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rainbowfic2025-04-23 03:45 pm
paradoxcase) wrote in rainbowfic2025-04-23 03:45 pm
Dogwood Rose #3, Fresh Thyme #2 [The Fulcrum]
Name: The Train to Duqhora
Story: The Fulcrum
Colors: Dogwood Rose #3: white: silence & secrecy, Fresh Thyme #2: Wind Up
Styles and Supplies: Panorama, Silhouette, Life Drawing, Calendar Page (National Take A Chance Day)
Word Count: 4659
Rating: T
Warnings: Fantasy Drug (Ab)use
Characters: Setsiana, Liselye, Qhoroali
In-Universe Date: Spring and Summer of 2050
Summary: Setsiana, Liselye, and Qhoroali take a train to Duqhora.
Their destination was not much farther past the point where Setsiana had escaped. Setsiana perceived it at first as a large gathering of people, but as they approached, she saw that the majority of them had formed into lines in front a few different storefronts, with a number milling around in small clusters. The men didn’t seem to be dressed that differently from the way they were in 1911, but she noticed that many of the women had frills on their blouses in the same style as the woman from earlier had had; it must be a fashion now. When they came in range of the storefronts, she saw that they were actually ticket counters, like the ones where you would buy admittance to plays, with a large building behind them and to the west.
Qhoroali and Liselye put the three of them in one of the lines. Setsiana could see a number of signs in large lettering in Vrelian (with smaller lettering in the Capital Dialect) on the ticket counter in front of them, which were more or less completely comprehensible to her, despite having some odd wordings:
NWÓRZA’S TRAIN PORT
PIER 2 - DUQHORA’S TRAIN
3:000 WORKING HRS AT EACH DAY
2:000 LEISURE HRS AT NYOACELYA LYUYA
NO SERVICE AT CIRIA
NO TODAY’S TICKETS FOR SALE HERE
It was strange to be able to read the text when she could not understand the language being spoken around her. She remembered Liselye talking about a “train” back at the apartment, but she was only familiar with the word being used to describe the long tail of a child’s kite, or the long tail of hangers-on who accompanied the Governor when he walked in the city. What it could mean here, she didn’t know.
They reached the front of the line, and Qhoroali got them tickets for a date at the end of the third month, which she handed to Liselye. Setsiana could not understand what the ticket-seller said in reply. No money changed hands; one of the benefits of appearing to be a priestess, she guessed. When was it now? It couldn’t possibly be near the third month, with the weather as cool as it was.
She was led away from the crowds and down a side-street that led out into a small abandoned spot of greenery. There, Qhoroali produced bottles of qoire, and they did a lightning-fast time travel to, presumably, the end of the third month. When they arrived, it was early in the morning on a summer day - not early for a priestess, but early for most commoners, and the temperature given that the sun was still so far in the east promised to make her regret that she was wearing a black dress during the afternoon.
They returned to the ticket counters, which were still almost as busy here in the morning, but walked past them to the large building. A man dressed all in green, standing at its entrance, said a word which didn’t really sound much like the word “tickets” to Setsiana, and Liselye showed him the tickets and they were allowed to enter.
Inside the building, the roof was open to the sky, the walls apparently only being used to prevent casual access to the area. There were long, wide strips of flooring alternating with great long pits, and little bridges across the pits. Inside some of the pits were huge, many-segmented machines made of metal, although she could not see many details from where they had entered. They crossed one bridge, which seemed to be made of two hinged halves; beneath the bridge, Setsiana could see a pair of long metal tracks, crossed with slats of wood. On the other side, they walked a long ways to the eastern side of the building where one of the machines stood on the tracks. It seemed frightfully complex, and had something that looked like nothing so much as a round chimney protruding upwards from its first segment, but as they approached, she saw that the remaining segments were flatter-topped and more uniform.
A little ways along from the front of the machine with the chimney was an open door, with steps leading up to it. Another man dressed in green stood near it, and took Liselye’s offered tickets and marked each of them with a stamp, before handing them back. The narrow steps leading to the door were not really big enough to accommodate all of them in a row, but while Liselye ascended in front of her, Qhoroali came behind and forced her to walk between them up the steps. She was still shaken from the strange encounter with the priestess earlier, and was no longer sure enough of herself to try anything.
The inside of the train (it must be the “train”) was cramped and claustrophobic; a small hallway only wide enough for them to walk in single file. They passed open doorways on their right, which led into somewhat larger rooms with tables and benches and large windows through which much of the large building could be seen, sometimes containing people. Setsiana looked into all of them, and was eventually rewarded by the sight of two priestesses seated on opposite sides of a table, but she was hustled past the opening before she could call out to them.
“You saw them?” hissed Qhoroali to Liselye over Setsiana’s shoulder.
“I saw them,” said Liselye calmly. They continued.
At length they arrived at a door blocking their path, and Liselye opened it. This lead to the outside of the train, onto an extremely short walkway joining two of its segments, with chains to each side. They opened the door to the next segment and entered another small hallway, with another set of the same kind of rooms on the right.
There were a few more segments like this, but then there was a change; the doors on the right were shut. Liselye would pause occasionally, to consult numbers engraved into placards on the wall. Near the end of the car, she stopped, and opened one of the doors and led them inside.
