City of Misfortune
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"You're leaving?" keened Setie when she heard the news, and she was so distraught that she dropped fish guts all over the floor.
The castle cats, who knew a good thing when they saw it, dove onto the mess like they hadn't eaten in six months, which Wink knew to be patently false, as they ate like kings ever since she and her sisters had instigated Kitchen Night. Each one was as tubby as an over-inflated football, but without the wind resistance.
Kitchen Night was what Setie had organized shortly after the disaster, and to which Wink had only recently begun to attend since her recovery. Simply put, a great deal of the former castle staff were dead from falling masonry or had had family who were, and therefore a few of their regular cooks weren't able to come in every day of the week. Setie had decided that as Sacred Sisters, they ought to help out in any way that they could, but because Luanna was blind, Wink had been half-dead from infection at the time, and Setie was afraid of overturning large rocks and finding corpses, they settled for cooking several nights a week for Theresa's table, and for the barracks mess hall. Once Wink felt well enough to take part, their dishes improved a little, as there was only so much that a blind girl and her enthusiastic seeing-eye human could do on their own. If there was one thing that Wink was good at, it was delegating.
Tonight, they were battering fish en masse for the downstairs guard, with a separate meal of a slightly higher caliber for the Queen and her retinue. They had Luanna in a corner far away from the crackling oil, de-scaling fish by the dozen. "It's like knitting!" Wink had said at the time as she guided Luanna into her chair. "Bloody, odd-smelling knitting. With eyeballs." Setie, who loved cooking, just loved it, was relegated to carting away fish guts and vegetable peelings and washing up pots because she could burn salad just by looking at it earnestly.
Wink was doing most of the cooking. She was resigned to this. She was the only one who knew how, and the only one who could do it well, so she was the one flipping the fish, sautéing the asparagus, and sending down dumbwaiter after dumbwaiter of perfectly crisp fish cutlets while the wine chilled in the butter cupboard. She was not, however, resigned to the fact that she had just stepped on a fish liver, and her potatoes were over-boiling.
"You can't leave!" said Setie again, as she wrung blood-caked hands, already near tears. "You're not well yet. You just got here, Miranda just got here! We need you too much. Luanna could fall down stairs."
"I admit that this is rather sudden," said Luanna quietly as she scaled and de-boned a fish so quick that she seemed like she'd been doing it for years instead of the last forty-five minutes. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but are you sure you've thought this through?"
"Neet is cold!" cried Setie, snatching up viscera from the floor right and left, her voice wobbling dangerously. "You'll catch pneumonia from some unwashed construction worker and die in a hole."
"Thank you, Setie," said Wink. "I'll be sure to avoid that. And yes, I have thought this through. I've been sitting in a bed for the past seven weeks doing nothing but think this through, and I was very. Thorough." This last word came with a perhaps harder-than-she-intended poke at the still-undercooked potatoes.
"I wasn't suggesting that you didn't give it your all," said Luanna. "I was merely wondering if-"
"YOU'LL BE POSSESSED BY LUANNA'S DEAD PARENTS!" Setie sobbed, throwing down her handful of fish intestines and fleeing the room.
The cats descended.
After a pregnant pause, Luanna went back to scaling with brisk, sharp movements and a mulish look in her eye. "I swear, she's only jealous that mine died dramatically," she muttered. "Instead of in a carriage accident."
"Didn't Miranda win the Trauma Game years ago?" mused Wink as she yanked the dumbwaiter door open to deposit yet another load of dinner for the barracks.
"Oh, we're still playing. Setie says that she uncovered some suppressed memories, and she's been trying to one-up me all week. She won't win though, ever since I found out that she never had a cat, and it most definitely wasn't also tragically killed by the Black Monster," yawned Luanna, hands moving serenely.
"She's suppressing things?" said Wink. "Good god, if she's been running on half reserves all this time, the girl deserves a medal."
"Miranda will win, in the end," said Luanna smugly. "Miranda always wins." She went quiet for a moment, and Wink allowed herself to hope that their discussion had moved on, but then she set down her scaling knife very delicately and said, "Wink, please. Tell me that you're not doing this because…. because of your accident."
Wink let out a long breath, and mopped her brow with the back of her sleeve. Her bangs were plastered to her forehead with sweat, but at least her braid was holding together. "I am not running away," she said finally. "I am going to Neet to aid in the reconstruction because this is my profession. This is what I have been trained to do. I am a diplomat. I go where the Queen tells me, I talk to who she needs words with, and I deal with the paperwork."
