Tales from 9 Fractures

Though many who pause to hear my song do not know the weight of long-suffering, I've crafted these words to cultivate their patience.  My retelling serves as wise sustenance for the foolish and steady guidance for those who wish to know love.  If any, who would be of studious hearing, were to faithfully follow these words, they would find within them every story that has ever been told.  For mine was the first.  I will share this tale with you, passerby, listen well, so you are sure to endure when perseverance demands.  

Warmth.

Her father’s palm was warm.  Though it always was.  Always the same warm comforting hand laid upon her shoulder every morning.  As her father would drink the steaming brews her mother made for him each dawn, they would take the moment to watch the sunrise over the rocking bow; where blackbirds from their nest in the mast would caw and swoop about.  

It was the same moment every morning, when the cresting tip of the sun would draw a slim yellowy-orange line where the sky and the sea would meet.  She loved that moment, stolen, from drawing in the fishnets and listening to the call and response of the shiphands.  She loved to stand with him on their deck looking out over the sea, their provider, as he drank his steaming morning brews.  When the sun-cresting moment would pass, the work began again and she would go back to aiding the men, as much as her ten year old frame could.  She would aid them in fishing for yet more take to sell at the docks all along the northern coast lines.

Their voices were rich with song, always at the crest of sunrise.  Rhythmic like the ocean’s sway; happy and teeming with life.  At times when her morning duties were done, she would tuck herself away, between crates, and listen to the men sing in time with the sea.  The waves that toted the boat along the currents, rose and fell with a life and breath of their own.  She’d lie there on the deck beside that old wooden tankard full of the brews her mother would make for her father, and take tiny secret swigs as the shanties of the shiphands carried the day’s work into restful night--rocked and lulled by their provider, the sea.

Though, this morning, Ndallah’Erdendaire woke slowly, painfully into an unfamiliar and sickly dark sunrise--the cold ebony sand beneath her shivering body, a lifeless mass.  Her mind rolled sluggishly into consciousness, but she was not cradled by the mothering push and pull of the ocean’s arms as all those many mornings before.  Her ear was pressed into infinite shards of black, but there was no rhythm to deliver her into warm wakefulness.  The dead sand was the only to greet her with nothing but its harrowing silence and stillness.

When the ringing in her ears mercifully ceased, she could hear the distant roll of thunder.  Reluctantly, she peeled her eyes open and saw only a cold clouded sky and tiny flashes of lightning above the surface of a calming ocean.

A peck came at her wrist where she rolled a half buried cheek up to see beside her a scavenging blackbird from the mast’s nest there, walking on sand as black as its plumage.  It strutted further to yet another position of the sands in search of a meal.  Beyond its form she begged the sight she beheld was something of a lie.  A cruel but untrue dream.  Strewn along the black skin of the beach lay the shattered remains of the ship she lived upon with the people she loved.  

Face down in the blackness of earth, unmoving, broken, and unbreathing, lay those she called friend, father and mother.  An unhelped welling of grief struck her so suddenly her scream rang out until her lungs burned. But there was no one, no one to hear her cry.  In the distance along the shore she could see the lit skyline of Teegra’s Peak; the ships there slowly pulling into her many marinas.  The ship she lived upon had been heading there to port, but here they lie in shreds, having been blown severely off course by the storm.

The storm.

Opal rains.  It had begun with the softest fall of opalescent rain.  The kind of icy rain that sparkled with colours in the noon day sun peeking behind storm clouds.  She remembered being handed the remainder of her father’s favorite brews as he cried out to shiphands in a rush to ready for the storm’s rage.

In those terrifying moments she had clung desperately to that cup, a token of comfort, now broken on the black sands blanketed in death.  She had held tight to it in the storm until she remembered no more of his commands.

Ndallah’Erdendaire posted one hand on the lonely sand, now, and leaned her weight into it to rise.  Upright sitting on the beach she wept, for it was all she could do for those she had loved.  There she sat on the shores of Teegra’s Peak; alone, hungry, and grieving.

She could not have counted the hours she sat there, or the time she spent mourning her loss as she cared for their burial there in the cold dead sands.  A broken deck plank, her only tool to shovel.  That sickly sunrise had fallen and crested twice, thrice or four times over she couldn’t have been sure.  The only thing she could focus on was that her palms bore the blood crusted remains of her work after the deed of burial was done. The blackbird, who had been her only living companion, had pecked out critters from the sand, seemingly for them both to eat.  A few sand fleas for itself, a few for her.  But this was not sufficient sustenance.  Having wept until her eyes were dry, the ten year old gathered her weakened muscles and trudged, barefoot, toward her last hope to fill her belly. 

