The water, as promised, was hot. And it didn’t come out in a sorry little dribble. It blasted out as though threatening to strip skin from bone.
I welcomed the near pain, and stayed in the torrent longer than I should have. The sterile cold of The Voice Of Lyra seemed to have settled into my bones. I ached.
The soap did much to soothe the interminable itching of my irritated skin, and the hair cleanser was blissful. I’d only properly, completely washed my hair six times since we left.
I washed it twice.
I could hear Aggi over the water as she dashed about her little house, muttering to herself, opening and closing cabinets, and sometimes squeaking with dismay or delight. At one point she opened the bathroom door, yelled “Here, use these!” shoved a box in the room, and shut the door again.
I investigated its contents after I finally convinced myself to turn off the water. Fresh, thick, clean white towels. Thick, stretchy, soft grey pants. A blue stretchy shirt with short sleeves. Several combs of different styles, a brush, a bottle of hair oil, some hair ties, lotion, slippers, a nail file, a package that declared it was a toothbrush, a squishy bottle that had ‘toothpaste’ written on it, and much more.
So many soft things. I wasn't sure if that was normal here, or if she was going out of her way to counterbalance the hardness of the shuttle.
Her ability to shift from one extreme to another was unnerving, especially after being so long among obedient military men and elves nervous of their surroundings. I could only be grateful she had redirected her ire to Milo.
I finished toweling off, pulled on the soft pants, and wandered into the bedroom.
When she'd told me she lived in a box in the sky, I hadn’t expected it to be quite so literal. There was no platform, no yard, not even a door, just a building with a few windows, suspended in midair, touching nothing. Magical, yet not. I felt slightly safer here than the platform where the shuttle was parked. I couldn’t accidentally fall off here.
The bathroom was almost all white, but Aggi's obvious love of vivid, eyeball searing color was obvious in the rest of the house. The bed was small, but would likely be visible in pitch darkness. Little tiny lights and potted plants were scattered everywhere.
I sat down on a floor cushion and began carefully combing the oil into my hair. I’d tried to cut it once, a few months after I’d awoken from Torpor. It was one of the first few days after I was released from the hospice, but they were still keeping a sharp eye on me. Trina walked in to find me with a knife in one hand and my hair pulled away from my neck in the other. I hadn’t known what scissors were at the time; I only knew the frustration of constantly trapping it under limbs or getting it tangled in my clothes. Chaos ensued, and I ended up back in the hospice, where it took a whole day to get someone to understand that I was only trying to cut my hair, not my throat. For some reason, they considered that almost as reprehensible. I was scolded and lectured by numerous people about my disregard for tradition, and given lessons in hair care with a sternness only matched later by my military trainers. I never dared attempt to alter it again, all too aware of the close way they watched me.
But here was Aggi, fiercely proud of her fiery red hair, and no one seemed to mind when I mentioned it in the first report. It wasn’t fair.
I was tired of lectures. I was tired of getting everything wrong. I was . . . tired, and I knew it wasn’t from any strenuous activity. I had to get this harmonizing right.
"You have to learn to sense your own energy. You make a place where you feel safe, comfortable. Invoke all the senses. Block out all the distractions. It could be anything. A raft on the ocean, a cave underground, watching fire burn."
Elorhyn’s ‘energy chamber’ in Panati had been white, and soft. No shadows, no hard edges, nothing big enough to hide behind. It was like sitting in a cloud, and just as difficult to access. I knew that wasn't for me. I'd always been afraid of leaving marks and ruining it.
"Wow, you’re still here?" Aggi's voice cut into my thoughts abruptly. She moved like an elf, swift and silent, but she talked loudly, like a human. It was unnerving. “I thought you’d have run off at 59 minutes."
She had changed into clean clothes, and was now wearing a different pair of ridiculously high heeled shoes and a - well, I suppose it was a dress, but I had shirts longer than that. She was very tall, as most of the older elves were, and from where I sat on the ground, she seemed to be all legs and a teasing smile.
It was a very nice view.
"Hey, you in there?”
" . . . What?"
