New Comment Contest

Hey Folks!  It's time for my final Comment Contest for Eclipse Court.

I'm in the home stretch to the end and I'd like to see if you all have any more advice for me!

If you post fifty or more good comments before the end of the story, I will create a character for you and write a post based on this character.

Have fun! 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=277746668936375&set=o.187961301279638&type=1&theater  Check out this cartoon!

580 - I Will Be Careful

Laisa had snowflakes caught in her eyelashes and the fur trim of her hat.  The candle-light gave her a golden glow and my breath caught in my throat.  The family all knew... they all liked her... they told me I should ask her... when we were here last time they told me.

Her eyes were wide and so blue... so blue... her mouth open slightly, wisps of gorgeous hair against her face in the wet. What if she says no? Don’t be stupid, she's been showing how much she likes you... does she love me?  I was holding my breath, holding my bow, light-headed when she leapt to her feet, shrieking “Yes! Oh, yes!”

She slipped on the ice and, hampered by her skirts and the furs and the muff, fell forward into me and I dropped the ring and caught her and despite our training, despite our sparring, we both ended up in the wet snow.  A couple of the snowball candles were snuffed out and we were both soaked through in a moment as my elbow managed to crack through the ice on the rivulet and the water poured out over my sleeve and hers.

“Oooooh!”  She sounded enraged.  “How could I be so stupid?”

I wrapped my arms around her and we managed to gain our feet.  It was so dim I was seized by an impulse surely learned in this country.  I took her wet chin in my hand, leaned down and... paused.  She stared up into my eyes.  Did she know what I wanted to do?  I brought my lips toward hers, very slowly so she could resist if I frightened her.

Her eyes closed and her breath came fast.  "What... oh..."  My lips touched hers as gently as a butterfly settling, gentle as a breath of wind.  Her breath pulled in through her partly open mouth in a gasp as I pulled her closer, let my lips kiss the corner of her mouth, then her cheek before coming back to her lips.  I could taste the snow melting between us and her eyes closed.  I drew back and met her eyes, as they drifted open.  "Oh.  Oh my.  Kallijas!"  But she wasn't frightened.  She was stiff at first but that was because she didn't know.  "That was... lovely..."

“You are not stupid.  Thank you for saying yes.”

“What else was I going to say?  I’ve been hoping you’d ask me for a long time.  I'm glad you kissed me.  Grandmama said it was nice and that I'd like it.  Oh... the ring!  Where’s your ring?”

And she threw off the soaking wet muff and seized one of the last lit candles.  “It’s right around here... it has to be!”

“Don’t worry about the ring, I’ll get another... what’s important is that we’re getting married... Laisa... please...”

She looked up at me, the snowball candle clutched before her chest like she was going to spar with it.  “But... I want the one you asked me with!”

I had to laugh.  She laughed.  I laughed harder.  She laughed harder until we were helpless with it on the mountainside in Yeola-e.  She put the candle down and leaned forward.  “I’m going to be very forward, Kallijas Itrean.”

“Oh?  Really?”  She licked her lips, leaned in and kissed me, bumping her nose into mine.  Her lips were just as magnificent the second kiss. "I'm glad your Grandmama told you that."

"I'm going to have to practice, like sparring, so I can get better at it."  I could feel her smile under my lips as I wrapped my arms tight around her and we kissed and then kissed some more before I realized we were both shivering. 

“We should go up to the Hearthstone and get warm, my beautiful wife-to be.”

“I... suppose... my... my magnificent husband-to-be.”  We were both being terribly close but I loved it, even as my cheeks heated enough to nearly warm us both.  I reluctantly let her go and she was about to join me under my slightly damp coat from the bench when she dove on something glittering on the path.

“Look!”  She came up with half of the split ring that I’d dropped.  “But it’s only one piece!”

“I believe I have the solution for that honoured betrothed.”  The other half had gotten caught in the Imperial seal on my hand and I was able to turn my hand over to show her.  That started her giggling again as she picked it out of my palm.

Since we were betrothed and in Yeola-e it was perfectly proper for me to put my arm around my sodden wife-to-be to try and keep her warm and on her feet as we headed back out to the main path.  Oh, my Ten, she felt so good under my arm and with her arm around my waist.  And I wasn’t drunk.  Of course we’d sparred but that was different.

She raised her eyes from the path, ostensibly to keep her feet, and smiled at me again.  Glorious smile.  “You are blushing husband-to-be.”

“I most certainly am not, wife-to-be.”  I managed as solemnly as I could.  “I am merely overheated in the unseasonable warmth in Yeola-e.”  She giggled as a breath of wind blew damp snowflakes into my hot face.