Inside was a small room, but bigger than the ones with the tables. On the wall opposite the door were four single beds, bunked, with two on the ground and the other two above them accessible by ladders. Along the other long wall was a small two-seat sofa and a small desk with a lamp, and on one of the short walls was another door, and a dressing screen stood along the final wall. Liselye retrieved a key on a ring hanging by the door, and put it in her pocket, and then went to the lower bunk bed closest to the door they had entered through and put her bag on it. After removing a smaller bag from her larger bag, Qhoroali put hers on the bunk above Liselye’s. Setsiana followed suit and set hers on the farther, lower bunk bed.
“You’ve seen where the dining cars are,” said Liselye, addressing Setsiana in QuCheanya. “That’s where we go to eat. The meals are free with the ticket, they’re alright. It’s 17 hours in total, so we’ll get in at 2:000 morning hours, so we go to bed early to be up on time. We’ll show you where everything else is.”
Setsiana didn’t see what they thought the point in that was, since she was presumably going to be with one or both of them at all times and not allowed to wander on her own, but any additional information would be useful, so she said nothing. She also didn’t mention that 2:000 morning hours was actually the time she was used to getting up, anyway.
When they left, Liselye locked the door with the key she had pocketed earlier, but Setsiana noted that there was no keyhole on the inside of the door, only a hand-operated latch that seemed to control the same part of the lock. There didn’t seem to be any way for her to be locked inside.
Liselye seemed to enjoy giving a tour of the train, at any rate. The other door in their room lead to a kind of on-board outhouse, where Setsiana could look directly down through the hole in the bowl to the tracks beneath the train. There were a number of other cars full of the small bedrooms, some more dining cars, and at the very end, a more open-plan lounge car with upholstered sofas and a few small tables, to which they were only permitted access after Liselye showed their tickets to a green-clad employee at the door. Liselye explained it was only for people who had bought a more expensive ticket, but that the free tickets they got as “priestesses” also counted for this. The tour ended at this point and they settled in onto a pair of facing sofas. Setsiana tried to shuffle into the seat next to the one that Qhoroali had claimed, but Liselye forcefully directed her to the facing seat next to another large window, and then proceeded in after her. Hemmed in between the side of the train and Liselye, Setsiana had no choice but to sit and wait, and hope that the other priestesses they had seen would make their way to this car eventually.
Qhoroali opened the small bag she’d brought with her and retrieved a volume of cloth and a pincushion, from which protruded a threaded needle, and also something that looked vaguely like a pair of black earmuffs, which she put on. She then spread the cloth out across her lap, folded it significantly in several places, and set to work on it with the needle.
Setsiana was bemused by the earmuffs. “It’s summer right now, isn’t it?”
Liselye shook her head. “Well, I mean, yes, it is summer, but she can’t hear you right now. It’s,” she waved her hands and frowned, and then cupped her hands over her ears, mimicking the earmuffs. “I don’t remember what they’re called anymore. They’re not for warmth, they block out most sounds. This is the problem with going to the future with Rou, everything just gets louder and louder the farther into the future you go, and then Rou gets less and less bearable because of it, so we bring those things.”
Setsiana frowned. “It doesn’t seem so loud here,” she began, and then was interrupted by the loudest sound she had ever heard coming from the front of the train, like a great whistle being blown by a giant; this was followed by a series of loud clunks from somewhere in front of them, and then there was a sudden jerk and the whole train started to move. She found she’d instinctively grabbed onto the small table between the seats. Qhoroali had briefly raised her eyes at the first sound, but then returned to her sewing, unbothered.
“Right,” said Liselye. “Stuff like that. If you go too much further into the future from here, there are machines making loud noises everywhere in the city, all of the time. Maybe not always as loud as that, but the noise is constant, and everywhere. She hates that.”
Even after the louder noises had subsided, the train was still making noise, a constant rhythmic thrashing. It was getting faster, too. Setsiana remembered that they were supposed to get to Duqhora in only 17 hours. She did some quick math; they would be going at the speed of a galloping horse, for 17 hours. Suddenly, that seemed terrifying. She looked out the window and saw as their car left the train port and the interior of the building transitioned into countryside, with a nearby line of trees whizzing by; it felt like they were going even faster than a galloping horse.
“Relax,” said Liselye. “This is perfectly safe, and you’ll be fine. You’ll get used to it after a couple of hours, trust me.”
Setsiana asked, “If Qhoroali doesn’t like the loud noises, why did she come?”
“This is actually her errand we’re on,” said Liselye. “Anyway, we’ll need her to do the talking when we get to Duqhora. I do know the Capital Dialect, well, mostly, but it’s changed enough in this time period that I’m hopeless. She’s bilingual, lucky duck. Her father came from the Capital and raised her with his language, although her mother did eventually manage to train him to stop calling the Capital Dialect ‘Cheanya’ and calling Vrelian ‘the Eastern Dialect’. Not like my father… I could have been bilingual too, you know, if my mother hadn’t been such an almighty bitch about it.”
“Your father was from the Capital too?” Setsiana asked.
“No, from Dlesta. Or rather, my grandmother brought him here when he was two years old, I guess that counts, maybe. My grandfather had been killed in the T’arsi invasion of Soanghi and I guess she felt the need to move to a safer place, and maybe also to not raise her son in a country where so many young men are conscripted to defend the League of Meandhshen. He speaks Dlestan, of course. But my mother threw a fit and claimed that us kids would all be outcasts if he taught us the language, but it’s obvious that the real reason was that she hated my grandmother and didn’t want any of us to be able to speak with her. So I mostly only really learned the curse words. I traded them to Rou in exchange for her doing most of my Capital Dialect homework, which is probably why I suck at it now.”
