2. Precious Things
Jun. 6th, 2012 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clare_dragonflylet them break their hold over me
-
Juniper walked into the market square. It looked the same as it always had; flat stones paving a large yard between businesses, a fountain in the center, the inn on the west side and the bakery on the east. She walked to the north side of the hexagonal stone fountain, where she had always been accustomed to go, knelt down, and began to take the things out of her pouch, one by one, and lay them out on the flags so they could be seen.
Everything looked the same, but it did not feel the same. It was wider, emptier, quieter, colder. The sky was higher. And the gap between the stable and the south side of the inn had never seemed so large.
Even though the fountain was between Juniper and that gap, she felt it at her back, an open space, as though anything could come through that way. And anything could leave.
She was not now going that way; she was kneeling by her wares, waiting for anyone to have an interest in trading with her. But she knew that she would go that way when she left, a way she had never gone before. She would have to go around the fountain. She would have to leave.
The empty, itchy feeling stayed with her while a girl came out of the bakery, half covered in flour, and briskly negotiated a trade of six pieces of flatbread and one sweet butter bun for the jar of apples. It stayed with her while she slowly ate the bun, savoring its rich flavor, enjoying the perk of energy it gave her—but not enjoying it as much as she had in the past, because of that empty feeling.
It stayed with her while she bargained with the stable master over the length of tanned deer hide he wanted. She insisted that it had been a great deal of work to remove this large amount of skin from the deer, to stretch it and tan it; he insisted that the winter had been long and hard, and he had been unable to grow anything in his garden or rent out any horses for months. Neither of them could argue with the logic, and they finally settled on the hide for a fresh waterproofing on her boots and gloves, though the gloves did not need it as badly.
The feeling stayed with her as she traded her large axe (she could not carry it with her) for a coarse wool blanket, even as the square filled up with people and business, and even when she glanced back and could no longer see the path out, for the press of people blocked it. It stayed with her as she tremblingly handed over her precious cache of sweet apple cuttings in exchange for a quiver full of well-made arrows. It stayed with her when, at last, she traded away her artifact from before the Change, a large green bowl made of some hard material that did not break, for a vial of syrup that would sweeten the flavor of what water she found.
It was still with her in the late afternoon, when the sun was low enough that the buildings blocked her view of it, and she stood, limbs shaking far more than she had expected. She felt sick with loss and many pounds lighter, though the things she had obtained weighed only a little less than the things she had traded away.
She did have a few copper coins, and traded one at the inn for an onion pie—she needed an afternoon meal, and did not know when she would have another opportunity to obtain anything other than what was in her pack, but she also knew that she was dawdling, putting off the time when she would have to go down the path that had haunted her all day. At least now she was partway across the square, and did not have to make the gut-wrenching circuit around the fountain, but simply walk in a straight line.
She pointed herself toward the path, took a bite of her pie, and began to walk.
so I ran faster but it caught me
-
Juniper did not look up from her onion pie until she felt the trees close in about her again. She had watched only her feet and her food for what had to be nearly a mile. The stone flags had been left behind long ago; she was walking down a worn dirt path, the river out of sight but in easy hearing to her left. Now she stopped and turned around.
She must have walked past fields and farmhouses, but she had not seen them. She was relieved, now, to be still unable to see them. The trees surrounded her, blocking out not only most of the light from the sun, which was setting somewhere ahead and to her right, but any sight of what was before or ahead. These trees were not her trees, the ones she knew from home, and yet their sheltering presence made her feel comforted. They knew her. The branches rustled around her, and while she could not now pick out any words, she felt certain that they were offering reassurances. She smiled, turned herself back on to her path, and walked on.
The forest was beautiful at night—not in the same way that it was during the day, but she admired it nonetheless. The little circle of light she walked in caught the occasional branch, some roots, and a few bushes by the side of the path, rather than the sun’s light showing her all that surrounded her as it would during the day. She focused on the details; the slight furriness of a tiny leaf bud, the runnels that scored the bark of an oak tree, the way a root spread its fingers to dig deeply into the earth.
Eventually, though, she realized that her eyelids were growing heavy, and the details had begun to blur. She did not know how much time had passed—at home she had woken with the sun and slept when she was tired. Well, there was no reason to change that routine now, and she would certainly need the sleep. She turned off the path, this time going left, to seek a good site to make camp by the edge of the river.
The river here was a very little bit bigger than it was near her home, and it ran just a bit faster. It was in flood, so the trees grew right up to the edge of the bank, but eventually she found a spot where several aspens made a circle—surely if not this year, then next year, little saplings would grow up from it, seeking the sun that they allowed in… but not, Juniper realized, if the curse were permitted to continue on its course. Oddly, the thought strengthened her, and she moved with renewed speed as she unpacked her things, choosing a place for a fire circle and laying out her blanket beside it. Her feet, now that they rested behind her, ached from the unaccustomed walking, and she winced every time she had to stand up to collect more wood for her fire.
