FastPact #1: Coming of Age Day
So for our BDay Week, Abby Carr-Boyd and I decided to give ourselves a challenge -- every two weeks, I need to speedily write a story in 30 mins, send it to her and then she has to speedily illustrate it. Hijinks ensue.
Here's our first crack at it. Follow us at @FlashPact17 on Instagram! :D
Niamh was coming of age today. After 13 solstices, she takes the test to know if this is the spring wherein she joins the other women of her tribe, if she can start wearing her hair unbound, when she too will get a rune inked onto her face to show she is really part of the people of the dusk -- the chosen, secret, and special people who had named their land when there had only before been water and mist.
No one, of course, tells her what the test will entail. Last solstice, Saoirse, her older sister, disappeared for a fortnight with the women to take her test, only to return with her eyes watery and red and her dark hair unbound with nary a word as to what Naimh had to look forward to.
Niamh is nervous, but she is also nervy. Didn't her father tell her she had more guts than Nan's mystery meat pie? She lifts her chin and strides towards the circle of women waiting for her on that chilly/warm dawn, a dawn that was only a rumor of springtime.
As they reach a clearing in a center of a faerie circle, all the women face her. These women, her mother, her nan, her aunts, cousins -- the carriers of the line of their people -- for really, you never really know who's a child's father, only it's mother -- are solemn and their faces are still as if cut from the stones of their ancient runes.
They quiz her, they ask her of the history of their people, of how to properly harvest mugwort, of how to wilden a shrew, of how to create rain from a summers' day. All these things, she knows, she has gleaned from sitting on her Nan's knee, from reading the family scrolls, and from spying on her elders -- she is more than ready. Bouyed by her flawless performance, Niamh doesn't even notice her sister meekly stumble into the faerie circle. Saoirse is flustered and seems unsure as to what her purpose in the circle is. Nan hobbles forward. Saoirse is disgraced, she says. She is not worthy to be a woman of our people. Your last task, Naimh, is to banish her, send her away. For it is only a newly womaned, a newly unbound who can send another away. Niamh is nervous, but she is also nervy. With nary a blink she says no, Nan. I respect you but I am not a woman of the mist if it means my sister will be sent away. Saoirse is timid, but she has the urge to protect Niamh only an older sister can have. Stop this foolishness, Niamh, I will leave now and my hair will be bound forever. I will find a life with another people and you stay here and carry the family blood. Not quite as smoothly as Niamh, she lifts her chin in resolve. Not as smoothly, but just as bravely. Nan hobbles closer and smiles. Good, well come along now, both of you, there will be a feast. We welcome two new women of the mist today.