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rainbowfic2023-12-30 08:57 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2023-12-30 08:57 pm
Entry tags:
Azul #7; Light Black #23 [Starfall]
Name: Establishing Credentials
Story: Starfall
Colors: Azul #7 (Bond); Light Black #23 (beg)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 2352
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some memory issues, displacement.
Notes: North Fort 1317; Leaira Modelen, Tamman, Ennan Hilten, Bryoll Kilvern, Marran Delver. (Continues directly from Snowed In.)
Summary: Leaira discovers more about North Fort and its inhabitants.
Leaira returned from the wash room, rubbing her hair dry with a coarse towel. Once she'd recovered herself a little, she'd found she still had some of Governor Delver's blood on her, so she'd risked discovering what North Fort had to offer in the way of facilities. To her relief, there had been heated water from somewhere, even if also strict instructions pinned up about how much of it she might use at any one time.
The guest chamber's severe stone edges were softened by rugs and thick hangings, and not especially cold, despite everyone's talk about the blizzard. The firestone hearth certainly worked. Leaira eyed it warily. She'd been brought up to believe a person should be careful with firestone - all types of starstone in fact—but it didn't seem to be doing anything more alarming than warming the room, so she let it be.
Feeling almost human again, she climbed back into the large bed. There wasn't much else to do, and her adventures of the morning on both sides of the Paths had left her shaken and washed out.
She lay there for some time— hard to tell how long. The room didn't have a clock, the daylight was firmly shuttered out, and she heard only distant sounds of people moving about occasionally, muted by thick stone walls.
Someone knocked at the door. Leaira jumped, and then hastily scrambled out of bed, pulling on the large jumper and military trousers. By the time she emerged more or less dressed into the outer chamber, the newcomer had let himself in.
"Hello, imai." A boy was standing there with a mug in his hands. He looked to be in his mid-teens, with black hair and light brown skin and he'd spoken with the low burr of a Northlander accent. Someone at Starfall almost came to Leaira's mind as she heard it, but immediately slid away from her.
Leaira halted at the door. "What do you want?"
"I'm Tamman. I came to see if everything was all right," he said. "Oh, and I brought you some tea."
Leaira pulled a face. "Thank you, I suppose. What sort?"
The boy shrugged. "It's hot." He held the mug out to her. "There you are. Is everything all right?"
"It seems to be."
Leaira took the mug and the boy walked around the room, examining the firestone hearth rather too closely for her liking, and then trotted into the other rooms to do the same, before returning to the main room of the suite.
"It looks like everything's been seen to," he concluded. "Is there anything else you want? I can fetch it for you— as long as we have it."
Leaira put the hot tea down on the nearest flat surface—the desk. "Aren't you too young to be a soldier?"
"I'm from the village," Tamman said, as if that explained everything. "I'm helping out because of how things are."
"And how are things?"
Tamman bit his lip. "Oh. You know. With the snow and everything."
"I see," said Leaira, although she didn't yet. That was evidently going to take time. "I'm Adeleaira Modelen—the librarian from Starfall Manor. And if you wouldn't mind, I would like pen and paper—and a book, if that's allowed. I don't have anything to do here."
Tamman gave a quick nod. "I expect I can find something," he said. He slipped out of the door, his footsteps fading away down the corridor beyond.
Leaira wasn't entirely sure how a military fort that answered to Starfall Manor should be run, but snow and rations and a seeming lack of staffing didn't add up to anything good. Captain Delver had said something about the weather having been as bad as this for a while and not likely to change. Leaira's mind strayed back to the creatures of ice and snow she and the Governor had faced at Starfall. He'd been familiar with them, hadn't he? Might they be here, too? She rubbed her forehead. If only she could remember more!
Tamman returned after about twenty minutes with a notebook and a pencil. "There," he said, pressing them into her waiting hands. "I'll see you again soon, Imai Modelen."
