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Aug. 4th, 2009 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amredthelectorSo I wrote another short story set in the same world as my other two. This one takes the focus off of Sam, and places it on a young girl named Suzanna, and Borys Frankov. You can read it here on DeviantArt (recommended, as it has the right formatting) or under the cut.
In her dreams, Suzanna saw an ivory city. She’d seen it before, when the malaria fever had ravaged her body two years ago. Back then it had been a beautiful oasis, dripping with diamonds and silk. It had been a brief bit of peace in the sickness, sinfully decadent and lush. Men made of copper walked the streets cobbled from golden pebbles. It was idyllic, fanciful, a paradise of bliss and status.
Now, she saw it burn. The ivory walls of the sweeping buildings turned black with smoke. The copper men rusted and froze in place. The diamonds and silk melted into colorful puddles.
Suzanna stood at the center of the raging inferno. The flames licked her arms and legs, and she felt their heat, but they did not burn her. She was spared from the destruction – at the price of watching her precious city burn to the ground. Suzanna started to scream.
She closed her eyes and shrieked, lashing out. She tried to brush away the searing ash that fell on her face and shoulders, swiping at the air with talon-like nails. Swinging her arms out, she connected with something solid. A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders, gently shaking her and calling her name.
She opened her eyes, and she was once again in her cabin, her manservant standing over her. He held her arms, watching her with bottomless black eyes. Another man stood at the far end of the room. She recognized his face but could not name it.
When he was sure she was awake, her manservant released her, and spoke to the man across the room. He talked slowly, in a low, quiet voice that Suzanna could not hear over her sobbing. Whatever her servant had said, however, the man at the edge of the room seemed to take as a dismissal. He nodded, first to the servant then to the girl, and left.
Her manservant returned to her, gently stroking her forehead, checking for a fever.
His name was Mahadev. He was tall and strong, with skin the color of dark mahogany and a short, pointed black beard. He wore a suit and had cut his hair short to look more like his employers, but the air around him was not the same. While his employers were men of military, steel, and smoke, he was from a more natural stock. He was a man of rivers, and thick humid forests, and hot spices. He no longer wore the long hair of his people, or spoke their language, but he was still one of them. And even if she could not understand why, Suzanna knew he was different, exotic, and glorious.
“A nightmare, Miss Suzanna?” Mahadev asked in his slow, gentle voice.
The girl nodded, wringing her hands. She had stopped crying, but the images where still fresh and terrible in her mind. She wanted to tell her manservant about the dream, for he was incredibly insightful without being emotional. Yet, for some reason, looking at Mahadev only reminded her of the tortured looks on her copper men’s faces as they burned.
Suzanna shook her head, trying to push the images away. It must have been the room, she reasoned, that was keeping the horrific dream in her mind. Fresh air was what she needed.
She threw back her sheets and swung her legs over the side of the little bed. Mahadev began to stand from where he had been sitting on the edge of the bed, but she raised a hand to stop him.
“I’m alright,” she said quickly, “I simply must get out of this room.”
“Would you like me to accompany you, miss?” The manservant asked.
“No!” She cried, thinking of the burning city. Embarrassed by the outburst, she took a deep breath. “No. I believe I need some time to myself. Thank you.”
The manservant only looked at her with his dark eyes, a gaze that pierced the girl, as though he were looking far beyond her, or anything in the physical world. That look made Suzanna uncomfortable, though she did not know why. She quickly put on her shoes and pulled her jacket on over her dressing gown, hurrying to escape that gaze. She left the room, practically fleeing from her servant.
She was on a steamship. It was not a particularly large once, but it was still bigger and more industrial then any of the majestic wooden boats she had seen back in the colony her father governed. This was also the first ocean journey she had taken, at least in her memory, though her mother had told her she had been born across the sea.
It was chilly, even below deck, near the cabins. She pulled her coat close around her, thinking for a brief moment that she should go back to her room, to her caretaker.
But she swore she could still feel the flames from the dream. She bolted up that steps that lead to the deck.
Above deck, the air was crisp and cool, and oddly fresh even though it tasted of salt. She had no idea what times it was, but it was dark about deck, and the moon hung, almost full, in the inky sky.
There were lamps hanging along the exterior of the cabins, though their light did not reach across the whole deck. They gave the ship an odd glow, and flickered with each gust of wind.
