Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to Tamora Pierce
A/N: I put a little reference in this chapter to something that was never explained in WM. The badger told Daine he guided her to Tortall when he actually hadn't found her until she already was with Onua. So I believe that he meant he brought her to Numair as a teacher. You'll see that in this chapter.
Blackandwhiteroses: Thanks
Purple Eyed Cat: Sarra's last name was listed in RotG.
Alanna Cooper: There were things that took place that should have shocked him unless he met her before Daine awoke. Likewise, if he had not already met Weiryn, Sarra would have introduced him. She's that kind of a lady.
Narm's Briton 44: She seemed more stern with Daine to me. She did say something about all the fighting but she was otherwise friendly. My dad is that way. He will always be kind to strangers and rough on his own. We don't get much of a glimpse into her personality. There is a brief section in RotG and an even briefer section in TC. But I compiled it from those.
Hoshi-ko88: Thanks!
Bibliopheliac: Wait until you see Queenclaw. I had fun with this chapter.
Confused Knight: Thanks.
Kelsey: Togetherness is coming, but is several chapters away at this point.
Bitterosemary: Thank you so much. The description is actually in RotG, though it is brief. In other books, Daine says her ma was pretty and many men liked to be near her. So I compiled her from that. I actually thought that thing about her age and the fact that she was blond was intentional psychological stuff on TP's part. She goes out of her way to say that Numair's type is usually a buxom blond around 30 and then there's Daine's mom who had her probably at 16 or 17 and died 13 years later. She is 29 or 30 forever. In TC I thought that had to be weird because that's around 10 years later and Sarra would not have aged. She would look nearly the same age as her daughter at Sarralyn's naming day.
Goldeneyedwildmage: That's actually close. Daine describes her mother as scattered and you get the impression that Daine was more motherly than her own mother ever was. But then Sarra has changed in her role as a goddess and she gained some wisdom. She's still a little scattered and a little flirtatious. Plus, she probably wants to know exactly what her daughter sees in him. You will love my take on the map thing. But we're not there yet.
Sarramaks: I'm glad you liked it. THIS is my favorite chapter so far. I had a lot of fun with Queenclaw
Chapter 5 – Gods and Goddesses
When Numair awoke again, he felt a little better. There was less pain. He looked around the room where he was sleeping. It still looked as it had when he spoke to Sarra Beneksri, which meant that she was not a dream. Daine's mother. The whole idea was a little shocking. When Numair met Daine, it was just after her mother had died in a raider attack. Daine was still grieving. She had been left completely alone in the world except for Cloud, her mountain pony.
Daine had gone nearly mad with grief, slipping fully into her wild magic and traveling with a pack of wolves to avenge her family's deaths. She had struggled to find her humanity after that, and fled the village she'd been raised in because the people there were hunting her like she was a rabid beast. She had then hired on to work with Onua Chamtong to deliver ponies purchased at Cria, and Numair met her on that trip to Corus. It was disturbing to think that through all her struggles, her mother had been petitioning to live as a goddess in the Realms of the Gods with Weiryn. There was an angry part of him that wondered if either had cared what happened to Daine in those months. The girl could have died in a hundred painful ways while her mother was rekindling a romance with Weiryn. And it seemed the only thing Weiryn had done to try to look out for his daughter, was ask the badger to look in on her once in a while.
Bright light flared and the badger appeared on the foot of the bed, almost as if he had been summoned. –You look a little better- the badger said dryly in mindspeak. Numair couldn't help but smile. While he would reserve judgment for whether or not he liked Weiryn, the badger had earned his respect by returning Daine from death in Carthak.
"Badger! It is good to see you," Numair said sincerely. "I understand we have you to thank for the destruction of the skinners?"
The badger sneezed (his version of a laugh). –You get right to the point.-
Numair chuckled. "I suppose. I wondered – how did you do it, what form…"
The badger sneezed again. –Curious as Queenclaw. I turned them into ice. They melted.-
Numair nodded. "Brilliant. I should have tried that. I did try transfiguring them into water but.." He didn't get a chance to ask who or what Queenclaw was.
