#sladezwrites

His thoughts were so far elsewhere that he didn’t hear the footsteps approaching, or maybe the one they belonged to stepped lightly as a matter of course. It wasn’t like him to be so deeply lost. He opened his eyes slowly as Styrnrael’s grandmother Maral plopped a low wooden table down in front of him.

“You’ve been out here all morning. Trouble sleeping?” Maral placed a deep blue cushion down and sat on it cross-legged, across the table from Seishin. Her knees popped audibly as she sank into a comfortable position.

He smiled weakly at her. “I’m sorry if I’ve troubled you. It’s a habit of mine to wake with the sun. But yes, there’s been much and more on my mind recently.”

Maral wordlessly pulled from around her a lacquered rosewood box and set it on the table. The edges had a deep patina that spoke of its age and reverence. She opened it by the side hinges and pulled out a large circular board. A kharaqiq board, Seishin recognized, and an extremely well made one at that. She finally looked up at him after placing it on the surface.

“I’ve seen the storm raging behind your eyes since the day you arrived at our iloh. Styrnrael’s as well, and all of the companions she has brought home with her. Whatever is troubling you may not be quelled in a single morning, but perhaps a game might help you weather some of it?”

“I don’t know that this will help,” Seishin laughed softly and waved his hand in front of his nose.

“Well, the Naadam is but suns from now. As the Steppe chooses its leader in this season, so too does every tribe their khan. The Malqir are no different. And I’m going to need the practice if I am to retain my title.”

“If you need to train, why don’t you take Bertram as an opponent? He is far more skilled at this game than I.”

“It is a wise warrior that learns from many teachers, is it not?”

Seishin smiled and bowed his head. “Words deftly spoken. All right then. I will gladly accept your challenge.”

Maral began removing the game pieces from the box and grabbed the light and dark horse pieces, one of bleached and carved dzo bone and the other of a deeply blue azurite, richer by far than the dark stone of other boards Seishin had seen. She took one in each hand and shuffled them behind her back. Seishin considered a moment, then pointed to her left and she held out her hand to reveal the light piece. “The bone horse. Fitting; it matches your horns. It seems I will play earth, from which we came and to which we will all one day return.”

Seishin looked away. His eyes clouded as his vision was filled with an image of Meffrid’s face, anger and shock and sadness veiled behind blood and unfulfilled promise; and the kinslayer, her rage—at what? the world?—twisting her face into an infinite snarl as she shook his blood from her blade. The first visit to his homeland since he was a child, full of naught but betrayal and death. The cold rain of that night felt as real as the sunlight on his arms in the now. Seishin shook his head to clear it. Maral stared at him, curiosity playing in her wrinkled eyes, as he reached for the piece and began arranging the bone side of the board. As he did, Styrnrael’s brother Siban, with his long dark hair behind his ebony horns, came out of a yurt with a tray of tea. He placed the cups before them and poured it, followed by a quick spot of dzo milk, which furrowed in the amber liquid like mist spreading on a fallow field. The smell was strong and pleasant, and Seishin’s mind felt a little calmer. They thanked Siban before he bowed to Seishin and squeezed Maral’s shoulder and departed, leaving the kettle on the side of the table.

“I’m glad I don’t have to explain the rules to you,” Maral chuckled as she finished setting up the earth pieces on her side of the board. “Do you play Kharaqiq much where you’re from in Eorzea?”

“No; honestly, I had never heard of it before Styrn taught me on the day we met.”

Maral nodded. “The girl has a talent for the game. She is still raw and a little unrefined, like her mother was. But I’m beginning to see the glint of a gem in there.” Seishin could have sworn he saw her wink. “Well then, shall we begin?”

