Outsiders and their names. She thinks, exasperated and wondering. She doesn’t understand the attachment they have to their personal titles, to the labels that have been gifted to them by others and they have claimed with all the desperate grasping of a dying man. But still she bobs her head and allows these heretics the completion of their exchange, “I am Ianthe.”
And before she was Ianthe, she was child, was ‘you’, was ‘hey, come look!’, was any number of descriptors. She is who she is, and who she is just so happens to also be Ianthe. Perhaps these heretics cling so tightly to their designations because they are not Swift enough: are not part of one whole to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps they are named creatures first because they are their own first.
Ianthe still does not understand.
“It is good to walk with you.” Not necessarily to meet, for this meeting has only happened because of her fall, because of the gods, and Ianthe has not seen the end of that yet, hasn’t decided what she thinks of it. But she is not an ungrateful creature, especially not when a god can smite her as easily as they preserved her life, and these two mares seem… nice. For heretics. And it is indeed good to walk, to not be surrounded by still air and walls, to not be alone.
Still, she’d rather fly, and she wonders how Moira stands to stand, how she is content to trundle along beside all the others. She wonders how Katniss, so massive that even if she had wings she would surely never take off, endures the ever-present shackles of the earth. It’s a terrible thing, Ianthe thinks, but neither mare seems broken by it. Moira is stressed, true, but the General is lunging head first into war and running a kingdom without claiming it. And Katniss…
Katniss is exotic. Not like Moira is exotic, with her fever bright plumage and a coat shaded like the inside of a star, being instead a faintly silvered black that is just as unfamiliar for all that it is tamer. No Katniss is exotic in other ways: her lacking wings, her height, her strength, her scars. Her baring: proud, steady, kind. Ianthe has not met anyone who held themselves like Katniss does. She's reluctantly intimidated.
And the mare speaks of fate. Despite herself, Ianthe perks up. It is unlikely that Katniss speaks of fate the same way Ianthe knows it, but she is looking for any reason for her being here. Yes, she is here for war, to follow the General-Prophet-Moira, but war is not just bloody battles, it is smaller things too, like her shadowing of the General, like following vague signs from the gods. Perhaps Katniss knew something of fate after all.
“Should we continue on then?” She asks when Katniss fails to. The two mares are some years older than her, both fully grown and settled in their bodies, and there’s a chance that they are like some of the elders: unwilling to listen to suggestions from those younger than themselves. Ianthe decides to be careful just in case, so as not to drive them from any path the gods may be trying to set them on. “If it’s as you said, we might just find something useful, or at least interesting, somewhere ahead.” Besides, she does not say, she does not wish to return.
And before she was Ianthe, she was child, was ‘you’, was ‘hey, come look!’, was any number of descriptors. She is who she is, and who she is just so happens to also be Ianthe. Perhaps these heretics cling so tightly to their designations because they are not Swift enough: are not part of one whole to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps they are named creatures first because they are their own first.
Ianthe still does not understand.
“It is good to walk with you.” Not necessarily to meet, for this meeting has only happened because of her fall, because of the gods, and Ianthe has not seen the end of that yet, hasn’t decided what she thinks of it. But she is not an ungrateful creature, especially not when a god can smite her as easily as they preserved her life, and these two mares seem… nice. For heretics. And it is indeed good to walk, to not be surrounded by still air and walls, to not be alone.
Still, she’d rather fly, and she wonders how Moira stands to stand, how she is content to trundle along beside all the others. She wonders how Katniss, so massive that even if she had wings she would surely never take off, endures the ever-present shackles of the earth. It’s a terrible thing, Ianthe thinks, but neither mare seems broken by it. Moira is stressed, true, but the General is lunging head first into war and running a kingdom without claiming it. And Katniss…
Katniss is exotic. Not like Moira is exotic, with her fever bright plumage and a coat shaded like the inside of a star, being instead a faintly silvered black that is just as unfamiliar for all that it is tamer. No Katniss is exotic in other ways: her lacking wings, her height, her strength, her scars. Her baring: proud, steady, kind. Ianthe has not met anyone who held themselves like Katniss does. She's reluctantly intimidated.
And the mare speaks of fate. Despite herself, Ianthe perks up. It is unlikely that Katniss speaks of fate the same way Ianthe knows it, but she is looking for any reason for her being here. Yes, she is here for war, to follow the General-Prophet-Moira, but war is not just bloody battles, it is smaller things too, like her shadowing of the General, like following vague signs from the gods. Perhaps Katniss knew something of fate after all.
“Should we continue on then?” She asks when Katniss fails to. The two mares are some years older than her, both fully grown and settled in their bodies, and there’s a chance that they are like some of the elders: unwilling to listen to suggestions from those younger than themselves. Ianthe decides to be careful just in case, so as not to drive them from any path the gods may be trying to set them on. “If it’s as you said, we might just find something useful, or at least interesting, somewhere ahead.” Besides, she does not say, she does not wish to return.