“T’arsi invasion of Soanghi? Did they win? Is Soanghi gone now?” Most countries in Meandhshen other than Dlesta were distant enough that they only heard vague news of them, but it still felt wrong that one of them might just disappear.
“Yup, Meandhshen lost that one, it’s gone now. They’re all T’arsi there, now. Well, officially.”
At least it didn’t sound like they had burned down any more cities. “Why do they do it?” asked Setsiana. “Why are they always invading Meandhshen? They’ve never threatened war with us, it’s just Meandhshen.”
She didn’t know why she’d asked; no one really knew why T’arse did the things it did; it was just such a shock to hear that Soanghi was completely gone. Remarkably, Liselye attempted to answer anyway. “It’s not like their wars in the Northern Kingdoms, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. “There’s no ideological issue like slavery or criminalization of debt that they disagree with. Meandhshen is actually very careful to never give them any kind of justifiable ideological reason for war, they have international laws against slavery and such. T’arse just has some… I don’t know, exactly. Some weird religious belief that the whole eastern continent needs to belong to them for some reason. In a few centuries or so, it starts to get them bad press in the Northern Kingdoms, where they actually care about people’s opinions of them, so they start making up new reasons for the wars, but it’s really just the same old reason.”
“Does that include Shayansee? People have followed the western coast with ships, we know the eastern continent goes over the pole and eventually becomes Shayansee in the west. Are they going to attack them, too?”
“No, Shayansee doesn’t count, for some inscrutable T’arsi reason. Probably because they would want to absorb the population, and the Shayanseen are just too weird and ‘backwards’ for them.”
Setsiana realized that the conversation had made her forget about the train; the swift motion and the constant sounds had indeed mostly faded into the background, although they still bothered her when she thought to notice them, or if she actually looked out the window. She resolved that if she was going to have to be here for 17 hours, she might as well find a distraction, and if Liselye wanted to talk and talk, she might eventually say something that was useful to her. Even better if it was something about Qhoroali. She indicated the latter where she sat engrossed in her sewing. “What is she making?”
“Probably more trousers. For the blouses, I think she just modifies existing ones, sometimes drastically, but she claims that modifying men’s clothing is more annoying than just making something from scratch. I wouldn’t know, really, though I should — my terrible mother was a tailor and kept trying to teach me the trade. I could never get it to work out right and it was dreadfully boring, so I would take the patterns to Rou’s house and she would make them for me. I think my mom was starting to get suspicious that all of my actually competent work was done when I was over there, so of course when Rou came and knocked on my window and told me we were running off to Nwórza I went with her immediately. I don’t mean this in a bad way at all, but Rou absolutely loves dreadfully boring, repetitive work. I think it’s why she’s so good at time travel; I think it’s very similar to sewing, actually, and it requires you to be incredibly particular and anal-retentive sometimes. When I do it I cut corners that she would be horrified by, I’m sure.”
“Why does she wear such strange things?”
“She says that all the usual clothes you find in shops are ‘too tight’. I don’t think they’re tight — they’ve got some definition of shape, sure, but tight? I don’t know. But she can’t stand it. You might agree, I guess, with the skirts you wear. Where did you get them, anyway? I’ve seen you in a couple different colors now, surely you didn’t bring multiple sets with you when you were kidnapped?”
Setsiana looked at her strangely. “They were given to me when I got here,” she said, carefully. “Did she make them?”
“Probably not,” said Liselye, somewhat breezily. “She probably just picked them up from a store before running off with you, right?”
Setsiana said nothing, but thought again of the less-than-professional stitching and the book of patterns she’d seen on Qhoroali’s bookshelf. She decided to return to an earlier point in the conversation. “What else has happened since 1647? Has T’arse conquered more countries than just Soanghi?”
They spent some hours talking about the historical events of the past 250 years; wars on the continent involving cannons, plagues, the discovery of an unheard-of island in the middle of the Endless Ocean by Northern Kingdoms sailors, where there lived people the easterners regarded as even stranger than the Shayanseen; scandals involving Governors of Vrel; the construction of the aqueduct in Nwórza. The conversation eventually circled back to Mázghwent, and Setsiana explained the original meanings behind a couple more plays, and in return learned some Dlestan swear words that were probably completely worthless back in 1647, but which were fun nonetheless. In spite of everything, Liselye was an engaging conversationalist, and for a little while, Setsiana could almost pretend that she was on this trip with friends, rather than as a prisoner. At one point, a woman dressed in the green uniform of the train operators stopped by to serve them tea; the cups were only slightly bigger than usual, and Setsiana was amazed that they did not immediately spill due to the movement of the train, and that it was indeed possible to drink if you were careful. The other priestesses did not enter the lounge car, that Setsiana noticed. The train sometimes slowed from its frantic pace for a time, and sometimes stopped entirely; during these stops, green-clad men would walk the aisles, shouting the name of a city. Setsiana recognized most of them: northern cities all of them, each time further to the west.
Eventually they packed up their things and moved to a dining car for a meal. This must have been the midday meal for everyone else on the train, but since the three of them had started at midday and then time traveled into the early morning three hours ago, to Setsiana it felt like it should be an early dinner, even though the sun was still high in its arc outside the windows. Qhoroali briefly disappeared off to somewhere for a while, and then rejoined them when the food arrived, which didn’t seem to worry Liselye at all. The food was an extremely average-quality northwestern-style tlichrún, which they ate with a general lack of enthusiasm. They circled for a bit; back to bedroom they’d been given, where the constant sound of the train was somewhat muted, then back to the lounge car. The brief passages between cars were nerve-wracking, but all of this moving about was worth it - just after entering one of the sleeping cars, Setsiana caught sight of the other group of priestesses entering one of the bedrooms. She didn’t know which one precisely, but she knew what car, and about how far along it was. She was sure she could find it again on her own.
