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rainbowfic2012-03-18 02:11 pm
kay_brooke) wrote in rainbowfic2012-03-18 02:11 pm
Snow White #13, Tea Rose #12
Name: kay_brooke
Story: The Myrrosta
Colors: Snow White #13 (crane wife), Tea Rose #12 (husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be in vain)
Styles/Supplies: Frame, Seed Beads, Pastels fororigfic_bingo card prompt "give and take"
Word Count: 2,007
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply
Summary: Cheyti wants a child.
Summer in Ceenta Vowei was like nothing Cheyti had ever seen before.
She was from Rednor, and while there was summer there, it wasn't like Ceenta Vowei. In Rednor the snow was slow to melt, and by the time it was all gone summer was fully upon the land, the air still chilly only very early in the morning and warming slowly as the suns rose. Ferns and the small yellow flowers that grew beneath them sprouted abundantly, and the clearings nestled in the mountain valleys exploded in a riot of color, more kinds of flowers than anyone had ever learned crowding each other out for the sunslight. The daytime sky only came in two colors: brilliant, cloudless blue and uniform, slate gray. Rain came in long periods, where the sky would weep for days at a time.
Cheyti had always loved the summer, and loved it only more because of how short it seemed compared to the other seasons. There was really only one other season in Rednor, and that was winter, when the snow came and the days were short and the sky was always a darker, angrier gray than it was in the summer.
In Ceenta Vowei, summer was longer. The snow melted earlier, and by the time the middle of summer came around, the air was always warm, even in the middle of the night. The air was wetter and heavier in the summer, and there weren't as many flowers. But there were leaves, leaves of every shape and shade of green. To Cheyti, who came from a place covered in pines and spruces and other trees that never lost their needle-shaped leaves, the kinds of trees in Ceenta Vowei was almost as overwhelming as the flowers in the valleys.
Almost every day was perfect and cloudless, and the rain came in short bursts and almost always at night, in the form of frightening but exhilarating storms. As the suns set the sky would turn an angry yellow and green and purple, like a bruise. The wind would pick up, whistling around the walls of the palace, and soon thunder would rumble, vibrating the ground slightly. The sky would flash with lightning, followed by fat drops of rain that began falling slowly and then faster and faster until it was like a sheet of water so thick that no one could see through it.
Thunderstorms were rare where Cheyti was from, and she was fascinated by them. Gyeth hated them, and Cheyti had a vague idea that it was from a bad experience in his past, where he had been caught out in the elements, lost, and at the time with little hope of rescue. Gyeth didn't like any inclement weather. He didn't like how unpredictable it was. He didn't like the feel of rain falling on his face; if he was caught out in it he would find shelter as fast as possible, then spend the night shivering, curled up in a ball and staying away from the windows. Cheyti didn't understand why he found the weather so frightening, but it was just one other thing that was true about her husband, and she accepted it. There were things about the storms she didn't like, namely the heavy humidity that always lay thick in the air before the storms came.
She did like the nights when it didn't storm, too, the nights when it was cool and breezy, but warm enough to sit outside. In Rednor, the air was always too chilly at night to sit outside for long. Cheyti had learned she liked nothing better than walking with Gyeth in the garden after the suns had set and their path was lit by the blue-shaded lamps that lined the paths.
It was just such a night when she suggested to Gyeth they take their usual walk, only this time she deliberately led him on a different path than normal. This path was longer and took them all the way around the back of the gardens. Gyeth noticed, but didn't say anything. She knew he knew she had something to say, and that he wouldn't ask her about it until she was ready and brought it up herself. They had been married for two years and knew each other well; Cheyti also suspected that Gyeth had more salkiy ability than he let on. It made her nervous because she was only familiar with ekalaps, not salkiys, but it had been explained to her that they were different. Salkiys were good. Gyeth's grandmother had been a salkiy, and while Gyeth's salkiy blood was thin, sometimes she wondered if he pretended that it was thinner than it really was.
They had walked almost half the path before she took a deep breath and said, “Gyeth.”
“Yes, Cheyti?” he asked, his voice as patient as always.
“I have been thinking about babies,” she said hesitantly. Her grasp of Ceenta Voweiian had improved immeasurably in the last two years, but sometimes she still fumbled, especially when trying to speak about difficult subjects.
Gyeth was silent for several long moments, and then he said, “Babies?”
“Yes,” said Cheyti. “It is not only for me, if that it was you are thinking. It is for you.”
“Kyla--” began Gyeth.
Cheyti nodded and squeezed Gyeth's hand to signal that she heard and understood him. “I know. We have discussed this before. But your sister remains unmarried.”
“That has nothing to do with Kyla's children.”
Cheyti sighed. “I may not be from Ceenta Vowei, but I know what it is like here. A child of an unmarried woman, even the sister of the Emperor, will not be accepted as an heir.”