Once everything was laid out and ready for her supper, she took out her fire-starting kit and struck match to tinder. The wind blew out her match as soon as she had it lit. Puzzled—there had not been so much wind earlier, and she had deliberately knelt with her back to it—she struck another, but this time a great gust of wind swirled past her, lifting her blanket and tossing it over the firewood and tinder she’d stacked together. As the blanket settled, she realized the wind had also brought with it sounds: a quiet litany of no fire, no fire, no fire.
She sighed and sat back on her heels, then titled her head back, addressing herself to the restlessly moving trees. “I have to light a fire,” she told them, speaking as clearly as she could but not very loudly, in case there were others in these woods. She did not want to draw any more attention to herself than she had to. “I need it for warmth, and to cook my food, and to heat my water so it is safe for me to drink.”
No fire, whispered the trees, but the wind calmed down and after a moment voices emerged saying other things. We can keep you warm, said one. The water is safe to drink, said another.
Juniper shook her head. “How can you keep me warm? I must sleep on the ground. I need much more warmth than a tree needs, for I move much faster.”
We can lead you to another place, came two voices, twining together in response. The voices sounded urgent, for trees. This is not a good place to sleep. There are other places, places where we can trap heat for you.
She considered agreeing to the offer, but realized that she would still, above everything, need the fire for her water, and she was much too exhausted from all the walking to find a new campsite. She did not know if the trees measured distance the same way as she did, and she feared that they would have her walking for another hour. “I cannot go anywhere else,” she told them. “And I still must have the fire for my water.” They complained, again, that it was safe, and she shook her head again. “It may be safe for you, but it is not safe for me. Your roots filter the water for you, and take out anything bad, but I do not have any such system. And even you must admit that from time to time trees sicken or die from something in the water they have taken in by accident?”
The trees rustled, but made no response. Juniper allowed herself a small smile, knowing that she was victorious in this argument. “I will be extremely careful with my fire,” she promised. “I always am. Have I ever set fire to a tree, or to any wood that was not dead already? I can understand why it would make you uncomfortable, but I do not want to set the forest afire any more than you wish to be burned.” Perhaps that was not strictly true, but she wanted to make them understand her position. Well, as much as she could. They were still trees.
Again, no response came, so she decided that she had won the argument. She could, however, at least fetch her water before starting the fire, so that the flames need not be unattended at least momentarily. With a sigh at her aching limbs—she had hoped to warm them a bit before making this last trek, but at least she would sleep warm—she rose, fetched her leather bucket, and was at the bank of the river before words reached her ears again.
You have not, they said.
She froze, momentarily panicked, wondering what they wanted her to do that she had forgotten. How could there be anything else? She had won the argument about the fire, and they had not given her any further instructions about the curse. “I have not done what?”
You have not set fire to a tree, they said. Behind that answer, smaller voices whispered, telling her not to be frightened, that there was no life near her but trees and squirrels and a family of raccoons. Never, not in our long memories, and your life is far shorter than our memories.
Juniper laughed, then bent to dip her bucket in the river. It filled almost instantly. “What took you so long?”
We must discuss. We speak over distances.
She thought that over as she returned to her camp, then thought she understood. “You had to go ask the trees near my… near where I lived. You are not in communication all the time.”
Are humans? asked one tree. She took that as evidence that trees could have a sense of humor and did not answer.
There was no argument as she lit her fire, nor as she set up the bucket over it to have the water boiling. Once she was sure it was steady, she laid strips of meat over the hot stones and took up a piece of her flatbread. She ate it slowly, wanting to savor it. Between bites, she spoke to the trees again. “Can you tell when there is anything around me?”
A mouse or anything bigger, came the answer. We all speak to each other, and to the bushes and herbs and vines, as you would call them.
“You do not speak to the living things—that is, the animals? The mice, or the squirrels and raccoons you told me about earlier?”
No. How could we speak to them?
“You speak to me.”
The trees paused to rustle amongst themselves. Juniper thought she was starting to detect patterns in the sounds they made during conversations with her that were not words she understood. They must be speaking in their own language—if it could be called a language. If she could find the patterns, perhaps someday she would be able to understand it. Finally, words she knew emerged from the rustling. They are not connected to the flow of magic, as you and we are.