For the rest of the day, Setsiana read the book she’d taken from Qhoroali’s library and brought with her; Liselye also had a book with her, but still seemed to be keeping a close eye on Setsiana all the same. Some four hours later, they were served food again, which Setsiana only picked at, feeling like it was time to sleep. The others must have felt similarly, because after this they returned to the bedroom.
They took turns dressing behind the screen, and then Qhoroali threw shut the latch on the door, and they climbed into the beds. Setsiana was quite tired, but did not immediately fall asleep; even muted as it was in this room, the noise of the train seemed to grow now that she was in bed, and the constant motion could not be ignored. The sun had been setting when they finished their meal, and for a time a small window near the ceiling painted an orange streak on the opposite wall, but gradually this faded into the gloom of evening. She heard the others’ breaths slow and even out, and when she judged they must be asleep, she got out of bed as quietly as possible. Tired as she was, she had to try to find the other priestesses. Whatever had happened back in Nwórza was probably just a fluke — the priestesses were her only hope.
She had a moment to regret that her nightdress had not been modified to carry the knife. What use would it have been, though? There was nowhere she could run to while on the train, and in all likelihood if she attacked someone here, she would be left in Liselye and Qhoroali’s charge rather than the other priestesses’.
She crossed the small room on silent feet. She stood at the door, and took a moment to look back at the other bunk, but the others did not stir. She slid the latch back as quietly as she could, opened the door, and slipped out.
Outside of the room, she turned in the direction of the car she had seen the other priestesses in, but unexpectedly, someone caught her by the arm, and she repressed a shriek. In the low light of the passageway, a green-clad man stood waiting outside the door to their room.
Setsiana tried to tug her arm free, but the man resisted. “You go to bed,” he said in badly accented QuCheanya, missing the tenses in the same way as the woman in Nwórza had, but in a much more stilted and terse manner. “They tell me you walk in dreams. Back to bed.” He moved to open the door again, but Setsiana fought him and pressed her back up against it.
So this was what Qhoroali had left to arrange. “I’m not sleepwalking,” Setsiana said, aggravated. “I’m not ‘walking in dreams’. They are fake. They kidnapped me. Please help me, I need to find the other priestesses on board.”
A look of confusion crossed the man’s face and he shook his head. “Back to bed. Not walk. You dream.”
He must not know the language well enough to understand her, she realized. She tried to think of another way to word it. “They stole me,” she tried. “They stole me from my home. I need to return.” She tried to pull her arm out of his grip again.
“You dream of strangeness,” he said, and finally succeeded in pulling the door open and thrusting her back through it.
Back in the small room, Setsiana pushed at the door, but could not open it again; he must be holding it shut with the weight of his body. She pressed her forehead to the door frame and let slip a small noise of frustration.
“You should secure the latch while you’re over there,” said Liselye’s voice, softly, from the other bunk.
Setsiana looked across at the other woman as well as she could in the growing darkness. She sat on the edge of her lower bunk, presumably awakened by the argument outside the door. Her nightdress came only down to the shins and was cinched at the waist with a sash, the tied ends trailing amidst the meager bedclothes they’d been given. Liselye pushed them aside, and rose to come to the door where Setsiana stood, as whispers of moonlight began to appear on the wall behind them.
Liselye quietly set the latch back into position, and put an arm around Setsiana’s shoulders. “Come now,” she said softly, so as not to wake Qhoroali, “Did you think we came here unprepared? Where would you go on the train? Who would you go to? Those other priestesses are not your friends, they will not help you. You are safe here with us. I told you before, you will be returned in due time. If you try to leave on your own, you may not like the results.” She brushed a stray lock of Setsiana’s ruddy hair out of her face, trailing her thumb up the line of her cheek and over the arch of her ear.
They stood there in the moonlight for a moment, both looking at each other in a curious, searching way. Setsiana hesitated; she thought back to how Cyaru had behaved with Liselye the first time she had met them. Weren’t they together? But it had only been a hug, hadn’t it? They had not kissed, and Liselye had not really done anything overt at all. Some men took liberties with women they were not owed, after all. Maybe she had misinterpreted. Back at Taleinyo, she’d spent so long waiting for Yeimicha to make the first move. Maybe that had been the problem, after all, that she hadn’t been the one to initiate. After a moment of consideration, during which Liselye seemed to be waiting expectantly, Setsiana raised herself up to her tiptoes to close the distance between them, and moved in for the kiss.
But Liselye moved back, out of the beam of moonlight, and withdrew her hand from Setsiana’s face, laughing softly in the darkness. “Oh, priestesses,” she said, with a smile on her lips and an air of conquest in her quiet tone. “You’re all so predictable. That’s one for the bucket list — you’re easier than I thought. Go to bed, silly, we have an early morning tomorrow.” And she led Setsiana over to the far bed, gently pushed her, unyielding, down to the mattress, and then returned to her own.
Setsiana lay back on the bed and fumed in silence for a time, her cheeks burning in the darkness. Liselye wasn’t her friend, or anything else — she was her captor, trying to lure her into a false sense of security and safety and camaraderie. She had to remember that. No matter how genial or likable she seemed, Setsiana could never trust her to have any motive other than keeping her from her freedom.
