" I ask, glancing up at the sky where the stars gleam. The temple's on the edge of a commercial district, with lanterns lit along the road, but it's late enough that I'd been surprised Priest Yuan was still out when I got here.
Priest Yuan hums thoughtfully, standing up and stretching. "I had a string of customers, and I wasn't exactly about to refuse them." He pauses and turns to look at me thoughtfully. "Are you?"
"I want advice."
He nods. "Help me pack up?"
It doesn't take long to pack up. The incense gets displayed in its carrying case so it just needs to be tipped upright and carried inside. When I come back out, Priest Yuan has most of the figures, charms, trinkets, and ornaments put away in the padded cubbies of a set of stacking boxes. He carries that in, leaving me to grab the string of perfume sachets and the pile of ghost money once I've let the wood awning down.
Priest Yuan has already taken the incense back to the store room when I come in, and he comes back to take the perfume sachets and ghost money from my hands.
I glance around the empty temple as he goes to put those away, then head for the altar. Underneath the table, tucked behind the cloth that drapes over the altar, is a small hand brush and a bucket. I use them to carefully clean away the ash of the day's incense from the incense holders.
It's good to see the bucket mostly full - Priest Yuan can make prayer tablets from the ashes soon.
Lady Kun, carved with her usual sheaf of long grass in one arm, here stands next to her wife. The slight smile on her face, the slight tilt of her chin as if she's looking at her wife out of the corner of her eye, they present an off contrast to the solemnity with which she is usually portrayed, even the other temples dedicated to her that I've been able to visit.
And her wife, who stands next to her is very clearly not her wife, Lady Era of the Breeze.
Her wife is our Lady of the Blood Marsh, Lady Demon Slayer, Bloody Blush. She stands tall, in rough clothing. Her metal rake - meant for agitating the salty brine at certain stages of the harvest - in one hand, and a brilliantly red lump of pure Blood Marsh salt in the other. The veil thrown over her conical douli hat hides her face, but it doesn't hide the painted blood that is splattered and smeared across it. She looks fierce.
And I'm not saying Lady Era can't fight.
But Lady Era would never be portrayed in this way, would never be portrayed this lowly.
"Thank you," Priest Yuan says, coming out of the back rooms with a platter and a couple sticks of unburned incense. We finish cleaning the temple for the night in silence together.
Our Lady Demon Slayer's veil is the last thing to take care of. Priest Yuan pulls the stool over from the corner so he can reach to gently throw it back to reveal her face. I quickly catch it before it hits the floor. I shake the cloth a little to throw off some of the dust and hand it to him to fold as he heads to the back rooms again.
I sweep the spot I'd shaken the veil over, just in case.
When we're done, sitting on mats Priest Yuan pulled out from the corner of the room, two cups of tea and a teapot on the table between us, fresh amber incense burning in the censor, Priest Yuan asks, "Alright then. What brings you here, Lin?"
I hesitate for a moment before I speak, tapping at the table as if to distract myself.
"I took the job," I finally say.
The tea cup rattles as it hits the table, spilling tea. Priest Yuan doesn't mind it, his eyes flicking down to my robes, his arms coming up to wrap around himself.
"But - I gave you more than just a fortune. I told you- . . . Lin."
I wince a little, remembering the way he'd gotten progressively paler as he'd gone through the different methods of divination for me, even before he'd asked the community.
The bamboo fortune sticks rattled on their cup over and over - I'd gotten a different fortune each time, but they were all negative.
Then the lavender-yarrow sticks again, again. [6]
He'd even dug out turtle duck shells from who knows where to carve and put in the fire, even though the last I'd heard of anyone doing divination on shells was in old legends.
"I'm sorry," I say. It's all I can offer him. "I can't - I'm not ready to get engaged. Even if I have the power to break it off, there's just - I can't right now. But I can't tell Mama and Baba that because they'd just think I already have someone in mind, and I don't. And I asked around - I couldn't find any other job, or even apprenticeship that would take me that they would accept. And if I did find a job, I'd have to find one I could fully support myself on because my parents are getting old. Yi's been trying to talk them around to living with him and his wife, but there's no room for me there, or really with any of my siblings."
