The Endless Solvent

“Lord Earin has agreed to lend us a bit of space for the Solaris’ guards,” Vartu reported. Lord Leton took a drag from his cigarette and blew it out the open window. Nilda noticed he had been smoking more since he started his campaign to be Senator. “With that extra space, the boys will all have roofs over their heads.”

Lord Leton nodded, back still turned to them. Taurin was in her usual spot on the chaise when they had a ‘meeting’ in her father’s office. She flipped the page of her book, seemingly uninterested in the placement of her soon-to-be-fiancé’s guards. “Earin’s place is a little far, but sufficient for our purposes. Please give him a bottle of our aged Aortic whiskey for his troubles for now,” Lord Leton said. “He’ll probably want something more in the future, of course.”

Nilda exchanged the briefest of glances with Taurin, then straightened her standing position next to the chaise. “Would it be deemed inappropriate to have the Solaris live here so soon after meeting him?” Nilda asked.

“Perhaps,” Lord Leton looked at Nilda, then glanced down at Taurin knowingly. She had instructed Nilda to ask that question on her behalf. Nilda didn’t know why she bothered - Lord Leton always knew when Nilda asked a question on behalf of her mistress. “But the narrative we are spinning is that there was courtship happening and the Solaris’ visit to the Heart is to proclaim his intent in marriage.”

Nilda glanced back down at Taurin who was staring wordlessly down at the pages of her book. This was the fate of most daughters of nobility in Gaia - they married to form an alliance between families. Although Taurin spoke to her like a friend, Nilda never once heard her question any other practices of the noble. It was just the way things were and quite honestly, Nilda thought it suited Taurin just fine most of the time.

“Will Lady Leton… will we end up going to Caelis?” Nilda asked. Taurin looked up from her book, startled at the unplanned question.

Lord Leton turned from the window and smiled at Nilda. “If the Solaris agrees to the engagement, yes,” he paused, taking another drag of his cigarette. “If you do not wish to go, Nilda, I will assign someone else to Taurin and you may stay here.”

Taurin’s eyes widened, mouth opening to protest, but then she flushed and sank back down on the chaise. Good daughters should not question their fathers, especially one about to be a Senator. NIlda felt her mouth twist down in displeasure. “I go where Taurin goes,” she said finally. Taurin looked up and gave her a small smile.

Vartu was oddly quiet throughout the whole exchange. Whenever they had these ‘meetings’, he always had a comment or two, usually at Nilda’s expense. But he just stood there and gave a nod when they left. Perhaps accommodating the Solaris was more stressful than anticipated.

Nilda joined Taurin back in her room afterwards where her mistress would be surrounded by tomes and notes well into dinner time. Recently, the books have almost all been about the Caelis kingdom - their customs, their landmarks, the economy. Nilda had learned how to read most words from her time on the streets and working the fighting pits - Taurin encouraged her to try reading more and taught her letters and grammar in her spare time. But being a handmaid meant she could not borrow her own books from the women’s college, so she usually read the same things Taurin did.

At one point in the evening, Taurin sighed and set down her pencil. “Is it silly that I am unsure about all this?” Taurin asked.

“You’re never silly,” Nilda said without looking up from her book on Caelisian geography.

“Are you calling me boring?” Taurin said in a mock-outraged voice.

“Yes.”

Taurin laughed and Nilda smiled, turning a page of her book. The eastern edge of Caelis was covered in forests, a thick coniferous carpet of it growing denser and wilder as they reached the Yscian territory. Nilda was reading a chapter on the areas of bedrock - it seemed like some parts of the Caelis forests had hardy flora able to grow in rocky conditions. When the book started spouting more technical information, most of the words were lost to Nilda, but she was able to discern some information from the diagrams and drawings. “It’s just that… I know political marriages happen all the time. But he’s a Solaris - he’s a king,” Taurin said. “What I can’t handle being by his side?”

“You will handle it,” Nilda said, turning another page.

“How can you be so sure?”

Nilda paused, then gave Taurin a look. “When you told me about the engagement back at the party, I saw another map,” she said.

She had told Taurin about the Being in Smoke and about seeing maps littered throughout her life. Nilda suspected her mistress believed very little of it. “But there are maps everywhere,” Taurin pointed out. “How do you know if it’s just a random map or if it’s a sign?”

It was hard to explain. Nilda wasn’t sure if she believed it herself, but as anecdotal as it was, the maps have led her here.

As if bothered by her silence, Taurin hastily added: “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I do think your Being in Smoke is someone important, someone powerful.”

“You’ve thought about what that… thing is?” Nilda asked.

“Of course. Honestly my immediate reaction to your story was to think… perhaps the Being in Smoke was a Part.” Taurin flushed as Nilda shot her a startled look. “That’s my stupid imagination speaking, of course. The Parts are godly beings.

“The Parts in lore controlled fate and destiny, so your story about maps leading your fate fueled that idea. But the fact that he used runes to change you doesn’t support the idea. Would a Part require runes to cast a spell? They are gods after all,” Taurin tapped her chin thoughtfully. “So my second hypothesis is that the Being is some sort of powerful Sage, his body in the state that it is due to an enchantment gone awry.”

“Why would a powerful Sage do what he did to me?” Nilda asked, frowning. Regardless of who or what the Being was, why would anyone do what they did to her?

“I don’t know,” Taurin said. “Maybe you were an experiment. Maybe he did it on a whim? Parts know that powerful Solvent benders always do things simply because they can.”

Nilda didn’t like any of that. She didn’t like thinking that her life, her abilities, her pain, were all entirely on a whim. She looked down at her book showing a terrain map of the forests of Caelis, certain areas of it shaded indicating primarily a rocky surface. It was a map and Nilda knew she was right where she should be… or was she?

Years ago, Taurin had told her that people should live with a purpose; yet now, Nilda wondered if people were simply at the uncertain mercy of the Great solvent.

People follow where it flows, after all. Did any of them have a choice in the first place?