SSCS 04: Installment 3 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
This is Installment 3 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
(And the character list is here.)
Previously…
“Here, San.” She plucked at San’s sleeve who’d sat on the other side of her, and pulled him back toward the back wall, pressing an ear against it. San mimicked her, though as ever he left one arm stretched back to keep his fingers twined with Ki’s, his skin warm and smooth brown against Ki’s white. But his eyes were on Lot, waiting. “Listen.” Lot stroked one finger down alongside her face in explanation. San nodded and took a long, slow breath, letting that part of himself shift toward a mimicry of Lot’s features. In another moment he heard it too.
…The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
Installment 3: 21.0301,22.0127
“Since when are there Trawerlers so far from the sea?” San’s voice had taken on some of the shuddery scratchiness of Lot’s, though from his mouth it was more of a buzzing against the back teeth. “Have they made themselves a settlement here?”
“We’re not so far as it seems,” Lot answered in a hush. The iron wall was cold against her cheek and her eyes distant as she listened to the clicking, aching melody that shuddered through the thin barrier, ever so faintly. It was a foreign call. This was only her second body with any Trawerler-folk ancestry, and she’d left the clan quickly enough to return to her Lazarine, that she’d learned few new Trawerler secrets while wearing it. “This river has a deep current that flows in with the tides. Even forty miles up from here you’d still be able to taste it, just. But it does seem like it would hurt if they stayed here always. Perhaps.”
She pulled away from the wall and looked over at El, who’d settled beside Du in their continued father-daughter pretense. The girl/leader just looked back at her, black eyes in a night-black face, considering. Her tunic, wine-red edged in red-orange, hid the hands she’d tucked up into its wide sleeves. In a child’s body, El usually worked to hide her hands, which would be otherwise ceaselessly moving, and not in the restless fashion of a wayward child. Her hands were too much a part of her, their gestures impossibly fluid when she spoke, and then knotting and clasping and twining about themselves when she was in thought. It kept them all safer if their El hid her hands for now, but it also kept the other four always on edge, not having the comfort of her hands to gauge her moods for them. Now, merely one skinny shoulder lifted. If not arrested, it would have been a palm-up gesture toward Lot. “Do you need to eat first?” was all the ancient-eyed girl asked.
“A little at least,” Lot admitted, casting a glance now at San, who nodded agreement. If they waited too long, and these Trawerlers turned out to be nomads, then they might lose their chance to talk with them, but it had been a long day of fruitless searching, and the river water would be cold.
“Then eat first and we’ll keep watch.” El spoke, and she and Du and Ki all shifted, so that their postures of repose became more upright and outward facing, making active assessment of this quieter yet still populous downstairs room. When a server approached their alcove with a laden tray, El rose swiftly with a bright-eyed eagerness that could easily distract, and many hands took the tray and shooed the server onward. When she sat down again, Du was now to the front, a pan-flute come into his hands and soon pressed softly to his lips.
They didn’t yet know this city or its people, but that shouldn’t matter. Music always spoke, and in the hands of a half-djinn—in the hands of Du besides—it coaxed as well, teasing at the mood of the room. Long, low, intricate notes pulled first on breaths of melancholy, then of liveliness, until the music had threaded itself beneath every conversation, buoying them, making the folk around them less wary. They’d likely drink deeply of their cups tonight, fall deep into dreaming when they sought their beds, and wake with a distant longing.