Completed Not All Cells Are Steel and Stone

[Ruslan Gildal]

Ruslan smiled when she said No. How could he not, with such admirable determination on display? For all the things which might be hindrances to her wishes, the capacity of her speech surely but one of them, Maranae nevertheless possessed precisely what she needed. Indeed, the only thing which she truly needed: the will to see it done. To put the life which displeased her, behind her.

"'And the gods have allotted to each their own struggle, none beyond that which they are capable, none whose whole is comprised of any part which has not before been bested,'" Ruslan quoted as he was looking down at his breakfast and partaking, not so much saying it directly to her, but saying it for her benefit to overhear. She might not understand it all at the present moment, but who knew? Powerful words had their way of echoing back at times most opportune.

Then he did look to her, and did speak directly to her, "Where would you like to live? Have you ever passed through some place—some countryside, or some village—and thought to yourself: I like this. Any place like that you can describe?"

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

She stared at his meal as he picked through it. Hunger gnawed. It always did.

She looked at their companions and their fare as the Praetor recited something religious, understanding none of the words or concepts behind it. Nothing new there, at least. When addressed directly, she sat in silence, picking over thoughts. She recalled the journey to this place; one end shrouded in shadow and suffering, the other an unknown and unknowable road.

Remarkable; memories as clear as crystal so long as she was not completely consumed by hunger, and so long as they did not involve anything to do with before.

"Here," she said after quite a long time. "Where trees, but with more people. No fighting, only... only making." The image of a pastoral village amid the valleys and ridges, among trees came to her clearly. That, and a blacksmith hard at work, making things that others could use.

A far cry from what she was doing now, unmaking people for coin.

"But..," she began, and then paused. Images of violence, of people seeking her head for a reward, or others fearful of her animalistic features and unfamiliar appearance chasing her away. "But no where to belong," she finished.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

And that was the trouble, wasn't it? Nowhere to belong. The vast majority of people, Ruslan included, never had to worry of such a thing—they belonged wherever they were born, to the people whom they were born to.

In the interim time of Maranae's long silence, Ruslan had finished his breakfast. He set aside the wooden bowl.

"You've got the idea of what you are looking for—something rural, something not so different from the Falwood, I take it."

He sucked his tongue against his teeth.

"Belonging—now that, I believe, is what you will find to be most tricky." Even if she had the precise features of a human, of an elf, of whatever people it was that so inhabited any prospective place, this would only help so much, and not to any significant degree. "You have to fit into a community. Integrate with them, become like them, be more of a boon than a burden to them. Something like that takes a good deal of time and effort. Acceptance does not come easily anywhere on Arethil."

He offered a small smile.

"I have a feeling you may have tried this once or twice already."

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

She nodded emphatically at the statement. She had tried, and in those few cases she had been chased out of town. But truth is often complex, not simple at all - it was not the community that had chased her out, but a threat that had made her flee. Others would return to their home when the threat had gone or been neutralized, however...

Home. It was a thing she did not have. Somewhere, out there, home lay. Somewhere out there she probably had a family that missed her.

But the world was daunting. First it had been a cage, then it had been a handful of caves. Then, it had been easy to understand and grasp. Now? The world seemed endless. It was all too big.

"Can not be like. Different," she said. For emphasis, she raised hand tipped in claws. Smiled, showing the fangs that sometimes impeded her speech. "No other like. No... use for others. Only this." She patted the blade she normally wore on her back like it was a snake, frustration clear in her voice. "Try. Others come, chase away. To kill or take back to..."

She shuddered, something like panic flickering across her features.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

She didn't quite get his meaning behind the idea of become like them, showing off the claws and the fangs that set her apart from most save, maybe, a Komodo, or a rarer race still. In a different sense of the word like, however, "no other like" gave credence to those intrusive thoughts from before, that, though her memory was heavily veiled at best, Maranae here was speaking to the truth that her erstwhile master, yes, did create her. And though her form and all its particular facets might be unique, the general idea—that is, some mage using his Curite means, all the ones of the most appalling variety, to meddle with the very forms of life—did have its precedent. Was it any wonder that magic was prescribed by Jura to be the domain of the gods, that mortals would inevitably be unable to handle it with wisdom and responsibility?

