Comment Space for Hair Fighting Styles

This is the space for commentary on the Hair Fighting styles in Arko.

Personally I believe that some solas know about them, some do not.  The solas themselves do not have long enough hair, at least not till now, to actually fight.

At least one person has commented that prostitutes with false hair clips, wigs and implants might fight like this.  These would be street prostitutes, not Maskers.

Have fun!

531 - An Arts and Graces of Hair Class

The young Serinas down in the atrium of the Silver Night Sun, are a little older’n me and I’m not supposed to be watching them.  But Regent Kallijas and my big brother went off to some ceremony in Yeola-e and I wanted to come.  But they left me and I’m very angry with them.  I’m furious.

I didn’t want to do all this boring listening to Ailadas and preparing essays for Gian when he and his people got back with Gan and Farasha.  I’m supposed to be nice to Kaita since she gave up another good job with somebody else, but I’m mad at her too.

So I latched Jia into his tank and he has all the stuff he wants and needs but just not to follow me, and snuck off to hide in the halls they say are all for the girls.  It’s a good place to sulk and they’ll ask all the guards if they saw me try to go outside by myself and they’ll all say ‘no ser’ so they’ll know I’m safe and I’m going to sit right here and sulk.

Sulk.

Sulk.

Sulking is kind of boring.

“Young Serinas!  Service in the Marble Palace requires delicacy!  It requires precision!  You may not ever, ever, ever allow your hair to get out of your control.”

The teacher is an older Sera whose name I don’t know but she has a voice that makes you sit up and take notice.  “Recite and present the moves!”

The row of Aitza down there all start moving a little like the warriors upstairs and a little like the Mahid girls when they do their dance training.  “… side sweep.”  They all have the left arm come out to gather up and brush all their different hair-patterns to that side as they chant together.  “Right side-sweep.”  That’s the other side.

“Gather.” They aren't singing, they're saying it all together.

“Remember, Serinas." The older Sera instructs.  "Grace is the key to unlocking the best of your service in the Marble Palace.  There will be another Imperatrix and her attendants.  Perhaps you will be part of the women’s gathering around the Mother of Crystal and Vessels of Light.  Perhaps one day you will rise to the ranks surrounding the Madonna of the Empire!”

It looks like a dance.  But it’s all the practical moves for hair.  Even clubbing it up in one hand to get it out of the way, or wrapping it around the left arm.

“Serinas.  Your chairs are here, please sit.”  There’s a rustle as the girls, some of them hot and sweaty by their pink faces, settle to their chairs, some more graceful than others.  Maybe nobody ever made them move so much all at one go.  The Sera sits down with them and takes up a sewing basket and so do they all.

I’m sitting on the top of the big false vase.  I say it’s false because it’s not hollow.  It’s just shaped like a big vase just over from the Goddess’s big statue, sized for Her.  It looks like She just set it down or might take it up again, from outside.  But the inside is still full of uncut rock, so I can sit on the edge of it and it won’t even wobble it’s so heavy, but it is way, way taller than me, than them.  But it would be a little loud for me to try and sneak away without them seeing or hearing me.  Not doing something as quiet as sewing.

“Sera Finiren,” one of the girls says.  “The wrap move.  My brother says it used to be part of an old and forbidden art.”

I sit still still still again.  That sounds interesting.  They’re all quiet, looking at the girl who asked and the Sera, whose hands are still sewing as if no one spoke.  She’s looking down at the cloth in her gloves and speaks to it.  Her voice is quiet enough that I almost can’t hear her and I hold my breath so I can hear better.

“It was.  It might still be so used.  Serinas. You have all heard whispers of your mothers and aunties and grannies, every one of your women relatives, about one of their sisters, one of their friends, someone, a woman down the street, at another manor, strangled by her husband… with her hair?”

Strangled with her hair?  That’s weird.  I hate that.  It makes me feel like I can’t breath and want to run out and beat up men like that.  I think of my pseudo-mama, but that’s all right.  She’s a Mahid and Ice-Eyes is dead… and then I think, ‘yes, he could have’  and ‘I think he did, a little.’  I have a faint memory of something like that, but I’m not sure.  And it’s such a sick idea.

