Bravesworn
Bendeit
There was no one outside the Hospes.
“So, Bovine Karra… you can’t look me in the eyes. You can’t speak with your chest. What can you do?”
“I – um, I…”
Karra trembled before him. His shadow swallowed her up as she shrunk back onto herself, and he watched her eyes dart here and there, but never on him. Her ears were fluttering around. If he was to get all metaphorical, then she looked a little like a kite made of string and old tar, caught too deep in a thunderstorm. Bendeit crossed his arms without saying a word, content to watch.
“Um… I, uh, I can… pick up grass?”
“That was a rhetorical question, Bovine Karra. And you will call me Sir whenever you speak to me, understand?”
She flushed, “Yes, Sir!”
“Hmm. Now… how about a walk around the Hospes?”
“A run, sir?”
He chuckled. Was she already that scared of him?
“No, Bovine Karra. Don’t be too scared, you’ve done your laps today already. Just a good walk, in good weather.”
And so they set off at a stroll.
The bovines had already picked the soil closest to the Hospes clean of grass, and so they circled around the track the gatherers cleared out for them. And as they walked, Bendeit began to talk. He didn’t raise his voice to that of the Sergeant his soldiers expected of him, but instead lowered it to a tone he might use with his neighbours over the weekend. Conversational, polite.
“So, Bovine Karra, tell me about where you come from.”
She tilted her head, “I, uh, mean no disrespect, sir, but I thought you were teaching me to… talk, or something. With my chest.”
“That comes later. You need to be able to talk first, Bovine Karra.”
“I-I can talk. I just talked…” and her rebuttal faded away when he turned to look at her, “… uh, yeah. S-sorry, Sir. I can’t talk.”
He snorted.
“So. Tell me about where you come from.”
“Well… I’m, uh, not sure where to start, sir. W-where should I begin?”
Bendeit slowed down his pace when he began to outstrip her, “Tell me about the Plains, then.”
“Okay. Right… um, the Plains… I’m sorry to tell you this, sir, b-but the Plains are just kinda… plain. It’s a lot of grass, sky and earth. Sometimes you can stand on a hill and see nothing but land as far as the eye c-can see.”
“Hmm. Go on.”
“And, w-well, sometimes you do have things that break it up. Lots of little rivers, the Doshu Lakes up north, and patches of forest here or there… b-but it’s all hearsay, really, because my Clan doesn’t, like, travel around a lot. There are trading Clans though, which do go from border to border, and they get plenty rich. But they have to move around a lot, which must be exhausting.”
“And the Weavergrass Clan is not one such?”
“No, we’re a… producer Clan. We make things, like our name suggests. There are other grass-weaving Clans, but we’re the biggest one.”
“So there are trading Clans, and producer Clans?”
“It’s a bit… I don’t know the word, like, a bit stereotypical, I suppose, to lump them all in two categories. Because you’ve got Clans like the Cloudgazers, which just wander about and write poetry and make music. And you’ve got one or two fighter Clans. Clans that fight. I’ve always wanted to see them up close.”
And before she knew it, she started rattling off everything she knew about her species and their clans to him, and all he did was nod along and try to hide his smile. The girl could talk. She just needed a little push and a path that went parallel to a familiar road. And even when the path stopped before a valley and they fell into silence, she found the few words needed to leap across and continue walking the other side.
“You know… I remember something from the Cloudgazers, by heart.”
“And what is that?”
“A few choice words.”
Those words turned out to be biggest source of noise pollution in Panacea: poetry. He shuddered. It was a sonnet, four stanzas too long, and far too imaginary for him.
“That is no doubt the worst poetry I have ever heard.”
“Right? It’s..” and she started to giggle, “… it’s so, so bad, oh Laarsh forgive me.”
“If I were Chief, I would decree that to be terrorism.”
She laughed, and said, “Aw, they did work hard on it.”
“Mm. Did they?”
“They take inspiration from the clouds, apparently, and the shapes they see in the sky. Mother says they’re a bunch of dreamers, and have their heads stuck in their imaginations all day. She even said I must be born one.”
“Why is that so?”
“Well… I’m a bit daydreamy, I guess. And sometimes I daydream at the wrong times, like when I’m carrying something important like a bottle of honey, or a stack of papers. And I trip, and they go everywhere. That’s why people call me Silly Karra.”