Maral immediately moved a Bardam pawn into position to take one of the contested territories in the right center board, and Seishin did the same on the opposite side, rather than fighting her for the same space. When he did take the territory he had sought, Maral was right there ready to snatch it back from him, and so on the game went, the clattering of stone and bone joining the river’s steady susurrus in the undersong of the summer morning. She forced him on the defensive early on, and try as he might, he struggled to protect his pieces from her. She was a true master, hers on another level from any other game he had played; every exposed position was full of traps. After his gambit to defend a segment of his territory with a Khun Chuluu piece failed as she found an easy way around it, Seishin put his hands in his lap and breathed deeply. The anger that had simmered in him the last several weeks before arriving in Othard was beginning to bubble back up as frustration, and he tried to push that down, to starve it of oxygen. He had left his patience lying in the mud of Rhalgr’s Reach, crushed under Zenos’ boot, and he struggled for it now. Maral watched him closely as he tentatively made another defensive move.

“You are wiser than your years let on. You approach this game with the eyes of a philosopher, rather than a general. And that is why you will lose to me today.” The beads on her indigo coat jangled as she moved the prized red horse around the edge of the board, surrounding his last bastion. Like taming an impetuous stallion, the red horse could be taken over by a player and quickly turn the tides of battle.

Seishin considered her words for a moment and rubbed the ivory scales on his chin. “But the Malqir tribe uses Kharaqiq as a way of making decisions, do you not? If there’s a metaphor to be had, wouldn’t it be helpful to think of it as a game of philosophy?”

“Oh, the two are not mutually exclusive. But in playing to think, rather than to win, you are holding yourself back from both.” Maral put her hands on her knees and looked deep into Seishin’s face. “You have much anger in your eyes, in your muscles, in your fingers, in your very tendons. But I don’t see it in your play. It’s as if you are damming it in your mind rather than feeling it, letting it flow. Anger is not a force to be feared, son of Azim. Stoked as a fire it can accomplish great things.”

“But what if it burns too hot? If you scald yourself and those close to you?” Seishin closed his eyes and thought again of Fordola and her wrath, incinerating everyone around her, and his jaw and fists tensed.

Maral gestured to the center of the iloh, and Seishin followed her arm to the large firepit in the common space between the yurts, where in the distance Bertram was helping others from the Asterians stack fresh wood from Reunion to keep the flames going. “A fire properly kept burns without raging. It warms us in its violence, and we must be careful of it and never lose control, but if we close ourselves off or smother it, we will grow colder in its absence. There; I believe that’s checkmate.”

Maral cleared a space in the center of the board and lined up one of each dark piece from the earth side. “I have something to show you, Seishin. As you have said, Kharaqiq is a deep game. It speaks to us through the language of time. And each piece is as a part of our souls.” She slid the large Khun Chuluu piece toward Seishin. “What does this one mean to you?”

Seishin thought a moment, reflecting on the face in the center of the large flat piece. “This is a defensive piece. It protects not only a segment of the board, but other pieces as well. It does not move far and doesn’t have much ability to attack, but it blocks the most mobile of your opponent’s pieces. Its purpose is to keep its allies safe.”

Maral nodded sagely, sliding the piece back to the ranks and replacing it with a Yol, its feathers of intricately carved azurite. “And this?”

“The Yol can move diagonally and fly over other pieces until it’s ready to strike. It exercises patience and foresight.” His mind wandered to his own Yol, with its deeply iridescent wings, which he and his fellow Asterians had tamed only days before, a prerequisite to participating in the Naadam.

Maral slid another piece in its place. “The dzo?”

“Stubborn and obstinate. It represents determination.”

Maral surprised him by skipping over the tiger piece to the earth horse with its deep blue mane, azurite of the same color as her skin. She held it up and raised an eyebrow, and in her expression he saw Styrnrael, that first night on the shores of Thanalan: The horse can move as far as it wants in any one direction, she had told him. It’s free, like the spirit of the Steppe, and that we all have inside us. Satisfied, Maral replaced it, and picked up the tiger swiping the air with its claw. “The Baras pounces in its movement; it represents speed and agility,” Seishin said.