The girl breathed deeply, slowly walking toward the railings along the side of the ship. She gently leaned on the metal barricade, watching the water as it lapped against the side of the boat. It was like an endless piece of blue-black silk, she thought, yet it reflected the stars as sharply as a mirror. Suzanna absently stared at the waves, content to let her mind wander, as far as it took her away from her dream.
“I don’t know why this is so important to you.” A sharp, masculine voice cut through the quiet. Suzanna jumped, startled by the rude interruption into her reverie. She turned her head from side to side, searching for the voice’s owner. Eventually, she spotted him. He was a tall, thin man, with wind-ruffled auburn hair and a sharp, perpetually unhappy face. There was another man with him, a stout, balding gentleman with an impressive set of whiskers. They were a ways down the deck from her, just far enough that she could not hear what they were saying unless one started yelling, as the tall one was now.
“This is my life, and my decision, why can’t you accept that?” He shouted, his face getting even more unpleasant. The stout man tried to say something, quietly, but he was not allowed to finish.
“Ever since we met, you have tried to run my life. I won’t take it anymore. I am not a child anymore, and you are certainly not my father, so do not act like you are!”
Suzanna could not help but giggled. She felt like she was watching an owl fight a mongoose.
The older gentleman said something, but before he got through, the younger man rolled his eyes and stormed off. The older man made no attempt to follow. Suzanna did not blame him – she knew how dangerous an angry mongoose could be.
The owl-like man’s shoulders moved as though in a sigh. He put his hands in his coat pockets and casually started walking up the deck. He quickly noticed Suzanna, and approached her, smiling warmly.
“I’m sorry if my friend and I disturbed your evening, miss.” He said, his voice low and rumbling, like distant thunder.
“Oh, um, that’s alright.” The girl said hesitantly. “Though… I don’t know why you call him your friend. He doesn’t seem to like you much.”
“Oh, he likes me well enough. He’s just in one of his moods.” The man looked at Suzanna through a pair of round spectacles perched on his nose, making him seem even more like an owl. “Pardon the intrusion, miss, but you seem a bit young to be traveling on your own.”
“I’m not alone. My manservant is traveling with me. I just needed some fresh air. This is my first time on a steamship, you see, and I’m rather nervous.”
“Mm, I know just how you feel,” the gentleman said, his whiskers moving as he did. “I myself prefer trains over steamships any day.”
“I’ve never been on a train, either.” Suzanna said sheepishly. She didn’t like admitting that even though he was a governor’s daughter, she had hardly traveled at all.
“Well, when you get a chance, do take it. The scenery by train is much more exciting, not all this dull water. And of course, train conductors are not nearly as foul-mouthed as sailors.”
“I should hope so!” Suzanna said, laughing. “My goodness, I’ve never heard such language in my life!”
“Believe me, young lady, you could travel from one end of the globe to the other, and every place in-between, and you would never meet a single person more vulgar then a sailor.”
“You seem very sure of that. Do you travel often?” The girl inquired. She would have raised an eyebrow, if she knew how to.
“Oh, yes, indeed.” He said, stroking his whiskers. “I was born in Marushka – that’s in Troscvia – but when I was just a boy, my family sent me to Schwartznacht, in Alvund. I lived there for some time before moving to Greenshire. And now, I am returning to Greenshire from a trip to a college in Erable.”
“That is a lot of travel!” Suzanna exclaimed. “I suppose I did travel once before, when I was very young. I was born in Duncourt, but I can’t remember any of it. All of my life I’ve lived in the colonies, as far as I can remember. But now my other wants me to go back to Duncourt.”
The gentleman nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, it is difficult when your parents send you away from your home, even if it is for your own good. No matter what friends you make, or how long you stay, it will never be your real home.”
Suzanna sighed, gazing wistfully out over the water. The gentleman knew that look – he was quite sure he had been like that at least once.
“Forgive me, miss. I did not mean to upset you.”
The girl did not answer right away, focused on the dark water.
“It’s alright,” she said after a time, “I’ll be living with family, so it won’t be so terrible. I’m worried about my manservant, really. He’d never even heard of Duncourt before he met my father. He’s leaving everything he knows to take care of me.” Suzanna wiped her face, realizing that she had started crying. “What if he doesn’t like it? He’ll blame me for making him come. He’ll probably hate me…”
She trailed off, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve. The older man gently patted her shoulder.