Story: The Fulcrum
Colors: Dogwood Rose #3: white: silence & secrecy, Fresh Thyme #2: Wind Up
Styles and Supplies: Panorama, Silhouette, Life Drawing, Calendar Page (National Take A Chance Day)
Word Count: 4659
Rating: T
Warnings: Fantasy Drug (Ab)use
Characters: Setsiana, Liselye, Qhoroali
In-Universe Date: Spring and Summer of 2050
Summary: Setsiana, Liselye, and Qhoroali take a train to Duqhora.
Their destination was not much farther past the point where Setsiana had escaped. Setsiana perceived it at first as a large gathering of people, but as they approached, she saw that the majority of them had formed into lines in front a few different storefronts, with a number milling around in small clusters. The men didn’t seem to be dressed that differently from the way they were in 1911, but she noticed that many of the women had frills on their blouses in the same style as the woman from earlier had had; it must be a fashion now. When they came in range of the storefronts, she saw that they were actually ticket counters, like the ones where you would buy admittance to plays, with a large building behind them and to the west.
Qhoroali and Liselye put the three of them in one of the lines. Setsiana could see a number of signs in large lettering in Vrelian (with smaller lettering in the Capital Dialect) on the ticket counter in front of them, which were more or less completely comprehensible to her, despite having some odd wordings:
NWÓRZA’S TRAIN PORT
PIER 2 - DUQHORA’S TRAIN
3:000 WORKING HRS AT EACH DAY
2:000 LEISURE HRS AT NYOACELYA LYUYA
NO SERVICE AT CIRIA
NO TODAY’S TICKETS FOR SALE HERE
It was strange to be able to read the text when she could not understand the language being spoken around her. She remembered Liselye talking about a “train” back at the apartment, but she was only familiar with the word being used to describe the long tail of a child’s kite, or the long tail of hangers-on who accompanied the Governor when he walked in the city. What it could mean here, she didn’t know.
They reached the front of the line, and Qhoroali got them tickets for a date at the end of the third month, which she handed to Liselye. Setsiana could not understand what the ticket-seller said in reply. No money changed hands; one of the benefits of appearing to be a priestess, she guessed. When was it now? It couldn’t possibly be near the third month, with the weather as cool as it was.
She was led away from the crowds and down a side-street that led out into a small abandoned spot of greenery. There, Qhoroali produced bottles of qoire, and they did a lightning-fast time travel to, presumably, the end of the third month. When they arrived, it was early in the morning on a summer day - not early for a priestess, but early for most commoners, and the temperature given that the sun was still so far in the east promised to make her regret that she was wearing a black dress during the afternoon.
They returned to the ticket counters, which were still almost as busy here in the morning, but walked past them to the large building. A man dressed all in green, standing at its entrance, said a word which didn’t really sound much like the word “tickets” to Setsiana, and Liselye showed him the tickets and they were allowed to enter.
Inside the building, the roof was open to the sky, the walls apparently only being used to prevent casual access to the area. There were long, wide strips of flooring alternating with great long pits, and little bridges across the pits. Inside some of the pits were huge, many-segmented machines made of metal, although she could not see many details from where they had entered. They crossed one bridge, which seemed to be made of two hinged halves; beneath the bridge, Setsiana could see a pair of long metal tracks, crossed with slats of wood. On the other side, they walked a long ways to the eastern side of the building where one of the machines stood on the tracks. It seemed frightfully complex, and had something that looked like nothing so much as a round chimney protruding upwards from its first segment, but as they approached, she saw that the remaining segments were flatter-topped and more uniform.
A little ways along from the front of the machine with the chimney was an open door, with steps leading up to it. Another man dressed in green stood near it, and took Liselye’s offered tickets and marked each of them with a stamp, before handing them back. The narrow steps leading to the door were not really big enough to accommodate all of them in a row, but while Liselye ascended in front of her, Qhoroali came behind and forced her to walk between them up the steps. She was still shaken from the strange encounter with the priestess earlier, and was no longer sure enough of herself to try anything.
The inside of the train (it must be the “train”) was cramped and claustrophobic; a small hallway only wide enough for them to walk in single file. They passed open doorways on their right, which led into somewhat larger rooms with tables and benches and large windows through which much of the large building could be seen, sometimes containing people. Setsiana looked into all of them, and was eventually rewarded by the sight of two priestesses seated on opposite sides of a table, but she was hustled past the opening before she could call out to them.
“You saw them?” hissed Qhoroali to Liselye over Setsiana’s shoulder.
“I saw them,” said Liselye calmly. They continued.
At length they arrived at a door blocking their path, and Liselye opened it. This lead to the outside of the train, onto an extremely short walkway joining two of its segments, with chains to each side. They opened the door to the next segment and entered another small hallway, with another set of the same kind of rooms on the right.
There were a few more segments like this, but then there was a change; the doors on the right were shut. Liselye would pause occasionally, to consult numbers engraved into placards on the wall. Near the end of the car, she stopped, and opened one of the doors and led them inside.
Inside was a small room, but bigger than the ones with the tables. On the wall opposite the door were four single beds, bunked, with two on the ground and the other two above them accessible by ladders. Along the other long wall was a small two-seat sofa and a small desk with a lamp, and on one of the short walls was another door, and a dressing screen stood along the final wall. Liselye retrieved a key on a ring hanging by the door, and put it in her pocket, and then went to the lower bunk bed closest to the door they had entered through and put her bag on it. After removing a smaller bag from her larger bag, Qhoroali put hers on the bunk above Liselye’s. Setsiana followed suit and set hers on the farther, lower bunk bed.