“They will accept such a one as heir if there is no one else,” said Gyeth. “You know how I feel about this.”
Cheyti did. Although Gyeth and Kyla shared the position of Emperor equally, and even though Kyla was the one who usually dealt with the subjects directly, she was widely considered as little more than Gyeth's mouthpiece instead of his equal. The concept of an Empress was not something the Ceenta Voweiians possessed, nor were they much willing to change that. Men were the rulers in this place, and they had already given enormous latitude to even allow Kyla the position she had.
It wasn't fair, and it was the one thing Gyeth spent a significant time railing against.
“She should be Emperor,” Gyeth continued, even though Cheyti had indeed heard it all before. “She is the older. She is intelligent and capable. She is whole in both mind and body.”
“Gyeth--” Cheyti began, but Gyeth gave her hand a squeeze and she quieted. It was their way of interrupting each other.
“There is no reason I should have any of the responsibilities of Emperor at all,” he said. “It isn't right. You know the only way I feel I can make it up to her is to allow her own children to inherit, not mine.”
Cheyti looked at the ground. “But Kyla has no children and she is not getting younger.”
“She's still young enough to have children,” Gyeth argued.
“But it is not only that,” said Cheyti. “I want a child.”
Gyeth stopped walking and turned to her, folding her in his arms. She allowed herself to be embraced by him, finding comfort in the warmth of his body. “I know,” he said, rubbing his hands in small circles over her back. “Once Kyla has a child and a primary heir is secured, we can have our own.”
“What if Kyla never has a child?” said Cheyti. “The matter of an heir is too important to be left to chance like that.”
“Kyla knows her responsibility as well as any of us,” said Gyeth. “That is all I have to say on the matter.”
It was rare that he took that formal, clipped tone with her, and it hurt. She pulled away from him and the two resumed walking. After a long silence, Cheyti said, “Is the reason that you are uncertain about children is because you are worried they will be like you?”
“It's a concern,” Gyeth admitted. “But that's not the biggest reason. I don't want to have children until Kyla has one.”
Cheyti swallowed hard and decided to just ask the question that kept trying to come out of her mouth on its own. “What if I was to tell you that I am with child now?”
Gyeth stopped walking, and his breath caught in his throat. “Are you?”
“What if I was?” she pressed. “What would you do?”
“Cheyti,” said Gyeth, grabbing her by the arms. “You must tell me right now, if you are with child or not. This is too important to play games about.”
She moved away from his grasp, her frown deepening. “What would you do if I was with child?”
“Are you?” he snapped, and he didn't move toward to reestablish physical contact, and that more than anything told her that he was really upset.
“No,” she whispered, her heart wounded.
He visibly relaxed. “That isn't something to joke about,” he said.
“I just wanted to know,” said Cheyti.
“We must continue to be careful,” said Gyeth. “We can't have children until after Kyla has safely delivered one of her own.”
“We do not know when that will be!” Cheyti said, her hurt turning to anger. “I do not want to live my life based on what your sister does!”
“You married into this situation,” said Gyeth. “You acted like you knew that when it happened. All of us must base our lives on the actions of other people. None of us are free to do what we want. We have responsibilities that we must follow.”
Cheyti said nothing, because that was her way of telling him that she was upset.
“Promise me that you understand,” said Gyeth.
She didn't say anything.
“Promise me!” said Gyeth, grabbing her hand.
She signed and looked up at the sky. Clouds were rolling in, and the tops of the trees were swaying in a breeze that had sprung up while they were walking. A storm might be coming, and they would have to go in soon. If Gyeth was caught in the rain he would be in an even fouler mood the rest of the night.
She understood his reasoning for not wanting children now. It was a good reason. But Kyla wasn't married, and she didn't seem inclined to marry any time soon. And then more time would pass before she got with child, and then even longer before she had the baby, and that was assuming that she had a healthy baby. What if it died? Would Gyeth insist on waiting until she had another one? What if she was barren? Would Gyeth never want to have children, living forever in the delusion that his sister would still be able to provide heirs? Would Cheyti herself grow too old to have children if Gyeth waited too long?
She wanted to ask Gyeth these questions, but she knew they would have to wait for another night. He was too upset and aggravated right now to listen to her. Another night then, during another walk. She would have to bring it up again. Maybe if she did it often enough he would start to see things her way, and maybe he wouldn't be so willing to dismiss the possibility that they shouldn't depend so much on Kyla.
Cheyti understood that they had responsibilities. She understood that they weren't free to do everything they wanted. She knew the situation was complicated. But she also knew that she couldn't bear to be childless for much longer, for both her sake and the sake of all of Ceenta Vowei. She knew they needed the comfort of knowing there was at least one heir.
