[Fic] "Empty Hands" -- original, Firsthome

[edenfalling]

Summary: Ekanu finally tells Kadeotak that she's going to leave home. (325 words)

Note: This is kind of... backstory for a future story? It's set during the opening section of Learning To Listen, which is the tale of how and why Ekanu came south to Estara and wound up studying at the University and befriending Denifar. Kadeotak is Ekanu's childhood friend, which is clear in "Learning To Listen." She and Ekanu are also each other's first lovers, which is not especially clear in that story. But it's always been true in my mind.

Kadeotak is also an important character in the as-yet-unwritten story (or stories) of Ekanu's initial return to the Domaris, so I wanted to get her properly on-page and start exploring who she is as a person.

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Empty Hands
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"Will you truly go south?" Kadeotak asked as Ekanu stopped to once again whistle her dogs back from their noisy explorations. "Beyond the edge of the world?"

Five dogs hurtled across the valley, their feet splashing through the quickly thawing remnants of a late spring snow. Ekanu crouched down to let the pack lick her face and nose at her thighs, dug her fingers into the thick, stiff hair at their necks. "The wind spoke to me. I have to," she said. Then, more quietly, she admitted the part she still couldn't bring herself to tell her mother, and which her father seemed to know without words: "I want to."

Kioshiya butted his muzzle under her chin and she wrapped her arms around him to keep her balance. She didn't dare look at Kadeotak, couldn't help shying away from how her friend must be judging her. Three years she'd kept silent about the other part of her winter vision. Three years had been built on a floodplain instead of solid ground.

Behind her, Kadeotak sighed. "Well. I always knew you'd fly away somewhere. Just promise you'll come back to tell us your story someday."

Ekanu tipped her head back so fast she fell backward into the damp, marshy grass, soaking her pants and jacket.

"Ekanu kanususkaket," Kadeotak said, repeating the old joke with a gentle smile. "But I listen to you, even when you only talk with silence. What kind of idaya doesn't honor what she finds in her other's heart?"

'Come back,' she'd said, Ekanu realized. Not 'come home.'

Ekanu reached up and caught her idaya's hands, filling their emptiness with her own skin and blood and living heat. "I can't find north like you," she said, "but I'll find my way back no matter what I see and hear in the south. I promise. And I'll bring you a thousand stories."

She pulled Kadeotak down into a kiss.

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Inspired by the 1/25/15 15_minute_ficlets word #218: shy

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For reference, Ekanu's name literally translates as 'I listen,' and what Kadeotak says -- Ekanu kanususkaket -- means 'I-Listen never listens at all!' Kanu = to listen, suska = never (a negation of ka = always), and ket is an emphasis particle. Kadeotak talking about Ekanu flying away is also a bit of a joke, since Ekanu's family name, Sulila, means '[a/one] thousand birds.'

Kadeotak's name means 'empty hands,' hence the title and the line about filling them.

Comments

[heliopausa]

Good heavens, but you wake up early! (if I've got the time differences right. :) )

[edenfalling]

Went to bed late, actually -- I posted this at 2:15am. :-)"

[heliopausa]

Then I had the time differences wrong - I was thinking it was about five in the morning. :)

[edenfalling]

No, that would be somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe Iceland? :-)