n an unsurprising turn of events, Mesnyi returned to Delumine. She’d been back for some time, actually, but she’d dipped into the city for a bit of food and a new cloak, only to depart again into the wilds. Her feet kept her wandering, always, and after spending her time in the heart of the Night Court, she now sought only birdsong and dew.
It had been several days by now, and she was considering coming back to the city to laze about the court or go back to dancing. In Delumine, she had more friends - acquaintances - and wouldn’t need to worry so much about what she would need to trade for a roof. They would offer it to her, out of love or admiration or some other terrible thing, and so she could dance mostly for joy and only a little for money. That was the good thing she’d found about being a citizen of Delumine. There were, actually, advantages, and still nobody cared when she came and went. It was delightful (but not nearly so much as the road, surrounded by her brothers and sisters, no.)
The cold was seeping into her bones these days; the ground and branches were bare. Her food hadn’t quite run low, but it would soon. It was time to go home. Picking her way through the brambles and branches, she was quite surprised to see another horse so far from the city. He was the color of winter itself, and even from a distance she could tell he was very, very tall. ”Good morning,” she called. Dawn lit the horizon like a fog, like a gray stallion astride the sun.
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
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The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
Sarkan was staying in an inn some distance from the capitol of Delumine, and doing his best to stay out of trouble - or what the people of Novus considered trouble. He knew about the patrols, about the meeting King Ipomoea had called, about the unease that crept through the city like a sickness in the blood. He wished he could tell them it was nothing they need worry over.
Soon he would be leaving. As soon as spring came, and the winter storms that whipped the open seas into turbulence. As soon as he had a few more goods, a bit more money. As soon as he’d investigated the claims that creatures, half animal and half plant, made the forest their home.
In the meantime he’d become a nocturnal thing (easy enough; the nights were long, and between his cloak and his breed he was more or less impervious to Delumine’s cold), a grey ghost among the trees. The snow had mostly melted, and the animals that slept away the winter were starting to stir again. For weeks he’d set no snares, skinned no pelts - only tracked and studied and waited.
Now he ambled back as the sky lightened in gradients of purple and gray, listening to the birdsong, his mind wandering the trails he’d spent the night walking. Sarkan didn’t see the unicorn until she spoke, and even then it took him a moment to find the source of the voice - his long stride paused, head high and searching. When he did see her he was almost surprised he’d found her at all, for how well she was colored like the morning.
He was as surprised as she to find another so far from road or village, but adjusted his trajectory at once toward her. His only pause (and this just internal) came when he realized she was a unicorn, horn softly luminescent, like a polished seashell. Sarkan did not particularly believe in fate or gods that meddled in mortal’s lives, but he was starting to question his luck in meeting unicorns here.
But she was a fascinating thing, delicate as a china sculpture, swan-graceful and sure-footed and well-adorned.
Hopefully she would not wind up attacking him.
“Good morning,” he returned, and inclined his head, though his bright blue gaze lingered on her curiously. “I thought I was the only one who considered this a fine hour for roving.”
othing about him suggested a threat. Perhaps it would be a good day for Mesnyi, perhaps she had judged wrong. She wasn’t thinking about it. She was thinking about his height, and his winter color, and what he was saying. Much more polite than some of the other men she’d met lately.
”Surely where one finds something lovely, there must be another who thinks she same.” She curtsied lightly, not overly formal. ”Though I doubt you are on a camping trip,” she said, glancing over him. He didn’t carry much, at least, not as much as she did now. A leather satchel of provisions hung at her shoulder, and along her opposite side hung her glass violin’s case.
”My name is Jasmine,” she offered, tossing out her alias as if it were her own. The scent of her skin would not have been so strong in the cold weather, but it certainly hung around on a lady who hadn’t bathed recently.
She supposed there were worse perfumes that could befall a lady.
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
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The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
Her words drew his smile up into a grin, one that lingered as she curtsied. Sarkan could not recall being so greeted before, except by young girls who wished to be ladies. This woman made it seem exotic, with her dished nose and waterfall of hair and the smallest chime of her jewelry. She reminded him of a swan, and like the bird, she didn’t strike him as the type to travel alone.
Whether she didn’t know about the danger in Delumine or simply didn’t care, Sarkan could only guess.
“Not this time,” he said with a chuckle, as though she’d made a joke. “I don’t mind the weather, but it’s much easier this time of year to just pay for dinner instead of finding it.”
The sun crept higher, turning frozen fog to diamonds, limning her hair and that spiraling horn. When she spoke her name it seemed he could smell the flower itself, light and sweet, like the word had been an invocation. “Daniel,” he answered, lying as naturally as she, and for a moment there was only the fog of their breaths that rose up between them. Then the grey nodded toward the case that lay along her lilac side. “What do you play?”
