galaxy

Those first nights on the road, we slept under the stars. It was still summer, if only just, and the nights were still warm, and for Elara and myself this was really the first time we'd ever left the city, had never, as Drysi put it, ever seen the night sky. (Perhaps it's hard for you to imagine, just as it was hard for us to imagine what a truly dark night was like. But there were always lights in the city: lanterns in the streets, candles and fires burning in the houses and palaces . . . life did not stop when the sun set in the city.)

At first I was amazed at how many more stars there were, how dark it really was once the fire had died. Then, as I lay there on the verge of sleep, Drysi shook me awake. I blinked away the lingering dreams, and looked into her face--here in the starlight it was a dark shadow against an impossibly bright sky--and she just whispered, "look."

And there it was, stretching across the sky, that strange glowing band of the galaxy--something I'd only ever heard described before. As I stared in awe, she kissed me in the cheek and leaned up against my shoulders. "Something you haven't seen before," she said.

I hadn't. I had nothing to say before this, the impossible majesty of the night's sky, but somewhere in my heart I resolved to see the world outside of the city--so many people had told me what a strange place it was, but it was my home. There was beauty there, of course--ah, if only you could have walked those streets--but it was familiar.

At the time, though, we lay there and watched the sky in silence. Words, as ever, came later, inadequate tools to paint a world that defies description.

snow

The road took me, eventually, to a little village in the foothills, where they maintained a pass through the mountains. They didn't ask where I'd come from, only that I help where I could, and I was happy for the chance to put my hands to use doing something constructive for once. Mostly I ended up helping them maintain the trails: I'd spent so much time wandering anyway, surviving on whatever the wild provided, and it was a long and lonely project much of the time.

Every winter the snows would come and render the mountains impassable; every autumn they--we--turned all our efforts towards building up our stockpiles and surviving the winter. They were hard winters, and despite our best preparations, we couldn't always make sure everyone survived. Sometimes the snows came sooner than we were prepared for; sometimes they lasted too far into the spring.

But it was so beautiful. The world covered in snow, silent and pristine; the light of the hearthfires casting a warm glow on the snowflakes as they danced in the wind; even after seeing people I'd come to care for lost to the winter, I never tired of the perfect serenity of a snowbound world. And more than that: until the thaw, there was nothing to do but wait. We were trapped, yes, but we were also free: the rest of the world couldn't hurt us here.

I will always be an outsider here, no matter how welcoming they are, but that would be true anywhere. At least here I can help. At least here I can keep them safe from the rest of this dying world when the snows can't.

thunder

When I was very little, I loved thunderstorms. My caretakers often had to drag me back inside when the storms broke, because I'd run out onto the balconies and stare at the sky and--well, of course they worried. Storms weren't even supposed to happen, not here at the beating heart of the world. That's why I existed.

No one told me this, of course, that the reason I was born was to quiet the storms. I wonder what my father used to think, watching his daughter laughing and staring at the storms, enthralled by their beauty, when no doubt he hoped that I would naturally sense that they are my enemy, that I was meant to crush them. With every bolt of lightning, every clap of thunder, did his hopes die? Did he worry that I would fail in my duty, my sole purpose on this earth, because I thought the thing I was born to destroy was beautiful?

He's gone now, and everyone has left me. There's another storm tonight, one of the worst I've ever seen--so much lightning illuminating my city, so much rain. I should be planning for what's to come, but now, as I sit here in my tent, listening to the rain and the thunder, all I can do is think of those storms when I was a child, the excitement, the joy . . . I can't feel it anymore. And I can't bring myself to do what I must if I can't, just one last time.

The storm feels like an opportunity, like it's lingering for no reason besides to give me a chance to enjoy what I had once loved, years ago, but instead I simply find myself afraid. Not just of the thunder, though with each bolt--so deafeningly close, and here I am so exposed on the cliffs above the city--my heart pounds. But soon the storm will end, the seas will calm, and one way or another, all of this must end.

sun

It got hot early that summer, far hotter than I'd ever experienced it. I always hated summer, and now, so soon after the spring had withdrawn, the sun burned bright and oppressive in the sky and it was all we could do to languor in the shade and hope that the nights would cool off enough to be tolerable. And for a while that's what we did: slept in the dark, emerged at night, when we could all at least pretend that this was some way to live.

That was the summer we left the capital to visit Drysi's homeland, the desert highlands east of the mountains--it was, depending on who you asked, a diplomatic visit to renew the friendship between the capital and the highlands, or a show of force to remind the highlanders what would happen if they ever proved to be inadequate friends. 

