Chapter 23: Despite Our Differences (Angharad)
(~***~)
During the morning session, the children's trainer was taken aback by how much the pale girl had improved. Hadn't she just told her yesterday to work on her form? Today she didn't look like the basic self-defense students. (The practice was offered to every man, woman, and child, for the Dashing King believed they all deserved to know how to help themselves). She was more like one of those that trained for serious fights. Her stance was good. Her movement between poses was smooth. What was this child?
In sparring, Angharad moved swiftly and lightly over the ground. But, as she'd been told, she was no longer tapping her opponents. She was no weakling. She was polite with her practice partner, but he could no longer land a blow on her. Lightning hated it. Peaceful lotus my butt, he thought to himself. Western demon was more like it. Maybe she'd even stooped so low as to learn from the snake.
At the morning meal, Angharad slipped into the kitchen and spoke with the head cook. She assured him repeatedly that her people did not need to eat so much as humans did. Half of what everyone else was getting was plenty for her during this time of hardship. If things got very lean, she could even take less and be only as uncomfortable as everyone else.
But she also told the cook what she had noticed about Ginnar and his need for meat. For the rest of their time in the village, the cook doled out separate meals for his unusual new diners. Angharad made her peace with bean curd and wheat gluten for his sake, while Ginnar got her meager share of meat and eggs. (A generosity he noticed but did not know how to thank her for.)
The other children might have protested the special treatment, but they saw that the elf was now eating less than the rest of them – although the chef would not go so far as to have her skip days, as she had offered. There were enough children having their growth stunted in this drought, he thought. If he could feed one of them enough to avoid that at just half rations, it made him happy to do so.
During morning chores and class, Angharad began to don what the translator in the menagerie had called a 'public face'. It was nothing more than a polite mask behind which she was free to think her own thoughts. And it was familiar to her. There were events in Valinor where rowdiness was inappropriate, and she had had to be on good behavior.
She wasn't openly ignoring the teachers or the other children anymore, but Ginnar thought she still seemed painfully aloof. Why couldn't she just tell a few jokes? Ask a single question in a class, just to show she was listening?
The only subject she'd started to pay attention in was calligraphy. The teacher showed them how it could be plain writing, or a kind of art that was beyond Ginnar. But Angharad liked it. Leave it to the elf to only like the most useless subject possible, he thought. You would think she would at least pay attention to the battles in the history lessons if she was so interested in fighting. Tactics could not be so different from region to region.
And so the children settled into the rhythms of life in the Hidden Village. The Dashing King received reports about their presence that were fine enough, so he let things be. It was useful that the elf didn't eat much. They were not doing anything to attract extra attention or cause strife among the villagers. Let's see what happens, he thought to himself.
Angharad progressed in the morning trainings at a rapid pace. She had begun to privately beg the children's instructor to take some training with the adults, but she had been rebuffed. (Li Zicheng was soundly against using child soldiers. It was a bad look for a movement that had only one claim to legitimacy, which was that they were in the right.) Angharad watched out the window of the classroom in increasing frustration every day. She could be excellent at this if they would just let her show them.
The strange, pale girl's eagerness to learn and obvious talent was not lost on anyone. (Especially Lightning, who resented her deeply, though he kept his thoughts close most of the time.) As weeks began to pass, the woman who was largely in charge of training the women fighters and spies had begun to pay attention to the young elf, though she did not act just yet. She did not have the same hesitation to train children. Where she had learned, it was normal to start young. It was better, even.
Meanwhile Angharad continued to go through the motions of doing chores, asking polite questions of her peers, and sitting patiently through class as she daydreamed about mastering the ancient fighting arts that these people called the Tradition. She imagined spying for the rebels, standing before the Dashing King with information that would take the Emperor down. Li Zicheng might turn his warm smile on her and shower her with praise. Like her grandfather might have. She imagined hunting down the Collector with a spear in place of her children's staff, chasing him into the ocean until he drowned. The children started to mostly ignore her, as she rarely took part in their conversations or games.