Woe's me, I shall be lonely When I can feel no longer
L
She liked the way he smiled; it seemed that, somehow, she’d manage to peel a real one from his skin. Mesnyi liked the softness of a wonder-smile, or a joy-smile, or simply a pleasure-smile. Simple, truthful. And yet she was absolutely certain that no one could tell her real one from a false one, and that she could tell most anyone’s false one from a real one. She had done well to stay away from Novus’s shadier citizens, she thought. She thought.
”That’s for certain. I can’t say I found much to eat out here myself.”
She dipped her head, just slightly. ”Lovely to meet you, Daniel.” It sounded like an odd name for a man the color of winter.
Ah, the violin. She wasn’t sure where else she expected the conversation to go. Would it have felt good to have her skin peeled back, like his grin, and her heart wrested from her ribcage and held in tender hands? The desire to be asked some absurd and specific question about herself sat in her chest. Mesnyi took the violin from the case.
In the dawn light it shone (sparkling would be saved for the height of the day), clear and smooth as ice. ”The violin,” she answered, ”though sometimes it plays itself.” Her eyes slide from the instrument to Daniel.”Would you like to hear it?”
She had hardly picked up the bow when it drifted from her telekinetic grasp and sat itself upon the strings, drawing out a long and lonesome note. Mesnyi felt the pale horsehair brushing against her shuttered heart. She took a moment to collect herself before speaking. ”You can ask it to play something happy, if you like. Or something else. Whatever you want. But it can go away, too.” She grinned at her joke. False.
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
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The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
The sun was inching higher, fuller, brighter with each moment, but Sarkan had seen a thousand sunrises lovely enough for a poem. He had never seen a unicorn such as she, with an instrument, with a horn that caught the rising sun in a way that made him think of a spiderweb hung with dew and glowing.
Curiosity grew within him; the setting (their solitude), the woman herself, the anticipation of a closed case that crawled with harlequin patterns or vines or spiderwebs or nothing at all (he could not tell, and told himself it was the dimness of the light, there in the shadows of the grass at their feet) - it felt as though a fae queen from a children’s story was going to play him a song.
Sarkan pushed away thoughts of the other unicorn. That one had not been magic, he was sure. That one had been no rarer than himself.
Still, he was surprised by the breath he loosed when she eased the instrument from its case. It was a boyish sound, a sound fo awe, and it was difficult, despite her own otherworldly beauty, to wrest his eyes from the violin to meet her gaze when he felt it on him. “It - plays itself?” he echoed.
He very much wanted to hear it. And he did not want to hear it at all.
For something turned over within him at the clear magic of it, something uneasy, something that murmured of snares. A unicorn with an enchanted violin was, perhaps, no stranger than a man with an enchanted cloak and knife; but he was accustomed to trusting his instincts, and now guilt was growing.
But before he could say or do anything else, the violin began to play.
It was, of course, a beautiful sound. One note, low and rising like a lone wolf’s howl, that seemed to press thumbs into his heart and lungs and push. It felt like a finger, pointing at him, and though the hair did not rise along his back the muscles of his face were tense and his blue eyes were like a well as he stared at it for the duration.
He was glad it could only sing, and not speak. It did not seem much like a fairytale to imagine what truths it would give.
The Percheron pulled his gaze away from it, though it still shone in the corner of his vision like the moon, demanding to be looked at. He met Jasmine’s eyes, wanting to give himself a shake all over like a dog. “I only know drinking songs,” he said, summoning his earlier smile. “I don’t suppose it plays many of those.” Sarkan wondered whether she was magic, too and what the worth of them was together and apart, the violin and the woman. He raised a brow. “I hope you don’t make a habit of performing for strangers in the wilderness, Jasmine.” He said it almost like a joke, and not a warning at all - but he couldn’t help but wonder, now. How he might do it.
The air sounded empty without the violin’s voice. Maybe that was another part of its magic - that now it always would.
he loved the awe that fell across the faces of those who saw her performing; the pure magic of it - that was the Benevolent spirit. A fairy queen, truly, music dancing around her as she floated upon the ground, sprightly, as if she had any magic of her own. Like her people, she had been born without it, and like her people, she had come to value it as a commodity. The ideal recruit was a magic-wielder; dancers and musicians were a dime a dozen, though the Benevolent preferred to collect the exceptional among them. Mesnyi had only the appearance of magic, the smell and sound of it, but not the truth thing. The only magic she could claim belonged to the violin and its ever-shifting case. And the secrets of these she either did not know or would not tell.
