{{ voicetest / khola }}

[wingfic]

((for "canonmates," if they so choose))

IF YOU'RE wandering down by the river this morning, you might (for once) encounter a skinny, redheaded girl of about fifteen, sitting near a clump of tall grass on the riverbank, half-hidden from view.

She's got an (empty) curious little silver bowl in her hands, and she looks faintly displeased--although that's not exactly unusual, is it?

Bother her?

Comments

[sweetestsixteen]

If it were possible for Tristan to crane his neck enough to see into the bowl, he'd have done so. As it is, he sits with a schooled patient expression until he's fairly certain Tara-Fay is finished. Once this comes to pass, he looks down and away, and only after a demure moment passes does he say, "See something interesting?"

She may well not tell him anything. That's very likely. But she definitely won't volunteer it if he doesn't ask.

[wingfic]

"None of your business," she says, but she seems unusually good-humored about it.

There hadn't been much, at first. An unfamiliar bird, circling high overhead; the roofs of buildings, and below, figures milling around a square, pausing here and there in clusters. An ordinary city, if even that--but just as clearly, by everything from the buildings to the fashion, a foreign one. Not somewhere she's ever been, in her admittedly limited travels.

It had taken her a while to realize the full significance of what she was seeing. It doesn't answer everything she's desperately curious about, not by a long shot. But it's more than enough for now.

She drains the bowl carefully and stands, shooting another smirk back at Tristan. A girl of a different nature might be dancing outright; as it is, she can't resist one last comment: "I'm not going to be stuck here much longer," she offers. "Not much longer at all."

Not that five years is so short a time in her mind. This is a promise, as much as it is a prediction.

[sweetestsixteen]

What is Tristan's first reaction to that? He doesn't know, exactly--the lumbering presence of how he thinks he should feel about such a thing comes shouldering up against him before he can even really process it, crowding everything else out. How he should feel about that is: concern, worry even, over the prospect of Tara-Fay running or being taken away; Tara-Fay's not ready for that sort of thing, the angels of his better nature say, Tara-Fay doesn't know anything about the world. Maybe she's misinterpreted, his reasonable mind puts in: maybe this is wishful thinking. Or maybe she's making something up.

But in truth, Tristan's first reaction was the thought of Evangeline--of his wedding, and the rock-solid knowledge that whatever Tara-Fay's future holds for her, his involves being planted squarely in Khola for the rest of his life. Taking over the farm and the watchpost. And that's... of course, that's what he's signed on for.

He's not normally an impulsive thinker. (Or so he's decided.) But, on impulse, he says, "Hey. Tara-Fay. Before you go."

And before she has time to snap something back, he continues blithely, "Can I ask you something?"

[wingfic]

She stops.

On any other day, at any other time, she wouldn't even bother with that much. Tara-Fay has long known, or at least sensed, that Tristan thinks of her with a kind of condescending magnanimity, as if to him, the eight or so months' difference in their ages might as well be eight years. Well, she's no less stubborn or prideful than he is, and quite a bit more contrary. She certainly doesn't need the judgment cloaked in wide-eyed concern he's so fond of directing at her.

Some part of her, though, senses that for once he might have the advantage: that the boy who acts like he knows everything has something he wants to hear from her. And Tara-Fay's not the sort of person who avoids the chance to revel in that. She cranes her neck around to look at him.

"What is it now?" she says, trying to sound bored. She is not, alas, the best of actresses.

[sweetestsixteen]

Answers aren't easily pried out of Tara-Fay. He knows that, but it doesn't grant him any more insight on how it's done. He thinks, for a moment, about the most tactful approach to take; he thinks, what would I want me to say if I were her? That's no use. The answer is 'nothing,' and promptly leaving her alone. If Tristan was capable of divining the magic words one spoke to Tara-Fay to gain her trust, their relationship would've taken a very different turn years ago.

So he glances at her and opts for candor. "Can you teach me how to do that?" he says. "I could help you with something else. If you liked."

He doesn't elaborate on what. He's not in the habit of striking bargains. Help from Tristan is usually freely and gaily offered. But he intuits, on some level, that this might be an easier way to deal with Tara-Fay than trying to engage her in some kind of complex favor-based economy.

[wingfic]

"What?"

Out of all the things she might have been expecting him to say, it certainly wasn't that. Maybe she should have: now that she thinks about it, of course the magical bookworm would want to know how to scry into the future. What doesn't he want to know?

Still, it throws her. Tara-Fay is not at all used to thinking of herself as a teacher. "You want me to teach you how to scry?" she repeats, with no small amount of incredulousness.

[sweetestsixteen]

"Sure," says Tristan, a little too brightly to sound casual; he adds, in a more tempered voice, "I mean, unless it's something only you can do?"

On account of your bloodline, he doesn't say and doesn't need to. He doubts it, though, given what he's inferred of Vartilet. In truth he's not in the habit of thinking of Tara-Fay of all people as a teacher--or anyone, really. He's become something of an autodidact, save Alexandre's involvement. But there are no chapters on scrying in Khola's collective library. He's checked. Sometimes you just have to buckle down.

[wingfic]

"It's a steppe people thing," she says, with more assurance than she feels. (That is what Vartilet had said about it, right?) "Nothing to do with demons."

She is . . . tempted by the offer: more, perhaps, out of an attraction to power than any compensation Tristan could give her. But she also remembers Vartilet's dire warnings, and her role in starting the whole Parsbit mess. Tara-Fay's not so prideful that she can't admit, at least to herself, there's a whole lot she doesn't actually know about scrying.

Maybe she should write Vartilet after all? Maybe Linnet would do it for her. Maybe she could pretend to be Linnet--no, that's ridiculous.

God, she's actually considering this, isn't she?

"It's a really easy thing to get wrong," she says, when she senses the silence has gone on too long. Hopefully that sounds sort of authoritative. "And you could get--everyone--in serious trouble if you did."

He'll remember Vartilet. She really doesn't need to tell him about the donkey.

[sweetestsixteen]

"I understand." So is magic, after all. He tends not to mention the possible consequences of a ritual or a cantrip going awry, but they exist--he's careful, he tells himself, it's not the same. And indeed it isn't, he's fairly sure: the consequences of meddling with the future are in another league entirely. That gives even Tristan some pause. Not enough pause to stop him, however--

"It's just--" He hesitates. "There are some decisions... I'd rather make as informed as I can. That's all."

That's not all, but it's a start. He adds, "I'll be careful." He doesn't consider asking her to scry for him. That's off the table, for numerous reasons.

[wingfic]

Tara-Fay could, of course, tell him exactly what she thinks of some of those decisions of his. The decision to continue dating the asshole ghost of a conquering king, for example. The decision to go off and marry Evangeline Miller, of all people, while one is doing aforementioned king-dating. But they've never been friends, no matter what Tristan has to say about it, and she's not in the habit of telling people things unless she's pretty sure they're going to listen to her.

The thought does present another point in favor of helping him, though: surely anything that might help Tristan make less stupid romantic choices is good for everyone?

"I'll think about it," she says slowly. She needs time, to write Vartilet or . . . decide not to write Vartilet in a fit of panic, more likely, or . . . well. To do something. She's also quite sure she's met her daily quota of Tristan.