Dale, whose youthful nubs had ever so subtly lengthened into more of a promise of her young adult horns, charged into the house with her arms filled with freshly cut flowers. Some of the stems were more roughly hewn at their ends than others, and some stems were missing long strips of green from the attempts to remove the thorns. Despite the clearly amateur attempts there, however, the actual flowers themselves were gloriously beautiful- luscious red roses, radiant purple asters, luminescent white orchids, and cheery orange chrysanthemums. Just inside the house, on the right side, a rosewood brown Tiefling whose naturally wavy coppery-brown hair had freshly been sliced to the nape of her neck sat with various lengths of differently dyed strips of cloth, and her well-loved basket.
"So quickly today!" she commented sweetly as her little girl rushed in. "Slow down; you know Buela Mara doesn't like you running everywhere."
Dale nodded seriously, and stopped her hurried advance at once. Her sudden gravity didn't stop both household dogs from mimicking her previous haste, however, so Yellowsun nearly smashed into the back of her legs when she stopped short. Briar wasn't quite as fast, and so had time to dodge off sideways before smacking into Yellowsun. Behind her trundled Cephas, laden with his net and weights.
"I'm off, Dai," the swarthy Human man puffed, the chuckle for his daughter's sharp stop buried in the sound of his effort.
"May your nets strain without breaking, cielito," the Tiefling woman smiled immediately, tilting her head upward just slightly to offer a kiss.
"May the devils themselves be spellbound at the works of your hands, cuor'ai- mmmm." Cephas replied, passing by dog and child alike to kiss the waiting lips of his wife. After he let himself audibly enjoy the moment, he managed to shift the burden in his arms just enough to be able to scrub the top of his daughter's head, ruffling her hair. "And one day, Dilly-Dale, you'll make your own blessing- one that fits you just right."
Dale, who had laid the flowers on the bed beside her mother, reached up to give her bending father a kiss on the cheek. He gave her two- one for each temple, then tilted his head and nickered for Briar. The old dog hustled as best she was able, and Yellowsun followed them encouragingly to the door, sitting just inside of it when they left.
Daiirdra picked up a few flowers, then retrieved her knife from her night stand in order to cut the stems evenly. "These are all very lovely blooms- here, bind these up together with the chamomile- use the satin, and please be careful of how tightly you wind it."
Dale turned the stems of the central rose, the surrounding marigolds, and the chamomile so that they were laying right in front of her, then prepared the strip of satin that had been indicated. "M'lady Arlwynna asked after you so soon as even I got there," she noted as she tied the first anchor knot around the bottom of the stems. "She still lives above her shop, but every day goes down to the Bone College with Ser Yasha and the Father Demon-"
"You mean the Master Inquisitor, Daelcita," Daiidra replied with a wistful smirk. She laid aside her knife and began gathering another bunch for her daughter to bind. "There are no Father Demons here; it's illegal."
"Okay," Dale replied, smiling at her mother's nickname for her. "So how come you still have your offering dish?"
"Because anyone who comes into my hells-blessed living space to check whether I am keeping their frivolous law or not will do better to beware Rey Asmodeo than I would do to beware of them," Daiirdra answered with a shrug, as though breaking a law whose punishment was being stoned to death was no big deal. "Now, if Mistress Arlwynna is spending a great deal of time in the Bone College, it is likely that she has a different title now. Did she tell you what it was?"
"No," came the strangely sad reply. "She doesn't like me being there either."
"It's only because you're very young yet," Daiirdra replied as she began sorting the third set of flowers whose stems she'd cut into their intended bouquet groupings. "When you grow older, it will be easier for others to understand- or at least make peace with- the gift that the hells have given you. Please pair the mums with the darker marigolds; we must save these other ones for the lilacs. Did you tell Mistress Arlwynna that I've been walking, now-a-days?"
"I did!" Dale beamed, stopping to look up at her mother briefly. "She was excited, but said to ask you to be careful. I gave her the silver, like Papa said, but she wouldn't take it until I told her I'd get in trouble if I brought it back. She said that if I didn't give you this extra bottle of medicine, that I'd get in trouble with her."
