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rainsometimesAuthor's WIP notes: My original story continues finally from the prologue. And I know this isn't much to justify that much time: it's probably just Part One of Chapter One. I have so many ideas and images in my head for this story, but it's not easy wrangling them into place...
Eight months earlier, I was still in school, in the University of Meren. I lived in one of the student boarding-houses close to the school, paying a low rent in exchange for helping out with chores around the house, like most students did. I shared a large room with two other girls called Somerin and Eichi. Those two were best friends. Tall Somerin was of the Takle people, she was funny and vivacious and popular, with cute freckles, lovely long hair that she always wore with ribbons, and a broad, round face usually lit up by a smile. My face was broad and round too, but I didn't have her talent for standing out and making friends everywhere she went, although I don't think I was particularly shy or troublesome, either. I got along with people, but I wasn't too memorable. Little Eichi was of the Salme people, short and temperamental, often grumpy. She went where Somerin went, for the most part, but it was her that Somerin turned to when she was out of ideas, and when Eichi was upset, Somerin was deeply troubled and cared nothing for all her other friends.
Theinu was my own best friend back then. She was of the Lakefolk, or the Sili as they call themselves. They're often fishermen, sailors and boatbuilders, and claim to be the ones who have founded Meren a very long time ago when the world was young. Theinu's family lived close to the lake, a good deal away from my neighboorhood.
That day was a market day, which is every fifth day in the Meren week, and as usual we had no classes on Market Day. Theinu and me had finished our house chores for the day and had also done our own shopping. Now Eichi and Somerin were out running errands for our landlady, very likely taking their time so they could have fun strolling through the city in the nice weather. That was what we assumed, anyway. In any case we were pleased to have the big room all too ourselves, spreading out our things as much as we wished and sipping the hot drink chenja, a habit from the Perildar region which Theinu had picked up from her roommate, whose parents came from there.
The weather was gentle and pleasant. We were by then many months away from the coldest point of the year, not right at the solstice but a little later. Then frost would form on the grass in the morning, puddles turned solid with ice, snow fell and melted and fell again; and our rooms were so cold we spent much our time away from classes huddling with the other students in the hearthroom downstairs, trying to sit as close to the large fireplace as we could (and in school the same huddling went on, with more chittering because there were fewer fireplaces at university itself). In the boarding-house we'd all bring down bricks to put in the fireplace for hours which we then brought up again to put into our beds, trying to gather up what warmth we could for sleep. Then we'd sometimes end up rolling our sleeping mats next to each other, abandoning the comfortable niches where each of us usually slept for borrowed warmth.
All that felt safely distant by then. We were in the midst of early spring, and even as the afternoon dragged on and the shadows grew longer, sunset approaching, we stayed as we were and didn't even put shawls on. After finishing the chenja, I brought out the spinning-wheel my uncle had made for me, took a bundle of unspun wool and started to work on it as I kept talking. Meanwhile Theinu was looking through our history book and through our notes.
The days further ahead, the months that would come between that moment and the Vernal Equinox, also felt distant to us right then. We knew that school would eventually end for good, we would go back to our respective family homes, that the city would get warmer and stuffier, maybe we'd even end up sleeping on our roofs for a while (which indeed did happen); we knew we'd have to participate in the great cleaning, sorting, packing, baking, and immense organizing before the great End of the Year feasts took place only to be followed by the first steps of the Great Journey North right afterwards. But all that still felt far away. Almost like it would be happening to two other, quite different girls.
Summer would come, we knew, the journey north would happen, long, long and arduous (and we would take very different routes, and end up in very different territories, there up north in the Summer Lands) - and we ourselves would turn into adults, like our friends and cousins and everyone else in our age group, in that coming Summer. We would fall in love and very likely get married and perhaps also have a child. Or even two children. That would not be unusual: the summers were long.
But all of that was still firmly pushed away in my mind as For The Future. Right then we were still youngsters, not adult, our bodies were still more childish in shape than not, our minds were keen and curious and ready to soak up knowledge from books and teachers but also from the whole city around us. We still walked downstairs to the hearthroom in the evening, less because we truly needed the fire but more for the fun and the conversations. Sometimes we talked about school, about parties, about practical things. Sometimes we held grand philosophical discussions inspired by books and teachers whose words made our heads spin; we shared daydreams of leading adventurous lives out of the ordinary; we grumbled in mutual indignation over the injustices of everyday life - demanding teachers, nagging relatives, cruel shopkeepers who refused to give practically penniless students any discounts. To be honest, we did have enough to eat and to clad ourselves, but our bodies were changing and growing, we wanted more food, and we wanted to look good in front of one another, as young people do. So we were constantly looking for ways to stretch the allowance we had from home. That was why I used that spinning-wheel, to make small change spinning wool I could sell.