They’ve all stopped pretending to sew, except the teacher Sera.  Her needle never stops moving.  “Just as that happens, women have used their hair to defend themselves from such things.”  Even as I’m trying to understand that, she goes on.  “They have wrapped the hair to use as a shield against knives and broken glass.  They have used their own hair on their sleeping husbands who would have killed them.  They have even, rarely, used hair ornaments in the tip of a long braid as a whip to defend themselves.”

“Oh, Goddess.”  The murmur is shocked and low.  “Really?  Really?”

“This is still a secret in the heart mothers’ of Arko.  ‘A woman’s hair is her glory.’ It is a truth.  Even the oldest grandmother in Arko, in the midst of her hair classes, would have had this little chat with her graces teachers.  Do not ever tell the men.  Do not mention this.  Too many already use their wives’ hair against them.  Let us take back control of our own hair.  Now that we may vote, we take back control, but it is slow.”

I bite on the edge of my sleeve and a sequin bends under my teeth and tastes of shriek metal in my mouth.  I won’t tell anyone.  I want to giggle.  I want you yell at them that it’s bad they keep secrets.  I want to yell that they don’t have to anymore.  I mean… that means Kaita knows this stuff.  And Binshala did.  And Kyriala does and Nuni’s mum.  I tuck my head down till my forehead touches the cool stone inside the lip of the vase that’s big enough I can lie flat on my stomach.

All the girls I know, were taught this.  All the Arkan girls and women.  They aren’t any different, but they are different.  They haven’t changed but my way of looking at them is different. I’m different.  I didn’t want to hear this.  I didn’t want to know this.  Pseudo-mama knowing this stuff, I figured because she was already creepy-mama.  But all the other girls?  It makes me shake inside.  I want to quit sulking.  I want to quit hiding.  I want to run up to… well… Ailadas more than Kaita because HE isn’t different.  

All the girls, and me, know this now.  We know this and we can’t stop knowing it.

Author's Note

Hi guys!

We made it safe to Tulsa last night and crashed pretty hard.  I admit I laid down on the kitchen floor for a bit when we came in!

I missed a perfect opportunity to create the Road Trip from Hell; how to ruin relationships and make your kids hate you. I'll have to write about how that can be done, to post on Backhouse Rat.

I will post current pictures of Interrobang and her kitten soon.

530 - No Cloaks

I didn’t even see Kall or Chevenga at the morning breakfast table, the same wonderful chaos that it had been for dinner, and thought it must be some combination of them wanting time together, or Chevenga needing to do preparations and Kallijas going over what he was going to say for the ceremony.

It was all very quiet that Kallijas was going to be recounting Chevenga’s career as a warrior.  It made sense though because of his position as one of the best warriors next to his alesinas. Other people knew, but Chevenga didn’t.  The old warmaster, Azaila, had written to Kall to ask him if he would and Kall, being the courageous man he was, agreed to do the hardest thing in the world for him.  Talk.

And talk to thousands of people.  Thousands of Yeolis.  He’d not shown me the grubby sheet of paper he was carrying to remind himself of all of Chevenga’s exploits, mostly the ones before the great duel.  And the falling in love over the sword.  And all the rest of it. He was nervous but I was certain he’d do well, since he would do his best for Chevenga and the ceremony.

We went down into Terera and I stood in the crowd with everyone else before the dais. It was a crisp fall day to Yeolis and I was wrapped in a warm cloak because I was just freezing. I could see the scriveners scribbling about it and I had no doubt that half of Arko would be upset that I didn’t mind that I was just standing with everyone equal to equal.  The other half, of course, would mind that I did it at all.

I was wondering what Kall would do for the ‘not putting his feet on the ground’ thing, since carrying chairs set off such bad associations in Yeola-e from when they were half conquered and hid my smile behind my hand when I saw him in the middle of the crowd of dignitaries.  He got off his horse onto chopines shoes, a good hand-span off the cobbles of Terera square.  As tall as he was that put him a good head-and a half over everyone around him and even if he wasn’t wearing anything terribly bright or fancy or stand-outish he was pretty obvious.  Of course the Imperial armour and sword were gilded but they were very plain to modern eyes.