She frowned suspiciously. "I’m not liking how you’re looking or acting. If you haven’t improved in three more days, I’m going to step in and . . . and . . . scold loudly and be stubbornly ignored, probably.”
“I’m working on it. It’s complicated.”
“What do you need besides sugar? Is this a magic thing? Salt? Herbs? Sacrificial goat?”
“No! What kind of dark magic have you learned?”
“None! Thank gods I was wrong about that one. Great! No goats for you. C’mon, now. I need to know what you need so I can help get you on your feet quickly. Then I’ll leave you alone. You know they’ll blame me if you die."
They were more likely to shake their heads and say it was my own inabilities that brought about my demise, and perhaps it was just as well I was no longer a concern . . .
“Alpinia!” I blinked at her, surprised, as she knelt down on the floor in front of me, hiding her glorious legs. “It’s gonna be ok,” she said gently. “Talk to me about this self harmony thing. How did the prince do it? Did he use the Word?”
“No. It’s . . .” I floundered for the term. “I need quiet.”
She sat back, her face twisting in annoyance. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. ‘Shut up, Aggi, you’re too loud.’”
“No, I didn’t mean that! I need to sit in a special place, and concentrate.”
“You mean, like, meditate?”
“Yes. I must focus on my elfsong and figure out how to redirect it back to myself. There is no one correct way to do it, since everyone’s harmony is different.”
She blinked at me a few times, then tilted her head. “That’s it? That’s all he told you? There’s got to be more.”
“He said it will be obvious when you find the right conditions.”
“What kind of conditions? Are we talking pyramids and incense and singing bowls, or sensory deprivation chambers?”
I shrugged. “All things are possible, in any combination.”
“So you just have to try random things in random places until it works?”
“Yes.”
“Are they trying to make you fail?”
I had no answer for that, of course. Elorhyn had said it’d taken him over six months to work it out. He was a royal, a source of elfsong rather than a mere conductor, so he’d had an advantage, but he’d been alone, and had been for a while before he made the attempt. I already had more offers of help than he ever did, plus the benefit of his knowledge.
“You must give me time,” I scolded. “Everything is new to me.”
“All right. But don't be too proud or too afraid to come to me for help or advice or support, with either world stuff or harmony stuff. I'm just as clueless, but sometimes two clueless heads thinking are better than one.”
She had apparently forgiven me for the rude way I'd blundered through our first few meetings. I nodded at her, wondering how I could compensate.
Don't talk about yourself or us to strangers, it only reveals our weaknesses, and humans will take advantage of them, the trainers had warned me.
Share freely, let them learn, let them interact. Make yourself approachable. They fear what they don’t know, and fear makes them violent, the younger generation of ambassadors insisted.
Milo had been reluctant to follow suit, and taken the middle road. He exchanged information for equivalent information received.
Aggi seemed to have become a strange mix of human and elf. I couldn’t communicate with her through elfsong, therefore, I should treat her like a human?
She hadn’t minded my deficiency. I didn’t see many smiles from the elder generations, most seemed to believe I’d rebelled. I felt I could trust her, or should at least make the attempt.
“Honey,” I began, before I could change my mind, but she misunderstood.
“We can try it - I have some in the pantry?” She waved a hand toward the kitchen.
“No, my family. They kept bees. In the mountain region. I don't remember it, but I was told. My family did not survive. I was raised by a family friend afterward.”
My words came out in an awkward jumble, almost like hers. Was it a side effect of living here? But at least she understood what I was trying to say.
“Alpinian Hives,” she breathed. “Of course! I’m so sorry to hear that. I guess a lot of people’s stories are like that now, though, huh?” she bit her lip. “Mine too, I suppose. But hey, I was close with my guesses! Not bad, eh?”
“Uh, yes. You were wrong about me learning magic - Elorhyn learned alone. But the rest was correct. You are very intuitive, and I would be grateful for your help.”
“Sweet! Maybe think about the things you enjoy doing, and why, and we can start from there? I figure you need to be relaxed and happy for this kind of thing to work.” That mischievous grin reappeared. “This may be harder than I thought.”
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