Nina's House

For a moment, Nina thought that she might even survive.

The girl's position had subtly shifted since her dissident sarcasm at the party. She was still a vagabond, true, but unknown to most she had met with the King of Fiends, and had somehow garnered the fondness of the King's uncle. More importantly, for the better or worse, what she had survived in the last days had left her with an inability to fear someone merely as dangerous as the empress. So right now there was a grim assurance in her step, in the way her bamboo stick struck the dirt road. She wore her blue rags smelling faintly of fish guts with the confidence of one that had gone through hell, and stray scales glistened like jewels. That morning she had found the strength to braid a strand of her hair again. Some people flinched and looked away as the traveler passed. Rumour had it that Nina had killed someone. If she disappeared, she might not go unnoticed.

Then there was the question of what would Gray do about that. She pushed it to the back of her mind.

Which is not to say that Nina wasn't wary of Naoki anymore. One should, she thought, always be wary of vipers. Even if all around her sharp shingle rooves popped up like mushrooms after the rain, for people to live in, even if most administration needs were answered competently. This wariness was especially warranted since neither her nor her elusive mentor had escaped unscathed their win over the Clocktower. While Gray was by far the worst struck, she...

Nina's fingers tensed over her wrist. She had to bear the burden of broken magic.

Several times on the way to the Residential District, Nina had to stop, pressing her arms together and breathing through the pain. She wished she could have rested until it was no longer obvious that she needed her stick for support. It wasn't like the last time she'd met the ruler of Isra. It wouldn't go away on its own. It waxed and waned, but it would continue, a pressure in her temples, a burning sting along her nerves, until either her or the Clocktower were defeated.

Some days the pain exhausted her such that she could not even focus on the mantra that quieted it down.

But today was a good day. Well, apart for potentially being shipped to a mining colony. Nina had three plans to escape life in permanent darkness in the imaginary prison by the time she reached the Argentium river, one of them involving cheese.

She racked her brain, wondering if she had done anything particularly dissident in the last few days. Negotiating disaster relief with a foreign government? Endangering Isran citizens with witch dolls? Cavorting with devils? She decided to admit to that last one. Nina wasn't sure exactly what 'cavorting' meant, but it sounded appropriately defiant.

Despite her slow pace, it was almost too soon by the time she met with the page boy again at the entrance of the housing district (she had sent him back with a message that she'd be a while longer), and soon after that she found herself announced to the empress.

"Greetings," she offered, with an attempt at a smile.

"I'll have to go back to the fish skins soon," Nina gestured, "but I could spare some time. Heard you were looking for me."

The girl was nervous. Eyes zigzagged across support beams like a fidget, while the traveller followed Naoki. It felt unreal, like stepping into the décor of a play.

“A house.” She stated. As if the word alone could bring it down. She walked past the house that wasn’t hers, identical in its wooden form apart from the sign just being nailed above the gate. ‘The Baking Baron’. A sweet smell drifted from the windows. A former nobleman, that wanted nothing more than to bake bread for everyone, she’d heard. Optimistic, given that people were still figuring out what to use for flour. The traveller walked on, walked to the door that in a strange script bore her name, and carefully peered inside. It was mostly empty, all basic wooden furniture and smell of sawdust. But this is not what Nina saw. She saw safety. Her hand clenched on her staff. “I wasn’t expecting-“ Nina shook her head. Struggled to speak. “After all, I am not an Isran citizen.”

She turned. Her gaze fixed Naoki’s boots. A gesture of good-will? A bribe? Or simply the good intentions of one of her other Isran acquaintances that put her on a list? She did not know, so she did not ask. Her breathing got stuck in her throat.

“Thank you.” She bowed her head.

Safety, she thought. She wouldn’t have to worry about making it to and from the glasshouse of poisonous plants on the shore. When storm whipped up the waves, when winter turned the sea colder than ice, she wouldn’t have to worry about her safety. She wouldn’t have to live in a poison glasshouse, to start with. And…Nina swallowed…If it felt safe, she might even suggest Gray to visit, on those days on which his mind couldn’t bear stepping inside the accursed glasshouse.

Safety.

“I cannot accept it.” She said.

The girl fell onto the chair with a twinge of tension, a twinge of relief.

The room was large, but it felt darker and narrower when the leader of Port Argentium sat down across from her. She remembered scorch marks on cloth. Marks of a moment's anger, inscribed in her memory. The stinging on her cheek. She looked down, and wondered if carpenters had to deal with polishing out a lot of black spots out of Naoki's office furniture.

If medics had to deal with a lot of scorch marks on people.

