Refugee Camp
9 Zorromes, 334
Fate
Before Hometown's liberation
Orange stains the sky as Black Sun drags ever downward, his blinding light at just such an angle that the world is half-concealed by sunshine and pain. Very few are outside—it's mostly the ever-restless, ever-roaming children who never seem to tire.
At the very edge of one end of the refugee camp, a quieter edge, one of the rainbow trees rustles and shimmers and chimes with music moreso than its brethren. Eventually it stills, and when the chiming fades, there's a now-familiar litany of muttering, observations spilled from a busy mind, tumbling past the tongue out into the open, heedless of all else.
(Nora's music is by far not hard to find—it's like bladder-pipes suddenly played in amidst a band of guitars and lutes and lyres. It's a song of intent curiosity, of puzzling, of mastering the world by figuring out its workings. Woven with it are notes of resentment and jealousy, bold but quiet with subtle underpinnings of hurt.)
Aaren
Aaren quails. This is too much, it's too hard. She could just put it off, ignore it a little longer. Nora would be fine. She'd probably rather not be bothered about it anyway. She was going to be angry and sour and Aaren didn't need that on top of everything else. Aaren didn't have time for children, not with so many to heal—
The wind blows. Its soft, curious song joins the rejoicing chorus of the Rainbow Grove. For one strange moment it sounds of autumn, and Yesen's shifting song.
Aaren takes a deep breath and turns her few spare songs to her father's song. Ash always had time for children. And to Vir's song. Vir was always patient, always listened, even when people shouted and were sour.
And then, some kind of equiliburim acheived, Aaren walked the long distance to Nora's end of the grove.
"Excuse me, Nora." Aaren asked, when she was close enough to hear. "I would like to speak with you. Is now a good time for you?"
Fate
Another rustle, sending up another chiming.
"... correlated with the timber of the sound. But if we can suspend that process it may be possible to test the varying effectiveness of the leaves for—yes, Brian, I heard." Yet another rustle, sending the tree a-shiver. "Aren't you speaking with me now?" There's a strain at the edge of her question, then a grunt of effort followed by a more agitated shimmering and shining of the rainbow leaves, which eases and settles to quiet. "And what would even qualify as a 'bad time'? I'd certainly call this short of being chased by a fairy king, for instance, and there was plenty of gabbin' then." Before there's a chance to respond, she grumbles, "Fuck, it's bloody hot."
Aaren
"Would you like me to cool you down?" Aaren asks, the words rising up before she even thinks about it.
She pauses a moment, letting her songs resonate. "And I am trying to give you the opportunity to participate in deciding when the conversation I want to have with you happens. I could, for example, wait until we go back to our pocket. Or until you are done learning about the trees."
Fate
Nora lets out a noise which isn't quite surprise but carries with it a similar sense of suddenness and transience. "How would you do that?" she asks. "I mean, obviously sing it. But... what, would you decrease blood flow through my capillaries or something? Or will you sing the air 'round me cooler? Or do you sing the sunbeams dimmer?"
Aaren
Aaren consideres a moment. "I would sing your body slower. All of the little bits of people go faster than they really need to most of the time. It's not as efficent as decreasing blood flow or singing the air around you cooler, but its much easier."
Fate
Finally, Nora can be seen amidst the branches and leaves, poking her head just out from behind the trunk. Her brow is furrowed. "What the—'little bits of people'? You mean like extremities or somethin' else?"
Aaren
Aaren frowns in thought. "No. Everything is made of... bits." She snorts, and then sings one high, pure, note. "Songs are made up of notes, and the world is made up of..." she breaks the note up into peices, fifteen truncated steps up and down an octive. "little circles. Only I don't think they're actually circles. I can't quite make them out. But there are more than I can count—even in just your fingernails."
Fate
Her gaze intensifies. "Wait, so you're saying my fingernails are made up of little bits all mashed together?" There's a brief pause. "How do they stay together? I mean, fingernails are pretty solid." Another pause. "Does it differ based on what it is? Like my fingertip—it's soft, right? So does that mean the bits are attached different?" Before Aaren has an opportunity to provide any answers, Nora begins rattling off more and more questions. It takes an almost audible biting off mid-sentence for her to stop and wait for answers.
Aaren
Aaren sits down. "I don't know how they stay together." She sings. "And I don't know why things don't slide through one another. When I listen to it, it sounds as if they are larger than themselves. The way that a community sounds. The little bits of your body are a village, and they won't let one another go. But I don't know if that's true. Certainly they don't respond to the same sorts of songs communities respond to." She frowns again. "Well, kind of."
"I can't hear them well enough to tell if they hold together differently in different things. I can hardly hear them well enough to tell if there are different kinds."
