My Heart is Lame With Running

by **Aramenta** on March 25th, 2013, 7:45 pm

Spring 35, 507
Stonewhistling Pavilion
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The dust rolled over the sea-green prairie, tracing the countours of the lips of the sky, each time she bent to kiss the breast of the dry-sweet earth. Ara closed her eyes, and just feathered her fingers in the air above her head, felt the shadow of the mourning wind-song, and the laughing-wise dust song, rolling over her own breast. Her own web-lips murmured back, a high and trilling minor tune of where-is-my-girl-Livvy, that curled through the old, sad wind, and made the wise young dust hang just a touch more fretfully, before it picked up a stronger gust and giggled back into the whirling sky.

She opened her eyes, and breathed the same song out, her hands going back to her side - it only whispered, wet and smooth and silent, from her throat.

"Where, oh where, is my girl Livvy… where oh where."

Livvy had been sick for days, and though she tried hard, Ara found herself crying again, now, sitting on the hill. A girl from the neighbors, hardly older than Livvy herself sat by her bedside. Papa had been very kind, had gone to so much expense over what, after all, was only a slave girl with no particular talents. He had even, great, hard-faced man that he was, let the girl sit with him and cry it out.

"Papa, tell me she won't die!" she'd whispered into his earwith the frantic energy of a ten year old girl waving through her frightened fingers.

"Hush, hush. It is for women to tell comforting lies to their babies. I can only tell you the truth. She might. But I've a good girl looking over her, haven't I? And she's a tough thing."

"Papa what will I do? What will I do if she dies?"

Papa hadlifted her from his chest, and looked in her eyes, a kindliness creeping in behind his sunburnt cheeks, "Oh, my Ara. Do you think I would leave you alone? If she dies, I shall get you a new girl. We'll find a new one, who is smart and quick, just like Livvy."

Ara had frowned, ashamed at the faint pleasant thrill this sentence gave her. She had felt a certain sick shame in her soul, a something she could not understand well enough to express. The best she could manage was to collapse back into papa, and say, "I don't want another girl. I want Livvy."

She cried now, again, but quieter than with Papa. Somehow, with an adult, crying always felt like a performance, so filled with negotiation and expectation there was hardly room left for just plain keening out a feeling. Alone, it was the opposite. Sometimes, even with Livvy, she'd send her off on some little errand, just to give herself time to cry, if she needed it.

But, she thought, she'd have plenty of time to cry alone, now.

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She stood, then, quickly. This was ridiculous. She had hardly slept the night before, the hole in her bed where Livvy would be felt so cold and hollow, even in the warm balm of Spring moonlight. It was nearly midday, now. She threw back her shoulders, and stomped into the pavilion, threaded through the other beds to her own area. There, she plucked up her doll, a tattered rag affair that she did not like to confess to still using at night - Livvy knew, of course, but never said anything. To the rest of the family, it was her secret, for she slipped Pisha inside the straw batting each morning before anyone could see. She took it now, though, and threaded back, through the horses, past even Canterfoot, who snorted fretfully - she had been out of sorts since Livvy grew sick, likely, Ara supposed, because she herself had been out of sorts and had not given him chance enough to be ridden.

Well, she thought, Cant shall have to wait.

On, through the horse yard, she cam to the little canvas shelter where, inside, Livvy lay. She had been told to stay away. She had had what the healers thought was scarlatina as a baby, but it was an inconclusive case, and they did not know if she were fully marked from it. In a reasonable moment, she perhaps would have paused, then, to consider that it was possible she would make herself as sick as Livvy doing this, and simply double her father's expense, perhaps even die, and take from her father the last remnant he had of Mama. But ten year old girls are, sometimes, not known for their introspection.

She threw the flap open with a sort of righteous fury. Inside, the neighbor-girl sat picking stitches from the mangled corner of a shirt-cuff, to be re-interfaced. She looked up, pale and tired and dirty.

