From: Kirana Ti1 Save Address Block Sender Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 22:20:51 EDT Subject: post: across the mountains [yes it's long but there's a lot of stuff going on...] Estela was finally getting used to walking in Alarin clothing. The pants and boots were ok, but the long shirts were another thing...the top part was just an ordinary mandarin collar, but they had these long rectangles of cloth, down past the knee in front and back, and for the first few days she'd tripped over them every other step. She tugged at her sash as she waited for the inn's mistress to notice her standing there. "Oh, Miz Bashere! What can I do for you? Was your breakfast all right? I told the girls not to burn it this morning but..." "No, no, breakfast was fine, they cooked it just the way I like it," she answered placatingly. "but...well....you're hospitality has been marvelous...but I think it's time for me to move on." yeah, I pass as Alari now...which was the point of staying. of course if my luck keeps up the way it has been, I could pass for anything I damn well please. Just when her money had been about to run out, she'd found more in one of the drawers in her room. the whole luck thing had her nervous, but she supposed it was better than having bad luck. "Oh, where are you headed, Miz Bashere?" "Well, I'm not quite sure yet, actually...you wouldn't know of another city worth seeing, would you?" She smiled, knowing what the people of Jiran thought of their city, "or of anywhere I could get a horse?" "I never left the city in my life but you might ask the priestesses in the Temple of the Lady of Waters, they come from just all over, La- I mean, Miz Bashere...and maybe they'd even lend you a horse if you're on your way somewhere they have a smaller temple." Estela smiled again, though she wasn't sure she relished the idea of getting mixed up with the local religion. "I'll be out for the morning then...have lunch ready for me when I get back, if you please." "Of course, Miz Bashere, of course!" called the obsequious and rather obese woman as Estela swept out the door. The innkeeper had actually called her Lady Bashere until she'd asked her to stop... and still treated her like one. Though she had to admit she carried herself rather taller than most of the Alari, she couldn't believe that was enough to mistake her for a lady. She knew where the Temple of the Lady of Waters was since she'd seen it her first day here; a large white-domed building ornamented with mosaic trim in blue and silver and gold in patterns of dolphins and waves. She entered through the main doors along with the other petitioners...and then stopped short as one of the priestesses, recognizable as such by her blue and white robes, cried out. "She has come! The child of prophecy has come!" shouted the woman, and the other priestesses ran to catch her. They can't mean me. I am not part of a prophecy. uhuh, no way. she knew she was kidding herself though...she was in another world, why shouldn't she be prophesied? It made as much sense as anything else had recently. The head priestess stood in front of her now. "Please pardon her...she has the Foresight but she can't control it... but if she says you are the prophesied one..." said the woman with a shrug. then I am, right? but there's either magic or psi here, if she's got "Foresight"...good to know. "What prophecy?" The priestess took on the air of someone quoting something they'd memorized for a class. "There shall come a young woman to Jiran in the nation of Alari from a land far beyond distance, and she shall neither enter by road nor by river nor from the air..." Estela could feel herself turning pale. So far this matched, all too well. "...but by the need of the land and the power of her true heart." That's not how that word translates, quite..."true heart", but something else too. dammit, what? this is important! but she couldn't recall it and the priestess was going on already. "Others of her land shall also come into the world, and with them and their chosen companions shall she save the world, but the foundations of the world shall shake with their coming..." "save the world"-- I knew it! and Teri-chan almost certianly IS here! but this shaking the world crap had better be hyperbole...please let it be hyperbole, Lady of Waters or whoever hears that sort of request around here! Estela wasn't particularly serious when it came to religion but this seemed like a fairly good reason to at least try. "...and what she shall require shall be granted her, and she shall come to the Temple of the Lady of Waters and what she shall ask must be granted her." The priestess dropped the tone of quoting. "Ask, Daughter of Prophecy, and it shall be granted." Estela toyed with the idea of asking for something entirely wild and out of the question and then dismissed it as beneath her honor. Instead she settled on what she'd meant to ask for in the first place. "A horse, and a suggestion on where to go next." The head priestess looked surprised, as if she'd been expecting the sort of thign she'd almost asked for. "Of course....Jineka, go get Moonwind from the stables, bring him out front for Lady- ah...what did you say your name was?" "You didn't give me a chance. But the name I go by is Estela Bashere," she answered carefully. She'd decided not to tell an outright lie where she could help it, in hopes of weaseling out on technicalities should she get caught telling half-truths. "So any idea where I should go?" "Take the East Road out of Jiran, and cross the eastern mountains," said the priestess who had spoken first, suddenly. "You will know when you have reached