Saturday's Storyteller: "She looked at the fog her breath made on the window as the trees rushed past."
by Belinda Roddie
She looked at the fog her breath made on the window as the trees rushed past. The inside of the car was uncomfortably, and unnaturally, cold. Even the palms of her hands resonated no heat, the tips of her fingers refusing to thaw no matter how much she rubbed them together.
Mistress Kor had told her that there would be two others with her, in the reasonably sized estate on the outskirts of Zeneda. What she hadn't told Arvey, however - that is, until the very last minute, having noticed the admittedly meager supply of clothes the girl had packed into an admittedly, and stubbornly, small suitcase - was that the stay was more than just a day or so. And as it were, they would not always be meandering the corridors of the honorable mansion, but instead traveling to the alpine tundra beyond, into a world of frost that Arvey was not accustomed to dealing with. Particularly due to her smaller, more emaciated frame.
Examining the way the condensation gathered on her cuticles, the student was acutely aware of the flagrantly fast progression of the trip. The driver of the horseless carriage was a young one, and a reckless one. He was one of the more single goal-minded types - Arvey could tell, from the way he kept his shoulders hunched against the long-handled steering wheel and his chin jutting forward, preceding the precarious glint of his eyes. The road seemed to splinter, like rotten wood, against the merciless tread of the automobile's tires, and Arvey could feel her inners swish around within her caved in abdomen - like entrails in a frigid bowl of soup.
"My mamee won't be happy about this, you know that, right?" She had remembered saying that to Mistress Kor, who did not show even a flicker of sympathy on her face as she drew her waistcoast against her bosom.
"Your mamee is a bore. You, of all people, should know that."
Arvey found it hard to believe that a belligerently conservative, cigar-steaming, gin-drowning Sivalian woman could be a bore. Then again, she was nothing like Mistress Kor.
The jaunty jalopy dipped into a groove in the road, and from the looks of the mist gathering in clumps around the nearby fence, Arvey got the impression that they had arrived. The driver took no fragile care in handling her two large bags, relentlessly slinging her long and heavy coat at her head and practically daring her to pull it on. He never did seem to blink, his very green eyes bubbling like neon beneath his braided cap. Wordlessly, he instructed her to follow the stone stairs with a crooked, gloved finger, and Arvey did not bother to tip him. He hadn't asked for money, anyway. Most likely on commission from the school.
Up and up Arvey trod the slimy stairs, the moss gathering in hazardous snags along the fragmented marble. The driver rattled and shook her knapsacks behind her. She had been ordered, last minute, to pack the strangest necessities - a sword had been one of them, a pistol another. A still frozen bottle of bourbon (for medicinal needs, Arvey wanted to believe). A compass and rolled up map. Like the ones they used in class, but broader and more detailed.
The estate was large, all right, but also squat and stocky. It did not have a second floor, but instead spread outward like an enormous, swollen bruise of brick and stained glass. It was not a pretty building. Nor was it particularly hideous. It simply was a solid, throbbing mass of architecture, there for function and prestige - not for more graceful aesthetics.
Arvey hobbled through the already open gate, her boots and coat doing little to nothing to keep her from shivering. She was grateful to the driver for letting her get away with holding one bag - her little purse, with coins given to her by her mamee. More and more now, as she approached the door, she pondered whether or not she would use them, or even need them. The eccentricity of the set-up was growing all the more apparent with each soggy step in the fog.
The chaffeur cleared his throat and sidled past Arvey once they made it to the entrance. Gripping the dragon-headed knocker, he slammed it four times. All the girl could see at first, as the door swung open seemingly without assistance, was the glow of blue fire from the nearest lion-flanked mantel.
***
"Well, what's this?" a candid voice bugled from the corner of the furniture-cramped study. "The orphanage's poster child?"
Arvey had pushed herself into the room upon reading the note on her pillow. What she did not expect, however, was the obvious assertiveness billowing from the youthful redhead propped against the corner, swirling a glass of something or other in his fist. Brandy, perhaps. In the easy chair beside him, toying with a simplistic switchblade, was the easily recognizable Quinoni, Arvey's classmate who was three times as big as she was - all the sports pride and heavy work-outs apart from the schoolwork going straight to her un-feminine brawn. Qui, as she called her, cast her friend an apologetic glance, and Mistress Kor, short hair glossed with amber so that streaks of color pulsed from her follicles beneath the chandelier light, kept a brow furrowed but a seductive smile coiled against her upper lip.
"That, my boy," she murmured, that husky voice ever so tempting to the ear, "is my most prized exploration student. Arvey O'Nithian."