“Listen.” Nina's fingers clung to the surface of the table. The staff clinked against the table edge. “Listen, about the feast, I apologize about implying you didn't know how rivers worked. But I'm standing by all the rest.” Fingers tensed halfway into fists. “That does not mean I feel particularly inimical towards you. I respect many of the things you've done. How you've changed in a way that matches the needs of the people.” And Naoki had changed, Nina knew. From what a nostalgic guard had told her, there was less focus on protocol now than there had been in Isra, and the ruler was doing more things herself. More people got their voices heard.

Whether she had changed to serve the needs of the people, or simply to ensure that the people will continue to serve her needs, Nina didn't know. Would Empress Naoki be quite as cordial to Bobathar the Dishwasher once her army was more reliable? Trusting the sort of person who used to have a secret police seemed unwise. Perhaps, Nina thought, it was in the nature of politics that people at the top would want power, and perhaps it was left to others to rig the system such that power for one also meant power for many. But that was a thought for another time. “This-” She gestured around the room, “is not about that.”

Eyes darted over the corners, as if looking for the right words. Or maybe avoiding them.

“I already have a .. house, to sleep in.” Nina spoke. “I have a country.” Odd phrasing. Pauses that clipped off the ends of words. First one, hinting that her house was not quite a home. The second, was her realizing that with Gray now awake, the poison glasshouse was less hers than it had ever- well, it had never really been hers, had it? She tilted her head and turned back to Naoki. “It would not do for me to have two houses, don't you think? Besides,” she gestured, “I'm a traveler. Once Port Argentium is better established, if I can afford equipment, I'll be gone for longer times.” The slightest tremor in her voice. The slightest doubt. She gently pressed her fingers onto the table. “It would be disrespectful to the woodworkers, to the artisans who built this and the trees who gave their lives for it, for me to have a house that I could not care for properly.”

A pause.

“However, if you insist shoving a house my way,” she winked, “may I make a suggestion as to its use?”

“Indeed,” Nina whispered, too quietly to fully be obstructive, too loud to fully be ignored.

Her eyes sparked like flint. But her smile, as she considered the house, showed acceptance. She wondered whether Theodosia would shelter her for the winter. She wondered how cold it would have to get for her to rely on the borrowed comfort that the other woman had built from manipulation and lies.

“Thank you. The house should go to the next person on the list.” Nina agreed, looking at her fingers. Shelter was a basic need. In the old tents, disease might spread like wildfire once the summer rains came. Her lips trembled as she inwardly debated her request. “But by winter, it would be nice to have...” She hesitated. “...a school.”

Her palms soon unfolded in a self-defensive gesture.

“Look. I know times are tough. I'm not asking for paper and inkwells. It's just...” The traveler seemed to glance far away.

It was something that she'd been thinking about for a while.

“Your society changed.” Nina started, and would go on if Naoki seemed to be listening. “Fewer people, as you must well realize, means that fewer specialized craftspeople can be supported. What used to be a cheap trinket, like needle or a bucket, is now often a loan, or a carefully considered trade, or something that one crafts themselves. Generally, one might expect an increase in the need for self-sufficiency. And many of your people, well, they're highly skilled. Which often means they're absolutely useless at it.” Nina raised her palm again, as if begging for time before evil intentions were assumed. “I'm not saying I'm better,” she firmly stated. “I know a few things, like a few edible plants, and fishing, and making rope, but other things, like making leather or thread, I can just about experiment, and of yet other vital things, like making cloth, I know nothing.” It was very different to be a vagabond painter that could occasionally survive in the wilderness, from trying to ask the wilderness to support you and an entire village. And it was hard for her to admit even as much as she did, for fish leather had been poor man's garb back in her grandparent's village. Everyone could fish. Not all could hunt. “What I'm saying is that we could all stand to learn a bit.”

It was all a function of population and resources, Nina supposed. New Isra's highly skilled population would help with rebuilding, but it also made for a very steep learning curve regarding survival.

“I've brought a few hunters from, uhm, this other settlement, Helsreach, on a humanitarian mission.” Nina awkwardly added. Her fingers repeatedly folded and unfolded. She guessed she never got around to telling Naoki about this whole other place. “To teach those of our hunters who were thrust into this role unprepared, or those who are desperate enough to brave the forest, how to survive better.” For a moment, the traveler's voice grew painfully tense, and she shut her eyes.

“Then,” she said, “there are some of us who best know how to care for plants, to patch basic wounds, or to find their way back if lost. There are lessons that could help us survive. There would be lessons to help us rebuild, like learning about the lands around us, about making paper and bricks.” She tapped the table, and then gestured to the ceiling. “And then there are those lessons which help us be...people. Writing. Looking at the stars. Sharing songs and poems, history and myth.” She pressed a palm on her chest. “Learning to support the body, the mind, the soul.”