“I am sure it will be difficult for him,” the gentleman said once the girl had calmed down. “Though I don’t think he will hate you. Not as long as you remember that as much as you may depend on him, he depends on you. Be a friend to him, and he will not hate you.”
Suzanna sniffed, wiping her eyes one last time. “Thank you. You are a very smart man.”
“No,” He said with a smile, “I’ve just been through a lot in my life, and have learned how to work with people.”
The girl nodded slightly, again watching the water. The man did the same, and for a few minutes, the world was quiet and serene.
“I should go back now.” Suzanna said quietly.
“Would you like me to escort you back to your room?” The man offered.
“Yes, thank you.”
The two headed back below deck, their shoes tapping on the floor, and the gentle crash of the waves on the boat the only sound. At the foot of the stairs leading down to the cabins was the man that resembled a mongoose. He watched the two descend, his face a mix of guilt and embarrassment.
“Borys…” he said when the older man reached the bottom of the stairs, “I’d like to apologize for what I said earlier.”
“It’s alright. I understand.” The whiskered gentleman said, placing a hand on the taller man’s shoulder. “Please, walk with me.” He glanced over his shoulder at Suzanna. “And here I must leave you, miss. It was lovely meeting you. Have a safe voyage.”
“It was lovely meeting you, too.” She said as the two men walked down the hall.
She returned to her own room, and when she entered, she found Mahadev still awake, waiting for her. She walked to the chair he was sitting at and hugged him around his broad shoulders. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
“For what, miss?” He asked, though he did not seem surprised.
“For coming with me.”
“I am only doing my duty to my employers,” he said calmly.
Suzanna let go of him, looking into his powerful eyes. She smiled, and while he did not return the gesture, somewhere deep inside of herself, she knew he was not completely unhappy.
Content that his charge was safe, the manservant left for his adjoining room. Suzanna prepared herself for bed for the second time that night, and was soon asleep.
As she slept, Suzanna dreamed. She dreamed of an ivory city in the center of a vast jungle. The city was covered in precious stones, and metal men roomed the streets. Suzanna stood at the center of the city. A copper man approached her, and took her hand in his.
In her sleep, Suzanna rolled over, dreaming.
In her dreams, Suzanna saw an ivory city. She’d seen it before, when the malaria fever had ravaged her body two years ago. Back then it had been a beautiful oasis, dripping with diamonds and silk. It had been a brief bit of peace in the sickness, sinfully decadent and lush. Men made of copper walked the streets cobbled from golden pebbles. It was idyllic, fanciful, a paradise of bliss and status.
Now, she saw it burn. The ivory walls of the sweeping buildings turned black with smoke. The copper men rusted and froze in place. The diamonds and silk melted into colorful puddles.
Suzanna stood at the center of the raging inferno. The flames licked her arms and legs, and she felt their heat, but they did not burn her. She was spared from the destruction – at the price of watching her precious city burn to the ground. Suzanna started to scream.
She closed her eyes and shrieked, lashing out. She tried to brush away the searing ash that fell on her face and shoulders, swiping at the air with talon-like nails. Swinging her arms out, she connected with something solid. A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders, gently shaking her and calling her name.
She opened her eyes, and she was once again in her cabin, her manservant standing over her. He held her arms, watching her with bottomless black eyes. Another man stood at the far end of the room. She recognized his face but could not name it.
When he was sure she was awake, her manservant released her, and spoke to the man across the room. He talked slowly, in a low, quiet voice that Suzanna could not hear over her sobbing. Whatever her servant had said, however, the man at the edge of the room seemed to take as a dismissal. He nodded, first to the servant then to the girl, and left.
Her manservant returned to her, gently stroking her forehead, checking for a fever.
His name was Mahadev. He was tall and strong, with skin the color of dark mahogany and a short, pointed black beard. He wore a suit and had cut his hair short to look more like his employers, but the air around him was not the same. While his employers were men of military, steel, and smoke, he was from a more natural stock. He was a man of rivers, and thick humid forests, and hot spices. He no longer wore the long hair of his people, or spoke their language, but he was still one of them. And even if she could not understand why, Suzanna knew he was different, exotic, and glorious.