"But the Queen didn't ask you to do this," said Luanna slowly. "You came up with all of it by yourself."
"The Queen," said Wink, picking up the spatula once more, "hasn't trusted me to be able to fluff my own pillows ever since I got back." That wasn't bitterness in her voice. At least, there shouldn't have been.
"She's worried about you. We're all worried about you," said Luanna. "You won't talk to anyone, you're working all the time, even though Setie's right, and you should still be in bed at least part of the day, and because- look, just drain the potatoes and send the fish up already. I can smell the asparagus burning from here."
"God damnit," said Wink with great feeling, "I can never sauté things!"
"You're thin. It's only natural that you don't know how to work with butter. Now send it up, Theresa won't mind, and she's not wild about asparagus anyway," said Luanna matter-of-factly. "And take the pie out."
Kitchen night usually ended up like this, with side-dishes either unfinished or forgotten, and the Queen having to deal with something simple and not half as well-planned as she was used to. Setie was usually gone at least two-thirds of the way through in a haze of drama, and it was left to Wink and Luanna to send up the main course, take the dessert out of the oven, and stack the dirty dishes wherever there was room. When it was all over, Wink made them cocoa like she usually did, and they sat down together at the battered kitchen table, tired as dogs.
"I suppose we should go and check on her," said Wink as she cradled her mug and stared down at the dried-wax formation in front of her. Do not pick, she thought savagely, speaking as a person who had cured herself of thumb sucking, nail chewing, and talking in her sleep by sheer force of will. Do not pick. Don't you dare pick. Nervous habits are Of The Devil.
"Yes, we should," said Luanna, who took a sip of her own, and failed to move from her seat entirely.
Wink saw her fingers straying towards the wax, and saw no other alternative than to sit on them immediately. She cleared her throat. "I'm not running," she said. "Not… really. Not forever, anyway. I just need something to do to make myself useful for a while. Another assignment." She looked down at her cocoa, and her voice got small. "I just need to be somewhere else for a while, where people don't…." Don't what? she thought. Expect anything of me? Tell me to go to bed all the time? Look at me sidelong for not grieving hard enough? The old embarrassment flooded back, and she gripped her mug more tightly. "It's a career move," she said shortly. "And it just happened to come along now."
"I won't try to read you," said Luanna softly, her face turning to Wink's. "I know you don't want me too."
"Not especially, no," said Wink, sipping her cocoa.
Luanna's hands wrapped around her mug tightly for a moment, and she smiled suddenly, bright and heartbreaking. "I'm so glad that you have something so important to do," she said. "Neet's been a town of ghosts for too long."
Wink relaxed and covered Luanna's hand in her own, the equivalent of a smile. "Thank you," she said, and meant it.
Setie poked her head in through the kitchen door. "I just wanted you to know," she said loftily, and with only the slightest quiver in her voice "that I just remembered the time when my parents died. Very tragically. When I was six."
Wink raised her hand without looking over, "I was four," she stated calmly
Luanna raised hers as well, "Mine burned to death in front of me."
"…AND THEY PROBABLY DESERVED IT!" shrieked Setie, and slammed the door.
0.-0.-0
Her room was small.
It was a tower room, one of the few that hadn't been destroyed in the coming of the dragon. Small, but cozy, she'd thought when she was younger, that fit every part of her small life as best it could. There was a closet full of clothes she'd worn her entire life, bookshelves full of books she'd collected since she'd first begun to read, and shelf after shelf of any number of small things that she'd collected over the years.
The captain in charge of the guard caravan that would bear her through the Evergreen Forest had told her that there was room enough in her wagon for four chests-full of her things, enough to last her the months that it would take to get the Neet operation fully underway.
Wink had spent the morning packing, and everything that she felt she needed fit into three small bags. She felt absurdly cheated.
Six months abroad in Tiberoa, and seven weeks of fever and pain in this room had darkened its appeal for her. It had never been small for her before; a clerk in the Office of Trade had no need for anything bigger. The bed was a four-poster, the fireplace modestly sized, and the bookcases reached to the ceiling; she'd never wanted for space before.
Now she felt that if she made one wrong move, she'd have one elbow out the window with her head wedged up the chimney, and she couldn't look at the bed without thinking of being fever-mad and terrified as they held her down and tried to keep her from thrashing herself to bits. Battering herself to death, like a moth against a lamp.
