Spontanéité

So let the rain fall // taster

***

The forest slept uneasily.

That is how I remember that ruai.

In the east on lumpy hills of thin grass and harsh stone, flocks huddled within makeshift folds of rock-piles. Their shepherds slept with their backs against the rough, cold walls, walls that grazed their skin if they stirred—my cousin and the pale scars on her back attested to that. The animals and their keepers lay exposed to the winds and the stars in the sky above.

Below the same sky, south of the herding-grounds, the surrounds slept too—sprawling and still houses of many shapes and sizes. From a few, thin wisps of smoke drifted upwards to the towering canopy, only scattered specks of starlight invading the air above homes cloaked in shadow. These surrounds formed large, layered rings encircling the three Dair—great trees carrying the sky in their branches and generations of life in their roots.
Life. And yet...

There were deaths that ruai.

Deaths come silently.
Deaths come unexpectedly, and horribly, and deaths almost too ugly to comprehend.

I have since learned all I wished to know of them.

The first death entered through the open window, the curtains stirred by the quiet wind bearing silent witness. A soundless struggle, an irrevocable mess.
In. Out.
Gone.

Fury pursued on light and rapid feet, but she, too, was cut off.

Southeast of the Dair, too far away and so close to what would happen, I stood in a ring of the circuits in the darkness. A knife held in each hand, I nodded to the man with me and adjusted the grip of my right hand. "Shé. There is good."

He backed away from the board and didn't relax, tensing further when I released one knife and then the other. His shoulders slowly loosened after one had punctured the centre and the other had bounced off with a disappointed clatter.

"You think you not done enough?"

If I let myself notice, I'd know burning aches travelled up and down my fingers, arms, shoulders, spine, abdomen, legs, feet. Instead I crossed the distance to retrieve the knives, my reply short. "Bù."

"You're a fool, Firisien."

I returned to the line in the dust I'd scratched with a foot and prepared to throw again. "Hardly. You can't think of better insult?" He'd used the same one twice since arriving here.

"Is not foolish to push your body late into ruai when you've been already all an?"

I shrugged, letting the blades loose again. One cut a clean arc through the air, edge glinting before it buried its point into the centre of the board with a satisfying thunk. The other fell short, not even hitting the board, and a frustrated noise escaped the back of my throat.

"From my right hand," I muttered. The look on his face told me he thought I was proving his point. Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I pushed damp strands of hair away from where they stuck to my forehead. "I'm fine."

He shook his head, "Even Zan and Kalran don't as you."

I rolled my shoulders back, glad to hear the cracks as my bones shifted with the movement. "You know, you can leave. I've been doing since last iak. I'm fine."

His frown deepened. "Go home, Firis."

I lowered my voice to mimic his. "Go home, Doel." I flexed my fingers, blowing out a breath. "Kis on Fir are coming. The Fairen have kept silence more than five cycles, I have all reason to be here right now."