In-country with Fiona -- ambush

[song_tra_bong]

They head north for a while, finding nothing particular but silence and trees and room to wander. Soon enough, the light begins to fade and they head back towards the site of their earlier skirmish. For an ambush point, then end up settling on the set of trees their runner had made for earlier; they do make excellent cover.

Mary Anne leans back against a trunk, checking her knives in preparation. She is looking forward to using her newest.

Comments

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

"Only perfect practice, oh, bother, I'm going to have to sharpen this."

[song_tra_bong]

"One sec."

She sets aside the knife for a moment (never sheathe a dirty weapon) and searches in her pockets.

"Here." She comes up with a whetstone at last. "Not sure how well it works on axes but it's hopefully better than nothing."

She tosses it to Fiona.

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

"A blade is a blade," and she catches it perfectly. Finding a rock, the princess sits down and runs the whetstone down the edge.

The noise should set her on edge, but she's already buzzing, so it doesn't make a difference.

[song_tra_bong]

Mary Anne finds the sound oddly soothing; the rhythm or the familiarity, perhaps.

She settle back into cleaning blood from her knife, humming a vauge countermelody to the shriek of metal.

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

"Is it always like that, here?" She asks at last, looking up and rubbing at the drying blood on her pretty face.

[song_tra_bong]

"Like what?"

The blood came out of the marble nicely. She puts the knife away and starts on the remaining blood on her hands.

"Busy like this? Two good fights in one day?"

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

"Mmm."

[song_tra_bong]

She shrugs.

"Sometimes. Hell, if you go looking for trouble, it can be like this every day." Something in her smile says she's done that before.

"Most of the time, it comes in waves. Moving through an area with a lot of military traffic, and then you hit an empty patch and don't seen anyone else for days, a week even. Just depends on where you go."

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

"Ah, I see."

[song_tra_bong]

She picks at a stubborn fleck of blood beneath her nails.

"Do you like it here?"

Because she does have a measure of concern for her guests' feelings.

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

And Fiona smiles her faint, accepting and acknowleding smile.

"It is not my place, but yours. Your home, and it has the marks of you everywhere. It's an honour to come and see, to kill and live in, but I am guest. Does that answer your question?"

[song_tra_bong]

She smiles back, small but sincere.

"Yes, I think it does."

Her hands are clean. It won't last.

"You said...you said that your Shadow--Maghrib?--is a desert." A faint upturn of pitch at the end, inviting Fiona to elaborate.

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

"Yes, a desert. Maghrib means 'land of the sunset', a romantic name, really, but it suits the mood I was in when I created it. It's a world and a city, built on oasis hedged by cliffs. Worship many gods, of stone and sand and water. Mother Sun and Daughter Moon and Father Earth. They are a people who refuse to draw these gods, but who can build the most fantastic patterns and mosiacs to dedicate to Their glory that you can imagine. More women then men, so there are harems from which the women peer out from latticed windows, or else walk the streets in veils to get water and gossip. Not a mask of civilized behaviour, just a manner that you act in the city, whereas when you are out of it, you are the warrior. No shame in killing, nor being killed. I can show you it at night, here, if you so like."

As she talks about it, her voice rises and falls with a distinctive, and musical, beat.

[song_tra_bong]

The cadence of Fiona's words is enough to lull her into imagining the place, close enough to touch--

And then she hears the offer.

She sits a little straighter, expression both eager and intriuged. "I...I would love that, yes, please but...how?"

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

A faint smile, this time impish.

"I paid attention to Dworkin when the others were off sating their desires in various Shadows. Watch." She puts the axe and whetsstone down, and cups her hands. A long moment of thought, and then she opens them and moves them over the ground in a circular fashion. Where her hands pass, the ground is twisted into a miniature city at night.

Torches and lamps light the streets and shine off the golden domes and cliffs, and the water on the right is inky black but bobbing with boats.

[song_tra_bong]

"My God..."

Mary Anne moves closer, utterly transfixed.

Torchlight and stone and the tiles of the temples that spell out mysteries she can nearly read; the illusion of a night breeze makes a banner flutter on a tiny balcony.

"It's beautiful."

[scion-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Quietly, but honestly,

"Thank you."

[song_tra_bong]

Her eyes flicker up to Fiona's.

"You're welcome."

Maghrib is not her city--she is, if you will, a guest--but there is an exotic beauty in it that lures. It's an exchange of sorts, these women with their places that are such an integral part of them.