"I do seem to be stuck here," agreed Leaira. She sighed lightly as Tamman pulled the door shut behind him, but took the paper and pencil over to the desk. She shifted about in the chair, settling down to put on paper everything she still remembered about Starfall—where she came from, and what had happened since - before she forgot anything else.
She had barely written a page — and that far too full of blanks — when Soldier Hilten rapped on the chamber door and announced that he'd been sent to bring her down to the Colonel's study. Leaira nodded, and then followed him out. She'd be glad to explain anyway. Maybe once she had, they'd treat her like a proper guest and not a thinly disguised prisoner.
After making it down two flights of stairs to the ground floor and walking along a corridor that stretched on for what must be the full width of the fort, they reached Colonel Tirklian's study, but on walking inside, Leaira found that the Colonel remained conspicuous by her absence.
"Ah, Imai Modelen, isn't it?" Another officer, new to her, came over. He gave her a curt nod, before signalling with his hand for Hilten to leave. He was stocky rather than tall, with thick brown hair and pale but rather sallow skin. He gestured at her to take the chair at the desk. "I'm Lieutenant Kilvern. Captain Delver asked me to see you. I believe your documentation from Starfall is supposed to be inside this item?" He reached over to pick up Leaira's quilted coat from a shelf beside him, and held it up between finger and thumb, as if it might bite.
Leaira winced. The coat was stiffened and stained with dried blood, more than she'd realised when she'd been stumbling in and out of the Paths. The Governor fell again in her mind's eye. She clenched her teeth.
"Well?" said Kilvern. He stretched out to hand the garment over. "If you will?"
Leaira shook herself and took it. She emptied the contents of the pockets out onto the desk while Kilvern watched. Then she lifted her head. "Do you have a knife? Or a paper knife will probably do."
Starfall personnel had identity documents placed inside the lining. Leaira had, until now, thought that ridiculous. Despite the training they'd given her, she had not thought she was in much real danger of getting lost on the Paths. After all, it was only the Pathwalkers who regularly took that risk, not the librarian. But here she was, trapped twenty years in the past, and glad of something to explain her presence. The papers had been sewn inside to prevent their loss and to avoid discovery until the carrier wanted them seen. With some remnant of future knowledge swimming around in her head, Leaira now understood both precautions.
Lieutenant Kilvern rifled around in the desk drawer and then passed a small, thin-bladed knife over. His brows closed together as he watched her cut through the stitching and the moment she'd pulled out the flat, sealed packet that held the documents, he put out his hand for the knife's return.
Leaira stifled comments about the likelihood of her trying to stab him with it or getting very far if she did. She let him have the knife, then opened the packet and passed that over to Kilvern as well, watching him tug out the thin square of paper housed inside it.
He studied it and gave a short grunt. "Seems in order," he said, and then placed both down on the desk. "Of course, the Colonel will also need to take a look."
"When?" asked Leaira. "I understand she must be busy, but I am a Starfall official. That makes you all answerable to me rather than the other way around, if we're being formal about things. I don't want to be locked up for days before she deigns to cast her eye over it."
Kilvern raised his head, giving her an unreadable stare. "Colonel Tirklian will look at this when she's able. Now, how about the rest?"
"The rest?" Leaira then turned her head and realised he meant the remaining contents of her pockets—which included the letter—the letter from, oh, from someone whose name wouldn't quite fit into her head, that had got her into this mess. "No!" she said, diving forward to stop him picking it up, but he got there first. "That's private! You mustn't!"
Lieutenant Kilvern raised an eyebrow. "I'm not interested in your affairs," he said. "I just need to make sure you're not carrying anything incriminating. You may take the rest already, if you want."
"That's Starfall business. You can't," she said, making a grab for it that only resulted in her tearing one edge of the paper. She drew herself up. "The Colonel may if she pleases, but not anyone else."
Kilvern shrugged and unfolded it. A dent deepened between his brows. "What sort of code is this?"