She supposed that she ought to have packed the new things they'd bought her when she'd recovered, the white doe-skin boots with the buttons up the side, or the dress of green lawn with the scooped neckline. Things she would have loved before she had left. But when it came down to it, she chose only variations of what she was wearing now; a maroon wool skirt that came down to her ankles, over thick stocking and the same battered, ruthless boots she'd worn during her time abroad. Her jacket was old as well, but in excellent condition, with as many pockets as she could find room to sew on. Her hair was pulled back from her face and swung down to her waist in a thick braid, the better to keep out of her way.
In other words, she was dressed exactly as she had when she had returned, and much to the dismay of her sisters, she hadn't shown any signs of going back to soft shoes and beautiful dresses. Much to her own dismay.
I loved this room, she thought, looking around. She was standing awkwardly in the middle, smoothing her skirt with tense fingers. I fit here, and everyone liked me for it. I had a happy life.
She was a too-large, gawky stranger in her own home now, and it made her scar twinge.
The reassurance that she'd felt the night before had faded slowly, and she was no longer at all convinced that her sisters thought that she was doing the right thing. Luanna had hinted that she might, but only that it was a good thing that she was doing, not that Wink herself was qualified to do it. That rankled.
A knock at the door, an inelegant rat-tat that made her turn around sharply and see Miranda standing there, Setie holding Luanna's elbow behind her.
"Heard you were leaving," said Miranda. "Thought we'd see you off." Her eyebrows were smooth gold lines so pale that they hardly showed at all against the wind-burned surface of her face. The right was notched in the middle, Wink noticed, a jagged punctuation mark from some barely-avoided blow. That wasn't there before she left, she remembered dimly, and then looked closer. Miranda had always been built more-or-less along the lines of a bowstring, even when they were children, but now she looked like a long line of gristle; too tough to chew, and too big to swallow, but whatever had tried had died choking.
"I have an hour or so before my retinue departs," said Wink, coming back to herself quickly. "Please," she added, stepping back to cover up the gracelessness, "Sit, I have tea ready."
"Wink, please don't be offended," said Setie cautiously, eying Wink head-to-foot as she guided Luanna into a chair by the fireplace. "But, well, you look a little…. conservative."
"She looks all right," said Miranda dismissively as she sank into an armchair and crossed her legs. One hand dangled off of her kneecap, all large knuckles and nails bitten to the quick, with calluses sticking out like proud pockmarks. "She's making a cross-country hike, not going out." Her cornflower gaze swept over Wink's ensemble in turn. "But a skirt's pushing it a bit," she admitted. "Show some ankle once in a while."
"I think she looks fine," said Luanna.
After a long pause, Setie fidgeted and said, "How long will the trip last?"
"The captain says that in three days we'll reach the encampment where the workers have been setting up, and they'll have an office ready for me by then," replied Wink, relieved to shift the conversation to something else. "I'll stay for a few months, overseeing the construction and sending reports back to the capital. By next summer, I'll have a replacement trained, and return to make a formal presentation to the Queen and the Summit on the results of our labor."
Miranda snorted. "Piece of cake. You were always in for that sort of thing. Pushing papers around and talking to people. Shocked us all when Theresa sent you off to the desert to talk to Uncle Zig."
Wink looked down for a moment, and composed herself. Miranda's contempt wasn't personal; it never was. It had all started when Wink had gone with her to the practice yards once or twice when they were children, and Miranda had been trying her hardest to learn to maim people. It had not gone well, but it had made her a few friends among the guards. They liked having someone soft-spoken and delicate around to apologize profusely if they got hurt, as well as fetch them cold cloths and pots of tea, instead of screeching at them incessantly and threatening to have their fields salted and their houses burned.
They'd gone their separate ways ever since. Miranda had made it clear in the past that she didn't think much of paperwork, to be honest, and while she didn't hold it against Wink that she wasn't anything more than a deified secretary, she didn't admire her for it either.
It had always annoyed Wink.
"You thought I couldn't handle it," said Wink quietly as she picked up her tea, her tone neutral.
Miranda's eyes narrowed and her head snaked around to get a better look at her. "Didn't say that," she said, and there was an edge of tooth in it.
"We were merely all surprised that you agreed to go," said Luanna in her soft, reasonable voice. "As you've surprised us this time."
"Fuckin' bag of tricks, aren't you?" said Miranda, still nettled.
"Miranda-" said Setie, her brows drawn up and tense, and her voice uneasy, "You-"
"I'm sorry, Miranda," said Wink with a small smile that hopefully didn't show how hard around it edges it was. "I hope that my leaving hasn't detracted from your homecoming too very much. I tried my best not to attract too much attention."
