Blackbird: [having finished dressing. Kisses Brandon a final time]
Goodnight, Brandon. Bahamut watch over your sleep.
Brandon:
Keep yourself well.
[picks up her duar, pulls her knife out of the floor and leaves]
Narrator:
Stepping out of Brandon's tent is like coming up for air.
Blackbird: [unspoken]
Scales! Now I know how scrambled eggs feel. Crack open one Anchor, add chaos and stir. But I think I have survived it. I'm not safe, but for the first time in two days I feel like things are falling my way.
(How so?)
Because even if he hurts me, I win; in hurting me he proves right all that I believed for so long. And if he does not hurt me, if he is telling the truth, then I have won in a different way.
(And what will you do with your prize?)
If he really loves me, I cannot blind myself to that. I could easily love the man who has been seducing me the past two nights. But I do not think I will know whether I love him until the day he and Belerian meet.
(And you would willingly sacrifice him and his love for Belerian's vengeance?)
Did I willingly sacrifice Belerian for Brandon's cruelty? No. This is not my doing. Brandon got himself into this mess a long time ago. This is the best chance I can give him. It is up to him and Bel to end it, to bring it full circle. And again I'll watch and realize that I am the reason for the sacrifice. Maybe I will do something. Maybe I will not. Maybe I will not have to. I will not know until it happens.
Narrator:
She lets herself into her wagon and brings out a small oil lamp. There is still a small fire burning near a group of soldiers' tents. She carries the lamp to it and uses a twig from the fire to light her lamp. Back in the wagon, the flickering glow of the wagon casts soft shadows on the ceiling. She lays back, staring at the shadows, wondering which things she did today will someday be cause for regret and which she will rejoice. The shadows do not have any answers. After a long time, she puts the light out.
The last flicker of light reflects off a spear point as it dies. Some part of her heart leaps at the metaphor. She can't help think about Ti. This was his time, when it was dark in the wagon and his night-sight allowed him to move with an easy grace. When his deep snoring would stop and he'd ask after her. When his warmth would be all she'd need to fall asleep, comforted by the fact that a stalwart protector and friend was near. When she could whisper to him things that bothered her and his level-headed replies would set her at ease.
Blackbird: [sitting up suddenly]
Grey! Like the winter sky can be. How did he put it? Dangerous. The grey of a dangerous sky. Close your eyes, Ti, we need to sleep.
Narrator:
Later she falls into the blackness of sleep and night.
The next morning she bypasses whiskey in favor of an extra cup of Pennyroyal tea. Not a time to start getting careless, she figures. Much like the previous morning, she often finds herself lost in pleasant recollection of the previous night. She has a hard time focusing on playing and even later when she finishes her morning exercise, she cannot remember a detail about what she did, other than "time passed and I'm all sweaty." Her head seems to be feeling much better today.
[barring contradiction by the GM]
[GM: So far, so good. Still easily distracted, though. She has learned not to exert herself though. If she tries pushing on a brick wall, she'll be in danger of passing out. Moving around is ok]
She washes with water from the creek, tends the horses, changes into a dress and sets out around the camp, sharing breakfast and swapping stories with the soldiers. After a while, she finds Rojo.
Blackbird:
Good morning, Rojo. Get out your coin purse and I will see how we did last night.
[sits down on a log, carefully spreading her skirt and dumping the coins in her lap to count]
[Stu--how much?]
[Neil: Well paid, suitable for a master Anchor (such as Rojo), with a handsome bonus atop that]
[in Andalusian]
And while I am doing that, you can tell me how it is that you understand me. I thought only two people in the realm spoke Andalusian.
[begins counting]
Rojo: [happy but ragged looking, he's had about two hours of sleep]
Just you and I? Madonna, how could I be so lucky that we share such a thing between just us! No, you must mean that you and whoever taught you speak our tongue.
It was spoken at home. My mother learned it from my father, who I am said to resemble greatly. He learned her tongue from her and I speak both. My father came to this land through the great woods. Our house was at the edge of these woods. Both could sing too, so then do I. Father said that left his home to follow a man who he had worked with once. A man who had made the trip, and who was better to follow than the leaders from where he came from. My father fell in love with my mother and he went no further.
Blackbird: [eagerly, in Andalusian]
My father! What is your Father's name? Is he still alive? How about your mother, what is her name?
[sadly]
You story says to me that you have never been to our Fathers' homeland. Do you know where it is?
[as an afterthought]
What's "Madonna?"
Rojo:
He is Vela'zquez, [a' is a accent in ascii] and while an old man he still lives best I know. My mother is Theresa [tear race uh - pronounced Spanish style], who barring the unforeseen and given the grace of god still lives and brings happiness to my father's heart.
I have never been there and my father says it is not worth going back to find, so far away in the woods.
Madonna means that your father has not taught you everything of this language - you should ask him what it means when a single man calls a pretty unmarried woman such as you that way. I predict, and no seer am I, that he will smile and ask you many questions of me.
[Blackbird blushes]
You are San Sebastian, is it not so?
Blackbird:
Si. Evaine Corinna San Sebasitan. I prefer Blackbird. The other name weighs down my wings.
[later, when she finishes counting]
Rojo:
Is it a lot?
Blackbird:
A *whole* lot!
[she divides it 75% for him, 25% for her]
Tell me some stories, Rojo: How did you learn of Lady Devonshire's fate before I did? We are rather isolated here.
Narrator:
He tells her stories upon stories. At one point he stops and sings to himself a number of songs as he fingers the money. She realizes that it's how he counts the coins - by the length of the song. But he is a master storyteller, mostly because he never forgets them. He simply was at the right place at the right time for the news front to touch him and be carried by him. Blackbird realizes that she was but a few days ahead of the news.
Blackbird:
Do you know any old stories of this castle all the lords are so excited about? Or any new stories about it, for that matter.
Rojo:
No, I came here to learn them! Oh! Perhaps one thing. The delegation from the elves in Lethbridge is rumored to be very interested in all of this. But that is all I know.
Perhaps there are things we can teach each other, no?
[very nice smile]
Blackbird: [laughing]
Some other time - you need to get to bed. Alone! Go get some sleep, Master Anchor, before you teach an apprentice bad habits.
Rojo:
Si. I think I shall sleep very well, Madonna!
[he gets up and wanders off, almost staggering at first]