“You’ve seen where the dining cars are,” said Liselye, addressing Setsiana in QuCheanya. “That’s where we go to eat. The meals are free with the ticket, they’re alright. It’s 17 hours in total, so we’ll get in at 2:000 morning hours, so we go to bed early to be up on time. We’ll show you where everything else is.”
Setsiana didn’t see what they thought the point in that was, since she was presumably going to be with one or both of them at all times and not allowed to wander on her own, but any additional information would be useful, so she said nothing. She also didn’t mention that 2:000 morning hours was actually the time she was used to getting up, anyway.
When they left, Liselye locked the door with the key she had pocketed earlier, but Setsiana noted that there was no keyhole on the inside of the door, only a hand-operated latch that seemed to control the same part of the lock. There didn’t seem to be any way for her to be locked inside.
Liselye seemed to enjoy giving a tour of the train, at any rate. The other door in their room lead to a kind of on-board outhouse, where Setsiana could look directly down through the hole in the bowl to the tracks beneath the train. There were a number of other cars full of the small bedrooms, some more dining cars, and at the very end, a more open-plan lounge car with upholstered sofas and a few small tables, to which they were only permitted access after Liselye showed their tickets to a green-clad employee at the door. Liselye explained it was only for people who had bought a more expensive ticket, but that the free tickets they got as “priestesses” also counted for this. The tour ended at this point and they settled in onto a pair of facing sofas. Setsiana tried to shuffle into the seat next to the one that Qhoroali had claimed, but Liselye forcefully directed her to the facing seat next to another large window, and then proceeded in after her. Hemmed in between the side of the train and Liselye, Setsiana had no choice but to sit and wait, and hope that the other priestesses they had seen would make their way to this car eventually.
Qhoroali opened the small bag she’d brought with her and retrieved a volume of cloth and a pincushion, from which protruded a threaded needle, and also something that looked vaguely like a pair of black earmuffs, which she put on. She then spread the cloth out across her lap, folded it significantly in several places, and set to work on it with the needle.
Setsiana was bemused by the earmuffs. “It’s summer right now, isn’t it?”
Liselye shook her head. “Well, I mean, yes, it is summer, but she can’t hear you right now. It’s,” she waved her hands and frowned, and then cupped her hands over her ears, mimicking the earmuffs. “I don’t remember what they’re called anymore. They’re not for warmth, they block out most sounds. This is the problem with going to the future with Rou, everything just gets louder and louder the farther into the future you go, and then Rou gets less and less bearable because of it, so we bring those things.”
Setsiana frowned. “It doesn’t seem so loud here,” she began, and then was interrupted by the loudest sound she had ever heard coming from the front of the train, like a great whistle being blown by a giant; this was followed by a series of loud clunks from somewhere in front of them, and then there was a sudden jerk and the whole train started to move. She found she’d instinctively grabbed onto the small table between the seats. Qhoroali had briefly raised her eyes at the first sound, but then returned to her sewing, unbothered.
“Right,” said Liselye. “Stuff like that. If you go too much further into the future from here, there are machines making loud noises everywhere in the city, all of the time. Maybe not always as loud as that, but the noise is constant, and everywhere. She hates that.”
Even after the louder noises had subsided, the train was still making noise, a constant rhythmic thrashing. It was getting faster, too. Setsiana remembered that they were supposed to get to Duqhora in only 17 hours. She did some quick math; they would be going at the speed of a galloping horse, for 17 hours. Suddenly, that seemed terrifying. She looked out the window and saw as their car left the train port and the interior of the building transitioned into countryside, with a nearby line of trees whizzing by; it felt like they were going even faster than a galloping horse.
“Relax,” said Liselye. “This is perfectly safe, and you’ll be fine. You’ll get used to it after a couple of hours, trust me.”
Setsiana asked, “If Qhoroali doesn’t like the loud noises, why did she come?”
“This is actually her errand we’re on,” said Liselye. “Anyway, we’ll need her to do the talking when we get to Duqhora. I do know the Capital Dialect, well, mostly, but it’s changed enough in this time period that I’m hopeless. She’s bilingual, lucky duck. Her father came from the Capital and raised her with his language, although her mother did eventually manage to train him to stop calling the Capital Dialect ‘Cheanya’ and calling Vrelian ‘the Eastern Dialect’. Not like my father… I could have been bilingual too, you know, if my mother hadn’t been such an almighty bitch about it.”
“Your father was from the Capital too?” Setsiana asked.
“No, from Dlesta. Or rather, my grandmother brought him here when he was two years old, I guess that counts, maybe. My grandfather had been killed in the T’arsi invasion of Soanghi and I guess she felt the need to move to a safer place, and maybe also to not raise her son in a country where so many young men are conscripted to defend the League of Meandhshen. He speaks Dlestan, of course. But my mother threw a fit and claimed that us kids would all be outcasts if he taught us the language, but it’s obvious that the real reason was that she hated my grandmother and didn’t want any of us to be able to speak with her. So I mostly only really learned the curse words. I traded them to Rou in exchange for her doing most of my Capital Dialect homework, which is probably why I suck at it now.”
“T’arsi invasion of Soanghi? Did they win? Is Soanghi gone now?” Most countries in Meandhshen other than Dlesta were distant enough that they only heard vague news of them, but it still felt wrong that one of them might just disappear.
“Yup, Meandhshen lost that one, it’s gone now. They’re all T’arsi there, now. Well, officially.”
