Sons of Destiny Prequel Series 003 - The Shifter

by Jean Johnson

  "Liking Solyn so much. Not complaining about your chores. And cheese-making."

  The disgust in Tellik's voice amused Kenyen, relaxing him a little. This wasn't quite as serious an accusation as he'd feared.

  "Maybe I'm growing up," Kenyen offered softly. Navigating the hazards of living another man's life was a difficult task. He didn't want to lie, but the real Traver's life depended upon it. He also didn't want to leave awkward questions behind, if he could escape with his deception undiscovered. And if it was...

  Silence stretched between them. Kenyen felt the pull of sleep again, only to be awakened by another question.

  "Traver?"

  "Yes?"

  "How do you get a girl to like you?" Tellik asked.

  That question took him back a dozen years, back to when he was barely fourteen and his brother Kodan was a more worldly sixteen, almost seventeen, old enough to visit the earth-priestesses and start the courting rituals of the Plains. Only Kenyen's question had ended, "... to like you, when you only have a few shapes?"

  Many shapes were favored over fewer, since that was how a man displayed his strength down on the Plains. Constantly being in his brother's shadow, able to shape half the number that Akodan now could... At the age of sixteen, Kodan hadn't yet proven he could shape and hold ten pure forms, the requirement for a multerai, so his advice from back then had been less confident in such things, but more practical in other directions. Kenyen tried to shape his older brother's advice for Tellik now, since the real Traver wasn't here to play the part of the older and presumably wiser man.

  "Women... girls young and old... want to be respected," he stated slowly, dredging up the right words. He didn't want to sound too Shifterai-ish, but there were certain things that surely applied to all cultures. "When you give a girl your attention, listening to what she has to say and respecting her ideas and beliefs, this is very flattering—it's like how you feel when someone gives you that same kind of respect."

  Tellik snorted, shifting on his pallet. "I'd like to have more respect. I'm still just a kid in everyone's eyes—and that's another thing where you're different. You don't treat me like a little pest anymore."

  Kenyen chuckled. "You still are, but if you think about it, whatever you expect of a person, they'll live up to it. Or down to it. If I treat you like a pest, you'll act like one. If I treat you like a young man, you'll try to act like one, too. Girls aren't that much different. They do think differently. More caring, more cooperative. But still human in the end. Um..." He wracked his mind, trying to think of other pieces of advice. "Don't be interested just in a girl's looks. She may look pretty, but her figure and her face will change as she ages. The thing that stays constant is her mind.

  "Oh, and find a girl that makes you laugh," Kenyen added, remembering the waxing joke. The memory curved his lips in a smile. He shifted onto his back, staring up at the darkness of the low-raftered ceiling. "And if you can make her laugh, that's even better."

  "I don't get it," Tellik muttered. "You say a girl's mind stays constant, but girls are always changing their minds about stuff."

  "Ah, yes. That's the difference between their opinions and their intellect. A girl who is smart will always be smart, even if she can't decide whether to wear a yellow skirt or a red one on any particular day," Kenyen told him. "A girl who is interested in traveling will always want to travel. At least, until she's tried it and decided whether or not once is enough. If she still likes it, then you'll have to accept it as a part of her. Just as she has to accept the things that you prefer.

  "Sometimes you can even discover something new, together. Or she teaches you something you didn't know before," he added, thinking of folding those paper birds. "Or you can show her something. Show you're interested in a girl—don't push too hard, but let her know you enjoy her company. Smile at her whenever you see her."

  "Tarquin teases the girls a lot," Tellik offered. "I've heard him say to Mari that Juna is prettier, but that he'd rather be with Mari because her hands know how to touch a man. And then he'll say to Juna that her figure is great, but Pelonna makes him laugh. And then Juna tries to make him laugh, too, and Mari gets her hands all over him, and... well, he has a lot of girls fighting over him."

  "Tarquin isn't the best role model on how to treat girls," Kenyen stated. "What Tarquin wants from them is only a small part of what women really are."

  "So what does he want from them?" Tellik asked innocently.

