It really was a perfect day, Lulu reflected, letting the pages of the book drift closed and lying it to one side. She stretched out on the grass, heedless of the stains that would appear on her dress, and stared up at the clear blue sky. The only thing that could be better was if there were somewhere here to swim, because it was getting rather warm.
While she lay there, imagining shapes in the clouds, she reflected on the ways her life had changed over the past couple of weeks. She still hadn’t decided she was going to stay here, but thoughts of running away had begun to fade as she grew into her new life. She hadn’t had any lessons on channeling yet, but when she did, that would be time enough to show the Sedai that she really had no aptitude for it, and then she was sure they would let her go home. In the meantime, she just had to get by, and if she could keep sneaking off to this place, well, that just might be bearable.
Just when she thought she might drift into sleep, she thought she heard the sound of voices. Sitting up quickly, grass in her black hair, she crawled slowly to the tree, peering around the other side. There were two novices there, Marisa (of course!) and someone else that she didn’t recognize. Normally she wasn’t much of an eavesdropper, but there was nothing she could do without giving away her position, so she kept stock still, listening.
“Marisa, I don’t know if we should be out here, we’re supposed to be at the laundry.”
“Oh, bugger the laundry Darlia, I have Felysia Sedai twisted around my little finger. Listen, I need you to get a message over to one of the trainees for me.”
“How am I supposed to do that? The Sisters don’t want us to have anything to do with the trainees, I could get in big trouble!”
Marisa stomped her foot impatiently and handed a folded up note to the other novice, Darlia, and hissed at her. “Look, you owe me big and this is how you can pay me back. I don’t care how you do, just do it.” With that, she stormed off, leaving Darlia behind her, staring at her back and sighing heavily.
“Great, now what am I supposed to do?” She muttered, and then disappeared after Marisa. Lulu stayed in her position behind the tree, pondering what she had just seen, and if there were any way she could use the information to her advantage. If she could get ahold of the note, somehow, or better yet, make sure that one of the Sisters found it… she didn’t want to just tell someone; she had a feeling that tattletales weren’t looked upon favorably at the Tower. No, she had to be as sneaky as Marisa, who did everything right so that no one would suspect her of mischief. Lulu had to admire that idea, though she couldn’t imagine that the Aes Sedai were that easy to fool.
She was staring so intently after the other two novices that she hadn’t noticed that the book she’d brought was under her knee, the spine digging into it until she finally took note of the pain, shifting her leg and muttering a choice curse right out loud, where there was no Aes Sedai to hear her. It made her smile, so she said it again, louder: “Blood and bloody ashes!”
Take that, Aes Sedai!
In reply to An Ode to Lazy Days[show]/[hide]
It was the standard punishment for cursing like...well, a sailor. What infuriated him more than the gangly four-legged beasts called horses was the sheer volume and scent of their excresence, and as Akadias moodily glared down a long row of horses' stalls, he heaved a sigh, and uttered the choicest fruits of his Atha'an Miere upbringing. "Flaming bloody spavined shore-lapping sons of the Father of Storms," he muttered, and shouldered his shovel. His lips pinched tight - tasting the stench was so much worse than merely smelling it - he grimly attacked straw-covered dung, hacking layers out of stalls he knew he'd cleaned out just the week before. Over his shoulder, a stallion watched, occasionally nudging his solid bulk aside in the attempt to get at the freshly circulating water, and when Akadias realized he had no broom, the beast took up happy residence in the stall while he went to fetch one. And empty the bucket, of course.
Stomping back, he noticed something, shook his head, and glowered. Of course the women were allowed to work in pairs! But he, being male (and twice their age, by the looks of some of them) had to work alone. White-capped waves forbid he corrupt a precious Novice! Yes, because his twenty-eight years meant he couldn't be trusted to keep a girl half his age from going ankles-up in a pile of foul, stinking hay. Or was it them they didn't trust? Lustfully hanging over the Training Yard fences (Akadias would admit he'd admired a few of the future Gaidar himself, straining in the sunshine, lovely and lithe), chattering about boys all the time, creeping into one another's rooms after lights went out (he had heard of pillow-friends and if there was a merciful Creator, he hoped to see the truth of that accusation.) Grumbling to himself, he finished the mucking job - the stableboys watched, and if it was done wrong, they reported you, and you had to not only learn how to muck out a stall again, you were invited to practice this new skill several dozen more times!
Horse by horse, his travail continued, but when their supervising stablehand stalked through, announcing that lunch would be served shortly but any team - team! Akadias growled - not yet finished with their aisle would be staying afterwards, the man found him feverishly working - but only two-thirds done. "Where's your partner?" the man asked, turning away as if some other man would magically materialize before his eyes. "I don't have one," Akadias snapped back, too tired, sweaty, and bitten by horseflies to care to be polite, no matter the consequences - another week of this, every day. The stablehand scowled at him, reconsidered as Akadias unfolded to his true, prodigious height, and flourished a sheet of paper. "Of course you do," the man returned smartly.
"You're which Novice?" Akadias answered with his name, and the man consulted a sheet of pairings. "Akadias." He flipped the page, reading the back. "Here it is. Your partner is..."
"Eluanna...Brynoch."
The man smiled, but as he looked around, no such creature came to his expectant eyes. "Have you seen her at all?" the man answered, a pencil poised over the page. Akadias shook his head no, wielding his broom savagely around a prize Tairen mare's ankles, making her dance a bit from side to side. "Don't take it out on Snowblossom," the stablehand said, absently, clucking to the mare, who brushed Akadias aside in her excitement. "Learn to handle a horse," the man said, disapproval heavy in his tone as he soothed the grey mare. Akadias scowled, and before he could reconsider, shot out, "Learn to handle a ship."
"Not much use for those on dry land," the stablehand countered easily.
"Not much use for you on a ship," Akadias tossed out, acerbically.
"Look. Because you did so much without a partner, I'm going to finish the rest. You go to supper," the man suggested, taking Akadias' broom. "And." he added, as Akadias turned to flee.
"If you ever want to learn to handle a horse, I'm sure Snowblossom will forgive you," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You'd have to ride a flaming Dhurran, pardon my tongue, but you could learn to ride." Akadias lifted an eyebrow. Novices didn't receive any lessons of that sort, and he knew that well enough. Sword had been denied him, even to own and practice, and he couldn't imagine Candance saying yes to horsemanship...even if he did want to ride one of the buck-toothed, surging bags of bone and fur. And shorelappers thought they were beautiful and composed poetry to them!
He would never understand the shorebound!
"Thank you," he stammered to the stablehand, scrambling to escape before the man could change his mind. And while supper did sound good, if you could ignore the stench of horse that clung to his clothes, what sounded better was best served cold.
Eluanna Brynoch, I'm looking for you, he thought, images of buckets of dung and hay filling his mind.
