New opportunities (AKA a fresh start) - Taffeta
May 16, 2018 18:49:49 GMT
Barden [Ollie], Sunday, and 1 more like this
Post by Malri 'Taffeta' Thistletop on May 16, 2018 18:49:49 GMT
1495 DR, 18 Mirtul
‘Girls, come and help me fillet these halibut,’ calls Rosleigh Drawwater. She hauls one of the large diamond-shaped fish out of a basin of tepid water and slaps it onto the carving board. ‘Don’t make me do it all on my own, now, not at my age.’
‘I’ll help you, Nana!’ The shout from the garden is followed by rapid footfalls on gravel and then on wood, and Idari barrels into the brightly sunlit kitchen. Her mother looks up from the glass ball she’s been contemplating. ‘Get changed first, love,’ says Taffeta quickly, ‘you don’t want your nice new dress smelling all fishy.’ ‘Gooooood point!’ the girl says, turning her run into a circuit of the kitchen and disappearing back out into the hallway. Taffeta and her mother-in-law exchange a glance – amusement on one face, slight disapproval on the other – before hearing feet clattering up the stairs and Aila’s indignant cry of ‘Look where you’re going!’
‘What’ve got there, Ma?’ asks Aila, coming into the room at a more measured pace than her sister.
‘It’s a driftglobe.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s magic. I’ll show you when you’ve finished helping Nana Rose.’
‘Show what?’ Idari has reappeared, her bright yellow dress replaced with a slightly worn ochre smock that she begins to overlay with an apron.
‘Magic ball,’ says Aila, pretending not to be excited about it.
‘Wow! What’s it do?’
‘Fish first, magic after,’ says Taffeta.
‘Will you tell us where you got it?’
‘Same place as I got the halibut, more or less.’
‘Post Ffirst?’
‘More or less.’
Idari’s voice becomes grumpy. ‘Maaa, why’re you being like that?’
‘Oh, I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.’
‘Pleeease?’
‘All right. I got it at a tea-party with two sharks and an octopus.’
‘Come on, Ma,’ scoffs Aila, ‘we’re too old for that kind of story.’
‘Cyrrollalee rebuke me if it isn’t the truth!’
‘Really? A tea-party?’ asks Idari eagerly.
After an exchange of looks and a little nod from Rosleigh, Taffeta offers: ‘All right, I’ll tell you about it, as long as it doesn’t stop you concentrating on the halibut.’
So while Rose directs the two young hin in carefully cutting the white flesh down the centre and away from the bones of the fish, Taffeta tells them about the notice that was posted in the Ettin on behalf of the village of tritons in the eastern sea, seeking help following the recent disappearance of some of the inhabitants. She describes the small band that answered the call.
‘Well it was me and Barden, and there were three people I never really talked to before. There was that elf we’ve seen around town, the bowman. His name is Aeris. He comes from farming people but he’s actually got a lot in common with us, I think. And there were two humans; I hadn’t seen them before at all. The one called Damian seems very clever, some kind of researcher I think: he wears funny glass circles in front of his eyes, with a bit of metal between them that balances on the top of his nose. Not much of a one for chit-chat, but surprisingly handy in a fight. And then there was a woman named Sara, very elegant she is, from way out in Calimshan. I’m not sure what I make of her, to be honest, but she could fillet those fish in half a second, that’s for sure. Oh, and she has a parrot.’
‘A parrot!’ exclaims Idari. ‘Does it talk?’
‘I love how this lady has a pet parrot and Ma almost forgets to mention it,’ Aila remarks to her grandmother.
‘I don’t know that it was a pet… Sara didn’t seem to… like it very much,’ says Taffeta, more to herself than to anybody else. ‘Anyway, off we went.’
‘It turns out that the tritons live off the coast where Port Ffirst is, so we stopped at the port and went to Kensington’s office.’
Aila makes a disdainful grunt at the mention of the magnate.
‘Aila, dear, don’t make noises like that,’ Rosleigh admonishes.
