[Fic] "Paths" -- original, Ekanu
Feb. 23rd, 2005 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingI feel a need to reassure myself that 'Definitions of Romance' was an aberration and forty-some people aren't watching my journal entries. Also, I do tend to flit from project to project. So... here's an Ekanu ficlet.
In case any new people are reading this, though, Ekanu is an original character who's been kicking around my head for about 10 years. I have been writing snippets of her life for about 15 months now. Previous ficlets can be found here, though they're not in chronological order.
This one was written mostly because, in "Seduction," I mentioned that Ekanu and Denifar once climbed the chapterhouse clocktower. So here they are, up on the roof.
---------------------------------------------
Paths
---------------------------------------------
Ekanu sat on the small decorative rim of the University clock-tower, leaning back against the steeply pitched roof. Denifar stood beside her, arms spread wide for balance and face fixed in a scowl of concentration.
The late afternoon sun shone brightly in the cloudless summer sky, beating down on the stone and brick buildings of Estara, gleaming on the glass windows and making the scattered gardens glow with color. The gilded dome of the Temple blazed downriver to their left, while the tiled roofs and mosaic walls of the old Imperial Palace reflected hints of orange and rose to their right. The shingles of the clock-tower roof soaked up the heat, keeping Ekanu's back warm despite the brisk wind that blew up here in the sky.
"Sit before you fall," she told Denifar.
He shuffled one step closer, but remained standing. "I won't fall -- that's not the way my death will come. Besides, I can see more than you can."
Ekanu shrugged. "If I want to see the rest of the city, I move to different side of the tower, but this side has the best view. We picked it because of this, you remember? Sit." She tapped his shoe, lightly.
Denifar groaned but reached back to catch the roof with his hand, and lowered himself until he was seated beside her. "It was your idea to climb up here. Why are you getting cold feet now?"
"Cold feet?"
"Oh, getting scared, backing out."
Ekanu stored the phrase in her memory. "I don't have cold feet," she said. "I see no reason to tempt death, that's all. And I'm tired."
"I wasn't tempting death," Denifar said, scowling again.
Ekanu sat up a bit, frowning at her friend. "What bothers you, Denifar? You've scowled for days now, always in my room talking instead of in the mechanists' hall. I thought being apart might help, but you still scowl."
Denifar didn't answer for nearly a minute, but Ekanu had learned patience training puppies, fishing, and hunting on the Ice. She knew how to listen.
Finally he pried a corner of loose shingle from the roof and hurled it off the tower, aiming for the wall of the chapterhouse compound. "My Aunt Ella -- Mistress Elisura Calmea, you know, who studies the history of the Empire -- left for Merua last sixday. She said I'm old enough I don't need her hanging around all the time."
Ekanu hummed in the back of her throat, but didn't say anything.
Denifar tossed another bit of shingle and continued. "She's my only family. And she says I don't need her, that we'll do better without each other." He yanked up an entire shingle, viciously, and began tearing it into pieces. "My parents died yesterday, six years ago. She didn't even stay to visit their graves."
Ekanu shifted a few inches closer, until her leg brushed against his. "People leave, but they also return. Few people leave home forever."
"But she’s going home already -- she's from Merua -- and she's never liked Estara. I don't think she'll be back." Denifar dug his fingers under the edge of a shingle, working it loose. "Everyone leaves, you know. They die or they go to other cities -- the University doesn't let you settle down until you're old. I don't want to leave Estara. It's my home."
"To leave home is hard," Ekanu agreed, as she helped Denifar pry the shingle free.
He winced. "Sorry. You fit in well enough it's hard sometimes to remember that you're not from Estara. Hey, what was it like, leaving the Ice? Nobody's ever come from there before -- why did you leave?"
"I follow my path, that's all. In midwinter, in the midday night, we give back our child names and ask spirits who we are, what we do. Wind spoke to me, said, 'Go south. Learn new words, learn new ways.' So I am Ekanu, because I listened to the wind. And now I am here."
"Huh," Denifar said, bracing himself as he tugged on the shingle. "You really think the wind talked to you? Maybe you just wanted to leave and imagined it."
The shingle came loose, and Ekanu let go, handing it to Denifar. "No. I didn't want to leave. I felt only... I was empty, searching. Wind told me where to search." She fixed him with a stern look. "We do not lie about spirits and visions."
"Sorry. Your spirits are really different from the Three, that's all." Denifar tore the shingle in half and gave one piece back to Ekanu. "There -- thanks for helping me get it loose. And hey, maybe someday I'll have a vision and know what to do with my life. You'll help me figure out what it means if that happens, right?"
If they still traveled along the same path, of course she would. But there was no guarantee she and Denifar would always be close... which was probably not a good thing to tell him when he was upset about his aunt leaving.
"Yes, I will help," Ekanu said.
She watched Denifar, and flung her half of the shingle into the air at the same time he did. The two black flakes spun and fell, weaving around each other's paths until they were lost from sight.
---------------------------------------------
Um. Chronological order, for anyone who cares, would be:
Beginnings
The Silence in the Stones
Fork in the Road
A Beautiful Friendship
Doors
An Embarrassment of Riches
Connections
Paths
Seduction
Diplomacy
Harvest, part 1
Harvest: Swarm
The Painted Sky
Flame and Shadows
Ekanu's 12-15 in 'Beginnings,' and about 30-31 in 'Flame and Shadow.'
