Eagles and Swans

Chapter 19: The Second Plea

The afternoons of spring fell into a steady beat. The flowers’ scent had settled itself into the pulse of daily life, and the days rolled along like the carriages on a grand train. The cicadas’ murmuring, secretive drone drenched the nighttime.

Ruthenia was woken one morning by the sound of the river thundering over its banks. She kicked her doors open and raced out into the spring cold to see it frothing like the sea, gleaming grey in the morning light, swamping the wheat on either side.

Clambering clumsily onto her umbrella, she hovered at the riverside, studying the water’s depths until they had receded and she was watching fish flash across the riverbed.

After breakfast, she picked up the copy of the Herald lying on Tanio’s coffee table and kicked back in his couch to read in the dusty brown light.

Lower Centrelight was flooded. Another ship had capsized and vanished last night. Protest signboards had been painted and raised in Candle Plaza. The Pteryx had been stolen and found in the Archbishop's courtyard, wearing a paper hat. Lord Anio and Cathia Argola were getting married next Saturday. Race schedules and betting odds.

She studied the papers cover to cover, until Tanio returned from the Baytown market, empty-handed.

“The Ministry’s been stripping fishermen of their licences for so much as sailing the coast near the Deeps,” he said, tossing his money pouch onto the dining table. “It’s not pretty at the market. It'll be beef again tonight, I'm afraid.”

---

The oat fields that decorated the Candelabra suburbs were alive with cicadas as Ruthenia flew by them. Hollia stood in a grass-green dress at the front step of her parents' cottage, waving up at her as her friend arrived. She raced to meet Ruthenia where she landed, calling Phore over with a couple of sharp whistles. "Oh Ruth, it's so good to see you!" she exclaimed. “Let's not waste any time, we have a long day ahead. How about we head over into town? I know the perfect place to start your outfit hunt.”

“Oh, of course you do.”

Hollia began to ramble heartily about her favourite boutique as she mounted the great pigeon and nestled herself among the white feathers.

Ruthenia nodded and did her best to smile, although in her heart she was already sending desperate pleas to every deity in the vicinity.

The fields rolled by beneath them, mottled and green and undulating gently towards the distance. Hollia liked flying close to the ground, so Ruthenia followed suit. Modest, cubical houses hurtled by above them, all their curtains drawn. The field was eventually swallowed by beech woodland, decorated by low hills whose crowns protruded from the young green canopy. Shrill cries ascended every now and then from beyond the blur of leaves.

The forests ended suddenly, held back by a low crenellated wall, and the town of Candelabra came riding forth among the next hills—a haphazard, bustling system of buildings, airborne and grounded, linked by slanting wooden ladders that pivoted on hinges.

"Alright, now, follow me close," announced Hollia as they crossed into the town's borders and the rattle of carts rose up from beneath them with the smoke.

With a swerve, the white pigeon turned south, following the town border. Crying out, Ruthenia swung to follow, gripping her umbrella so tight that her fingers began to cramp. Even in midair the crowd was impressive, the flutter of birds about them, mingling with shouted greetings, skirts and crinolines folded or tucked up high, hats stowed in bags.

Eventually Phore descended loftily to the deck outside a shop. Ladders led upward and down, the entire countryside visible between their rungs. Wind stirred Hollia’s long skirt as she slipped off Phore in a gleaming ripple of silk, and Ruthenia followed after, slowing just in time to ease herself to a clumsy stop.

The first thing that struck her as the door swung shut was the scent of silk, alongside all sorts of other strange odours beneath that.

She passed through a forest of cloth—curtains of gowns hanging on her left, men's wear to the right, upper shelves lined with hats of the very best make, some adorned with feathers and chains. Between them she walked with a hung head, feeling like a chunk of rock among cut diamonds.

“The shop's all yours,” said Hollia. “They've never failed me before.”

Ruthenia frowned. “I…may need help. I've never bought an outfit for a high society party before.”

Hollia beamed. “Well, Arcanes are all about the visual symbolism,” she said. “Starting with the colour. Green is like leaves, like growing things…”

Ruthenia did not have to think too hard. “Red, I always saw it as my colour,” she replied. “Like embers, or the sunrise.”