  Kenyen cleared his throat, face warming. Grateful for the dark, he replied honestly, "He wants to twine with as many as possible, but doesn't actually care about any of them. They're just, um... things for him to twine with."

  "... Oh. Ohhh!" Tellik exclaimed softly. "So it's like he only cares for their pretty faces, but doesn't care about their minds, like what you said, right?"

  Relieved, Kenyen nodded in the dark. "Exactly. You're very smart for figuring that out."

  "Solyn doesn't like him, does she?" Tellik asked next. "He's rich and has a nice house, but she never has time for him."

  That made him chuckle. "That's because she's smart enough to realize he only wants one thing from her, and she deserves to have all her different bits appreciated. Body, mind, heart, interests, and abilities."

  Tellik stayed silent for several moments, then asked, "Do you think I might find a girl like that?"

  "You might. She might live here in one of the local holdings, or she might be in the next one over... or you may have to go looking for her in a place that's farther away than you thought," Kenyen murmured, thinking of the distance between this valley and his homeland. "You can look locally first. And you should take your time making up your mind, if you have the chance. But..."

  "... But?" Traver's little brother asked.

  Kenyen thought of Solyn, with her bright hazel eyes, infectious laughter, and sneeze-inducing abilities. "But sometimes you just have to seize the moment and go with your instincts. Sometimes you just know. Or think you know. And then it becomes easier. Not always easy, but easier. Your heart and your mind will prompt you to do little things for her, help her with her chores, give her little gifts... You'll want to spend time with her, whatever you're doing. Or just holding her hand makes you feel warm all over. And when she says nice things about you, it might make you feel twice as tall as you already are... or she might feel these things when you share them with her."

  Tellik mulled that over. Finally, he sighed. "Twining stuff is complicated, isn't it?"

  "Yes, it is," Kenyen chuckled. "Take your time, Tellik. You don't have to rush out and find yourself a bride tomorrow... but you do have to be rested enough to do your chores tomorrow. Now, go to sleep," he ordered. "I have both chores and cheese-making to manage, myself, so I need my sleep, too."

  "Do you twine with Solyn?" Tellik asked. "Like Tarquin says he does? He says there's a lot more to it than holding hands and hugging and kissing, but he only laughs at me and doesn't say what the rest of it is. It isn't like what the goats do with each other, right? 'Cause that doesn't look like it's all that fun, just noisy and weird, and I've never heard anyone human making those sorts of noises before..."

  "Go. To. Sleep," Kenyen ordered. He was more amused than offended by the boy's curiosity, but made sure his tone stayed firm, with no room for argument.

  Silence descended between them. Kenyen relaxed. Just as he started to drift off once more, Tellik spoke again.

  "D'you think Ysander would take me on as an apprentice? I really like watching him work in the forge whenever I can, and Tarquin says he needs an apprentice," the youth added, interrupting the quiet of the night once more.

  "Good night, Tellik!"

  "... G'night."

  Between the time he had left the cavern to go use the bushes and the time he had returned, hands freshly washed at the basin by the entrance, Solyn had set up a small but sturdy, kettle-style teapot on the three-flame heating stand. Steam roiled out of its spout, proving she must have used a spell to heat the wate
r so quickly.

  She had also laid a pair of clean linen cloths over the low table that served as their workstation when rewrapping the fresh cheeses, but the cheeses were not on it. Instead, she had placed a soup bowl, a small bowl, a glass vial full of green powder, an odd little spoon with a lump on the end of the handle, forming a sort of stand that permitted it to sit level on the table, and a strange, fringed wooden whisk. As he watched, she carefully uncorked the little glass jar.

  "What are you doing?" Kenyen asked, curious. He debated releasing his altered face back to its natural form, but decided to refrain when she didn't respond, in case it meant they were being watched.

  Solyn heard the question, but her focus was elsewhere. Gently tapping the vial, she measured out just enough powdered tea to fit into the bowl of the little spoon. Recorking it, she placed the powder in the larger bowl with a murmur and a pulse of magic. Predictably, he sneezed. Trying not to smile too much, she used another scrap of cloth to pick up the steaming teapot and poured some of its contents into the whisking bowl.