Fate
Another surprise-like sound escapes her throat. It has to be one of Nora's learning sounds, which strikes like lightning. "Is this as true of me as anyone else in this world?" Then, "What about souls? That true for them too?" And, "Wait, what happens if you, say, cut part of yourself off, how does that work?"
Aaren
"The bits are too little to care if you cut a peice of yourself off. I know they must notice, but I haven't figured out how yet. It's true for bodies, your body as much as anyone else's. I don't know if it was true in Tir Na Tearmann though. I hand't figured it out yet."
Aaren leans against the trunk of the tree. "Souls are different. Like a totally different kind of music. I think when I can hear better, it will turn out that the little bits are made of souls."
Fate
This inspires a whole new line—or rather net—of questioning, ranging from the practical ("Are the little bits replaceable or interchangeable?") to the sorts of questions Dad might ask ("Do things get infinitely littler or is there a point at which it stops?").
If unchecked, this will continue well on through sunset, the original question Aaren had asked long-forgotten and unaddressed.
Aaren
Aaren goes along with the questions for about three hours—quite fascinated herself and delighted to be talking with someone who has the pateince to ask these kinds of questions. (It's been a long, dad-less trip.) She explains as best she can, teaching Nora what things sound like to try and explain how she gathers her information.
Finally, as the sun vanishes and the wind picks up, Aaren remembers she was supposed to be doing hard things. "Nora," she ammends, to the end of an answer, "I came out here to tell you somethings and ask you some things. May I inturrupt you for a bit to do that?"
Fate
Over the course of three hours, Nora has migrated from the branches to the roots, occasionally sitting beside Aaren, occasionally pacing around the tree in circles, occasionally hanging from the lower branches. At one point she begins chewing on one of the pouchful of rainbow leaves she'd harvested, which stains her tongue exciting colors. (She's an astonishingly restless person, is Nora, in mind and body alike.) Her curiosity measures and learning measures and pleasure measures weave seamlessly together with a well-practiced ease, crafting something akin to an opera featuring revelation after revelation, triumph after triumph in grand swelling measures.
It's undoubtedly a good mood in which Aaren's question catches Nora. Or, rather, the question simply washes over her, one in a sea of many. "Sure."
Aaren
Aaren jumps right to work, hoping that if she goes fast enough they can go back to doing the fun thing together. "The goddess Ulfinya refused to return your things. I am sorry. None of us were expecting that when we offered to have Frankie swallow your cottage. If you want any help replacing any of it, please let me know."
"I am also sorry that I did not ask Kelly to put you down when we were running from the Bog King. I think I need your help understanding what you want."
And then Aaren stops her words, letting her songs drift on.
Fate
She's struck speechless and still at first at the change. Then her thoughts flick about, quick and deft. Given the long, mostly-unbroken talking that'd been going on for hours, even this short, tripped-up silence feels long.
It's broken by a slow, but clipped, "Alright." There's not particular mood to it, just a matter-of-fact acceptance. Then Nora scratches the back of her head. "Well, I don't want to be manhandled by a bloody bull-man." There's no ire to her statement, for a change. "What concern is it of yours what I want?"
Aaren
"I do not want to do things to you that you do not want me to do." Aaren sings. "Or, at least, I want to know if I am doing so. If I do not understand what you are telling me, then I cannot take your desires into consideration." She blinks, not sure if she's actually answering Nora's question.
Fate
Nora gives Aaren an odd look. (Puzzlement and dubiousness are now beginning to dominate her song.) "Why do you give a toss what I want? 'Sgot nothing to do with you." She tilts her head. "I don't give a toss what you want, 'cause 'sgot nothing to do with me." It's offered as an example, not struck out like a weapon.
Aaren
"Because you are staying with us. So you are part of my community. And while you are part of my community, you 'have to do' with me." Aaren sings her own thinking song for a moment, and then offers her own example, "Communities are like bodies. Nothing is by itself, nothing is isolated. When I ignore you, when I do what I want without heed, I damage myself."
Fate
She furrows her brow again. "That doesn't make a lick of sense." She pauses, gaze downturned, searching for questions. Because questions unasked leads to answers never received. "How does doing what I don't want damage you?"
Aaren
"Because you stop telling me what you want. Because you stop wanting at all, if I do it long enough." Aaren wrinkles her nose up. "You know how your stomach shuts down if you don't eat for three days? Like that. Besides, as a community, we are strongest when all our memebers are getting what they need. But that means we need to listen to each other to learn what we need."
Fate
Nora's odd look doesn't let up. "Isn't it pretty straightforward, though? I know I'm in a new world and all that, but I can feed and water myself." She rubs the back of her head again. "Anyway, how does 'wants' play into 'needs'? Like, I might want one of those 'corn cakes' that Daina made, but it doesn't mean I'll die if I don't have it."
