Fiction: Needle and Thread
Feb. 14th, 2012 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clare_dragonflyTitle: Needle and Thread
Word count: 1,501
Rating: PG-13
Prompt:![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 26, black sails; Heart Gold 22, It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. - Samuel Butler; novelty bead prompt from bookblather, Don't say every chance is lost, / Please don't say anything at all - Vienna Teng, Augustine
Notes: This story takes place several generations after the apocalyptic event.
Aina was sitting in her room, carefully working up the side seam on her new dress, when the knock came on her door. She looked up swiftly, automatically pulling the needle through the last stitch. Her sister entered without waiting for a response, and said, “They’re coming back.”
Aina didn’t have time to, or didn’t let herself, wonder why Su’s expression had been so calm, or why, when she leapt up and dropped the sewing back on the table, there wasn’t any complaint about being careless with one of their precious needles. She ran out the door, fairly flying, and down through the village, over the dunes, and to the shore. There were the ships indeed, sailing in to harbor on the lee side of the barrier islands. Three ships, built from plans in a book, knowledge the generation of Aina’s parents had thought lost; it had taken the village a long time to make them properly seaworthy, and they never could weave the fabric for the sails to the books’ specifications, but they had gone out to explore and discover and now they had come back.
The lead ship had its sails painted with black.
Aina’s heart thudded, then dropped, in her chest. Now she knew why Su hadn’t been jumping with excitement to tell her. And now she noticed, and understood why, everyone else was standing back, letting her rush out to where the waves lapped at her bare feet on her own.
She was all on her own.
Part of her still hoped; there were several men on each ship, the full complement of six, from what she could see. The black sails could be for everyone. They would only have had enough paint for one set of sails (though she did not know where they had gotten the paint from). But the first ship ran up on the sand, and a man leapt down, and it was not her Folain. She felt her hands begin to tremble. She recognized him as he came closer—Inak, Folain’s best friend, whom everyone knew as his second-in-command. He walked deliberately toward her, not slipping an inch in the sand, holding his gaze steady on her eyes. When he reached a comfortable speaking distance, he stopped, and held out his hands in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he began.
“No,” she said, taking a step back and flinging out a hand to stop him. She was surprised at how harsh her voice sounded, as though she had been crying for hours, though her eyes were dry. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything.” Then, as the other men began to leap from the boats and come up the beach, she turned and fled back to the village, leaving the murmurs behind.
At first she thought that she was running simply to run, but then she realized she had a destination in mind. The center of the village contained a small storehouse with important items, including the books they had found four years ago. Life by the sea was hard and full of struggle; no one had been able to take the time to look through all of them. There was meant to be an order to it, a way to methodically gain all the knowledge of the ancients, but everyone had been sidetracked by the idea of ships.
Not Aina, though. Not anymore. The ships held nothing but pain for her now. But knowledge—that she could use. Had the ancients not had incredible healing powers, greater than anyone now could ever know? There were stories she knew, passed down through generations, of pills that would make infections go away, drinks that soothed the mind, techniques to close up holes in the most delicate parts of the body.
She ran into the storehouse, touched the ceiling to activate the magical light kept up there, and snatched at the pile of books. They were carefully piled, but she just grabbed the top two and tried to read their covers, throwing them away when she couldn’t find words. Some of the books had words and pictures on the front, and some of them didn’t. She might not be the best at reading, but she knew what words looked like when she saw them.
The next two did have words. The first word she recognized on each was “Rings” and “History.” They didn’t sound like they had anything to do with bringing back the dead. She threw them down and reached for the next two. Before she could try to read their titles, though, arms came around her shoulders and pinned her down. She struggled against them, but they held her like iron pincers, and she was forced to drop the books. Then a surprisingly gentle voice, one that almost did not match the grip, spoke in her ear. “Aina, it will be all right. I promise it will.”
She kept struggling, though she knew it was fruitless, though the tears were now welling up in her eyes and she felt sickness in her gut. She knew that voice and those arms. They belonged to her grandmother, the elder of the village, their sorceress, who kept them all safe and well. Aina had often been disappointed in knowing that she had not inherited her grandmother’s power, as she was now. “No, it won’t!” she cried. “Not unless I can do something! Nana, you must let me look through the books, please, I know something is there…”
“No, it’s not,” her grandmother said firmly. “Aina, I’ve read all the medical books. I made a point, when we first found them, to check through them to see if there were any on medicine, and there were three. They’re all in my house, and I finished reading the third one before the men left on the ships. Most of the techniques are things we can’t use, and none of them—not a single one—even mentions the possibility of bringing people back from the dead.”
