Houseguests

by hornkerling

Summary:

Kirra--Kirra the restless; shiftling-Kirra; eldest-youngest Kirra; irrepressible, tumbling, Kirra Danalustrous--never expected that she would be the one to stay unchanging.

Notes:

• For Quatre-sama (Lisafer).

Chapter 1: Civilised Barbarities

1. Houseguests: Civilised Barbarities

“Oh, Kirra.  It must be so fascinating, having Senneth Brassenthwaite teach you all those...those Mystic things.”

Kirra knew she shared an age with Mayva Nocklyn. And, by her stepmother’s necessity during a week of socialising and other such civilising barbarities, some space with the other girl. But a fifteen-year-old Mayva, to the fifteen-year-old Danalustrous hoyden, was in all other respects a strange and alien creature:  her hands soft for the indoors, and clutching at hers as intimately the etiquette mistress at Nocklyn Towers had allowed.   

“She is quite ordinary, you know.” Kirra shifted minutely in her chair, drawing her knees up and settling her skirts as an excuse for disentangling her fingers from the other girl’s. For all her softness, Mayva bit her nails.

Mayva gasped. “Ordinary, and a serramarra! It’s quite shocking, you know. All my aunts say so.”

“I’m perfectly ordinary.” The shiftling shook out her tumble of hair, and enjoyed Mayva’s small, envious sigh. “So are you. “

“Oh, I’m nothing,” Mayva giggled, not seeming to notice as Kirra stared at her. “Not a bit of me’s interesting, or brave, or...or vulgar the way everyone says she is, and compared to you I’m—”

“—Senneth,” Kirra said hotly, “Is nothing like that.” She sniffed. “And if she were vulgar, it’d be because she chose to be so—and she’d be the best at it that ever there was.”

Mayva shrank back a little, but ventured a smile at her enforced houseguest. “I just wish,” she said wistfully, “That I knew what you two did together.”

 

Chapter 2: The Natural Thing

2. Houseguests: The Natural Thing

“Senneth, I swear that if I have to breathe any more I’ll be all air and no body!”

Kirra sighed, expelling carefully meditated air as the tall, grey-eyed woman raised a pale eyebrow, letting her hands fall from their place on her crossed knees. She did not look abashed Senneth grumbled her name, instead closing her eyes and laying back in the grass, letting it tickle her cheeks and shoulders—bare, now, with a slow blink and a few moments to form the thought. She smiled languorously, though still blushing a little, as Donnal landed butterfly-shaped, a tickling presence as light as the descriptions in any frowned-upon romance she knew her stepmother kept in the bottom of wardrobe. He was a deep, opalescent black all over, stark against her skin, and she could not swallow the smirk had slipped, silent and excited, into the corners of her mouth.

Senneth rolled her eyes. “You have enough energy to magic yourself into laying around naked in your father’s private garden, but you won’t even be able to heal a scraped knee, at this rate. You’re not a natural.”

“I am always natural,” said Kirra lightly. “Really, Senneth. You know I have been good, otherwise you’d be frowning at me more. You haven’t even threatened to set me on fire.”

“I don’t set—”

“--And we have been working all day. Father didn’t bring you into the Hall to be a slave, you know.”

“He’d sell me for one, if he saw you like that. Bright Mother burn me.” The older mystic rolled her eyes at Kirra’s laugh, and picked up her coat—an old sailing affair discarded in the surprising heat of Danan Hall in late autumn. She threw it, and Kirra did not deflect or roll away as the rough, rust coloured fabric flapped and fell over her, somehow shifting into a more appealing drape as it landed. The butterfly shot off to a branch, wings blurring. “Make yourself something out of that and come inside.”

Kirra sniffed. “You,” she said, “Have no sense of opportunity.”  She looked up to the overhanging apple branch, and the insect there, taught and hovering. “Does she, Donnal?”

Senneth blushed despite herself, and shook her head as Kirra rose, fully clothed in something unbearably becoming, to go in for dinner, Donnal alighting and blurring into a silent wolf shadow at her bare feet. She had never thought that tutoring the scions of the nobility could be quite like this.

Chapter 3: Simple Truths

Kirra knew how to sneak, and be still. She knew all the right sounds (and there were always some sounds, she felt. There was no such thing as full silence) that could be kept hidden by another’s breathing. And Kirra knew, sometimes, that being still could also be wrong.

“Mayva, darling. Amalie said you were still here.” She tried to put warmth into her voice, and shaft through some of the heaviness in the room as if she were so much sunlight through a window. “At least, she hinted at it. Then she just stared off in communion with Cammon again. The usual affair, with Her Majesty.”