The afternoon sun was streaming in from the window, and we sat on old pillows from home on the wooden floor. As I said, Theinu was looking through the history book we had taken out together from the university library. We had scrounged to pay the deposit for it.
"Do you think Teacher Onjok will give us any written questions tomorrow?" asked Theinu.
Onjok was our history teacher. I shook my head. "I don't see him splurging on ink and paper when there's not supposed to be a big examination. But," I sighed deeply, "he might call on us in class with some really tough questions... it's so embarrassing when you can't think of an answer!" I buried my face in my hands thinking of several times when I had made a fool of myself in his class. He wasn't the worst teacher to fail, he didn't attack you mercilessly with sarcasm to make the rest of the class laugh, nor did he shout - but he'd slowly become my favourite professor along with Teacher Sawaya, and I just didn't want to look like an utter fool in class. A little bit of a fool, I could accept, but an utter fool, no.
"You've read and read through this book," Theinu pointed out. "I don't think you're going to forget all the answers."
"So have you," I said, though she shook her head. Theinu was always so hard on herself for school matters, even though she often did better than me. "I hope he'll ask about the Kameinanda kingdom," I added pensively. "I liked that part the most." When Theinu asked me why, I couldn't explain myself well. It wasn't the oldest ancient realm, not the grandest; it wasn't close to Meren (it was much further to the east, part of what's now belonging to the cities of Morristo, Tatset, and Do Dóa). They had inscriptions on their buildings and other goods we have dug up, but we don't know what they mean, it's not letters we can understand. But the last few hundred years of that kingdom, scholars from other places wrote about it, in languages we can still understand, like Old Lumina.
Onjok was one of our teachers in groundlore as well, along with Safaya. Safaya taught us more about gardening, Onjok about digging up old objects and bones from people who lived long ago. They both taught about farming and preparing the right soil. Groundlore is a bit of a specialty from the university of Meren, other cities don't always teach it.
He'd shown us ornaments, weapons, and tools from the Kameinanda kingdom that people had dug up carefully and sold to the scholars. I thought they all looked so interesting. So full of secrets, and beautiful in a mysterious way. I tried explaining that to Theinu.
"And I wonder why it's called Kameinanda", I went on. "It wasn't the name of their main cities. It wasn't the name of their most important language either, was it?"
"No," said Theinu, "that one early Lumi historian wrote that the language they used the most was called orokoke, and that was supposed to mean 'the kings' language'." She looked thoughtful, too. "Maybe Kameinanda was just the name of the most powerful clan. Or a tribe alliance."
"I wonder if it means anything..."
Theinu laughed. "You Beldreni people are so obsessed with names, Pai-ne. What's your birth name again? Or can't you say it?"
Pai-ne was her pet name for me back then, based on my Shadow Name, Paitokkos. I sighed, but fondly. I actually always felt flattered when she'd ask about my people's customs. "I'm not supposed to, I could write it down but it's too much of a bother." To get out the inkhorn and everything, I meant. I just wanted to keep spinning. "But it's the Beldreni word for 'stone'. Mother saw a white stone in her dream right before I was born and she took it as a sign."
Theinu knew a fair bit of Beldreni, like I knew a bit of Lakespeech. Though we mainly spoke university slang with each other, which is more based on Takleya than anything else. "Oh, right! It's Tanga, isn't it?" I nodded and sighed. She blushed. "Er, sorry! But I'm not Beldreni, so it's not that bad, right?"
"No, but don't overdo it," I said. I also blushed, feeling just a little weird talking about Beldreni things this way with someone from a different people. "I mean... I think it's probably mostly superstition, with Shadow Names and all, but... You know." I shrugged awkwardly. "Since we're meant to use them for luck, it feels bad not to follow that."
Theinu nodded and smiled, looking as pretty as she always did. She never had as many admirers as Somarin did, maybe because her eyes were set more closely together or because there was a kind of sharpness to her manner, but to me she was very beautiful with her black hair, golden skin, high cheekbones, and dark blue eyes.
We talked a bit more about names, and I tried and may have succeeded in recalling Theinu's full name - the Lakefolk give their children very long names when they get born, and then as they grow they may get new bits added to them as well - and we also talked about the vel'du or street party/street event that some other students were planning to hold in two days. I said I wanted to take part this time. There had been another one months earlier, and I had been too timid back then. Those events could get so loud and rowdy... But I didn't want to be a coward anymore.