"That's O'Nithian?" repeated the ever tactless boy. A good start to a meeting. Mamee would be ever so impressed. "You said she was a primed navigator!"
"She is. One of my best."
"A minor snow flurry could topple her, Miss Kor," he argued. "An adventurer needs to be beefed up. Hard-headed. Certainly more adipose than bone."
"You would do well, boy," Mistress Kor reminded him, "not to ignore Miss O'Nithian's knowledge and acute sense of direction due to an unsteady metabolism."
She certainly was not off. Arvey did eat plenty, certainly - the school allowed copious meals, three to four times a day, if the student needed. But sometimes she wondered if her ever-continuing quest for mental agility and capacity simply burned off the calories she meant to keep on; and after all, Mamee had always wanted a skinny daughter. Plus, little did this uncouth lad know, she was handy with a blade and a rope.
Much to her distaste, the boy had shuffled away from his resting position and was now moving closer toward her, his hand gently outstretched as if to shake hers. Arvey looked at the roughened, scarred fingers with more than just a shred of skepticism.
"My apologies, Miss O'Nithian," he muttered, "for seeming accusatory. I simply want what's best for the team."
"I think Mistress Kor would know what's best, Barkman," Quinoni growled from her seat, lowering the pocket knife that she had been compulsively twiddling with.
"Right, 'course." 'Barkman' winked. "But don't listen to the pet name. My name is Barkelee Thoreausberg. First rank aggressor. Your bodyguard, as it were."
"And you can call me Arvey," Arvey sighed. "Not Miss O'Nithian. Your living map, as it were."
"The snark will have to be put aside for at least tonight," groaned Mistress Kor as she reached into her waistcoat and checked her pocket watch. A routine she kept in and out of the classroom. "Miss O'Nithian and Miss Wuntyn are my top students in different fields - one in global exploration studies, another in travel and adventure sciences, which asks for a strict exercise and martial arts regimen. But everything they learn goes back to expedition and cartography. They have reached the last quarter of their studies, and this little get-together qualifies as their fieldwork. The rest of Zeneda have never had graduates like them."
"Well, Sivalia never got used to me." Barkelee smirked before sipping from his glass. "Ah. Good stuff. You look like a Sivalian gal, actually, Arv. You from there?"
"My mamee is Sivalian. My papee was Zenedan," Arvey was desperate to clarify. "And again, I go by Arvey, not..."
"I'm expecting each and every one of you to sit," Mistress Kor clucked, "and not partake in small talk. Chairs. Drinks. You brought the bottle, Arvey?"
Arvey had. She had been nothing but the liquor carrier for her teacher. Perhaps to get away from the headmaster's discerning eye. Mistress Kor was certainly a unconventional professor, but she was one of the best. The chemists, arguably the most popular of the scholarly breed, were jealous of her geographical and nomadic prowess, as well as the way she seemed to get along with, even woo, everyone in the school, male or female. She had been an explorer in her youth as well - a woman with a limp who could still master the art of discovery, and who always had the spirit to expand upon the unscoured continents. School could not tame the beast. And Arvey was grateful for it. Kor was certainly a delightful mentor, in more ways than one.
As she passed the bourbon to the ever pleased mistress, Arvey could not help blushing as their fingers touched. She could see Quinoni noticeably raise an eyebrow from her plush seat; she knew her colleague's feelings, all right, no matter how she had attempted to hide them. Barkelee seemed to pay no notice, instead collapsing onto the nearest divan and sneering when Arvey did her very best to sit on the opposite side of the cushions, as far away from him as possible.
"Now," Mistress Kor enunciated, the whiskey trickling in large, singular globs that further articulated her words. "Tonight will simply be a matter of itinerary. For the first week we stay in the estate, we cater to its master. You will all address him as Sir Ifolde. I will address him as Pops, and he will deal with it. He will be meeting with us every six o'clock in the evening to discuss the grid we'll be traveling on intricately. This is, after all, an operation he's given me for his own personal hubris and desires. I trust you will not question him on whatever those desires are."
"Understood, ma'am," Quinoni grunted as she reached into her shirt pocket for a cigarette. Arvey only nodded.
"Every morning this week, I expect you awake and out of your rooms by seven," continued Mistress Kor, satisfied at last with the amount of liquor in her stein. "You will have breakfast within a half hour and then move to the grounds for group sessions. We will be practicing the typical survivalist strategies for our traveling. What to pack, what to leave behind. We will be able to pack heavy only for the first month or so of traveling. Once we get to harsher terrain, our supply will be depleted, and purposely."
"And the individual meetings?" Barkelee asked determinedly. "Will you be meeting with us that way?"