-That's where I got the idea. And no, I do not know where they come from. Nobody I have talked to has ever seen the like.-
Numair found that thought very alarming. If a god did not know their origin, then something very bad was afoot. He knew Ozorne was creative, but he preferred to think that skinners were not something he could come up with on his own. If that were the case, he could unleash them throughout Tortall and destroy the kingdom very quickly and effectively, along with everyone in it that Numair cared about. Absent-mindedly, he scratched the badger behind the ears.
The badger sneezed yet again. –I never imagined when I brought you and my kit together that she would teach you as much as you would teach her.-
Completely taken aback, Numair said, "Brought us together? Daine found me when I was in hawk form and had been drugged by a traitor. She rescued me."
The badger shook his head in such a human fashion that Numair nearly forgot he was speaking to an animal. –Two-leggers! You always see things so directly. She needed someone to help guide her and Weiryn asked me to look after her. Mynos told me about you and a path that could lead to your death. I told Daine how to find animals with her magic so that she could choose to use it to hunt for you. Two-leggers always have free will. But you both behaved the way I hoped and you became her teacher. I told Daine once that I brought her to you and that she should trust my judgment. Did she never tell you that?-
Numair was amazed. Through all of the things he knew of gods and how they helped or didn't help people, it had never occurred to him that Daine's presence there had been anything but a lucky coincidence. "Then I should thank you," he said softly. He bowed his head from his sitting position.
The badger sneezed yet again and it almost made Numair laugh. –You need not thank me, mortal. You have been good to my kit. She would have died this year without you while I was listening to the great gods fight about Uusoae. If Weiryn gets ornery, you remind him.—
Numair didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. He just nodded.
Numair noticed a pile of folded clothing on a chair by the bed. He picked them up and looked them over. They appeared to be his size although he was sure they were not his.
-Your clothing was mostly destroyed in the passage- the badger explained without being prompted. –Sarra provided those for you.-
"That was thoughtful of her," he said. He looked to the badger for a moment. "Why am I so weak? I feel I have slept sufficiently to recover from the draining and yet.."
The badger sneezed again. Numair was not sure what might have amused the creature this time. –Travel between the realms can be taxing for mortals. You don't belong here.-
"That much I knew. Still, I am aware the skinners would have killed me. I had thought as much directly before Sarra and Weiryn grabbed Daine. I had intended to urge her to fly free."
-As if my kit would leave you to die.- the badger grumbled.
It was like being slapped. In the panic of the moment, he had not realized that she would not have listened to him. He could have done nothing to convince her. They would both be dead now if it were not for the intervention of her parents. And like an epiphany, he realized why Daine had fled him in Corus in the spring.
Daine had not been apprised of the plan for her rescue when she fell in the displacement chasm. She was not prepared for Numair to absorb elemental magic (which made him look frightening) and she did not know why he needed her help to anchor the window that transported her and the others home. For that reason, she did not know how injured he would be before he moved the displacement and she did not know why he chose to make that move from underground. She did not know that it would leave him buried 15 feet below the surface in solidly packed loam. She had been left out of everything and forced to watch and wonder if he'd survive it. He began to dress hurriedly, barely stopping to beg the badger's pardon.
Sarra knocked at the door just as he was buttoning the collar to his shirt. He was feeling light headed again, but was determined to see Daine, so he opened the door pretending nothing was wrong. Of course, she wasn't fooled.
"You are not well yet, Master Salmalin," she said.
"Please, call me Numair," he tried to distract her.
"Fine, then you are not well, Numair. If you won't lie down you should sit and stay sat."
"I was hoping to see Daine."
She smiled, her dimple crinkling. "Alright, but give me a few moments to make sure she's awake and descent." Then she turned to the badger. "Weiryn was looking for you." Light bloomed and the badger disappeared without a word.
Numair agreed grudgingly to wait to visit Daine for a few moments. Sarra led him to a sitting room with numerous antlers displayed on the wall. She pointed to a chair and motioned for him to sit down. She made a pinching motion and the wall pulled out and rearranged itself to make a small end table. She placed a glass of water on it while his mouth hung open. Then Sarra entered another room and closed the door behind her.