Aina did not know when she had stopped fighting. Her limbs felt weak, like jelly. “How do you know there isn’t anything in any of these other books? Maybe they didn’t think of it as medicine.”
“They did. They would have. It isn’t possible, love.” Her grandmother loosened her grip slightly, but only to turn Aina around to face her. Her double-pupiled eyes were grave. “He died helping us, Aina. Don’t you want to know what they found? What they brought back?”
Aina shook her head and tried to look away, but she couldn’t break the sorceress’ gaze. “It doesn’t matter.” Her voice was strained and dull.
“It matters to the rest of us.” Her grandmother sighed, then stretched up slightly to kiss Aina gently on the forehead, her lips dry and soft. “You had him for a few years, Aina. Sometimes that’s all we get. Isn’t that better than nothing?”
Aina shook her head, but she didn’t know what she was shaking her head about. The tears were welling up in her eyes again, blurring her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see anything.
The arms around her shoulders loosened again, and she felt herself being propelled out of the storehouse. She could feel her grandmother on one side and someone else on her other, but she didn’t want to open her eyes to see who it was. She dragged her feet at first, but let herself be guided out, back to what she knew was her house. She was brought into her room, and then the others left and shut the door behind her.
She groped her way over to the table and felt the mound of fabric from her dress—the dress she had thought she would wear to her wedding. She bunched it up in her hands with a groan and went to tear it. Before she could make any progress on the tough, woven fabric, something pricked her finger. Startled, she opened her eyes at last, bringing her injured finger to her mouth.
The needle she’d left there, of course. It was still sharp, bright and gleaming. She hadn’t damaged it in her thoughtlessness. And that was good, because until they could figure out how to make new needles instead of just endlessly sharpening the ones they had, they needed it. Needed it, perhaps, more than they needed any one man, even the bravest man of their village, who had led the expedition out to the sea, the search south for other surviving communities, for other surviving knowledge.
He wouldn’t have been able to do it on his own. And neither could she. As the talk from outside increased and rose—everyone must be in from the beach now, and they were excited about something, but she couldn’t hear what it was clearly through her bedroom door, and she didn’t want to—Aina carefully placed the dress and the needle back on the table, then went to her bed and slept.
Did you enjoy this story? You can read more stories in this world or see all my fiction posted at Dreamwidth!
Word count: 1,501
Rating: PG-13
Prompt:
rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 26, black sails; Heart Gold 22, It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. - Samuel Butler; novelty bead prompt from bookblather, Don't say every chance is lost, / Please don't say anything at all - Vienna Teng, AugustineNotes: This story takes place several generations after the apocalyptic event.
Aina was sitting in her room, carefully working up the side seam on her new dress, when the knock came on her door. She looked up swiftly, automatically pulling the needle through the last stitch. Her sister entered without waiting for a response, and said, “They’re coming back.”
Aina didn’t have time to, or didn’t let herself, wonder why Su’s expression had been so calm, or why, when she leapt up and dropped the sewing back on the table, there wasn’t any complaint about being careless with one of their precious needles. She ran out the door, fairly flying, and down through the village, over the dunes, and to the shore. There were the ships indeed, sailing in to harbor on the lee side of the barrier islands. Three ships, built from plans in a book, knowledge the generation of Aina’s parents had thought lost; it had taken the village a long time to make them properly seaworthy, and they never could weave the fabric for the sails to the books’ specifications, but they had gone out to explore and discover and now they had come back.
The lead ship had its sails painted with black.
Aina’s heart thudded, then dropped, in her chest. Now she knew why Su hadn’t been jumping with excitement to tell her. And now she noticed, and understood why, everyone else was standing back, letting her rush out to where the waves lapped at her bare feet on her own.
She was all on her own.
Part of her still hoped; there were several men on each ship, the full complement of six, from what she could see. The black sails could be for everyone. They would only have had enough paint for one set of sails (though she did not know where they had gotten the paint from). But the first ship ran up on the sand, and a man leapt down, and it was not her Folain. She felt her hands begin to tremble. She recognized him as he came closer—Inak, Folain’s best friend, whom everyone knew as his second-in-command. He walked deliberately toward her, not slipping an inch in the sand, holding his gaze steady on her eyes. When he reached a comfortable speaking distance, he stopped, and held out his hands in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he began.
“No,” she said, taking a step back and flinging out a hand to stop him. She was surprised at how harsh her voice sounded, as though she had been crying for hours, though her eyes were dry. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything.” Then, as the other men began to leap from the boats and come up the beach, she turned and fled back to the village, leaving the murmurs behind.