Daiirdra chuckled as she laid down a fourth bouquet grouping, then looked over at her daughter's hard work. When the young girl came to a pausing point, the mother reached over and patted her hand gently. "Well, one good lie deserves another. We'll have to think of some other way to get her to take payment next time, I suppose. I've never seen an apothecary so determined to be penniless. Take the extra lavender and put it with that bunch there; that'll be for her. No doubt she'll have need of calming baths and compresses, where she is."
"Will I need them too, when I go there?"
Although the mother had been trying to steel herself against such conversations, the simplicity of the situation in her daughter's mind still took her breath away. "I don't know, Daelcita. I certainly hope not, but if you do, then I will be happy to send you as many sprigs of lavender as I can lay my hands upon."
Dale finished tying the first bouquet and began to bind together the extra lavender around the orchid bunch as she had been instructed. For a few moments, the two female Tieflings worked in silence- Dale slowly finished the tying of the second bouquet, and Daiirdra finished grouping all of the rest of the bouquets. When Dale looked up to the spectral female Tiefling that had seated herself at the other side of the bed, she broke the quiet.
"Do you see Ta'buela right there?"
"Hmm? Oh, no; I don't," Daiirdra replied, trying to keep herself as light and casual as possible. Without even looking back, she selected one of the pieces of cloth and began binding the bouquet grouping that she had just laid down. "Wave to her for me, will you please?"
Dale was not to be so easily placated, and stopped binding the second bouquet. "Mama, how come you don't see her? Or Buelo, either?"
"I don't have your talent, tesorito," Daiirdra replied simply as she put a bow on the bouquet with which she'd been working. "Please use the blue one with that third one, to pick up the blue of the aster spray. They should go down in the bunch, as though they were stairs."
"But you have talent, Mama!" Dale objected immediately, dramatically picking her hands up off the bed to indicate that she didn't intend to do another second's worth of work until she'd been satisfied. "Everything you make is pretty! It's not fair that they won't let you see them!"
"Tesorito, it's not a matter of them letting me see them," Daiirdra relented, putting the flowers with which she was working down in her lap to take up her daughter's hands. "It's that- you know I can't make alchemics like Lady Arlwynna, right? I can cut and arrange lavender nicely, but I have no idea of how to grind and boil it so that it will give anyone peace- do you?"
Dale shook her head, but continued to pout.
"Or, think of your aunt- do you remember her? Your Tia Rebeka, and how she built her house from nothing- just from the pieces of wood that her neighbors gave her? I can't do that either. And neither of them can do what I do, either. It is not because the flowers don't like them, or because the wood or the alchemy formulas and recipes don't like me. It is because we do not have each others' talents; we have our own. We do the things that we can do very well, and it is enough for each of us. It will be the same for you."
"I still wish you could see them," Dale huffed. "I don't want to talk to them, since you can't."
Daiirdra laughed gently and softly, letting go of her daughter's hands in favor of finishing the aster bunch that her daughter refused to work upon. "There will come days when you don't mind me and what I can or can't do so much, and days still after that when you won't like me very much at all. Then, there will be a day when I can talk to Ta'buela and Buelo Keraaven again, because I will go where they are. I will have to wait for all of that, and I don't know how long it will be. You are very fortunate, tesorito, that you don't have to wait to see them, and that they can speak to you right now. Sometimes, I envy you."
"I'll tell him you miss him, I'll tell him!" Dale enthused at once. "I'll try really hard! He's probably with Papa, but I'll try really hard to tell him as soon as he gets back!"
"When he will hear you, then tell him, but not before," Daiirdra soothed. "Elders are to be respected at all times; it is no different in the land of the departed than it is in the land of the living. It is as Ser Yasha said; you must respect them, and other spirits as well. Bear the wait with patience; knowledge is come by quickly, but wisdom is hard won."
Dale thought for a few moments, focusing all her attention on memorizing that moment, and her mother's words. She considered the bouquet that her mother had picked up and finished, and admired the way that she'd counter-wrapped the ribbon so that the cheery strip of bright orange colored fabric seemed to be winding up the stems toward the bow while the asters descended in the opposite direction. When she looked up, she watched the spectral Tiefling spirit, who had sat down on the other side of Daiirdra, look longingly at her great-granddaughter's hands.
"What was Buela Aeniisha good at, Mama?"
