[Flashback] The Girl in the North (Vanari)

[Wrenmae]

It was as if the performer had charmed the coins from pockets like the tales of hypnotizing snakes across the wide, hot sands. Her hat began to fill with coins as both the adults and children tosses them in, eager to see more.

Egyptus fumbled with his awkward clothes for a coin in his pocket, pulling out a silver miza and flinging it at the hat. Unfortunately, his adolescent aim was off and the coin flew higher than the hat. With a sort of casual grace the performer reached up and plucked it out of the air, bringing it down between two fingers and studying it, as if perplexed.

"Who threw this coin?"

Egyptus felt his face flush, what could have been wrong with it? Was it too little? Too much? Looking at his companion hesitantly, he raised a mitten and waved it, his entire body quivering with both cold and nervous energy.

She smiled at him and beckoned him closer. A stranger in a stranger land, he clasped Vanari by her hand and led her beside him...as if clinging to a piece of wood that knew the waters it swirled in.

"And what's your name, little cub?"

"Egyptus."

"And your lady?"

"Vanari!" The name came to him like lightning and he almost shouted it. A relief that his scarf muffled his words or else the volume would no doubt be deafening.

"Well, Egyptus, Vanari. You seem to have given me a coin that can't decide what it wants to be. Did you know you had such a confused coin in your possession?"

Egyptus shook his head, not following her.

"See?" She held up the coin and flicked it with her finger. Immediately, it was a gold rimmed miza, with another flick it was copper, and then silver again. The crowd whispered among each other. Although the parlor trick was not quite as fantastic as the butterflies, it seemed to enrapture the children...whose very definition of wealth was based around the coins clutched in their grubby hands.

She stood away from them and flipped it into her hat. "I'll just have to convince your friend to decide on gold, now won't I?"

Egyptus nodded, grinning, loving every moment of the performance and squeezed Vanari's hand with crushing glee. She turned her attention back to the audience and held out both hands, bringing into being two coiling serpents with glittering scales, gnashing out at the crowd.

"Ok," she said, "I'm going to need some brave volunteers."

[Vanari]

Vanari was in the process of fishing out a coin from deep within her own pockets when she saw Wrenmee toss a silver miza into the air. She watched it leave his mittens and arch, higher and higher, until it became obvious it was going to land no where near the hat. For a moment, she was afraid it would sail right over the magician's head and leave her companion humiliated. But then the woman caught in midair with ease before demanding to know who had thrown the coin. She was almost tempted to restrain Wrenmee from raising his mittened hand, but didn't. Her mother always said it was important for children to prove their worth; otherwise, it would take only one rough winter to take them from their families, and Vanari wanted very much for her new friend not to be taken. So, she let him face the sorceress, watching for any signs of trouble. Then Wrenmee pulled her with him towards the makeshift stage and named her, and suddenly she too was part of the strange scenario. She reddened a little at being called his lady. Only icky grown ups who wanted to marry and stuff called each other such things. The sorceress held up the silver coin Wrenmee had tossed, and with a flick of her finger it changed to gold. Vanari gasped aloud, her earlier unease instantly forgotten. How did she do that? Was it really gold now? Was this woman rich? Vanari imagined all the things she could do if she could turn silver mizas to gold. Or coppers to gold! That would make her even more rich. Sure, it felt a little bit like cheating, and as a Vantha she found lying to be honorless and distasteful. But imagine all the things one could do with all that money! She could buy all the candies at the fairs, a bed shaped like an ice bear, her own wolf hound from Frostfawn hold... No, wait, forget all those things. Those were things that made only babies happy. She was much too old for childish frivolties. What would be really worth having all that money, what would truly make her wildest fantasies come true, was to take all of those coins and... ...leave. Her friend was squeezing her hand with undisguised glee now, and when the sorceress threw forth two gleaming serpents out onto the crowd it was all Vanari could do not to topple into him in fright. They looked so real, and yet surely no one would release a pair of deadly beasts onto a crowd she expected coin from. The girl suspected that these too could not be touched, just like the butterfly. And then, when the sorceress confessed to needing some brave volunteers, Vanari all but knocked the woman over as she jumped up and down, waving her free arm and shaking Wrenmee senseless with her momentum. "Oh, pick us! Pick us! Pick me and Wrennie!"