Foreword: You know how it goes. The same lively characters who turn up in whatever you write. Now this might be fine in books, but readers of Blog Battle Prompts might be looking for more variety. Thusways, I delicately and respectfully negotiated with two particularly tough veteran characters on the behalf of three, a mutually acceptable exit strategy for all parties. I am very grateful to Gary for this month’s ideal word. (This tale is a standalone, but footnote linked to other stories are provided at the end ) (Also apologies if the format comes out looking odd, what WP is showing me on my draft might not look the same format as you read- might have to change my Theme)……………
Salt Water drenched, sunlight blinded, pained within and without, grateful for the soothing liquid and the soft hands cradling her, welcoming temporary oblivion, one phrase warning her:
‘‘Work to be done Zwanglos,’
Spoken gently though
She awoke in a restful gloom; gliding speed from whispering’ something’ and the slap of water indicating she was still at sea. Cushions, pillow, blanket. Someone was caring. Gratefully received, for her head stabbed in pain, body ached and her spirit was sinking, used, and betrayed. Sacrificed in a frontal assault or given the hard risk you accepted, rivals you watched out for. Used as bait, or bargainable goods, the concept was crushing. Her innards churned, she rolled to one side, a basin; good.
As she finished retching, a figure came into view, eased over to her, knelt, and stroked her hair.
‘Oh my. An’t y’all a mess? Y’ poor thing. C’mon. Let’s settle those pains an’ roilings,’
Another gentle cradling of her head, another drink, eased through dry lips, this one peppermint, swiftly calming. A friendly smile, evening light suggesting features tuned by their own hard times, but blue eyes glinting while cool hands wiped stained hair from her face.
‘Sorry to have to trouble y’ with questions l’tenant. Time is short and reports are required. Always work t’ be done,’
Whatever Zwanglos had been given, the drink had quickly eased pains and calmed innards, also cleared her head.
‘Firstly. Can I ask who you are?’ she was a child again, asking tentative questions of a grown-up, which in turn gave rise to an indulgent small laugh. A cloth soaked in cold fresh water applied to her face.
‘Captain Arketre Beritt, l’tenant. Same outfit. Very different office though,’ the last words, hard, bitter ‘Give a whole account of this jaunt. No shyness now,’
‘Wait for me,’
Whereas the fellow LifeGuard’s frame was masked by the signature long coat, the new taller arrival in shirt and trousers was slender elegance untroubled by the sea’s ways. The accent an urban roll similar to Zwanglos’ but smoothed with easy courtly authority. Crouched on the backs of her legs, hands draped on knees, angular features framed in similar black hair, yet made comical by a smirk.
‘This is Custodian Nahtinee,’ the captain said adding in a light advisory way. ‘You’ll be talking to her, she’s very good at working out,’ the pair shared a grin ‘Wot’s wot,’
‘That’s right Leidlich,’ Nahtinee was reassurance ‘ You’re safe here. We’re also girls that’s been bounced around and only given bits of stories to gamble our lives with. We know how you feel,’
With her first name spoken in an informal way and the last words breathed instead of spoken Zwanglos’ last pieces of reserve melted away. One, fellow LifeGuard tending her injuries, the other more an elder sister than a Custodian.
She spoke of the mission, supposed to be a warning. Instead of a messenger, she became a sacrifice, then a reason, all lost in a confusion of events, intimations. The fact that those she was in proximity with were equally innocent had turned her angry turmoil into an act of sacrifice.
Her guardians in addition to sympathetic responses exchanged several narrowed-eyed looks, the Captain having tended her wounds and cleaned her, produced some fresh bedding.
‘The gal’s spoken enough now,’ she said to her associate, then to Zwanglos ‘Y’all gonna sleep again l’tenant. This time comfy,’
Between them, they settled Zwanglos down, their ministrations and the steady rhythm of the craft sending her drifting away again.