"If Onjok is kind to us tomorrow, then let's definitely go to the vel'du and celebrate," said Theinu. "And if he's mean to us, let's go anyway and show him we can still have fun!"
I laughed. "That's student logic." And I didn't feel any fear at all right then, not of the questioning in history class the next day, not for rowdy parties, not for not being the right kind of student (whatever that could mean); not for the crowded city streets, for failure, or even the looming Future. But...
I looked around in that room, as the light shifted to twilight and Theinu lit a candle so she could keep reading. The breeze carried in sweet spring flowers from the university gardens close by, and blossoms from the trees in the backyard, and so many city noises that didn't bother me, only felt friendly right then. It wasn't too cold or too hot. Everything felt like it came together into one peaceful now, and that 'now' was one of books and friends and the city. Studying and digging in school gardens, helping out with chores, going home to see family every other week, being in the city, with the city, being with friends, being young.
And right then, just - being there, sitting in that room, that evening, with my best friend. Feeling happy.
I didn't want it to end.
I mumbled something like that right then, and Theinu listened, then stretched her arms out, looking at her hands. "It's going to get warmer," she said. "It will get warm and hot and stuffy and school will end. And even if it didn't end, we'd get fed up. When it's time for the Vernal Equinox, we won't want to stay her either, right?"
She was right, of course. We'd want to leave with everybody else. Of course, we wouldn't really have a choice, the whole city would close down. All the different parts of this now would have fallen away by then. I sighed. "I know. I just wish everything could be like it is right now, even the weather. I wish everything didn't just have to keep rushing onwards all the time."
Theinu had nothing to reply to that. We sat in silence in the evening gloom for a short while, then we got up at the same time to go downstairs, moving as in one thought. Right then my roommates finally came back, full of gossip from the market. Those quiet dreamy thoughts retreated again.
See? Nothing really happened back then on that afternoon. You probably wonder why I felt I needed to return to it.
But it has stuck with me this whole time, that image of peace, of contentedness. And I'd carry that peaceful confidence with me for some time. It was there when I talked to Teacher Onjok in his study a few days later. I think I had better explain about that part, too, before we can get to the Vernal Equinox approaching and the first time I saw her.
Eight months earlier, I was still in school, in the University of Meren. I lived in one of the student boarding-houses close to the school, paying a low rent in exchange for helping out with chores around the house, like most students did. I shared a large room with two other girls called Somerin and Eichi. Those two were best friends. Tall Somerin was of the Takle people, she was funny and vivacious and popular, with cute freckles, lovely long hair that she always wore with ribbons, and a broad, round face usually lit up by a smile. My face was broad and round too, but I didn't have her talent for standing out and making friends everywhere she went, although I don't think I was particularly shy or troublesome, either. I got along with people, but I wasn't too memorable. Little Eichi was of the Salme people, short and temperamental, often grumpy. She went where Somerin went, for the most part, but it was her that Somerin turned to when she was out of ideas, and when Eichi was upset, Somerin was deeply troubled and cared nothing for all her other friends.
Theinu was my own best friend back then. She was of the Lakefolk, or the Sili as they call themselves. They're often fishermen, sailors and boatbuilders, and claim to be the ones who have founded Meren a very long time ago when the world was young. Theinu's family lived close to the lake, a good deal away from my neighboorhood.
That day was a market day, which is every fifth day in the Meren week, and as usual we had no classes on Market Day. Theinu and me had finished our house chores for the day and had also done our own shopping. Now Eichi and Somerin were out running errands for our landlady, very likely taking their time so they could have fun strolling through the city in the nice weather. That was what we assumed, anyway. In any case we were pleased to have the big room all too ourselves, spreading out our things as much as we wished and sipping the hot drink chenja, a habit from the Perildar region which Theinu had picked up from her roommate, whose parents came from there.
The weather was gentle and pleasant. We were by then many months away from the coldest point of the year, not right at the solstice but a little later. Then frost would form on the grass in the morning, puddles turned solid with ice, snow fell and melted and fell again; and our rooms were so cold we spent much our time away from classes huddling with the other students in the hearthroom downstairs, trying to sit as close to the large fireplace as we could (and in school the same huddling went on, with more chittering because there were fewer fireplaces at university itself). In the boarding-house we'd all bring down bricks to put in the fireplace for hours which we then brought up again to put into our beds, trying to gather up what warmth we could for sleep. Then we'd sometimes end up rolling our sleeping mats next to each other, abandoning the comfortable niches where each of us usually slept for borrowed warmth.