“I am corrected, husband-to-be.  When did papa give his permission for you to ask?”

“Three eight days ago.”  Her smile dropped a bit.

“And you waited that long to ask me?”

“I... I... couldn’t find a moment romantic enough!”  My protest was weak.

She sniffed.  “I suppose you had to find the right ground to pursue the campaign.”

“Well... yes.”

She looked up sideways at me.  “Good thing for you that your opponent was already vanquished, overwhelmed and converted then.”

“This general couldn’t risk it without perfect preparation.”

“Naturally.  Kallijas Itrean... you do realize I...” she cleared her throat, then – like her father’s daughter – launched straight into the thing that was usually never said by an Arkan wife.  “... you do realize that I love you?”

My mouth dropped open. Aras and Dimae... I mean Muunas and Selinae...  “I... um... I... er... yes!  And I love you too! Er... yes... I do!”  I cleared my throat.  “Watch out for this spot in the path, it’s clearly slippery.”

“Yes, husband-to-be.  I will be careful.”

I nodded.  “Excellent.”

579 - Coach Said

“Coach Arenen.  Welcome.  This lowly one is most honoured.  There is a chair of honour. May this one offer kaf? Cakes?”  The training school was almost deserted after the classes, just before everything was closed up for the evening.  Lirasas Arenen nodded and settled slowly into the offered chair.

“I thank that one.  Just kaf thank you. I must say I’ve been very impressed with the current solas league teams.”

Feniras Trenas solas, poured for his guest and then settled down in the chair opposite.  It would never do for a solas  to sit behind his desk when an Aitzas came calling, even if he suspected the Aitzas in question had a request to make.  “That is gratifying to hear, Coach.  Might this one inquire how it is, coming out of retirement?”

“Excellent!  How is the youngest draft pick of that one’s doing?  He is a very strong centre player.”

Feniras sipped his kaf.  “Nothing like the honourable coach in the flower of that one’s career, but he is coming along well.  He needs more work defensively but that will come in time.”  He paused for a moment as if to gather his thoughts, or his words, to phrase the next question.  “How is it, coaching... the Mahid...” he let the sentence fade, as if he could not comfortably say ‘girls’ to finish off.

“It is enlightening,” was all Lirasas answered.  He set his cup down.  “Perhaps I should come to the point, Feniras.  My team is challenging that one’s.”

The coach of the Flying Dulis was hardly surprised.  “These ones are, of course, flattered, Coach Arenen.  It is clear that the honourable coach believes his Phoenixes are capable of meeting wheel to wheel with the Dulis.  Since the season is in full swing, it will be a concession to play such a game.  Exhibition this one assumes?”

“Yes.”

“It would be most efficacious if such a game were played in the famous steel bowl, rather than the solas league’s stone one.”

“In front of a very exclusive audience, of course.” Feniras nodded thoughtfully.

Lirasas nodded as well.  “A very equitable answer.  I anticipated and have reserved several days for that one’s team to become used to the faster steel.  I look forward to the game.”

**

Jorasa stood next to the bench, looking through the bars of her helmet, breathing deep.  She had a light film of sweat on her skin after her warm-up laps.  It was a failing but she could not sit.  Their opponents were just finishing.  Borasa and Eforasa finished their laps and soared conservatively up the rim to settle on the edge and sit down in their places.  They had a pelutas line and one alternate player.  It was a wonder that they had an alternate at all.  Elsha, after her birthing and widowing, had thrown herself into training with the team.

“They are bigger... perhaps better than we are,” Borasa said quietly, her mouth hidden by her helmet.

“Not by much,” Elsha answered her.  She was astonishingly thin, her face actually hollow but the Haian said her health was good.  The choir began.

“You have three advantages,” the coach spoke from behind the bench.  “One and two, they will underestimate you because of your sex and your heights, and three, even with their adjustments, they are bone-used to playing on stone, not steel.”

“Yes, coach,” their voices whispered down the bench.  The referee took the disc out of its box and intoned the prayer... odd because he included both castes. The watchers -- every seat was full -- murmured at his words.

“May Aras and Selinae bless the faibalitzkabas and the disc itself,” he said formally not stumbling over the Goddess’s name.  Tesha grinned under her helmet.  No one was use to hearing Selinae invoked here.

“Play your hearts out Serinas and Seras.  This is where you start,” coach said.  The red-shirt called the captains to the centre, Jorasa facing the very tall solas captain, Apanas.  He smiled down at her.  It was not a pleasant smile.

578 - A Fantasy of Icicles

Kallijas was being very gallant.  Of course.  It’s who and what he was.  Oh papa, I was hoping… I am hoping.