She looked upon the nearby city.  Its wood and stone buildings stair-stepping up the black cliff face and hillside, resembling strange crystals blistering from the dark surrounding rock.  Hunger had eaten at her belly for so long her head swam and her tongue lay fat and dry in her mouth.  

Servitude.  Slaves at the very least...could eat, she thought. 

She could offer her working hands for food.  Even at the perfect age of ten, she had to be able to fetch a good price, for even though she was common, she was still from Gaen a Nce, and to say one owned a daughter of the “First Kingdom'' had to be a prize among any in the rest of the world’s governments, surely.

The port city was cruel in its expanse, malicious in its scaffolded walkways.  It hurt to walk along its endless boards, barefoot and hungry.  Even so, amidst all the other markets that littered the walks and alleys of Teegra’s Peak, there had to be a slave market.  The ‘Cicled North was rife with the selling of slaves, everyone knew this, even those from the ‘First Kingdom’.  With the hop of the blackbird at her shoulder and a peck at her hairline, she soon found the market where young people like herself were being sold.

A stone block, round and worn, stood in the center of a boardwalk market, already in use for the day with six youth about her age in rags there upon.  This is where the barefoot Gaennish girl would certainly be sold and find a place in the fields of a farmer, or the cellar of a shop owner, or the kitchen of a merchant prince.  She approached the auctioneers, blackbird upon her shoulder, and offered herself at this ripe age of ten for the work of any who would purchase able hands and near sturdy legs. 

Ndallah’Erdendaire was auctioned, passed over and auctioned again. Barefoot she stood on blocks listening to the auctioneers bargaining prices drive themselves lower and lower each night under the moons. Her frown grew long, disbelieving anyone would pass over such a prized lineage. Until it was when she realized, her lineage was no prize at all. Gaennish. Rubbish.  It was this very fact that kept her unsold and unfed. Only offered crumbs each night by her blackbird companion.  She overheard rumors and jeers cast her direction.  She learned much of how the rest of the world viewed her proud country. A relic of the past. A land of pretentious moochers. An island of hapless lords and clueless ladies.  Nothing good for the work of the hands. Nothing good save to bury the dead.  She then began to feel as though she had become one of them.  Hapless.  Clueless.  Worthless.  

Dead.

But her father’s hands were warm and good for work.  Surely, so were hers.

Placed on blocks every night for a solid month and half, Ndallah’Erdendaire, listened and learned and remembered every single word of what the passersby of this ‘Cicled North uttered.  The goals of their warlords, the plans of their magi, the underhanded dealings of their merchant princes.  Listened to their plans and who wanted to war with whom.  When she’d garnered all she could stomach of these nights being regarded as refuse unwanted, she suggested to the auctioneers they cut her price to its steepest.  She then stood upon her block with proud rubbish chin held high.  Only to be purchased, finally, for the paltry sum of two coin worth a day’s salary.  Not enough for the crumbs her blackbird gathered for their meals each night.  Her new owner, a slim young lad, not much farther along in age than she. Dressed in rags not much better than hers.  At the sight of him, her blackbird seemed to offer its portion of their nightly meals to allay the young man’s malnourishment.  He had mentioned to the auctioneer he’d been passing through the Port of Teegra’s Peak on his way to the Ports of Ashok.

He, Czaveed Badivara, a meek-natured young man of humble demeanor and kind posture, took the ten year old and her blackbird in, and put her to work on his cart of exotic wares that had travelled from places only nomads dared venture.  Upon leaving the city’s borders to roam the valley where drumlin lie, her new master pulled from his wares a garment for her since she’d only ever donned the ship’s garb, now tattered and torn, upon the blocks where she was sold.

It was peach in colour, the garment he unfurled, slim along the shoulders long and flowing in the softest contours of a bell down the form of its wearer.  It was simple but clean and newer than the shredded threads she wore on the blocks.  To this, Ndallah’Erdendaire, brandished what she had not shared with another soul in over a month’s time, a smile...for her master.

Barefoot and dressed in peach, Ndallah’Erdendaire, worked the stalls they set up as they traversed the vicious northern cities and valleys.  She washed his clothes, cooked his meals and mended his customer’s linens. For years, they travelled the regions of the north mustering a meager living from his sales and her mendings.  In the midst of it all, Czaveed’s ears were softly regaled with tales of the northern clansmen that passed over the girl with the raven on her shoulder at the slaver’s block, and what she’d learned of all those nights waiting to be sold.  