So we crept out one night from the place where we were not quite guests and not quite prisoners--Drysi most of all, the hostage who had been too long from home--and, guided by moonlight and desperation, we followed the stream to the lake and wetlands. There, rather than the endless stone and sage, low trees and shrubs and reeds huddled together, desperate for a taste of that precious water. And there we built a little shelter, and spent the day cooling ourselves in the lake and relaxing in the shade.

As the sun finally sank behind the mountains, so too did the thin wispy clouds that Drysi said marked a change in the weather first appear. A promise (and, perhaps, a warning) that even the most tyrannical reign must come to an end eventually.

cirrus clouds

The one thing that kept me from feeling like a prisoner was watching the sky. It leaves messages for those who know how to read them. So whenever I felt trapped, I'd find a roof and sit and see what the sky had to say. 

Little Seva and I didn't agree on much, but she liked watching the skies with me. Those times were . . . sacred, almost. We'd sit together in perfect silence, no arguing, no petty maneuvering, just reading the clouds. Even after, when we returned to our lives and went back to disagreeing on everything, we'd never say a word about it to anyone. This was ours in a way that was deeper and more powerful than words could express.

That anchor was enough. Even once we'd gone our separate ways, she to her dream of building an enlightened world, me to case the grounds of the city that was my prison, she would still find me sometimes, sitting on a high place, reading the sky.

It had been a clear, hot summer when a curtain of cirrus clouds spread across the sky, and she joined me at the garden that overlooked the old city. Without a word she sat next to me, just like old friends, and we watched the setting sun paint those clouds in astonishing shades of pink and red. After a while, she said, "There's a storm coming, isn't there?"

"Yeah."

"A bad one?"

"Looks like."

The brilliant shades of sunset faded, leaving only the deepening blues of twilight fading into night, and finally she stood. "They'll be wondering where I am. I'd best be getting back to the palace."

"Good luck, little Seva. I'll be seeing you."

I'd half expected her to ask me for help--even the oldest traditions have to give way sometime--but she didn't. Even faced with a storm we both knew would be a disaster, she respected that.

first quarter

The Princess once told me she liked the potential that half moons represented--it was halfway between full and new, and you couldn't tell just by looking at it which way it was going. Would it wane and become a crescent? Would it bulge and wax until it grew full?

And because I'm me, of course I corrected her--that of course you could tell which way it would go by which half of the moon was illuminated, or simply by paying attention; of course she told me I didn't get the point, and at the time I was willing to accept that. But now I realized that I understood the point all too well.

She saw the moon--it was in its first quarter at the time--as her empire, of course. And the metaphor, the point she was making, is that she had inherited a half moon, with no way to tell whether it was waxing or waning. But it was waning, of course it was. Anyone who studied such things--and I did, it was why I was even in the same room as her--could have told her that.

That night when I tried to tell her which quarter she was looking at, she pinned me to the bed and covered my mouth and ordered me not to tell her; when a gibbous moon appeared above the horizon the following night she seemed pleased, like this was a good omen. And at the time I thought it was just a harmless game, maybe a little superstition--we all have our little foibles--but looking back I wonder if she wasn't making a point, that the truth, knowing where we'd been, where we were going, didn't matter.

And perhaps it didn't. I don't know what we could have done to stem the tide. But we'd all fought so hard for the truth, and sometimes I wonder if perhaps there was something, something none of us saw.

storm

The storm developed faster than I expected, when I was too far from camp to make it back even to the mild shelter the tents and wagons offered. So I ran for the shelter the ruins offered, and hid there as the rain poured down and the wind howled and the thunder roared. Even when the sky was still clear and the sun was still shining the ruins seemed an ominous prospect, but now, each bolt of lightning seemed to make the shadows of this forgotten place deeper. So I sat as close to the entrance as I could, wrapped in my travelling coat, trying my best not to touch anything.

I wasn't sure the hunter was real when she first appeared in the entryway, spear in hand--I'd managed to keep the echoes of the past to a minimum, but every now and then a stray would make its way into my memory--but I recognized her from the caravan, and when she shook the rain from her hair and stepped into the ruins to join me I felt a sense of . . . relief isn't quite the word. That she had come looking for me was a comfort, of course, but also I was simply glad of her company.

"Did you come looking for me?" I asked, more for having something to say than anything. She beamed and nodded. Now that she was in the shelter she removed her cloak and shook the rain out of that, as well. "I thought we had another hour or so before the storm," I said.