Maral cocked her head and smirked. “You have to look deeper than that, my boy,” she chastened. “The Baras does not move straight; it lurks, it prowls. It waits. The Baras is quick, yes; but what it represents is opportunity. Brute force only works against us in many ways. It’s often better to lie in wait for the perfect opening to strike.” She brought the piece back with a force that clacked loudly on the table. “But make no mistake: there is a difference between patience and hesitation. And missing those opportunities is often worse than trying and failing. If the Yol represents foresight, the Baras is the taking of those opportunities that foresight yields to us.”

Seishin was silent a long time as he stared at the pieces on the board. Finally he said, “There is so much I have yet to learn. Every time I face Styrnrael or Bertram in this game I glean something new from it, as I have against you today.”

Maral laughed and crossed her arms. “Full glad am I to hear that, my child. I can see understanding dawning in your eyes. The Malqir do not believe that playing Kharaqiq itself makes you wise, but it is the wisdom that you bring to the table that is mixed into the flow of time. When you play a new opponent you take some of their wisdom into your own life, and you in turn impart it to others. I meet my ancestors in every turn on the game board.

“But there is still one piece we have yet to discuss.” She picked up a pawn, a Bardam piece, chiseled in the shape of a Xaela warrior. “I’m sure you have guessed that this piece represents the people, not just of the Steppe, but of the Star. It has the slowest movement, but it is the most plentiful, and all major pieces can promote to it. This is because in numbers are we strong. We can accomplish great things, but only together. Look at this world,” she said, sweeping her arms out and around her, her beads rattling noisily, and Seishin looked up at the azure sky and over the sweeping verdant plains of the Sea of Blades, towards the towering Dawn Throne, further to the distant ilohs dotting the horizon and the base of the mountains with vibrant spots of color, at the bustling crowds of Reunion in the distance. He turned with her in the other direction, toward Malqir Iloh, as farmers robed in deep dyed indigo tended flocks of sheep and dzo, balanced stones from the quarries of the Fanged Crescent, sat in the common area around Kharaqiq boards, preparing to test their mettles during the Naadam. And in the center of the common area, he watched Styrnrael leave a yurt in a coat of her tribe’s indigo colors and wander over the fire and place a hand on Bertram’s shoulder before sitting next to him on a log, their backs turned to Seishin in quiet dialogue, listening to the soft drone of a morin khuur. He felt Maral’s eyes on him as his gaze lingered on the two of them. She cleared her throat.

“Our clan makes a habit of not interfering with the other tribes of the Steppe, and as a matter of course we do not compete in the Naadam. My granddaughter will compete in it in the coming days, and for a second time at that. And the crazy part is, I think she can win. But she cannot do it alone.” Maral turned and placed her hands over Seishin’s. They were small on his and felt like soft leather. “I love Styrnrael deeply. I know you have come far and accomplished much and more together. Now it is your turn to protect her. You and Bertram both, as you all have thus far. You are weathering your own storm right now, as she is hers, as Bertram his. But only together can all of you succeed. Only together can you keep each other safe, no matter the outcome of the contest.”

Seishin shifted his hands to take hers and squeezed them gently, nodding at her as she did him. “I promise,” he said, and for the first time since leaving Ala Mhigo did his voice resonate with his usual resolve. Maral smiled and patted his hand.

He punches holes in the dirt to plant seeds. His arms bare the tale of revolution. On their surface scars crisscross like river channels. Some tell stories; many are lost to time. There are some he can name: a knuckle where a chisel slipped; a slash from Ran’jit’s scythe on his forearm; a chip on his ivory scales from a woodsaw; a lucky shot from a Garlean soldier whose name he’ll never know but whose life he ended with the same hand. He pats down the soil around the seeds like a grave and grabs a copper watering can to nourish them.

