"What are you doing?"

Athanora looked over at Kiralraes, who was sitting on the bed and staring at her. Her question was very quiet, almost a whisper, and in her own language rather than Athanora's. Kiralraes could understand the sythyn language, through her bond with Athanora, but she couldn't speak it. Athanora wasn't going to push her-- probably would never push her-- to try; at this point, she was just glad when the pup spoke at all.

Now, she flashed Kiralraes a small smile. "Getting ready for our ceremony."

Though she usually spoke the common Kartyn language with Kiralraes, Athanora didn't translate some words. Here, she used the formal sythyn word for ceremony, "zzu ruvanor arraanor", which literally meant "holy ceremony of blood", rather than the simple word "zzu" she usually used. Over the course of the two months, now, that she and Kiralraes had been bonded together, she had always managed to work ceremonies into times when Kiralraes was busy, or wouldn't need her. They had been simple and swift ceremonies, necessity rather than enjoyment or celebration, and it hadn't been difficult to fit them into the span of an hour, while Kiralraes was having lunch at her creche, or in the midst of a history lesson. For the first time, however, schedules had converged, and Kiralraes had no creche today, the day that fell time for their ninth-day ceremony. This was the first time she'd seen her putting on the neck-less tunic and palm-less gloves, so different from anything else she ever wore, and the sparse jewelry she kept to the minimum for ritual requirement, and the first time she'd seen her heavy, pewter goblet, carved with creeping vines overlaid on circuit pathways and filled so many times that the smell lingered even after a thorough washing.

If Aavayl had been here, she might have convinced him to postpone it a day, but Thyravon had made a point of making sure she knew what day it was, so she had a feeling he wouldn't let her postpone-- or skip, which she really would have preferred. The prospect of sharing a ceremony with Thyravon alone was nearly enough to make her shudder with distaste, and she thought she'd prefer being unable to work magic or having less energy than she was used to than having to deal with him in such an intimate way. With Aavayl as an intermediary, the ceremony could be swift and simple, with no tangles of supposed relationships or feelings to get in the way, draw things out, or make things uncomfortable. Without that steadying, third presence, Athanora wasn't sure what would happen.

"What is your... zzu? Your... ceremony?" Kiralraes asked, still in her near-whispered voice. "You... mention it a lot. You and the others."

She was particularly talkative today... too bad it was on topics Athanora really wished she didn't have to talk about. Trying to explain Sythyn blooding ceremonies tended to disgust, frighten, or even make enemies out of other people. Still, it was one more way to procrastinate actually facing Thyravon, and Kiralraes did need to know. She sighed a little, set down her goblet, and moved to sit beside her pup-bond on the bed. Her little imbalance.... Wynur waanaa anon, she thought, stroking the pup's forehead; she'd taken to thinking of her young bond as that simple sythyn translation, of sorts, like a nickname. Kiralraes's silver eyes looked expectantly up at her.

"A ceremony," she began, "is something all sythyn do. We have special needs-- we eat different things than most other species. We can eat normal things, but every nine days, we must eat something special, or we start to get sick. That's what we do in a ceremony: we eat that special thing."

"What is it?"

"If I tell you, will you promise not to be frightened?"

Kiralraes opened her eyes wide, staring up at her. The promise was slow in coming, and almost inaudible, but to her surprise, it actually came: "I promise."

Athanora took a deep breath, sighed it out, and said: "We have to eat blood."

There was a little blink from Kiralraes. The only thing that registered across their bond was a vague kind of surprise, and a continued expectancy. For a moment 'Nora was confused; it seemed like Kiralraes expected her to say more. A little flustered, she continued, "Just that of our own kind, and not enough to hurt them... people speculate that it's something to do with the magic we use, because magic is the first thing to go when we stop for whatever reason."

"Oh," Kirarlaes said with another blink. To Athanora's pleased surprise, however, there was no disgust, no loathing, and certainly no fear.

Then it hit her: Kiralraes, like all enkeyn, was a carnivore. They ate meat, drank blood-- not in a ritual fashion, and certainly not out of cups, but still: they ingested it every day. Athanora chuckled softly and ruffled her bond's ears, making her flatten them, but not duck away. "I guess it's not that bad, but a lot of people get upset about it."

Kiralraes ventured an opinion: "That's kind of silly."

"Isn't it?" Athanora agreed with a smile.

Then there came a loud knocking from her front door, way across the apartment. Athanora sighed. "And that would be Thyravon. Do you want to come, dear?" The way Kirarlaes looked sidelong in the direction of the door and shrank into herself a little spoke volumes. "You don't have to," Athanora assured her. "I'll try not to be long, but I'll just be in the next room, if you need me. Why don't you work on your drawing for creche tomorrow?"

"All right." Kiralraes slid off the bed and followed her out of the room, but rather than continuing across the enkeyn-sized living room to the door with her bond, slunk to her own room-- which she didn't often use, except for "homework" from creche, such as the current assignment, a drawing of her bond, presumably for a lesson or discussion about the bonding process, or maybe off-worlders, since all the bonders were from different worlds. The day before had been collecting leaves of at least two different types, for identification in class as to what kind they were. For such things, Kiralraes was devastatingly perfectionistic, and unless Athanora was there to make sure she wasn't too hard on herself, she was likely to tear up a dozen drawings before coming up with something she was satisfied with.

At the moment, despite the vague feeling of emptiness-- not quite a hunger, but akin to it-- at the center of her being, Athanora would much rather have followed her into her room to watch her draw than answered that door. For a second, she almost did just that, and to whatever hell the Three devised with Thyravon and her diffuse hunger. But Thyravon knocked again, just as insistently and loudly as before, and she sighed, abandoning the notion. Knowing him, he'd probably break down the door if she didn't answer him.

