Book 2, ch. 7— Trading Games (first draft)
Nala & Rowan may not speak the same language, but...
Chapter 7
TRADING GAMES
Later that night, when Rowan finally got the chance to sleep, she couldn’t.
Perhaps it was the bed, which was stiff and flat and barely a bed at all. The princess was getting tired of cots and tents. She longed for her room back home, which she hadn’t seen in nearly three years.
There were other reasons she couldn’t sleep though. The sleeping room the strange curtains, which she could tell were enchanted. There was less than no light. The room around her was so dark, Rowan felt like she was suffocating.
She sat up. No use fighting it, she thought, and let herself be awake.
Across the room, Kaye was deep asleep. His snoring was peculiar and quiet. The sound was almost polite, the way Kaye’s dead-asleep voice buzzed between his lips. It was nothing like how her brothers snored. Such a silly sound made it difficult for Rowan to stay mad at him.
Then he itched himself in his sleep, and Rowan found herself wishing the room were darker.
She left the room, creeping so as not to wake up Kaye. Not that she thought she could, but… just in case. She nearly knocked over a huge basket of dirtied clothes, and the smell that came up out of the basket made Rowan’s eyes water. Even Kaye stirred in his sleep.
Rowan poked her head out, and went into the next room. There were actually quite a lot of rooms in this little cottage. It was nothing like what she’d imagined orcs lived in. She was terrified to admit it even to herself, in her own private thoughts, but Rowan had imagined all orcs lived like beasts. She’d met goblins of course, and even saw a magma elf once, but never an orc. It was illegal to be an orc in the Kingdom of the Lich.
The room Rowan stepped into was the closet, where all the many people (Are orcs people? Rowan wondered) kept all their clean clothes. There were a lot of clothes: cloaks and winter capes, gloves and boots, tunics and wool pants and lots of leather aprons. In the corner of the room, leather bags and linen sacks piled up against a couple walking sticks.
Next was the biggest room in the cottage: the kitchen. The kitchen’s windows were open, letting in the starry night. Clouds swirled slowly around the crescent moon. Even so, the firehearth was cold, quiet, dark, and Rowan’s eyes took a long time to adjust enough to see anything.
Lean light made the edges of all things glow. There was no sink, but Rowan heard a stream just outside the window. A table was piled with plates and bowls. The bowls were wide and low, and each one had a lip for sipping. Clay cups held cedar spoons, and a myriad of eating spikes were laid out in a big pile.
Everything in the kitchen was nice, well taken care of. But it made Rowan uncomfortable. Rowan, who had grown up in the High Wing of her Father’s Castle, was accustomed to fine sets of things, to servants all dressed the same and dinner being done right on time.
Here, no two things were the same. It was all tacky and cluttered to her eye, nothing ever matching. Even the colors of the cups clashed: an unglazed clay one, right next to one that was glazed but unpainted and chipped… A copper goblet, and a nearly-steel flask…
A trio of clay cups caught Rowan’s eye. They were nested, each just big enough to nest the next, and outside they were white. But the inside of each one was a different color: dark green, light blue, and blood red. Those actually looked pretty nice, if Rowan was being honest with herself. They weren’t the same, but at least they made a set.
The kitchen was where the door to outside was. It was an old wooden door, with a latch but no handle. The hinges that it swung on were 3 simple spokes, that buried themselves in the brick of the cottage. Though simple in construction, an intricate design was carved into the door. Rowan had never seen anything like it before, and (especially in the dark) she couldn’t really tell what she was looking at.
Rowan kept going. She felt like she was exploring some far off moon, amazed by even little things. Each room was like a new treasure chest of things she hadn’t seen before.
The next room was small. It was a… Well… Rowan wasn’t sure what to call it, actually. There was a little table that was some kind of board, like a gameboard. The board was very familiar to Rowan, and so were the pieces: two colors, short stackable pieces that could be made to stand up. Rowan wondered where their capstones were though.
Could be they carry them around, Rowan thought. She knew that people did that, especially nobles who had custom caps made. You don’t go leaving around a solid silver wolven capstone.
Not that anyone in this dinky little village would be able to afford that much silver, but still…
Rowan sat down at the board. Other hobbies lay halfway in the shadows, at the room’s edges, but Rowan didn’t really notice any of those things. She didn’t see the big jug of oil for pit wrestling, or the kites made of hide painted like devils and gods. A big weaving apparatus peeked through the next door, as the girl took one of the three seats at the game table.
She played a game against herself. It was just her, with Kaye asleep, and not an orc in eye-or-earshot. There was no one else to play with.
Luckily, Rowan was an excellent opponent for herself.
