Progress on This Blessed Plot

Today I made the first update to my original story (We'll call it a co-authored original story, since it's not really my idea) in several months and made Simon (the co-author) very happy. You can make me happy by reading and reviewing it here, at fictionpress:

This Blessed Plot -- A MechKnight Story

To try and refocus my mind after so many months of non-work on this project, a few nights ago I started writing a little woodle to regain a sense of my characters. I wrote this into the future of The Lady's Guardian and This Blessed Plot, so it'll probably only make sense to me and Simon, but I'm curious what the rest of you will think of it. It's called Tea and Solace.

Jane loved Japan. There was always something serene about the place she had spent so much of her adolescence, the place that had been home when home had not wanted her. Years of riotous tumult and lost wars had taught the Japanese two things – how to cultivate patience and peace. Every imperial islander seemed to have both in spades.

It was an island outside the world. Across the sea, the People’s Socialist Republics of Asia created sprawling factories out of entire villages, employing faceless masses of people making everything from children’s toys to parts for cheap, readymade ‘mechs. The pieces were like their producers, stamped out of the same unchanging molds by the billions. In Japan they still valued the hands of the artificer and the artisan, taking years to craft the perfect blade. Jane had two such blades over her mantle at home, unused, gifts at her first leavetaking from Japan many years ago. They had never come out of their sheaths, reminders of a simpler time she wished she could have seen. She was not a knight as those knights were – she had different weapons and a different, equally deadly precision. But they valued the old ways in Japan, and she had learned to use blades like that. She had honed her body into a weapon, her teachers making her learn the limits of her fleshy shell before they would let her near a mech.

And all that training was nearly wasted when Father made me come home to fight in the Balkans, Jane mused. Because Harry and Vincent had the bad sense to die and leave me to pick up their part in the Balkans. And I didn’t understand it all, young as I was.

There were many wars she didn’t understand, even some of the ones she fought in now. This business with Vlad and Monica, the bad blood between the Pallavincini and the Hunyadi: that she understood, even if she didn’t want to. That was why she was leaving Japan so soon, even though she had only been there a matter of weeks. She had come back to her old teachers and her old school after Vlad and Byrghir had rescued her from Count Rudolf. She had needed time to rest, trying to run away from the world and her injuries. But now it was time to settle debts. She owed Vlad this.

In her luggage, stowed somewhere beneath the decks of the hulking transport ship, there was a plain wooden box, tucked lovingly inside one of her chests. Nesting inside that box like precious eggs were two identical celadon cups, glazed the traditional, translucent ephemeral blue. Jane had called them skyware when she had first seen them as a child, though she knew they had a different name. There were also seven canisters of finely powdered tea leaves, a whisk, ladle, kettle and siphon, as well as several bundles of charcoal.

It was more than just a tea set – it was tradition, it was grace beyond time. It was peace.

She was bringing it with her to share with Monica, during the long, cold days of Romanian winter when Vlad was away. The tea ceremony needed no words – and Jane knew (because she was in that place as well) that where Monica was, there were no words. Jane had been caught before falling down the well; Vlad’s message had indicated to her that Monica had drowned and would never swim again.

Jane’s body twinged at the thought of that kind of violation, so far removed from what she herself had suffered. It went beyond the physical into the emotional, the psychological – yes, even the religious. And it was partially her fault.

Who but God alone knows what our ends may be? Something inside her asked. He placed mountains in front of us to test our faith, and enemies behind us to test our courage. To turn aside is to turn away from him.

She could offer no words of consolation to her friend’s wife, but she could bring her own peace, and company. It was all God had given her, and it was all she could give. And they would share tea, and solace, and hopefully, the hurts would heal.