“A nightmare, Miss Suzanna?” Mahadev asked in his slow, gentle voice.
The girl nodded, wringing her hands. She had stopped crying, but the images where still fresh and terrible in her mind. She wanted to tell her manservant about the dream, for he was incredibly insightful without being emotional. Yet, for some reason, looking at Mahadev only reminded her of the tortured looks on her copper men’s faces as they burned.
Suzanna shook her head, trying to push the images away. It must have been the room, she reasoned, that was keeping the horrific dream in her mind. Fresh air was what she needed.
She threw back her sheets and swung her legs over the side of the little bed. Mahadev began to stand from where he had been sitting on the edge of the bed, but she raised a hand to stop him.
“I’m alright,” she said quickly, “I simply must get out of this room.”
“Would you like me to accompany you, miss?” The manservant asked.
“No!” She cried, thinking of the burning city. Embarrassed by the outburst, she took a deep breath. “No. I believe I need some time to myself. Thank you.”
The manservant only looked at her with his dark eyes, a gaze that pierced the girl, as though he were looking far beyond her, or anything in the physical world. That look made Suzanna uncomfortable, though she did not know why. She quickly put on her shoes and pulled her jacket on over her dressing gown, hurrying to escape that gaze. She left the room, practically fleeing from her servant.
She was on a steamship. It was not a particularly large once, but it was still bigger and more industrial then any of the majestic wooden boats she had seen back in the colony her father governed. This was also the first ocean journey she had taken, at least in her memory, though her mother had told her she had been born across the sea.
It was chilly, even below deck, near the cabins. She pulled her coat close around her, thinking for a brief moment that she should go back to her room, to her caretaker.
But she swore she could still feel the flames from the dream. She bolted up that steps that lead to the deck.
Above deck, the air was crisp and cool, and oddly fresh even though it tasted of salt. She had no idea what times it was, but it was dark about deck, and the moon hung, almost full, in the inky sky.
There were lamps hanging along the exterior of the cabins, though their light did not reach across the whole deck. They gave the ship an odd glow, and flickered with each gust of wind.
The girl breathed deeply, slowly walking toward the railings along the side of the ship. She gently leaned on the metal barricade, watching the water as it lapped against the side of the boat. It was like an endless piece of blue-black silk, she thought, yet it reflected the stars as sharply as a mirror. Suzanna absently stared at the waves, content to let her mind wander, as far as it took her away from her dream.
“I don’t know why this is so important to you.” A sharp, masculine voice cut through the quiet. Suzanna jumped, startled by the rude interruption into her reverie. She turned her head from side to side, searching for the voice’s owner. Eventually, she spotted him. He was a tall, thin man, with wind-ruffled auburn hair and a sharp, perpetually unhappy face. There was another man with him, a stout, balding gentleman with an impressive set of whiskers. They were a ways down the deck from her, just far enough that she could not hear what they were saying unless one started yelling, as the tall one was now.
“This is my life, and my decision, why can’t you accept that?” He shouted, his face getting even more unpleasant. The stout man tried to say something, quietly, but he was not allowed to finish.
“Ever since we met, you have tried to run my life. I won’t take it anymore. I am not a child anymore, and you are certainly not my father, so do not act like you are!”
Suzanna could not help but giggled. She felt like she was watching an owl fight a mongoose.
The older gentleman said something, but before he got through, the younger man rolled his eyes and stormed off. The older man made no attempt to follow. Suzanna did not blame him – she knew how dangerous an angry mongoose could be.
The owl-like man’s shoulders moved as though in a sigh. He put his hands in his coat pockets and casually started walking up the deck. He quickly noticed Suzanna, and approached her, smiling warmly.
“I’m sorry if my friend and I disturbed your evening, miss.” He said, his voice low and rumbling, like distant thunder.
“Oh, um, that’s alright.” The girl said hesitantly. “Though… I don’t know why you call him your friend. He doesn’t seem to like you much.”
“Oh, he likes me well enough. He’s just in one of his moods.” The man looked at Suzanna through a pair of round spectacles perched on his nose, making him seem even more like an owl. “Pardon the intrusion, miss, but you seem a bit young to be traveling on your own.”
“I’m not alone. My manservant is traveling with me. I just needed some fresh air. This is my first time on a steamship, you see, and I’m rather nervous.”
