501 AV, Season of Summer, Day 32
”Tell me a story,” Kit had said, and she had gotten it.
Her aunt had found a time, a quiet moment when the sky was dark, and told a familiar tale.
Once upon a time there was a young woman, a traveler that knew the whole of the land, and had been to all places.
“All places?” Kit had asked, on her knees, smiling bright and sure, already knowing the answer, expecting and willing to believe the lies.
Yes child, all places. She had seen the Queen of Winter, bowed before the Lady of the Stars, she had walked across the wide seas to places never seen before. She had been to all places, child, and more. She had red hair, dark as dawn’s first rising. Kit smiled, raised a hand to her ear and let her fingers trail through the locks that fell there. And her eyes were a blue to match the sea! Kit turned hers downward, self-conscious and smiling.
But though she had seen all places, she had not yet found the treasure of her heart.
Aunt Summer stopped, biting down on her lip, and Kit eyed her with the brimming curiosity of the young. Kit wondered why the desperate look on her face matched the one she gave her husband when he was not watching.
“And then what?” She questioned, squirming, willing the story to go on. “Did she meet a man in a big city?” Kit suggested. It often went that way.
“No,” Summer said, picking up the pieces of the broken story. “It was not simply big.”
It was enormous, it was tall and great and proud, and there was magic there.
Yes, magic. And though Summer likely did not know it herself, Kit saw the way her eyes turned upward, the reluctant motion of her hand, showing allowance of the word in the same way one acknowledged an undertaker, or a whore. And with their spells they did much good for the city. She moved on, eager to escape to other subjects.
There was no suffering in the city, no pain. Women and children were safe on the streets, and the only songs they sang were happy ones.
She had seen the city before, and grown quite bored of it. But when she passed through, she saw him. “What was he like?” Kit had demanded. He was kind, slow to act, and wise beyond his years. “What did he do?” He advised kings and lords, and there was no man or woman who did not benefit from his counsel. “And what—” Summer cleared her throat and stared down at Kit with hard eyes, and the little girl’s mouth twisted into an apologetic smile.
“Now, where was I . . . ?”
Ah, yes.
The young woman had been to the city before, but she had not seen this man, and when she saw him she fell in love, and knew that he would be hers. For she was a charming woman, and never doubted for a moment that what she wished would become hers—because whatever she wished, she always found.
She went to this handsome young man and asked if he would be hers, and her voice was like a song sung by Rhaus, but he said, “No!” Kit cried, at the moment Summer did, laughing, and her aunt allowed it. ‘Because this is my city, and without me, what would it become?’
But the young woman was not deterred, because though she always got what she wanted, it was never easy. In one week’s time she came again, and she touched his cheek and pleaded with red eyes, but still he told her “No!” ‘My place is here, and the people need me. Without me, what would they become?’
The young woman had been challenged before, let it be said, but few were such a challenge as this man posed. And yet she was not deterred, for she was a charming woman, and never doubted for a moment.
”Was she wrong?” Kit asked, though she knew the answer.
She was not wrong.
For she coaxed him out of his hiding place and into the streets where bright things shined and she sang a song that rung deep in his heart—her words were whispered pain and joy, of freedom come and gone. Her dance was of struggles fought and won, and her eyes were brighter than Syna’s sun.
The music sang of love won and lost, of her first failure, and she sang the song around the man and matched it to his heart.
And with that song she reached inside, plucked his heart away,
and locked it away within her own.
He watched her there and when she was done, “he said that his heart belonged to her, and without her, what would he become?”
“Yes,” Aunt Summer said, smiling now. “That is how it ends.”
And shy, Kit wondered if she should ask if they would ever come home. But though she was smiling, there was desolation in her aunt’s eyes, and Kit knew. Her smile was perfect in ways an honest child never is, and she hugged her aunt and thanked her. Tears did not flow down her cheeks. She did not sob.
Aunt Summer pushed her back, too-polite, and sent her away to sleep.
When she was in bed, when she was warm and alone, darkness hid her face from view.
She did not sleep.
Kit stared out the window at the empty cobblestone road, listened to the wind as it rattled at her windowsill, and kept vigil in the night for a homecoming that would never be. |
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by Kit Rowan on June 10th, 2011, 10:19 pm 