This was always the worst way to approach Miranda. She wasn't built to defend herself verbally; it wasn't that she was stupid, it was just that she loathed the kind of person who would rely on verbiage to hurt someone. Nothing was more certain to send her into a rage than someone who wouldn't deign to settle it with swords. Words were cowardly.
I'm being nasty! Wink realized suddenly. Is this what it feels like? My goodness, how exciting. I do believe next I shall kick a puppy.
Miranda's chair fell over as she shot to her feet, her eyes were slitty-mean, and Wink suddenly remembered what Miranda tended to do to people who snipped at her. She hit them. A lot.
Wink set her teacup down very carefully.
"Miranda," said Luanna pleasantly. "You can't hit Wink."
"You don't know that," growled Miranda, not looking away from Wink's face, eyes like cracked ice. "I bet I could."
"Really, really not."
"Fine," said Miranda, tossing her hair back over her shoulder and giving Wink one long once-over. I could do it, said the look. And no one would stop me. "Bye," she said crisply, "Don't get killed." With one last show of teeth, she left, while Setie quietly hyperventilated in the corner.
"Wink, I say this as both a friend, and an advisor," said Luanna once she'd gone and the air had magically returned to the room. "That wasn't very nice. Or particularly smart."
"I would like to believe that she wouldn't actually strike me," replied Wink, picking up her cup once more with a steady hand. "Theresa would likely have a word with her in that event. A long one."
"She's gone, Setie, goodness. Here, have some cake," said Luanna, fumbling around until she could hand Setie a plate. "Breathing. It's good for you."
"I know she loves me, and that she would never hurt me," gasped Setie. "But one day you're not going to be able to find my body and you'll all know who did it."
"And you're in a mood," continued Luanna, addressing Wink this time with uncharacteristic sharpness. "Picking at her like that. She saved the world."
"I heard. Do you have any idea how angry the Bishop is at her at the moment? She destroyed the Divine Tree. The Moon fell. As far as most people are concerned, God is dead," replied Wink somewhat defensively, fingers curling around her cup.
"And you were rude. How does that help?" said Luanna.
"…You heard her," said Wink quietly. "She didn't believe I could do it then, and she doesn't now."
"We don't know what to believe, you're acting so strangely," said Luanna harshly. "You said that you weren't running away, but look at you!"
"I'm very sorry," said Wink, bright and too quick, smoothing her skirts, "but I do believe it's time for me to go."
"Case in point!" snapped Luanna, hands curled into fists.
Wink took in a deep breath, then looked down in confusion. Her hands were shaking. She was unfamiliar with being this phenomenally angry.
She stilled her hands, and took in one hot, quick breath to unleash what likely would have been the most eloquently vicious speech of her entire life, when the plumed, helmeted head of one of the castle knights poked his head in and said, "Miss Wink, the Captain sent me here to see if-"
He flinched as Wink's eye landed on him like the blazing end of a branding iron, and his sweating, honest face went pale, "I… I'll just tell him that you're on your way, shall I? Yes. That. Shall do. By your leave, Miss," and left. Quickly.
"…G'bye Jeffrey," said Setie in a quiet, miserable voice as she mindlessly ate cake.
Wink exhaled slowly, and felt a weight come down on her shoulders once more. She felt the urge to swipe at dry eyes, resisted, then leaned down to collect her bags. "I have to go," she said again, uselessly. "Tell Miranda I'm sorry, I didn't mean to speak to her like that, especially after what she's been through." The largest went over her back, and she went ramrod-straight as the load hit a tender point in her scar, right between her shoulder blades. Wink picked up the other two, and shook her bangs out of her eyes, "I'll send letters," she said.
Luanna said nothing, her mouth a hard line.
She didn't move until Wink walked by her, and her wrist shot out like a snake striking to land on Wink's wrist and clamp down hard. Wink stiffened, stumbled, and dropped a bag as she felt something like the echo of a cannon shot resound through every vein.
She was all the way on the other side of the room and about to claw her way up the bookshelves before she realized that Luanna had let go and was now sagging in her chair, eyes closed. Wink swallowed hard, and held her wrist to her chest.
Neither of them said anything. Setie remained mercifully silent.
When Luanna's voice came, it was as soft as falling ash. "I suppose you'd better find the Captain so that he can begin getting underway."
When the door finally slammed home, Luanna flinched.
She groped for Setie's hand until she found it, then held onto it hard.
"Did you do the right thing?" said Setie timidly. "I don't think she likes you now."
Luanna sighed, and opened her eyes. She seemed smaller, like she'd curled inward sometime in the last few seconds. "I don't know," she said smoothly. "I doubt you're wrong."
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