“Mm, I know just how you feel,” the gentleman said, his whiskers moving as he did. “I myself prefer trains over steamships any day.”
“I’ve never been on a train, either.” Suzanna said sheepishly. She didn’t like admitting that even though he was a governor’s daughter, she had hardly traveled at all.
“Well, when you get a chance, do take it. The scenery by train is much more exciting, not all this dull water. And of course, train conductors are not nearly as foul-mouthed as sailors.”
“I should hope so!” Suzanna said, laughing. “My goodness, I’ve never heard such language in my life!”
“Believe me, young lady, you could travel from one end of the globe to the other, and every place in-between, and you would never meet a single person more vulgar then a sailor.”
“You seem very sure of that. Do you travel often?” The girl inquired. She would have raised an eyebrow, if she knew how to.
“Oh, yes, indeed.” He said, stroking his whiskers. “I was born in Marushka – that’s in Troscvia – but when I was just a boy, my family sent me to Schwartznacht, in Alvund. I lived there for some time before moving to Greenshire. And now, I am returning to Greenshire from a trip to a college in Erable.”
“That is a lot of travel!” Suzanna exclaimed. “I suppose I did travel once before, when I was very young. I was born in Duncourt, but I can’t remember any of it. All of my life I’ve lived in the colonies, as far as I can remember. But now my other wants me to go back to Duncourt.”
The gentleman nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, it is difficult when your parents send you away from your home, even if it is for your own good. No matter what friends you make, or how long you stay, it will never be your real home.”
Suzanna sighed, gazing wistfully out over the water. The gentleman knew that look – he was quite sure he had been like that at least once.
“Forgive me, miss. I did not mean to upset you.”
The girl did not answer right away, focused on the dark water.
“It’s alright,” she said after a time, “I’ll be living with family, so it won’t be so terrible. I’m worried about my manservant, really. He’d never even heard of Duncourt before he met my father. He’s leaving everything he knows to take care of me.” Suzanna wiped her face, realizing that she had started crying. “What if he doesn’t like it? He’ll blame me for making him come. He’ll probably hate me…”
She trailed off, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve. The older man gently patted her shoulder.
“I am sure it will be difficult for him,” the gentleman said once the girl had calmed down. “Though I don’t think he will hate you. Not as long as you remember that as much as you may depend on him, he depends on you. Be a friend to him, and he will not hate you.”
Suzanna sniffed, wiping her eyes one last time. “Thank you. You are a very smart man.”
“No,” He said with a smile, “I’ve just been through a lot in my life, and have learned how to work with people.”
The girl nodded slightly, again watching the water. The man did the same, and for a few minutes, the world was quiet and serene.
“I should go back now.” Suzanna said quietly.
“Would you like me to escort you back to your room?” The man offered.
“Yes, thank you.”
The two headed back below deck, their shoes tapping on the floor, and the gentle crash of the waves on the boat the only sound. At the foot of the stairs leading down to the cabins was the man that resembled a mongoose. He watched the two descend, his face a mix of guilt and embarrassment.
“Borys…” he said when the older man reached the bottom of the stairs, “I’d like to apologize for what I said earlier.”
“It’s alright. I understand.” The whiskered gentleman said, placing a hand on the taller man’s shoulder. “Please, walk with me.” He glanced over his shoulder at Suzanna. “And here I must leave you, miss. It was lovely meeting you. Have a safe voyage.”
“It was lovely meeting you, too.” She said as the two men walked down the hall.
She returned to her own room, and when she entered, she found Mahadev still awake, waiting for her. She walked to the chair he was sitting at and hugged him around his broad shoulders. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
“For what, miss?” He asked, though he did not seem surprised.
“For coming with me.”
“I am only doing my duty to my employers,” he said calmly.
Suzanna let go of him, looking into his powerful eyes. She smiled, and while he did not return the gesture, somewhere deep inside of herself, she knew he was not completely unhappy.
Content that his charge was safe, the manservant left for his adjoining room. Suzanna prepared herself for bed for the second time that night, and was soon asleep.
As she slept, Suzanna dreamed. She dreamed of an ivory city in the center of a vast jungle. The city was covered in precious stones, and metal men roomed the streets. Suzanna stood at the center of the city. A copper man approached her, and took her hand in his.
In her sleep, Suzanna rolled over, dreaming.