She sat down opposite me and held out the less-damp cloak to me; I carefully accepted it and wrapped it around my shoulders. (A flash of an echo: a traveler, looking lost and alone. How beautiful she is. It takes a brief moment to realize that the traveler is me.) "Did someone ask you to check on me?" She shook her head. So she had come on her own. I patted the ground next to me and she obligingly scooted over to sit next to me.

We sat like that for a while, mostly in silence--hunters, if the stories are to be believed, never speak to anyone, and filling the silence felt daunting at first. But eventually, tentative at first, I told her stories--about my life at home, about my travels, about the echoes--she brightened at that. A lifetime of silence had evidently taught her to be expressive with her silence, which made me feel a lot more comfortable talking to her. But the silence felt comfortable, too, as we watched the storm, and each other.

It started to hail, and she ran to the entrance to collect some of the stones. She returned with one as big as my fist, and held it out to me. As I reached out to take it, she took my hand and gently tugged at the gloves I wore to keep the echoes at bay. Tentatively I removed the glove, and put my bare hand to the icy stone, and--(An echo: I am so glad to be sharing this with you. Such a beautiful storm. Such impressive hailstones. And maybe this hailstone will form an echo, and maybe you'll know how happy I'd be if you'd let me kiss you. Put it in your hands. Trust me.)--I gripped her hand firmly in mine and pulled her close, and let her kiss me. Then she smiled and sat down next to me again, and I rested my head on her shoulder as the pounding of the hail made an oddly soothing rhythm, punctuated by thunderclaps that by now felt almost comforting.

constellation

 There was a constellation that always used to be our favorite, back in the capital: it was, according to the stories, a legendary hero, the first dragonslayer--but the fun of it was less in the stories, though we liked those as well, as it was simply that picking out the pattern was satisfying. A simple pattern that lets you see a grander whole. Every time we'd go stargazing, which was often at first and then dwindled as time wore on, we'd point it out, and admire the shape in the stars, and sometimes one of us would tell the story again.

When I fled, I vowed I'd put that constellation behind me.

It was a slow escape, as I took it one leg at a time--at first I worried that I'd be followed, but then I liked this new ritual of sailing north until we made port, finding a room at the inn, and watching the stars, watching that constellation, so beloved and so hated, slowly sink below the horizon. It would take me a few days to find another suitable ship that was headed north, and then another few days for them to make port, and--well, you get the idea. It was a nice ritual.

It wasn't until we left the continent behind altogether that I was finally able to look up at the sky and the dragonslayer was nowhere to be seen. I was finally alone under a strange sky, where I knew none of the shapes and heroes that filled the skies. The nights were always warm and everyone was so friendly and so welcoming. When they learned how much I liked stargazing they even taught me the names of the stars here--so many different names and stories.

Sometimes I still find myself looking for that old familiar pattern, but it's only recently that I've stopped feeling awful every time I catch myself doing so. On some level, now that there's no possible way to go back, I really do miss those days. They were dreadful in so many ways, but despite all that, there were little quiet moments that will always stick with me. I even made up a constellation for her. A little pattern of stars that sort of reminds me of the one we'd look for, a few others--she would smile at that, I think.

fog

A thick fog had settled into the valley by the time I arrived, so thick the sentries didn't even challenge me as I approached. At least the gates were closed. They finally let me in after I spent a few minutes knocking as loudly as I could--"Got to keep the bandits away," they hissed as they shut the gates after me--and then I was just another poor soul out braving the freezing mists. All the windows and signs, I noticed as I wandered that desolate little town, had little tendrils of rime growing on them. 

Everything seemed so oddly quiet as I walked the streets--slow, careful steps, keeping close to the buildings so they were more than just indistinct shapes in the distance--and my footsteps, careful as they were, seemed far too loud in my ears, like they were intruding on this town's peace. Maybe I was. Maybe the fog was for me, warning me away. But if so, I ignored it. I had better things to worry about.

I found the inn by looking for a building with a fire burning, but even if the cheerful glow cut through the fog like a beacon, inside both the patrons and the serving staff seemed defeated already. They looked up as I entered, registered who I was--a sword and a red sash was enough, I think--and then fell into an expectant silence. Some of them wore faces of hope, some of trepidation.

"Didn't expect any travelers with this fog," said the innkeeper. 

"I like to defy expectations." I offered them a smile that was probably more predatory than friendly. A little fear never hurt anyone. "I hear you've had problems with bandits. I'm for hire."

