thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -
always darker, easier, simpler
A
lthough young, Ira has spent more time than he would like to admit visiting the medics and doctors of Denocte. The first visit had been when he was little more than a leggy colt; he had taken a fall in the unfamiliar mountains and had very nearly sworn to never venture within them again.
His father forbade it. Limping, the next day, they returned to the trees. Ira harbored a fear of the forest for months, after; but each day it gradually faded, until the fear became something deeper, more inherent to who he was. You cannot love a thing, truly, unless you are prepared for it to hurt you, his father once told him.
Ira remembers the words, rather fondly, as he seeks out Luvena in the crowd. He knows there is bitterness to accompany any joy; but sometimes combining that knowledge with ones understand of life becomes difficult. Even more so, Ira realizes, since becoming Sovereign. The actuality is a strange one, foreshadowed his father’s preoccupation with duty. Everything his father had ever taught him—
The newly crowned Sovereign exhales, deeply. Enough of that, he tells himself. He knows he should not have ventured so far, alone, to check his traps one last time. He knows he should have been more careful in removing them from the forest and the trees. But mistakes happen, especially when his mind wanders. “Luvena,” Ira calls out, through the crowd. His search has been postponed by citizens stepping forward to talk to him; but at last, he has found who he was looking for. Ira smiles, albeit a little sheepishly. He cannot become a man overnight; the expression remains boyish, almost guilty so. “I got a rather nasty gash in the woods again. You think you could patch me up?”
The stars are alive, child! Did you know that? Everything out there is alive, and there are grand purpose abroad!
The crowds in the night court had been denser then usual, with the rise of new leadership. They buzzed with gossip, about the new kings, or the old queen, about what had happened before and what would come next, and I was rather lost in it all. Even Mithra, who usually ran amuck, was glued to my side like her sister. A comfort in all truth, at least it gave me some space on either side, room to breathe, not being jostled side to side by everyone bustling about.
I stretch my neck up over the crowd when I hear my name called through it, only to see the king of ebony and ivory headed my way. Everyone parts for him, and wordlessly they make room around us. Not much, but enough, it seems no one wants to encroach on his space. "King Ira" I greet him with a dip of my head.
It's still strange to be here, in the court, I'd almost avoided it before, apprehensive, about making myself part of something bigger once again. I had to stop myself from shaking my head at him. "I don't have many stores built up here yet, but, I can see what I can do" I started to lead the way back to where I'd been staying, looking back to make sure he was following. I stopped every so often to snatch cobwebs off of cracks or crumbles in the walls. I had some stored up - they were easy enough to find in the city - but having more could never hurt.
Yara and Mithra ran ahead, pushing through the door before I'd even had a chance to nudge it open. It was a simple place, just a temporary room for now, rented until I decided where to settle down. Bottles and jars rested on the shelves, labelled in Herstillian rather than the common tongue. Most of them were empty, or only half filled, slim picking until I managed to get everything properly set up, hopefully before winter.
I moved to stuff the cobwebs I'd gathered into the jar with the rest, before turning around to face Ira once more. "Now then. Lets see this gash"
thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -
always darker, easier, simpler
I
ra, once nothing, now parts the crowd with deft precision. He does not mean to. The gesture is far from practiced; and he even glances back over his shoulder, a little awkwardly, at those who moved to give him access to the medic. King Ira, Luvena greets him. Ira, his eyes wide and dancing with something that is not quite delight, says: “I appreciate the formality, but I come to you only as Ira, in this instance.” He cannot help the smile, then, that emerges foxlike and sudden only to flash away just as abruptly.
There is a moment, brief and gone so quickly Ira wonders if he imagined it, that she looks as uncomfortable as he feels. He wonders if, perhaps, being in the Court sits upon her shoulders as strangely as it does his own.