In the midst of their work, her hems of softest peach caught snags and tatters from working the stalls.  Under the moons-light while she rested, her master would mend them, though not simply with thread and needle, but with the found scavangings from her blackbird.  Opalescent beads, pearled buttons, and glistening crystal gems that fell to the ground from their settings in the opulent necklaces of mindless city-goers in the town markets they worked.  The raven’s findings were constant and many.  During their working days, when he was asked about the jewels bedecking her peach blossomed hems, his answer to her was simply that there was nothing else fitting and to forgive the missed-matches.

The days brought many patrons to their cart of exotic wares.  The nights brought much food to their bellies, all three.  And over meals, steadily developing into delectable spreads with their growing revenue, her master shared plans and insights into their next days work, dotted sometimes with quips about those pompous city folk they’d encountered during the day.  Her master seemed pleased to see the smile upon her face appear more often as they travelled and spoke and shared meals together.

When alone, under Anteqwar and Qilla’s light, she would inquire of her master why he’d purchased her for such a small sum when he could have saved his coin for a meal he, at the time, clearly seemed to have needed. What had he seen in her? For surely all he saw was a barefooted Gaennish wretch no good for hand’s work. He had ignored her moons-lit queries and let her drift off into slumber most nights with those questions lingering on her maturing lips. Let them linger as he mended more of the rips and tears in the peach dress he’d given her until, itself, had become heavy with raven-found beads and plucked pearls.  Ignored her near nightly queries for several years as they both grew into adulthood, only answering her in softly laid commands to clean this or repair that or sleep well or share more tales of the unforgiving northerners. 

Until one evening, when icy opal rains fell like gleaming gems in the moons-light, Ndallah’Erdendaire stood in front of Czaveed’s roving cart, rubbish chin held high, and demanded in all her insolence, he give her an answer. 

With a soft smile, a delicate finger under-chin and a gentle kiss to the lips of his blossoming property, he answered her truthfully and simply.

I needed a Queen.

Czaveed Badivara had been holding his tongue for five year’s time.  He’d never been of low birth nor had he been a hapless hungry traveller with half-a-working cart of exotic wares. He was born a warrior-king, what many in the rest of the world knew to be known as a “Kadif” from the nomadic nations far far to the west of the globe. With a knowing grin and bright eyes lit by the moons, Czaveed Badivara spoke openly of all his plans for she and he and their blackbird companion.  

For all of those years he’d been schooling her in his culture’s ways and learning from her the histories behind these regions around the land he’d been given. The valley where they stood, barefoot neath the moons’ light with drumlin all around, had been given to him in recompense for a battle he had won there in the north just before entering Teegra’s Peak and coming across the girl standing barefoot on slaver’s blocks with her blackbird.

Gazing into the sharpness of his eyes, Ndallah’Erdendaire realized he’d been watching her await being sold for a month and a half. Barefoot. Hungry. But steeled as the sword he had been born under. It was in this virtuous nature the young Kadif had found value. Value enough to feed her, dress her in the softest peach, mend her rips and tears with gems and opals, and wed her to establish his kingdom there amongst the drumlin.

All admittance resting on the ears of young Ndallah’Erdendaire, she gazed and smiled on him anew.  He’d been kind to her.  Never lifting a hand to strike or give a harsh word of correction like she’d seen of other slaves and masters.  Czaveed seemed to genuinely enjoy her company and care.  There--at the prodding of her blackbird’s hop and peck on her hairline under the wedded moons Anteqwar and Qilla--she agreed to be his Queen and Kadifaaz, a barefoot common Gaennish wretch dressed in the softest peach now heavily laden with jewels fit for her station. They would build his Kingdom on the place where they stood, a city wise and neutral to the conflicts at her borders.  

A city with open doors of opportunity for all.  

A city brimming with rhythm and teeming with life. 

It would behoove you, passerby, to take heed of this retelling and mind my words and ways strummed to a zither’s tune.  Love and toil and family bonds bind these words to truths found in every tale.  For mine was, indeed, the first.  My fingers will strum on zither this sweet solemn song for ages even beyond your hearing.  But for your progeny, it is best to impart it as truthfully as your understanding remembers; my tale of The Peach Blossomed Queen with a Raven on her shoulder, and her Warrior-King from lands far, far to the west.