The room softened. "Could be the fog's just the thing we needed," said the innkeeper, with a wry smile. "You rest a minute, get something to eat. I'll send for the man you need to talk to."

***

The man in question looked like a merchant, though he identified himself as the seneschal. There was ambition and cunning in his eyes; he gave me an evaluating look and nodded. "I assume you're offering to train up a militia? We do have a master-at-arms already, unfortunately. The problem--"

"I had something more direct in mind. You know where their camp is?"

Those ambitious eyes lit up. "I do. Or rather--"

"Your scouts do, yes. Guide me there, and I'll end the threat. The fog will be enough confusion that they can't organize a defense, and it'll make them more likely to scatter."

"Well, pull this off and you'll have quite the bounty waiting for you--and I think I could use someone of the skill you claim to possess for some . . . future endeavors. If you're interested.

He didn't trust me, but he did send his scouts to guide me to the bandits' camp. And from that shrouded vantage I walked deeper into the mists, into a future free from wandering.

waxing crescent

The instant the sun went down, Drysi found us and dragged us to one of the hidden rooftop gardens--it had probably been properly tended once, but now it ran wild. What had once been a pair little elegantly manicured trees now stretched so high they nearly blocked our view of the sky; their roots had torn up the stone of the courtyard and rendered the classrooms underneath the garden unusable. (Well, almost. It was a nice quiet place to hide, and as students of the Academy we had ample reason to spend some time hiding.) It was--and here I use Drysi's words, not my own--a little pocket of the wild in the heart of the empire. I wouldn't fully understand what she meant until many years later.

It was one of those nights where there was a thin veil of clouds, but a thin crescent moon shone through eerily, lending the clouds a soft glow and casting strange shadows in our little hidden garden. It was a beautiful sight--enough that it took me several moments to notice that there was a little glowing wisp dancing among the flowers--and they were flowers, not weeds.

"I wanted to do this right," Drysi said, behind us, as we both knelt to examine this impossible spirit. "Because you're my friends. A waxing crescent, a wild place, a spirit." The wisp settled on my finger as she spoke. "Our strength comes from the promises we make." The moon flashed, and as I turned my head to look, it grew and grew in brightness until the whole world was a blinding white.

When the world returned I was on my back in an ancient forest, lit by a giant crescent moon. As I oriented myself--"We are stronger when we see with eyes unclouded," said Drysi's voice, seeming to come from all around me--the roots I was lying on gently lifted me to my feet. I was barefoot now, dressed in a thin grey robe rather than the white Academy uniform we'd all been wearing moments before. I was also alone, and all around me there was underbrush and deadfall, except before me, where a path of soft-looking leaves was laid out.

Of course I followed it. The giddy excitement of being invited to a secret rendezvous by the girl I loved--and we were still just girls then, young and foolish girls with no idea what the world had in store for us--had faded, but I felt no fear. I trusted her, but more than that, I could sense that this was important. I followed the path until I came upon a spring, the water of which glowed with the same soft light as the wisp.

In my memory, the woman who waited for me there looked like Drysi, but I knew instantly that this was simply a shape she wore. At first I thought she wore it to please me, then I realized--perhaps this was the only human she knew? She smiled at me, and welcomed me, and it's only in recollection that I realize that she never actually spoke any words.

"You're the wisp," I said. It wasn't a question, but she affirmed that she was regardless. But she was more than that: she was the forest and the spring; she was the little wild garden on the rooftop. She was ancient as the oldest trees and as young as a wildflower in the spring.

If I drank from the spring, I understood--or perhaps she really did explain it to me?--it would be sealing a pact between us: she would offer me her protection, and in return I would make a promise, in something deeper than words. (That promise I keep to myself. I understood then, though, that here where the spirit ruled, the act of making a promise changed us both.)

I drank from the spring, and the spirit seemed different somehow, more substantial, less like someone wearing another's face and more like she wore a shape of her own. It was no coincidence, I think, that the new shape reminded me of myself. "Remember me, on your travels," she said--and here she did use words--"as I shall remember you."

The world faded and I found myself back in the little hidden garden. My sister and I were lying against the trunks of the two trees, and Drysi knelt between us, holding each of our hands in hers. And behind her, seeming to dissipate into the moonlight, was a faint wisp of light that seemed to have taken on a human shape.