All that felt safely distant by then. We were in the midst of early spring, and even as the afternoon dragged on and the shadows grew longer, sunset approaching, we stayed as we were and didn't even put shawls on. After finishing the chenja, I brought out the spinning-wheel my uncle had made for me, took a bundle of unspun wool and started to work on it as I kept talking. Meanwhile Theinu was looking through our history book and through our notes.
The days further ahead, the months that would come between that moment and the Vernal Equinox, also felt distant to us right then. We knew that school would eventually end for good, we would go back to our respective family homes, that the city would get warmer and stuffier, maybe we'd even end up sleeping on our roofs for a while (which indeed did happen); we knew we'd have to participate in the great cleaning, sorting, packing, baking, and immense organizing before the great End of the Year feasts took place only to be followed by the first steps of the Great Journey North right afterwards. But all that still felt far away. Almost like it would be happening to two other, quite different girls.
Summer would come, we knew, the journey north would happen, long, long and arduous (and we would take very different routes, and end up in very different territories, there up north in the Summer Lands) - and we ourselves would turn into adults, like our friends and cousins and everyone else in our age group, in that coming Summer. We would fall in love and very likely get married and perhaps also have a child. Or even two children. That would not be unusual: the summers were long.
But all of that was still firmly pushed away in my mind as For The Future. Right then we were still youngsters, not adult, our bodies were still more childish in shape than not, our minds were keen and curious and ready to soak up knowledge from books and teachers but also from the whole city around us. We still walked downstairs to the hearthroom in the evening, less because we truly needed the fire but more for the fun and the conversations. Sometimes we talked about school, about parties, about practical things. Sometimes we held grand philosophical discussions inspired by books and teachers whose words made our heads spin; we shared daydreams of leading adventurous lives out of the ordinary; we grumbled in mutual indignation over the injustices of everyday life - demanding teachers, nagging relatives, cruel shopkeepers who refused to give practically penniless students any discounts. To be honest, we did have enough to eat and to clad ourselves, but our bodies were changing and growing, we wanted more food, and we wanted to look good in front of one another, as young people do. So we were constantly looking for ways to stretch the allowance we had from home. That was why I used that spinning-wheel, to make small change spinning wool I could sell.
The afternoon sun was streaming in from the window, and we sat on old pillows from home on the wooden floor. As I said, Theinu was looking through the history book we had taken out together from the university library. We had scrounged to pay the deposit for it.
"Do you think Teacher Onjok will give us any written questions tomorrow?" asked Theinu.
Onjok was our history teacher. I shook my head. "I don't see him splurging on ink and paper when there's not supposed to be a big examination. But," I sighed deeply, "he might call on us in class with some really tough questions... it's so embarrassing when you can't think of an answer!" I buried my face in my hands thinking of several times when I had made a fool of myself in his class. He wasn't the worst teacher to fail, he didn't attack you mercilessly with sarcasm to make the rest of the class laugh, nor did he shout - but he'd slowly become my favourite professor along with Teacher Sawaya, and I just didn't want to look like an utter fool in class. A little bit of a fool, I could accept, but an utter fool, no.
"You've read and read through this book," Theinu pointed out. "I don't think you're going to forget all the answers."
"So have you," I said, though she shook her head. Theinu was always so hard on herself for school matters, even though she often did better than me. "I hope he'll ask about the Kameinanda kingdom," I added pensively. "I liked that part the most." When Theinu asked me why, I couldn't explain myself well. It wasn't the oldest ancient realm, not the grandest; it wasn't close to Meren (it was much further to the east, part of what's now belonging to the cities of Morristo, Tatset, and Do Dóa). They had inscriptions on their buildings and other goods we have dug up, but we don't know what they mean, it's not letters we can understand. But the last few hundred years of that kingdom, scholars from other places wrote about it, in languages we can still understand, like Old Lumina.
Onjok was one of our teachers in groundlore as well, along with Safaya. Safaya taught us more about gardening, Onjok about digging up old objects and bones from people who lived long ago. They both taught about farming and preparing the right soil. Groundlore is a bit of a specialty from the university of Meren, other cities don't always teach it.
He'd shown us ornaments, weapons, and tools from the Kameinanda kingdom that people had dug up carefully and sold to the scholars. I thought they all looked so interesting. So full of secrets, and beautiful in a mysterious way. I tried explaining that to Theinu.