How does someone manage to slouch and stand tall all at the same time?

He was visibly relieved when he was allowed to slide his feet out of the strap-on platforms and step onto the dais steps.  I had to smile, the one bright, fire blond, straight-haired head in the sea of Yeola-e brown and black and perhaps dark blond if one were generous, more like light brown, and only the occasional bright blond head of curls.  He was almost monkishly plain in his dress, the brightest and only piece of jewelry on him the Imperial seals winking in the sun, in this cool mountain air.

I wore a greenish blue shirt with a pair of dark trousers and dark gloves.  My jewelry was my chain necklace of silver charms, metal all and very outré in Yeola-e.  Joras wore his, now usual, dark red.  It seemed a good compromise over the excessive black of my father’s Mahid and the white shirt of his fessas self.

The dais was set up on the side opposite the lake, with the choir split on either side of it.  Also on the ground.  Very strange to see to Arkan eyes.  Any choral work was seen as closer to Selestialis so the choral group would most often be discretely raised… even on a second story balcony behind the celebrants.  Raised high and out of the way.  This way, they were almost part of the crowd.  Did they expect the crowd to join in?

I could not see the Yeoli security but that was good.  Any truly excellent security group wouldn’t be noticed at all unless something went very very badly wrong.  And Krero had had a lot of experience guarding Chevenga in a lot of strange situations.

There were a number of people on the dais with Chevenga, who was armoured in his wing-silk set; all martial and shining. Though he wore a cloak, it was not an enormous presentation cloak.  Arko would have wanted a magnificent flowing secondary cloak over the whole thing for effect.  Parade armour of course, not fighting armour.  A huge cloak on the field would just get you easily killed for little effect.  Could anyone not see that a cloak flowing down to horse’s hooves would just snap someone’s neck if a hoof went wrong?

Unplanned Hiatus

Dear readers;

I realize I've been very hit and miss lately, rather than regularly posting five days per week.  This is in part because of a friend's cottage, which has no internet, and slaving my ass off to get my house ready for market when I am home. 

And now, later on today actually, I will be heading off to Tulsa OK.  Once I'm there things should settle enough for me to post every day, but if not I will let everyone know.

My apologies for not letting everyone know what was going on before.  The house is ninety percent there, so I am going to say 'good enough to show and only going to get better...' so I can do this.

It's going to be an interesting trip, that's for sure.  A 'stitch and bitch' with Michael's family is in the cards I think.

529 - What on the Earthsphere?

We stayed at the Hearthstone Independent and Chevenga and Kallijas both laughed thinking about how I’d been there last time, in disguise.  It felt so good to just be myself.  The animals remembered me and I found that the parrots had had a nest of poults. One scarlet and gold youngster decided that I was the best thing he’d ever seen and insisted on sitting on me whenever allowed, even crawling under my chin if I let him.

I’ll admit it was a bit disconcerting to sit down and hear a flap of wings and have this thing descend on my head, hang upside down and insist on nibbling the tops of my ears with that enormous beak.  Truly I wasn’t an animal person, like Ili.  I hadn’t had creatures attach themselves to me the way Jiaklem had to him.  Aside from Altras.  Oh, and maybe the one-eye’d bitch.  Nasty, perhaps.  Well.  Perhaps I was more attractive to animals that I thought.  Aside from the spitting goat-things on the barge… I’d forgotten what they were called.

Kall and Chevenga went off to privacy together, to the family sleeping rooms and I ended up with a glass of really dark Brahvnikian beer looking out of the guest room window over the mountain slope.  It was very different on my palette and fizzed nicely, each mouthful clearing the way for the next.

I was struck with such a wave of homesickness that I was startled.  How could it be that I am in a friend’s house, with no secrets swirling around me and still want to be home in the pit? I found that my bird friend was rather more persistent than I had anticipated and managed, somehow, to get my door open.