‘Sorry, Nana.’
‘Why don’t you like him, anyway?’ asks Idari.
‘He’s just so… I don’t know… It’s like he’s in charge of everything, or he wants to be anyway. He basically owns Port Ffirst, and then as if that isn’t enough he takes a seat on the Council here, and… and he doesn’t even live here!’
‘Aila, please, no politics…’ says Rose, ineffectually.
‘And where was he and all his… his employees, when the town was being attacked by… by…’ Aila has put down her knife and is gripping the edge of the kitchen table with both hands, knuckles growing pale with tension. Idari’s smaller hand gently comes to rest on top of one of Aila’s and gives it a squeeze, while Taffeta moves over to join them. ‘I know, love, I know,’ she says quietly.
Rose looks uncomfortable. ‘This is why I don’t like all this political talk,’ she mutters.
‘I know, Rose, and honestly I don’t understand it enough to think one way or another, but I’m glad Aila does. I’m proud of my clever girls. They get that from your side of the family, you know, Rose. If there’s good and bad things in the world, they won’t go away just from us not knowing about them or talking about them. Come on, loves,’ Taffeta turns to Aila and Idari, ‘let’s finish these fish while I tell you the rest of the story.’
Fish-scales and steel knives glint in the sunshine slanting through the kitchen window as Taffeta resumes her tale. She recounts eating the strange bitter weed that the people of Port Ffirst use to give themselves gills so they can breathe underwater, and how the party swam, or in some cases sank, to the bottom of the sea, travelling about eight miles south-east from the coast to the amazing submerged village of the tritons. She makes the girls laugh by imitating the strange formality and old-fashioned talk of the stuck-up but good-hearted inhabitants. Then she tells how one of them escorted the party further south-east along the sea bed, following the path taken by two other triton warriors who had gone to try to deal with a sahuagin necromancer who had been causing trouble to the village by raising sharks from the dead. The two warriors had not returned.
As Aila and Idari dispose of the fish-bones and lay aside most of the halibut for their father to use in tomorrow’s pies, and Rose begins the prepare the remaining fillets for that evening’s meal, Taffeta struggles to describe the strange drowned forest that must once have been on land, now transformed by decades or centuries under water into a ghost land of blanched, stripped trunks amid drifting seaweed and bristling coral.
‘Our guide left us at the edge of the forest and we went in. Aeris and I found some old tracks and followed them a little, but then the others heard a crashing sound coming towards us so we hid. Well, most of us hid. Barden, poor fellow, he was a bit slow in all that armour and he was still right out in the open when a giant moving tree appeared – but a dead tree, hollow in places and missing patches of bark, not a leaf on its branches anywhere. It started swinging its branches at us until Barden called on his god and sent the tree creature running. We caught up with it and finished it off just outside some sort of old ruined village in the middle of the forest.’
‘One of the buildings was still standing, so we had a look at it. Damian, he’s a smart one, he spotted there was a spell protecting the door, and Barden dispelled it so we could go in. There wasn’t much there except a basement room with some very strange decor: lots of balls hanging from the ceiling with pictures in them, and a six-sided door with writing on each side. Locked, of course. Now, girls, you know your ma isn’t too good with reading, but the others read it out to me, and it seemed like there were the names of six rooms, and each name had the first bit of a word next to it, like ‘eg’ or ‘dw’. We were all a bit stumped at that! There were two little weights on hooks, and the others figured out we should hang the weights on the balls to open the door, but when Damian tried a couple, the water in the room got zapped and gave us a nasty shock. It was a real puzzle, I tell you. So there we all were looking at these pictures – an orchard, a dwarf, a bowl of eggs – and I thought, well, what if we hang the weights on the pictures that start with the same letters? Like two that both start with ‘eg’? Well, girls, be proud of your ma, because it turned out that’s what it was!’
‘Well done, Ma,’ smiles Aila, and Idari gives Taffeta a little hug. ‘So what happened?’