"Lin, you could have- you didn't ask me. I could have-"
"I can't be your successor here," I tell him gently. "And this temple is too small to have a temple maiden and two priests, you wouldn't be able to support me."
"But if you just need time-"
"It would work as a short term job, but my parents know as well as I do that it wouldn't work long term. It wouldn't stop them from looking."
After a moment of silence, I right Priest Yuan;s cup to pour him more tea. I gently nudge his hands to get him to accept the cup.
When his cup is empty, he sets it down.
"If you're going to just ignore me, why are you here?"
"I want a blessing," I say.
"A blessing?"
"There were four seagull crows outside when I left to start the training," I tell him. "And I may have ignored what you were able to find out and the fortunes, but I still want to- to try ."
Priest Yuan closes his eyes. He nods.
He gets up and goes into the back rooms, coming back out with a jade charm of the type you're supposed to attach to a bag or something, not really big enough to be a belt ornament.
"Hands," he says. When I offer him my palms, he places the charm in my cupped hands and clasps them between his own.
"Lady Kun stands stark and strong
Against all forces fighting in.
This road will be both hard and long,
Earth Mother let them not win.
Grow the forest dense and tall,
Around the mind where this soul lives,
Let the path make unwelcome fall,
Lady Kun this gift does give."
He bows over our clasped hands and repeats the prayer once before just lingering there.
Finally he sighs and sits up straight, letting go of my hands.
"Your blessing," Priest Yuan says. "You'll need to repeat the prayer every day to maintain it."
We practice the prayer together until I can recite it myself without help.
"Good," Priest Yuan says, picking up his cup of tea. He drains it, refills it from the pot, and drinks again.
"Thank you," I say. I tie the charm to my belt and reach for my purse, but Priest Yuan stops me before I can get out money to pay him.
"No."
"For the charm," I say, but he just shakes his head."
"Let me do this at least. And come back. That's all I ask. Come back."
"-and Shaman Iraluq told us that he doesn't know why our tribe chose both Apto and Hurekina to be my seconds, but I only need one," Seta says.
I wince, glancing away from Seta, and out at the fantastic landscape Kore calls his home. Hanging, scattered across the midnight blue of the sky, are beautiful white and silver houses and palaces and tents and huts and shacks, all glowing with their own light. Clouds sometimes drift through the scene, also glowing in shades of white and silver. My feet are dangling off the edge of Kore's porch over an endless void, and behind us Kore's own home, an odd mix of a Rabbit Fox Ena and Ba Sing Se slums, glows gently.
I don't know if Seta's pain over that mess will ever dull. There are so many things that compound it and Apto and Hurekina will be with him for the rest of his life. They're a comfort and a part of the burden.
I pull Kore closer and run my fingers through Seta's hair again.
Seta looks almost odd, here, in the summer clothes he wore when his parents had brought him to visit his Northern Cousins. The cloth is good quality, but it's so much thinner than his normal leathers and furs, and it's a strong blue that always makes me pause when I see it in cloth rather than fur.
Kore's clothes match Seta's, though I notice a pattern of stars shimmering across the blue, glimmering in and out of sight when the fabric shifts. More and more as the days and dreams have gone on, his style has shifted to matching Seta's, Polar Water Tribe or Southern Archipelago, and away from the more truly eastern Earth style he'd tended towards when we met.
I pull myself from my thoughts and twist a little to look at Kore.
"Can you tell?" I ask him, because that's the safer option.
"Not for a couple more days yet, Kulou said. Something about learning each tribe's way of thinking and preparation before they try anything. Or rather the shaman learning Seta's way of thinking. They don't know my brother, after all."
Seta shifts a little under my hands, and I catch the edge of his smile. Probably because Kore had called him his brother.
"How about you?" Kore asks. He reaches over to lightly tug at the jade charm on my belt. "Don't think I didn't notice this."
"Ah- I got a new job," I say, tugging the charm out of his grasp and letting it fall back against my robes. "It's probably the best one I'll ever get - I'm training to be an all-purpose public servant for the government."
"And they gave you that?" Kore raises an eyebrow. "It's got a pretty powerful blessing from Lady Kun. Though," he says thoughtfully, "you do have an Earth King right there, so you're pretty close to the origin of the authority. But still, that's powerful for a servant."