“Makes a statement, I like it,” Hollia replied. “Now, do you have a style in mind?”

Ruthenia shook her head. “I haven't worn a dress since I was ten,” she sighed.

“You don't have to wear a dress if you prefer something else.”

“It's not that—I've just, kind of forgotten how it works. Can I get your opinion?”

“Of course, anytime!”

So began Ruthenia's three-hour hunt. She was helped by the fact that the boutique did not have all that many red dresses, but even then, she trawled through half a dozen with cuts too low or frills too copious, before picking out two.

It was a bold and ruffly red dress. At the collar, a bloom of red ruffles had been pulled into a rose’s shape, the narrow scarlet bodice tapered to a seam, where it adjoined a pleated black skirt enveloped by a lacy red overlayer parted down the middle, trailing all the way to the ground in ripples.

Hollia pointed her towards the fitting area. In the shadow of the screen, the smell of musk and wood filled her nose. A mirror hung on the inside of one of the screen’s pleats; she saw herself in it, her red-brown hair sticking out in spikes everywhere. Forgotten ribbons and bands lay scattered about the floor at her feet.

Casting a wary glance about in the dimness, Ruthenia picked up the first dress. Would this truly work?

As she pulled her head through the ruffles, the clasps scratched her back. She breathed deeply, as if rising for air after a swim. Red ruffles encircled her throat. The top clung closer to her body than she was used to. It had no sleeves; she pulled her arms into armholes, did the hooks on the back seam, and arranged the skirts, looking in the mirror.

Again her own brown eyes stare back. From the shoulders down, the rest of her was transformed. For once, she truly did look beautiful to her eyes, but not demure. The red was bold and the greatly in-folded skirts left room for moving. She flushed, and a nervous laugh left her.

Pulling the screen aside, she stuck her head through to find Hollia conversing eagerly with the cashier lady. “Could I get your thoughts?” she called.

Hollia turned abruptly. “Ooh, yes, come on out!” As Ruthenia carefully slipped through the gap, her friend's er eyes studied her from top to bottom, then she clutched her cheeks with a huge smile. “Ruth, you look gorgeous!”

Ruthenia's face burned. “Paint my face a little and I’ll be right at home with the Arcanes.”

Hollia giggled. “Do you like it?” she said. “Oh, I know, a pair of dark leggings would go well with those skirts. And a pair of boots, too!” She took her by the arm. “Take it off and we'll go pay!”

---

Back at the aviary cottage, Hollia’s grandmother had a full meal whipped up within the hour. Ruthenia could barely hold back once the dishes were lain down for her, although Hollia only barely managed to stop her from gobbling the entire feast up, introducing her to the cutlery piece by piece. Ruthenia groaned and nodded, halfheartedly committing the pieces to memory. Even then, she never got a satisfactory explanation of the difference between a dessert fork and a salad fork, nor why they had to be two different forks.

As it turned out, Hollia had spent the past day preparing a full training regime. And Ruthenia toiled over the specifics of tearing bread and scooping soup and cutting with a fork, if only for the sake of honouring her efforts.

After lunch, she found herself relearning something she had not devoted any thought since she had turned three: how to walk. “No no, keep your back straight.” Hollia clicked her tongue and used her own foot to nudge hers into line. “Your foot must come down farther in front than to the side of the other.”

She quizzed Ruthenia on titles and honorifics and a dozen gestures of courtesy she had never heard of till today. Your Majesty for diarchs and their spouses, Your Highness for siblings and children of diarchs, Your Excellency for parents, Your Lordship for any other relative, and so on.

“Why's the honorific for parents different from children?” Ruthenia muttered.

Either not recognising or not heeding her impatience, Hollia replied, “That comes from the monarchial era, when succession was hereditary. Highnesses are potential heirs and Majesties become Excellencies after they have handed their titles down.”

“Well, it's not hereditary anymore. So why's it still like this?”

She sighed. “You know Astra. Changing tradition is like changing the wheels while the cart is moving.” She dusted her hands. “Well, that concludes the language syllabus.”