"Don't get ahead of me, Mister Thoreausberg," snapped Kor. "But yes, you will each have an allotted time to meet with me. The rest of the day you will use wisely. Focus on your fortes. Do not assist with the servants - they can manage on their own. Fraternize with one another, but do not over-socialize. We are not here to have a slumber party. And for God's sake, Miss Wuntyn, you will not smoke that in the study!"
"Very well, ma'am," Quinoni replied curtly and begrudgingly, returning the unlit stogie to her pocket.
Kor sighed and drank half of her bourbon in one swill. "I will provide your more detailed itineraries in writing. You will find them within your rooms by the time you wake up. Go unpack, become accustomed to your living spaces, and rest. Miss Wuntyn and Mister Thoreausberg, you are excused. Miss O'Nithian, you stay here for the time being."
Arvey could feel her heart drum against her slightly bulging ribs as Quinoni and Barkelee scuttled from the room, both of them giving their comrade looks that would become token in the girl's eyes. She always became nervous around Mistress Kor when they were alone, the thoughts she repressed threatening to curdle and become unpalatable and easy to spit out. Quinoni knew that Kor preferred Arvey over her; after all, they had come from similar backgrounds. There was a sense of pity, even when Mistress Kor had appeared to have grabbed the proper end of the stick in terms of a better deal in life physically and mentally.
Not moving from her spot, Arvey was unsurprised to see her teacher guzzle down the rest of her bourbon, sighing as if with relief as she stooped over her student. The silver rings around both pupils, centered in oaken irises, were almost impossible not to focus on.
"Are you comfortable, Arvey?" she asked, addressing her by first name, as teachers were encouraged to do in one-on-one sessions.
Arvey stiffened. "Yes."
"And you promise to keep eating?"
"Yes."
Mistress Kor's face visibly softened. "This expedition might change your physiology somewhat," she mused, "which would be a good thing, honestly. I'd hate to see you so delicate."
"I can't really help it."
"If you need anything," Kor whispered, her breath very hot and sour up against Arvey's nose, "you always let me know."
"Understood."
Arvey watched Mistress Kor depart from the study, the tails of her coat bristling against her breech-puffed thighs as her foot with the permanently contorted ankle clunked alongside her other. She found the nearest cushion to bury her face into. It smelled distinctly of dusty brandy.
This week's prompt was provided by Arden Kilzer.
She looked at the fog her breath made on the window as the trees rushed past. The inside of the car was uncomfortably, and unnaturally, cold. Even the palms of her hands resonated no heat, the tips of her fingers refusing to thaw no matter how much she rubbed them together.
Mistress Kor had told her that there would be two others with her, in the reasonably sized estate on the outskirts of Zeneda. What she hadn't told Arvey, however - that is, until the very last minute, having noticed the admittedly meager supply of clothes the girl had packed into an admittedly, and stubbornly, small suitcase - was that the stay was more than just a day or so. And as it were, they would not always be meandering the corridors of the honorable mansion, but instead traveling to the alpine tundra beyond, into a world of frost that Arvey was not accustomed to dealing with. Particularly due to her smaller, more emaciated frame.
Examining the way the condensation gathered on her cuticles, the student was acutely aware of the flagrantly fast progression of the trip. The driver of the horseless carriage was a young one, and a reckless one. He was one of the more single goal-minded types - Arvey could tell, from the way he kept his shoulders hunched against the long-handled steering wheel and his chin jutting forward, preceding the precarious glint of his eyes. The road seemed to splinter, like rotten wood, against the merciless tread of the automobile's tires, and Arvey could feel her inners swish around within her caved in abdomen - like entrails in a frigid bowl of soup.
"My mamee won't be happy about this, you know that, right?" She had remembered saying that to Mistress Kor, who did not show even a flicker of sympathy on her face as she drew her waistcoast against her bosom.
"Your mamee is a bore. You, of all people, should know that."
Arvey found it hard to believe that a belligerently conservative, cigar-steaming, gin-drowning Sivalian woman could be a bore. Then again, she was nothing like Mistress Kor.
The jaunty jalopy dipped into a groove in the road, and from the looks of the mist gathering in clumps around the nearby fence, Arvey got the impression that they had arrived. The driver took no fragile care in handling her two large bags, relentlessly slinging her long and heavy coat at her head and practically daring her to pull it on. He never did seem to blink, his very green eyes bubbling like neon beneath his braided cap. Wordlessly, he instructed her to follow the stone stairs with a crooked, gloved finger, and Arvey did not bother to tip him. He hadn't asked for money, anyway. Most likely on commission from the school.