But it was a subject that would have to wait for another time. She took Gyeth's hand again and the two finished their walk around the garden.
kay_brookeStory: The Myrrosta
Colors: Snow White #13 (crane wife), Tea Rose #12 (husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be in vain)
Styles/Supplies: Frame, Seed Beads, Pastels for
origfic_bingo card prompt "give and take"Word Count: 2,007
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply
Summary: Cheyti wants a child.
Summer in Ceenta Vowei was like nothing Cheyti had ever seen before.
She was from Rednor, and while there was summer there, it wasn't like Ceenta Vowei. In Rednor the snow was slow to melt, and by the time it was all gone summer was fully upon the land, the air still chilly only very early in the morning and warming slowly as the suns rose. Ferns and the small yellow flowers that grew beneath them sprouted abundantly, and the clearings nestled in the mountain valleys exploded in a riot of color, more kinds of flowers than anyone had ever learned crowding each other out for the sunslight. The daytime sky only came in two colors: brilliant, cloudless blue and uniform, slate gray. Rain came in long periods, where the sky would weep for days at a time.
Cheyti had always loved the summer, and loved it only more because of how short it seemed compared to the other seasons. There was really only one other season in Rednor, and that was winter, when the snow came and the days were short and the sky was always a darker, angrier gray than it was in the summer.
In Ceenta Vowei, summer was longer. The snow melted earlier, and by the time the middle of summer came around, the air was always warm, even in the middle of the night. The air was wetter and heavier in the summer, and there weren't as many flowers. But there were leaves, leaves of every shape and shade of green. To Cheyti, who came from a place covered in pines and spruces and other trees that never lost their needle-shaped leaves, the kinds of trees in Ceenta Vowei was almost as overwhelming as the flowers in the valleys.
Almost every day was perfect and cloudless, and the rain came in short bursts and almost always at night, in the form of frightening but exhilarating storms. As the suns set the sky would turn an angry yellow and green and purple, like a bruise. The wind would pick up, whistling around the walls of the palace, and soon thunder would rumble, vibrating the ground slightly. The sky would flash with lightning, followed by fat drops of rain that began falling slowly and then faster and faster until it was like a sheet of water so thick that no one could see through it.
Thunderstorms were rare where Cheyti was from, and she was fascinated by them. Gyeth hated them, and Cheyti had a vague idea that it was from a bad experience in his past, where he had been caught out in the elements, lost, and at the time with little hope of rescue. Gyeth didn't like any inclement weather. He didn't like how unpredictable it was. He didn't like the feel of rain falling on his face; if he was caught out in it he would find shelter as fast as possible, then spend the night shivering, curled up in a ball and staying away from the windows. Cheyti didn't understand why he found the weather so frightening, but it was just one other thing that was true about her husband, and she accepted it. There were things about the storms she didn't like, namely the heavy humidity that always lay thick in the air before the storms came.
She did like the nights when it didn't storm, too, the nights when it was cool and breezy, but warm enough to sit outside. In Rednor, the air was always too chilly at night to sit outside for long. Cheyti had learned she liked nothing better than walking with Gyeth in the garden after the suns had set and their path was lit by the blue-shaded lamps that lined the paths.
It was just such a night when she suggested to Gyeth they take their usual walk, only this time she deliberately led him on a different path than normal. This path was longer and took them all the way around the back of the gardens. Gyeth noticed, but didn't say anything. She knew he knew she had something to say, and that he wouldn't ask her about it until she was ready and brought it up herself. They had been married for two years and knew each other well; Cheyti also suspected that Gyeth had more salkiy ability than he let on. It made her nervous because she was only familiar with ekalaps, not salkiys, but it had been explained to her that they were different. Salkiys were good. Gyeth's grandmother had been a salkiy, and while Gyeth's salkiy blood was thin, sometimes she wondered if he pretended that it was thinner than it really was.
They had walked almost half the path before she took a deep breath and said, “Gyeth.”
“Yes, Cheyti?” he asked, his voice as patient as always.
“I have been thinking about babies,” she said hesitantly. Her grasp of Ceenta Voweiian had improved immeasurably in the last two years, but sometimes she still fumbled, especially when trying to speak about difficult subjects.
Gyeth was silent for several long moments, and then he said, “Babies?”
“Yes,” said Cheyti. “It is not only for me, if that it was you are thinking. It is for you.”
“Kyla--” began Gyeth.
Cheyti nodded and squeezed Gyeth's hand to signal that she heard and understood him. “I know. We have discussed this before. But your sister remains unmarried.”
“That has nothing to do with Kyla's children.”
Cheyti sighed. “I may not be from Ceenta Vowei, but I know what it is like here. A child of an unmarried woman, even the sister of the Emperor, will not be accepted as an heir.”
“They will accept such a one as heir if there is no one else,” said Gyeth. “You know how I feel about this.”
