Name: Personal Delivery
Story: Starfall
Colors: Tourmaline #19 (gift/stolen object)
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti – 11 Years of Rainbowfic Part 9 (September Secrets)
Word Count: 1402
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Notes: 1337, Old Ralston; Zila Fayne/Laonna Torwell. (Zila lets slip a secret of the Governor’s; this challenge coincided with a lot of this coming out into the open.)
Summary: Zila chooses a side and delivers a letter.

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Zila had fallen into this by accident – becoming the Governor’s assistant (of sorts) and rumoured other (of sorts), being dragged from one end of the country to the other, falling for someone she didn’t want to. None of it had been her choice.

This, though; Zila didn’t have anyone to blame for this but herself. She’d picked a side and stolen a letter. Well, not stolen precisely. Could it really count as stealing a letter if you were just taking it in order to deliver it yourself?

The letter had been lying temptingly on top of the pile of outward post on the desk in the Governor’s office. Spotting Laonna’s name had made Zila start and instinctively snatch at it, her heart running ahead of itself at the mere sight of the words. Of course, she should have put it back. Laonna had made her feelings about the whole Governor-and-letters scenario perfectly clear. She’d made it equally clear that she didn’t want to see anyone who had anything to do with the Governor, either, very much including Zila.

Zila’s heart wanted to side with Laonna on everything, but she didn’t put the letter back; she tapped the corner of the envelope against her chin in one last moment of indecision and then slipped it safely inside her jacket.

“Tesmin,” she said, to one of the Governor’s secretaries. (They came in various shapes, sizes and flavours but Zila had never yet bothered to learn what the exact differences were.) “I’ve got an errand to run for Imai Stolley. It might take an hour or so. That will be all right?”

Tesmin Vodallet looked up and his face cleared with relief at the mere suggestion of her departure. “Yes, yes. Go. Please do.”

Zila waited until he put his head down at his work again and then stuck out her tongue in retaliation. She grabbed her coat, and hurried away before Pen Stolley came in and gave the lie to her excuse.

Here was the thing: she had chosen a side without even noticing. She owed Governor Delver a debt. He’d done everything he’d promised her since getting her out of Portcallan, even though she’d conspired to injure him at the start. The further away the night of that reception grew, the more convinced Zila became that the Governor had been right about saving her life.

He’d kept her in his entourage, he’d given her pay, he’d told Stolley to make sure that she had somewhere to stay and sufficient clothes, and if she’d wanted to go, he’d have let her. The only thing he’d ever asked of her was that she continue to send ‘reports’ back to Imor Veldiner – and that was as much about protecting Zila as it was about confounding Veldiner. He’d asked her to sing once or twice on the journey here from Portcallan, but that was a bonus for Zila.

So, now she found herself trotting halfway across Old Ralston with an illicit message clutched in her hands, and acting for the Governor whether either of them liked it or not.

It was a small comfort that he probably would have been far more horrified about it than she was if he knew.


Zila stepped up to the door and rapped on it, not giving herself time to back out. After a few moments, and the grating sound of bolts and keys turning, Laonna Torwell opened the door of her Old Ralston lodgings. Her face closed in and she drew back as soon as she saw Zila.

“Sorry,” Zila said, not very repentantly. “It’s me, and this time I am here on behalf of the Governor. Although only partly, because he doesn’t know. I’ve got another one of those letters you don’t want.”

Laonna pressed her head against the side of the door. “I – what? Why? He already sent one at midwinter!”

“You would have got it anyway,” said Zila. “That part isn’t my fault.” She held the letter out, waving it in front of Laonna. “Go on. You have to take it.”

Laonna frowned. “Do I?”

“Yes,” said Zila. “Because I’ll just slide it under the door afterwards if you don’t.”

Laonna shook her head. She sighed and took the letter slowly, and then cast it aside onto a nearby shelf without even reading the address. “You’re a very odd person, you know.”

“It’s not odd, it’s just, well.” Zila stopped. All the words she’d thought up to explain herself were treacherously deserting her. “I work for the Governor.”

“Yes. We’d established that. It is rather the problem. Is there a point to this visit, or should I remind you I want nothing to do with Marran Delver and then you can go and leave me in peace?”

“It’s probably not something I should really be saying out in the street. Can I come in? It’s a secret – or only a rumour. I don’t even know if it’s true.”

“If you must,” said Laonna, standing back to let her pass. She heaved another sigh as she shut the door behind Zila.

“I know you don’t want anything to do with him,” Zila said. “Fair enough. But – all those letters! Did you really never read any of them?”

“That’s not your business!”

“No. It was only that I wondered – if perhaps you thought that one day you might. Letters are more than my father’s ever given me. He did send Mother a forged bank note and a lot of excuses about how he had no other money once, but I don’t think that counts.”

Laonna straightened, and her face was clear of expression now; grey eyes chilly. “That doesn’t mean mine is better.”

“Yes. Sorry!” Even now Zila was here, she wasn’t sure if she should say it. It was only an impression she’d received, not fact. Laonna might not believe her in any case. But it was also too big a thing not to say. Zila took a deep breath, and tried. “So. I work in the Governor’s office – in a way. But I’m in there with his closest people every day, and I pick up things.”

Laonna tilted her head to one side, her left eyebrow slightly raised; an expression Zila had seen the Governor wear. “And?”

“If you do ever plan to read them, I’d start with that one. The Governor’s people – they don’t like what he’s been doing. Closing everything he can down before he leaves for Starfall, all that kind of thing. I see them looking at each other, trying not to say things. They all think he’s not counting on coming back again. I think they’re probably right.”

Laonna raised her chin. She shrugged. “If he goes away, all to the good.” She hesitated, and added, unwillingly: “What about you – are you coming back?”

“Not here, not if he doesn’t,” said Zila, though it tore at her not to rush to assure Laonna that of course she would come back, if she wanted to see her. “I crossed some important people in Portcallan. The Governor got me away, but I don’t think I should hang about Old Ralston if he’s not around any more.”

“That much is a shame,” said Laonna. She gave a half-smile. “Perhaps. We’ll never know.”

“Three days,” said Zila breathlessly. “That’s when we leave for Starfall.”

Laonna opened the door, but she softened her stance, leaning her head against it. “I appreciate that you mean well, so I’ll thank you. But,” she added, straightening up and pulling the door back fully, “that information is of no other interest to me. “Please – go!”

Laonna politely but firmly shut the door behind Zila, who made her way back down the short flight of steps to the grey-stone paved street. It was starting to rain, darkening the stones and causing the smell of damp earth to rise around her. The weather seemed to do nothing else in North Eastern District. It was no wonder they were all so hung up on worshipping Shara, the spirit of the water.

“Everyone tells me that,” Zila said under her breath. “Good riddance – get out of my way – exit right, left and straight down the front aisle – all that song and dance.”

Except the Governor. That was the problem, wasn’t it? He kept asking her to go with him, and so she did.