Hiatus: Death in the family

Taking a short break. Not sure how long, but several days at least. Grandmother finally died after several weeks on hospice care, and the funeral's going to be in a place that's about a four hour drive away. Don't know for certain when we're going to be returning home afterwards, either, though I bet not more than a day. Still, it might be a bit longer yet than that because there's been talk of my grandfather coming home with us afterwards, at least for a while, so he's not alone. There's other family that lives closer, but visitors aren't quite the same as living in a home with others.

"Hurricane Child," Library, pt. 16, 423 words

To his pleasant surprise, the spools of twine and string were mounted on solid wooden dowel rods, unvarnished and very dry from age. He cleared several of the dowels and set to using the twine to bind heads of paper and parchment on them, making torches. They wouldn't want to burn the torches too much down there, even with Illja's ability to clear the air, but he knew that it wasn't good to be trapped too long in the dark. After the lanterns burned through their oil, they would need something to provide the occasional scrap of light, if only for sanity's sake, until they were saved.

Or not.

He pushed the fatalistic thought from his mind, turning to regard how else to bring comfort to their refuge. An idea struck him, and he emptied another pot of dried glue out into the corner. He scraped the pot as clean as possible with a crumpled wad of paper, trying to clear all the glue powder out, then set it down beside their makeshift bed.

Illja cracked an eye open, flicking her gaze from him to the pot. “What's that for,” she asked.

“I was thinking,” Markus said. “Your talents, you can mess with the wind and air... Can you also make it rain? We'll need water long before we'll need food.”

Sitting up, she nodded slowly. “I can, but... Do you know how it works? Being a stormborn, that is?” Markus shook his head, and she went on. “I can't just create water out of nothing. My powers aren't about creation, they just manipulate what's already there. I can control vectors, impart energy to make the wind... So if I want to make it rain, I'll have to pull water out of the air. There's only so much of that, and it'll feel unpleasant if I take too much, but we can live through it. We'll restore some, through our sweat and the water in our breath – whatever can evaporate – but I don't know if it'll be enough to just keep it cycling like that.”

“It'll have to be,” he said, shrugging. “Some is better than none, anyway, and it might keep us going until they get us out of here.” Or perhaps we'll just live long enough to starve to death, instead of dehydrating or suffocating.

“Just so,” she agreed quietly. “But it can wait, at least. We're neither of us going to die of thirst in the next few hours.”

"Hurricane Child," Library, pt. 15, 395 words

“And, of course, something happens,” Markus said.

Illja nodded. “Exactly. The harbor’s a trap by then, the water kicking up and unstable all over. Something went wrong, nobody knew what, and the ship starts listing to the side in all that froth, while Dad and Dervin are climbing down to the lighter. A sudden wave pitches the ship a little too hard, and Dervin loses his grip on the ladder.

“Now, you ever see how Dervin dresses? No? Much heavier than is practical on board a ship, and especially if you’re going swimming. Wearing his wealth for all to see. Dad dives in after him and pulls the Black Prince to safety on the lighter, though. Nearly drowns with him, but they make it.”

Markus suppressed the urge to mutter What a shame. There were reasons Ral Dervin was called the Black Prince, after all, and not for the color of his cape or hair. He didn’t want to sound bitter, or as if he wished her father had died with Dervin, though. “So he owes your father his life. Why not just pay for your university schooling and let you go, then? Why still hold you to a service contract?”

“I insisted. I’m going to be a wind caller on his trading fleet’s flagship,” she said. “It will look good to the right people, to have worked for Dervin, especially in such a position. I’ll become a face and a name to all kinds of ridiculously rich men and women, who’ll see that I can be trusted with sensitive matters and important cargoes. It may not bear much on my actual studies here, but it’ll help me find patrons and work later if I know the right people and have a reputation for trustworthiness.”

While Illja rested, Markus set out making the room marginally more habitable. He hauled free a pile of the leather sheets to use as a bed, not very comfortable but much better than the stone floor, and left her his half-empty bag as a pillow. Several of the jars of glue he opened and dumped in the farthest corner from their bed, leaving the jars and their lids to use as privies – who knew how long they'd be down there? Certainly, he had no desire to leave their waste just sitting out uncovered.

"Hurricane Child," Library, pt. 14, 438 words

“Applied thaumaturgy. I’m behind on finishing my initiate’s degree,” he admitted, “but, well… I’m not sure that’s going to matter anymore.” He paused, considering the raging inferno up above, destroying nine-tenths of his available research material within a five hundred mile radius. He shook it off. “We shared some geomancy classes.”

She murmured, “I thought I’d recognized you.” Illja spiraled her finger over his chest. “Who’s your patron?”