"Ah - no," I say. "The priest at my temple gave it to me when I visited him afterwards."
I've been telling everyone else I'll be perfectly fine, I'm not about to stop here.
"I can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing," Seta says, twisting slightly and going cross-eyed to look at the charm.
"He cares for me."
"Can I?" Kore asks, pointing at it.
"Can you what?"
"Can I put my own blessing on it," he says, sounding a little exasperated. "I know I'm really minor for a spirit, but you're mine too. I want to help."
"Oh. Uh, sure," I say. I untie the charm from my belt and hold it out to him, letting him grab it by the green thread.
"Hmm." He sits up straight as he pokes at the various pieces of jade (or fake jade or glass), pulling away from me slightly to do so and leaving my side feeling cold. "I'll do . . . this one!" He pulls one of the medium sized pieces up.
Seta sits up and twists around to look at him now that it looks like something's actually happening.
The both of us watch in fascination as Kore's lips move silently and he starts to glow silver, his hair moving in an unseen wind. That's all gone when he opens his eyes again and hands the charm back to me, leaning back against my side again with a satisfied smile.
"Oh," I say, poking at the stone he'd chosen as Seta settles back down, his head on my lap again, looking up at the charm dangling over him. "I can feel that!"
"You'd better be able to feel it," Kore says around a yawn. "I poured a lot of energy into it. And besides, Lady Kun is strong and all, but sometimes a personal connection works better for that kind of blessing. I have more of an incentive to keep you safe."
"Thank you," I say, retying the charm to my belt again. "Do I need to renew it somehow? The priest gave me a prayer to renew Lady Kun's blessing."
Kore goes still under my arm, his fingers digging into my hip.
"Just let me see it every night," he says. "But it shouldn't take even really that much."
"Alright," I say, flicking the charm slightly so it lays better, then running my fingers through Seta's hair again.
Seta doesn't seem to notice the tenseness of that exchange.
"Look!" he says, pointing out across the landscape. "Ah, too late. There was a shooting star!"
"We see those sometimes," Kore says, sounding amused. "Tukaykup and Lady Kun tell us they're actually rocks from- uh- . . . well. We're the stars here. But we're only the stars here . Like how the spirit world is separate from the physical world. We are spirits and we are real and we are connected to the physical, but there are also actual, physical things in the physical world." He waves a hand, and I catch the frustrated face he makes as I glance down. "Like, some things are true and not true because we are not a part of the physical world, for all that we have forms in the physical world - and - and-"
"It's fine," Seta says, grabbing Kore's waving hand as it passes over his head and bringing it down to rest against his cheek. "I- I may not understand , but I believe you."
Kore looks a little knocked off balance at the simple acceptance, but when he twists to look at me, I only nod my agreement.
"They're actually rocks," Kore repeats, relaxing back against my side. "And they come from the stars. Sometimes they will have their own spirits as well, but most shooting stars end up very small, and those who find them don't even know that they came from the sky."
"That's cool," I say, fascinated by the concept. I know we have stories about falling stars, but they're always about stars that fall, not this.
Kore's chin digs into my chest a little as he glances up, then he smiles. "I thought so too."
It happens only a couple days later. Luckily I'm sitting down at the time, listening to the teacher recite some part of the city laws so no one notices my distraction.
The world goes hazy, a sudden rush of tiredness hitting me and making me sway in place. I miss the rest of the lesson, and Guo - the girl I'd met that first day - has to escort me home afterwards when I almost collapse upon standing up.
When I say something about it, as Seta is practicing drawing the Arctic Fox Cat face paint for Sinekaykup (or rather Makach, as the Arctic Fox Cat Tribe calls him), Kore's lips go tight. Across the fire, in the dimness of the igloo Apto and Hurekina had helped Seta build for the short time he's in this village, Kore's eyes seem almost black, and he looks utterly inhuman with it for a moment.
"Seta called on his guardian today," Kore says slowly. "There was a minor haunting - a little girl looking for her doll. Shaman Iraluq talked with her yesterday and decided it would be a good first attempt for Seta to try, even if he didn't manage to help her."