Cheyti did. Although Gyeth and Kyla shared the position of Emperor equally, and even though Kyla was the one who usually dealt with the subjects directly, she was widely considered as little more than Gyeth's mouthpiece instead of his equal. The concept of an Empress was not something the Ceenta Voweiians possessed, nor were they much willing to change that. Men were the rulers in this place, and they had already given enormous latitude to even allow Kyla the position she had.
It wasn't fair, and it was the one thing Gyeth spent a significant time railing against.
“She should be Emperor,” Gyeth continued, even though Cheyti had indeed heard it all before. “She is the older. She is intelligent and capable. She is whole in both mind and body.”
“Gyeth--” Cheyti began, but Gyeth gave her hand a squeeze and she quieted. It was their way of interrupting each other.
“There is no reason I should have any of the responsibilities of Emperor at all,” he said. “It isn't right. You know the only way I feel I can make it up to her is to allow her own children to inherit, not mine.”
Cheyti looked at the ground. “But Kyla has no children and she is not getting younger.”
“She's still young enough to have children,” Gyeth argued.
“But it is not only that,” said Cheyti. “I want a child.”
Gyeth stopped walking and turned to her, folding her in his arms. She allowed herself to be embraced by him, finding comfort in the warmth of his body. “I know,” he said, rubbing his hands in small circles over her back. “Once Kyla has a child and a primary heir is secured, we can have our own.”
“What if Kyla never has a child?” said Cheyti. “The matter of an heir is too important to be left to chance like that.”
“Kyla knows her responsibility as well as any of us,” said Gyeth. “That is all I have to say on the matter.”
It was rare that he took that formal, clipped tone with her, and it hurt. She pulled away from him and the two resumed walking. After a long silence, Cheyti said, “Is the reason that you are uncertain about children is because you are worried they will be like you?”
“It's a concern,” Gyeth admitted. “But that's not the biggest reason. I don't want to have children until Kyla has one.”
Cheyti swallowed hard and decided to just ask the question that kept trying to come out of her mouth on its own. “What if I was to tell you that I am with child now?”
Gyeth stopped walking, and his breath caught in his throat. “Are you?”
“What if I was?” she pressed. “What would you do?”
“Cheyti,” said Gyeth, grabbing her by the arms. “You must tell me right now, if you are with child or not. This is too important to play games about.”
She moved away from his grasp, her frown deepening. “What would you do if I was with child?”
“Are you?” he snapped, and he didn't move toward to reestablish physical contact, and that more than anything told her that he was really upset.
“No,” she whispered, her heart wounded.
He visibly relaxed. “That isn't something to joke about,” he said.
“I just wanted to know,” said Cheyti.
“We must continue to be careful,” said Gyeth. “We can't have children until after Kyla has safely delivered one of her own.”
“We do not know when that will be!” Cheyti said, her hurt turning to anger. “I do not want to live my life based on what your sister does!”
“You married into this situation,” said Gyeth. “You acted like you knew that when it happened. All of us must base our lives on the actions of other people. None of us are free to do what we want. We have responsibilities that we must follow.”
Cheyti said nothing, because that was her way of telling him that she was upset.
“Promise me that you understand,” said Gyeth.
She didn't say anything.
“Promise me!” said Gyeth, grabbing her hand.
She signed and looked up at the sky. Clouds were rolling in, and the tops of the trees were swaying in a breeze that had sprung up while they were walking. A storm might be coming, and they would have to go in soon. If Gyeth was caught in the rain he would be in an even fouler mood the rest of the night.
She understood his reasoning for not wanting children now. It was a good reason. But Kyla wasn't married, and she didn't seem inclined to marry any time soon. And then more time would pass before she got with child, and then even longer before she had the baby, and that was assuming that she had a healthy baby. What if it died? Would Gyeth insist on waiting until she had another one? What if she was barren? Would Gyeth never want to have children, living forever in the delusion that his sister would still be able to provide heirs? Would Cheyti herself grow too old to have children if Gyeth waited too long?
She wanted to ask Gyeth these questions, but she knew they would have to wait for another night. He was too upset and aggravated right now to listen to her. Another night then, during another walk. She would have to bring it up again. Maybe if she did it often enough he would start to see things her way, and maybe he wouldn't be so willing to dismiss the possibility that they shouldn't depend so much on Kyla.
Cheyti understood that they had responsibilities. She understood that they weren't free to do everything they wanted. She knew the situation was complicated. But she also knew that she couldn't bear to be childless for much longer, for both her sake and the sake of all of Ceenta Vowei. She knew they needed the comfort of knowing there was at least one heir.
But it was a subject that would have to wait for another time. She took Gyeth's hand again and the two finished their walk around the garden.
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Thank you for reading!
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Nice job.
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I probably should have written this piece before the other one, because the other one makes a little more sense now. I have the whole sequence of events in my head, but which scenes I write are based on whim, mostly.