The Apology/The Big Breakup

The Apology -or- The Big Breakup
Mankar moved quietly in the night, all the more so considering his seven-foot plus frame. He had an imposing presence even discounting his size: young but with a well-developed body, handsome features and piercing, soulful eyes. One could easily imagine him commanding vast armies someday but, this day, he looked uneasy as he proceeded on his mission.

His goal was ahead, an unadorned tent guarded by a single warrior. She was fierce-looking and obviously no stranger to bloody battle. The scowl on her face would have done credit to a statue of some fierce Death God but she wasn’t the challenge tonight. No, the real test was inside. The warrior saw him approaching and hissed, “Do you have it? You know there’s no way to succeed unless you are prepared!”

He patted a pouch on his belt and was reassured by the faint clink of metal inside. “I put my spirit into this and wrought truly. Hammer and fire! Stone and metal!”

“Yes, yes. You might only get one chance at this, so don’t. Screw. Up!” She poked his chest for emphasis with each word.

He just nodded, barely feeling her ‘attack’ despite the strength she put behind it. “Do not worry, my friend, I will win or go down fighting.” Mankar had faced monsters, challenged gods in the Dreamtime and even stared down Runelords but had never been this nervous. He took a deep breath and prepared to meet his greatest challenge yet:

Apologizing to his girlfriend.

He pulled aside the flap of the entered and entered without preamble. Sitting on some thin sleeping furs was a delicate looking woman easily mistaken for a child if one didn’t look closely. She had fine features and intelligent eyes but there were wrinkles of displeasure on her forehead when she saw Mankar entering. With a barely audible ‘Hmph!’, she turned from the giant warrior.

Though more gifted with words than some, Mankar sensed this was not the time for flowery language. Or rather, it was the time for sincere language with perhaps a few petals thrown in to make them more attractive.

“You have made it clear that you do not wish to speak to me as is your right so I will speak first. I have three things that I brought today. The first is something I made that I thought you would like.” He opened his pouch and pulled out a necklace. It was cunningly crafted from polished bronze links that had been twisted so that the necklace would lie flat against the skin. In front would hang several larger links, one in the shape of the Harmony rune and below it the Life rune. Beneath both was a pendant of ruby and gold. The gold had been fashioned into a wire that cradled the gemstone while displaying it. It was more than the sum of its components: a work of art made manifest. He put it on the furs near her where she could see it but she didn’t turn her head still.

“The second is a description. Men and women, though perhaps equally smart are very different. Men’s intelligence is like an arrow. We see a goal, take careful aim, account for wind and distance and weather and then left fly! Women’s intelligence is a sword. You attack, but perhaps pull back. Feint and dodge and examine your foe to see their strengths and weaknesses, changing from moment to moment like quicksilver. Both are of value, just as arrows and swords are both of value.”

Mankar grimaced, “The third is an apology. I promised to always treat you well and I have inadvertently not done so. I abase myself before you and humbly ask for forgiveness.” He dropped to his knees (which still left him quite a bit taller than the healer!) and bowed his head.

(Earlier that day)

Some girls were pretty even when they cried. Aud wasn't one of them. Her eyelids and the tip of her nose were red and puffy, clashing with her curly orange hair. The constellation of freckles scattered across her otherwise pale translucent skin stood out even more than usual. Aud was really only pretty when she was smiling or laughing - which she normally did quite frequently - mugging for a baby or small child to get them to giggle and forget their small hurts. Aud knew she wasn't as pretty as other girls, completely unaware of how the curls of her hair seemed to catch and trap light from any source to produce a halo of fire around her small heart-shaped face. The sick and injured often could not help themselves, reaching up to feel that fire for themselves. Babies would grab fistfuls and try to stuff them into their mouths - making Aud laugh and gently extricate herself from their tiny fists. Her hazel eyes were blue in sunlight, and green by firelight, and storm cloud gray when she was angry. At the moment they were pale gray, unhappy and tired from the day's events. She let her hands settle with her latest project into her lap, coincidentally covering and hiding the newest stain on her apron. It made her angry with herself, that she still cared how Mankar saw her. She knew she couldn't compete with long straight bright gold hair and rosy cheeks, and ample...well. She knew she couldn't compete, and felt very foolish for having tried. She had fallen for Mankar's confidence in himself and his enthusiasm for every adventure. He had made her feel brave. It was good to appear foolish and make her friends laugh, but to actually be a fool - that was another thing entirely. Aud knew she wasn't as smart as Astra or remotely brave as Rayela, but she had always taken pride in noticing and knowing what her friends and village needed from her and then doing it without complaint.