He glanced at her, all messy hair and round eyes. There had been hints here and there that she had been one of those kinds, the kind of folk that loved to fall into their own mana and live a fantasy away from reality. Deities bless him, his wife was one of them. They were always a mixed bag, because you either had control and focus over those dreams, or you didn’t.
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And there were only two extremes, and nothing in between.
“You know, daydreaming isn’t always a bad thing. Most of the best mages are daydreamers. You have to be to be good at dreaming to manipulate magic.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“Well, daydreamers spend a lot of time in their imaginations. One day, you might find yourself in your Imagos, the realm where your mana gathers. And the more time you spend in there, the more attuned with your mana you get. But if you don’t have enough focus,” and he enunciated that word, “… without enough focus, you can lose yourself. Forget what is real, and what is not. Many great mages fall into that.”
She blushed, “I’m not insane. I know what’s real.”
“But you said you daydream at the wrong times. You don’t have control. And that’s not… a good thing, Bovine Karra.”
She shuffled on her hooves. They had made at least five laps around the Hospes now, and when they finished the sixth, he saw Karra’s mother, Junni, sitting near the entrance and watching them. She made no move to indicate she wanted to see her daughter, so Bendeit took her for another lap.
“I’m sorry… I’ll try and be better…”
He reached out to lift her chin up, “Hey, Bovine Karra. You were doing well. You were laughing and talking back. I want to see more of that, okay? No need to apologize for everything. You’re still young.”
“Oh, sorry about that – I mean, uh… I’m not sorry?”
Oh, this girl. When she looked up at him, she reminded him so much of Deitfreid. So confused, yet so bold. Maybe when Sameil and Ina grew up, they would be as impetuous as this, and how his hair would turn grey at them all. The thought made him smile, and he didn’t bother to cover it with a hand.
“Ah, you youngsters. Remember this, Karra. There’s little you can do when young that matters much when you’re an adult.”
She started to smile, “Even something silly, like dropping a cup of grassmilk onto an elder’s head?”
“Even that. Especially that. Children and adults are just silly creatures in a silly world, and only being aware of the silliness of it all separates us.”
They walked for a bit more before Karra said, “I… I forgot to call you ‘sir’ many times, sir. Should I… should I apologize for that, or is that silly?”
“What do you think?”
“I suppose… it’s not that silly? But are you the kind of person who would take this seriously? Are you, sir?”
“Am I that kind of person?”
She raised her voice and said, “I don’t like your questions, sir. You don’t give me a straight answer!”
He could not hide his laughter.
That was the first time she had ever shouted back to him. For a moment, he could glimpse beyond the stutters and the apologies, through to the being from so high up that turned an apple into a weapon of war. Maybe one day she would realize how much potential she had.
It took around five seconds for the volume to register in her head.
She clapped a hand to her mouth, “Oh, Laarsh. I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t – I mean, I didn’t think my voice could-”
“Oh, be loud, Bovine Karra. Say it again. But with your chest puffed out, say it like you meant it, just like a moment ago.”
“Sir, I… I’m sorry. Oops, I apologized again. But I don’t think I can… I was just irritated, I don’t think I can do it now.”
He loomed over her, “You will do it now, or you will do your fifty push-ups. I didn’t spend an hour talking to you and getting you comfortable for you to back down now. I am Sergeant Bendeit, and you have shown me you can laugh, talk, recite poetry, and shout at me.”
Her shoulders were trembling. She still did not dare look up at him, keeping her eyes trained to the floor, but at least she was not stuttering as she did when they first began to talk.
“Uh… um…”
“How about this? I am Sergeant Bendeit Campson. I am an armstrainer in Terstein, and I lead the training of Swordsworn for the Garrison. I have a wife and two children, Gina and my Sam and Ina, and they live in Terstein. I like things to be neat, and people to do their job. I don’t like criminals, I don’t like things that don’t go to plan, I don’t like time-wasters. And right now, you, Bovine Karra, are a time-waster. What do you have to say to that?”
“I’m…. not a time-waster?”
He gave her the same look he gave his wife when he found her tangled up in her potted plants as usual, squealing for help. I am too tired for this.
“Come on, Bovine Karra. Give me something to work with.”
She blushed, then puffed out her chest a little. “I’m not a time-waster, sir!”