She usually played alone, because there was no one good enough to beat her, and no one patient enough to lose to her. She’d learned the game of Bridges on her 3rd birthday, and hadn’t lost a match since she was 6 years old. Rowan was 19 now.
She played three matches against herself, and all three times she lost. The more she played, the more she liked the pieces, each of which seemed to have been made for her hand. Like everything else in the cottage, no two pieces were the same.
“You found the Lockboard!”
Rowan jumped, turning to look at the voice. Nala stood there, just outside the window. She leaned on the window sill, and her long black braids draped over her ears, curtained back by the stone windowsill.
Rowan looked startled and panicked.
Nala put up on hand. “No no, it’s okay! I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The girl looked less human in the light, with her eyes all big and dilated. She reminded Nala of a frightened rabbit just then.
“Want someone to play with?” Nala said.
The girl’s fear softened into confusion.
“Ah,” said Nala. “That’s right. The whole language thing. Right.”
Nala disappeared from the window, and went to the door. As she came in, Rowan saw that she had a huge basket strapped to her back with ropes. Nala went to the kitchen, and put down the basket, which made a loud thunk as she dropped it onto the packed dirt floor.
“There,” Nala said. As she came to the game room, Nala was smiling at the guest. “I’ll take care of that later. You found the Lockboard!” she said again.
Nala took a seat across from Rowan, and studied the board.
“Oh,” said Nala. “I… don’t think I know this game.”
Rowan began to say something in her own language. The human girl’s fingers were long and elegant, and she reset the board with extreme speed and precision.
“Wow,” said Nala. “Didn’t know apes could move that fast!”
When the board was reset, Rowan made the first move and waited patiently.
Nala had no idea what she was doing. So, she played it safe and mirrored Rowan’s move exactly.
Rowan moved. Nala mirrored. Rowan moved, and Nala mirrored the move a third time.
Rowan slowed. She noticed what was happening, but her expression gave nothing away. Only the slowed tempo of the human girl’s motions exposed the gears turning in her head.
Rowan made a move, expecting to be mirrored. Nala obliged. Then Rowan played a piece that could not be copied.
Nala tongued her tusk. They’d stopped being sore years ago (she was 19 now) but the habit remained, and would the rest of her life. She made a move.
Rowan shook her head, and put Nala’s piece back. “No,” she said in her own language, and something about the tone of it taught Nala what the word was. Then Rowan showed Nala a rule. It took her awhile, because she had no words, and she had to start over at one point.
But Nala got it. And when it clicked, they both smiled, having achieved communication without a common language.
Nala grinned wide and made a different move. She shot her smile at Rowan, who was beaming back at her.
Then Rowan made a savage move. Nala responded. Another savage move, another meek response. She could see the end coming now. Rowan’s victory was exact, and devastating, nothing almost about it.
“Wow,” Nala said again. “You’re pretty good at this.”
Rowan’s hands began to move over the board, resetting it. They played two more games, and now that Nala knew the rules (mostly), Rowan took no mercy on her.
Nala didn’t love losing, but she didn’t mind it either. There was something impressive in how Rowan played, and how she’d won a different way each time.
“My turn?” Nala asked, before Rowan could set up a fourth game.
Rowan didn’t know the words, but she stopped midair and put the piece down. She sat politely, regal in the wan moon’s light.
Nala smiled, and set the board up for Locke. Truth be told, Nala wasn’t very good at games, but she loved to play them. Paka was really good at games, so Nala rarely got the chance to win, but when she did, when she proved clever enough to execute some tenuous strategy, or sprung an on-purpose trap… that was a feeling Nala savored.
Rowan watched Nala set the board. The darkness should have made the green of her skin hard to see. But it didn’t. The black cloak that she wore seemed like pale charcoal in comparison to the orcish girl’s hair. Her hair seemed to drink in darkness, and glow with unlight. And her green lips smiled around jutting tusks.
It was her eyes, though. Rowan couldn’t take her eyes off Nala’s eyes. They were yellow, with slits down the middle. The yellow irises were shining, the same color as the sliver of a moon that peeked in through the cottage window.
“Here,” said Nala. “Uh… Okay, I— Sorry, I’ve never taught someone a game before!”
Nala was a clumsy teacher, but Rowan was a keen student. Eventually, rather than trying to explain rules, they just played a game, and Nala corrected the moves. It was a better way for Rowan to learn the rules, especially in an elegant game like Locke.
Once Rowan knew the rules, she started winning. By Nala’s third loss, she threw her hands up and laughed out loud.
“Wow!” Nala said. “Paka’s gonna love you! Maybe he’ll have finally met his match at something.”
They grinned across the table from each other, now friends.
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Next chapter— (out June 24, for paid subscribers…)
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AUTHOR’S NOTE— Thanks for reading!
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Until next time…
