Karma, Part 12 - Horizon

The following day Ruune finished her work in a few hours and they spent the rest of the day exploring the small town of Lautee. There wasn't much to see, to be honest, since they were at the heart of the woods, and the most exciting thing around was the local sawmill, but they did manage to find the general store and stock up on supplies for the rest of their journey to Karinne.

Ruune went ahead and bought Tikka both a suitable backpack and a winter coat while she was at it, since the days were getting colder and Ruune did not want to find out if Tikka's hot-headedness was enough to keep her warm through the freezing cold nights. Tikka was hesitant to accept the gift at first, trying to insist she didn't need anything like this and that Ruune shouldn't bother with her, but after a pointed look, she quickly shut up.

They probably could have found a nicer one for cheaper at Paraaja, but they had both been so eager to leave the place that it hadn't even occured to Ruune that they could take a few hours to go shopping for essentials. She was fully stocked up, after all, and usually she didn't have to worry about other people's essentials.

Given their situation, she would have to get used to that pretty quickly though, before her negligence caused Tikka to get hypothermia. Or worse.

Back in their room that evening, Ruune was repacking their things, dividing them between the two packs -- somewhat unevenly, since Tikka's shoulder was still bandaged -- when her fingers caught on the edge of a small box. She paused, considered, and slowly pulled the box out. It was still as pristine as the day she'd received it.

"What do you have there?"

She drew in a shaky breath and turned to find Tikka lounging on her side on her bed, staring directly at her. She gave Ruune a lopsided smile, an undercurrent of an apology in her demeanour.

"I got a huge wave of melancholy from you just now," she explained, tucking her hand under her chin. "Couldn't help but be curious."

"It's... nothing big," Ruune said, glancing down at the box in her hands. She ran a finger along the smooth surface. "Something my mother gave me before I left home."

"Oh."

The melancholy was mutual now.

Ruune sighed and scooted over to the bed, opening the small clasp on the box. "It's a charm, I suppose," she said and pulled out a simple pendant on a long silver chain. "For protection and luck." She gazed down at it, the small sheep etched to the cover of it. The shepherd, though never present, loomed heavy over her. "To make sure I don't lose my way."

"That's..." Tikka started, before trailing off. Ruune blinked and looked up; the smile on her face was clearly forced. "That was quite nice of her," she said.

"I... suppose," Ruune agreed, averting her eyes to give them both a moment. "Though truthfully, I never had a great relationship with my mother. She was always so overbearing, going on and on about our responsibility to the family, never... never seeing me as me, but always as a legacy." She shook her head, to clear it of the tears. "It's the main reason I ultimately decided to leave."

"Wait, you ran away from home?"

"No!" she protested, mock offended. It had been enough to break the sombre mood, so she turned back to Tikka, who was grinning again. She pressed a hand to her chest and said in her most haughty voice, "I got a profession for myself. One she could not argue against." She let the hand drop down again. "She's the one who pushed me to study all these old weaving techniques, and yet she was so surprised when I told her I intend to make use of those skills."

"Typical parent," Tikka agreed with a chuckle.

"Anyway," Ruune continued after a moment of silence, "she gave me this when I left. Told me to always wear it, though I haven't. I've just kept it in my bag, since... I don't have the heart to sell it either."

She blinked as a thought occurred to her.

"That's understandable," Tikka was saying. "She is your mother after all--"

"Here."

Her eyes widened as she fell silent. She looked from the pendant shoved in her face to Ruune and then back.

"What?"

Ruune could feel her cheeks heating up, but ignored it. "I, well," she said, then cleared her throat. "I'm not wearing it, but it feels like a waste to just keep it in the bag. So, I just thought, maybe you could..."

"You want me to wear it?"

Her cheeks were fully on fire now. "Well. Yes?"

"I... couldn't possibly..." Tikka tried, her voice oddly high. Ruune's eyes were glued to the ground so she had no idea what kind of expression accompanied such a voice. "It's a gift from your mother."

"I know!" She braved a peek up. Tikka's face was equally red as she imagined her own to be, and her mouth moved around words she couldn't get out. "But now it's a gift from me. To you."

The mouth snapped shut with an audible clack. For another few seconds Tikka sat there in silence, her whole body rigid, before she let out a short breath and lowered her head.

Ruune's heart hammered in her chest as she slipped the pendant over Tikka's head, then reached behind her to pull her hair from under it. The skin of her neck was scorching when her fingers brushed against her accidentally, and she wasn't entirely sure which of them was the one to inhale sharply at the contact, but as quickly as she could, Ruune pulled her hands away and sat back.

Tikka couldn't meet her eyes afterwards. "Thanks," she muttered, placing a hand on the pendant before sliding it inside her shirt and out of view.