At least it didn’t sound like they had burned down any more cities. “Why do they do it?” asked Setsiana. “Why are they always invading Meandhshen? They’ve never threatened war with us, it’s just Meandhshen.”
She didn’t know why she’d asked; no one really knew why T’arse did the things it did; it was just such a shock to hear that Soanghi was completely gone. Remarkably, Liselye attempted to answer anyway. “It’s not like their wars in the Northern Kingdoms, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. “There’s no ideological issue like slavery or criminalization of debt that they disagree with. Meandhshen is actually very careful to never give them any kind of justifiable ideological reason for war, they have international laws against slavery and such. T’arse just has some… I don’t know, exactly. Some weird religious belief that the whole eastern continent needs to belong to them for some reason. In a few centuries or so, it starts to get them bad press in the Northern Kingdoms, where they actually care about people’s opinions of them, so they start making up new reasons for the wars, but it’s really just the same old reason.”
“Does that include Shayansee? People have followed the western coast with ships, we know the eastern continent goes over the pole and eventually becomes Shayansee in the west. Are they going to attack them, too?”
“No, Shayansee doesn’t count, for some inscrutable T’arsi reason. Probably because they would want to absorb the population, and the Shayanseen are just too weird and ‘backwards’ for them.”
Setsiana realized that the conversation had made her forget about the train; the swift motion and the constant sounds had indeed mostly faded into the background, although they still bothered her when she thought to notice them, or if she actually looked out the window. She resolved that if she was going to have to be here for 17 hours, she might as well find a distraction, and if Liselye wanted to talk and talk, she might eventually say something that was useful to her. Even better if it was something about Qhoroali. She indicated the latter where she sat engrossed in her sewing. “What is she making?”
“Probably more trousers. For the blouses, I think she just modifies existing ones, sometimes drastically, but she claims that modifying men’s clothing is more annoying than just making something from scratch. I wouldn’t know, really, though I should — my terrible mother was a tailor and kept trying to teach me the trade. I could never get it to work out right and it was dreadfully boring, so I would take the patterns to Rou’s house and she would make them for me. I think my mom was starting to get suspicious that all of my actually competent work was done when I was over there, so of course when Rou came and knocked on my window and told me we were running off to Nwórza I went with her immediately. I don’t mean this in a bad way at all, but Rou absolutely loves dreadfully boring, repetitive work. I think it’s why she’s so good at time travel; I think it’s very similar to sewing, actually, and it requires you to be incredibly particular and anal-retentive sometimes. When I do it I cut corners that she would be horrified by, I’m sure.”
“Why does she wear such strange things?”
“She says that all the usual clothes you find in shops are ‘too tight’. I don’t think they’re tight — they’ve got some definition of shape, sure, but tight? I don’t know. But she can’t stand it. You might agree, I guess, with the skirts you wear. Where did you get them, anyway? I’ve seen you in a couple different colors now, surely you didn’t bring multiple sets with you when you were kidnapped?”
Setsiana looked at her strangely. “They were given to me when I got here,” she said, carefully. “Did she make them?”
“Probably not,” said Liselye, somewhat breezily. “She probably just picked them up from a store before running off with you, right?”
Setsiana said nothing, but thought again of the less-than-professional stitching and the book of patterns she’d seen on Qhoroali’s bookshelf. She decided to return to an earlier point in the conversation. “What else has happened since 1647? Has T’arse conquered more countries than just Soanghi?”
They spent some hours talking about the historical events of the past 250 years; wars on the continent involving cannons, plagues, the discovery of an unheard-of island in the middle of the Endless Ocean by Northern Kingdoms sailors, where there lived people the easterners regarded as even stranger than the Shayanseen; scandals involving Governors of Vrel; the construction of the aqueduct in Nwórza. The conversation eventually circled back to Mázghwent, and Setsiana explained the original meanings behind a couple more plays, and in return learned some Dlestan swear words that were probably completely worthless back in 1647, but which were fun nonetheless. In spite of everything, Liselye was an engaging conversationalist, and for a little while, Setsiana could almost pretend that she was on this trip with friends, rather than as a prisoner. At one point, a woman dressed in the green uniform of the train operators stopped by to serve them tea; the cups were only slightly bigger than usual, and Setsiana was amazed that they did not immediately spill due to the movement of the train, and that it was indeed possible to drink if you were careful. The other priestesses did not enter the lounge car, that Setsiana noticed. The train sometimes slowed from its frantic pace for a time, and sometimes stopped entirely; during these stops, green-clad men would walk the aisles, shouting the name of a city. Setsiana recognized most of them: northern cities all of them, each time further to the west.
Eventually they packed up their things and moved to a dining car for a meal. This must have been the midday meal for everyone else on the train, but since the three of them had started at midday and then time traveled into the early morning three hours ago, to Setsiana it felt like it should be an early dinner, even though the sun was still high in its arc outside the windows. Qhoroali briefly disappeared off to somewhere for a while, and then rejoined them when the food arrived, which didn’t seem to worry Liselye at all. The food was an extremely average-quality northwestern-style tlichrún, which they ate with a general lack of enthusiasm. They circled for a bit; back to bedroom they’d been given, where the constant sound of the train was somewhat muted, then back to the lounge car. The brief passages between cars were nerve-wracking, but all of this moving about was worth it - just after entering one of the sleeping cars, Setsiana caught sight of the other group of priestesses entering one of the bedrooms. She didn’t know which one precisely, but she knew what car, and about how far along it was. She was sure she could find it again on her own.
