Chapter 3: Brazing Geography
I began studying the abyss of who I might become and found no comfort. Not in possibility, nor in absolute. No beginning, nor path, nor end found sustainable or joyous as I explored the world to come. I could give her no answer. She softened her touch in assurance: more existed in creation than revealed before us. And I, taking her hand, became new.
An Anvil Blanket
Everything was flashes and sparks for a long time. Orange golden strands of safety and peace, desperate for my undivided attention. Silver blue islands in an ocean of ash and memory. The recollection stood just out of reach, always taking another step back for every desperate grasp I made for understanding.
"Hold her down, Ko," Nico's voice bled through everything I was feeling. "If she runs off, there's no telling what hells she find herself in."
"Yes, love," Kovar didn't sound irritated, but she sure wasn't pleased with the situation. I felt pressure from all sides. "This good enough?"
"If she weren't a young one, I might take issue, but it's more important she's held." Air flew past my ears. "Flux. Sweetie. I need you to breathe. Deep breath in." I forced the air in, as much as I could with the weight on me. "Good girl. Now. Deep breath out."
As I released the breath, the world came into focus. Kovar's face was inches from mine. Nico was breathing softly at my side. From that distance, I could make out the gem-like backdrop of Kovar's peridot eyes. She was a soft woman, despite herself.
"You here with us, Flux?" Kovar smiled. I nodded slowly. "Do you remember who I am?" I nodded again. "Good girl. I'm going to let off you now. Don't run."
"I wouldn't," I said with the tiny bit of breath left in me. As Kovar raised her weight up, my body heaved a sigh of relief. "But I suppose I can understand if you'd like me to."
"Had we wanted that," Nico shoved me, her face still so close to my ear, "Ko wouldn't have been putting the whole weight of the smith on you."
I was back in the bed I'd awoken in earlier in the sun. Nico was lying between me and the door. Kovar was at the bedside blocking the window. Everything was orderly. Each thing was in its place.
What had happened?
"So, girl," Nico put an arm around my waist, soft enough to keep from hurting me further, but tight enough to know it was meant in love. "Never seen gold cold-flame. Ko's practised and sorted how to make red. Iron had a blue-yellow. Rest of the smith has the normal orange. Gold is different." Despite her level voice, I felt a nervous edge coming from her. "Dead princess had green, if stories tell it true. Just wondering if you might've brought something back from the loss."
"I think I was right there, just on the edge of it," the words were a far off wisp, "and then I was back. I had a family."
"Everyone has a family, prawn mouse," Kovar smiled the words. "Some folks run from theirs. Others lose em. But everyone has a family."
"A daughter. And a husband." I got the words out despite a fear that everything would fall apart again. "Possibly more."
Kovar crossed the room and lifted Dasara from the floor. No worse for wear after what happened. She dusted off the doll's dress and brought her to me, leaning over Nico to offer Dasara to me. "Makes a measure of sense with how you care so much over that bit of wood, wool, and weave."
"If you have a family out there, and if you want to find them," Nico brushed at my choppy hair, "we can help you find them. The Sisters are all about getting things done, but the Daughters of Thorn are the brains of the operation." Kovar snorted at the implication. "Well, they're the information network, really. Ko takes that information and makes it actionable."
The sound my stomach made was a triumphant roar attempting to get past the hunger pangs I'd been ignoring. Both Kovar and Nico laughed at the sound. "Is supper still on the table?"
"So long as you stay clear of mirrors," Nico gave me a final shove, "we can sit down as a crew and make a plan." She turned to Kovar, who was already halfway out the door. "The others should be gone for the evening, and Miss B should be stopping by soon. So four places will serve fine, love."
Silver-boned and Dreaming
Nico stayed with me a few more minutes before rising to leave. We didn't talk, just listened to each other's breathing. I suppose she might have been waiting for something from me, but I had nothing to offer save the occasional sniffle or cough. Still, we were at peace there, so neither of us fought it.
When at last Nico stood, I moved to follow. The fluid shift in weight was met with no resistance, even from the back that had previously revolted with blood. It felt like freedom, and I had to fight back tears.
"You alright there, Flux?" Nico had raised a brow and moved into the supportive space she'd occupied just a short while earlier.
"I'm fine?" Rising to my toes, then rocking back to let my weight distribute along my feet, I felt no pain. "A little too fine."
She pulled herself closer. "Too bad. You're not getting out of me helping you down the stairs. It's three levels, this shop, and not a single even step."
I didn't fight her offer of help, no matter how unnecessary it apparently was. Instead, I allowed myself to focus on the deliberate task of not falling down stairs and possibly breaking myself again. It certainly wouldn't do to have me back to uselessness.