That meant that Joras probably let him in because the Hearthstone Independent had been built with guest rooms designed to ease foreign visitor’s paranoia.  Yeolis might think that their semanakraseye never needed security, truly, but foreigners certainly would.  So Joras’s chamber was placed in such a way as to allow no hall access except through his room.  My window looked out over a sheer, smooth wall down to a steep, talus slope that wouldn’t allow easy access at all.

My window was also latched with iron rather than wood, just as in the Marble Palace, and the glass was doubled and reinforced by Zak glass smiths, not that anyone could get a shot angled up at my window like that.

For someone to gain access to the roof and lower themselves to my window, they’d have to either land on a steep pitched tile roof, or gain access from the aqueducts from the mountain face and Chevenga’s guard captain had those well covered.

I quite liked the little bed I had, in the Yeola-e style.  Low, barely off the floor, with feather mattresses and a feather quilt and big, thick wool-stuffed pillows.  No curtains to keep insects out and the building was stone built but not like Arko where the walls wept moisture, so no curtains to keep the damp out.

It was oddly built, in that sun-warmed water ran through the walls to warm the stone and the whole building, even in the depths of winter. It was a cozy space.  A flap of wings and my bird-brained friend flapped up to settle into a hollow of pillow, for all the world as though he were nesting.

**

I’m dreaming.  I know I’m dreaming but I’m part of it.  I’m in Presentation Square and all alone.  Which is strange now.  There is no one out, not even street sweepers and polishers or lamp-lighters. But I’m not frightened.  It’s just peaceful, though there is something I ought to be doing.

I’m not sure what it is.  Something I’ve forgotten.  I was told I should do something, but I haven’t done it.  I cannot remember what I am supposed to do.

There’s a rumble of thunder and I look around for an awning or one of the shady pergolas dotting the square, away from the Marble Palace, toward the street exits of the square, but they seem to be missing.  In the rare storms there is likely to be a downpour that flattens you in moments, so it is good to be under some kind of protection.

Across the square, the first few drops hit the pavement but with much louder bangs than mere water would make.  It’s books.  Books falling out of the sky.  Big, enormous black leather-bound books, vellum pages fluttering.  Tiny palm sized, paper bound and cheap pulp pages crinkling.  One or two at first and then tens and then hundreds and more falling from so far up in the sky I cannot see where they start

A small psaltery hits me in the top of the head and I throw my arms over my head.  The covers all have sunbursts on them.  They are all copies of the Holy Book.  What? Why? Ouch.  A larger volume bounced off my arms and I’m running through the rain of books, black and white and gold books, looking for some kind of shelter.

Once they hit the ground they lie, fluttering and every open page speaks in the words of the Ten.  “…praise and propriety, worship and work are the four pillars of a just society…”

“…Hail to Thee O Muunas and Thy Holy Consort…”

“… raining fire and desolation as the world fell into fire below and the world of corrupt and venal men…”

“…My Wife.  I sing Your praises to the sky as You are become…”

I can’t find shelter, the books will bury me in words, holy words but words and there isn’t anyone to take them up, to put them in order to hold even so much as a parasol over my head, and I’m being bruised by the words of the Ten.

“Over here!  Right here!”

Someone calls and I turn to the voice, stumble up the Temple steps and find myself standing in the shelter of the portico.  As I lower my arms and look around, I realize that I cannot see the person who called me to safety.  I don’t know his name.  I heard his voice clearly in the roar of words from the cloudburst of books.  They are trying to out-shout each other and all meaning is lost in the tumult.

I open my eyes to the quiet of the Yeola-e guest room, my travel copy of the Holy Book open on my chest.  What on the earthsphere did that mean?

528 - A Gigantic Flame

The Imperial flight to Yeola-e was impressive in the golden, late afternoon light as we spiraled up to begin our journey to see Chevenga go asa kraiya, that odd, mystic thing that Yeoli warriors sometimes do. They formally lay down the sword, as if it were part of them that they had to have cut away, or severed from themselves.

I tried to imagine Kallijas doing that and could not make my mind work that way.  Instead I hooked my thumbs into my harness and let my flyer do his duty.