At first she thought that she was running simply to run, but then she realized she had a destination in mind. The center of the village contained a small storehouse with important items, including the books they had found four years ago. Life by the sea was hard and full of struggle; no one had been able to take the time to look through all of them. There was meant to be an order to it, a way to methodically gain all the knowledge of the ancients, but everyone had been sidetracked by the idea of ships.
Not Aina, though. Not anymore. The ships held nothing but pain for her now. But knowledge—that she could use. Had the ancients not had incredible healing powers, greater than anyone now could ever know? There were stories she knew, passed down through generations, of pills that would make infections go away, drinks that soothed the mind, techniques to close up holes in the most delicate parts of the body.
She ran into the storehouse, touched the ceiling to activate the magical light kept up there, and snatched at the pile of books. They were carefully piled, but she just grabbed the top two and tried to read their covers, throwing them away when she couldn’t find words. Some of the books had words and pictures on the front, and some of them didn’t. She might not be the best at reading, but she knew what words looked like when she saw them.
The next two did have words. The first word she recognized on each was “Rings” and “History.” They didn’t sound like they had anything to do with bringing back the dead. She threw them down and reached for the next two. Before she could try to read their titles, though, arms came around her shoulders and pinned her down. She struggled against them, but they held her like iron pincers, and she was forced to drop the books. Then a surprisingly gentle voice, one that almost did not match the grip, spoke in her ear. “Aina, it will be all right. I promise it will.”
She kept struggling, though she knew it was fruitless, though the tears were now welling up in her eyes and she felt sickness in her gut. She knew that voice and those arms. They belonged to her grandmother, the elder of the village, their sorceress, who kept them all safe and well. Aina had often been disappointed in knowing that she had not inherited her grandmother’s power, as she was now. “No, it won’t!” she cried. “Not unless I can do something! Nana, you must let me look through the books, please, I know something is there…”
“No, it’s not,” her grandmother said firmly. “Aina, I’ve read all the medical books. I made a point, when we first found them, to check through them to see if there were any on medicine, and there were three. They’re all in my house, and I finished reading the third one before the men left on the ships. Most of the techniques are things we can’t use, and none of them—not a single one—even mentions the possibility of bringing people back from the dead.”
Aina did not know when she had stopped fighting. Her limbs felt weak, like jelly. “How do you know there isn’t anything in any of these other books? Maybe they didn’t think of it as medicine.”
“They did. They would have. It isn’t possible, love.” Her grandmother loosened her grip slightly, but only to turn Aina around to face her. Her double-pupiled eyes were grave. “He died helping us, Aina. Don’t you want to know what they found? What they brought back?”
Aina shook her head and tried to look away, but she couldn’t break the sorceress’ gaze. “It doesn’t matter.” Her voice was strained and dull.
“It matters to the rest of us.” Her grandmother sighed, then stretched up slightly to kiss Aina gently on the forehead, her lips dry and soft. “You had him for a few years, Aina. Sometimes that’s all we get. Isn’t that better than nothing?”
Aina shook her head, but she didn’t know what she was shaking her head about. The tears were welling up in her eyes again, blurring her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see anything.
The arms around her shoulders loosened again, and she felt herself being propelled out of the storehouse. She could feel her grandmother on one side and someone else on her other, but she didn’t want to open her eyes to see who it was. She dragged her feet at first, but let herself be guided out, back to what she knew was her house. She was brought into her room, and then the others left and shut the door behind her.
She groped her way over to the table and felt the mound of fabric from her dress—the dress she had thought she would wear to her wedding. She bunched it up in her hands with a groan and went to tear it. Before she could make any progress on the tough, woven fabric, something pricked her finger. Startled, she opened her eyes at last, bringing her injured finger to her mouth.
The needle she’d left there, of course. It was still sharp, bright and gleaming. She hadn’t damaged it in her thoughtlessness. And that was good, because until they could figure out how to make new needles instead of just endlessly sharpening the ones they had, they needed it. Needed it, perhaps, more than they needed any one man, even the bravest man of their village, who had led the expedition out to the sea, the search south for other surviving communities, for other surviving knowledge.
He wouldn’t have been able to do it on his own. And neither could she. As the talk from outside increased and rose—everyone must be in from the beach now, and they were excited about something, but she couldn’t hear what it was clearly through her bedroom door, and she didn’t want to—Aina carefully placed the dress and the needle back on the table, then went to her bed and slept.
Did you enjoy this story? You can read more stories in this world or see all my fiction posted at Dreamwidth!