The moon set early that night, and we withdrew to the abandoned overgrown classroom beneath the garden, feeling both giddy and subdued. The world seemed different, somehow--which is to say, we were different. Neither my sister nor I realized it at the time, though Drysi surely did, that this promise had set us free. And every time that thin sliver of moon emerged from new, I'd always make a little offering to the nameless spirit that granted us that freedom.

dark clouds

The summer before the war was endlessly hot, and endlessly full of arguing. Arguments in the Council about how to rule, arguments in the inner circle about how to navigate the city's politics, or occasionally just about how irritating we found each other. I took to staring out the window at the sky, for all the good that did me. There was never a cloud in sight.

It was one of the latter arguments that first marked a change. Nevena was yelling at Drysi about something, which was only surprising because she usually waited to do her yelling until they were alone (but everyone could tell she wanted to anyway), and no, I couldn't be bothered to pay attention. It was unbearably hot--almost unimaginably hot, so hot even the Princess had abandoned proper court dress in favor of something light and loose-fitting. (I imagine the heat is why she also was irritable enough to yell instead of merely suggest that she felt yelling was desirable.) But there were clouds in the sky--small, fluffy ones at first, but moving and growing and darkening as I watched--and suddenly all the oppressive heat and humidity suddenly felt like it might be building to something.

"What are you smiling at?" This was directed at me--Drysi, who seldom rose to the Princess's bait but wasn't above ignoring her if she thought it would be funny, interrupted her serene highness in mid-sentence.

Was I smiling? I hadn't realized. I gestured at the window. "Dark clouds gathering, look. There's going to be a storm."

Everyone stopped to look at the clouds, and a strange silence settled over us as we watched them grow. The promise of the gathering clouds had, for a moment at least, stolen the heat from the argument, provided a moment of relief from the endless tyranny of summer.

stars

The first night after I left the Princess's service--too late, alas, to join my love in her wanderings--I had nothing except my sword and my convictions to keep me safe from the elements, and neither of those are much good for that. The snowmelt and an early spring storm had me soaked and shivering by midday, and I had no real recourse except to keep moving, hoping that in so doing I could keep myself warm enough that I wouldn't freeze to death. I think, more than anything, it was stubbornness that kept me alive: I hadn't survived such a bitter winter only to die of snowmelt when spring finally came.

I found a trader on the road, an intrepid soul who saw the spring as an opportunity to make a small fortune selling basic items to the army as luxuries. He practically beamed when he saw my colors--the Princess's blue and white--and that I was alone and bedraggled as a deserter, desperate to not be quite so obviously a dead woman walking. And he charged me a small fortune for some dry clothes and a backpack and some essentials, which I paid happily, and then I left the roads and cut across country because that was a man who would sell out my location to anyone who wanted it if he thought he might get a tarnished copper bit out of it.

The clouds cleared up by nightfall, leaving only a glittering canopy of stars behind, undimmed by the light and smoke of campfires and unconcerned with the petty affairs of we mortals walking the earth below. And what can you say to that? What can you do when, cold and sore and hungry and exhausted and utterly lost, you are confronted with the evidence that even now, at your very lowest, the universe is absolutely beautiful and absolutely indifferent to your plight?

I hadn't allowed myself to weep since the war started--or rather, I hadn't allowed myself to weep since I started questioning the Princess, the figure who had loomed largest in my life until that point. It had been years. I'd promised myself I wouldn't--at first, because I feared that it meant I had lost faith in her, and then, once I'd lost faith in her, because I refused to let myself be weak for her. (It was a foolish promise made by a foolish girl; I like to think I am wiser now, however much my folly has cost me.) Eventually it was stubborn pride: I'd made a promise to myself, and I would feel deeply ashamed if I broke it. I wept then. The stars, to their credit, did not care.

new moon

There's an old story that the moon was put in the night's sky to guide us during the long dark of the night; there are dozens of folk stories with various morals derived from that, of course, but it was always a beloved icon of the church, a reminder that the Creator was watching over us. It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that as society began to shift its focus away from the works of the divine and onto the works of humankind, the night of the new moon took on a special significance: this is our night. The night when the protection of the divine has been withdrawn, and we poor citizens of the world are left to fend for ourselves--and look, we say, look at all we have done. And so the Festival of Night was born. The priests don't like it, especially the conservative ones, but for so much of the festival's existence, it was deeply religious, a night of thanks to the Creator for trusting their children to fend for themselves, for letting them live and think and reason and build great cities and mighty empires. In recent years, the tone has shifted, of course, as the works of the church and religion have come under scrutiny as the ranks of skeptics and nonbelievers swelled to numbers that would have been unfathomable a mere century ago. So the festival has taken on a defiant stance: look, we say, look at what we can do.