“Good. Now look me in the eyes when you say it.”
Her eyes were still shaky, but at least she kept them on his long enough to finish her sentence before they darted away.
“Well, I guess that was good enough. I’m a bit tired now, so run along to your mother. She’s been watching us for a while, now.”
“Alright, sir.”
“Dismissed, Bovine Karra.”
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Karra
“How did it go, my darling?”
Karra sank into her mother’s arms and anchored herself there. She didn’t realize how stiff she had walked when she was with Bendeit, but now every muscle loosened under her mother’s touch. Her arms smelled like grass and swaying tents.
“Uh… it went fine, I guess. We talked a little, and I got to know him better. And… and I even shouted at him.”
Her mother was smiling, “Did you, now? How audacious of you, my darling.”
“I didn’t mean to. He even told me to do it. He said he wanted to, uh… what did he say? I think it was that he wanted to discipline me or something. Make me say words with my chest.”
Her mother’s arms wound tighter around her, “Hmm. That isn’t a bad thing to learn… but I wouldn’t fault you if you couldn’t do so. Our people were never born confident.”
Karra wriggled in her grasp, “Oh, okay. Did… was my father confident?”
“Oh, Karra. You know that not everything has to be about your father, right?”
“Yeah, but… I don’t know. I just want to know him… I wish I could remember more of him, know who he was-”
Then it happened.
Her mother looked down at her, and the rest of what Karra had to say dissolved in her mouth when she saw… tears in her mother’s eyes. Her mother was crying? It must’ve been a trick of the light, right? But there the tears were, gathering at the corners as her mother tried to wipe them away.
She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t.
Karra felt a sinking in her belly, and the smile she kept on for her mother slipped off. It was only after her mother had wiped them all away when she could speak again, and she knew if they returned, her words would again be paralyzed in her throat.
“Mother… Mother, did I make you cry?”
“No, no, my dear. It’s just… it’s just… thinking about your father, is all.”
Oh. Thank Laarsh.
She left it at that, so Karra continued, “Oh, okay. I think about him a lot, too. Sometimes I cry about Father too. I wish I could meet him.”
Her mother unwrapped herself from her. Without those arms, the dusk air found purchase in her fur, so she shivered and glanced to the Hospes. Lepius was probably bustling around his patients, and Rosemary reading bedtime stories. It would be warm in there.
“Uh, Mother… don’t cry. We can go to the Hospes, it’s nice and warm inside. Maybe a cup of tea?”
Her mother tried a smile, “Yes, yes. We’ll do that.”
But she didn’t move. Karra shifted from one hoof to the next, juggling her next words in her head, something she never once had to do with her mother. “Um, how can I make you stop crying, Mother? I… I don’t… I don’t like you crying.”
“Ah, don’t worry yourself about me. Just an old lady with too many memories and nothing to do with them.”
“Memories made you cry, Mother? Which… which one was it? Was it Father?”
It was not long before she caught it.
Her mother’s eyes. So familiar… yet a stranger in this moment, too.
Something lurked behind them. It was a foreign entity that Karra inched away at, and she almost asked: “What have you done to her?” There was no more warmth in the air. The smell of tents and grass had faded, and replacing it was an invisible shroud that hung damp around them.
“Go inside, my dear. Your mother needs a bit of space.”
“B-but, you don’t look-”
“Karra. Go inside, just for me. I need some space, okay, darling?”
She winced at that tone, and so turned to the entrance of the Hospes. But she didn’t put a hoof forward.
Right now, there were a thousand of things she could do. She could stay, because she didn’t understand what was happening, and she wanted to make her mother feel better. Maybe she could go to Rosemary and tell her all about it. She could cry too, and maybe they would end up in a little puddle, holding each other, and she might get another memory of her father. And there were so many more, but she couldn’t put her hoof on one path to start it all.
So she stood there, frozen.
Until Sergeant Bendeit arrived.
“Bovine Karra, give your mother some space, will you?”
She straightened, “Yes, sir!”
It was easy for bovines to take orders. She marched up the steps and into the Hospes, where the chatter of hundreds enveloped her. Before she closed the door, she looked back.
Her mother was still crying, and Bendeit sat opposite her. He looked up, gave her a nod, and then his words came back to ring in her head, and it made her relax, just a little.
Adults were silly creatures, weren’t they?