‘Well we managed to open up the door, and it led to a different room for each pair of pictures. One of them had the bodies of those two poor tritons – dead, I’m sorry to say, and, what’s worse, brought back from the dead. They attacked us and we had to fight them off. Sara took some… rather grisly souvenirs from that fight, I’ve got to say. She said it was her culture, so maybe I shouldn’t judge. I don’t know. Didn’t sit right with me.’ Taffeta fidgets with her belt-buckle. ‘Anyway, eventually we found the wizard. He was in the middle of an old crumbling arena, sitting at a picnic table and pouring out cups of tea for a couple of undead sharks and an octopus. One of the sharks had a hat on. It was very strange and… a bit sad, to be honest. The fellow’s mind must have been all mixed up… But he wasn’t happy about being interrupted, that’s for sure. Sent all his party guests at us. One of the sharks gave me a nasty bite. But we gave as good as we got, and in the end Barden and his little flying friend managed to finish off the mage.’
Idari is nodding enthusiastically. ‘Well done, Ma!’
‘Thanks, love. And so that’s where I found this.’ Taffeta holds up the glass ball. ‘Here, take it. But don’t look straight at it, either of you. Look at me.’ She hands it to Idari, then stands back and says, ‘Beignet’.
Suddenly a bright blue light is shining from the ball, illuminating the entire room and even glowing through the thin parts of Idari’s hand. The girls gasp in amazement.
‘And that’s not all. Aila, love, what’s the word for a shape with six sides?’
‘A hexagon?’
Idari lets out a small yelp as the shining light floats up out of her hand and hovers in the air above her head. Taffeta smiles. ‘Good, isn’t it?’
‘Blessed Sisters!’ says Rose quietly from the other side of the room.
Later, as the family tuck into their dinner of poached Port Ffirst halibut, Aila says, ‘Ma?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘What’s… bane-yay? The thing you said to make the ball light up?’
‘Oh, it’s a kind of fried pastry they have in Port Ffirst. I tried one when I was there.’ From the corner of her eye, Taffeta sees Nerry look up with professional interest.
‘Very sugary,’ she says to Aila with a grin. ‘Not a patch on what your dad makes.’
‘Girls, come and help me fillet these halibut,’ calls Rosleigh Drawwater. She hauls one of the large diamond-shaped fish out of a basin of tepid water and slaps it onto the carving board. ‘Don’t make me do it all on my own, now, not at my age.’
‘I’ll help you, Nana!’ The shout from the garden is followed by rapid footfalls on gravel and then on wood, and Idari barrels into the brightly sunlit kitchen. Her mother looks up from the glass ball she’s been contemplating. ‘Get changed first, love,’ says Taffeta quickly, ‘you don’t want your nice new dress smelling all fishy.’ ‘Gooooood point!’ the girl says, turning her run into a circuit of the kitchen and disappearing back out into the hallway. Taffeta and her mother-in-law exchange a glance – amusement on one face, slight disapproval on the other – before hearing feet clattering up the stairs and Aila’s indignant cry of ‘Look where you’re going!’
‘What’ve got there, Ma?’ asks Aila, coming into the room at a more measured pace than her sister.
‘It’s a driftglobe.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s magic. I’ll show you when you’ve finished helping Nana Rose.’
‘Show what?’ Idari has reappeared, her bright yellow dress replaced with a slightly worn ochre smock that she begins to overlay with an apron.
‘Magic ball,’ says Aila, pretending not to be excited about it.
‘Wow! What’s it do?’
‘Fish first, magic after,’ says Taffeta.
‘Will you tell us where you got it?’
‘Same place as I got the halibut, more or less.’
‘Post Ffirst?’
‘More or less.’
Idari’s voice becomes grumpy. ‘Maaa, why’re you being like that?’
‘Oh, I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.’
‘Pleeease?’
‘All right. I got it at a tea-party with two sharks and an octopus.’
‘Come on, Ma,’ scoffs Aila, ‘we’re too old for that kind of story.’
‘Cyrrollalee rebuke me if it isn’t the truth!’