“Serina… here… watch your step the snow has made it slippery.”  He offered me his elbow and I clung to it to not slip in my boots.  Arkan cordwainders just had no idea what real boots were, nor what was necessary to keep someone’s feet warm and dry, in Yeola-e.  My feet were completely soaked through, though I would never let on.  Solas endure.  And to have his arm under my hand… oh, he is warm.

His hair was long enough by now that it nearly touched my hand tucked into his elbow.  My own was braided tight from the afternoon to get it out of my way, just in case.  Very plain but Ky said it suited me.

“Sukala reminded me of this place I wanted to show you… I mentioned it to your and your father once…”

“At dinner.”  I said, remembering.  Kall wore a golden coloured fur coat and scarf, that glowed against the silvery blue light of the snow.  We were a contrast because my furs were silvery, with black tips.

It wasn’t the big waterfall, he led me to, however.  The bonfires along the path were so pretty, but there were a lot of people.  He led me around a clump of the miniature trees, that weren’t even as tall as I was and there, in the most beautiful, tiny grotto, was a fantasy of icicles.  How unlike him, to be so improper and ask to show me something, alone.  I could think of two reasons why he would do that.  My heart was pounding but it could be the height.

“In the summer this is a small waterfall, perhaps a hand-width across.”  In the moonlight the whole cliff face glittered in spikes and spires of clear and blue and white and reddish tinted ice.  Right off the path there was a frozen arch, almost completely clear, that had white starburst shapes frozen inside as though snowflakes had been set in glass.

There was a bench and Kall brushed snow off the stone surface with a mitten and took them off.  Then he took off his coat to lay over the bench so I might sit without getting chilled.

“You shouldn’t, you’ll catch cold yourself,” I said.  I couldn’t pull out my fan in this gloriously icy little palace on the mountainside.  I wouldn’t have anyway because my hands were shaking so badly.  I really wanted to be on the training ground rather than wrapped in all these furs, like a good girl.  I really hope he didn’t bring me out here to tell me we would always be good friends…

“I shall be perfectly fine,” he said.  He was nervous, I could tell.  “Isn’t this beautiful?”  Someone had made largish snowballs and hollowed them out to hold single candles.  The moonlight faded and a sudden flurry of snow gave this place a feeling of having gold-flecked shimmering walls all around us.

He stared down at me, his golden furs frosted white, speckles melting on his hot-blushing cheeks… though he looked at me seriously, a smile blinking across his face, flickering in the snowy candle-light.  I wanted to be daring and reach up to pull him down next to me.

Kall reached out and gently brushed his – bare… finger over my cheek.  “Snow.  Laisa… my friend… my sparring partner…”  I held my breath, my hands clenched trembling in my muff.

He spread his arms and made the most elegant bow and held out his hand… the Imperial Seals shining, but not shining as brightly as the split ring in his palm. “Laisa Si Rusa, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife and the mother of my children?  Will you fill my ring with your marriage lock?”

577 - Oh, I Hope So

“The vote of the people of Yeola-e on the question, that we fully reinstate as semanakraseye of Yeola-e First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e in light of his conviction under the Statute semanakraseyeni sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 and the findings of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee as stated in their final report, we have duly totaled as, of two thousand thousand, seven hundred and fifty three thousand, four hundred and twenty two proper and unspoiled votes: chalk, one thousand thousand, nine—”  The official said clearly, but Virana-e’s gasp was loud enough to interrupt her.

My own gasp was one of relief.  Through the spots floating in front of my eyes I saw Virana-e throw his hands over his face.

“-- hundred and seventy-one thousand, five hundred and seventy-three; charcoal, four hundred and eighty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and seventy-one; by our calculation a majority just shy of seven and one quarter in ten.”  The official folded the page she’d been reading from as I leapt to my feet, cheering.

“Whoo Hoo! Ch’venga I told you!  I told you so!”  But my rudeness was lost in the others cheering all around me.  Kall, next to me, whooped and pounded me on the back as if Virana-e had scored the winning goal in the faib championship final.  The decorous applause from the Yeoli Assembly was almost funny.  Virana-e sat down abruptly and laid his head down on his crossed arms on the table in front of him.

In the noise there was no chance of anyone hearing what the Speaker said to Virana-e but he sat up again, almost as abruptly, still with a faint gingerliness from the injury he’d done himself somehow earlier in the day. Whatever she’d asked him, with her hand on his shoulder, he stabbed out a chalk sign in answer.

They had to give him a few more days of recovery time and I caught a wave of fingers from Kaninjer to the adakri.  One of the older Assemblywomen – I wasn’t sure of her name – caught it and moved that he have five more days and they passed that as well.