“It's all going on right now, really, just rather inefficiently.” Nina mused. “Some who are recognized as good at their job get the same questions again and again, while others are gone for so long doing their job that it's hard to catch them around.” She toyed with one of her beaded braids.

“Maybe a bit more organization would help. Like scheduled meetings at a place like the Bonfire.” Nina said. She twirled the beads between her fingers.

“What do you think?”

“I appreciate it.”

Nina nodded slowly. That the ruler acquiesced to her suggestion so easily was surprising, but welcome. She supposed she would never know whether plans for a school had been in the works for months, say, and this quick acceptance simply a way to earn the gratitude of a 'troublesome element'. Or perhaps it was a way for Naoki to justify the arguably extravagant effort that had been spent in building not only the Basilica, but also Naoki's mansion. Who knows, the woman might even have a genuine love of learning. More curious things had happened. But people were made of many moving pieces, and Nina did not have the energy to untangle Naoki's right then.

She shook her head when asked for catchy ideas, looking slightly askance. But instead of moving on directly to the next question, the traveler answered with a question of her own.

“Naoki, lady.” Nina thought she'd allow her the honorific, at least this time, but it felt like juggling with a barely-cooling coal. “Do you believe in hell?”

After a few moments, her index finger pressed onto the table, and jutted sideways along the grain in the wood.

“I went sunriseward.” Nina said. “Four, five days away...there's a forest like no other. Flowers and grass blades the size of trees, and trees the sizes of which I'd never seen before.” Her fingers soundlessly tapped on the table, rain-like, before rising to the ceiling to mimic the unimaginable growth. “I met a mapmaker, Keph by his name. One of the artisans you employ, I think.” Nina tilted her head, eyes piercing. Fingers pressed against her chin. Just for a moment, before she looked away. “Has he come back yet?”

'Is Keph still alive?' Was what she really meant. She remembered the mute mapmaker, the living, cursive writing that he used to communicate. She remembered how he had rescued her and how she'd nearly gotten her burned alive. His skill for getting into trouble was more damn magical than his ability to make ink into shapes. She wondered whether by deciding to go her separate way, she had doomed the adventurous young man to a lonely death in the wilderness.

“When heading back, I thought I'd take the faster route by boat.” Nina continued, pushing other thoughts aside. “The signs and currents that I'd been following, it turns out, I had misjudged.” The path that her index finger sketched on the table was tangled. She did not talk about tracking down magic, or about the key currently pressing down on her breastbone, that held a hundred souls. Her nail stopped against the edge of a knot. “Rather than Port Argentium, I stumbled upon this strange shore overgrown by a cinnabar-red, evil-looking slime.” For another, it would be a superficial description. But Nina could feel the magic of things, and so she had felt the eons of pain that had gone into making the terrible thing that its inhabitants called, simply, 'fiendstuff'. She didn't care to specify. “It was everywhere.” There was a shudder in her voice. “I met some people. They looked scary, some of them, horns and too many eyes and a penchant for spikes and skulls. But...I've been shown nothing but kindness.” Nina's voice seemed to fall a few notes, giving off the impression of weightlessness, of one skipping a stair step they expected to be there, and then reaching solid ground again.

“Following brief negotiation, their King has agreed to send some supplies for the inhabitants of Port Argentium to help us last the spring. They are making a considerable sacrifice. If possible, they might renew their support in the winter, but we can't assume that their future crops will be as plentiful.”

That was important. That made up for her getting too close to the smoldering magic and nearly being burnt down by it. Nina's eyes narrowed. Had she forgotten anything?

“Oh, and I was told most of them have come from hell.” Right. That. “Don't call them demons, even the ones that look as such. I think that's their term for non-...below-sapient hell creatures.” Nina might not trust Naoki, but she wouldn't purposefully push the ruler into a diplomatic mishap. “Fiends, rather. There are also humans and elves. The latter were hired to help with the transition. Most of the hunters are elves.”

The fidgeting resumed. Part of the girl was wondering just how far she could push her luck.

“The reason I asked them to come here...is actually two-fold.” The traveler attempted. “You see, I want to protect the people here. All of the people.” Her hands folded out in a definitive gesture. “The ones that sailed on the Depravity, the ones who landed since,...and the ones that were here before us. The plants and the animals, the river and the sea.”

Her words were hesitant. She struggled to put them into a place that reflected the significance they held in her mind.

“We are currently taking too much. We have had to, in order to survive, but it is not something we can do year after year without breaking the land around us. Some believe that it is land's duty to be broken.” Nina looked at Naoki, wondering just how much someone who had to claw her way up the ranks would understand. “In my experience, collaborative relationships are usually more rewarding.” She murmured. Her fingertips reflexively found their way back to rest on the wooden table. “I believe there might be ways in which we can be mindful, give back and build a bond of trust with this new world.”