Ginnar, on the other hand, was getting popular. His hearty sense of humor and straightforward way of looking at the world was not at all like the Eastern culture, but the children found him hilarious. And he was a good member of their community. He was good with his hands: he figured out most of the chores quickly and pulled his weight, or more. A few of the adults had realized that the boy was clever at fixing things that were broken. Sometimes he was pulled aside from chores or class to help a craftsman puzzle through a repair.
Ginnar didn't mind going to the little, informal school, though. He liked the historical battle stories best. He would draw out the scholar who taught them, asking him to describe the fights in great detail, until the stories of those valiant deeds seemed to come alive. If he was a bit too forward sometimes, they ignored it because they had come to like him otherwise.
The children didn't entirely understand why he kept sticking with the haughty fighting girl. Sometimes they would talk in their strange, shared language, whispering to each other in the growing dark of the orphans' house before sleep. But they'd had a few fights, too, everyone could tell. No one brought it up, but they'd been heard speaking to each other in hard tones.
Two months into their stay in the Hidden Village, the situation with the elf finally came to a head. In the mind of the boy called Lightning, he and Anhe had become fierce rivals. She noticed that he was particularly irritable but chalked it up to a flaw in his personality. She did not see him as competition. Of the people she was allowed to train with, he was the fastest. So she would keep practicing with him, even if she was getting bored with how predictable he was.
The chore that day was helping with the washing. Bedlinens and clothing all had to be cleaned and aired out from time to time. The people of the encampment had done so early that morning when the sun had been shining with some promise. Now it was early evening, and the children had a second chore session. The dry linens hanging suspended from thin ropes strung between the bamboo needed to be collected and returned to their places. The taller children were in charge of taking everything down. The smaller children who were able helped to fold or bring things directly back into their house to be refitted on the beds.
A stiff breeze had picked up between the morning and afternoon. The linens flapped and twisted in the wind, making the task more difficult than normal. The teenager who tended to boss everyone around got wrapped in a thin sheet in a particularly strong gust, then lost hold of it as she tried to disentangle herself. The sheet went flying through the air.
"I'll get it!" Lightning called out, running at full speed after the sheet.
But the sheet was closer to Angharad. She watched its path and knew she could jump up and grab it when it passed by her. So she did. It just made sense. The leap she made through the air was astounding to the young humans. She moved like a tiger – she might jump just as high as they did.
Lightning caught up to her and his suppressed resentment burst.
"I said I had it!" he barked at her.
"It was going right by me. It was easier for me to grab it," she retorted.
"Aaaaaagh, you think you're so special," Lightning shouted in frustration, failing to keep his voice down.
"What are you talking about? It was right there," she hissed back at him.
Was she so oblivious to the astonishing ways she moved? Lightning thought. It wasn't fair. He'd been in this Hidden Village for three years since his parents had died, studying as hard as he could every morning in their self-defense classes so he could join the fighters in a few years. She had been here for what, two months? And she was already better than him. She was fending him off every morning now almost effortlessly. Meanwhile, he struggled through their sessions to keep off her blows.
He grabbed the sheet out of her hand and flung it in the air towards a cluster of leaves.
"Why don't you go get it then? It's 'right there,'" he mocked her, enraged.
The wind caught the sheet again. It flew further than he had intended, into the leaves high into the tops of the swaying bamboo stalks.
But Angharad had plenty of built-up rage, too. These mortals, she thought, they demand that I dance for them when our talents suit them, then they resent me for being better than them when they don't.
She had been playing with the bamboo trees at night. They were young sorts of trees, they liked to have fun. She'd figured out how to shimmy up them until she was high in the flexible, swaying stalks, where she could leap from one to the next as they bent beneath her slight weight, giving off a feeling like a giggle. He wanted to call her a showoff? Fine. Fine. She could show off.
Angharad leapt gracefully onto the bamboo stalk nearest to her and glided up it. Then, just because she could, she ran, bouncing from stalk to stalk, all the way over to the sheet. She lifted it off the branch where it was stuck and slid down the length of bamboo, landing on the ground lightly. She walked up to Lightning and gave him the sheet, followed by a mocking bow.
"Here is your sheet, Lightning. You're welcome," she sneered at him.