The marlady looked up, and Kirra ran forward and bent to kiss her cheek. Mayva sniffed.

“Kirra? Oh. I’m late. How silly of me, I was just—”

“—it’s all just fine.” The bed creaked as Kirra plopped herself down next to the smaller woman,  and Mayva made a small, soft noise of surprise when the shiftling fit an arm about her round shoulders. “You don’t have to come down, of course,” Kirra said in smiling conspiracy. “I just wanted to see if you were all right. You going back to Nocklyn tomorrow, me with Senneth and the others gone....” She shrugged. “You’ve been looking peaky.”

 Mayva stared at Kirra for a full minute, until every last uncomfortable bit of it sat around them both and pinched, like ill-fitting shoes. “I had no idea it would take locking up my husband to get you to notice me, serra Kirra!”

Mayva’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t...that’s to say, truly I—”

Kirra, face serious now, shrugged, and did not withdraw her arm. “If you meant it, even just a little, I can’t say I should mind,” she said. “It’s entirely deserved.”

But you do—mind, I mean. Oh, dear.” Mayva had flushed, and caught her lower lip between her teeth, startling as Kirra reached down to tap the spot with a finger.

“Don’t do that, you’ll scar. And, well, no. I don’t really mind much, darling. It’s very unladylike of me. But I am a selfish brute sometimes, and it’s good to be informed.”

Mayva laughed under the onslaught of words, looking up into a face that was bright and golden again. “I don’t understand you at all,” she said.

“Nor I you,” said Kirra Danalustrous. “Which is a bit obtuse of me, given you did keep visiting when we were infants. And...no, I won’t say it.”

“Kirra, you witch. You have to, now!”

The shiftling smiled winsomely. “Well, you are more interesting now I know you’re the sort to throw your husband in gaol.”

Chapter 4: Fitting familes

Summary:

Mayva attempts the impossible: Coaxing Kirra Danalustous to commit thoughts to paper.

Seramarra Kirra, care of Danan Hall, Danalustrous.
Marlady Mayva, Nocklyn Towers. Nocklyn. 

 

Kirra dearest,

I have no idea wither-when-nor-how this letter shall get to you, since you do insist on traipsing about the countryside having adventures, but I just wanted to say how good it was to see you at the Fortunault-Coravan wedding. And dear Casserah too, of course—she makes such a lovely mother, and is a picture with Will.  If I cared a jot for children I’d be quite jealous, I’m sure, and it was quite the shock of the season to see her outside the bounds of Danalustrous—but you had the terrible taste of befriending me and then immediately leaving again, and it was good to have you to myself for a few minutes to reaffirm things. You looked so well, and I don’t think there was anything mystical about it. And Donnal is a wonderful dancer. Almost as good as you.

Ah, look now. I write like you talk; there is no room left for breathing. Things at Nocklyn are laid out with greater care. I am beginning to feel less as if the roof is about to collapse on me. Cammon’s clutch of Devassers are flourishing—as are, I believe, other things. Do you feel as if you are suddenly surrounded by new shiftlings, now that everyone you know is having babies without your leave? I do truly wish everyone well, wherever you all are. I remain,

Your affectionate,

Mayva.

 

Marlady Mayvam Nocklyn Towers. Nocklyn.

Kirra Danalustrous. Care of Likely Looking South-Bound-Urchin.

 

You wrote to me. No one ever writes to me! Not that I blame them, all the Mothers know. There are all sorts of better things to do with my careless time than answer letters. But yours, Mayva, made me smile. No, it made me laugh like a madwoman, and I shall treasure it as long as the paper lasts and it doesn’t accidently get rained on. I’ve been given fearsome Lirren leave to visit Justin and Ceribel The Terrible, and so that is a small guess as to my location should you decide to write again. One can never have a short visit to the Lirrens. Senneth, Tayse, and whatever fire fiend they’re cooking up together shall be coming with me, as it gives Senneth a lovely lot of chosen family to be around.  

Ugh. Handwiriting is a terrible business. I can’t change my hand to make it readable. But you wrote me such a long piece that it’d be awful of me not to try and respond in kind. I hope Nocklyn is bowing to your every whim. (I am allowed to wish for that, because I am irresponsible.)

Yes, it is a little strange, like you said. I imagine it is more peculiar for Senneth, and Tayse is filled with a potent mix of single-minded adoration and paranoia that is…well…Riderish. (Riderly?)

Still, it does work for them. Just as it works for me to be their friend and a wicked influence on their offspring, while continuing to run about the place with Donnal. When we’re not dancing with you, of course. You’ve turned into the absolute best sort of flirt.

Your K.