Then things pretty much went completely crazy, the way Yeolis do.  The wine came out and we’d brought herb for the tall pipe that Skorsas had ordered for the Hearthstone Independent.  The party roared into the square and down toward Terera and up to the Hearthstone.  Crazy Yeolis, having an outdoor party with bonfires lit all along the paths, even if it was snowing again.

As the evening went on it actually warmed and the snowflakes got big and wet and clung to everything, and then went to a cold, misty rain.  This was going to be horrid to fly in, if we even could.  The clouds blew across the moon, so the light came and went as it was alternately clear and then thick snow.

Sukala sat at one of the bonfires, on this sleigh that had no way for an animal to pull it.  Kall started laughing when he saw it and went over to talk to her and take her a wine cup and Laisa went with him.

Kyriala came up behind me, threaded her arm through mine, her furs damp from the snow, gorgeous tendrils of hair on her forehead and cheeks.  “I’m so pleased.”

Do I dare be so forward? “You look amazing, Ky.”

The dimple in her cheek deepened as she smiled wider.  “Thank you, Minis.  You’re looking happy.”

“It’s just good to see Virana-e get the reassurance he needs.  He just never knew how much his people love him.”

She pursed her lips.  “It seems to me that he both knew and did not know at the same time.”

“You’re right.”  She brushed the blowing edge of fur off her face.  “Oh… oh look.  Where do you think Kall and Lai are going?”

Kallijas had taken Laisa with him to visit Sukala and now he was gesturing… the odd, partly Yeoli gesture most Arkans tended to pick up if they lived here for any length of time.  “It looks like he’s taking her up the mountain.”

“Oh, my.”  I turned to look at her, then back to the intermittent moonlight mountainside where Kall and Laisa were clearly visible.  “He’s going to… is he?”

“I think he’s looking for the most romantic view he can find… but…”  Her fur mitten came up to cover her mouth.  “I so hope so.  Oh…”

576 - I Held My Breath

I had to laugh at the look on Virana-e’s face.  He really hadn’t expected me to be here as well as Kallijas, who had a strong arm around his shoulders and kept kissing him on the back of the neck.  I gave way to a dozen other people in the thick crowd outside the Assembly Hall.

I circled around to congratulate Niku on the births.  Kyriala and Laisa were with the crowd around her and I didn’t understand what was going on.  Every woman and a lot of the men were acting all glowy and gooey.  Babies, I guess.

I took one… the girl or the boy I wasn’t sure and patted a well-wrapped bottom, got stared at by misty blue eyes in a mocha squished face and passed it on to a Yeoli friend, one of the family friends who I could never remember their name.

The noise was deafening by now and Virana-e kept getting pulled back down into his chair by Kaninjer pulling on the back of his shirt.  Everyone had to come and say hello and Virana-e seized me by the elbow to introduce me to a spear-straight, fur-collared old woman with a dense shock of white hair.

“Shadow Grandmama!  I’d like you to meet Minis Aan, Imperator Elect.  Minis this is Krasila Mangu, my shadow grandmother."

His shadow grandmother.  I could see the resemblance to Esora-e.  "Kere Mangu.  It's good to meet you." Everyone around was speaking Yeoli, so I was as well.  I offered my hands, Yeoli style, though only one could be taken because she had one of the babies on her other arm.

“Imperator Elect,” she said, though her eyes were mostly for the baby.  Ky and Laisa and Kaninjer all got pulled in to be introduced to her.  Hadn’t she met Virana-e’s Haian already?  Kall too.  How had she not already known them?  Then I overheard Virana-e saying that she’d been estranged for years and wasn’t it wonderful that she was now visiting?

Skorsas was glossy as silk as he was introduced, of course, and Kall blushed.  When she and Niku were made known to each other, they sized each other up a little like strange cats, but they exchanged twins smoothly enough, the grandmother saying something about changing both of them.  Esora-e, standing near, looked a bit like he had a treasure in his hands that could have a lightning snake hidden in the bottom of the box.

And there were bureaucrats and clerks and Assembly runners and judges and officials of every stripe.  Che-Virana-e had his attention split between what was happening in the Assembly, where his sister had already called them all to order, and the greetings of everyone who had missed him while he'd been in isolation after going asa kraiya.  Not one thing.  Nor two things.  Three major things going on at the same time... Virana-e, your life just must get a little easier, soon, surel

Scribes from all the major and many of the minor Presses hovered around, occasionally darting in to snap a question as if they were trout rising to snap mayflies.