Then she said it.

Others come.

The alarm flaring up in her expression, however, made it unwise for Ruslan to inquire of that precisely at the moment.

"No one's taking you back anywhere," Ruslan said, this in a bid to soothe her nerves. "At least not while you're among good company."

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Her nerves were not soothed so easily this time.

It was observation of her fervent 'denials' of the demands of those seeking to reclaim her that landed her the jobs she had worked since. Watching a slip of a girl utterly decimate armed foes in little more than rags was obviously an incredible thing to see, shorn of any context. It was only later, on striking up what will charitably be referred to as a conversations that the sordid details finally would slide into place.

"Won't let them," she said in a feral growl, hackles up. She did not like fighting, did not like killing - but had zero qualms about doing so in order to maintain her freedom.

Agitated, she stood, and flitted about. "Want to learn," she said as she paced. "Not be... not smart. Not anymore. But how?" Illiterate, hunted, and strange enough to raise eyebrows in a world full of such things. It shouldn't be a challenge to settle somewhere and pick a thing or two up. "May be... then, not chase off. Not treat like... like animal."

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

A few of the other caravaneers, Goffred among them, glanced over when Maranae stood and paced about; in short order they went back to whatever business concerned them: eating, counting, watching.

She said she wasn't smart, but, at least by Ruslan's reckoning, she'd a common sense about her that, frankly, he would trade any towering amount of scholarly knowledge for any day. Sure she had trouble articulating herself and her experience of the world was lacking, but her rational ability was keen. She knew what she wanted, identified the challenges associated in obtaining it, and knew in broad terms what she needed to do to overcome those challenges.

"Do you know how to read?"

Ruslan was almost certain of the answer, but why not allow the chance for a surprise?

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Before she could answer, the boss of the expedition cut in. "She can not," Mama said simply. Maranae had not even opened her mouth to answer, still working through the question. Her eyes cut from Ruslan to Mama and back, blank and uncomprehending.

"Read?" The single word was a question in and of itself. To her, there were echoes from some place and time she could not define. A rectangle with bright pictures and symbols. The scent of paper and ink attached itself to that memory. To another, it might have meant something. To her, it meant nothing at all.

"Letters on paper. Letters made into words that convey meaning. Like talking to someone, but doing so without speaking." Mama Bear shrugged, reached into a pocket and tossed a small leather purse to Ruslan. "Since you are keen on the girl, that's your bonus and hers as well. Spoils of war." She paused, shook her head. "Almost more profitable to go out into the woods and hunt bastards like these down than engage in honest trade."

She left before Ruslan could say anything. Whether he was honest about the cut owed to Mara or not was not Mama's concern. The girl could not read, and certainly couldn't do math. Did not really understand the concept of money and value in relation to other things anyway.

The chimera watched the 'van master leave, then turned back to Ruslan. Her eyes flitted over the purse, unconcerned with its contents. "Read?" She asked again.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

Even if Mama Bear had not interjected, the look on Maranae's face, the lone word which comprised the whole of her response, would've been answer enough.

Ruslan caught the purse tossed to him, smiling on account of Mama Bear's commentary. The purse had a nice weight and jingle to it, and this was merely their bonus, and merely the hard coin taken from the raiders' store. Still did the raiders have to their name (now to the caravaneers' name) a large haul of plundered goods of all sorts, these promising to fetch even more coin. A profitable venture indeed, and reason enough that raiding was a mainstay of any land where sapient feet trod and trade flowed with any regularity. Even whole armies could survive off of raiding while on campaign. And so it was that the act of raiding was one of those few inevitable and inexorable features of Arethil.

Ruslan made a quick separation of the coins in the purse, pouring them out and dividing them up in his lap to come to halves. To his own coin pouch (might need to get another one at this rate) did he add his bonus, and then he put the other half back into the purse and stood and handed it out to Maranae. He gave his hand an inviting gesture, a quick little upward tilt, to welcome her taking it.

