Snowblind {complete}

Dry - Truth

Chowa placed Lanna on light duties for several days.

The words in Lanna's mind haunted her. There had been such need behind them. This thing – whatever it was – needed her. But Chowa, even Frez, would think her moons touched if she told them there was a voice in her head.

Chowa spent much time in her laboratory since Lanna's convulsion, working on another private project. Usually, this followed a return from the archives beneath the palace. Her best formulae came out of such sessions, including the truth serum.

Lanna couldn't fathom how she would work with Ashioto. He had struck her. True, her brother had done worse over their childhood, but that proved to Lanna how much of a child Ashioto remained. Lashing out in anger and frustration, unable or unwilling to master his emotions. Lanna still cringed at her words to him, spitting brutal and barbed truth.

Sonnatha, one of his personal sword maidens, delivered the Emperor's next contact. Lanna was gathering her belongings from the workshop, intent on retiring for the evening, when the large box almost hit her in the face, thrust at her by a strong hand.

Their padded armour and tied-back hair made sword maidens appear stern and unapproachable, the blades at the women's hips also deterring idle conversation. When Sonnatha spoke, it took Lanna time to translate her thick accent. Haven Islands dialect troubled her mind as much as High Imperial.

'I am t'carry ya reply to his 'ighness, Assistant Li,' the woman said with a smile, her black hair gleaming in a long braid down her back. Her tanned face and hands bore the marks of battle. Some of the concubines called sword maidens 'stubborn weeds'. Lanna wondered how safe the blooms would feel if the weeds decided to uproot.

Lanna knelt on her sleeping mat and listlessly pulled at the ribbon on the box, a sinking dread settling in her stomach.

'Don't ya get lonely sleeping 'ere by y'self?' Sonnatha asked, looking around the room, the Haven Islands accent slurring her words. 'I suppose ya get peace like, but I'm so used ta tha barracks I can'ts sleep unless I hears others breathin'.'

Lanna finally thumbed the box opened and rolled her eyes at another complicated tie of flowers.

'Why do they bother with flowers?' she moaned, more to herself than her visitor, who was now kneeling in her doorway. 'They can all read and write, so why go to the trouble?'

'Cause they can,' the sword maiden said with a chuckle. 'I suppose at one point in tha palace's 'istory it were a secret code 'atween a few. Now it's just another thing ya have ta spend time learning ta prove ya can keep up with tha elite.'

'I see that it's not the nobles that have the wisdom round here,' Lanna scoffed. Sword maidens stood at equal rank to Lanna in Imperial eyes, and around half of the women came from the Haven Islands where both men and women learnt to fight from childhood. While the concubines may snub such unfeminine women, Lanna found them a blessing.

Grumbling, she inspected the flowers.

'Borage,' she murmured. 'Courage, strength or honour; can also mean conviction.' She teased apart the flowers to the foliage buried at the heart.

'Olive?' she said with a squeak.

'So? Wha' do it all mean?'

'If I'm reading this correctly it means he acknowledges the courage of my convictions and wishes there to be peace between us.'

'That be good, no?'

'Or it could be another prank.'

'He's been quiet these last weeks,' the woman said with a shrug and scratched the back of her braided head. 'I think ya might have got ta 'im. No' even Ceseed has been able ta pull him outta 'is moody rut.'