The sun is getting low and the air cool and dewy as he finishes his work planting and weeding. After putting the rest of his tools away he pulls from his belt a kama, the gentle curve of its blade glinting in the evening light, and makes his way to a stand of blooming brightlilies. In genuflection he kneels to them and wraps his fingers around the flower stalks like arteries and pulls them taut, holds the blade against their stems. The petals are vibrant bursts of sunset orange and yellow, and when Seishin cuts their shoots they come soft and willingly.

Inside, the lights are warm and a pleasant aroma hangs in the air. As Seishin removes his sandals in the entryway, a sweet voice greets him from around the corner. “Perfect timing, Seishin! Bertram should be done with dinner soon.” Styrnrael appears, in a sleeveless top and jacket tied around her waist, wiping the sweat from her brow with one hand and holding a broom with the other. “Oh!” she exclaims when she sees the flowers in his hands. A familiar tenderness spreads in Seishin’s chest when she smiles. She rests the broom against the wall and goes to him on the steps, bounding across the wooden floor with the same perfect balance she has on the battlefield. She puts her smaller hands on his as she leans in to smell the lilies. There is a resonance in the way the callouses on her sword hand rub against his scars.

She pulls away from the flowers and Seishin laughs and wipes some pollen that got on her nose, orange upon indigo. He rests his fingers against her horn and the dark scales on the side of her face and pulls her into a kiss. They stay for a moment, foreheads pressed together, smiling against each other’s lips. She holds her hand on his chest, just above the sweeping scar left by Zenos’ blade. Most of Styrnrael's own scars are on the inside, on her heart and her mind. Memories she had lost, and more she doubtless wishes she could. “I think I know the perfect thing to put these flowers in,” she says, and he follows her into the sunroom where she grabs a crystal blue vase from the bottom shelf of his planting bench. Before handing it to him she runs a cloth through the inside of the deep drum to clean out any dust. Her wrist flicks with the expert strokes of a fencer. Many stories have met sudden conclusions by that same movement.

“I’m going to go get changed before dinner,” she says, leaning up to kiss him again before they part. “Don’t forget to wash up!”

“I’ll be there soon,” he smiles, and after she leaves Seishin fills the vase with water and trims the stems at an angle. He peels the ends apart slightly with his fingertips: another little violence in the crafting of something beautiful. He takes his cobalt hair down and washes his hands, and grabs a clean overshirt from a hook next to Styrn’s sunhat.

He heads downstairs with vase in hand and his footsteps are gradually drowned out by the loud sizzle of meat and vegetables in a wok. A familiar sweet and savory smell fills Seishin’s nostrils. He rounds the corner at the bottom and Bertram is in the kitchen with his back turned. Under his apron his white sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing his own rosy map of scars of blade and fire. They tell the story of a survivor, against Word, against time, against despair; of pain and rebirth in the flame. He deftly wields a pair of long bamboo chopsticks, at home with them perhaps even more than he is with sword and scythe. One of his tall ears twitches toward the stairs and Bertram turns to Seishin and smiles; Seishin loves the way he ties his hair back when he cooks, revealing more of his face under his shock of red.

The dining room table is of live edge wood that Seishin had chopped and planed and sanded himself. Again and again life replacing death replacing life by his hand. He gently places the vase of flowers on it and joins Bertram in the kitchen, coming up behind the Viera and wrapping his arms tightly around him. “Hot stove, hot stove!” Bertram exclaims anxiously. “Hold on a moment…” He puts the chopsticks to the side and with mitts moves the wok off the woodfire stove onto a trivet. He spins around in Seishin’s arms, planting one hand on the edge of the counter behind him and carding his flamescarred fingers through Seishin’s hair with the other. “Okay, there we go. Honestly, Seishin—” and he pulls him down into a kiss. When Seishin laughs and apologizes Bertram just leans further into his lips, not letting him go. They hold each other for a moment longer before Bertram leans back and looks into his eyes. “If you want to help so bad, you could at least take these bowls to the table.”