Numair sat there in silence for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. A fluffy orange and white cat came in and hopped onto the arm of the chair. He began to pet the cat without much thought to what he was doing and she purred and pressed her nose against his arm as if she were really enjoying herself. He picked up the glass of water and took a drink. Then the cat nearly startled the daylights out of him by speaking into his mind –You're not so bad. I'd say you're nice for a mortal.-
He coughed, having inhaled the mouthful of water instead of drinking it properly. When he could finally talk he choked, "Are you – are you god too?"
She began to wash a paw. –Couldn't you tell? Don't I look ethereal?-
His first thought was that ethereal seemed like a big word for a cat. Then he realized how silly the whole pondering was. Unlike Daine, he'd never heard a cat speak. For all he knew, their vocabularies were enormous. Then, of course, this one was a god. It was enough to make his head ache again. "I have never experienced anything like this realm."
-That's why many refer to it as divine. Scratch my head.- It was not a request but an order. He complied. –Ahh, that's the spot.-
He tried not to laugh but couldn't help it. "I'm sorry. I have never heard a cat speak before. But I always thought this is what – well…." He didn't want to insult a god. It was a common joke in the mortal world that cats could be bossy.
-I don't mind. I am what I am. I like things a certain way. You would do well to allow yourself a little more pleasure and a little less introspection. When was the last time someone made you purr?-
Numair blushed a little. "I don't purr."
-Are you sure?- she asked, switching her tail at him. –My understanding of two-leggers is that they DO purr when they are petted by another two-legger.- Now he blushed a lot. The cat turned and fixed her amber eyes on him. –Am I mistaken?-
He sputtered. "We don't purr like you do. We don't make that sound. We make sounds when we're enjoying ourselves but that can be a lot of things. Just so you know, this is a strange conversation, and definitely not one I thought I'd ever have with a cat or a god for that matter."
"It better not be something you've discussed with my daughter either," a male voice growled. Numair had not heard him come into the room. He looked up to see Weiryn, the god of the hunt, and though he had seen pictures, he was not prepared for the strangeness of this man. He was medium height for a man with curly chestnut colored hair and emerald eyes. A large set of antlers was mounted firmly on top of his head and he wore only a loin-cloth, revealing tanned skin with visible streaks of olive. He was very muscular. Daine's father.
"No sir," Numair answered nervously trying to think of text from a book simultaneously so that he would not think something that would get him speared. He stood and bowed his head humbly. "I am very honored to meet you, Weiryn."
"Hmmph." Weiryn growled. "Queenclaw, you aren't very particular who you snuggle up to are you?"
The cat stretched in the sultry way only a feline can do and pushed her head against Numair's hand. –I like a gentle touch.- she sassed. Numair wanted to sink into the wall.
Light bloomed and the badger appeared. He looked up at Numair, who was starting to feel very dizzy. –Sit! – the badger ordered Numair, who complied promptly. –Sarra won't like to find you tiring yourself.- Then the badger turned on Weiryn. –And Sarra won't like to find you insulting her house guests.-
"It's my house too," Weiryn simpered, but backed off.
-Sure it is- Queenclaw responded sarcastically, and strolled onto Numair's lap. He looked up to see if Weiryn would react to that but apparently Queenclaw had only said it in his mind.
Weiryn began to look in rooms, returning several times to the room that Numair was in. Numair waited silently and nervously. Finally Weiryn called, "Sarra?"
"In here, my love. She's awake," came Sarra's voice from the other room.
Weiryn crossed and entered the room, leaving the door partially opened. Numair thought about rising to follow, but the cat stopped him. –He has yet to introduce himself to his daughter. You should give them a few moments. And you need to wipe all thoughts about petting HER from your mind before you go any where near him if you want to live through the night. Numair turned crimson.
The badger sneezed repeatedly. That apparently had been stated in both their minds. Thoughts of Daine were nearly unconscious and ran through his mind constantly. "I think that I am doomed," Numair voiced quietly.
-Nonesense.- said the badger. –Think about text while you talk, like you did before.-
-Stick to subjects that can't be taken wrong, like your war- Queenclaw added.
-And remember he's the god of the hunt, not the god of intuition- the badger finished. Numair couldn't help but laugh at that, albeit nervously.
Queenclaw put her paws up on Numair's shoulder and licked the side of his face. He saw light sparkle. –That will help. But if you get overemotional he will hear your thoughts.-
"Thank you," Numair said.
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