The first Winternight after the Silver Forest, Jullanar was far too busy to think further than a week into the future. Scrimping her way through the bitter East Oriolan winter as an unaccompanied young woman, in a province made tight-fisted and suspicious of strangers by the protracted siege of Galderon and the slowly spiraling civil unrest that the siege had touched off, was difficult enough. Doing so as a wanted outlaw (though she managed to keep that secret mostly under her hat -- aside from one brief indulgence in the wild lay to help some local highwaymen fleece a truly asinine Voonran notable on a grand tour of the Empire, which had won her a newer, more interesting hat) was even more demanding.
By the second winter, however, she was beginning to feel the weight of expectations looming over her future like the shadow of some great carrion bird -- all the narrow straits she had sidestepped and outrun for years, now gathering pace and lapping at her heels. She was safe (and known, and respected) within Galderon's walls, but once she finished her exams... oh she didn't technically need to return home to Fiella-by-the-Sea, but what kind of daughter and sister would she be to not at least visit? And she knew herself well enough to see that once she visited, once she set so much as a finger back into the strictures of her former life, it would be next to impossible to leave again.
Not without a friend. With Ayasha or Damian, Pali or Sardeet, Masseo or Pharia, Gadarved or Faleron, to say nothing of Fitzroy, she knew how to be brave, how to turn a moment of outrage into a steady flame that could withstand an empire's scorn, but on her own she was gnawingly certain she would fold.
She lit a candle at sunset, a fat beeswax pillar (no smoky tallow, not for this), and murmured, "White Lady, you who guard us through the winter dark, help me stand strong. I was born Jullanar Thistlethwaite, but I chose -- I choose -- to be Jullanar of the Sea. Help me know myself. Help me remember."
For a breathless, scorching moment the wick flared like a falling star. Jullanar sprang back, patting her eyebrows with reflexes trained by years of Fitzroy's more experimental spells, which had a distressing tendency to explode. (Fire was always his truest element.)
"Thank you," she whispered, unsure whether she meant the words for the Lady or her absent friend.
Winternight (The Return of Fitzroy Angursell)
By the second winter, however, she was beginning to feel the weight of expectations looming over her future like the shadow of some great carrion bird -- all the narrow straits she had sidestepped and outrun for years, now gathering pace and lapping at her heels. She was safe (and known, and respected) within Galderon's walls, but once she finished her exams... oh she didn't technically need to return home to Fiella-by-the-Sea, but what kind of daughter and sister would she be to not at least visit? And she knew herself well enough to see that once she visited, once she set so much as a finger back into the strictures of her former life, it would be next to impossible to leave again.
Not without a friend. With Ayasha or Damian, Pali or Sardeet, Masseo or Pharia, Gadarved or Faleron, to say nothing of Fitzroy, she knew how to be brave, how to turn a moment of outrage into a steady flame that could withstand an empire's scorn, but on her own she was gnawingly certain she would fold.
She lit a candle at sunset, a fat beeswax pillar (no smoky tallow, not for this), and murmured, "White Lady, you who guard us through the winter dark, help me stand strong. I was born Jullanar Thistlethwaite, but I chose -- I choose -- to be Jullanar of the Sea. Help me know myself. Help me remember."
For a breathless, scorching moment the wick flared like a falling star. Jullanar sprang back, patting her eyebrows with reflexes trained by years of Fitzroy's more experimental spells, which had a distressing tendency to explode. (Fire was always his truest element.)
"Thank you," she whispered, unsure whether she meant the words for the Lady or her absent friend.
Either way, she would keep faith.