Up and up Arvey trod the slimy stairs, the moss gathering in hazardous snags along the fragmented marble. The driver rattled and shook her knapsacks behind her. She had been ordered, last minute, to pack the strangest necessities - a sword had been one of them, a pistol another. A still frozen bottle of bourbon (for medicinal needs, Arvey wanted to believe). A compass and rolled up map. Like the ones they used in class, but broader and more detailed.
The estate was large, all right, but also squat and stocky. It did not have a second floor, but instead spread outward like an enormous, swollen bruise of brick and stained glass. It was not a pretty building. Nor was it particularly hideous. It simply was a solid, throbbing mass of architecture, there for function and prestige - not for more graceful aesthetics.
Arvey hobbled through the already open gate, her boots and coat doing little to nothing to keep her from shivering. She was grateful to the driver for letting her get away with holding one bag - her little purse, with coins given to her by her mamee. More and more now, as she approached the door, she pondered whether or not she would use them, or even need them. The eccentricity of the set-up was growing all the more apparent with each soggy step in the fog.
The chaffeur cleared his throat and sidled past Arvey once they made it to the entrance. Gripping the dragon-headed knocker, he slammed it four times. All the girl could see at first, as the door swung open seemingly without assistance, was the glow of blue fire from the nearest lion-flanked mantel.
***
"Well, what's this?" a candid voice bugled from the corner of the furniture-cramped study. "The orphanage's poster child?"
Arvey had pushed herself into the room upon reading the note on her pillow. What she did not expect, however, was the obvious assertiveness billowing from the youthful redhead propped against the corner, swirling a glass of something or other in his fist. Brandy, perhaps. In the easy chair beside him, toying with a simplistic switchblade, was the easily recognizable Quinoni, Arvey's classmate who was three times as big as she was - all the sports pride and heavy work-outs apart from the schoolwork going straight to her un-feminine brawn. Qui, as she called her, cast her friend an apologetic glance, and Mistress Kor, short hair glossed with amber so that streaks of color pulsed from her follicles beneath the chandelier light, kept a brow furrowed but a seductive smile coiled against her upper lip.
"That, my boy," she murmured, that husky voice ever so tempting to the ear, "is my most prized exploration student. Arvey O'Nithian."
"That's O'Nithian?" repeated the ever tactless boy. A good start to a meeting. Mamee would be ever so impressed. "You said she was a primed navigator!"
"She is. One of my best."
"A minor snow flurry could topple her, Miss Kor," he argued. "An adventurer needs to be beefed up. Hard-headed. Certainly more adipose than bone."
"You would do well, boy," Mistress Kor reminded him, "not to ignore Miss O'Nithian's knowledge and acute sense of direction due to an unsteady metabolism."
She certainly was not off. Arvey did eat plenty, certainly - the school allowed copious meals, three to four times a day, if the student needed. But sometimes she wondered if her ever-continuing quest for mental agility and capacity simply burned off the calories she meant to keep on; and after all, Mamee had always wanted a skinny daughter. Plus, little did this uncouth lad know, she was handy with a blade and a rope.
Much to her distaste, the boy had shuffled away from his resting position and was now moving closer toward her, his hand gently outstretched as if to shake hers. Arvey looked at the roughened, scarred fingers with more than just a shred of skepticism.
"My apologies, Miss O'Nithian," he muttered, "for seeming accusatory. I simply want what's best for the team."
"I think Mistress Kor would know what's best, Barkman," Quinoni growled from her seat, lowering the pocket knife that she had been compulsively twiddling with.
"Right, 'course." 'Barkman' winked. "But don't listen to the pet name. My name is Barkelee Thoreausberg. First rank aggressor. Your bodyguard, as it were."
"And you can call me Arvey," Arvey sighed. "Not Miss O'Nithian. Your living map, as it were."
"The snark will have to be put aside for at least tonight," groaned Mistress Kor as she reached into her waistcoat and checked her pocket watch. A routine she kept in and out of the classroom. "Miss O'Nithian and Miss Wuntyn are my top students in different fields - one in global exploration studies, another in travel and adventure sciences, which asks for a strict exercise and martial arts regimen. But everything they learn goes back to expedition and cartography. They have reached the last quarter of their studies, and this little get-together qualifies as their fieldwork. The rest of Zeneda have never had graduates like them."
"Well, Sivalia never got used to me." Barkelee smirked before sipping from his glass. "Ah. Good stuff. You look like a Sivalian gal, actually, Arv. You from there?"
"My mamee is Sivalian. My papee was Zenedan," Arvey was desperate to clarify. "And again, I go by Arvey, not..."