For the rest of the day, Setsiana read the book she’d taken from Qhoroali’s library and brought with her; Liselye also had a book with her, but still seemed to be keeping a close eye on Setsiana all the same. Some four hours later, they were served food again, which Setsiana only picked at, feeling like it was time to sleep. The others must have felt similarly, because after this they returned to the bedroom.
They took turns dressing behind the screen, and then Qhoroali threw shut the latch on the door, and they climbed into the beds. Setsiana was quite tired, but did not immediately fall asleep; even muted as it was in this room, the noise of the train seemed to grow now that she was in bed, and the constant motion could not be ignored. The sun had been setting when they finished their meal, and for a time a small window near the ceiling painted an orange streak on the opposite wall, but gradually this faded into the gloom of evening. She heard the others’ breaths slow and even out, and when she judged they must be asleep, she got out of bed as quietly as possible. Tired as she was, she had to try to find the other priestesses. Whatever had happened back in Nwórza was probably just a fluke — the priestesses were her only hope.
She had a moment to regret that her nightdress had not been modified to carry the knife. What use would it have been, though? There was nowhere she could run to while on the train, and in all likelihood if she attacked someone here, she would be left in Liselye and Qhoroali’s charge rather than the other priestesses’.
She crossed the small room on silent feet. She stood at the door, and took a moment to look back at the other bunk, but the others did not stir. She slid the latch back as quietly as she could, opened the door, and slipped out.
Outside of the room, she turned in the direction of the car she had seen the other priestesses in, but unexpectedly, someone caught her by the arm, and she repressed a shriek. In the low light of the passageway, a green-clad man stood waiting outside the door to their room.
Setsiana tried to tug her arm free, but the man resisted. “You go to bed,” he said in badly accented QuCheanya, missing the tenses in the same way as the woman in Nwórza had, but in a much more stilted and terse manner. “They tell me you walk in dreams. Back to bed.” He moved to open the door again, but Setsiana fought him and pressed her back up against it.
So this was what Qhoroali had left to arrange. “I’m not sleepwalking,” Setsiana said, aggravated. “I’m not ‘walking in dreams’. They are fake. They kidnapped me. Please help me, I need to find the other priestesses on board.”
A look of confusion crossed the man’s face and he shook his head. “Back to bed. Not walk. You dream.”
He must not know the language well enough to understand her, she realized. She tried to think of another way to word it. “They stole me,” she tried. “They stole me from my home. I need to return.” She tried to pull her arm out of his grip again.
“You dream of strangeness,” he said, and finally succeeded in pulling the door open and thrusting her back through it.
Back in the small room, Setsiana pushed at the door, but could not open it again; he must be holding it shut with the weight of his body. She pressed her forehead to the door frame and let slip a small noise of frustration.
“You should secure the latch while you’re over there,” said Liselye’s voice, softly, from the other bunk.
Setsiana looked across at the other woman as well as she could in the growing darkness. She sat on the edge of her lower bunk, presumably awakened by the argument outside the door. Her nightdress came only down to the shins and was cinched at the waist with a sash, the tied ends trailing amidst the meager bedclothes they’d been given. Liselye pushed them aside, and rose to come to the door where Setsiana stood, as whispers of moonlight began to appear on the wall behind them.
Liselye quietly set the latch back into position, and put an arm around Setsiana’s shoulders. “Come now,” she said softly, so as not to wake Qhoroali, “Did you think we came here unprepared? Where would you go on the train? Who would you go to? Those other priestesses are not your friends, they will not help you. You are safe here with us. I told you before, you will be returned in due time. If you try to leave on your own, you may not like the results.” She brushed a stray lock of Setsiana’s ruddy hair out of her face, trailing her thumb up the line of her cheek and over the arch of her ear.
They stood there in the moonlight for a moment, both looking at each other in a curious, searching way. Setsiana hesitated; she thought back to how Cyaru had behaved with Liselye the first time she had met them. Weren’t they together? But it had only been a hug, hadn’t it? They had not kissed, and Liselye had not really done anything overt at all. Some men took liberties with women they were not owed, after all. Maybe she had misinterpreted. Back at Taleinyo, she’d spent so long waiting for Yeimicha to make the first move. Maybe that had been the problem, after all, that she hadn’t been the one to initiate. After a moment of consideration, during which Liselye seemed to be waiting expectantly, Setsiana raised herself up to her tiptoes to close the distance between them, and moved in for the kiss.
But Liselye moved back, out of the beam of moonlight, and withdrew her hand from Setsiana’s face, laughing softly in the darkness. “Oh, priestesses,” she said, with a smile on her lips and an air of conquest in her quiet tone. “You’re all so predictable. That’s one for the bucket list — you’re easier than I thought. Go to bed, silly, we have an early morning tomorrow.” And she led Setsiana over to the far bed, gently pushed her, unyielding, down to the mattress, and then returned to her own.
Setsiana lay back on the bed and fumed in silence for a time, her cheeks burning in the darkness. Liselye wasn’t her friend, or anything else — she was her captor, trying to lure her into a false sense of security and safety and camaraderie. She had to remember that. No matter how genial or likable she seemed, Setsiana could never trust her to have any motive other than keeping her from her freedom.
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Ha, a handy way to get rail fares cheap, even when you've forgotten to buy them months in advance!
I really enjoyed this piece, and all the description of the journey, and poor Setsiana; she is so trapped here, and everyone else keeps thinking she should just be reasonable about being kidnapped.
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Thank you! Yes, the time travel can be pretty convenient, although in this case the tickets were free, anyway.