Aniyana - songs of love and death (a high fantasy)

Chapter 2 - Get up, Stand up...

The first time Aniyana tried to leave the bed was disastrous. She woke sometime that afternoon with a fierce need to go to the bathroom. "All that stew..." she mumbled to no one. "There's got to be a place to ..." She let her mumbling trail off and pulled the blanket from her legs, thankful that the fire was still merrily eating away at the wood. She set her bare feet on the cool, slightly rough wooden floor and stood with the intention of walking to the door. Next she knew, she was gazing up at Bala's worried face with the floor at her back. She would have been frightened if Bala hadn't smiled.

"I told you it would be a few days, Aniyana."

"But I... I needed... I had to pee!" she defended, pushing herself up. A trumpet blast of a laugh escaped Bala's lips. "I've never heard a lady put it quite that way, but I think you already did that, dear." Aniyana flushed as she smelled a strangely sharp odor and felt a pool of dampness on her nightgown and beneath her on the floor that could only be one thing. "Oh, Bala..." she choked, her eyes misting with frustration and embarrassment. "I'm so sorry. What should I do?"

"Well," Bala chuckled "first, you take a bath, then you'll get back in bed after I clean up the room." She helped Aniyana rise to her feet and stand, guiding her hands to grip the mantle of the fireplace. "Just stand here, honey." Aniyana waited while Bala tramped down the hall, her skirt swishing against the narrow walls. She distantly heard a few soft voices from the inn and the clink of glass on wood. Probably only two or three people eating, by the sound of it. Not very many people, for midday, Aniyana thought. Heavy feet tramped out the Inn, running. A door slammed. A few moments later, Bala was back. "The stable boy is filing the tub in the bathing room. Come with me." Aniyana was grateful for the support Bala offered because as soon as her hands left the mantle, her left leg again buckled under her. Bala fairly carried her out the door and down the left hallway. As they made their way, Aniyana's eyes hungrily scanned the surroundings, even as she prayed that no one would see her in her soiled condition.

The well-worn wood of the building was smoothed with the passage of many years, darkening the wood with a distinguished tint. Candle sconces were at the side of each door, softly lighting the passage to the great room. Just as it seemed they would have to enter the main room, the silhouette of a large man ducked out of a side hall on the left, two large empty buckets in hand.

It had to be the stable boy, but he was a big mountain of a man, not a boy at all, and it just left Aniyana more confused. They soon shuffled dow that hall which led to two doors, each with a carving on the front. One depicted a woman's face, which looked suspiciously similar to Bala; the other showed a man whom Aniyana thought must be her husband...Granger? Bala opened the woman's door and inside was a very tiny space with a large wooden tub in the middle and dimly lit by four candles, one in each corner. Shelves lined the large slanted wall to the right of the door with what seemed to be towels of the same deep green material as her comforter and curtains.

Aniyana soon realized that Bala was talking to her, but she couldn't seem to respond. She felt her clothing dropping around her ankles and the strong hands of Bala lowering her into the soothingly warm water in the tub. A voice began singing a soft song without words, the melody rising and falling like the sound of a waterfall, soothing her just as much as the tub. It was such a nice song. But Bala was trying to talk to her. She focused on Bala's lips as she spoke, trying to concentrate on hearing her AND the song. "What are you singing, honey? That's the second time you've sung that melody." It was her singing. As soon as she realized that, she couldn't remember the song. "I don't know." she frowned. "I can't remember anymore." She looked down to see her hands mechanically washing herself with a small cake of hard soap that, for the life of her, she couldn't remember grasping. "I think I'm still sick." Bala laughed again, shaking her head in confusion. "You seem to have a talent for understatement, Aniyana."

***

Three days later, Aniyana awoke with a clear head and cold feet. The fire had burned down low, the blanket hung limply to the floor, where she had kicked it sometime during the night and the curtain was pulled back. Dawn was just breaking behind the inn, and the small forest that skirted the travelers' road to the south of town was lit up to a bronzed green. Today, she was getting out of bed. She felt wonderfully non-sick. Stretching her toes and legs; Aniyana barely felt a twinge in her leg at all. When she'd finally looked at it in the bath three days earlier, what felt alternately like fire and like dead weight was in fact only a scratched thigh. The reason it wasn't supporting her weight, Bala said, was because of the plant that cut her. The pinta flower was poisonous, and if it had gone into a vein, the poison would have made her even sicker than she already was. Combined with the cold, she may have died.

Yesterday, she had walked around for almost two hours after the guests in the inn were asleep, helping with the cleaning duties. Bala and the stable boy kept one eye each on her progress, ready to help, but thrilled that their assistance was unneeded.

The stable boy was a strange, huge, bear of a man with bulging muscles and long, straight brown hair pulled to the nape of his neck in a ponytail with a leather cord and hanging down to the middle of his back. He walked like a hunter, never moving unless necessary, but stepped loudly, as if to tell you that he were coming. His leathery skin matched Bala's and his liquid brown eyes bored into Aniyana, if he looked up. He stared at the ground most of the time like a frightened child. And he adored Bala. It was visible in every subtle glance he gave her, every anticipation of her needs. If Bala was cooking, the stable boy new exactly what spices she would want and had them waiting on the cooking counter before she could ask for them.

Aniyana realized that she didn't know the stable boys name. And why is he the stable boy? He's not a child. Hmm. I must remember to ask. 

Bala promised that today she could help in the Inn. "I feel so useless, Bala." She had explained, the previous evening. "I do nothing all day, but you are short of help and you've helped me get over a terrible illness." She saw in those ice blue eyes that Bala would resist what she saw as repayment, and send Aniyana on her way, unless Aniyana thought of another way to stay. She was desperate, so she settled for the truth.

"I have no home, Bala. Not one that I remember. I have no one to go to. No one to look for. You are the only person I know. Please don't make me leave." Bala had cocked her head to the side, giving Aniyana one of those looks she had. "All right." She had said, simply. 

Aniyana shook herself out of her reverie and stood up. She made the bed and dressed in some of Baal's old clothing, modified to fit her. She looked down at herself in the dim light of dawn trickling through the window.

The brown skirt, floor length on Bala, positively dwarfed Aniyana. She tied it at her waist with a small length of rope the stable boy had brought to her, and folded the extra down over the makeshift belt. The blouse pulled over her head and had a simple drawstring closure around the neck, making it adjustable to any size. Over this, she placed a vest. It was far too big, originally. Bala's large breasts had stretched the fabric over the years to form cups on either side of the lacing in the front of the vest. Aniyana had spent the past two days modifying it to fit. She had split the vest straight down the back and cut off an even measure from each half, front and back. She then pierced holes into the back identical to those in front and laced it back together; creating a smaller, if somewhat strange looking, vest.

Bala had visited all she could during the days and offered sewing advice during the process, yet even she was surprised when the idea worked as well as it did. The stable boy had stopped by once, too. He stayed at the doorway, knocking politely until she opened the door. "You needed rope and some tools." He said softly. "I bought it for you." Before she could thank him, he slipped away, silently that time. Thanks to his tools, though, her efforts had finally yielded an ugly vest that nonetheless fit. 

Drawing a deep breath and looking around the room which had been the whole of her existence for most of her active memory, she banked the fire as Bala had shown her and left the room.