"Missy Stonewhistling, you cain't come in here! You gonna get me in trouble!"

Ara frowned at the girl, mouth resolutely closed, raised her hands and signed with a certain righteous vehemence, to get out.

The girl's eyes got wide, "Oh, no ma'am! No ma'am! You can't stay here."

She peered darkly at the girl, the full force of her pride riled now. She signed scornfully to the side of her head, not calling the girl a slave, but a 'shorn-hair', a far more belittling term, referring to her cut locks, putting her in a class close to an animal. Then she touched her own wind mark, a thin wisp of fair wnding down the back of her neck, and made the sign for 'Drykas'. Then she signed with all the force in her. "Get out."

The girl looked right way angry. Ara didn't care. The girl stood, gathering her things in an icy silence, and responded with a cruel, quiet anger, "Yes, Missy Stonewhistling. Whatever you say." And with a angry-shamed duck of her chin, she threaded past Ara, and left.

Ara felt a little ashamed as the girl left, but her pride was still swollen. She said nothing. The girl had been sitting on a folding three-legged leather stool. Ara sat on it, and looked at Livvy.

The girl was sleeping now, uncomfortably, her lips parted and the muscles of her face tense and pained. Her lips and tongue were a deep red, as wet and sharp on the eye as a wild strawberry, and her cheeks had a livid, unnatural flush to them. Ara reflected, for a moment, the effect was almost pretty on Livvy, who had never had a lot of odor to her face. A bucket sat beside the bed, filled with water, and a knotted rag. Ara took the rag, awkwardly, and sort of… dabbed at the girl's face, feeling that nursing ought to involve doing something useful. it left running trickles of water on her friend's skin, and Livvy frowned and jerked fretfully under the ticklish lines. Ara blushed and squeezed the rag out, experimented a bit, sucking up the drops into the fabric, and finally settling in broad, soft strokes of the cloth across the girls forehead. She felt the way the hard nap of the worn linen caught at the girl's sun-rough skin, so she pulled the shirt-tail of her own blouse out, light cotton for the sunny spring. She tore the tail off with a jerk of her teeth, and dropped her shirt over her chest again, then took the broad, long strip of cloth, folded it, dampened it, and set to the girl's forehead again. Better. There was trick to it, she learned, to being just wet enough.

Livvy's smacked her red lips drily, so Ara set the shirt tail in the bucket, and got her own fingers wet, painting the water onto the fever scorched lips. Livvy shuddered but did not wake. Her tongue darted out to lick the water off, thirstily. This game amused Ara for a few minutes. It was something like feeding apples to a horse, that same strange sense of 'Oh, look, they have their own lips and tongues that feel funny on my hands.' It grew tiresome quickly though, for the lips were so hungry, and she could douse them with only so much water. She tried the rag, squeezing it out into the girl's mouth. Livvy choked on the sudden gush of water in her swollen throat, and her eyes even flew open, her body heaving to its side to choke ineffectively at the drink. Ara gasped, and went to her knees, her arm around the other girl's back, "No, no, no…. don't let me kill you she whispered."

Livvy, if she woke, didn't awake very far, clearly, for as she lay back on her back, her eyes fluttered back to closed, though her head arched vaguely, her lips parting again, thirsty. Ara, for a moment blushed, wishing the girl from the neighbors was back. Then she felt ashamed. She had wanted to do this. She wanted to be the one who saved Livvy. Had she thought she'd just have to come in and look pretty like a nurse in a story? She dipped her fingers, ashamed, into the water again, and brushed them over the girls lips. The strawberry tongue crawled thirstily across them, once again.

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"What in the sky's name do you think you're doing, Ara!"

It was hardly a question - the hands offered absolutely no interest in receiving an answer - in fact, any answer might very well have gotten Ara slapped. So, she said nothing, just dipped her fingers in the water again. It had been hours, now, and her arm ached from the repetitive motion. But she met his eyes, not defiantly, for defiance implies an act of opposition. Simply stoically. Her hands said nothing, but her eyes murmured, "Father, this is what is and shall be."