  Another murmur of spellwords, focusing and shaping her powers, lifted the whisk and dipped it into the bowl. A final trio of syllables set the spell in motion. Free to relax, she watched as the whisk whipped the mix of water and powdered tea into a frothy foam.

  "I'm making tea," she said, finally answering his question. A glance at his face provoked a wry smile. "We're still alone. You can look like yourself, again."

  "Thank you." He relaxed his features with a smile, then peered at her concoction. "That doesn't look like any tea I've ever had," Kenyen confessed, eyeing the mint green mix in the cup.

  "It's a special kind of tea, mostly used in important religious ceremonies," she told him. "It is also the best kind of tea to use for weather divinations, particularly when prepared this way."

  "Weather divination?" Kenyen asked her. She quickly hushed him as the whisk lifted itself back out again under the direction of her spell, settling once more on the butt of its handle. Subsiding, Kenyen watched.

  Her gaze never left the larger bowl. The thick foam swirled around and around, gradually slowing. It then contracted abruptly. She heard a soft gasp from the Shifterai at her side but kept her gaze on the foam, which had formed an anvil shape very similar to a thunderhead cloud. It still moved slowly about the center of the cup, and was very close to that center. After a moment, it collapsed, turning soft and frothy, once more merely the foam found on top of properly whisked tea.

  Sighing, Solyn nodded. "Two, three days at most, given the distance from the center, and from the size... two or three days of steady rain. We usually get one bad storm before the driest, hottest days of the high harvest season, but with the hills and mountains blocking full view of the horizon, a storm often rolls over us before we actually know. It's important to avoid harvesting the grain early; if it gets soaked in a heavy rain while it lies on the ground, instead of drying properly in the sun, the grain has to be abandoned. It cannot be stored."

  "And so you use a special spell," Kenyen observed. He lifted his chin at the bowl. "What do you do with the leftover tea?"

  She smiled. "We drink it, of course. Mascha tea is never wasted. It is picked from the youngest buds that have been carefully sheltered from direct sunlight, the buds gently harvested by hand, not by clipper. The leaves are dried flat in the shade, guarded against insects and animals until dry. Then the veins are carefully removed when they are crumbled, and the crumbles ground and sifted, thrice to honor Brother Moon for the main kind most people drink, and once more for Sister Moon, for the finest powdering which is used by the priesthood."

  "This is Brother's Tea," she added, nodding at the vial of powder. "An expert maschen, a tea maker wise with many years of practice, can whip the froth without a spell and get a suggestion of the coming weather for the next few days. I don't have nearly that much practice at normal tea reading, but then I don't need to. I can use a divination spell and get more accurate results, making predictions up to a week in advance. It still takes practice to divine the timing of a coming storm, and its size, but then I've been doing it this way for a good five years now, more or less once a week."

  "A handy trait. Most of the time we send fliers up into the sky every hour or so. You can see a very long ways on the Plains, and the weather rarely deviates from its course," he told her. "Every Family has shifters with bird shapes for reading the weather and sending messages to other places, even if they're not a part of Clan Bird. And those stuck on the ground learn to read the coming weather as well."

  "Flying sounds like it would be rather handy for such things," she agreed. Since the foam was no longer remotely cloud-shaped, she poured half the tea from the larger bowl into the smaller bowl. Lifting it to her lips, she bowed her head for a moment in silent prayer, then drank the stimulating, bittersweet brew. Draining it to foam, she set the smaller bowl down and picked up the larger, pouring in the second half.

  "My turn?" Kenyen asked, reaching for the bowl.

  Shocked, Solyn quickly covered the drinking bowl with her fingers, shaking her head. "Oh, no, you mustn't!"

  He gave her a puzzled look. "Why not? You said we drink it. Doesn't that both mean you and I?"

  "Well, yes, but not from the same bowl," Solyn asserted, blushing. At his confused look, she blushed harder. "That's part of the marriage ceremony. And, well, I wasn't thinking, and only brought the one bowl."