I write this now because it was the Festival of Night last night, and the Prince was assassinated in front of a crowd. And the festival, a time both sacred and profane--I can't help but wonder why it was chosen. Superstition, perhaps--perhaps the Divine won't punish regicide committed on the night where they have left creation to its own devices--or perhaps it was political, a message that the Prince's tame participation in his city's ancient festival would not be tolerated. (But if so, by whom? Have the priests ceded the ceremony to its enemies so soon?)

Nevena--the new Princess, I suppose--had the misfortune of having me as her companion on this night. Just hours ago she was talking about how she always felt hopeful on the eve of the new moon, that it represented so much unrealized potential, and now she is numbly staring out from her balcony at the moonless sky, while I sit at her desk and write my thoughts on her father's death. It feels important to chronicle these moments.

It also feels important to offer her a shoulder to cry on, to offer some words, to focus not on the historical magnitude of the moment but on the grief and horror she is feeling, right now. I did my best. I sat with her for a while, staring at the moonless sky, and though we didn't speak, she still turned to me with a thin smile and said thank you. Kind of her to let this poor historian feel like she had any use in situations like these.

And so I returned here, to this little desk, using her lamp and her pen and her paper. And while I will be called upon to answer all of the questions about the implications of this later, right now, while I try to make myself useful as a friend, I'm thinking about the new moon. I hope, for her sake, that she is still able to look at the empty sky and feel that there are bright days to come.

rainy day

My biggest concern, now that I've been free for so long, is that people will forget that she was, at heart, just a person. Sometimes I still think about the rainy days we'd spend together--stuck in the Academy, stuck in the palace, they all run together now. I'm imagining her in court dress running through the halls of the Academy, or in academic white in the halls of the palace. I don't know which part is accurate--maybe none of it is. Maybe it's made up, or maybe this one actually took place at my family's estate, or at the opera house, or . . .

What drew me to her is how passionate she was about whatever she had discovered recently. A book, an opera--it wasn't so much that she dreamed of being a philosopher-princess but that she was bound to become one. I can still see the glint in her eye, hear the barely contained enthusiasm in her voice, as she waxes poetic on the latest essays of her favorite philosopher, or describes the scene she loved most in the latest theatrical production. She spent so much of her life on guard, afraid that her enthusiasm might hold too much sway, but around me, at least, she let that guard down. And even after everything she's done--everything she did to me--I still miss those days. I'd never know where the conversation was going, and I'm not sure I ever really held my own, but I loved it.

Does this make her sound flighty? Perhaps she was. Perhaps after all these years, Princess Nevena IV, the dread figure that shattered the world, was just an excitable girl, who loved ideas and people too easily, who dreamed of a brighter future and couldn't settle on what that meant. I'm not sure anyone else got to see that side of her, but until the last time I saw her, that was who she was to me. Eager, enthusiastic, confident, and ever changing.

So, as scholars attempt to write a history of what happened, of her life, of what went wrong, I can't stop thinking of that time we sat on the rooftops of the Academy, huddled together in the rain, while she talked about all the dreams she had, what she wanted to do when the throne was hers, how she would make the world better with everything she had learned and studied. And I remember falling in love with that excitement, that energy, all over again.

wind

There used to be a kingdom here--or, no, they wouldn't have used that word. But there was something so much more than a handful of villages trading with each other. Someone built these roads, and maintained them; more than a few brave souls travelled them. And now it's just ruins, lost and overgrown; and I've always felt compelled to explore those lost places, to learn about the world we lost. Or maybe compelled isn't strong enough. Driven, perhaps? The echoes that linger in these old places call to me.

My companion tells me that where she's from, there's a coming of age ritual where a young person will take the surname Windtossed and go out into the world. Not everyone goes through the ritual--there are plenty who are happy to work on the family farm, or learn a trade, or otherwise stay with the clan--but any who feel so called are encouraged to go chase the wind. It's nice to imagine what it would have been like if my family and my hometown had encouraged my journeys rather than begging me to stay because they don't believe I can take care of myself.