In case any new people are reading this, though, Ekanu is an original character who's been kicking around my head for about 10 years. I have been writing snippets of her life for about 15 months now. Previous ficlets can be found here, though they're not in chronological order.
This one was written mostly because, in "Seduction," I mentioned that Ekanu and Denifar once climbed the chapterhouse clocktower. So here they are, up on the roof.
---------------------------------------------
Paths
---------------------------------------------
Ekanu sat on the small decorative rim of the University clock-tower, leaning back against the steeply pitched roof. Denifar stood beside her, arms spread wide for balance and face fixed in a scowl of concentration.
The late afternoon sun shone brightly in the cloudless summer sky, beating down on the stone and brick buildings of Estara, gleaming on the glass windows and making the scattered gardens glow with color. The gilded dome of the Temple blazed downriver to their left, while the tiled roofs and mosaic walls of the old Imperial Palace reflected hints of orange and rose to their right. The shingles of the clock-tower roof soaked up the heat, keeping Ekanu's back warm despite the brisk wind that blew up here in the sky.
"Sit before you fall," she told Denifar.
He shuffled one step closer, but remained standing. "I won't fall -- that's not the way my death will come. Besides, I can see more than you can."
Ekanu shrugged. "If I want to see the rest of the city, I move to different side of the tower, but this side has the best view. We picked it because of this, you remember? Sit." She tapped his shoe, lightly.
Denifar groaned but reached back to catch the roof with his hand, and lowered himself until he was seated beside her. "It was your idea to climb up here. Why are you getting cold feet now?"
"Cold feet?"
"Oh, getting scared, backing out."
Ekanu stored the phrase in her memory. "I don't have cold feet," she said. "I see no reason to tempt death, that's all. And I'm tired."
"I wasn't tempting death," Denifar said, scowling again.
Ekanu sat up a bit, frowning at her friend. "What bothers you, Denifar? You've scowled for days now, always in my room talking instead of in the mechanists' hall. I thought being apart might help, but you still scowl."
Denifar didn't answer for nearly a minute, but Ekanu had learned patience training puppies, fishing, and hunting on the Ice. She knew how to listen.
Finally he pried a corner of loose shingle from the roof and hurled it off the tower, aiming for the wall of the chapterhouse compound. "My Aunt Ella -- Mistress Elisura Calmea, you know, who studies the history of the Empire -- left for Merua last sixday. She said I'm old enough I don't need her hanging around all the time."
Ekanu hummed in the back of her throat, but didn't say anything.
Denifar tossed another bit of shingle and continued. "She's my only family. And she says I don't need her, that we'll do better without each other." He yanked up an entire shingle, viciously, and began tearing it into pieces. "My parents died yesterday, six years ago. She didn't even stay to visit their graves."
Ekanu shifted a few inches closer, until her leg brushed against his. "People leave, but they also return. Few people leave home forever."
"But she’s going home already -- she's from Merua -- and she's never liked Estara. I don't think she'll be back." Denifar dug his fingers under the edge of a shingle, working it loose. "Everyone leaves, you know. They die or they go to other cities -- the University doesn't let you settle down until you're old. I don't want to leave Estara. It's my home."
"To leave home is hard," Ekanu agreed, as she helped Denifar pry the shingle free.
He winced. "Sorry. You fit in well enough it's hard sometimes to remember that you're not from Estara. Hey, what was it like, leaving the Ice? Nobody's ever come from there before -- why did you leave?"
"I follow my path, that's all. In midwinter, in the midday night, we give back our child names and ask spirits who we are, what we do. Wind spoke to me, said, 'Go south. Learn new words, learn new ways.' So I am Ekanu, because I listened to the wind. And now I am here."
"Huh," Denifar said, bracing himself as he tugged on the shingle. "You really think the wind talked to you? Maybe you just wanted to leave and imagined it."
The shingle came loose, and Ekanu let go, handing it to Denifar. "No. I didn't want to leave. I felt only... I was empty, searching. Wind told me where to search." She fixed him with a stern look. "We do not lie about spirits and visions."
"Sorry. Your spirits are really different from the Three, that's all." Denifar tore the shingle in half and gave one piece back to Ekanu. "There -- thanks for helping me get it loose. And hey, maybe someday I'll have a vision and know what to do with my life. You'll help me figure out what it means if that happens, right?"
If they still traveled along the same path, of course she would. But there was no guarantee she and Denifar would always be close... which was probably not a good thing to tell him when he was upset about his aunt leaving.
"Yes, I will help," Ekanu said.
She watched Denifar, and flung her half of the shingle into the air at the same time he did. The two black flakes spun and fell, weaving around each other's paths until they were lost from sight.
---------------------------------------------
Um. Chronological order, for anyone who cares, would be:
Beginnings
The Silence in the Stones
Fork in the Road
A Beautiful Friendship
Doors
An Embarrassment of Riches
Connections
Paths
Seduction
Diplomacy
Harvest, part 1
Harvest: Swarm
The Painted Sky
Flame and Shadows
Ekanu's 12-15 in 'Beginnings,' and about 30-31 in 'Flame and Shadow.'
