Make hay while the sun shines

[goddessnanshe.livejournal.com]

Mid-afternoon of Tuesday, 29th June
The Abbey

It's a bright warm day, and the church, my church, rings with the sound of a community in song. Every pew is filled, and there are even people standing at the back of the church and spilling onto the porch, leaning into the doorway to hear Ash's words, and singing out familiar hymns of summer and farmwork through the stone of the church and out into the bright air. Some of our farmers - I know them all by name, John Hale, Jasper Thornton, Lucille Cliff, Alex Brown, their dreams familiar to me as neighbours - bring a bale of new hay to the altar in offering, and my throat is tight.

Please, I pray. Please let their prayers be granted. May I still be able to do some good.

It's strange, to be able to feel such joy and such grief at once. I have such pride in my people, and such helpless frustration at what I have become.

The service ends, and everyone goes into the fresh air. Tonight they will dance together at the new hall, kick up tired heels and shake out aching muscles into new, pleasanter aches of dancing and socialising and celebrating after hard labour. For now, our community here has moved tables out from the dining hall into the yard, and the congregation has brought pies and cider to share. Children run giggling between the tables, hay in their hair, and I laugh looking at them, and feel a terrible tender pain in my heart, wanting them to be as safe as this always.

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[samuel-durand.livejournal.com]

Sister Rahna had the best voice, the voice of an angel. Sang my first Latin lesson to me. She used to sing to herself when she went about her bookkeeping duties, too, and though I would never have told her, I loved to sit in the upper-story stacks of the library we called home, my feet dangling over the balcony’s edge, and listen. Told myself I was just working on my Latin.

Brother Nicholas was the worst. One of those people with a tin ear who could only alter the volume of their voice when they attempted to alter the pitch. Didn’t help that his voice was so deep, either. Sounded like a bullfrog in the bottom of a coal mine. But it was Nicholas who gave me my first taste of philosophy. All men by nature, Samuel, desire to know.

“Hey, honey? You okay?”

My eyes snap open, and I make myself take a long, slow breath through my nose before I turn my head to see who spoke. A younger woman, one I do not know. The mote-filled shaft of sunlight that falls between us obscures as much as it reveals, to just-opened eyes, but I blink it away enough to see that the concern appears to be genuine.

“I’m--” My voice rasps, even the murmur echoing too loud in the acoustics of the place. I clear my throat as quietly as I can, and try again. “I’m fine.” A couple of beats of silence go by, and I pass my hand across my face. It feels like waking. “The ceremony surprised me, and I just found myself thinking of home.”

[tereixa-zann.livejournal.com]

Poor guy, he starts like someone woken out of a sun-doze, the kind of deep one where your whole head feels snore-y for five minutes after you wake up. But he's holding himself together pretty well, gets his breath back and looks over. “I’m-- I’m fine,” and I nod, give him another minute to finish grounding down. “The ceremony surprised me, and I just found myself thinking of home.”

"I get you," I say, and-- well, I do, kind of. Home is the Carnaval, but the trails and patterns of rain and dirt in the ground, those just feel wrong. Gibtown, the actual buildings were fine there, and that was home a little, but... Well, it's at least not like I'm alone, even if we're not in quite the right place. "Been a while, I guess? Since you were there. But the town's pretty friendly, as it goes." I offer a smile and hold out my hand. "I'm Zann, Tereixa Zann, but just Zann's fine."

[samuel-durand.livejournal.com]

"I get you," she says, and for a moment I meet her eyes and I feel like she just might. But in the moments of silence that follow I think of every step I've taken in twenty long years, and... There are times when justice ceases to power your arm, and the purity of will no longer sets your feet to moving. You're just a cosmic projectile, then. An object on an age-old course. No heart or purpose. Just a trajectory.

This. Today. It's not so much about loneliness, it's about the rightness of the ground on which you find yourself. Not even the physical ground, but the ground of being. That portion of place inseparable from self. Nothing is wrong, but everything here feels wrong.

"Been a while, I guess? Since you were there. But the town's pretty friendly, as it goes."

"It has. Twenty years, or near enough. I've almost forgotten what it looked like. But you're right. There's few enough places out there that would give the sort of welcome I've found since I got here."

"I'm Zann, Tereixa Zann, but just Zann's fine."
I lean over to take her hand firmly, but the smile I return is heavier than it ought to be. "Good to meet you, Zann. Samuel Durand." I almost add my old title by reflex, but stop myself. In this room, on this bench, I am the worst sort of mockery of a Friar Observant. "You're a stranger here too?" I ask, studying her. She doesn't have the local look, now that I can see her better. "I haven't seen you in town, but I've not been here long at all."

[tereixa-zann.livejournal.com]

"It has. Twenty years, or near enough. I've almost forgotten what it looked like. But you're right. There's few enough places out there that would give the sort of welcome I've found since I got here."

"Now that is entirely true," I say cheerfully. "And there's so much going on here; we used to joke, for a bit, they they should be selling us tickets. Lovely place," shame about some of the people, "always so interesting."

He takes my hand and shakes my hand, and although I wouldn't call him exactly cheerful he's nice enough. "Good to meet you, Zann. Samuel Durand. You're a stranger here too?" and I cock my head a little to one side. I mean, I am, but... "I haven't seen you in town, but I've not been here long at all."

"I am," I say cheerfully. "I mean, I didn't grow up here, and I've been here for a year now, but we're not really with the town." I think. It's... strange, now, hard to tell, and I grin a bit, shake my head and leave the question for later. "I work out at the Carnaval Diabolique; lovely place, grandest show just outside of town, although I have to tell you," I add, lowering my voice conspiratorily and leaning in a bit, "we don't get a lot of competition these days."

[samuel-durand.livejournal.com]

"I am. I mean, I didn't grow up here, and I've been here for a year now, but we're not really with the town."

She smiles and shakes her head, and while I don't know quite what she means in terms of specifics, I understand that this is one of those things that falls in that broad category of 'it's complicated.' Hell, half the people in this town seem to have A Story, and that's well above the average in my experience. Most of what's left in the world just tries to keep its head down enough to not attract a lightning strike.

...Come to think of it, have any more than one or two of the people I've met since I got here actually been from here? It's one more interesting wrinkle to this strange place.

"I work out at the Carnaval Diabolique; lovely place, grandest show just outside of town, although I have to tell you, we don't get a lot of competition these days."

I can feel my face light up with interest. "You're with the show?" Yet another place I'd yet to explore. "Fascinating. What do you do? I've heard about the Diabolique from some of the townsfolk," I add, thinking of the bookstore's proprietor, "but haven't visited it yet. Haven't had the time." I think about that, and bark a laugh. "Scratch that. Had the time, just not the motivation. Things here got...complicated, fast."

That's an understatement. Strange visions, explosions in the woods, talk of the death and return of gods in the taste of blood...

"I've run into several shows elsewhere in my travels, over the years. Maybe even yours, come to think of it," I bite my lower lip as I think, but try as I might I cannot summon a name, not even of the place where Mr. Sagert and I first encountered one another. "I remember them as thoroughly intriguing studies in collective seduction and consensual illusion. And funnel cakes," I add, after a moment's wistful reflection. "Great big ones. Like beignets got loose from some mad scientist's kitchen, met in the wild, and raised their young on a diet of fry oil and powdered sugar."