Immediately the energy in the arena changed, like a gas light switched on. Bertram’s face darkened as he drew his sword in a single fluid motion that Styrnrael could barely see. He twirled the blade in his hand and held it loosely out at his side, metallic noise singing and hovering in the stadium as though he had sliced through the aether itself. He narrowed his eyes and his hair seemed to rise from his shoulders like a gathering inferno, wild and untamed. His shoulders tensed and slumped, his posture pushed forward, a tiger stalking and ready to pounce. She had seen that dark light in his eyes before, intense and watchful, hot coals against black night, but never directed at her.

Styrnrael closed her eyes and took a deep breath, once again remembering Bertram’s words and their plan, betting against her own nature and trusting in him. Once her heartbeat settled, she drew her sword and opened her eyes to match his intensity, and lowered her stance, light on the balls of her feet as the Adarkim warrior had taught her at the Naadam in another world, another life.

In her time in the Coliseum Styrnrael had seen a variety of opening moves in the ring. Most fighters, especially the young and overconfident, would rush headlong at the starting bell. That suited her just fine. Her reflexes were sharp and her counterattacks quick, and those fights were over fast. The timid or tentative preferred to wait, fists or shields up, for her to probe their defenses. She learned those matches were more fun, like maneuvering and breaking an opponent’s position on the Kharaqiq board. But Bertram's Black Flame nickname was apt; his movements were unpredictable, like a flame flicking on the wind, fierce and dangerous, and difficult to anticipate.

Bertram began pacing to his right, tracing the blue cobblestones of the perimeter counterclockwise like a tightrope, never taking his blazing eyes off her. His arm was slack at his side yet looked like it could whip out at any moment, as though his sword hung upon a taut spring. Styrnrael mirrored his movements at the same pace, keeping the diameter of the arena between them. They were as moving pawns around the board, staking their positions and claiming the first spaces of territory. Bertram’s steps slowed as they reached the opposite side of the ring from their starting positions, and Styrnrael had only just enough time to see him shift his hip and pivot toward her on his heel.

He was on her in a flash.

Blade rang against shield as Styrnrael stepped onto her back foot, deflecting his lunge to the side. He traversed the yalms between them almost instantly, and his swift strike had enough momentum behind it that had she blocked it directly her arm might be broken. But she swung her shield and knocked his blow away to her left, lowering her frame against Bertram’s larger one for leverage, and followed her movement through with her blade, catching him off balance. But Bertram was quick, and he twisted on his heel and she caught only air. Styrnrael had only a fraction of a second to readjust to a ready position before he spun back around and his sword came at her in a downward arc. Reflexively she ducked down and held her shield above her head to block, tensing her arm as Bertram’s blade rang hard against it. Her bones quaked like thunder under the impact. Ignoring the buzzing in her arm and taking advantage of his recovery time from the attack, she lunged forward like a cobra from behind her shield. But again Bertram recovered quicker than she expected, moving like fire twisting on a wick, and he parried her strike and lowered his shoulder and shield like a ram, knocking her sprawling to the ground.

She somersaulted over the cobblestones, rotating her body to land in a kneeling position. His ferocity had caught her by surprise. The blow knocked the wind out of her, and as she caught her breath she looked up at Bertram’s looming figure, his black armor a blacker silhouette in front of the hot coliseum lights. The noise of the crowd at first blood was deafening. Bertram looked down at her, all blazing hair and burning eyes, and then his lips curled into a smirk. “One-zero,” he said so that only she could hear.

Styrnrael climbed to her feet and rotated her shoulders to loosen them. “Follow your lead, huh?” she grinned. She raised her shield and slowly stepped counterclockwise, cross-stepping left foot over right, then behind, keeping her body level and low to the ground, her tail raised for balance, leading now, ready to take the advantage for herself. Bertram stepped back and followed her movements, in perfect symmetry to the start of the match, though closer now, only a couple yalms separating them. The din of the spectators had lowered in anticipation of the next move, and in the vacuum of the silence the two pulled together like gravity.