13.3

Returning to Valasect was an incredible relief.

Autumn came and winter was imminent and at least for the rest of this year Jewel would not be going to Kaeketeh. Lord Kliatbatrn and the guilds could live up to their obligations to her and keep everything intact over one winter.

Jewel was going home to Rochford for the longest night.

As Gem she was spending as much time as she could stand and Smithson would allow away from the manor. Running with her friends and the rest of the village whenever the days were clear enough.

Swarmed with endless questions as she had been in the mid summer.

But instead of inquiries to what it was like in Kaeketeh it was questions about the Capital. About what the sky looked like under another vault.

When she spoke of the Capital, of its many overlapping rivers, the beasts of the menagerie, the food (and how awful and over spiced so much of it was), the Palace, the monsters and nobles she had met. Jewel was filled with a warmth that had nothing to do with her Wyrmflame.

They shared their own adventures, the riddles and jokes they had made in the two Valasect cants.

In the seasons since she had last signed with them the word for the two cants had changed again. Instead of Field and Forest cant it was now “Close” and “Far” cant. Jewel shared with them that the Footmen of the Manor and maybe also some people in Kaeketeh were going to learn the signs too.

Some of the children were frustrated, but the promise that their parents were unlikely to learn it unless they joined Jewel’s guard and that few from Kaeketeh were likely to ever visit was enough to placate most.

“Was there really a blood eating walking corpse at the capital?”

Dorota signed swiftly and assuredly. Her brother Albert turning to watch her hands and Gem’s as they ‘spoke’ between working with his carving knife at a block of wood.

The fire of their hearth made for poor light to do such fine work Jewel thought.

But it was better than the cold.

To help keep him included she and his sister made their initial gestures wide enough to draw attention before pulling into the closer Valasect Cant for precise finger gestures. Gem’s mouth giving a wide smile and a heavy trilling laugh.

“There was! And a giant hairless cat bigger than even Celsus!”

Jewel was still learning the strange rules the children had made for ‘shaping’ out the sound of words (or more often names) that did not have an easy existing meaning in the cant. The rules were a bit arbitrary.

But just to be abundantly clear as she twisted and wiggled her digits into what she thought the siblings used to refer to the bull while she also tossed her head and a quick finger point to the wall that joined their house with the cowhold. She hoped it was clear.

Bethica and Celsus were weathering the snow together and had been pleased she was back.

The sight of Bethica so heavily gravid this morning left its own warm joy.

Hopefully the calf would not be born mute but they would not know until after the birth come spring.

Dorota’s eyes widened and she flailed a bit wider, her gestures going out into a very clear Far Cant. Gesture clear enough to be spotted across the clearing of her family farm.

“Bigger than Celsus! That’s impossible!”

Jewel snorted and shook her head.

“My mother is bigger than Celsus. You’ve seen her during our visits!”

There was simply no way in either Valasect Cant to even begin to explain Jewel’s relationship with her younger self. Also Bethica had admonished her with an ear full (once for each head!) on not giving herself proper respect as both mother and child.

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So she did not bring it up with her friends.

Besides, it was such a cozy time in the house!

Dorota’s own mother hummed as she gently worked on what was probably going to be a new winter coat for Albert if Gem’s eyes were getting the sizing right.

Wyrmspun wool of course, as most of their clothing was becoming.

Although many of the adults still had underclothes and many old garments of the more mundane weave and thread Jewel had made sure every family had at least a blanket and every adult woman a shawl of the fabric.

Her weaving work with the looms was still a bit rough, but it was barely even needed to have any woman in Valasect spin her own family’s wool.

They all insisted on it of course and Jewel heartily agreed, but the work was much less rushed in Valasect than Jewel remembered it being in Rochford when she was younger. She’d been absent for most of the last two years but at least among the women of her demesne that had not made their acceptance of her any worse.

Jewel and Dorota both worked at their own spindles between their animated whirling gestures. Dorota under the occasional glance of her mother, and Jewel to try and hone the lessons of a decade’s struggle and the growing assurance of her younger muscles.

She could feel the echo of the musical dance she did as a Wyrm. But it was so much fainter as her smaller self.

“Was it frightening to travel so far away?”

Jewel nodded to her friend. Face becoming solemn.

“If I’m with my mother it’s not so bad, she makes me safe. But when I can’t be with her I only have Smithson. And Smithson isn't a dragon.”

Dorota giggled, but she didn't let it muss her gestures or harm the tempo of the spindle.

“But your Nurse-Knight is so big and strong! He’s so tall and he has a sword! And a horse!”

The girl was not even ten and already far better at managing the spindle than Jewel’s wyrm self had been until just before the war.

Jewel’s efforts to match her as Gem were despite all her practice lagging behind.

The way the wool passed her tiny fingers just didn't feel right.

Still the thought of Smithson and Ox Hoof and the absurdity of even comparing the so called ‘Nurse Knight’ to the martial prowess and assurance of her wyrm self?

It made it very hard to avoid breaking up the thickness of the thread on the spindle as the giggles shook her shoulders. She had to focus on evening it out and stop signing until the thread had regained its proper consistency.

Time that her friend Dorota was fine with giving.

In the lull Dorota and Albert’s mother took up a spinning song. One of the old winter chants that Jewel did not know the word’s meaning for.

It was a lot like the chant for the Longest Night. The words had the same kind of shape as them, but different specifics. And a softer, more round melody over all. Good pace for the drop of the spindle, the spinning twisting of the thread. The movement of wool slowly pinched as it passed through fingers.

Gem’s hands, small and still somewhat clumsy they might be. But every woman and girl Jewel had seen working wool into thread had nearly the same hands as her spawn.

She should be able to do it far easier than her wyrm self.

Jewel added Gem’s own voice to the song after it had made three rounds. Songs were much easier than normal speaking. You could hear the word coming, the melody even let you know the shape you needed your throat, tongue and lips to meet and when.

You didn't even need to know the meaning of the words!

Soon the whole household was singing with Gem, Albert’s voice a good match for the two girls and woman. Not yet deepend by manhood.

The time Gem had with her friend passed that way.

Until finally Smithson had finished all the business he could afford to do as a delay and the sun was getting close to the peaks of the mountains to the west.

Jewel insisted with halting words that the family keep the wool she had spun.

“M-mothar ss-spin m-many. Y-y-you k-keep.”

Dorota’s mother sighed and nodded but even with her less acute ears she could hear a mutter from the woman behind the door how it wasn't right for a girl’s family to not keep the thread spun before her first blood.

Jewel shuddered in the chill of the winter wind before running to Oxhoof so she could get up and out of the snow which easily went higher than her knees and was still coming down.

She missed the cold having no teeth for her.

Her Nurse Knight offered a hand to boost her up into the saddle and soon she was up and out of the potential soaking wet of the snow.

Gem huddled up above her Knight’s shoulder on the horse. The lack of snow does not help with the winter wind. Smithson himself walked ahead, trudging the slowly frosting over mud of the path, the hackney mare familiar enough with the routine to follow along behind him without a lead or guidance from the diminutive rider.

“Did you have a good time with your friend today Gem?”

His back was turned, looking ahead, which meant that Jewel would have to put the words together and sound them out in the right order with her spawn’s cramped, mostly human throat and face.

“I-I D-Did!”