I wait for him to continue. Seta's gone still, watching Kore with a frown, one hand drifting up to rest on his chest.
"Seta must have drawn on you too, and not just me."
"What? Why?"
"I only named you in the ceremony though," Seta says to Kore, frowning. "Ahunke didn't show up, and you know after all the work she put in with us over the last month, she'd come at the slightest hint of trouble."
Kore is silent for a moment, frowning, his lips moving silently, fingers twitching. Then he says slowly, "I think perhaps the problem is . . . you didn't name me."
I glance between them warily.
"What are you talking about, of course I did," Seta says. "I know name taboos about the spirits are idiosyncratic, but I was specifically trying to summon you and get your attention - and that's exactly when you're supposed to use a name-"
"For some cases yes-"
"But you don't always - I remember you complaining about having to remember the rules," I interrupt. "Something about intimate settings-"
"Versus the larger scale ones, right." Kore nods along. "And I know Shaman Tannesuma focused on the name taboos but made an allowance for rituals, like when we greeted spring, but Shaman Iraluq was stricter about them-"
"And there's also the safety factor! You said that Shaman Tannesuma was more lenient about name taboos with you because she was focussing on the yearly rituals, where it's as safe as it gets to use names because of the ritual backing and the fact that there's no conflict going on - you're not fighting anything, just thanking the spirits for fulfilling their duties. But Kore said you were called upon to solve a haunting here, in which case-"
" Because we were dealing with a possibly hostile spirit you couldn't have called for me by my name because doing so might give that spirit my name and thus possibly some power over me."
"Oh." Seta looks pale."That- I."
"It's- You shouldn't do it, but I, specifically, would probably be okay." Kore makes a face. "I'm in a bit of an odd position. I'm not- I'm not a lesser spirit like shamanic guardians usually are. I am a minor spirit in my own right, which gives me quite a bit more power. But I'm also very young. Which. It's hard to describe what that means. I guess I'm fragile? It's unlikely that anything we do - any spirit you call me to fight - will injure me. But I might injure myself. But I'll be fine! Just- none of the other spirits you might call upon have that guarantee."
"I'm sorry-"
"It's alright! And besides," Kore says. "The problem was that you hadn't called for me by name. In the ceremony, you didn't name me, you named your guardian."
There's a sinking feeling in my gut as I glance between the twins.
"And Kore's not your only guardian. There's me."
Kore nods, not looking away from Seta.
"Lin called you as I did," he says, the world shifting to a familiar haze for a moment in an odd reverse of the reaction I used to get when I pulled Seta fully into the dream from some half-waking panic. "Lin claimed you as I did - she was there as we danced. Lin was named by you as I was, as a part of your full and formal name even if you had not named her there as your guardian. And when you called for your guardian, Seta . . ."
"You called for both of us," I whisper.
There's the silence of wind blown snow against the igloo as I turn those words over in my mind.
Then something occurs to me.
"Kore," I ask, "why that? The facts are all there - it makes sense, but . . . why that? Why not that I just forgot to eat?"
Kore finally turns back to me. I'd forgotten - since I looked away - how dark his eyes had gone when I first spoke. How alien his face had looked. The terrifying combination of understanding and an utter lack of it - humanity and eternity - the ice and the stars -
"I remember," he says, "what it felt like."
And he disappears.
I have to breathe through the rush of panic that comes over me as the unreality of the dream comes billowing up to encompass us like soy sauce in water.
My fingers automatically find the piece of jade that Kore had blessed for me, clinging to that comfort. In the few short days I've had it, the motion has become habitual, Kore's blessing thankfully not as diminished in sunlight as I would have thought a star's blessing might be.
When I'm calm enough to worry about him, Seta is breathing deeply and deliberately too. His knuckles are white on the half painted mask, finger smearing the paint.
"Should we - do you need to-"
"I need to go-" Seta says. "I need to - I can't - not with the dream like this-"
He takes a shaky breath, then he disappears too, and I am left drowning by myself in a world without definition - images flicking past me in time with my flying thoughts as I try to breathe and keep calm.
If I could just calm down I know I could anchor it better but I can't -
I can't wake up.