Ah, the other thing talked about immediately after comparing one’s field of study, at least amongst the small body of commoners amongst the students. The noble children didn’t need patrons, getting in on their names alone.

“Ludo of Kir.”

“Never heard of him.”

He shrugged a little. His joints were growing stiff from the cold floor after their exertions. “Not surprised. He’s the Lord Engineer of the Imperial Regiments. Not many people even hear of the post, never mind the man. He won his title through merit, not birth, so he’s the first Lord Kir. I’m contracted to work on his staff for a good four years, ‘drafting building plans in accord with arcane principles.’ In other words, siting and designing magical fortifications for the army.”

She made a noncommittal little noise. “Hmm. My four years are with Ral Dervin.”

Surprise shut Markus up for a few moments. When he finally got his voice back, he said, “The Black Prince?”

Illja made a face. “He’s not a prince, he’s just—”

“Richer than any three put together,” Markus finished. “How did you get his notice?”

“My father did him a service. Saved his life, really.”

“How?”

“The summer before I was born, a hurricane hit land while his ship was moored out in the harbor. None of the available slips were big enough for it, y’see, so they were moving cargo by lighter to and from the ship. I guess they planned on getting away before the hurricane hit, but… Yeah.

“So,” she went on, turning to look up at him now, “my father’s the harbormaster, and taking part in the loading both because Dervin’s so bloody rich they need his custom, and they really want to get that huge ship out before the storm. The wind picks up while they’re unloading the last crates, and the rain’s on them not long after. Of course, now they’re in no position to set sail, so Dervin insists on seeing his men clear of the ship. Dad stays on with him because, really, what if something happens to the Black Prince on his watch?”

"Hurricane Child," Library, pt. 13, 375 words

“Mm,” she murmured, using him as a whole-body pillow. “That was…”

“Amazing?” he asked hopefully.

She smirked and glanced up at him. With a light kiss on his chin, she said, “Don’t get too big an idea of yourself. I did all the work. It was… pleasant. And relaxing. I’d forgotten how good it feels to not be all tense and wound up.”

He rubbed her back affectionately, feeling from shoulders to the base of her spine. She was right. A tension he hadn’t really noticed before had disappeared, leaving her muscles soft and pliable. She shifted, sighing happily under his wandering fingers, and closed her eyes. Markus kissed the top of her head and breathed in. Despite the fire and smoke above, and their exertions both before and after sealing themselves into the storage room, she somehow still smelled like a fresh spring morning, clean and airy.

Wait…

Carefully, so as not to disturb her, he put a finger to his mouth and wet it. He closed his eyes in concentration and held it up near her forehead. One side of his finger grew chill faster than the others.

“Are you still freshening the air,” he asked.

“Mm-hmm,” she muttered to his chest.

“How?” He frowned. “Why aren’t you shaking with exhaustion?”

“It’s easier when I’m relaxed. I’m not fighting it for control. The more relaxed I am, the easier it gets. And,” she said, scratching his chest as she curled her fingers in a possessive gesture, “I am very relaxed right now.”

Markus couldn’t help grinning. “Relaxed? You seem like you’re about to fall asleep.”

“Just so,” she said. “I guess it’s up to you again to make sure I stay awake.”

Hmm. He considered the possibilities, and decided he wasn’t prepared for a repeat performance just yet. What else was there? Ah, yes, the old standby – talking. And what did university students always talk about first?

“So what are you studying,” he asked, rubbing her back absently.

“Geomancy. Specifically, using the ambient magic of geomantic centers for controlled mutation and breeding programs,” she said, a practiced spiel that came out in one effortless breath. “You?”

"Hurricane Child," Library, pt. 12, 407 words

“Hush,” she said, crossing her arms on his chest. He was forced back down to the floor quite firmly. “Even if I can keep us from smothering by stale air, that still doesn’t mean we’ll make it out of here alive. It may be days before they clear the wreckage from above the trap door, and that’s long enough for us to die of thirst, easily.” She stammered a little and blushed with what she said next, but forged on, “If I’m going to die, I’d rather go knowing more about your, uh, your interest in me.” She shifted against him, a move that made it very clear how aware she was of that interest.

Good gods, Markus realized, his much-pondered fantasies were about to come true. She had the same predatory gleam in her eyes that she’d had when hunting for books in the stacks above. Still, he felt obligated to try one more protest, however half-hearted it might be:

“Won’t this distract you, or tire you out?”

“I recover my strength quickly,” she said, and shut him up with another kiss.

Their soft caresses and hesitant touches grew less reluctant and more needy. Markus explored her full curves thoroughly, and they finally disrobed in eager anticipation.