Her next awakening was to a cooling breeze, on the deck under an awning and another setting sun. She concluded she must have slept well because not only could she not recall being shifted, but the feeling of being that rested was simply unfamiliar. Seated close at hand, were her guardians, the Custodian dozing, the Captain writing. The craft had similar size to the one she had leapt from, although a measure sleeker, there was a crew, in pale grey uniforms all going about their duties.
‘Lookin’ better l’tenant,’ said the Captain ‘We’ll have you on solid foods if your innards are comfortable at sea, that is,’
‘Where are we? I’ve never slept so much,’
‘Second part first,’ Captain began rolling up a scroll and pushing it into the pocket of her coat ‘If Ah say so m’self Ah have skills with soporifics. All different medical constructs, set doses, compatible and delivered in a certain pattern. High Holy gal. You were ragged, prolonged sleep was part of the cure,’ with a playful smile she extended her left leg and nudged her companion, who promptly grunted, muttered, then fixed the captain with one censorious eye.
‘Hey. Y’all told me to wake you when our l’tentant here did likewise,’
There was a humph of acquiescence, Beritt leaned into Zwanglos.
‘Don’t mind her none being contrary. She was the one who insisted keeping watch on you day and night, ‘til Ah told her to get some shut-eye this mid-day,’
‘Didn’t have to dig your boot toe in my bottom,’
The complaint made The Custodian slipped over to Zwanglos and repeated her peering into the girl’s eyes. Zwanglos felt she should be tensed or at least thinking about strategies, and not so much at ease. And that was being contradictory.
‘Nice clear eyes Leidlich,’ there was a twitch of the nose, Zwanglos wondered if she was being sniffed ‘Roses in bud,’. She was being sniffed. ‘She’s clean, just fuzzed,’
The Captain blew out a sigh of relief, Zwanglos managing to summon up some independence of thought and eased up to a sitting position.
‘Please tell me something understandable,’ she pleaded.
‘I’ll get the herbal brew,’ The Captain said ‘Strawberry Ah think. You explain to our l’tenant,’
‘Firstly Leidlich, I should chase and shake down Custodian Vernünftig. Letting someone with no Ethereal affinity get in that deep, and with an active staff too, then leaving you to handle a temporal site all alone. And of course letting a young commoner woman alone in that snake pit of old traditionalists at The Ecclesiastes, while he goes chasing off. Typical damn investigator. Not like my old mentor, toughened and wise from being at the hard end of The Ethereal. If he wasn’t around me, his reputation was,’ she tutted ‘Whatever you’ve been told or taught about The Ethereal is only a smidge,’ lines drew down her long refined face ‘I was born into its tydes, storms, and whispers, which makes me part of its Natures,’ she scratched her head ‘And that’s weird enough. Y’ know I spent a relative century, but only a year to you and my soldier girl’s minds working for some old fellow and his group, on another side of Reality; never made sense of The Whys and Hows. Now you, like my soldier girl got drenched in it,’ her tongue ran over bright teeth ‘Dangerous. Nearly lost her more than once to its fires. Mind you most of that was down to fools messing about with other toxic mixtures which don’t get on with The Ethereal so well. Thick stories Leidlich. At least she had folk around her and was soldier trained. You,’ she stroked Zwanglos’ face ‘They left you all alone to handle it. Let you wander into caves of time, carry a staff that leeched raw Ethereal. So-called Holy Folk used you while despising and fearing you,’ the lines faded a grimace replacing them ‘And you blew up that Library with your staff, then jumped from the Holinesses into the ranks of the LifeGuard, caused ructions, on both sides. Everyone biding their time debating what to do with you. Poor girl alone, and vulnerable, working for all sides until they were ready to spend you,’
Zwanglos shivered. Hugged herself. The realisation came seeping that all those years from the time Custodian Vernünftig had recruited her out of prison cell, elevated her from minor enterprising thievery, he had set her loose on another ocean, one with no clear charts or friendly ports. All that time she had been alone, seeking a permanent dusk, living off of her wits and senses, lying to herself she was one step ahead of everyone and everything. Telling herself she was her own navigator able to use her irreverence and skills to make herself valuable, a bit of a gem, and not a coin to be finally used up one day.