Daiirdra continued working on the arrangement she had in her hands, knowing that the market would open shortly, and that Cephas would be concerned if he arrived there to sell his catch before Dale showed up with the bouquets. "My mother was an artist. She specialized in the painting of clay dolls, but she could do so much more. The images she would draw, paint, and sew would bring tears to the eyes of the harshest tyrant- so it is fitting that Buelo Keraaven fell first in love with her beautiful, gifted hands, the virtues of which he praised until his death."
Dale, who watched the spectral Tiefling sigh deeply, at first scrunched up her nose with thought. Daiirdra didn't disturb her, and instead began to bind together yet another bouquet of flowers- this time, with a bit more speed. When she finished it and laid it in the basket with the other completed ones, Dale quickly caught her hands and shifted herself to lay her head on them. Daiirdra, reminding herself that time and finances meant absolutely nothing to her still-too-young daughter, forced herself to focus on the problem that loomed too large on Dale's mind to possibly allow work to interfere.
"Tesoro, I miss my mother and father very much, and think often of them," the mother soothed. "I believe truly that if I work hard, and raise you well, then they will be honored. Your strength, wisdom, and education will be the greatest gifts that I can give them."
With this said, Daiirdra leaned over and kissed her daughter's cheek- and then began tickling her. Dale hooted and laughed, which started Yellowsun to barking from his place at the door. His tail wagged manically, kicking up the dust that had entered from the streets outside.
"Keep it down, demonspit!" came the inevitable screech from the left side of the house.
"Ch'aimas!" Mara reproached sharply, from the other side of the house. As her bedding area was much closer, her voice was much harsher, and made Dale jump a bit.
"How come Buela Mara and Tio James get to call us that when we don't get to call them child eaters?" Dale asked with a sigh, when she recovered. She turned at last to her work, finding that there were only three more bunches of flowers to wrap. Her mother finished the first and already had hands on the second before she managed to ask, "Are you going to tell them that Ta'buela never even made any pacts with any demons, one day?"
"There's no use in that, Daelcita- that ribbon goes with this bunch, not that one- even though Ta'buela never made any pacts, the lords around her did. Unfortunately, sometimes we must pay for the poor decisions of others, even though we ourselves did nothing wrong. Buela Mara is also paying for the poor decisions of others; be kind to her, and suffer whatever she says. Okay, that does it- now, scurry off, tesorito. Don't keep your father looking for you; he's got to concentrate on his stall, or his master will be hard on him."
Dale picked up the basket, now full of beautiful bouquets instead of loose flowers, and kissed her mother quickly before taking off running. The door burst open before her and slammed shut behind her, drawing Yellowsun's sharp barks.
Mara, whose sleeping area was just on the other side of her daughter in law's, smoothed the worn arm rests of the rocking in which she sat. She listened as the soft rustle of fabric and the clacking of hoof on stone indicated that Daiirdra had gotten up to move around.
"Come here, you," she commanded quietly, when she figured that the Tiefling was close enough to her to hear it.
There was a pause, then a few quiet clacks that were dampened when hoof met Mara's hand-made area rug. Carefully, Daiirdra entered Mara's area and- with some clear difficulty- knelt down before the rocking chair.
"Yes, Mother?"
"Yesterday, your brat saw-" Mara began, with an unusual warbling quality straining her voice. "I don't know. But she looked at it a long time. And then she looked at me. And she did things that I hadn't asked for yet, all of a sudden, as though she knew what I was going to say."
Daiirdra was momentarily stranded between a desire to apologize and a sense of pride. Her child could speak with the spirit world- or would speak with the spirits, one day. These days, all she did with her budding talent was terrify her grandmother and infuriate her uncle.
The mother shook her head slowly. "I don't know why she sees them, Mother. She says that they are my great great great grandmother and my father, but they've both been passed away for many years. So it... it's a little..."
"Scary," Mara finished firmly. "Good."
Daiirdra firmed her lips, forcing a pained, Mona Lisa-like smirk that she knew couldn't possibly go unnoticed. However, her fierce upbringing demanded that she at least try to respect the elder speaking to her.