"And I wonder why it's called Kameinanda", I went on. "It wasn't the name of their main cities. It wasn't the name of their most important language either, was it?"
"No," said Theinu, "that one early Lumi historian wrote that the language they used the most was called orokoke, and that was supposed to mean 'the kings' language'." She looked thoughtful, too. "Maybe Kameinanda was just the name of the most powerful clan. Or a tribe alliance."
"I wonder if it means anything..."
Theinu laughed. "You Beldreni people are so obsessed with names, Pai-ne. What's your birth name again? Or can't you say it?"
Pai-ne was her pet name for me back then, based on my Shadow Name, Paitokkos. I sighed, but fondly. I actually always felt flattered when she'd ask about my people's customs. "I'm not supposed to, I could write it down but it's too much of a bother." To get out the inkhorn and everything, I meant. I just wanted to keep spinning. "But it's the Beldreni word for 'stone'. Mother saw a white stone in her dream right before I was born and she took it as a sign."
Theinu knew a fair bit of Beldreni, like I knew a bit of Lakespeech. Though we mainly spoke university slang with each other, which is more based on Takleya than anything else. "Oh, right! It's Tanga, isn't it?" I nodded and sighed. She blushed. "Er, sorry! But I'm not Beldreni, so it's not that bad, right?"
"No, but don't overdo it," I said. I also blushed, feeling just a little weird talking about Beldreni things this way with someone from a different people. "I mean... I think it's probably mostly superstition, with Shadow Names and all, but... You know." I shrugged awkwardly. "Since we're meant to use them for luck, it feels bad not to follow that."
Theinu nodded and smiled, looking as pretty as she always did. She never had as many admirers as Somarin did, maybe because her eyes were set more closely together or because there was a kind of sharpness to her manner, but to me she was very beautiful with her black hair, golden skin, high cheekbones, and dark blue eyes.
We talked a bit more about names, and I tried and may have succeeded in recalling Theinu's full name - the Lakefolk give their children very long names when they get born, and then as they grow they may get new bits added to them as well - and we also talked about the vel'du or street party/street event that some other students were planning to hold in two days. I said I wanted to take part this time. There had been another one months earlier, and I had been too timid back then. Those events could get so loud and rowdy... But I didn't want to be a coward anymore.
"If Onjok is kind to us tomorrow, then let's definitely go to the vel'du and celebrate," said Theinu. "And if he's mean to us, let's go anyway and show him we can still have fun!"
I laughed. "That's student logic." And I didn't feel any fear at all right then, not of the questioning in history class the next day, not for rowdy parties, not for not being the right kind of student (whatever that could mean); not for the crowded city streets, for failure, or even the looming Future. But...
I looked around in that room, as the light shifted to twilight and Theinu lit a candle so she could keep reading. The breeze carried in sweet spring flowers from the university gardens close by, and blossoms from the trees in the backyard, and so many city noises that didn't bother me, only felt friendly right then. It wasn't too cold or too hot. Everything felt like it came together into one peaceful now, and that 'now' was one of books and friends and the city. Studying and digging in school gardens, helping out with chores, going home to see family every other week, being in the city, with the city, being with friends, being young.
And right then, just - being there, sitting in that room, that evening, with my best friend. Feeling happy.
I didn't want it to end.
I mumbled something like that right then, and Theinu listened, then stretched her arms out, looking at her hands. "It's going to get warmer," she said. "It will get warm and hot and stuffy and school will end. And even if it didn't end, we'd get fed up. When it's time for the Vernal Equinox, we won't want to stay her either, right?"
She was right, of course. We'd want to leave with everybody else. Of course, we wouldn't really have a choice, the whole city would close down. All the different parts of this now would have fallen away by then. I sighed. "I know. I just wish everything could be like it is right now, even the weather. I wish everything didn't just have to keep rushing onwards all the time."
Theinu had nothing to reply to that. We sat in silence in the evening gloom for a short while, then we got up at the same time to go downstairs, moving as in one thought. Right then my roommates finally came back, full of gossip from the market. Those quiet dreamy thoughts retreated again.
See? Nothing really happened back then on that afternoon. You probably wonder why I felt I needed to return to it.
But it has stuck with me this whole time, that image of peace, of contentedness. And I'd carry that peaceful confidence with me for some time. It was there when I talked to Teacher Onjok in his study a few days later. I think I had better explain about that part, too, before we can get to the Vernal Equinox approaching and the first time I saw her.