Nico was right that the steps were uneven, so I was grateful for the help, much as I hated to admit it. As we reached the second landing, voices found us from below. Nico pulled me to a stop. "Miss B likes privacy when she arrives. Only Ko knows who she really is. I give her the mystery because it keeps things safe. First Daughter of Thorn, that one. Not a true daughter like Ko's a true sister though."
"Any idea who she really is?" Why did I ask that? Nico said the lady liked privacy. "Sorry. Don't know what came over me."
"I think she's secretly Nihil returned." My heart ached at Nico's words. "We do so much in the name of Nihil that it'd make sense she's a part of all this."
"Where better to operate than within the ranks of your followers." Truth spoken by another. I thought I smelt stale waters for a moment as I said it.
"Surprised more you didn't ask who Nihil is," Nico grabbed my arm and started pulling toward the stairs again. "But I'll let Miss B explain when she's ready. Knows more about that stuff than I would."
Miss B wasn't a big woman by any stretch, but she wasn't tiny. She filled a space with presence where her body wouldn't suffice. I couldn't quite see her face on account of a hooded cowl that revealed only her eyes. Dark obsidian gems.
Something ached in my heart at the sadness in those eyes.
"The Flux I've been told about, I must presume," Miss B offered a hand as we entered the room. Not in the manner of a new acquaintance, but in the manner of a romantic partner. My whole chest fluttered at the gesture, and even moreso when she took my hand and pressed it softly to the cowl where her mouth would be. "You may call me any from a wide swath of names, but my closest kin call me a pain."
"You sound like a younger sister begging for attention, D— R—" I stood with my mouth open for a full minute. "What would you prefer I call you?"
"Were I a younger woman, perhaps you could call me a Rose," her eyes smiled for her. "Were I unwed, perhaps you could call me Wife. Were you in possession of yourself, perhaps you could call me Sister."
Part of me questioned why she spoke in riddles. A soul-deep part of me enjoyed the game. "Given the pain you cause, what say I call you a Briar, Miss B?"
"In spite of yourself," her voice was bright, "you are sharp as a Thorn. Or perhaps as soft as a Leaf. And I find you quite a proper sort, Prim and Rosy even."
Giggles bubbled to the surface. "Is she always like this?" Kovar and Nico seemed equally stunned. "I suppose not then." Looking back to their friend, I offered more in challenge. "Well, I can't say for sure if I'm any of those things. It's all gone, you know. Everything's a dream, and the past is a nightmare."
She looked from me to Kovar and back before raising a hand to her cowl and pulling the cover down below her chin. "You can stay, Flux. I like you. So far as names, I'll give you one I've not used in an age. You may call me Tenebra. The darkness at the edge of a dream."
Her skin was darker than the night sky, yet brighter than all the stars. She had full lips and a broad nose that spoke of something classical, beautiful, ancient and powerful. Each ear bore a wide gold-hoop earring. As she'd moved the cowl, I noticed an ivory band on her wrist that hadn't been obvious before.
I'd seen plenty of dark skinned people. On some level I knew that. But this was different. Tenebra was darkness turned human. She had taken that quality and perfected it.
"Tenebra?" Nico's stunned silence was broken. "You chat her up for five minutes and give her a name like that, but I've known you since Thorn and all I get is B." She moved into Tenebra's space and held out her arms. "I'll let it slide for a hug you weasel. It's been nigh on three moons of you on that job."
After a long embrace, Kovar ushered us all to a small rectangular table in the back of the smithy. Several dishes I couldn't recognise were spread in a line down the centre.
"Food, dear Flux," Kovar spoke with the air of one in the know, "is one of the truest keys to memory. It ties us to our past, and it has a habit of telling our future." She pulled out a seat, gesturing for me to sit. "My fine belle has prepared a few dishes from places she's been. Mayhap we'll unlock a bit of who you are in the process."
Tenebra took up a seat next to me with Nico and Kovar on the opposite side of the table. "What," she said with a smirk and a gentle nudge, "no slime pigeon?"
"You want that poison," Nico smiled broadly with her retort, "you'd best be going back to your desert, B."
"Was there any quality bonefish in the market this sun?" Tenebra was already loading several items from the table onto a plate. My plate. "Can't explore who someone is without —"
"Bonefish? You think we'd do bonefish," Kovar was indicating a pan with what looked like a whole side of a fish, "when we could do silver-skipper? You want a taste of The Stone, you eat skipper. You want the nobles' stupid showy nonsense, you eat bonefish with a scowl."
"It's not the fault of bonefish if the nobles don't have an idea how to cook it," Tenebra at last set the plate before me, eight different foods not touching each other scattered about. "Now Flux," she said as she put a fork in my hand, "I've arranged these foods just so. Start here," she pointed to something green, "then this," the thing to its right, "then work your way around."
"This is like the cheese thing, isn't it?"