The boy was about to explode, but an adult intervened.
When she'd heard the boy shout, Jade Fox had run over from the training ground, where she had just dismissed her pupils for the day. She had arrived just in time to see the pale girl ghost up a bamboo trunk like it was nothing, run through the high, swaying branches with ease, and return to the ground in a smooth movement that any martial arts student would have been proud of. The raw talent of this child was breathtaking. Did she already know the light body skill? It took years to master. This was the kind of star pupil who would carry a teacher's name forward until she was known everywhere.
The teacher interrupted the red-faced preteen that had clearly picked a fight with the superior student out of pure jealousy. Jade had been biding her time when it came to the girl. No more.
"You two come with me," she said sternly. "We're going to speak with the Dashing King about this behavior."
(~***~)
Li Zicheng took their argument as seriously as any that was brought to him. Making everyone feel heard was his gift. He listened to Jade Fox describe the noise and disturbance they had caused, noting that the boy's shout had reverberated through the whole encampment. Then Zicheng interviewed each child separately, under Jade's watchful eye. He gave them both a firm reminder that they were in a vulnerable position in this wood – that staying concealed was imperative to their success and safety. And he reminded them that their strength as a movement came from cooperation and mutual support. Infighting would only make them weaker. He sent the children back to the orphans' house, but he told Jade Fox to stay.
"He'll be thirteen in a few months," Zicheng said to her with a sigh. He rubbed his face thoughtfully. "If you think he's ready, he could start training with the young adults now. I won't have him join anything dangerous for a few more years, but he could start learning. Do you think he can handle it?" he asked the teacher.
"He can," Jade Fox agreed. It was true, the boy would be fine in the senior novice section. She had seen him while she was observing the girl during practices. He was going to be a good – human – fighter. And agreeing with Zicheng might make it easier to get what she wanted.
"It's a good idea. He doesn't get enough of a challenge with the casual students anymore. But the girl is too big a stretch too soon. It's affecting his confidence," she reasoned.
Zicheng nodded along. He was tapping a finger on the low table they sat at, feeling agitated.
"What about the girl? Is it worth keeping the Westerners here? They haven't been trouble so far, but if she's starting to stoke resentment… We can make other arrangements," he thought out loud. They even had some contacts in the foreign shipping trade: maybe they could stow them away back home, he mused. But he had really been hoping to see these warrior parents show up. His people had will, but the famine was sapping their strength. They needed help.
"I was thinking I could teach her privately," Jade said, keeping her tone casual. "The redheaded boy can stay with the other children, but she could move into my hut if she likes. It's the way with students and masters in the Tradition. And it will keep her and Lightning out of each other's way."
"Why?" Zicheng asked, a little suspicious. "I won't let her fight. Regardless of her age in years, she is clearly still not fully grown. She admitted so herself." (He'd been surprised to learn that she was, in fact, two years older than him. But speaking of warrior parents, he did not want to bring down their wrath by putting their young child in a war.)
"That is fine," the teacher said calmly. "You know I learned the Tradition at Temple Mountain. They have many young monks there who begin training as young as six years old. They are not sent out to fight until they are grown, but those who foster their talents from a young age become exceptionally skilled. That girl is a prodigy. To me it seems an insult to the gods not to support her growth. And it will keep her out of the way of others who might resent her."
"But why invest in her if she is just going to leave?" Zicheng countered.
"Goodwill, if nothing else. Didn't you say her parents were coming? If they are warriors, surely they will appreciate good training – even if it is not ready to be used yet. It will keep her safe and occupied, too. She didn't start it, but she was as frustrated as the boy," Jade argued.
The Dashing King puzzled the situation over in his mind as Jade waited. He had other things that needed his attention more than these refugees, no matter how unique they were. The next time they sent out correspondence through their network, he'd send a message through to the seafarers, test out his idea about sending them home. For now, Jade Fox would present a suitable diversion for the troublesome 'elf'. However cunning she seemed at moments, Jade had proven herself to be a capable teacher.
"Very well," he told the woman. "If she is willing, train her."
(~***~)
When Angharad returned to their house, Ginnar was waiting outside for her.
