Prompt "Carve" (1,240 words) for @rote-microfic
Set shortly after Fool’s Fate, Chapter 16.
The fever memory echoes Fitz’s experience in Fool’s Errand, Chapter 9, told here from Nettle’s point of view.
I sit sheltered behind the statue of the goddess Eda, where her carved robes curve to catch the last warmth of the day. Moss clings cool and slick to her stone feet from the rain. A single drop falls from above, cold on my hand. The garden is hushed, only soft drips from branches and the distant murmur of waves below the keep. Finally, a moment to think. So many changes have swirled around me this past month that I no longer know who I am supposed to be.
I look down at the intricately carved jewelry box in my hands, the gift Papa gave me when he said goodbye.
“It is from an old friend,” he said cryptically, “to remind you that you are loved, even by those that cannot always stay by your side.”
I run my fingers over the vine of ivy carved into the lid, each leaf shaped so finely its veins show in the shifting grain of the wood. The touch lingers, warm and comforting, carrying a faint scent of dried blossoms. Roots that hold fast through storms I have not yet weathered. I do not know why it comforts me, but it does, quiet and clinging.
Behind the vines, a fierce wolf hides among the leaves, peeking out with big jealous eyes. A girl dances nearby, skirts flying, and beside her stands a stag, steady and protective, guarding a little babe. My gaze catches on the tiny crown of nettle leaves woven into the babe’s hair.
My finger brushes the crown. Rough, tiny points press against my skin, and the world tilts.
Heat floods back into me, sudden and consuming, my throat tightening as if the air itself has turned to fire. I am small again, cradled in Papa’s arms. My skin burns and breathing is hard. I try to melt into the sweetness where nothing ends and everything runs together. But Papa keeps holding me, saying my name over and over, steady as stone, reminding me to take another breath. His calm reaches me even as my sight blurs into shadows and floating shapes.
A wolf comes out of the shadows. He is clear and bright to me in this world of shadow. He wraps around me and gathers me into himself, keeping me from becoming one with the nothing and everything that surrounds me. I feel his sorrow at seeing me so sick, my body so weak that I fled it to join the world of shadows. He holds me fast and puts me back into the world of pain.
You are strong, he seems to say without words. You can bear the pain and live.
Cool air fills my lungs again. The weight of the box feels steady in my hands.
Almost without thinking, my fingers trace the hidden wolf. The wood is warm here, worn smooth beneath my touch, the lines of his fur rising under my skin. The jealous eyes seem to follow my fingers even as they hide among the leaves. A familiar presence lingers there, not quite a thought, not quite a memory.
I cannot sense him at all anymore. He has thinned into nothing so completely that I no longer know whether to miss him or be angry that he left without a word. My little Kitten says he still lives, only without dreams. I never met either of them in the waking world. Some days I wonder if I dreamed them, as I dreamed my other fantastical dreams. I do not know if that is worse.
My thumb digs into the carving, pressing past the smoothness, worrying at the sharp lines of his fur until it aches. He came when he wished, and now he does not come at all.
I could never control him. The other shapes of my dreams bent to me easily enough, but he never did. And Papa knew him. That must count for something.
My thumb finds the tiny catch along the box’s edge. It gives with a soft click, like a breath released. The lid lifts, and inside, nestled on faded velvet, lies a small pin, a red stone set in a nest of silver, gleaming quietly in the light.
I lift it carefully. The silver is cool and smooth, but the red stone catches the fading sun like a captured ember. That deep, vivid red brings Mother to mind at once, her hair loose and glowing as she moves through the garden, skirts swirling like flame as she laughs at something I have said.
The girl carved into the lid dances still, skirts flying, the stag beside her steady and unmoving. I close my fingers around the pin and fasten it beneath my collar, close to my heart, where it rests like a hidden spark.
The rain has stopped. The air feels lighter, carrying wet earth and pine. I close the box with a quiet click, the wood warm from my lap, and rise, bare feet sinking into cool, springy grass. Sunlight breaks through low clouds, laying thin gold across my shoulders. For the first time in weeks, the changes feel less like chaos and more like threads finding their weave, slowly and stubbornly, whether I will it or not.