"Cheese thing?" She looked at Nico with an angry scowl. "Did you give this poor girl ero fruit and Spire cheese?" When Nico snorted, Tenebra through a piece of bread at her. "You're far more evil than you say I am. I bet you gave her that disgusting drink you call water, too."
"If it gets the girl healthy," Nico said, throwing the bread back across the table, "then it's worth her suffering when she eats it wrong."
"And if there's a wrong way to eat it, then it's not worth putting in your mouth, Fer." Tenebra looked back to my plate. "No, Flux. This is nothing like the cheese thing. This reposian stalk," she pointed back at the green thing, "has the gentlest flavour. Starting elsewhere would make it so you don't taste this. And so on in the order I demonstrated. It assures you taste everything."
"Oh. I see."
Taking up the green thing, I turned it about in my hand. It had little ridges on one side and a long groove down the centre on the other side. When I bit into it, the thing crunched, little stringy bits getting caught in my teeth. A wetness spread through my mouth like an explosion, but it ended almost immediately.
"It's not bad, but I feel like it'd be better as a seasoning," I said softly. Tenebra seemed to be fighting back a laugh. "I take it no one had high hopes for this stalk thingy?"
Nods passed between my hostesses. "It was a long shot. You have the build of someone from far deimward. The stalks originally came from that way. Move on. We'll see where it goes."
"She's right, you know." Tenebra was finally filling up her own plate. "The stalks used to serve as a seasoning. My wife's best friend once made a bread seasoned with them. Delightful stuff."
"And we've still met neither of these phantoms of your past." Nico was smiling so broadly. Apparently she and Kovar loved these meetings with Tenebra. "So I'll believe it when you replicate the task."
I moved on, dish by dish, around Tenebra's geographical clock. Each thing had its own brightness, its own joys, but nothing really did it for me before I got to the seventh thing on the plate. Before I dug into it, Tenebra's eyes snapped to my plate.
"Hold," she said and scrutinised it. It was the thing Kovar had called silver-skipper. "Did you remember to cover it in sourfruit and ero fruit juice before you cooked it, Koko?"
"Of course I did," Kovar said with a groan. "You wouldn't let me live it down for a full year last time."
"Good girl." Tenebra looked back to me. "Take a small bite. Take it nice and slow."
I cut off just a small corner of the fish with my fork and brought the meat to my mouth. As I brought it to my lips, the aroma of the fish brought tears to my eyes. The fish almost dissolved in my mouth, falling apart at the slightest pressure.
Acid and salt and peace. A woman by the stove. A man at the table. Family.
"Your ma's from Blue Stone I reckon," Nico patted my hand. When had she gotten next to me. "No way you'd cry like that over some fish were she not. The love of a mother's like no other, they say."
I looked down and found the whole portion of fish was already gone. When had I eaten it?
"More please?"
A laugh went up around the room. I might start to like it there in the smithy.
Somnus Veritas
The moment supper concluded, after I'd eaten a full silver-skipper to myself, Tenebra was up and headed toward the door.
"Well, Flux," she winked as she raised the cowl and tightened it properly about her face, only showing her eyes, "one sun soon, you and I will meet in the markets. Call me Briar outside the smithy."
"Thank you," I said, voice cracking. "Stay safe out there, Briar."
She was gone. And then I was on my way back to bed. I'd offered to assist with clean up, but Kovar insisted it was her night for dishes. So Nico guided me up and up and on to the bed, helping me out of the apron, then the dress.
"When precisely were you thinking of telling me you were some manner of fell-beast, little miss prawn mouse?" She was looking me over with far more intensity than reasonable. "What in Nihil's name happened to the near entire evisceration of your arms and legs and —" she lifted the dressing gown like she had earlier in the sun and scoffed, "— even your rear side?"
"That's what I tried to tell you, Nico." I yanked the dressing gown out of her hand and let it drape properly over me again. "I think I'm feeling better."
"I'll say. Not a drop of blood staining this shift, even." She was staring in wonder. "Well, I suppose on the morrow, we'll put you to work. Find something for a Stone girl without much trouble, you know."
"Can't wait." I said. "Thank you, Nico. For everything."
"Even if you were the queen herself, we wouldn't put you out, dear," she set a hand on my shoulder. "Though we might give you hells for it were that the case. As it stands, no one's seen the fell queens except those in the palace for ages upon more."
"Odd," the word was almost dreamy. "Well, I suppose it can't be helped. She's the queen, after all."
"Aye, and sure as she's not a good one. In any case," Nico moved to the door, "rest well, and dream of family, Miss Flux."
"I'll try," I said as the door closed behind her.
Sleep was easy. Dreams were not. Flashes of faces. Sparks of places. Darkness with a smirk. Brown hair, brown eyes, and trouble. A silver rose and a golden aster. All lost. All held in memoriam.
Before I awoke, I remembered. Not one child but two. A daughter. A husband. And a son. No faces, only feelings. And they were mine.