"Archivist's notes," said Leaira. When he looked at her blankly, she said, "I'm a librarian, what do you expect?" She reached for it again, and tried not to think about it coming into Marran Delver's possession. If anybody here might work out that it held information about the future, it would be him, and since he was the subject of it, he must not read it. She swallowed. "Give it back! If I can't speak to the Colonel, then I demand to see the Captain! He wouldn't do this!"
"Oh? Would I not?" said Captain Delver entering. He kicked the door shut behind them as Leaira and Kilvern both started. He paused in the doorway, looking from one to the other, and then shrugged. He strode towards them, removing his gloves and throwing them onto the desk. "Well, what is it I wouldn't do? Kilvern?"
The Lieutenant stood to attention and gave a quick nod. "Captain. Prisoner has a letter in code that she refuses to let me examine."
"It is not in code," said Leaira, looking to Delver. "It's private, confidential, Starfall Manor business. I've given him my papers, so you can work out whether or not I really am who I say—until and unless you decide I'm a fraud, you ought to respect my wishes."
The Captain advanced and held out his hand to Kilvern for the letter. The Lieutenant obliged.
"Please. Don't." Leaira's mouth dried. She could barely get the words out. All she could remember of what happened if a person travelled through time on the Paths was that there were no rules, not that any of the scholars agreed on. Maybe it was set, a circle that went round and round; maybe instead you kept creating new versions of your own history. There was no guarantee that she couldn't send Delver's life spinning off in the wrong direction and there was no end to the damage that could cause.
The Captain gave her a brief, uninterested glance and then folded the letter over. "Do the papers look genuine, Kilvern?"
"I believe so, Captain."
"Very well. Then I'll lock this away until the Colonel is able to decide the matter." He stepped nearer to Leaira. "Will that be acceptable?"
Leaira nodded. "You promise you won't look at it?"
"Yes," the Captain said. "Kilvern, I'll finish dealing with this. You go oversee Torlu's efforts in the hall." He crossed to a cabinet behind the desk, unlocking the door of a small safe and placing the letter inside.
"Captain!" Kilvern marched away.
Once he had gone, Delver turned back to Leaira. "Well," he said, a faint smile haunting his face, "how long have we known each other, Imai Modelen?"
"Hardly any time at all," she said. Her face heated. She really was an awful liar.
The smile became fully apparent. "That was what I thought, but you seem to have developed a surprising measure of faith in my sense of honour. Or are you trying to play us off against the other? I warn you now, that won't work."
"I just couldn't have him reading that. That's all," said Leaira. She folded her arms in against her body. "It doesn't matter what it is, it's Starfall's business – I can't let anyone else get hold of it."
"I see," said Delver. "Well, enough of that. Where is this document of yours?" He ran his fingers across the sheets of paper on the desk and then picked up hers. "Here we are—Starfall's Librarian, yes—yes. The proper stamp and watermark—well, that's something. Not much detail, is there?"
"There never is," Leaira told him. "It's a rule. You know that, being stationed here."
"We've never had a visitor from Starfall descend on us without warning or explanation before, not since I arrived."
Leaira stiffened, waiting for his response.
He lifted his head; his forehead creased. "Don't worry," he said more gently. "I can see it looks genuine, but I'm not commanding officer, thank all the Powers. Look, go back upstairs and rest. None of us can go anywhere until the blizzard passes over. Physician Fyler will send someone to check up on you presently. You won't be forgotten. I'd do more if I could—I wish it was in my power—but I'm afraid I have other, more urgent duties to attend to."
"Thank you," said Leaira flatly.
Something lurched in her stomach. Delver was the only person she knew here, but he had no idea who she was; only strangers treated each other so politely. There wasn't anything she could say to break through to him. How could there be? When she'd first met him, she'd bridled at the way he treated her as if he knew her. Now she was meeting him for the first time all over again, she could have shaken him for not knowing her.