‘Really? A tea-party?’ asks Idari eagerly.
After an exchange of looks and a little nod from Rosleigh, Taffeta offers: ‘All right, I’ll tell you about it, as long as it doesn’t stop you concentrating on the halibut.’
So while Rose directs the two young hin in carefully cutting the white flesh down the centre and away from the bones of the fish, Taffeta tells them about the notice that was posted in the Ettin on behalf of the village of tritons in the eastern sea, seeking help following the recent disappearance of some of the inhabitants. She describes the small band that answered the call.
‘Well it was me and Barden, and there were three people I never really talked to before. There was that elf we’ve seen around town, the bowman. His name is Aeris. He comes from farming people but he’s actually got a lot in common with us, I think. And there were two humans; I hadn’t seen them before at all. The one called Damian seems very clever, some kind of researcher I think: he wears funny glass circles in front of his eyes, with a bit of metal between them that balances on the top of his nose. Not much of a one for chit-chat, but surprisingly handy in a fight. And then there was a woman named Sara, very elegant she is, from way out in Calimshan. I’m not sure what I make of her, to be honest, but she could fillet those fish in half a second, that’s for sure. Oh, and she has a parrot.’
‘A parrot!’ exclaims Idari. ‘Does it talk?’
‘I love how this lady has a pet parrot and Ma almost forgets to mention it,’ Aila remarks to her grandmother.
‘I don’t know that it was a pet… Sara didn’t seem to… like it very much,’ says Taffeta, more to herself than to anybody else. ‘Anyway, off we went.’
‘It turns out that the tritons live off the coast where Port Ffirst is, so we stopped at the port and went to Kensington’s office.’
Aila makes a disdainful grunt at the mention of the magnate.
‘Aila, dear, don’t make noises like that,’ Rosleigh admonishes.
‘Sorry, Nana.’
‘Why don’t you like him, anyway?’ asks Idari.
‘He’s just so… I don’t know… It’s like he’s in charge of everything, or he wants to be anyway. He basically owns Port Ffirst, and then as if that isn’t enough he takes a seat on the Council here, and… and he doesn’t even live here!’
‘Aila, please, no politics…’ says Rose, ineffectually.
‘And where was he and all his… his employees, when the town was being attacked by… by…’ Aila has put down her knife and is gripping the edge of the kitchen table with both hands, knuckles growing pale with tension. Idari’s smaller hand gently comes to rest on top of one of Aila’s and gives it a squeeze, while Taffeta moves over to join them. ‘I know, love, I know,’ she says quietly.
Rose looks uncomfortable. ‘This is why I don’t like all this political talk,’ she mutters.
‘I know, Rose, and honestly I don’t understand it enough to think one way or another, but I’m glad Aila does. I’m proud of my clever girls. They get that from your side of the family, you know, Rose. If there’s good and bad things in the world, they won’t go away just from us not knowing about them or talking about them. Come on, loves,’ Taffeta turns to Aila and Idari, ‘let’s finish these fish while I tell you the rest of the story.’
Fish-scales and steel knives glint in the sunshine slanting through the kitchen window as Taffeta resumes her tale. She recounts eating the strange bitter weed that the people of Port Ffirst use to give themselves gills so they can breathe underwater, and how the party swam, or in some cases sank, to the bottom of the sea, travelling about eight miles south-east from the coast to the amazing submerged village of the tritons. She makes the girls laugh by imitating the strange formality and old-fashioned talk of the stuck-up but good-hearted inhabitants. Then she tells how one of them escorted the party further south-east along the sea bed, following the path taken by two other triton warriors who had gone to try to deal with a sahuagin necromancer who had been causing trouble to the village by raising sharks from the dead. The two warriors had not returned.
As Aila and Idari dispose of the fish-bones and lay aside most of the halibut for their father to use in tomorrow’s pies, and Rose begins the prepare the remaining fillets for that evening’s meal, Taffeta struggles to describe the strange drowned forest that must once have been on land, now transformed by decades or centuries under water into a ghost land of blanched, stripped trunks amid drifting seaweed and bristling coral.