Faintly from where I was, I could hear their adakri.  “We convene so as to record and certify the national referendum on the matter of re-approving as semanakraseye First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e,” the adakri said, “in light of his conviction under the Statute semanakraseyeni sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 and the findings of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee as stated in their final report.”  I eased back out of the worst of the crush, watching.

One of my security, wearing the dark red livery that was being touted as the preferred uniform for the new Mahid, should they be approved, leaned to murmur in my ear, “Perhaps the Imperator Elect would care to be seated in the guest gallery?”

I looked around and Virana-e was finally letting himself pay attention to the reason he and everyone else in Yeola-e were here… or so it seemed with the intense crowding.  “That would be a good notion,” I said.  And the two husky young gentlemen, both of them overtopping me by a full head in height, began easing a way through the crowd for me.

I settled down and arranged my white and gold sleeves just as Virana-e was called in to take the visitor’s chair.  On his heels the official in charge of the count was asked to enter.  It was so odd, to see the differences between the Yeola-e and the Arkan Assemblies.  One was much more open, much more in motion.  The other so stiff and serious and solemn.

“As I hold both my own and the crystal of the Assembly of Yeola-e in my hands, in the worldly witness of the people of Yeola-e as represented by the Assembly of Yeola-e and the spiritual witness of All-Spirit,” said the Arch-Keeper, “this vote and count was completed entirely properly and legally, no procedure omitted and no precaution neglected, in the witness in every counting-room in Yeola-e of the Counting Senaheral, Second Fire come if I am forsworn,”  the woman said, formally enough to suit even the most rigid of Arkan Assembly People.

“As you have so sworn, sib Arch-Keeper of the Counting Chamber, we ask that you reveal the count of the votes of the people on the question, that we fully reinstate as semanakraseye First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e in light of his conviction under the Statute semanakraseyeni sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 and the findings of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee as stated in their final report.”

Cheven- Virana-e stood up, as if pulled by strings tied to his limbs, as if some unseen puppeteer controlled him.  I held my breath.

575 - Oh Poo

Kyriala’s grip on my arm froze when the midwife said something sharp and the second baby was up and out of the water.  Etana had the baby and passed it straight to Kaninjer who immediately put his mouth on the baby's face and sucked something out of the child’s lungs.  I was holding my breath, mouthing my prayers to Dimae with suddenly no air to say anthing.

You want to live, child, you want to live.  Fight.  Little solas, fight for your life…

The silence.  I am holding my breath, waiting, praying, trying to will that first breath to the baby. Niku clung to Virana-e and he breathed something to her, his eyes turned up to Kaninjer.  All the joy froze, like the snow and ice outside.  I was feeling the cold all around the place, threatening like the claws of the Summoner.

The Servant of the Ten hadn’t been here, close.  He’d been shut outside and now…  There was a tiny cough.  Then another and a cry.  A second breath and the baby bellowed his outrage that he hadn’t been able to breathe straight away.

“He likes breathing!”  That was Vriah and all the children were yelling and cheering and I drew in a huge breath myself.  Ky and I put our foreheads together, laughing.

I had to smile as they got Niku out of the water and dry and settled her in the bed on the one side of the room, and Kall seized Virana-e from behind and breathed in his ear.  How much more joy could there be in this room?  My cheeks hurt from smiling and I had to sink down on our bench to take it all in.

Skorsas was seeing to the emptying of the birthing tub and Kaninjer was shooing Virana-e into the bed with Niku so they could both cuddle the babies.  And he had some bruising from something that had happened earlier, so it was a good idea that he listen to his healer.

“And the referendum count is today as well?”  Kyriala was laughing.  “This family is certainly interesting.  Nothing ever dull!”

“We should let them all rest.”

**

“I love this house,” I said to Ky.  “It feels like home, even though it is very strange.” 

“You’ll fit right in.”

“Ky…”

“When he asks you… and I will bet you a tapestry that fills this guest suite that he will… you’ll fit right in.”

“Oh, stop.”

“It’s almost full dark… we should get down there if we want to hear the results.”

“I’ll miss you, my friend.”

“I will too.  But we’ll only be three days away.”

“Do you think he will ask me soon?”

“If he doesn’t he’s an idiot and he’s not an idiot.”

“If you’re wrong, I’ll laugh at you.”

“And if I’m wrong you have my heartfelt permission to laugh.  We have to go down to the Assembly palace now if we are to hear the outcome we purportedly came to hear.”

“Oh, poo.  The babies are far more important.”

“It depends on what the boys think.”

“Ky… is Minis going to ask you soon?”

“I don’t know.  I want him to.”

“If he doesn’t… I’ll not only kick him on the training ground I’ll ask Kall to kick him too.”