She was so startled she dropped a thumb-sized piece of flatbread into the fire, then immediately cursed herself, attempting to fish it out and only winding up with scalded fingers. With her uninjured hand, she carefully put the rest of the flatbread down on top of her pack and removed the bucket of boiled water from the fire, trying to marshal her thoughts. “What do you mean by magic?”
Is that not what you call it?
“I didn’t think it was real.”
Your mother did not tell you of it?
If she had still been holding the flatbread, she was sure she would have dropped the entire thing into the fire. As it was, half the water in her bucket sloshed to the ground as her hand shook. “My mother? You knew my mother?”
We have spoken to her in the past. We hoped that she would be able to break the curse. The curse is magic, as well.
“Oh.” That made sense. It explained… it might explain everything. But she could not move back to the topic of magic. “When did you last speak to my mother? Do you know what happened to her?”
Another rustling pause, then, We have not spoken to her in some time. She has moved where we cannot reach her.
Juniper shook her head. That didn’t make any sense. “How can there be any place that you can’t reach her? Can’t you communicate with all trees everywhere?”
Yes. She has gone where there are no trees.
Juniper bit her lip, then decided not to ask any more questions on that path. The trees clearly misunderstood something, and she would gain nothing else by asking them to explain what they didn’t understand. They were trees, after all; to understand human concepts, she would have to ask humans. “If you asked her to break the curse, why wasn’t she able to?”
We do not know.
No, of course not. Juniper sighed and took her cooked strips of meat out of the fire. Alternating bites of meat with bites of flatbread, she organized her thoughts, then came up with another question. “Do you know what I need to do to break the curse?”
No. All we can do is guide you.
She nodded. She had expected as much. “I’m still going in the right direction, then?”
Yes. South. We can tell that it is still south.
“Good. And what you said earlier, you can tell where living things are… would you be able to let me know when there are humans close to me? Say, within half a mile? And do it in a way that they can’t understand you?”
We can tell you when other humans are nearby without them hearing us, yes. We do not know how long half a mile is.
Juniper looked around until she’d located the tallest tree in the area. She pointed to it. “About three times as long as that oak tree is high.”
We will do so. Thank you, added a single voice, with a sensation of pride in it. An odd thrill ran through her as she realized that it must be the oak tree she had used as an example. Was it proud of its height? Well, if a tree could be proud of anything, she supposed height would be it, especially at the beginning of spring.
She longed to ask them more questions, but could not think of a way to frame her questions about either her mother or magic in such a way that the trees would understand and respond in a helpful way. So she finished her warm dinner, drank down what was left of her water (its flavor was not nearly so pleasant as the water that came from the lake, but she was too tired to bother with her new syrup), and banked her fire, pointedly arranging her things around it so that they would block the fire even if a freak gust of wind came from some strange direction. Then she wrapped the blanket around herself and curled up, her back to the heat of the coals.
She had thought she would fall asleep instantly and sleep solidly until the light of the sun woke her. After all, she had been walking all day; her muscles ached (surprisingly so) with the unaccustomed activity, and she had been accustomed to sleep on the floor in the past—the ground here was significantly softer than the floor of her home.
She did not fall asleep quickly, nor did she sleep well. Every time the wind rustled the trees she would wake slightly, thinking the trees were speaking to her. They never were. Once, when the sky was so dark she could see hundreds of stars through the gaps between the branches, she woke enough to ask them specifically if there was anyone near her, and there was not. She was quite alone, the way she liked it.
After that she fell asleep more deeply, though her rest was troubled by dreams of tramping through snow, feeling the icy melt drip onto her toes, and of trees crashing to the ground, unable to stand under the weight of the snow on their branches.
And then she heard, quite clearly, in her ear, her name spoken. “Juniper.”
She sat up instantly, her eyes wide to catch any glimmer of light. All she saw were the stars and her fire. The fire, low and dim as it was, illuminated almost her entire clearing. Nothing was there but her and the trees. Still, “Father,” she gasped out, before her mind had caught up with all of these facts. Then she clutched at her blanket and drew it up tightly to her chin.
She could not close her eyes after that. She had heard him, so certainly, but he was not here. No one was here to even sound like him. But she was away from him, away from his influence, away from the home where he had raised her. Was it possible that all of the times she’d thought she had heard him in the past six years, it had not been a dream but truly him? Had his spirit followed her somehow?
“Trees,” she finally asked, her voice raw as though she had been screaming, “can you sense spirits?”
They rustled as though they had heard her, but there was no response. Finally, a single, faint voice said, We do not know what you mean by spirits.
“Those who are dead.”
The trees made faint sounds of puzzlement. There is nothing to sense of those who are dead, returned a nearer voice. They are gone. Nothing remains.
“I do not mean their bodies,” she said, trying to keep herself from panting for air as she spoke. “Their… souls. The part that makes them who they are. Surely, the part of you that speaks to me is different from the part of you that dies?”