Story: Starfall
Colors: Azul #7 (Bond); Light Black #23 (beg)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 2352
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some memory issues, displacement.
Notes: North Fort 1317; Leaira Modelen, Tamman, Ennan Hilten, Bryoll Kilvern, Marran Delver. (Continues directly from Snowed In.)
Summary: Leaira discovers more about North Fort and its inhabitants.
Leaira returned from the wash room, rubbing her hair dry with a coarse towel. Once she'd recovered herself a little, she'd found she still had some of Governor Delver's blood on her, so she'd risked discovering what North Fort had to offer in the way of facilities. To her relief, there had been heated water from somewhere, even if also strict instructions pinned up about how much of it she might use at any one time.
The guest chamber's severe stone edges were softened by rugs and thick hangings, and not especially cold, despite everyone's talk about the blizzard. The firestone hearth certainly worked. Leaira eyed it warily. She'd been brought up to believe a person should be careful with firestone - all types of starstone in fact—but it didn't seem to be doing anything more alarming than warming the room, so she let it be.
Feeling almost human again, she climbed back into the large bed. There wasn't much else to do, and her adventures of the morning on both sides of the Paths had left her shaken and washed out.
She lay there for some time— hard to tell how long. The room didn't have a clock, the daylight was firmly shuttered out, and she heard only distant sounds of people moving about occasionally, muted by thick stone walls.
Someone knocked at the door. Leaira jumped, and then hastily scrambled out of bed, pulling on the large jumper and military trousers. By the time she emerged more or less dressed into the outer chamber, the newcomer had let himself in.
"Hello, imai." A boy was standing there with a mug in his hands. He looked to be in his mid-teens, with black hair and light brown skin and he'd spoken with the low burr of a Northlander accent. Someone at Starfall almost came to Leaira's mind as she heard it, but immediately slid away from her.
Leaira halted at the door. "What do you want?"
"I'm Tamman. I came to see if everything was all right," he said. "Oh, and I brought you some tea."
Leaira pulled a face. "Thank you, I suppose. What sort?"
The boy shrugged. "It's hot." He held the mug out to her. "There you are. Is everything all right?"
"It seems to be."
Leaira took the mug and the boy walked around the room, examining the firestone hearth rather too closely for her liking, and then trotted into the other rooms to do the same, before returning to the main room of the suite.
"It looks like everything's been seen to," he concluded. "Is there anything else you want? I can fetch it for you— as long as we have it."
Leaira put the hot tea down on the nearest flat surface—the desk. "Aren't you too young to be a soldier?"
"I'm from the village," Tamman said, as if that explained everything. "I'm helping out because of how things are."
"And how are things?"
Tamman bit his lip. "Oh. You know. With the snow and everything."
"I see," said Leaira, although she didn't yet. That was evidently going to take time. "I'm Adeleaira Modelen—the librarian from Starfall Manor. And if you wouldn't mind, I would like pen and paper—and a book, if that's allowed. I don't have anything to do here."
Tamman gave a quick nod. "I expect I can find something," he said. He slipped out of the door, his footsteps fading away down the corridor beyond.
Leaira wasn't entirely sure how a military fort that answered to Starfall Manor should be run, but snow and rations and a seeming lack of staffing didn't add up to anything good. Captain Delver had said something about the weather having been as bad as this for a while and not likely to change. Leaira's mind strayed back to the creatures of ice and snow she and the Governor had faced at Starfall. He'd been familiar with them, hadn't he? Might they be here, too? She rubbed her forehead. If only she could remember more!
Tamman returned after about twenty minutes with a notebook and a pencil. "There," he said, pressing them into her waiting hands. "I'll see you again soon, Imai Modelen."
"I do seem to be stuck here," agreed Leaira. She sighed lightly as Tamman pulled the door shut behind him, but took the paper and pencil over to the desk. She shifted about in the chair, settling down to put on paper everything she still remembered about Starfall—where she came from, and what had happened since - before she forgot anything else.