‘Our guide left us at the edge of the forest and we went in. Aeris and I found some old tracks and followed them a little, but then the others heard a crashing sound coming towards us so we hid. Well, most of us hid. Barden, poor fellow, he was a bit slow in all that armour and he was still right out in the open when a giant moving tree appeared – but a dead tree, hollow in places and missing patches of bark, not a leaf on its branches anywhere. It started swinging its branches at us until Barden called on his god and sent the tree creature running. We caught up with it and finished it off just outside some sort of old ruined village in the middle of the forest.’
‘One of the buildings was still standing, so we had a look at it. Damian, he’s a smart one, he spotted there was a spell protecting the door, and Barden dispelled it so we could go in. There wasn’t much there except a basement room with some very strange decor: lots of balls hanging from the ceiling with pictures in them, and a six-sided door with writing on each side. Locked, of course. Now, girls, you know your ma isn’t too good with reading, but the others read it out to me, and it seemed like there were the names of six rooms, and each name had the first bit of a word next to it, like ‘eg’ or ‘dw’. We were all a bit stumped at that! There were two little weights on hooks, and the others figured out we should hang the weights on the balls to open the door, but when Damian tried a couple, the water in the room got zapped and gave us a nasty shock. It was a real puzzle, I tell you. So there we all were looking at these pictures – an orchard, a dwarf, a bowl of eggs – and I thought, well, what if we hang the weights on the pictures that start with the same letters? Like two that both start with ‘eg’? Well, girls, be proud of your ma, because it turned out that’s what it was!’
‘Well done, Ma,’ smiles Aila, and Idari gives Taffeta a little hug. ‘So what happened?’
‘Well we managed to open up the door, and it led to a different room for each pair of pictures. One of them had the bodies of those two poor tritons – dead, I’m sorry to say, and, what’s worse, brought back from the dead. They attacked us and we had to fight them off. Sara took some… rather grisly souvenirs from that fight, I’ve got to say. She said it was her culture, so maybe I shouldn’t judge. I don’t know. Didn’t sit right with me.’ Taffeta fidgets with her belt-buckle. ‘Anyway, eventually we found the wizard. He was in the middle of an old crumbling arena, sitting at a picnic table and pouring out cups of tea for a couple of undead sharks and an octopus. One of the sharks had a hat on. It was very strange and… a bit sad, to be honest. The fellow’s mind must have been all mixed up… But he wasn’t happy about being interrupted, that’s for sure. Sent all his party guests at us. One of the sharks gave me a nasty bite. But we gave as good as we got, and in the end Barden and his little flying friend managed to finish off the mage.’
Idari is nodding enthusiastically. ‘Well done, Ma!’
‘Thanks, love. And so that’s where I found this.’ Taffeta holds up the glass ball. ‘Here, take it. But don’t look straight at it, either of you. Look at me.’ She hands it to Idari, then stands back and says, ‘Beignet’.
Suddenly a bright blue light is shining from the ball, illuminating the entire room and even glowing through the thin parts of Idari’s hand. The girls gasp in amazement.
‘And that’s not all. Aila, love, what’s the word for a shape with six sides?’
‘A hexagon?’
Idari lets out a small yelp as the shining light floats up out of her hand and hovers in the air above her head. Taffeta smiles. ‘Good, isn’t it?’
‘Blessed Sisters!’ says Rose quietly from the other side of the room.
Later, as the family tuck into their dinner of poached Port Ffirst halibut, Aila says, ‘Ma?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘What’s… bane-yay? The thing you said to make the ball light up?’
‘Oh, it’s a kind of fried pastry they have in Port Ffirst. I tried one when I was there.’ From the corner of her eye, Taffeta sees Nerry look up with professional interest.
‘Very sugary,’ she says to Aila with a grin. ‘Not a patch on what your dad makes.’
Beautiful write up again.)