your immediate destination...and on the East Road is the road to the power of your true heart." The word I don't get again. or wait, the whole phrase...does that mean magic? it fits with everything else that I'd have some. "Then that's where I'll go." Jineka called from the doorway, "Moonwind is ready, and I found this..." She stepped foward to hand a sheathed rapier with a blue stone in the hilt to Estela, who made the mistake of drawing it. She heard a horrified gasp from behind her and suddenly realized that weapons inside the temple was probably not approved of. But if it was already too late...she swung it through the air a few times, then put it back in the sheath, nodding as if she actually knew what she was doing. Jineka tied it onto her sash for her, and she saw with a sinking feeling that the girl had a hero-worship look in her eyes. "I'm no hero, not yet." She started to laugh suddenly as she realized what she'd said. Too late to go back, so...she decided to just accept it, since if it was prophecy there was likely no choice. She raised her voice so that it rang off the high marble walls of the temple. "Not yet, but I will be!" she swung neatly into the gray stallion's saddle, glad she remembered most of her horseback riding lessons of a few years before. "Wait, take this!" said someone behind her, and she turned to look. The woman held out a blue and gold medallion. "with this you can get help from any of Our Lady's temples." Estela bent down and the woman hung it around her neck. "Thank you all...and may the Lady of Waters bless you!" Estela called as she wheeled the horse and kicked him into a trot. She stopped at the Seagull for her things, stuffed everything into her saddlebags, and then rode out the East Gate of the city proper and that of the surrounding farmland, and headed down the East Road into the world. * * * * * She'd been rising for two weeks when the land finally began to slope back down. Even in her waterproofed cloak and hood, she was cold and damp. She'd felt less heroic with each passing day, she still had no magic powers, and she was getting really tired of sleeping on the ground, so when she saw the lights of a town ahead she set Moonwind-- she thought of him as Moonie by now--into a canter, which after any number of falls the first few days she'd managed to figure out, to reach it. She reined in at an inn with a sign marked with a green dragon and dismounted to pound on the door with one fist. The innnkeeper peered out. "I want a stall for my horse, a meal, a bath, and a room, in that order!" she demanded. "Yes m'lady, right away m'lady!" he replied. oops. that was a little more peremptory than it had to be. just two weeks away from civilization and already I've lost my manners. sheesh. He sent a stableboy to take Moonwind and led her in. She glanced around the near empty common-room and said, "I think I'll take the bath first, and a meal in my room." "Ah, your room will be just up the stairs and the second on the right," he said, handing her a key. She climbed the stairs, pulling down her sodden hood, and nearly ran into a young man apparently on his way from the bathroom as she turned the corner. "Oh, pardon me." "No, it's my fault, I should have looked," Estela answered. As she met his eyes she felt something shift and slip. She said I would know my destination...and the prophecy said I would find what I need...this is the destination...and this guy is...what did the prophecy call it? one of my chosen comapanions. yes. but if I have a protector, I won't need my luck anymore...looks like things are pretty close to back to normal...on that front. He held out a hand. "I'm Chuin...nice to meet you, though I suppose it'd be nicer if I hadn't been in your way." She shook it. "I go by Estela Bashere...please, just call me Estela. Nice to meet you too...and really, I should have looked before coming around the corner," she answered, careful to use the half-truth she'd worked out regarding her name. Chuin thought he'd seen clothing like hers before. "Are you from Alari?" "We-ell...most recently...but I'm actually from a good deal farther than that. I don't really know this area...there isn't any chance you'd be willing to be my bodyguard, is there?" you sound like an iiiidiottt, she told herself. but then, if a prophecy needs help from an idiot... it took her an effort not to laugh out loud. sure, act like you're insane on top of an idiot! Chuin looked at her in surprise. "I, ah, don't know the area so well myself...and I might not be much of a bodyguard...but I guess if we were to travel together we could watch each other's backs, at least." Estela felt her skin crawl. She could almost see the prophecy working...or maybe she'd just been in the saddle too long. yeah, that's it, she told herself. But she did intend to travel with him, so..."Sounds like a plan. I was heading east on the main road out of Jiran...is that okay with you?" "Sure." "Okay, um, great...why don't we discuss the details over breakfast then? I'm about to fall asleep on my feet." "Me too...goodnight," he answered, starting back to his room. "Goodnight, Chuin." She looked skyward. Lady of Waters or whoever is responsable for this prophecy and transport-to-other-worlds stuff...i'm doing my part...please let Chuin be trustworthy. She switched to berating herself. What, you have to use euphemisms in your own head? please let him not think like guys on Earth, is what you mean! She shook her head. She was tired, that was all. She opened the door to her room and fell asleep on the bed almost before she'd dumped her cloak on the ground and locked the door, forgetting entirely about that bath.