Ruthenia rose from the couch where they sat and made towards her umbrella leaning against the shoe rack. “Well, thanks for your help!” she called. “I'll let you know how it goes.”

But Hollia flew over and stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Wait, wait, wait. We're not done yet. Aren't you forgetting…”

“What am I forgetting?”

“The dances.”

Ruthenia groaned with a sag of her shoulders, letting her umbrella fall. “Fine. Fine, just for you. Let's do…the dances.”

For the next ten minutes, they rearranged the living room, pushing the tables and chairs to the walls, glassware tucked away in the chest of drawers. Then, with a grin too excited for Ruthenia to refuse, Hollia took hold of her shoulder with one hand. “Now, first and most importantly: relax. Astran dances aren't formulas that you follow. There are standard steps, but all they tell you is when to move your feet, when to let go for a flourish, and when to come back. You have to follow your instinct. And your partner's.”

“What instinct?”

“Just let the rhythm flow through your body. I'll be the lead, and you can follow. Show me your Helika Waltz, and four-two-three!”

The counting brought the Etiquette class roaring through her thoughts like floodwater. With a frightened gasp, Ruthenia took the first step backward as Hollia pushed, and they launched into the Waltz. She was light on her feet—a bird, almost, demonstrating the steps with practiced ease what Ruthenia could only emulate with stumbles and trips. She wasn't accustomed to all of this—losing balance on purpose and letting her dance partner bear her weight—though Hollia clearly seemed to know what she was doing and never once let her drop to the floor.

Whatever she said, she much preferred a formula to none. So she gritted her teeth and repeated the move set furiously—step-step, twirl, snatch-shoulder—step-step, let-go, twirl-the-other-way.

Slowly, the four phases of the Helika Waltz engraved themselves in her muscle memory, and the afternoon glowed and faded, and the sun entered the last quarter of the sky. Concurrently, Hollia obliged to teach a little history regarding the dance.

“Somnia describes the beat of Ihir’s own heart in her memoirs—it goes something like this,” Hollia said buoyantly, tapping out two four-beat cycles on her lap. “Two eighth-notes and then two quarter notes, like a triple meter dance. The fact got out in publications, and the composer Palla took that rhythm for the first Helika Waltz.”

The measures generally followed an alternating two-part cycle—first three beats, forward; next three beats, back—an in-out that emulated the pull of tides, partners taking turns to advance and retreat, pulling the each other along with the pulse of the music.

Arriving at the start point by the end of a phase was not a concern, or so it seemed. Hollia took Ruthenia almost uninhibited about the room, sometimes winding up at walls or corners and having to return to the centre.

"And now you go once around me, clockwise—as far as you want! I'll turn the other way. Make sure you end facing me—then take my right shoulder with your left hand—right shoulder, not left! That's my left."

Come six o’clock, Ruthenia was lounging in one of Hollia’s couches, massaging out all the aches in her back. Neither became aware of the fact that it had gotten that late till the Thread lamps, resting in old sconces, took over the task of lighting the living room. Ruthenia stood up, head heavy with new knowledge she was barely corralling in her mind.

“There’s a ferry station about five minutes’ walk from here,” Hollia said as they sat down for dinner. “I’ll show you the way there. The southbound ferry passes through your region after Helika and Candle—I’m not sure if that’s anywhere close to your home.”

“That’ll do. Thanks.”

At the end of the meal, Hollia moved to pick a globular Thread bulb up off the closest sconce. She awaited Ruthenia down on her doorstep, then took her down the footpath to the ferry station.

The night was crisp, enwrapping them both in cold that smelt of new dew and fresh grass. The cicadas conversed over the miles, the crickets playing their tunes, wind howling through far-off branches. Dinner still sat warm in Ruthenia’s stomach, warding off the chill as a breeze curled by, rustling the grass like an ocean around her. In the sea of blackness, she saw Candelabra glowing gold in the hills.

“Helika’s just south of Candelabra,” answered Hollia, gazing out at the dazzling town. A breeze swept her golden hair back, faintly visible even in the dark. “I see it sometimes, when I’m atop the aviary and the night’s clear and dry. It’s a nice thought, isn’t it? That we can both see the capital.”