"Aramenta Stonewhistling. You will stand up now, and get your ass out of this tent. You are not too old for me to give you a belt."

Ara paled slightly, but clenched her jaw, and stared hard at her father's face, she stood to the full height of 4'7", looking up to her father's six feet of angry bulk. Then she nodded, without moving her clenched fists, turned, and bent over, straddling her legs to grab the back of the stool. She heard the snap-snap-snap of her father's belt leaving its loops - it was a sound she'd heard directed towards her own body only thrice before now. She closed her eyes, and her buttocks tensed involuntarily.

"You know there's no good in it now, my son." the old, strong voice of Grandmother Whistling rolled into Ara's ear unexpectedly. How long had she been there.

"I won't have my daughter --"

"Ara is old enough, now, perhaps, to simply serve her own impulses. She will learn what this means. The girl is clearly exhausted, perhaps she's already suffered some of them."

Ara stood, slowly, turning. Grandmother stood just behind her father, her bone-thin, sinewy hand on his shoulder.

Her father's face was red, his chest rose and fell, and the belt was folded taut between his hands. But his brow was not angry it was… frightened? It was something she had not really seen there, not for many years. It made her ache to go wrap her arms around him. But she stood, still, not letting anything soft into her eyes. Wrinkling her brow.

Her father spoke in a terrifyingly low voice, "What's a girl learn from dying?"

"Who is to say, son? Perhaps a great deal. It is too late for that now, anyway. She has been close enough to the fever. If it comes? It comes."

Her father said nothing, though his hand subtler a fury and terror she couldn't quite comprehend. Death was so big, and so far away. He turned, and left.

She turned to her grandmother, and signed a quiet thank you. Grandmother quirked one side of her smile into an ambiguous chuckle.

"Thank you, Ara? Hrm. Well, perhaps. Your girl will require your attention, now, I think."

Grandmother turned and left.

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It took three days before Livvy spake. And she wasn't awake then, just rolling, tossing. When Ara and Livvy played, sometimes they played at tragic maidens, and Ara would lie on the soft grass, and play the Fair Lass Dying Too Soon. And when she died, she always played the delirium, whispering 'Mother!' or 'Oh my Julian!' Or Charles, or Hamfir, or whatever name they chose for the Tragic lover. But, Livvy had no mother, hardly, that she remembered, and certainly had no lovers. Ara found herself disappointed with the mundanity of fever ravings. Aside from a bit of moaning apologies, mostly to Ara's father - which frankly left Ara a bit uncomfortable - Livvy mostly just talked about chores. Ara felt sorry for her - was that all she had to think of with Dira on the lintel? Whether she'd fed Cant? Whether she'd reaped the fire-line? She tried to comfort the girl, giving her water, pulling her dress open in the back, to let the red rash cool in the morning air, stroking her hard skin.

Eventually she began to see her Grandmother's point. A nurse was the most tiresome sort of hero for a ten year old to play. It was not that she did not love Livvy during her blacker moments sitting by her bed. It was simply… that she loved life, too. She loved the sunshine, she loved hearing other people. She loved sunshine. She loved human beings. Sickness, she decided made you something less than a person, it made you into a sort of animal, reduced you to hunger, thirst and fear.

And she loved sleep above all. She learned the ways of the light sleeper, learned to fall asleep slumped in the three legged stool, lying on the dirt floor, learned to sleep even while she moved the rag across the girl's face, woken only when the hot thirsty tongue began to explore the dampened webbing of her fingers. Finally, she gave up. Livvy would sleep. She had drunk nearly half a bucket of water. Ara had cleaned her stools and urine and vomit, and felt her tongue, her cheeks, her eyes. If she was to get sick, there was no getting past it, now.