"I'm expecting each and every one of you to sit," Mistress Kor clucked, "and not partake in small talk. Chairs. Drinks. You brought the bottle, Arvey?"
Arvey had. She had been nothing but the liquor carrier for her teacher. Perhaps to get away from the headmaster's discerning eye. Mistress Kor was certainly a unconventional professor, but she was one of the best. The chemists, arguably the most popular of the scholarly breed, were jealous of her geographical and nomadic prowess, as well as the way she seemed to get along with, even woo, everyone in the school, male or female. She had been an explorer in her youth as well - a woman with a limp who could still master the art of discovery, and who always had the spirit to expand upon the unscoured continents. School could not tame the beast. And Arvey was grateful for it. Kor was certainly a delightful mentor, in more ways than one.
As she passed the bourbon to the ever pleased mistress, Arvey could not help blushing as their fingers touched. She could see Quinoni noticeably raise an eyebrow from her plush seat; she knew her colleague's feelings, all right, no matter how she had attempted to hide them. Barkelee seemed to pay no notice, instead collapsing onto the nearest divan and sneering when Arvey did her very best to sit on the opposite side of the cushions, as far away from him as possible.
"Now," Mistress Kor enunciated, the whiskey trickling in large, singular globs that further articulated her words. "Tonight will simply be a matter of itinerary. For the first week we stay in the estate, we cater to its master. You will all address him as Sir Ifolde. I will address him as Pops, and he will deal with it. He will be meeting with us every six o'clock in the evening to discuss the grid we'll be traveling on intricately. This is, after all, an operation he's given me for his own personal hubris and desires. I trust you will not question him on whatever those desires are."
"Understood, ma'am," Quinoni grunted as she reached into her shirt pocket for a cigarette. Arvey only nodded.
"Every morning this week, I expect you awake and out of your rooms by seven," continued Mistress Kor, satisfied at last with the amount of liquor in her stein. "You will have breakfast within a half hour and then move to the grounds for group sessions. We will be practicing the typical survivalist strategies for our traveling. What to pack, what to leave behind. We will be able to pack heavy only for the first month or so of traveling. Once we get to harsher terrain, our supply will be depleted, and purposely."
"And the individual meetings?" Barkelee asked determinedly. "Will you be meeting with us that way?"
"Don't get ahead of me, Mister Thoreausberg," snapped Kor. "But yes, you will each have an allotted time to meet with me. The rest of the day you will use wisely. Focus on your fortes. Do not assist with the servants - they can manage on their own. Fraternize with one another, but do not over-socialize. We are not here to have a slumber party. And for God's sake, Miss Wuntyn, you will not smoke that in the study!"
"Very well, ma'am," Quinoni replied curtly and begrudgingly, returning the unlit stogie to her pocket.
Kor sighed and drank half of her bourbon in one swill. "I will provide your more detailed itineraries in writing. You will find them within your rooms by the time you wake up. Go unpack, become accustomed to your living spaces, and rest. Miss Wuntyn and Mister Thoreausberg, you are excused. Miss O'Nithian, you stay here for the time being."
Arvey could feel her heart drum against her slightly bulging ribs as Quinoni and Barkelee scuttled from the room, both of them giving their comrade looks that would become token in the girl's eyes. She always became nervous around Mistress Kor when they were alone, the thoughts she repressed threatening to curdle and become unpalatable and easy to spit out. Quinoni knew that Kor preferred Arvey over her; after all, they had come from similar backgrounds. There was a sense of pity, even when Mistress Kor had appeared to have grabbed the proper end of the stick in terms of a better deal in life physically and mentally.
Not moving from her spot, Arvey was unsurprised to see her teacher guzzle down the rest of her bourbon, sighing as if with relief as she stooped over her student. The silver rings around both pupils, centered in oaken irises, were almost impossible not to focus on.
"Are you comfortable, Arvey?" she asked, addressing her by first name, as teachers were encouraged to do in one-on-one sessions.
Arvey stiffened. "Yes."
"And you promise to keep eating?"
"Yes."
Mistress Kor's face visibly softened. "This expedition might change your physiology somewhat," she mused, "which would be a good thing, honestly. I'd hate to see you so delicate."
"I can't really help it."
"If you need anything," Kor whispered, her breath very hot and sour up against Arvey's nose, "you always let me know."
"Understood."
Arvey watched Mistress Kor depart from the study, the tails of her coat bristling against her breech-puffed thighs as her foot with the permanently contorted ankle clunked alongside her other. She found the nearest cushion to bury her face into. It smelled distinctly of dusty brandy.
This week's prompt was provided by Arden Kilzer.
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