I can't afford to go to work with this little sleep.
So, I just sit there in the dark and try to keep existing for one moment longer.
Kore is there the next day. I don't know if it's selfish to be glad, but the restless sleep I got last night hadn't been much better than no sleep at all. Seta and I tread carefully around the subjects we'd talked about. Seta talks about what he learned that day with a careful eye on Kore.
Kore doesn't say anything about it either, though he does sit me down and go through my wardrobe with me to lay blessings on more of my clothes. To keep it at what he can actually do without tiring himself out, we settle on my hair sticks and my jade bracelet, which I wear every day.
"Why don't you just add to this?" I ask, flicking the charm from Priest Yuan.
"I was able to layer on something that was essentially the same blessing," Kore says, picking up another hair stick and looking it over the rich amber petals of the silk flowers critically.
"Multiple blessings working towards the same end using the same focus can strengthen the overall effect. What I'm laying down here is similar, but it's different enough that using the same focus would make both blessings weaker."
"Couldn't you just put more power into the blessing?" Seta asks, glancing up from the masks he's painting - again. Apparently masks are quite important for the Arctic Fox Cat Tribe. Well, and apparently he'd told the shaman he was learning from that something had gone wrong, and that he needed to talk with his guardian to work out what had happened.
"Not really? I mean, putting more power into either blessing would lead to that one overpowering the other. And while increasing them equally would have some effect, unless you're one of the Great Spirits and can just brute force your way through, it's not practical. And focuses can only hold so much power too."
It feels odd to watch Kore going through my things, to think that this will have an actual effect on the waking world when I return. Odd that the blessings will transfer. I hadn't thought to question it when he blessed the charm, but this systematic appraisal of my things? The fact that the blessings will be there when I wake up - the closest thing I'll have to concrete proof that the dreams are real?
But then, how do you measure a blessing?
How will I be able to tell if I'm just imagining it?
"You don't really wear this, do you?" Kore asks, startling me out of my contemplation.
Ah, no," I say, looking at the yellow flowers on the hair stick. "Actually," I say, glancing over the laid out sticks, "I think you've already blessed all of the things I actually wear."
"I thought so," Kore says. "I could feel the ones you wear more often, and the rest of these mostly feel sad, sitting here without use for so long."
"Feel?" I ask, accepting the hair sticks back from Kore. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Seta's wince, and I suppress the urge to wince myself when I realize why. It's a bit close to the whole topic of what spirits feel that we'd been trying to avoid.
"Yeah. None of them have fully fledged spirits yet, though some are getting close, but there's a resonance that builds up with use, and I could tell you don't really use - well, most of those." [7]
"No, I don't," I trace my finger gently over some of the yellow silk flowers and the yellow-greens of leaves. "I got all of these from my older sisters, and they got them from Mama, and I think she got them from her mother. I'm the only unmarried woman in my family - and these are all for unmarried women." I make a little face. "They're pretty, but most of them don't really fit with the colors I tend to wear, so to be honest, I'm mostly holding onto them to give to my nieces when my siblings have children."
"Which are the ones that you do wear?" Seta asks, setting the brush she'd been painting with down and stretching his fingers.
"These," I say, easily plucking the five out of the bundle. They have blue flowers, or a deeper, emerald shade of green on the leaves.
I can tell Seta doesn't really understand the difference as he examines them, even though I can see how close the color of one set is to the color of his parka, and the color of another set matches his eyes.
Kore's eyes are flickering between Seta and the flowers though.
"They're nice," Seta says as he hands the flowers back to me.
"Thank you," I say.
Wow! It's been over a year! Sorry that took so long, but if you'll look at the chapter count, you'll see why! Lin's story takes another seven chapters, over 40,000 words. I finished writing back in December, but editing took forever. But it's here now! I hope you like it! I'll be posting the chapters a week at a time.
Also, it's not important for this chapter, but later for later on, you might want to head over to my AO3, where I have a story about Dawn and Dusk, who show up later.
5. A reference for the style of dress described here can be found at the tubler with the username ziseviolet.
6. Referencing traditional types of divination: Kau chim, I Ching_divination.
7. Referencing a Japanese idea: Tsukumogami.