Aud gazed down at the carefully sewn scrap of peach silk in her lap, only half full so far with the hair she had been secretly collecting from Astra's hairbrush for the past couple of months. She had decided Astra really ought to have a proper beard, well groomed and barbered and decorated with three thin artful braids that small charms could be tied to as Astra rose in the ranks of her god's service. Aud had always been clever with her fingers and making things. It had been lucky that there were so many merchants here, some of them from quite far places. The merchant with the silk was one such. Aud had wanted something that would feel good against Astra's skin and not distract her from her studies, but sturdy as well so it would not lose its shape. The merchant hadn't wanted to sell Aud just a band of the expensive silk cloth and insisted she had to buy a full yard of the stuff instead. But Aud had noticed the merchant's wife fumbling with a needle, her knuckles swollen with advanced arthritis. Aud had left off trying to bargain with the merchant, and approached his wife instead. The older woman had looked up when Aud's slight shadow had fallen over her work, and seen only a kind face surrounded by an impossible corona of fiery hair.

"Please, may I see your hands, Mistress." Aud smiled, and the smile transformed her face. The woman dropped her needle wordlessly and offered her hands to the clearly gods-touched girl. The girl whispered as she slowly and gently stroked first one hand, then the other. The older woman had had healings done before - one right before this leg of her husband's six-month route, in fact. She knew to expect her hands to feel warm, and for the pain to flow away like water poured out of a rain barrel that had been threatening to overflow. The painful twist disappeared. But then her hands grew hot, as though something under the skin - in the bone - were being burned away. It was brief, so brief that she didn't even have time to cry out. And then it was done, and her hands suddenly were supple again, ready to do work that had been beyond them for some years now. She suspected Aud hadn't just done a light healing, but had spent her precious power for a deep healing instead. No temple or healer the merchant's wife had been to had been willing to do this, citing their need to save their energies for the seriously ill. Her husband hadn’t been willing to meet the exorbitant fee they had suggested would overcome their reluctance, thinking the much cheaper temporary treatment was good enough.

She had seen this bright sparrow of a girl taking care of all manner of small mishaps at her impromptu healer's booth consisting of a cheerful yellow and white checked cloth, an enormous backpack, a small stone-lined firepit where a round black pot heated water, and a tree stump she had commandeered from the stable that normally got used as a means for shorter legs to scramble onto a saddled horse. It was near the closing of the day, and the merchant's wife knew Aud had to be tired. She looked at her husband sharply, and said firmly, "Pay the great lady anything she wishes. We will more than make up any loss with my embroideries." The merchant had hastily offered Aud the yard of silk then, without argument. Aud had considered taking only the wide band she had needed, but decided to accept the whole yard after all - one never knew what other thing might need such wonderful cloth. She would tuck it away in the bottom of her pack for now until its service was needed. And there it was, and here she was, using Astra's new beard to hide the day's honest labors. Aud stared unseeing for a moment at the long luxuriant beard slowly taking shape in her hands and sighed. The anger ran out of her, leaving only the hurt and sadness. She had never been good at staying angry at anyone, and she had never tried not talking to someone - it was a lot more difficult than she thought it would be. As a tactic, she decided she didn't like it. Yelling at someone was a lot more satisfying - only yelling wasn't going to fix this, she knew.