”I know only drinking songs. I don’t suppose it plays many of those.” She would have taken that smile to heart if she didn’t know how the music had put a knife in his. ”I hope you don’t make a habit of performing for strangers in the wilderness, Jasmine.” The words were almost light enough to be shrugged off. Mesnyi smiled her own showmanship grin.
”Ah, unfortunately it is my sole purpose.” The glass bow skittered along steel strings apprehensively. ”I’m a performer. This is my life,” she said, pausing to let her eyes fall to the violin. ”What is your purpose, Daniel?” She looked back up at him, her gaze wilder now, vulpine and glimmering.
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
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The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
“I”m among a lucky audience, then,” he said, and stretched his smile wider. One ear turned to catch the sound of the violin, its notes like the syllables of words just out of reach of hearing; but his eyes lingered on her. The delicate, glowing horn, the spider-silk hair. How breakable she looked - and how she spoke and smiled almost like she was daring him to try.
But Sarkan did not peddle in instruments. Rough-hewn wood-raised man though he was he appreciated art like anyone with eyes and ears; and anyway he knew no buyers for such a thing. So he told himself.
He was still watching when she turned back to him and now all the dawn-light was caught in her eyes, as it had been captured in the glass violin. And which did it live in, truly? At her question Sarkan only laughed. “My purpose? If I have one I’ve yet to find it.”
The Percheron meant it. He was as simple man. Purpose implied being made for something beyond eking out a living. And he did not consider gently scraping scales from immortal golden fish or stalking fledging thunderbirds for their gizzards as his great calling.
“Maybe you could tell me,” he said, and took a step nearer. She did not give off the impression of being frightened by him, or anyone, and he wanted a closer look at the instrument. “Is this all you play?”
he nodded politely at his grin, or not-so-politely, it bordered on curt but the nature of her hair clouded about her intention. Mesnyi preferred it that way. He laughed at her question; she supposed it was certainly true that most people did not know their purpose. Or perhaps their purpose was getting through the day, the week, the month - survival, ultimately, whether it be emotional or physical. Hunger or sadness dogged them, or both, and that was what it meant to live. She called performing her purpose, but that was in the smaller sense, the tiny thing that cast a large shadow. Her true purpose was amorphous, changing, mysterious, nonexistent. Often it was short-term: companionship, gold, dinner. Escape.
”Maybe you could tell me,” he said, and came closer, but she only smiled. ”Is this all you play?”
The violin rose up and down a scale impatiently. ”I am no oracle,” she said, ”for all the cards I’ve told. But, no, I play several instruments, and dance, and sing, of course. A woman of the arts, if you appreciate such things. A gypsy, if you don’t.” The glass bow danced along the strings as he observed it. ”I imagine you might be a man of many talents. Is it so?” She watched Daniel closely, allowing the violin to whisper quietly to him.
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
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The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
Now he was near enough to see the shadows of the dew-wet grass through the glass body of the violin, and the scale it ran stirred his blood the way a breeze might stir the dead leaves of an aspen tree. Even he could read the tone of the notes - but was it agitation or eagerness? Which of them made the meaning, the woman or the instrument?
I am no oracle, she said, and though he’d known as much - nothing could really read the future - he was still relieved to hear it. This violin would not sing him his sins, then. He looked over at her, the spire of her horn, the crystal of her eyes. It was easy to picture her dancing, singing, arriving and never staying. “I do, though I don’t meet them very often. I’m a bit of a wanderer myself.” Sarkan might have been happy, talking about that; all the places they’d been, the strange and wild things they’d seen. But she doesn’t ask about that.
The question she did ask, on the heels of wondering about his purpose, gave him pause. Now his attention left the violin entirely, and his eyes were the cool blue of a glacier’s belly when they met hers. He still wore a smile, but it looked like he’d forgotten it there; certainly it didn’t reach his eyes. There was a whisper of suspicion wending down his back; that music-stirred blood was beginning to warm.
“I can’t guess what makes you think so. Not as many as you, I’m afraid. And none as…artistic.” The wind picked up then, setting all the baubles she wore to chiming, blowing her hair around her like a cloud. He was near enough to see all the details of her coat, every slim muscle beneath the lilac fur. “Maybe I’ll share some of mine if we meet again.” His smile lifted until it showed teeth.
And then a meadowlark sang out its morning song, a dozen tremulous notes, and Sarkan shook his head. Taking a step back, the gray stallion looked around, as though he’d briefly forgotten where they stood; then his gaze moved back to the unicorn and there was nothing but warmth in his smile.
“Play me a wandering song, would you, Jasmine? Farewell-” And with no more warning than that he stepped past her, continuing on his path, and did not look back. But he listened for a long time, even when the last notes had faded from the air.
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