And though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration. – Charles Dickens
The innkeeper's daughter laughed as his shot went wide of the mark; a soft crisp sound like the ripples of a cold stream tinged with smooth sweetness of summer nectar. For all his embarrassment he could not help but smile. The laugh was infectious, and the old armor of the Bern Wood served him no stead here. The old prejudices of birth and seeming were here as yet unknown: he was neither the half breed nor the low blooded - he was what he was, the unknown cousin, the familiar stranger.
He was Rook, and for the first time in what seemed like an age, it was enough.
The smile persisted as he walked the forty paces to the target to retrieve his errant missiles. He was doing well today - not only had they all hit this time but they did so nary more than a hand's breadth from center.
He grinned still as he walked back to the firing line, watching the innkeeper's daughter and the smith discretely laugh and point in his direction. A … friendly critique of his abilities no doubt, but in truth he could not blame them. It had been nearly a full score of years since he last held a bow, and whatever promise and natural ability he may have had did not make up for the negligence in the years between.
In truth, he liked bows better than the bulky mechanical devices that enthralled the Crescent Lands so, there was a simplicity of elegance and form that appealed to his personal aesthetic which - though until his time in the Moon Barrows he would have not deigned to admit - was very much along the elvish lines. And this glass bow was a marvel - light in the hand and beautiful to behold, its gentle curves reflected smoke and sky. And when shot - it was the sound of crystal under a tuning fork, the sweet harmony of the spheres, the singing of the sands.
And so, he practiced, whiling away the hours trying to relearn what had seemed so natural in youth, and when he tired or grew frustrated he would walk the breadth of the city, and converse in his native tongue, savoring the taste of it on his tongue. It had been too long, far, far too long since he spoke it with ease or without shame. He found the accents charming, a mental puzzle, the slow unraveling of a secret shared history and for their part they seemed to find his peculiarities of speech amusing. He spoke most with the innkeeper's daughter and his patrons, slowly untangling the tonal quality to this strange tongue and building a vocabulary bit by bit. Some words were entirely new, and some had roots in his own vocabulary, or were the same words but with different meanings. They had a dozen words for glass, more than that for stone; interestingly, some of the roots seemed to be taken from the myriad vocabulary Rook knew from the Bern Wood for flora and fauna - the type of glass used for the bow he now held had a name rooted in the elvish word for Yew and when he heard the armorer speak of the armor he was building for Arykin the type of glass had a name which shared some of the vowel constructions and intonations of and old elvish word for Ironwood.
It was fascinating.
She smiled at him as he took his place on the line again, and the armorer nodded a small approval before leaving him to his exercises. Rook gave a small wave of thanks and smiled warmly at the elfess before letting fly with his next volley.
It most certainly was.
***
"Zo-ca-lo?" He asked, in disbelief.
"Zocalo." She laughed again, nodding. "Of course. What would you call it otherwise?"
He considered. "Market square? Plaza, maybe."
She shook her head "No - those are parts of the meaning, not the whole. It is more important than that. Is the . . heart of the community. The common place."
"And that?" He asked pointing to one of the skylights.
She shrugged. "Sky."
"That is not sky - it looks like sky, the light is the same, but that an . . edifice. A ceiling of glass and stone. The sky is vast, it is wind and rain and stars."
She shrugged, and smiled again. "It is our sky."
He sighed a sight of longsuffering and good humor. "Let me tell you about the sky of my youth, of the Eastern Lands and the Bern Wood, beyond the rising sun … "
***
The sun had set and he sat and listened to the babbling voices in the inn. He sat apart from his companions, as he had done increasingly since the first evenings repast. His armor and weapons lay stowed in his room, and he was wholly unarmed. It had been strange, at first, but he had taken to not bothering with the formality of even the short sword in the days past. He wore his armor when he trained and sparred, but the nights and days he wandered now he did so unarmed - true the belt the ring and the earring still graced him, as did the small ashen pouch about his neck, but the safeguards and accoutrements of his old professions were at rest, as was he.
Perhaps if they missed the dark of the little sister it would not be so bad. Another month, at the worst? They had spent almost as long in Zul Bai Zhar and it had brought them naught but pain, while now, here, were he not called otherwise.
He smiled to himself, and cursed softly under his breath. What was, was. He would leave, in time.
But once his task was done …
He finally caught sight of her serving tables across the crowded room and waved her over with a grin and got a friendly laugh in reply.
No, not so bad at all.