One tear leaked out, the Custodian reached out one finger to catch it.
‘Sorry Leidlich,’, and there was a genuine pain of concern in that voice ‘You had to know,’
The whiff of strawberry indicated the Captain had returned, pressing a mug into one hand, and folding the other in on the comforting heat.
‘Aww, sweetling,’ the soldier said ‘C’mon in. Time for the clearing out,’
The two women enfolded her, protectively. No crew member was going down that end of the craft until invited in
Urchin, adventurer, once Custodian of the Lord God’s Word, until now a LifeGuard Officer softly wept out too many years of illusions, delusions and angers. Tears falling into the herbal brew.
The Custodian’s words flowing into her.
‘Welcome sister to a Blessed Twilight. Here to think free and move without fear. Life is easier here, free from schemes and prejudices of those crippled weavers. You will be in a warm sun and it will blind them into imagining dusk, and they will not perceive you,’
‘Will it always be so?’ Zwanglos whimpered.
‘We’re making it so sweetling,’ the Captain’s voice was reassuringly hard ‘They cross us, and they can count out the sunrises they’ll see. Now drink up, before tears make it salty,’
‘She’s stopped using my rank. Making me free,’
Dusk again, another boat skimming to another shore, her guardians led her off the beach to a grassy dune.
‘Ten myles east of Elinid. This is where I started off,’ The Custodian said ‘Although a bit shipwrecked,’
Zwanglos turned in that direction.
‘I think I will visit the old hometown for a while. Look up those folk you told me about. Find my feet again,’ she sniffed the air ‘I like the dusk. It’s a clean time,’ she scratched her scalp, hair cut short
‘The itching will fade as the dye settles in,’ the Captain advised her ‘Autumn brown suits you sweetling, as does the short cut. And your eyes too. Keep that skin tanned and no one will recognise you,’
‘More to the soporifics than easing you,’.
There were thank you hugs and she walked off towards the road, confident stride, backpack hefted. Something undefinable was gone. In this comforting place between sharp day and heavy night her mind now fresh with ideas for the future, The Past was left, sinking out at sea.
Another meeting, the Major of LifeGuard and The Custodian to whom none of his detractors dared to make themselves known.
‘Captain Beritt was very tight-lipped. She said they couldn’t find a body,’
‘I was awoken in Deep Night by a manifestation of my once novice who lamented theatrically on loss of innocence and insisted I should approach Vernünftig and lecture him on the care of his apprentices,’
It was wordlessly accepted. Zwanglos rescued and spirited away.
The two men looked over a city at dusk, inhabitants occupied and like so many others innocent to the constant nearness of catastrophe from many directions.
The Major’s mouth tweaked into a bleak smile.
‘We’ll never then, be able to evaluate the measure of the potential disaster they defused, though evidence suggests she was on the path to Extreme Ethereal capabilities,’
The Custodian sighed.
‘Over my long career in The Lord God’s service often have I warned of the dangers of The Ethereal. It cannot be controlled,’
‘Aye. If adventurers were not bad enough. These random unusual folk are taken, and turned into weapons without considering the consequences, or the emotions they generate in folk of small character,’
‘As we both have witnessed,’
Neither man needed to discuss matters further. They had trust in those who had learned to deftly navigate and work in the borderlands between contrasts.
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Footnotes
Leidlich Zwanglos’ adventures figure in
The Day When The Stationery Was No Longer Stationary – #Blog Battle – March Miscellanarian
Revisit, Review, Revise. #Blog Battle : May –Extract
When The War Comes, Will We Have Anyone To Send ? #Blog Battle : June Unaware
Arketre Beritt in:
Those Jagged Remedies (June#BlogBattle-Scar)
More Than Faith October #BlogBattle-Dream
Custodian Nahtinee somewhat disguised in:
A Singular Circumstance. One Summer’s Day (August#BlogBattle- Peculiar)
Writing Despite Computers and Programmes 