Not a Spider or a Fly

[Paris Villeneuve]

The sea Paris was familiar with. He could not imagine it as grass. Or conceive of a place so flat. There was very little flat land on the islands, most of it taken up by sandy beaches, or overrun with thick trees and dense foliage. His face turned seaward, as if he could see what she spoke of. And later, alone in his narrow bed, he would hold his hand above his face and squint at the blurry shape of his thumb trying to imagine it.

"Sounds lovely." He said of a thing he could not picture. Jin-ae imagined it, Paris thought. That far away look of remembrance stealing over her face. What Paris could not picture she saw clearly in her mind's eye. The place she had come from and would never see again. People who came to Ile de Paon did not leave again, unless it was by sea bier.

"It will not. There has never been snow on the islands in all our history. Not even the Priestess Mother could will it into existence here." Not even the Lady Reneux with her Black could accomplish such a feat. Or at least Paris thought not. Eyebrows winging upward at her laughter. It was pretty, if inappropriate to her station. Tongue tracing his bottom lip, Paris watched what favor could do to a slave. It made them too bold.

"No offense taken." He did not feel mocked. Not even annoyed that she expressed emotion she should not. It was hard to stifle the rising tide of personhood in yourself. Paris was grateful his own calm manner left him free of such outbursts. Though he was allowed. He was not a slave. Maybe Jin-ae forgot. Sometimes they pretended in order to survive.

He leaned in. Drawn in by her hands and the thing she summoned there to show him. A decorative piece of leather, stamped in a manner he had seen before in spoils brought back to the islands, but had not paid honest attention to. Bright beads falling like water from its edges. "Very lovely." He admitted, admiration for all he saw. The danger of it tickling that itch at the back of his neck.

"I will believe you about leather, and you may believe me about the libraries." He agreed. They had leather on Paon of course, made from the hides the hunters brought back. But it was rarely used for anything more than boots or belts when it came to clothing. To wear leather in such stifling heat would have been too oppressive. Even for Paon.

The turned back to the ribbons. Speaking over them together, close and hushed as if they spoke of great secrets. Something building between them though Paris did not know what. "Adornment?" He offered. She was a house slave. Surely ribbons were allowed, so that she might be a between backdrop to her lady. Or a prize for her master. Paris still wondered about that. Perhaps his mind was drawn to the idea because it mirrored his own life.

He looked at her. Gaze slow and heavy. Face turned toward the display but his eyes were all for Jin-ae. Paris could not have blamed Isidore for it. But she was speaking of Salome. Speaking as if Paris might know her better than the girl living in her house. He did not smile. Or frown, looking back at the ribbon. "She favors blue. Deep blues, such as sapphire, specifically." To honor the husband that did not visit.

Paris never smelled him on her. Or her bedsheets. Mostly finding traces of himself beneath the rich aroma of Salome. Chin up, Paris tilted a glance toward Jin-ae, something fierce rising up in his chest. "She will wonder where you get the marks to buy her gifts, unless you spend her own on herself." He cautioned, hoping Jin-ae might tell him where those marks came from. Wishing to know why those marks came at all.

[Jin-ae So]

"It could be," Jin-ae agreed. "It could also be terribly cold. Although there are many poems and paintings done of the land in winter." It had been strangely surprising to pass through the coldest season of the year without even a lick of frost. Jin-ae had marveled at the rains even to the exasperation of her fellow slaves. She had never seen so much at once, and had to be persuaded by her own logic not to risk illness by being out in the middle of it. "It would be too much here, I think, if she could. I don't know what would survive so dramatic a change." A test of the environment, surely, and a fascinating one. Even Paon's great hunters would be forced to extremes if the island was robbed its native wildlife. The idea really didn't bare entertaining.

Warmed at his assessment of one of the last pieces she had of her family, Jin-ae vanished the bauble, daring to foster the hope that it would not find its way into any stilted, hostile discussion with her Lady. A smile softened her mouth, made easier by the touch of nostalgia she felt at the idea of home. It had gotten muddied, a little, in the year she'd been a slave, but first home had been in Anahi.

"I will," she affirmed. "Perhaps one day you might show me where you work." The idea of books, and so many, within reach - it made her heart ache in longing. Books on fishing Craft, on boats, on the native plants, the birds; so much that she didn't know but had ideas about. So much that could be learned. She'd have to see if she could redirect them to the bookseller's stall, if the hunters were far enough away.

But that was not the most pressing thing. Books would keep. There wasn't quite so large a market for reading things that people who were longer to the island already knew. She frowned, first at the ribbons and then down at herself. "I find it hard to imagine putting them anywhere but my hair. Making a dress from individual pieces seems tedious and expensive." and Jin-ae did not have enough patience or marks to furnish that endeavor, let alone the courage to inquire with either her Mistress or her Master as to Lady Salome's measurements. Paris was not even to be considered. "How would you wear one?" Maybe he had seen more styles than her limited imagination could conjure.

The weight of his attention made the hairs at the nape of her neck prickle. She knew, to a degree, that her treatment in Captain Nazaire's house was unique. She'd seen enough of her peers treatment to know her pursuits - the archery, the reading, the calligraphy in Dhemlan's native alphabet, the Craft experiments - were gifts, easily taken. There were few even in his employ who had the same liberties. Falling from that place was not something to be entertained. It was by her Master's Darkness given grace alone that put her where she was.

A wrong word to Paris could ruin all of it, used right.

Fingers glancing across one such ribbon - not sapphire, but close, cerulean perhaps - Jin-ae debated. "I am allowed near Lady Salome's marks no more than you are," she said, levity petering away. It was not something she could speak of in strictly true terms, after all. But I am learning to build lies. Perhaps that is the goal, in the end. Swallowing, she pressed a hand against her hip, looking at nothing.

"When I... came here," was taken, stolen, captured "there were several items in my cabinet that I no longer required. I had intended to use them as payment for my travels. I was - I was running away from home." Eyes back and up, to the level of his jaw. Had Paris ever entertained the idea? Surely not. "I forfeited those things when I came to Captain Nazaire. He was gracious enough to allow me to retain part of their value in marks, that I might acquire new things better fit to my role in his household without troubling his own purse."

It was true, in part. She had owned clothing too heavy for island heat, shoes too thin for outdoor wear but not required for indoor use. Utensils, gifts from birthdays long past that had little practical use outside of a farm. Gloves, thick socks, scarves. Added to the generous allowance Isidore had dropped onto her lap in hopes of easing the way for Salome, it was enough that she had been spending her own marks on her things, and Captain Nazaire's on food for her lady.

"All the same, I can't quite imagine she would want anything from my hand."