"Your bonus," he said. Sure, she didn't know the value of currency, but what was hers was hers.

And then he addressed her question.

"Yes. Reading. Like Mama Bear said: language as conveyed through symbols, representing sound, word, meaning." He didn't want to confuse the poor girl by saying this, but Ruslan once heard that the acts of writing and reading could be likened to a kind of telepathy: ideas sent through both time and distance from the author to the reader. Though telepathy was, of course, a Curite thing, the analogy was surprisingly apt.

"Being able to read would help immensely in your pursuit of learning." He gave another look to the coin purse with her bonus. "It's something you could spend those coins on—paying a tutor in a city to teach you."

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

She looked at the little purse for a moment, considering with her head tilted slightly to one side. After another few moments, she reached out and took it. Cautiously, not with any real enthusiasm. Metal coins did not mean much to her, just to everyone else.

"Reading," she said again. Curiosity and an open, child-like earnestness lit her face. "Really? Will help her a lot?"

There was a cautious excitement in her. She couldn't understand so many things, but she could understand - to a degree at least - that what this man and the caravan master had said offered a way forward. A way out of the cycle of violence she hated so much.

"Will it help her learn to make things?"

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

Maranae, in what short time Ruslan had come to know her, was nothing if not sincere. She wore her heart on her sleeve, embodying that expression perfectly.

"It will," Ruslan said, and this if for no other reason than it will inevitably make her more articulate and help her to cultivate a better grasp on the world in general.

"Plenty of craftsmen like to keep their trade secrets, however, so they don't write them down. You'll also want to seek an apprenticeship."

Maybe she'd heard of the word apprentice in passing, seen actual apprentices at work in this town or that town, and had some idea of it. But it was easy enough to explain otherwise...so long as he avoided using the word master, he reckoned.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

As it turned out, she had not heard the word apprentice. She had spent little time in towns due to the complications they brought and her general unwillingness to fight when it was not necessary. The question was writ large on her face, mixed with a tinge of excitement.

She looked so earnest and hopeful, no matter that every other attempt to navigate her way through cities and their troubles had failed before. This time would be different. This time, there would be a way forward.

"Apprentice-ship?" Head tilt to the other side, quizzical expression intensifying. "Secrets," she added in that same inquisitive tone. The idea of Maranae and giving her any secrets was laughable. Whatever else you could say about the girl, saying she was discrete was as big a lie as saying the sky was green.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"A skilled craftsman," explained Ruslan, "will very often take on someone who wants to learn: an apprentice. And that would be you."

Ruslan himself had not been an apprentice in some kind of craft—his was a far different life—so he couldn't speak to much to the experience of it. But he knew the broad strokes, which, fittingly enough, worked out just fine for his ability to relay the idea and Maranae's ability, at present, to understand it.

"The craftsman will put you to work on menial tasks—simple things that, nevertheless, need to be done, and take a fair bit of time to actually get done. But if you keep at it, show your willingness to learn and show improvement, you will work your way up and be trusted with more advanced work. It will take years, but..." Ruslan made a gesture with his hand, a long sweeping arc indicating the raiders' camp, what they had all done here, "...seems the alternative for you is more of this."

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Time was a concept she only vaguely understood, but regardless would not have mattered in this case. Many people - most, in fact - were always in a hurry, trying to cram as much as they could into their short days. So many goals, not enough time. Boredom might be a driver, but often it was simply a race against the clock. Mortality was a consideration for many, and trying to spend as much of their lives in a place they wished to be consumed a great deal of their effort.

Maranae did not care. Boredom was not really an issue for her - the entire world was a wild place that needed to be explored, and she explored it with the wide-eyed wonder of a child. The innocence and naivety never really faded, even in a couple years spent in relative freedom.

She consider what he had said in her way, slow and deliberate, before nodding. "But where does she find a ... apprentice?" The question wasn't quite right, but the intent was clear. "Where a person to teach words on paper?"