Though we've been travelling together for a while now, my companion won't talk about her own wanderings; I'm left to imagine why she follows me, where she's from, who she really is. But she believes in me, and she has saved my life more times than I could count. And every morning when I wake up she's still there, standing watch, spear in hand, hair and cloak being tossed by the wind. A wanderer couldn't ask for a better companion.

dawn

When I received an invitation to one of the future Princess's salons, my first thought--after the obvious ones, I suppose--was that I was almost certainly there as decoration. Someone had seen one of my performances and liked my voice or just thought I was pretty enough that they wanted me there, and I had to stop myself from continuing down that line because along that road cynicism runs wild. Of course I accepted, and of course I dressed in the finest dress I had, and of course I was so nervous that for the first hour or so I could barely string a sentence together. It was a small gathering--half a dozen people or so, many of whom came and went as casually as if this were not the most prestigious gatherings in the city--and though the wine flowed freely that night I drank only water and still felt drunk on everything--the atmosphere, the ideas. 

At some point one of the city's eminent philosophers asked me a question--I couldn't even tell you what it was now, except that it was clear he had expected a demure "I don't know" in response. Instead, summoning what composure I could from my stage training, I answered honestly, and thoughtfully, and in my opinion insightfully. And then there was a stunned silence, someone laughed, and someone else said, "I told you she'd be interesting to have around."

I understood then. The allure wasn't the prestige, but the sense that here, status meant nothing. It didn't matter if I was just a singer; so long as I had something interesting to say, I would be accepted as an equal here. And what an allure it was, that a room full of the city's sharpest minds could continue planning their campaign against the darkness, the malaise that we all sensed settling over the city, and that eventually by wit and reason alone that darkness could be purged.

As the night wore on most of the guests retired, but a few of us stayed, talking, joking, arguing--none of it mattered, or perhaps more precisely, it all mattered. No matter how exhausted I got, I felt like everything we said or did there would somehow shape the world for the better.

We stopped, both of us who still remained, when dawn came. One of my companions walked me back home, and the sky was such a brilliant red when we finally reached the sad little tenement I called my lodgings. To my surprise I invited her in--"It seems rude to make you walk all the way back to the palace when the sun's already risen"--and to my even greater surprise she accepted. And though we were both too exhausted to do anything but sleep, at least, with dawn watching over us, I fell asleep feeling, for once, warm and hopeful.

quiet clouds

I don't know why I didn't go home once I'd severed my alliance with the Princess. We both could have gone, me and my constant companion, and enjoyed the safety and comfort of my estate; instead, once the thaw came, we wandered. It seemed that everywhere we went, the war had left chaos and instability in its wake: deserters who became bandits who became warlords here, a corrupt magistrate taking advantage of the chaos to line his pockets there. Sometimes they welcomed us, sometimes they drove us away. We helped where we could. When we couldn't find work, we foraged for food; when the imperial highways started to fill with soldiers we left the roads behind.

We were tired, we were hungry, and we were putting our lives at risk, and even when we were able to help, it felt so small. So often it felt like we were at best buying them time, that everything we did--driving off the warlords, exposing the magistrates--would simply lead to a temporary power vacuum. And we could hardly stay and prevent someone else from returning.

It became harder as we traveled to pay attention to anything but the road ahead of us. I knew that we were in a mountain valley and had even stopped to admire some of the views when my companion pointed them out, but my eyes remained fixed on the trail, and all the sounds of the wilds faded to nothing but the dull tread of my boots.

My companion had stopped, and I wearily asked what the problem was. She simply gestured upwards. A beautiful set of quiet clouds had formed above the mountains, drifting through the sky and along the slopes as I watched.

"I'll make camp," she told me.

I found a fallen log to sit on and just watched the clouds. Somewhere out there, the war was ravaging even more lands, but there were still quiet, beautiful moments out there, and for a moment I was able to convince myself that maybe the reason I was still wandering was so I could find them.

waning crescent

I always had an affinity with the moon, ever since I was little. I'd stay up late--later than I was supposed to, but even then none of my caretakers dared to stop me--and sneak out onto one of the palace balconies and just stare up at the moon, and felt elation as it waxed and sorrow as it waned. 

It's so easy to lose track of the moon's phases, though, when you're busy. And I was, of course I was, even when my father was alive. I had so much I needed to do before the city was mine. So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that when I was coronated, I forgot to check the moon. It was a waning crescent, days before new. A moon in decline.

I told myself I'd grown out of superstition. I tried to convince myself that the phase of the moon meant nothing about the fate of the city, that I would not be ruling over the final days of a waning realm. I had so much to accomplish. I had so many dreams. The days ahead should have been our brightest; but as I saw that moon hanging over the ocean, my new crown already too heavy on my head, I had the conviction that each passing night would only be darker.

That night, when the crowds of disingenuous well-wishers had dispersed, I stayed up late like I used to and stared at the moon and tried to understand, or at least to recapture that sense of wonder I'd had as a child. But it remained impenetrable as ever, and eventually wine and exhaustion forced me to retire.