(back to the present)

Aud glanced at the necklace dismissively, but was startled by the true artfulness of it. Mankar had put serious work into this - and after a long day of competing for the hand of that girl... The hurt refreshed itself, making her eyes fill and her chest hurt. "So that was what Rayela has been whispering so insistently to you about all day. I'm not some temple girl you have to pay for services rendered, Mankar.  It's very pretty.  You should save it as a bride gift.  If she can't wear it in good conscience, she can always sell it for one more to her liking.  I hope you will both be very happy together.  Now if you don't mind, it has been a long day, and I'm quite tired."

Mankar frowned with a look of concentration on his face as if he were trying to solve a particularly difficult riddle. Despite his forthright and uncomplicated personality, he was by no means stupid, just… very, very direct. “This is no payment! I leave the followers of Uleria to Mantis and he is welcome to them. This is,” he searched for the right words. “This is how I feel.”

He sighed and sat down in a more comfortable cross-legged pose on the ground, better for talking. “When Mantis said that there was a ritual and ceremony that would help our people, I thought it worth pursuing. To have the protection and blessings of another goddess, it is a good thing. The prizes and wealth… they too might help us in the struggle ahead.” He winced at the remembrance. “I could claim that I didn’t know who would have to participate in the contest but I can’t honestly say that I didn’t have some idea what was involved. The rituals are likely very similar to what we experienced on our previous journey though they take place over a year rather than an evening.”

“But never did I intend to abandon you or those who are precious to me! One year and one day from now, if breath is still in my body, I will still be the shield of the tribe, Mankar the Mountain!” He tried to catch her eyes, “YOUR mountain, if you will it so.”

He sighed again. “I realize though, now, that I was hasty in my promises about this festival. My arrow looked neither right nor left and I did not see how it was harming you. Again, I apologize for that. And I tell you truly, every day, I think about how to help our people, to protect us from our enemies. But there are some I think about more often than others.” Now, he smiled briefly at Aud, like the sun briefly coming out from behind a cloud, obviously referring to her and no one else.

Aud sat still for a moment, processing Mankar's words. Her eyes darkened while she thought, to the storm cloud gray that always seemed to precede a verbal explosion from Aud. This time was no exception. Aud sprang to her feet - no small accomplishment in the squat tent. Aud was in no way physically intimidating normally. But the smallness of the tent, Mankar's own seated position, her red-rimmed eyes, and the thing that looked somewhat like a half-shaved scalp that she had been clutching in her lap falling forgotten to the sleeping pad all combined with her thrown shadow to abruptly change the atmosphere under the canvas from one of haven to that of an angry honey badger's den. It occurred to Mankar that while honey badger's might be small and relatively easy to rebuff normally - as well as looking mildly ridiculous - it was Never a good idea to stick one's head into their den where one had no room whatsoever to maneuver or evade them. "You 'had some idea what was to be involved?!' I thought it was going to be something like that other oat festival we went to with all the dancing, and, and..." Aud abruptly blushed and this seemed to make her even angrier. "Out! Out!! OUT!!! Get Out!!!"

Aud pointed emphatically at the opening to the tent. "And to think I was a little jealous of that silly girl. I feel Sorry for her now!  You, you, LOUT!  You OAF!  You, You, LUMMOX!  Take your arrows and your swords and your 'feelings' and Get. OUT!!!  You and Vilnius bring us to the attention of the Lunars and put EVERYONE in danger, just so you can play local hero for a strange town who plans on buying Our village's hero with their riches and pretty girls!  And you are letting them!  You 'had some idea what was to be INVOLVED?!!!'  I doubt Rayela did!  Or Astra!  And I'll give Vilnius a piece of my mind later when I've calmed down!  I'm so angry with you right now, I could, I could..." And Aud abruptly hiccupped, which brought on a fresh burst of tears.

Having no idea how to proceed, Mankar instead retreated with a confused look on his face.

Ryala looked at him silently for a minute and then finally said with a chipper tone, "At least she's talking to you now!"