The Right Time --- &RPaward

...for in character discussions, contributions and Wheel of Time themed stories.
Catisune
Posts: 245
Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2020 2:18 pm

The Right Time --- &RPaward

Post by Catisune » Sun Dec 20, 2020 5:01 pm

Ely edit 29 Jul 2021:

1-6 qps, depending on length and quality.

Potential +1 qp: if part of a series: o

Total: 1 qps

*****************************************

Catisune balked at the man with the hole in his face and bells in his hair. A jagged scar disfigured him—puckering inward, all unfinished edges—as if the artist had grown impatient and abandoned his clay. Well, he no need be pretty, she thought to herself. She read the letter from Adeleas again. The ancient Brown and her sister Vandene occasionally sent updates from their small village in the Borderlands, though few knew from where. This one described the Trolloc raid that had taken the family of Theren Kashira, the man who sat before her. Catisune’s own eyes-and-ears in Shol Arbela had separately confirmed the account. The restless Blight grew more restless, creeping southward, and Catisune could read the signs as plainly as the book of Shienaran poetry open in her lap. No, not pretty, she thought, but neither is this work.

Catisune could count on her left hand the confidences she kept, and perhaps even those would someday prove her foolish. Still, she needed someone to trust, and a man who’d lost both his family and his nose to the Shadow seemed as safe a bet as any. Or perhaps Catisune was tired. She’d interviewed six candidates before Theren had answered her summons, and Elami once again ran late with the wine. So. A test.

Catisune tucked Adeleas’s letter into her tawny bag of sewing trinkets and handed the book in her lap to Theren. “What do you make of this poem, young Kashira?”
“I do not read much poetry, Catisune Sedai.”
“A pity, that.” Catisune chose her next words carefully, “Do you see how the poet admonishes the reader before she begins?”
“Yes.”
“Well, read me the poem.”

Theren looked at Catisune hesitantly. The poem, like all of Ryddingwood’s, was an elegy, a remembrance of the dead, left with specific instructions by the poet: she wrote simply that the words must only be spoken out loud when the time was right to do so. She did not indicate when that would be.

Theren began reading. “A drum with no head,” he said softly. Catisune closed her eyes. “A pump with no grip. A song with no voice. Still it is mine. Still it is mine.”

Still it is mine, Catisune thought to herself, but what she said was, “Young Kashira, I have yet to take a Warder . . .”

isabel
Posts: 1713
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 5:19 am

Re: The Right Time

Post by isabel » Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:10 pm

Poetry is generally intimidating with its pressure to 'get it' (and I rarely do) and that distracted my reading of the second half, but the way very Wot-ish interview moment really comes through, and somehow such a clear picture of Theren. I could almost hear the creak of the chair on which he is sitting, the travel bag or sack / whatever he's brought resting by his boots, a kind of patient/stoic waiting, even something like flies buzzing in the air that he swats at, even that there was some brown clothing, and a lot of things around there - reminded me of Egwene sitting in her tent thing when they were camped outside Salidar or wherever that was, a lot of surrounding hustle bustle but this sense of expectant waiting, small but momentous decisions being made, pieces of the chessboard moving into place.

Not sure how you made me see all that, but you did :) Looking forward to reading more adventures of Catisune and Theren.

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