I drifted through the next day too distracted to think of anything else. Eventually one of my friends--or perhaps she was an adviser now?--finally realized this wasn't just a hangover, and pulled me aside. "You seem worried."

I tried to assure her I was fine, but at that moment I lost control and started to cry, silently. She held me, awkwardly, as I struggled to compose myself once again.

"Tell me what's wrong?" she said, once I had regained my composure.

And I tried. I tried to explain about the moon, and how despite everything, I still worried about symbols and omens. "No," I said, as a revelation occurred. "it's not worry. It's a certainty. I will be the last Princess of this city."

She watched me for a while--I never did learn to read her face, even after growing up with her, and she was always one to keep her thoughts to herself--then said, "Someone had to be. You may as well pretend you're wrong, though." I frowned at her, and she cracked a thin smile. "Rule well, and either you make the last days of a waning empire better, or you lay the groundwork for a brighter future. Worry and despair doesn't help anyone."

I glanced up at the afternoon sky then and saw the thin sliver of moon there, barely visible against the pale blue sky, and I wondered, if it was an omen, what kind it was meant to be.

a prelude for october

October at last. Autumn has truly started here--the leaves have turned, there's a chill in the air, the rains have already started falling . . . sometimes I get a little emotional the first time a real autumn storm happens. I love this season, and I love this month.

This is the month of Halloween, a holiday whose aesthetic I've always loved. I still remember going all out decorating and dressing up as a kid, wanting the season to never end. Part of that, of course, is just fall--the colors, the leaves, the smell of fallen leaves, the chill in the air--but the holiday itself, and by extension the month it occupies, also has a special place in my heart. Jack-o-lanterns and spooky ghosts and skeletons and little cartoony gravestones that say RIP on them. (Though I know at least one person who hates when people say this, I'm not actually that into horror as a genre; I'm mostly here for the fun and whimsy. But horror fans getting excited for their favorite movies makes me happy, so I'm not complaining either.)

There's an A Softer World which describes Halloween as the only time of year you can really dress for the job you want, and Jason Webley has been known to introduce some of his seasonal songs by saying that it is the one night of year when we can take off our masks and reveal who we really are (I'm sure there's a recording of this somewhere but I'm too lazy to search; sorry). There's something about that, I think: the way we celebrate it, Halloween is ostensibly a night of masquerade, but there's an element of masquerade that allows us to be a little more honest about who we are. That is, wearing a real mask makes it a little easier to drop the metaphorical ones.

I don't really have a point here, or even a good way to segue into this next bit: I'm going to try once again to write a little something every day this month, because it's a fun challenge. I'm planning on using this set of prompts, which given my endless fascination with the sky and weather probably shouldn't require explanation, though I think I'll try to reshuffle the moon days around so they correspond with this year's phases rather than with, I presume, those of 2019.

Normally I'd try to mix in some observations on news and the world, and maybe some personal anecdotes to tie it all together, but this month I have nothing much to say. I'm glad fall is here; I'm still tired, society is still on edge from the pandemic, hope still feels firmly grounded in folly. The year is drawing rapidly to a close and things still feel both stagnant and precarious.

Regardless, I hope the season is treating you well. I hope that it is exactly as spooky as you'd like it to be. I hope you are pleasantly surprised by a gust of wind, that you can watch the leaves dancing against a stormy sky. I hope, even if it's only for one night, you can take off your mask and be who you truly are.

dragonsbane

I have a new short story. It's here.

Normally I don't like putting up qualifiers for things I've written because I'd rather the text stand for itself, but the short stories I've been working on recently, including the most recent one (which I may not have even put up here, what the hell?) are part of a bigger story I've been working on for . . . years, now. Sometimes it just lives in my brain, sometimes I put some words on paper, building up the world and the events. It's changed a lot since I started, but it's solidifying, slowly. The characters, at least, have taken on their own forms.

This isn't really new here; I've written a number of things taking place in this world and posted them on this blog. But increasingly as I build the world, they become events that are part of something bigger. This is the story of the time a character earned the epithet "Dragonsbane"; it's also a small but significant event in a grander story.

Previously I've been happy to file off the characteristics that tie an individual story to the broader narrative; it's harder to do the closer the stories get to being part of those events. The problem is that I worry that it will feel incomplete, or at the very least that treating these as isolated and separate stories is not the ideal way to present these.

So here we are. I still want to tinker with this forever but eventually you have to hit publish.