She had barely written a page — and that far too full of blanks — when Soldier Hilten rapped on the chamber door and announced that he'd been sent to bring her down to the Colonel's study. Leaira nodded, and then followed him out. She'd be glad to explain anyway. Maybe once she had, they'd treat her like a proper guest and not a thinly disguised prisoner.
After making it down two flights of stairs to the ground floor and walking along a corridor that stretched on for what must be the full width of the fort, they reached Colonel Tirklian's study, but on walking inside, Leaira found that the Colonel remained conspicuous by her absence.
"Ah, Imai Modelen, isn't it?" Another officer, new to her, came over. He gave her a curt nod, before signalling with his hand for Hilten to leave. He was stocky rather than tall, with thick brown hair and pale but rather sallow skin. He gestured at her to take the chair at the desk. "I'm Lieutenant Kilvern. Captain Delver asked me to see you. I believe your documentation from Starfall is supposed to be inside this item?" He reached over to pick up Leaira's quilted coat from a shelf beside him, and held it up between finger and thumb, as if it might bite.
Leaira winced. The coat was stiffened and stained with dried blood, more than she'd realised when she'd been stumbling in and out of the Paths. The Governor fell again in her mind's eye. She clenched her teeth.
"Well?" said Kilvern. He stretched out to hand the garment over. "If you will?"
Leaira shook herself and took it. She emptied the contents of the pockets out onto the desk while Kilvern watched. Then she lifted her head. "Do you have a knife? Or a paper knife will probably do."
Starfall personnel had identity documents placed inside the lining. Leaira had, until now, thought that ridiculous. Despite the training they'd given her, she had not thought she was in much real danger of getting lost on the Paths. After all, it was only the Pathwalkers who regularly took that risk, not the librarian. But here she was, trapped twenty years in the past, and glad of something to explain her presence. The papers had been sewn inside to prevent their loss and to avoid discovery until the carrier wanted them seen. With some remnant of future knowledge swimming around in her head, Leaira now understood both precautions.
Lieutenant Kilvern rifled around in the desk drawer and then passed a small, thin-bladed knife over. His brows closed together as he watched her cut through the stitching and the moment she'd pulled out the flat, sealed packet that held the documents, he put out his hand for the knife's return.
Leaira stifled comments about the likelihood of her trying to stab him with it or getting very far if she did. She let him have the knife, then opened the packet and passed that over to Kilvern as well, watching him tug out the thin square of paper housed inside it.
He studied it and gave a short grunt. "Seems in order," he said, and then placed both down on the desk. "Of course, the Colonel will also need to take a look."
"When?" asked Leaira. "I understand she must be busy, but I am a Starfall official. That makes you all answerable to me rather than the other way around, if we're being formal about things. I don't want to be locked up for days before she deigns to cast her eye over it."
Kilvern raised his head, giving her an unreadable stare. "Colonel Tirklian will look at this when she's able. Now, how about the rest?"
"The rest?" Leaira then turned her head and realised he meant the remaining contents of her pockets—which included the letter—the letter from, oh, from someone whose name wouldn't quite fit into her head, that had got her into this mess. "No!" she said, diving forward to stop him picking it up, but he got there first. "That's private! You mustn't!"
Lieutenant Kilvern raised an eyebrow. "I'm not interested in your affairs," he said. "I just need to make sure you're not carrying anything incriminating. You may take the rest already, if you want."
"That's Starfall business. You can't," she said, making a grab for it that only resulted in her tearing one edge of the paper. She drew herself up. "The Colonel may if she pleases, but not anyone else."
Kilvern shrugged and unfolded it. A dent deepened between his brows. "What sort of code is this?"