Ruthenia nodded. “Astra sure is tiny.”

At last, beneath the platform where the dirt road began fading off into the grass, Ruthenia and Hollia hugged goodbye. “Thank you for having me over,” she said, lifting her umbrella horizontal. “And thanks for everything else.”

Hollia patted her arm. “You’ll do me proud at Lord Anio’s wedding, won’t you?”

Ruthenia laughed as she mounted, swinging herself onto the suspended flight mount. “I can’t be sure of that. But I’ll do my best.” With a final wave, she began to ascend towards the ferry station, watching as the birdkeeper and her little light shrank far, far below, winding its way back up the path it had come.

---

In the early morning, Ruthenia found a note from Tanio to pick up bread and milk.

It wasn't two minutes along her flight that she saw lightning streak across the sky. Mesmerizing and pulsing, the sheets of grey came rushing down as she began to turn back, pushing frantically through the downpour. The gale batted her about. She grew delirious in the flashing rain as a swarm of nondescript voices swallowed her. “Ihir?” she gasped as she coursed forward, towards the light of Beacon Way. Rain splashed her tongue, splashed down her chin. “Lilin?” She had almost arrived; she could hear the river, roaring twice as loud. The lights bloomed into flowers in her eyes.

A sudden boom of thunder made her yell, and her flight swung out of control. She only barely felt a great spasm wrack her and her legs lose grip of the umbrella as she swung down, wind hissing, the river water shattering as her shoulder met it. She tried to scream but the current pulled her in like the jaws of a beast and her mouth flooded with river water.

The water gushed into her eyes, and suddenly she was seeing. Seeing a great and endless chaos of ocean waves, their crests burning white, breaking, reforming.

The voice shook her teeth and bones, so vast she felt like nothing. She heard it echo in her skull as if in a cathedral.

Lilin.

Suddenly, breathless, lying at the bottom of an old seabed cave, Ruthenia knew it beyond a doubt.

Silver wings again, silver wings that linked all her dreams together. Neither a bird’s nor a fish’s—older than bird or fish, older than dread and sorrow; when she beat them against the current, they spewed blood, smoky red streaks spiralling up towards the sun.

Lilin…I know it’s her…

“Lilin!” she yelled, and her breath left her in a trail of bubbles.

A shriek. Father?

In a thrash, Ruthenia dragged her head out of the current and kicked and gasped and coughed, rain flooding into her mouth. The storm was boiling overhead, the silhouette of her umbrella hanging an indiscernible distance above. “Lilin!” she yelled again, but to no avail, sadness clawing away at her chest.

She kicked and thrashed with all the strength in her frigid limbs until she had made it to the bank, and climbed out, coughing and gasping as the rain pattered on her skin, washing the memory of Lilin and of almost-drowning away. There she stood, staring and shivering.

Her umbrella swung in the wind, too far from the bank to be reached. “I’ll get you later, don’t you worry,” she muttered, raising her head and cupping her hands around her mouth. “Tanio! Tanio! I’m stuck!”

It was a number of miserable minutes before Tanio finally heard her yelling and came floating down on his surfboard, reaching out to pluck her umbrella from the air on his way.

She sat hunched and groaning as her boss offered every manner of jibe and admonishment on their way up. “How did you end up like this?” he asked.

She shivered, coughing up more water. “It came without warning,” she said. “I heard a voice in the water. I think it was Lilin. And I think she replied.”

“Oh look, now you’re babbling. Maybe a fever’s coming on. Do you need a physician?” She made a grumbling noise and did not dignify him with a response.

He landed at his porch, half-drenched himself, although the storm had thinned to a drizzle by then. She groaned. “You go get the bread and milk,” she groaned, then raced off to her own shed, shaking with cold as the water sloshed inside her shoes and dripped from her fingers. Inside, she stripped off her soggy, scummy clothes and changed into another set. All she could think of while she pulled a new shirt on was the haunting sound of Lilin’s voice inside, booming and ragged and thin.

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