"Rosura sythvaa," she said as she opened the door on Thyranon with his fist raised for another pounding knock, her voice and expression neutral. "Please, come in."

Thyravon had only been in her apartment once, back when she'd first moved in, and he looked around now with interest, as if comparing how it looked then with how it looked now. There really wasn't much difference, as Athanora didn't have much in the way of personal items. She'd bought a single wall-hanging, brought her books in from the ship, and added a high-powered laptop with plenty of spare batteries to last her until Aavayl and the Dyr aSashyn returned, since neither she nor Thyravon possessed the right kind of magic to recharge them, themselves-- not that she would have asked Thyravon, even if he did. Since most of those things were comfortably ensconced in her bedroom-- which Thyravon was not going to see-- the living room was largely unchanged. All she'd added was the simple alter-like table against the back wall, meant for ceremonial use.

"You look nice," Thyravon said as his eyes finally came to rest on her, finding nothing else to look upon that was more attractive.

"So do you."

She, at least, was telling the truth: in fact, Thyravon looked more than just nice. He'd donned his most formal, and most impressive, zzu-ruvanor-arraanor tunic, white with gold-thread embroidery, with matching ceremonial gloves, had a gold chain woven into his hair and a ring on almost every finger, and carried his gold-leaf, emerald-studded chalice-- an expensive gift from Mommy, no doubt. It matched Aavayl's, except for the pressed design of crossed swords on Thyravon's, compared to the spread wings on Aavayl's. Athanora wondered if, upon their marriage, she would end up with one of the "set", as well. What would Caathyn aLlaanmuu decide should be on her daughter-in-law's chalice?

No matter what it was, Athanora thought she would always prefer the simple, pewter goblet her brother had bought for her, and she would probably always prefer her simple-weave gown and sparse silver ornaments to his fancy silk and cloth-of-gold, garlands of jewels and fistfuls of metals.

"So, uh...." Thyravon looked awkward-- no surprise, there.

"Let's just get this over with," Athanora said, and beckoned him to the table in the back, where bowl and blade waited. Many sythyn preferred using their own teeth on each other, and enjoyed the corresponding sense of sharing and intimacy, but Athanora couldn't bring herself to let Thyravon's mouth within touching distance of any part of her body. Hence, the knife. When it was the three of them, it seemed perfectly appropriate: it kept things formal and brief. With just Thyravon, however....

"N-- Athanora...."

DuVaa, he almost called me "Nora", she thought with annoyance. She'd forbidden him from ever using her more familiar nick-name, without actually using so many words. If he wasn't going to try to be friendly with her, he had no right to use a nick-name with her.

"Yes?" she said simply, not looking at him, eyes instead on setting down her goblet carefully in the lightly carved, stone circle meant to accept it.

"Athanora, you know... we don't have to use the knife."

"Of course we do," Athanora said briskly.

"No, we don't...." He caught her wrist before she could pick up the dagger. "Athanora, it's just the two of us. Father isn't here to-- to-- make things awkward." Athanora gave an experimental tug, but he didn't release her, and instead came closer, looming over her. She could feel him breathing on her hair, and she tried not to scowl at him. "'Nora, we are going to be married, you know...."

A much more vicious tug pulled her wrist free, and she stepped away, picking up the dagger and forcing her hand not to shake. "In six years and five months," she pointed out coldly. "Until then, you don't get to touch me without my permission."

She might have been trying not to look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her. "So how do I get your permission?" he asked quietly.

There was a pause before she came up with the answer that felt right: "You prove to me that you want it." She emphasized her bitter point by slashing the blade across her palm, and she let her blood flow into his chalice, which he hastily held out to catch the precious liquid before it spilled on the floor and had to be cleaned up in more mundane ways. This ceremony wasn't going to have any ritual words, or fancy language: she just wanted it over with. "And that," she added pointedly, "takes more than breathing on my neck and looking beautiful."

As she held out her goblet to catch the blood from his palm, and the spells worked into the metal healed the gash in her own skin, he frowned at her. It wasn't a frown of displeasure, or a frown of anger... it was, to her great surprise, a frown of thought, and he said nothing more except the ritual thanks and farewell after they'd both drunk their share. As he took himself off, Athanora had to wonder whether she'd said something extremely profound without meaning to or if, for some reason, Thyravon had suddenly decided he had a brain and wanted to use it.

Well, we'll see what comes of it, she told herself as she shut the door after him. If anything.

"Kiralraes?" she called, drifting back across the room to the enkeyn's room. She found the door ajar, and Kiralraes sitting just inside. The pup looked up at her as she called, mutely got up, taking her drawing carefully in her mouth, and toddled over to show it to her.

"What did you draw?" she asked, crouching down to take the image from her. It was, as it was supposed to be, Athanora herself, and it was recognizable as such, thankfully, despite the child's hand-- or paw-- which had drawn it. Athanora didn't think she'd be up to praising something when she didn't know what it was. The surprise, however, was that it wasn't just a generic image: she was in her ceremonial clothing, and held the blood-filled cup solemnly to her lips.

"I thought it would make a good picture," Kiralraes said, very quietly but with a kind of hopeful stubbornness that was a pleasure to hear.

Athanora hugged her against her hip with a smile. "It's lovely," she said, and she meant it.

Chapter Seven

Back to Aavayl

Back to Aashuryn   -   Back to Athanora

Back