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

Ruslan smiled thinly, as if to brace himself would also help brace Maranae. Because...

"You're not going to like this answer, but both a skilled craftsman and a tutor can most easily be found in a large town or city. There are schools of scholarship and libraries where a tutor might be found. That would be the best route, the best way to begin. They might even have a class of younger students—children, adolescents—which will make it easier to pick them out of the crowd."

From what all Mara had said, she had sour luck in the more rural villages and smaller towns. But, in a city like Alliria, great in its cosmopolitan breadth, with nearly the whole display of peoples from all the world over a daily sight, perhaps she'd have far less trouble going about her business. Of course, such an environment was almost assuredly the direct opposite of what she was used to. Would her own apprehension stop her?

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

She seemed to deflate, becoming smaller. Almost as if she were trying to shrink in on herself and disappear. He was right; she did not like the idea of going into the cities. Not with the number of people they reportedly held. Small towns were bad enough, and they may only have dozens or hundreds of people. A place like Alliria? Tens of thousands.

"Why big city? Not safe," she said. Small, uneasy - not at all like the hulking barbarian that could shrug off blows that would lay another low. It made it evident that she was young, despite everything. Appearance was very much deceiving here. "Always... hunters? Trouble."

Of course, she had never really been to a huge city beyond passing through. And there had been surprisingly few hunters in the last many months, ever since the last had been literally torn in half trying to cart her off. Whatever had happened to her today had happened then, too; they had trussed her up and kept her under lock and key.

Until whatever they had done had stopped, for a moment. Then violence had been the only recourse. The memory stirred some ghost of anger. Her eyes flared for a moment, and then she subsided.

"Where?"

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"Where what?"









Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Head tilt, consideration. Seconds went by as she considered the question and the answer she could give to it.

Unlike Ruslan, she was not well traveled. She knew little of the world outside the more remote parts of it and - lets be honest - the darker parts of it, as well. "Not know towns. Not know city. Where?" She looked round them pointedly, as though that would explain everything: trees all round, rough terrain. She had been on the plains before, as well, those that bordered here. But in all the miles she had covered, the largest place she had been two may have numbered in the hundreds. She had certainly never been to any of the hubs of the world, avoiding them like a plague-infested ship.

"How far?" Simple questions, but no easy answers. "Where will ... will I be accept?"

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

And there the question she'd asked struck Ruslan in all its enormity, and he blinked a few times and exhaled. Hers was a particularly difficult problem, was it not? Illiterate to any road signs, generally unwelcome in towns and villages with people who could help point her vaguely in the right direction, likely unable to read and understand how to use a map (and without understanding that coin could help her acquire one, but then, that "generally unwelcome" problem also intruded on this). Perhaps the only thing she had going for her might be an innate sense of direction in places previously visited and seen, but of course that did little in finding someplace new.

Though, maybe, she had heard of:

"Alliria," he said, now putting to the spoken word his thought from earlier. "There you stand the best chance in all Arethil. There the eyes quickly grow familiar with the unfamiliar." He smiled a little, recalling. "I ought to know—I've been through there."

And for a man whose familiar consisted only of Gild and Campania, his eyes grew accustomed quickly indeed.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

"Alliria," she repeated. She had heard of the city before, it was true. She did not understand what the place was - trade hub at the center of continents, home to examples of virtually every people on Arethil. Ruslan was absolutely correct that she could slip into a place like that and, while being remarked on as an oddity, still slip into the crowd without a ripple behind her.

She sat on her haunches and thought while the camp busied itself with cataloguing their haul and loading things onto carts. Thinking, and thinking. She was not accustomed to doing so much thinking. It was generally better just to flow with the world and make her place in it where she could.

But she did not like fighting. Being good at something did not mean she had to do it. She could do something else. The Gildan had said that she could do what she wanted with her life, so it must be so. It might be naive to simply take such things as gospel truth, but how was he wrong?