(This, this, the crowd and the noises and the way they whisper, Sovereign, King, Ira, Ira, Sovereign, Lord, King in a chaotic symphony seems nearly nightmarish to a man who longs only for the mystic spaces that stretch between pines—)
“I would be very grateful,” he says, with that there-then-gone, incredibly boyish smile. He follows her curiously, curious and full of admiration for a skill he has no talent in. Ira can dissect flesh cleverly, with very practiced cuts of a knife. He can describe the anatomy of wolf, bear, elk, squirrel, mongoose, wolverine, deer and—though he will not admit it—horse. That is all, however. The taking apart. The tactless unthreading of a living creature into the un-living, into the dead; the deft understanding not of how to repair the parts, but how to separate the parts from a whole.
Now then. Let’s see this gash.
So lost was Ira in his own thoughts, he had nearly forgotten why he was there. The lie, now that it is to the forefront of his mind, feels bitter again. A nasty gash from the woods— he had said. (And what was it you were hunting today, Ira? His father would have asked. And when Ira would have said, ‘Deer,’ his father would not have believed him because sometimes, sometimes, Ira hunted men instead).
What Ira asks instead is: “Why collect the cobwebs? Most of us are eager to be rid of them. You aren't going to stitch me together with them, are you?”
Flash. Smile. Flash. Gone.
“Here,” Ira offers, his eyes alight. He turns to present his shoulder which has a large, jagged incision. He had been running and a broken branch had caught the shoulder, leaving an inelegant flap of skin and a bloody torrent from his side. “I was careless,” he admits, with a halfhearted grimace.
The stars are alive, child! Did you know that? Everything out there is alive, and there are grand purpose abroad!
She is reminded for an instant just how young he is with that smile. Just barely a man, younger even then her own children, who both would have turned five this year if her memory of the years served her true. He reminded her of both of them. Quiet, and apprehensive like Liatris. But some darkness seemed to course deep inside him, tucked away in those shadowy recesses. She had once looked at Eremurus under the desert sun, and thought the same of him, loving him nonetheless.
She remembered a time when she too shied away from titles, even a time when she had resented them. Insisted that the people not call her princess, or lady. A time when she had not given anyone her full name, instead opting to simply be Luvena, and only Luvena, with no strings attached. But at some point she had realized it didn’t matter, that those who truly respected her, and loved her, would treat her the same either way without question.
“No” she replied “They do well to pack a wound though. Think ill of it all you want, but cobwebs stick better then clay.” She walked over to take a look at the wound. She had to stop herself from cringing at the ragged edges of the cut ones that would make it take far longer to heal. “Yes it seems you were” she chided, forgetting for a moment that she spoke to her king, and not a reckless child. “I’ll have to stitch you up with something though. That wound is too deep to stay closed on it’s own, and I’ll not have the king succumbing to infection his first week” Night would not take another change well so soon.
She walked back to her shelves, digging around to find the thick thread, made from the sinew from some hunters' catch, that sat in a jar of sea water to disinfect, and a needle on which to thread it. And of course she pulled her favorite too, meadowsweet, knowing that the process would not be pleasant in the least bit.
She pushed the meadowsweet towards him. “I won’t lie to you and say it won’t hurt” she murmured as comfortingly as she could. Already pouring the brine from the jar over the wound, flushing out any debris that had made its way in.
“While I have you… I’ve been meaning to come to you about a few things. Some proposals, for us medics.” The statement was made as much in seriousness as it was in a hopes to distract him from the threaded needle she was about to poke through him. She didn’t wait for confirmation, already to excited to share her thoughts. “For one, it would be nice, it we could have a space to grow herbs. A greenhouse of sorts, inside, where we can grow them no matter the conditions outside. It’s all too hard to find herbs in the winter when we need them most. We dry them out yes-” she started to stitch up the wound, as gently as she could pulling it edges cleanly together “But there’s no guarantee they’ll stay potent. That and… well. At least for myself going out to gather is… an endeavor in and of it itself, depending on what is needed.”
She paused briefly “also I…” she stopped to think, wanting to make sure her words were as delicate as possible. “I know night and the other courts have not always had the warmest of bonds, and I am not asking for everyone to get along. But I would like to reach out to the other court sovereigns, to see if they will let their medics form an alliance of sorts. We all have different knowledge, different herbs to share, and it would do nothing but benefit all of us. But I do not want to do so without your blessing”