And her back hurt so. So, she crawled into the girl's bed. Immediately, her body felt such a sharp stab of relief, it almost brought her to tears. It was cold, and late, and she rolled herself into Livvy soft, hot side, laid cheek on the girl's burning chest, and fell asleep, curled around her.

She did not know how long she slept. She tried to discover it later. But when she woke, the moon was so high and clear that the canvas over her glowed. At first she did not know what had woken her. Then she realized Livvy was shivering quite violently underneath her. She lifted her head, her cheek pulling away with the reluctant stickiness of mutual sweat, and as soon as she did, the other girl cried out.

"Ama! Ama! No, please, please stay, Ama…"

Ara reached a hand to the girl's face, with a mix of fear and fascination.

"Ama, no, no, please stay… please, please…" the girl's eyes were open, livid and glassy in her slack, fever-rouged face, "I'm sorry… I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please, I'll be good, I will do it, I will do it."

With the deceptive strength of the sick, then Livvy starting pushing up to try to stand, her arms shaking wildy while she did.

"No, no… lay down, Livvy, lay down…" for the first time, in many years, Ara wished she could shout. She had grown used to the quiet, grown, even, in a peculiar way, to relish it, it gave her time for silence, it gave an intimacy to whatever she said. But now, now she wanted to shout the struggling girl down. Livvy fought to sitting position. Ara grabbed the girl around the chest, and tackled her back to the bed, pushing down as the body beneath her struggled.

"No… no, I can do it, I can do it, please, please, please, let me do it, I can do it… please don't leave me here… I'll work hard, I'll work hard…"

Livvy placed her face cheek to cheek with struggling girl, and whispered out in her hardest, hoarsest sound, "Livvy! Livvy, I ain't leaving… Livvy…"

At the first touch of her words to Livvy's ears the slave collapsed, and started sobbing piteously, "Oh Ama, I thought you was gone… I thought you was gone leave me, get someone else… I'm sorry, Ama, I'm sorry."

Livvy's broken voice was hard and sharp so close to Ara's ear. Ara hoarsely whispered back, "I'm here, Livvy. You're my girl, you gonna keep being my girl…"

Then, the strain became too much, and Ara went into a hard, coarse. painful coughing fit. Livvy, on instinct wrapped her arms around her, "Oh no, no, no, you lay down. I's s'pose t'take care o' you, Missy… lay down, lay down, I get, I go get --"

Ara fought through a cough, "No! No, none o' that. You listen, this is your turn, Livvy. But I need you t' be real quiet, alright? I need you to be real quiet, so you can hear me."

Livvy shook her head, "No, no, Missy, I don't get no turn, I got t'be useful-yours, or I ain't gone get no more turns at all."

Ara, leaned in very close, and whispered soft, "Fine, its my turn. We gonna play a new game, Livvy-girl, 'k? We gonna play Missy Livvy. ITs a new game, I just made it up. Now, when we play Missy Livvy, I lay right here, and you pretend you the mistress, and I do what you say, hmm? Now… you lay still, Missy Livvy, Ama-girl 'll get you some water, yes."

Ara pulled up, and Livvy's wild eyes calmed, sharpened somewhat, some little shred of lucidity entering them. She said nothing for a moment, and for years after that look haunted Ara, something sad, and grateful, and ashamed and hopeless all at once. But then Livvy nodded, soft and slow, and said, "A'ight, Ama-girl. We on'y play this game though, 'till I's better. An' jus' you an' me, you doan' tell none, k?"

Ara smiled, and crawled to kneel beside the bed. Shew took up her rag, and smiled back tentatively. She leaned in and whispered soft, "You thirsty, Missy Livvy?"

by **Magpie** on March 27th, 2013, 6:20 pm

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Aramenta :

Notes :

If you have any questions or concerns about what was awarded, please don't hesitate to PM me.
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My Heart is Lame With Running

My Heart is Lame With Running

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