Name: dray
Story: Edilion
Colors: Iceberg #9 (Wrap Up Well), True Blue #15 (Token of Friendship)
Supplies and Styles: Canvas, Pastels (Peace Offering), Seed Beads (Jael ru Edilion)
Word Count: 1962
Rating: G
Warnings: None that I can spot
Summary: Jael is kept company by her favourite cousin
Notes: Comments and critique are always welcome! I love suggestions/requests for other pieces, too (specific characters or locations to elaborate on).



The cart-ride up to Navale had been bad, but this was worse. Being confined to a bed of itchy furs in an underheated dark little room a hundred thousand billion kilometres from home without any real family left Jael feeling surly. Moreover, it made her remorseful for having taken Fara up on her invitation to grand adventure. Jael hadn't been in this much pain since she accidentally slammed her hand in the door to her brother's room, but this was even worse than that. The structure that kept her from moving her shoulder was incredibly uncomfortable on her small frame, and it seemed to prompt itches that she never knew she could have, nor could she do anything about.

Her elder cousin had been pacing around their room all morning, and it was beginning driving her mad! "I won't get better faster if you walk faster," Jael tried to reason, but Fara's profuse apologies drowned out her good-will. "Oh, just stop it then!" The little girl often liked Fara's good-guard to her bad-guard team, but she hated when Fara cried. She hated when it was because of her, too, and this was, it seemed, all her fault.

Really it was that red-faced Eean's fault and his cronies, too, but Jael knew that Fara's parents might come in at any second. She was convinced that Colette could read her mind after the month spent in a carriage with her, and so, as much as it pained her to do so, the young Pieta-born Edilion shushed any traitorous venom she felt towards the Cupers... for now.

When she was better she was going to teach big Eean a lesson.

The girl felt better when Fara disappeared for a few minutes and gave her some time to think... or to not think, really. Jael could hear the wind howling outside, muffled by the draped windows, so she listened to that for a time. Beyond that, only the slight hum of magic-made-light issued from the orb between her and her cousin's beds. She really wished that she could move a little more freely, but whenever she did, her shoulder and back and chest protested. In frustration, she chomped on the braids of her Daemon Rider doll that was cuddled up to her chest, deciding that chewing on the ends of the yarn would do for the meantime.

The door to their room thumped open and Fara returned with an oversized silver platter. A bubble of steam caught under the thermostatic spell served to mysteriously blanket the tray's contents, but the mere sight of breakfast on the way made Jael salivate... and only at that point did she realize that she was hungry.

"I'm sorry that took so long," Fara apologized. "I wasn't allowed to go to the dining hall so I had to beg something from the kitchens, and the cook is scary, not like Nanny at all!"

"Your nanny is terrible-scary," Jael replied, making a face. She kicked her bed covers off in her hurry to wait for Fara to set the tray down beside her, craning her neck over to see what the older girl had brought.

"She's not scary to me," Fara amended, grinning sheepishly. Once the tray was resting safely between the two of them, she slipped a dispeller from it's slot in the side of the tray and clinked it along the edge of the low dish. All at once a fragrant steam billowed upwards and out, and Jael sniffed deeply in appreciation. Fara laughed when she heard the girl's stomach rumble, but patted Jael's hand away when she made a grab for the nearest knife. "Hold on. Let me at least cut it up for you."

"I don't care, I'll eat it like Exchange food!"

"You will not, that's commoner talk," Fara joked, slapping her hand when Jael made a second attempt.

"You're no fun."

"I'm the most fun." Fara was sedately chopping up the links that she'd scavenged from the kitchens, and the stack of flat cakes that seemed so popular up here. She'd even brought a dish of what looked like fried fish, though Jael turned her nose up at that. "Oh," said Fara, "that's not for you! I have to eat too you know."

Jael grabbed the knife when Fara was done with it, jabbing the bite-sized bits of food into her gullet with her free hand and chewing noisily.

"Does your mother see you eat like that?" Fara joked, then wrinkled her nose when Jael burped in response. "You're just doing that to provoke me."

"Nope," the younger girl didn't pause until she'd managed to get most of the sausage links tidied away, but when she moved on to the preserve-smothered flatcakes she said, "my mom says a good belch is a compliment."

"She does not!" Fara looked scandalized.

Jael attempted another burp, but, failing, made to shrug -- then threw her knife down when searing pain went up and down her side.

Fara, startled, retrieved the girl's utensil from the bed. "Are you okay?"

"No, this is stupid and it hurts and it doesn't just go away!" Jael's face had gone red. She looked like she might explode, or implode... she certainly felt like it. "I hate this place!" If it weren't for Fara's quick thinking, the platter of half-finished food would have been overturned when the younger girl made to emphasize her point. Jael, on a moment's reflection and a new wave of pain, thumped the bed with her fist instead and settled back. "Sorry, I just really want home."