The flight was all red and gold, Regent Imperator, my moyawa and all.  Kallijas, of course, had the most gold upon his wing, in the foremost position, though it was gold paint, down to the tail end all of red of our servants and guards and entourage.  It was only twenty wings, which for a traditional Imperial visit, was a tiny group.  I was not in a position to see but people said that the full flight looked like a gigantic flame, flickering against the sky.

I personally didn’t think it was such a good idea to have a designated position for the Imperator.  It made him more vulnerable, but we would be far above any springald shot anyway, so it was probably all right.  And we were travelling to a peaceful, friendly—well, quite friendly in its way – country, going to visit family and friends.

Joras was with me, since any solas that he’d hired were not yet sufficiently trained as far as he was concerned.  Kallijas had his usual elite, with Idiesas acting as his right hand, since he, himself, was a good left.

The Mahid debate was still going on and right now Joras was looking a bit strained, at least as far as I was concerned, since there was no one else to truly take over his duty so he could rest.  I tried to tell him it was all right, that I was surrounded by Imperial Elite, but he’d just nodded and gone right on stretching himself thin.  

Kallijas would get a different reaction.  I told myself not to be offended that they expected him to look after himself.  I knew that I was nowhere near the warrior he was, and likely never would be, but it was also unlikely that any assassination attempt would target him anyway since his tenure was so obviously and clearly temporary.  They’d go after me.

We were not going to relay this time, since it was both of us and we had no need to cut our entourage to the bare bones of what was possible, since so few people knew how to do that.  And especially since Kallijas had asked Serina Si Rusa and her chaperone to accompany us.

It was still only a few days away from the city, where the trip had once taken moons, even by ship at some times of the year.

Ili pouted when he found out that he could not go.  Kallijas had announced to the Assembly of Arko that his alesinas was going asa kraiya and had invited both of us. But even the Assembly would have woken up and choked on the fact that both Imperator and Imperator in Waiting and the Coronet Regal could not be in company, out of the Empire, at the same time.  But it was not as if He or I would be more than a few days away should a crisis occur.

It was also unlikely that someone would go after both of us together, in Yeola-e.

Kall had risen from the Crystal Throne to announce this and then excused himself formally, giving me my signal to excuse myself as well, which was good because it gave us both time to arrange to go.  When the entourage had launched, Kall was so beset with work that a Page came pounding up from the Assembly Hall for him to sign something, but he was already in the air and had to circle down and relay the name of the Minister he was to go to.

I saw the boy’s livery, bright against the black slate tile of the launch roof, falling away as we rose.  We would likely hear of the long term repercussions of this, once we returned safely, but in the meanwhile I imagined quite a few of the Assembly people would be having fits about both of us going together.  Some more quietly than others.

It would probably be the last time the two of us would be allowed to do something like this.  Of course, we could always come back with the idea that if Chevenga hadn’t done this, we would both be attending his funeral instead.  That would probably have stopped them, at least for a few moments.

It took us four days to make the trip instead of three, because of a combination of weather and some of our entourage being delayed.  To be honest several people tried to fly themselves and didn’t have the Niah sense for it.  We sent a messenger to the grounded wings, to send several people home, since they were clearly not able to keep up.

Since we were an official ‘state visit’, we landed at the Hearthstone Dependent and it was during the Assembly session, so once we were unharnessed we were shown to the gallery so we could see the proceedings.

Chevenga was standing in front of his chair with both of his arms out, chalk, and he looked very tired and strained.  When the Assembly was released we came down in the crowd and Kallijas almost elbowed his way toward his alesinas.

Kallijas, throwing propriety to the wind, caught him in a crushing hug and held him, Chevenga holding him just as hard, burying his head into Kall’s neck.  It was like seeing something split into two halves made whole.

They were locked into this column of hug that looked strong enough to hold up mountains.

Am I so loved?  Gannara… and Farasha… will they come back?  Will Kyriala…. My mind hiccupped to a stop at that point.  What did I want from Kyriala?  I wanted her to be my wife, certainly, but I also wanted her to be my friend.  I wanted… what we’d had the night before Gan and Fara left.

I want to be able to throw propriety to the wind and hug the people I love.