Yes. No. The answers were jumbled. Everything dies. The part that speaks and the part that grows.
She thought she understood that, and sighed. “So if there was a human spirit here, you would not know.”
Do humans die differently?
“I don’t know.” She curled in on herself, grasping her blanket tightly in curled fingers. “I don’t know.”
Eventually, she slept. The dawn woke her, as it always had.
no one dared no one cared
-
The next day’s travel took Juniper much farther, though she was stiff and her limbs ached for several hours once she had started. She wasn’t sure whether the ground she had slept on was responsible, or whether it was because she was not used to all this walking. Either way, she loosened up as she warmed, and the walk was really quite pleasant; things were melting all over, the sun shone through the trees, and no one at all interrupted her.
From time to time she would ask the trees if there was anything near her, and the answer was always no, except for some small animals. She trusted them (mostly) to tell her about people, as she had requested, but could not calm her mind enough not to wish to ask.
She shot a bird toward the middle of the day, and built the tiniest possible fire to roast it, then ate as she continued to walk. As long as the trees would allow her to build fires, she thought, she was quite well provided for. The path here was faint and, at times, overgrown, but it was easy enough to follow the rushing of the river, and she knew that the trees would help guide her if she strayed from the path that brought her closer to the curse.
She slept more soundly that night. No voices woke her.
In the morning she was yet more stiff, and more aching in her limbs, but still, she felt good about her quest. She ate flatbread and dried meat for breakfast, drank well of boiled water sweetened with just a tiny bit of her syrup, and started on her way.
She had not even been walking for an hour when the trees suddenly vanished from around her.
In a panic, she spun around, saw that the trees were still there behind her, and swiftly retreated back to their shade. She had not been paying enough attention to her path to realize that she was approaching a village. The path was a little more well-maintained here, a narrow strip of dirt running past the river on one side and a farm on the other, and she had simply followed it. She had not realized she would be approaching a village.
“Is this still the right way?” she whispered to the trees. Was there anyone there to see or hear her? She could see a farmer far out in the field, but she did not know if he had noticed her. But she did not want anyone to know she communicated with trees.
Yes, said the trees. Keep following the river.
She swallowed and peeked around a tree to look down the path. She could not see where the fields ended and the trees began again. “Will you still be able to talk to me when I get past this village?”
Yes,, said the trees again. Of course.
She swallowed, then decided she didn’t have much choice. She couldn’t cross the river here (and even if she could, there seemed to be farms on the other side, as well). Trying to go around the village and all its farms would probably add hours, or even a full day, to her journey. She had just thought that she would always be with the trees as she traveled.
But there was nothing for it. She stepped away from the trees she was using as a shield, squared her shoulders, and lifted her chin. She would be all right. It was still morning, after all. There would be no need to stop to talk to anyone.
She passed fields and farmhouses without incident. There was an orchard across the river when she had gotten far enough that she could barely see the trees behind her, and those trees waved and whispered at her, but she could not hear them past the water.
But of course, the village had a central square, like the one near her home. And there were people there, as always; businesses and women at the fountain and children running about. The path vanished into the wider area of the square, and Juniper felt as though there was something looming up beside her, where the square was—a presence, watching her.
She dared to look to the right, trying to move her eyes without moving her face, and swiftly looked away again. She knew her face was burning with shame. They were all staring at her—the business owners, and the wives, and the children with their grubby faces. They all wondered who this stranger was walking past their town.
She did not know if they could tell she had been in her own home until recently. She longed to explain her quest, but even if they believed her, they might not understand her. These people were just as rooted to their land as she had once thought she was. They did not leave to travel and go questing. Tears gathered in her eyes and she gritted her teeth, refusing to reach her hand up to wipe them away.
She kept her mind on her destination and placed one foot in front of the other. Slowly, the village receded behind her. Slowly, the sensation of being stared at faded. Finally, when she came within a few yards of the trees, she gasped and ran for them, unable to do anything but hope desperately that no one was watching her.
Back in their cool embrace, she stopped and leaned against a big, sturdy oak, finally relaxing enough to let the tears fall. She scrubbed them away as quickly as they appeared, but it still took several minutes to defeat them.
At least she did not care what the trees thought of her. They asked no questions about her running or her tears. They would never judge her. Her father had, as she did, always loved trees.
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Date: 2012-06-15 05:20 am (UTC)It's a very interesting set-up. ^-^ And I'm curious how it'll develop. I loved the contrast between Juniper's reaction to this village and the previous one. It's very revealing. And her conversation with the trees about the fire was just cute.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-15 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 05:54 am (UTC)