"No problem," Ruune's mouth said, and then she turned away and continued to pack.

***

They were able to get a ride to the next town over on a log carriage, which saved them probably a day's worth of travel, but after that it was back to walking. Ruune didn't really mind it, especially now that her pack was lighter, and the weather had stayed clear and cold and snowy. Tikka seemed much cheerier too, though if it was because she wasn't constantly freezing, she never admitted to it. It also helped that they managed to keep their pace up and didn't need to stay the night outdoors again.

After a week of travel, they had made it to the next Neighbourhood and, since it was on the way, stopped at Soulio to visit the local House of Grace. They were once again welcomed with open arms even though they barely had any work for Ruune at all. Only one of their tapestries needed any work, which took only a few hours, so getting two nights of stay and five free meals out of it was almost ridiculous. They even tried to offer her some extra payment, but Ruune adamantly refused; it's not like she was hard up on money.

Finishing her work so quickly meant that this time she joined Tikka at the acolytes' common room and got to hear first hand the many complaints about the new tithes they had to collect for the council. The acolytes at Soulio had no more insight into what the money would be used for than those at Lautee did, but as an even smaller Neighbourhood they were very worried about how it would affect the locals.

The changes would not take effect until the New Year, at least, so they still had a few months to try to advocate for a repeal, and, if nothing else, start saving up their money in advance. They might have to raise the price of their lumber, which would probably not go over well, since Soulio wasn't a coastal town and as such couldn't sell directly overseas.

All throughout their complaining, Tikka sat at their table in silence, her face a mask of neutral intrigue. But on the inside she was fuming, it basically radiated off of her, leaked over to Ruune through their connection. She wondered, absently, if Tikka had started to let down her walls more, or if she was simply getting better at picking up her moods.

Not that it really mattered, though. The next morning they were on the road again, and Tikka was as closed off as she had been in the beginning, utterly unreadable.

Except... not exactly. This brand of guardedness was familiar now.

"Tikka," Ruune said, and Tikka flinched slightly. "Remember what you promised me at Paraaja?"

"What's that?" Tikka said, glancing behind them.

"That you wouldn't hide the big things from me anymore."

She flinched again, much more noticable this time. "I... I did, didn't I?"

"I don't know how you managed to convince yourself this isn't something that would affect us both," Ruune said with a disappointed shake of her head. "If someone is following us again."

"They're not!" Tikka objected and then grimaced as Ruune gave her a look. "Not anymore. I... I felt someone watching us just before we left Soulio, but only for a moment. It's driving me crazy!"

"Did you feel it before we got to Soulio?"

She shook her head. "Only that one evening in Lautee, and now this morning. No other times."

Ruune considered that. They didn't have a lot of options, with no idea who it was nor why they were watching them -- or even how. As annoying as it was, there wasn't really anything they could do to stop it. They'd just have to stay vigilant and keep their own eyes open.

"The next time you feel it," she said, and Tikka nodded, "tell me immediately."

They walked the rest of the day in silence, too preoccupied to make small talk. Even as they made it to an inn and settled in for the night, neither of them said more than a few words. Ruune's mind was too filled with endless possibilities of what might be behind their constantly disappearing wasp, but without anything to go on, her thoughts just kept going in circles, until she finally sank into the depths of her dreams.

***

"You were right, that was... very easy," Tikka said as they stepped into the city proper of Karinne. She scratched her head as she glanced back towards the guardpost they'd come through. "The guard barely acknowledged my papers before letting us in. He didn't even ask to see my sword!"

Ruune chuckled. "I told you. The bureaucracy doesn't matter if you have your things in order."

"Are you sure it isn't just your name you're coasting on?"

The smile on her face fell. She knew Tikka meant it as a lighthearted jab, but... it did still jab. "It probably doesn't hurt," she said tersely. A sense of apology trickled through the connection. "But really, as long as you work within the rules you're given, there's no need for things to be difficult."

"You say that, but the last time I came here the guard looked through our things with a magnifying glass," Tikka said, crossing her arms. "Even though everything was in order, it took us almost fifteen minutes to get in, and that's not counting the several hours we had to queue to even get to the guard."

Ruune frowned. Sure, during the busiest days, like around harvestfest, midsummer, and new years, she too had had to queue for closer to an hour, but never had anyone scrutinised her papers like that before, at Karinne or any other City-state. Still, it didn't seem like Tikka was lying or even exaggerating too much, so why...?

"Ah," she breathed as she understood. "Which entrance did you use?"

Tikka gave her a weird look. "We were travelling up the eastern coast, so the southern-most one, probably. Why does that..." She trailed off as she, too, realised why.

"You were on That side of the River," Ruune said, and Tikka scoffed in frustration.

"That's ridiculous," she said. "It's the same bloody City."