Aaren
Aaren closes her eyes, because its easier to think that way. "Okay, what do you mean when you say need?" Aaren asks, after a minute. "Because I'm confused."
Fate
Nora barks a laugh. "Me too." Then she says, "Well, needing something is pretty straightforward, innit? Means you'll eventually die if you don't have it." She waves a hand. "Faster than you would otherwise, anyway."
Aaren
Aaren purses her lips. "Huh." She thinks. "That's really complicated. How do you tell if something makes you die faster? Of if you can't tell does it just not count?"
Fate
"Well, you just—" She stops and considers this for another long silence, eyes tracking her thoughts all over. Another thunderstruck learning noise slips from her. Then she says, "Alright. What do you mean when you say 'need'?"
Aaren
"I think I mean 'Aaren thinks you ought to have it.'" Aaren sings, and she laughs. "I'd never thought about it before." She sings a few measures of her thinking song, and then adds, "Maybe I take need to mean 'what is required to sustain the community.' A lot of time that means getting people at least some of the things they want."
Fate
Nora thinks about this for a while. Then, she says, "I wanna know how you have so many voices when the rest of us just get the one. I wanna know how your mum's innards don't get crushed or jumbled around this way and that when she lies flat on her back. Among other things. Loads of other things." She hesitates, jutting out her jaw tentatively. "Does that count for anything?" It's an honest question, a venture out in a random direction from one who's just lost enough to not charge full speed ahead.
Aaren
Aaren smiles. "Yes! It does! Thank you for telling me what you want. Mom's innards are mostly too packed to get messed up, and also there's tissue that keeps things mostly in place. Stuff does get a bit sqished though. That's why she has to use the bathroom all the time. And I'm not sure why I get so many voices. I'd like to know that too!"
Fate
Once more, puzzlement and dubiousness swells, after she accepts the answers Aaren provides. "How does that count?"
Aaren
Aaren waves her arms, because all her voices are busy. "It's what you want! Wanting is like... it's like." She faulters. "Its part of you! Its the outgrowth of all of you, your body and your thoughts and your past and your heart, all bundled up into-" For a moment she losses her words, her free songs turning to express wanting in all its forms, desire and longing and 'oh that'd be neat'ing and missing and hoping. "Like harmonies." She finishes. "It comes out of all the parts, but isn't really any of the parts by themselves. So whenever you want something, we learn something about you. We see you."
She pauses again, still casting for words. "It always counts, even when it doesn't get to be filled."
Fate
Nora scratches her head, uneasy, doubtful. Then, once more, she says, "Alright." And this time she falls well and truly wordless. For once questions don't come so readily to her.
Aaren
Aaren waits.
Fate
Eventually, after the silence goes on for a while, Nora gets up and begins to walk off. Apparently she thinks the conversation is over.
Aaren
Aaren hears when Nora's focus starts to change. Before the shorter woman can start rising, she asks, "So, when you're cussing, does that mean you want me to stop whatever I'm doing to you, or does it just mean you're stressed?"
Fate
Thus stopped, she settles back down, furrows her brow yet again, and shrugs a shoulder. "Depends, I suppose. I mean, I imagine I'd cuss up a storm if you were settin' a bone but that doesn't mean I'd rather my bone heal wrong." Nora hesitates. "I dunno, I don't really think about what I mean when I cuss, I just... do it." She crosses her arms. "Can't you hear when I don't want something, anyway?"
Aaren
Aaren shakes her head. "Only kind of. And people usually want more than one thing at once. It can be really tricky to hear what they've picked." She smiles. "Except for Kelly. I can always tell with Kelly."
"I usually make people tell me. That way there isn't as much confusion, and its harder for me to get it wrong. That's why I ask so much. And then if someone changes their mind, or I failed to ask, then I ask them to please tell me to stop."
Fate
"Does 'your community' usually ask to be picked up and hauled like a sack of peat?" Another genuine question, though this time it's mingled with disbelief. Shortly after, something occurs to her. Heedless of the last question, she asks, "What makes him so bloody special, then? Is he simple or something?"
Aaren
"Actually, that's totally happened." Aaren sings. "And it's because he's," And Aaren sings Kelly's song, because its the easiest way to explain. Slow and quiet and watching, but with the pulsing purpose underneath, sometimes unnoticed but never gone, and then rising to the suface, the whole song turning inside out to follow from it. "He's very determined." She sings, eventually.
Fate
Yet again, Nora makes that learning noise. It encompasses all the things she just learned. Then there's another, "Alright. Sounds simple enough, I suppose."
Aaren
"Thank you." Aaren sings. "And thank you for talking to me."
Fate
There's another noise, more of a non-committal grunt this time. Then, after a long enough pause, Nora asks, "So what's this about stairs in these woods? What are stairs, anyway? Do they not usually go in woods?"