"Archivist's notes," said Leaira. When he looked at her blankly, she said, "I'm a librarian, what do you expect?" She reached for it again, and tried not to think about it coming into Marran Delver's possession. If anybody here might work out that it held information about the future, it would be him, and since he was the subject of it, he must not read it. She swallowed. "Give it back! If I can't speak to the Colonel, then I demand to see the Captain! He wouldn't do this!"
"Oh? Would I not?" said Captain Delver entering. He kicked the door shut behind them as Leaira and Kilvern both started. He paused in the doorway, looking from one to the other, and then shrugged. He strode towards them, removing his gloves and throwing them onto the desk. "Well, what is it I wouldn't do? Kilvern?"
The Lieutenant stood to attention and gave a quick nod. "Captain. Prisoner has a letter in code that she refuses to let me examine."
"It is not in code," said Leaira, looking to Delver. "It's private, confidential, Starfall Manor business. I've given him my papers, so you can work out whether or not I really am who I say—until and unless you decide I'm a fraud, you ought to respect my wishes."
The Captain advanced and held out his hand to Kilvern for the letter. The Lieutenant obliged.
"Please. Don't." Leaira's mouth dried. She could barely get the words out. All she could remember of what happened if a person travelled through time on the Paths was that there were no rules, not that any of the scholars agreed on. Maybe it was set, a circle that went round and round; maybe instead you kept creating new versions of your own history. There was no guarantee that she couldn't send Delver's life spinning off in the wrong direction and there was no end to the damage that could cause.
The Captain gave her a brief, uninterested glance and then folded the letter over. "Do the papers look genuine, Kilvern?"
"I believe so, Captain."
"Very well. Then I'll lock this away until the Colonel is able to decide the matter." He stepped nearer to Leaira. "Will that be acceptable?"
Leaira nodded. "You promise you won't look at it?"
"Yes," the Captain said. "Kilvern, I'll finish dealing with this. You go oversee Torlu's efforts in the hall." He crossed to a cabinet behind the desk, unlocking the door of a small safe and placing the letter inside.
"Captain!" Kilvern marched away.
Once he had gone, Delver turned back to Leaira. "Well," he said, a faint smile haunting his face, "how long have we known each other, Imai Modelen?"
"Hardly any time at all," she said. Her face heated. She really was an awful liar.
The smile became fully apparent. "That was what I thought, but you seem to have developed a surprising measure of faith in my sense of honour. Or are you trying to play us off against the other? I warn you now, that won't work."
"I just couldn't have him reading that. That's all," said Leaira. She folded her arms in against her body. "It doesn't matter what it is, it's Starfall's business – I can't let anyone else get hold of it."
"I see," said Delver. "Well, enough of that. Where is this document of yours?" He ran his fingers across the sheets of paper on the desk and then picked up hers. "Here we are—Starfall's Librarian, yes—yes. The proper stamp and watermark—well, that's something. Not much detail, is there?"
"There never is," Leaira told him. "It's a rule. You know that, being stationed here."
"We've never had a visitor from Starfall descend on us without warning or explanation before, not since I arrived."
Leaira stiffened, waiting for his response.
He lifted his head; his forehead creased. "Don't worry," he said more gently. "I can see it looks genuine, but I'm not commanding officer, thank all the Powers. Look, go back upstairs and rest. None of us can go anywhere until the blizzard passes over. Physician Fyler will send someone to check up on you presently. You won't be forgotten. I'd do more if I could—I wish it was in my power—but I'm afraid I have other, more urgent duties to attend to."
"Thank you," said Leaira flatly.
Something lurched in her stomach. Delver was the only person she knew here, but he had no idea who she was; only strangers treated each other so politely. There wasn't anything she could say to break through to him. How could there be? When she'd first met him, she'd bridled at the way he treated her as if he knew her. Now she was meeting him for the first time all over again, she could have shaken him for not knowing her.
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That'd be the time loop, Bob.
(I like it.)
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(I like it.)
Heheh, and thank you! <3
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