Cheaky in-work post!
Meeting shortly, followed by dervishes, so just a quicky ;)
Asadina. So she told the truth about something. It didn’t sound like a very militant name, but then, as Widow Safina had shown quite clearly, Warda was not interested enough in the wars. But nothing more had happened since that meeting, and here she was, a full minor cycle later and not a sight nor sound of the Little Oracle or her particular kind of trouble. Nothing, that was, except a feeling she was being followed. All through the week, now and again, she’d had a feeling of being watched.
Her chores done for the day, she was lying on her bed with the dark purple throe with gold trim which she actually likes and the green near-velvet cushions for pillows that she didn’t so much but they were currently the ones in here least likely to mark her face or scratch it in the night. On her way home from the vegetable seller down on the corner she’d had the feeling again. The feeling that at least one pair of eyes, possibly more, were settled on her back like flies.
Staring up at her rose canopy (with gold stitching and glass bead rosettes, which had once adorned the low table) it seemed like a very silly idea. The thought of one person following her around was daft, but more than one? She was beginning to think herself very high and mighty, wasn’t she? Witness of the first true prophecy in a hundred cycles. And she didn’t even know what the prophecy was! Just to prove she was being silly, she got up and looked out of the window.
As she did so, a man who looked much like any man who may have been on his way home from temple ducked back behind a home block, into the shadows of its stair-alley. Which was not something a normal man would do. So she was being watched. Wonderful. So as to not make him suspicious, Warda leaned on her sill and looked up and down the street. The sleek black cat that had just arrived was messing around in the rubbish pile which had amassed under one of the trees opposite. All the trees seemed to be for was gathering litter, which people and cats and dogs would sift through, taking away useful things that no one else wanted or eating the scraps until there wasn’t much left. Until someone came and dropped something else under there, and so the cycle started again.
Well, whoever he was, he could wait. She wasn’t going anywhere else this afternoon. There were almond biscuits to bake and new books to read. If he wanted her, he’d have to come and sweep her off her feet.
Asadina. So she told the truth about something. It didn’t sound like a very militant name, but then, as Widow Safina had shown quite clearly, Warda was not interested enough in the wars. But nothing more had happened since that meeting, and here she was, a full minor cycle later and not a sight nor sound of the Little Oracle or her particular kind of trouble. Nothing, that was, except a feeling she was being followed. All through the week, now and again, she’d had a feeling of being watched.
Her chores done for the day, she was lying on her bed with the dark purple throe with gold trim which she actually likes and the green near-velvet cushions for pillows that she didn’t so much but they were currently the ones in here least likely to mark her face or scratch it in the night. On her way home from the vegetable seller down on the corner she’d had the feeling again. The feeling that at least one pair of eyes, possibly more, were settled on her back like flies.
Staring up at her rose canopy (with gold stitching and glass bead rosettes, which had once adorned the low table) it seemed like a very silly idea. The thought of one person following her around was daft, but more than one? She was beginning to think herself very high and mighty, wasn’t she? Witness of the first true prophecy in a hundred cycles. And she didn’t even know what the prophecy was! Just to prove she was being silly, she got up and looked out of the window.
As she did so, a man who looked much like any man who may have been on his way home from temple ducked back behind a home block, into the shadows of its stair-alley. Which was not something a normal man would do. So she was being watched. Wonderful. So as to not make him suspicious, Warda leaned on her sill and looked up and down the street. The sleek black cat that had just arrived was messing around in the rubbish pile which had amassed under one of the trees opposite. All the trees seemed to be for was gathering litter, which people and cats and dogs would sift through, taking away useful things that no one else wanted or eating the scraps until there wasn’t much left. Until someone came and dropped something else under there, and so the cycle started again.
Well, whoever he was, he could wait. She wasn’t going anywhere else this afternoon. There were almond biscuits to bake and new books to read. If he wanted her, he’d have to come and sweep her off her feet.