"Is city far? Maybe... maybe she goes there." Learn to read. Learn to do something else. Learn. Become better. The idea was taking root in her soul - assuming she had such a thing. "Will Ruslan come? Show the way?"

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"I did give that some thought," Ruslan said. Considering Maranae's obstacles, it seemed unlikely outside of blind luck that she'd manage to navigate her way to Alliria in anything resembling a timely fashion.

"And I do have reason to return there."

Elbion, the great city of magic with its world-renowned College, was one of his destinations, and he had two ways of getting there: by land and by sea. And returning to Alliria to pay for passage up the Strait and down the Cairou river was by no means an untenable solution.

"What say you? Care for my company on the road to Alliria?"

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Her face split in an ear-to-ear grin as she popped back up to her feet. "Company! Yes! On the road to learn," she chortled happily. It was an opportunity that went far beyond anything she could have hoped for. She danced a little caper before settling, still beaming brightly at Ruslan.

"Must finish job first?" That brought the jubilation down a notch, but not much. It was only proper that she finished what she had started. That had been taught to her in the years since her escape, taught by others that knew.

They had not taught her any of the other things she might need to grow and prosper, but it wasn't as if she was their burden to raise. Those worthies had been stolen from her. Worse, she did not even know that they had been taken and could not truly conceptualize the loss.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

And there came a liveliness of spirit Ruslan did not expect to see, yet welcomed all the same. And why not? How could it not warm one's heart to see before oneself such a genuine happiness? In its glow could basking bring a measure of happiness as well. For Maranae, this represented a fortune the like of which she hitherto had not experienced. It was a way out from that dreary hole in the ground and away from the spectre of that erstwhile master. She wanted to put down the sword? This could be done. With the right guidance and some earnest effort, this could be done.

Must finish job first?

"Yes," Ruslan said. "We are pledged to it, but not only that, the coin you will find to be useful once we get to Alliria. Make sure you hold on to it."

"Hey, Ruslan."

He turned half to the side, and Goffred was there, having come up to the two of them. In his hands he had Ruslan's favored traveling cloak, wrapped up in a bundle. He tossed it easily to Ruslan and Ruslan caught it.

"Thank you. This cloak has kept me warm many a night now."

"I got your back." And then to Maranae he tipped two fingers to his forehead in a sign of respect and said, "Nice work."

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

That unrestrained, ear-to-ear grin was offered to Goffred as easily as it had been to Ruslan. SHe even mimicked the two-finger gesture that he had, not understanding in the slightest what it meant. "No more trouble from these," she said. It brought the jubilation down another notch, but it was ok.

Standing tall and surveying, she could see the dead were gone, even if the coppery scent of blood lingered. She had done a lot of that, but she was not the one that picked the fight. She could not understand why people fought among themselves so much - over things, bits of metal, and other stuff.

She held the purse again and shook it so it rattled. "Why so much fighting for this?" A genuine question; curiosity lit her eyes at it. It was odd, to have so many child-like traits, but to lack the cruelty and greed so common in children. And yet, there it was. She could not comprehend the desire to take from others simply because others had things to take.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"First of all, because they fucking deserved it," said Goffred, snorting with a little laughter and then looking to his side and spitting and looking back. "Bastards."

Ruslan's explanation was a fair bit gentler, even if he shared in large degree the sentiment expressed by Goffred.

"Most immediately, we were taking back what is ours—or rather, what we have been charged with protecting from men just like this. And beyond that, we have, whether it was our direct intention or not, dispensed appropriate justice and done Arethil a favor by ridding it of these men. Look at all of these surplus spoils: what these raiders did to us they have done some terrible number of times before to others, maybe on this same road and maybe elsewhere. But now, they will do no such thing."

Ruslan had glanced briefly to one of the spots of blood staining the grass, and what simply came to mind was this: a small piece of the world set to the right order.

He looked back to Maranae, smiling, and why not? How could one not be pleased with this outcome, this victory against the odds?

"With our blades we carved some good out of a stain on the Falwood."

Maranae