"That's true," Ruune agreed, gazing down over the city opening before them. "But it's also not."

Karinne was an anomaly among the City-states. One of the oldest, if not the oldest, settlement in all of Mantu, it was built right on the mouth of the River, back when it had a proper name and its sides made no difference. It had thrived, naturally, as a central hub for commerce; access to an easy route inland down the River, a reasonable sea voyage East for foreign trade, and all the bounty of the sea imaginable. Not even Paraaja, which had arguably grown into a more important City-state, was in as good a position as Karinne, since all land routes for foreign trade had to go through the mountain range that separated Mantu from the rest of the continent.

But the years had not been merciful to Karinne, and now one of the keys to its success was the thing tearing it apart. Figuratively and literally.

The River.

From its spawn somewhere in the mountains, it ran north-to-southeast across the entirety of Mantu, dividing the lands in two. Not cleanly, though, by any metrics. This side of the River was smaller but richer, with mines full of metals and woods full of lumber and an easier access to the foreign countries to whom to sell it all. That side of the River, though significantly larger in area, was mostly farmlands, marshes, and fishing villages along the coast. But even with much speculation of what lie across the oceans to the west, it certainly wasn't anything close enough for any kind of commerce. And so, everything had to go through This side of the River.

And Karinne, like a miniature version of Mantu itself, was likewise divided by the River.

The northern side had the artisans' and the merchants' quarters, the town square, and the governmental buildings. The southern side had the fishers, the industrial area, the common folk, the... less savoury folk. A point of contention within the identity of the citizens. Both on This and That side of the River.

"You know," Tikka's voice cut into Ruune's thoughts, and she blinked as she returned to the present. Spotting the sly smile on Tikka's face, she was fairly sure she wasn't going to like whatever was about to come out of her mouth. "The first time I heard the Norjas were from Konnavuo, I was so shocked."

She was right. She didn't like that.

"I know that it's along a sidebranch of the River, but it's still on That side," Tikka continued. "I didn't know that people from That side could become so wealthy."

Ruune said nothing, just gave her a tight smile and turned to continue down the road. Tikka let out an amused huff, but hurried after her.

"I still don't like this place," she said, settling into step next to Ruune. "In fact, I think I like it less now."

Ruune rolled her eyes, and again, said nothing. She quite liked Karinne, despite its... complex situation. It was a quaint place, a big City with the charm of a small town, the older architecture shining through in the design of the houses and the layout of the streets. It was built on an incline and had a circular structure, all roads leading down towards the water's edge and the House of Grace, which sat at the very mouth of the River, in the heart of it all.

The Matriarch had requested for her, specifically, it seemed. She'd gotten the message a few months ago, and had immediately let them know that she had several jobs to take care of first and was rather far away, so it might be wise to see if there was any other weaver closer by. But she must've made an impression on the Matriarch the last time she was here, since she had been told they'd wait for as long as they needed. They really wanted her, for whatever reason.

Not that she minded. She didn't get to visit the seaside often, since Karinne had one of only four Houses of Grace that were along the shore. Generally speaking, the Houses were built near the center of the area the Neighbourhood consisted of, which meant somewhere inland, especially on That side of the River, where the Neighbourhoods could get quite large. That's why she was so elated that the room they always gave her had a view out to the sea, and she could stay in bed and stare off into the distance.

During the winter the sea wasn't quite as exciting, but during the summer months when the heat settled over the city, the cool, wet sea breeze on her skin was wonderful, especially accompanied by the sound of crashing waves and the smell of salt in the air. But the rest of the city more than made up for it, with decorations in every window and colorful lanterns lighting up the narrow, cobbled streets. It really elevated the festivity during the dark winter months.

"It's not about the city."

Ruune suppressed a sigh and glanced at Tikka. Her posture was tense, guarded, and she had spoken in a hushed tone.

"There's something wrong here too," she said. "Just like in Paraaja."

"It's just a few days," Ruune assured her, but it did nothing to ease her. If anything, the frustration leaking through their bond intensified.

"Not as bad as Kostava," she muttered and then fell quiet again.

Ruune felt bad for her, but there wasn't really anything she could do, so she opted to let it be for the time being. Instead she looked out over the city, the sea of snowy rooftops and then the actual sea, stretching out into the horizon. It was endless before her, and yet she felt that if she just tried a little harder, she could see the opposite shore in the distance. She couldn't, of course, the continent was further away than that, but still the sensation persisted.

Both infinite and just barely out of reach.

_____________________________________

We're halfway through aleady? Wild. Let's crank up the heat, then~ 

Bonus thanks for matu for this part, because I ended up cannibalizing some of her text into the ending scene here ^^' Sorry and thank you~

Next topic is "Bloom"

Pede out.