"I did not get us exiled," she told Ginnar before he could say anything. She was feeling sore. She'd done things to which Thranduil had raised an eyebrow a few times, but she'd never disappointed an adult she wanted to impress so badly. Zicheng's lecture about the argument stung.
"Well, that is something at least," he hissed back at her. "You had better be ready when you go into that house," he said, gesturing to their dwelling. "The other children are not on your side."
"What did I ever do to them?" Angharad protested.
"Let us see, you slack off on chores, you show only disdain for their education, and you show them up at training every morning," Ginnar told her in frustration.
"I cannot help being good at what I am good at! Must I pretend to be slower or clumsier than I am to appease a flock of human children?" she said angrily.
"You could at least be friendlier about it," Ginnar said. "Give some pointers to others, help them improve. Encourage them."
"How is that the point of a training session?" she argued. "I want to learn their Tradition. I want to learn to fight. To take down the sorts of evil people that have caused us – and them - grief."
"Why are you so obsessed with fighting?" Ginnar asked her. "We are here because it is a safe place to wait for your parents to find us. The point is not to defeat the Emperor. The point is to go home! As soon as we can! We do not all have unlimited time as you do."
Angharad paused herself, trying to hear what her friend was saying. He seemed very upset, once again. She knew they were trying to get home, but why not do something with the time in between? Nothing they could do would make her parents arrive quicker.
But time – that seemed to be the important point for Ginnar. She looked him up and down. He had grown since they'd first met. She felt older, but she didn't think she'd grown even an inch. His beard was looking thicker, his shoulders broader. How many years did they have before his childhood was gone? Angharad let out a hard breath, trying to cool her heart.
"I do not know what to do about time," she told him. "My parents probably will not find us quickly. The East is not known to the elves. They will have to discover where we were sent and then travel here. Why can we not do something with ourselves while we wait for them? You have found something that suits you, helping fix things."
Ginnar kicked a pebble, looking at the ground as she spoke. There was nothing she could do about the time; he knew it was true. But it still bothered him. There were older dwarfs who might be gone by the time he got back. There would be years of schooling he would have missed out on. He did not want to be a longbeard and still be learning with the novices. Not that he'd admit it, but he did not want to tangle with the Emperor or the Collector again either, unlike Angharad. He would not want to risk them winning. It could stop him from going home.
"What do you want me to do, Ginnar? You are better with them than I am. I see that. Should I stay up all night and sort all the rice before dawn so they do not have to – to make up for something?" Angharad pleaded with him. She could not bear to disappoint Zicheng and Ginnar in the same evening.
"No!" Ginnar replied, alarmed. He could see the impulse was meant well. But she had missed the point, again. "Stop setting yourself apart from everyone else. Just do the chores like we all do – and pay attention. Talk with us. Joke with us. Play with us. Help them improve when you can. And if they can teach you something, let them."
"Alright. I will try," she agreed. She was not all that interested in the Eastern children, if she was being honest. But Ginnar kept being upset that she did not fit in. She cared about Ginnar. So she would do it. She would try.
"Ginnar," she added before they went into the house. "If you have a plan, if you want to try to go home and not wait for my parents to come - I will go with you."
"Why would you do that?" Ginnar asked, still feeling distant. She had been so inattentive lately. She probably wouldn't think twice if she had to wait here for ten years. Why should she risk more danger just to shave off a few years? She could stay here and learn their martial arts for fun for as long as it took.
"We agreed to be allies. Allies do not quit on each other halfway through a fight. Our goal is to go home. I swear I will not quit on you before we get there – both of us," she said sincerely.
"Oh," he said a bit awkwardly. But he felt happier. This is why they were friends. She could be so intense. But she would gladly shine that intensity on him, or for his benefit. He would probably be in chains in a workshop somewhere if it weren't for her and her insane confidence.
"You are not bad, elf," he admitted gruffly.
Angharad smiled at him. "Neither are you, Ginnar."
(~***~)
Footnotes:
The name "Jade Fox" comes directly from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The character here, and her story, and very much inspired by the character in that movie, with some differences.