Illja grew shy about her body, looking down and away until he drew her down into his embrace once more. The floor beneath his back was hard and cold, but he wasn’t about to say anything to draw her out of the moment. With careful reassurances, both verbal and physical, her body language opened back up and she rose up to straddle his waist. After a short time more, indulging in the warmth of their mutual desire, they gave in.

She was beautiful, he decided, when she let her guard down and finally enjoyed the fleeting moment. Their positions kept him nearly immobile, but despite the now absolute certainty that he was her first lover, she took to it without any hesitation for the unfamiliar.

And, he found out with delight, his fantasies had not been far off the mark. Before they were done, he could already feel a fair crop of bruises garnered from the hard stone floor beneath. When she finally lay spent atop him, his hips and lower back ached keenly. Not that it really mattered; he could have traded his legs away just then and still been more than happy.

"Hurricane Child," Library, pt. 11, 375 words

The fire still raged above, audible even through the stone-topped trap door. The food and water hadn’t helped her too much, as she still looked ready to collapse.

Well, she had said anything, he mused. And he knew one thing that tended to keep him wide awake far too late at night.

Not letting himself stop to think about it, or think his way out of it, Markus leaned in close and kissed Illja on her lips.

The sweat streaming down her face lent the kiss a salty tang that he enjoyed all too briefly. With a sharp, smooth motion, her eyes snapped open and she pulled back, slapping him swiftly across the face.

Score one for sexual frustration, he thought. The most effective cause of insomnia in his life.

“You—why did you—” She stopped, staring at him, at a complete loss for words.

“You did say anything,” he said.

“But not…” Illja trailed off. The lamp light was too dim to tell properly if she was blushing.

After a minute of awkward silence, she asked, just barely above a whisper, “Would you like to do it again?”

Emboldened by her invitation, Markus leaned close to her again, then paused. Her eyes were wide open, staring into his. That’s right, he remembered, she had never… Never anything. Probably never even told how lovely she was, by anyone but her parents. And their testimony would be immediately suspect as biased and untrustworthy.

He reached up and cupped a hand over her cheek. His fingers drifted back and forth, carefully brushing a few loose hairs back and caressing her fair skin. He smiled and whispered back, “Yes. Thank you. I don’t think anything could make me happier.”

Neither was much experienced, but they made do. She grew bolder, and much as he expected, began to test and experiment… thoroughly, with all due scholarly rigor. When they finally came up for air, he realized they’d somehow reached a reclining position. She was on top.

Markus winced a little in embarrassment, keenly aware of her body against his. He wondered how aware she was of his, ahem, awareness.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, sitting up. “We shouldn’t be—not this fast. We only just—”

"Garden," Junk, pt. 3, 388 words

The other was a sample of Rhea life, sharing the blue and red tagged guanine and cytosine nucleotides, while four new ones as yet unnamed had been marked with yellow, orange, brown, and black. Yellow only paired with brown, while orange only paired with black, bridging the double helices together.

“What are those,” Halsey asked, leaning in closer to look.

Rosenberg pointed to the Earth sample on the left, and then the Rhea sample on the right. “This one's a regular white lab mouse,” she said, “while this is one of your Rhea-voles. Structurally, as closely analogous to the mouse as I could pick out from your research results.”

“Okay. What of it?”

Rosenberg tapped a button on the keypad a few times, and the screen zoomed out from the data and images. Long strings of information shrank repeatedly, revealing more and more, until suddenly the Rhea-vole's sample cut off. The lab mouse's sample kept going, more than twice as long as the vole's.

Halsey gaped. “What the hell... That can't be right.” The look on her face warred between exhilarated and frightened.

“It is,” Rosenberg said. “And I'm seeing similar results for every other form of Rhea-life, as they come out of the sequencers. There isn't a single piece of Rhea-life that has any junk--” she caught herself on the outdated term, and corrected, “--any non-coding DNA. I checked. Every bit of genetic material here codes for either a protein or a regulatory non-coding RNA sequence, or acts as a buffer between genes for proper enzyme formation. There's literally nothing wasted. In fact...” She entered another command, and hundreds of sections on the vole's DNA sequence were suddenly highlighted. “See all that highlighted stuff? I didn't do anything fancy, just entered a find command for a sequence I'd designated before you came in. Those are buffer sequences. They're all identical, every last one.”

“That's impossible, to develop naturally,” Halsey said. She was dancing around it, didn't want to be the one to come out and say what they were both thinking.

“Exactly what I concluded,” Rosenberg said, her voice low. “On an evolutionary time scale, this kind of... construction had to happen, oh, earlier this morning.

“We're playing in someone else's garden.”