"Ah, look," Mara spat bitterly, "It's bloody awful. To have your brat say she sees people what're dead. But she isn't making it up, and she can't ignore it, so... so I won't scream at her over it. I won't do that anymore. Whatever she sees... and I won't pretend it's not there. I told Cephas before he left, and... that's all I wanted to say. To you."
The quiet that rested uneasily between the two women, however, made the Tiefling feel that quite the opposite was true.
"Thank you, Mother Mara," she smiled, trying to force herself to sound more relaxed than she was. "I appreciate that."
"Cephas couldn't deny his spawn if he tried," Mara scoffed, crossing her arms over her ample chest. "Pig-headed- I heard her myself, not wanting to talk to them... things... because you can't."
"She has a very strong sense of fairness," Daiirdra replied smilingly. "Of what is right and wrong; what ought to be done, and what oughtn't be. She knows how to treat people, and when not to trust them."
Mara looked at Daiirdra with some strange and complicated dissonance of emotion reflecting in her clouded eyes. "I wish I could just wave a wand, or something, and make you... right. Her too."
"Ah, Mother," Daiirdra sighed, not bothering to keep her actual sense of hopelessness out of her voice. "I wish I could wave a wand and make it so it didn't matter whether I were Human or not."
"Children," Mara added quietly, rubbing the arms of her rocking chair again. "That's who gets the future. All the tomorrows we worry about- we don't even get them. We work hard, we cry, we fight, we bleed, and who gets the tomorrow?"
"Children who, if they are wise, at once begin to press fervently toward the next tomorrow," Daiirdra counseled, sensing some sort of additional conversation that she wasn't sure she could truly reach. "It won't look like the one you gave them, but with the guidance of the gods and the elders, it will be a good, peaceful, and prosperous one- that's all anyone wants out of a tomorrow, isn't it?"
Mara closed her eyes with a deep sigh, and Daiirdra bit the backs of her lips for a few moments, then scooted forward on her knees so that she could lean her cheek on Mara's bare and filthy feet.
"What're you doing!?" the older woman screamed at once, squeezing her shut eyelids so that the skin around them pinched and stretched. Her strong fists slammed the arms of the rocker with considerable force, and Daiirdra jumped back, startled, but not entirely caught by surprise.
"Who in the world comforts a body by putting her face on her feet!" Mara complained bitterly. "I don't know why Cephas wedded himself to demonspawn, but you're his woman, so get up and act like it, curse you!"
With puffing and quiet grunts of effort, Daiirdra pushed herself to her feet. "Sorry, Mother," she managed breathlessly.
"To the hells with sorry," Mara exclaimed, rising from the rocker herself. She was a head and a half shorter than her Tiefling daughter in law, and had to look up to glare at her properly. "I'm not blind or stupid; James will give me nothing but pain in my gut- the weakshit whiner. I got nothing in this world to give that brat, and nobody else but her to give it to. So when I'm dead- and you won't have long to wait- you don't let go of anything that's here. Make sure she gets it. Every stick. You promise me that."
"By the blood in my flesh and the breath in my lungs, I swear to you that I will guard this place like the fiercest of baatezu," Daiirdra said seriously, not looking away from Mara's stormy eyes. "Be it to me as a sin so heavy that my lungs are crushed, and my blood dries up wasted on the ground, if I do not utterly destroy anyone who would challenge this land, or its master."
"Believe in sin, do you?" Mara grunted.
"Absolutely," Daiirdra replied sincerely. "Our deities are different, so our guiding religious laws are too, but the concept of sin is most definitely there. The failure to honor a fair contract, whether written or verbal, is among one of the most grave, and thus one of the most severely punished. In my village, one could earn themselves public death by stoning, for failing to give over a single laying hen that was promised to another person."
Mara huffed, then moved past Daiirdra without any explanation or apology. The Tiefling, after looking briefly at the rocking chair, took a few steps out of Mara's sleeping area- just far enough to see the front door.
One could spit from the front to the back of this place, she thought wistfully. But it's her birthright, now. Really and truly.
"Shake a leg, would you?" Mara hollered from the kitchen. "You're making sourmash soup."
"I-" Daiirdra began. As soon as the open vowel left her mouth, she regretted it.
"You're gonna learn how, today!"
Ah, Cephas's mother- I suppose mine, now. Always charming. And sighing quietly, the Tiefling made her way back toward the kitchen area.