"Well, we won't be here much longer," Fara said. "Mother told me last night that they're almost done whatever it is that they're doing. Maybe we can ask to go home afterwards."

Jael thought about it. Her gut instinct was to raise her hands in victory, but obviously she couldn't do that. She grimaced, instead. "I know you like it here."

"I haven't decided yet," Fara admitted.

"Well you do," said Jael. She narrowed her eyes, her gaze making Fara squirm a little. "I can tell."

"You can not!"

"I can so!"

They exchanged faces for a while, until Jael grabbed her utensil back and began shovelling the rest of her breakfast into her mouth. There was a glorious lull as both girls ate, and Jael thought. She missed Edilion. Right now she would be sitting around the Pieta complex with her family for breakfast and those from Fensirt would be complaining about how cold it was and what was this business with snow as high as their knees, and her gran-gran would be weaving Pieta family colours of yellow and green in with the Edilion blue and black just to pass the time as she entertained the family with (most thought fallacious) stories of her daemon-riding days.

Presently, a sweet, high note issued from Fara's direction and Jael was startled out of her daydream. Fara had taken out the whistle the baggy old Makanan man had given her, both hands wrapped around the overly ornate metal as she attempted to manipulate a note from it. Both girls winced when the briefly lovely note turned sour.

Jael wanted to try, but she knew her manners even if she didn't usually practice them. Fara tried again a few times and when she managed to get a trio of solid toots from the instrument, she got this proud look that Jael couldn't help but grin at. "Can I try?" she finally asked.

Fara, magnanimous as she sometimes looked, passed the whistle over. Jael found it difficult to hold the bulky little instrument in one hand, but she fiddled with it for a time and, the holes facing the proper direction, she put the whistle to her lips. The noise she made went from sour to sweet in a reverse of Fara's earlier attempt, and Jael felt as light as the little Makanan sculptures on the side of the instrument. The tone was as light as a warm breeze and it carried her along with it.

"That's nice," the older girl applauded.

Jael didn't lower the whistle, but she did grin. She experimented for a while, even when Fara cleared away dishes and left the room for a moment to pass the tray off to their guardian servant. When the older girl returned, Jael barely noticed her. She liked the way the sound of the whistle blended just so when she moved her fingers to block each hole, so she played with the sound over and over.

"You have a talent," Fara was smiling brilliantly. When Jael looked like she had been startled out of another reverie, Fara flapped her hands. "Keep going!"

Jael paused just long enough to acknowledge that she felt a blush of accomplishment -- she loved when Fara made her happy like this; it was one of the things that made her better than any of the other myriad of cousins (and even most siblings) that Jael knew. She grinned around the whistle again when Fara took out her doll and proceeded to dance it to the tune that the younger girl was working on, and the two spent quite a long time just like that.

They had to stop twice: Fara's parents had come out on a recess to check on the two, and could not prompt Jael to play the tune she'd managed to more or less perfect despite Fara and even Baar's encouragement. The healer arrived a while after that with Fara's uncle to see how Jael's arm was progressing: he told the two that he wanted her to wait another day before he applied any magic, just to be sure that the natural processes were in place. His inventory of spells, he told them, was garnered from daemons rather than directly from a pure source like an Asandus, which meant that applying anything without careful observation could cause unfortunate side-effects. He also told Jael that she was young and spry and that she could probably heal all the way on her own, but the girl glared at him so hard that Saum bellowed in laughter and the doctor revised his statement into a hypothetical.

She only had to wait one more day. Jael might be able to handle that.

It was hours later and the girls were telling each other stories about their dolls' latest adventures (their current installment involved slaying an evil Caetran named Eeangrr) when Fara set her toys aside and scooched up the side of the bed. "Jael?" she prompted, her expression looking hesitant and serious.

Jael set her daemon rider aside, turning to face her friend. "...What's the matter?"

"I think you should have this." Fara had retrieved the whistle from her pocket. "You're better with it than I am, and it makes you happy."

The younger girl found the instrument placed into her slack hand almost without realizing that Fara was clasping her hands around her cousin's. "What? You can't." Jael knew how much the whistle meant to the girl. They'd stayed up for hours whispering about it the night that they stayed at the hostel. Fara loved it more than her doll!

Fara looked very sombre. "I just like it, but you treat it properly. I don't think I could make it make sounds like you do."

"You could just practice."

Fara made a face and leaned her head in to rest her temple against Jael's. "You keep it or I'm going to change my mind!"

The whistle disappeared into Jael's sash before another word could be said. "You give the best presents."

"That's because I'm the best cousin."

Jael wished she could give Fara a hug bigger than even the one she'd got for the hat.

'One more day,' she vowed.