  Kenyen almost pointed out that he could easily use the larger bowl, but refrained. It was probably some custom thing unique to the Corredai, and it had been drummed over and over into his head as a warband member to always respect the customs of outkingdom peoples even if he didn't understand them.

  "Alright, I won't drink it this time... but would it be acceptable for me to try it another time?" he asked her. "I do enjoy tea when I can get it, and I've obviously never tried maschen. I'll admit I'm curious to see what that tastes like. I can bring my own cup, next time."

  "There's nothing wrong with curiosity," she agreed, smiling. "I'll bring a spare bowl tomorrow." Lifting the smaller bowl to her lips, she paused and added, "Maschen is never drunk from a cup, because a cup implies enough wealth to own several types of dishes."

  "Oh?" Kenyen asked, curious. "Why is that?"

  She nodded. "The ceremony is meant to be available to all who live in the mountains, from the king and queen themselves, who live in a rich castle surrounded by all manner of fine things, all the way down through to the poorest laborer, who lives communally in a hut with several others and only owns a single porridge bowl for eating—it is said that Cora Herself drinks the maschen of the Gods from a simple porridge bowl when She is alone, and only uses a golden one on Her holiest days."

  She saluted him with the tea and drank. Kenyen nodded his head in return, silently thanking her for the lesson. He was in Correda, which meant respecting the local Goddess, but he did want to share a little bit of his own culture with her.

  "Our own Gods, Father Sky and Mother Earth, have no special way of eating. But They do share Their bounty of rain and grain, milk and meat, with the highest and the lowest alike," he told her. "When we have a feast in the Family, everyone contributes something, even if all a person can afford is to haul a bucket of water from the nearest cistern, or help stoke the brazier fires for making tea—steeped tea leaves, not this whisked powder of yours."

  Solyn nodded, draining the last of the tea. The stimulants from the first bowlful were already being felt, heightening her senses, sharpening her mind, and tingling through her blood. "Mm, steeped tea is very different from whisked tea. This is much stronger than steeping, and the flavor is different. The best maschen tea leaves are grown several valleys away—the kind preferred for Sister's Tea—but we do pick and process our own for Brother's Tea, locally. We don't worship the Moon Gods," she added. "The names just refer to the level of fineness in the grinding and sifting process, taking their numbers from the times each moon circles the world in a single season."

>   "We don't worship Them, either," he agreed. "But we do honor Them, as the visible children of Father Sky and Mother Earth."

  "So what do you do for your own marriage customs?" Solyn asked him, curious.

  "Well, just as you never drink from the same bowl as someone else," Kenyen lightly teased, "a maiden of the Plains is taught never to hold out her hand to a man on the opposite side of a fire, whether it's in the ground or in a brazier. Not even when requesting something. She holds it off to the side, or she walks around the fire to meet him, but she doesn't hold out her hand casually."

  "You don't?" Solyn asked. "Er, I mean, she doesn't?"

  "It's an invitation for the man to leap over the fire and catch her hand. That is how we marry, on the Plains," Kenyen explained. "In front of witnesses, of course."

  Solyn gave him a puzzled look. "How odd... Ah, no offense meant."

  "None taken," he allowed. He shrugged. "It's simply a different way. All systems are valid in the eyes of the Gods."

  "It's just... so simple. There isn't a priest involved?" Solyn asked. He shook his head. She blinked and absorbed that, then shook her own. "Marriage maschen is prepared by a priest, here in the mountains, in front of a gathering of family, friends, members of the local holdings, everyone who can come. The groom provides the bowl and the bride provides the tea—the nicer the bowl, the better, for it proves how well he will be able to take care of her. There is also some symbolism in the colors, words, or images painted on the tea bowl, if any, and of course the material it is made out of has meaning as well.

  "The bride usually provides Sister's Tea which she has made herself, or which a trusted female relative or friend has made—I had to learn how to make both kinds as part of my Healing lessons, since we use similar methods to refine other substances," she added. "It takes a lot of time and the finest of sifting cloths, usually silk, to make the highest grade of powder. The attention a woman gives to Sister's Tea indicates the attention she will give to the needs of her family. There is a lot of meaning behind the ceremony, and a lot of effort."