Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 7)

“Yes!” Zander agreed brightly. “What do you suppose we’ll have?”

He’s also being very generous in my swordsmanship lessons. I can pick between Captain Bay, General Xander, and a soldier here named Kazhra. Could you ask Ka’Nor who he thinks the best option would be, given what he knows about my (lack of) skill and learning style? And do you yourself have any advice? It’s a tough decision.

"Something amazing." Emery shrugged. "I should have asked. Maybe fish?"

Zander shrugged. “Sounds good to me. What sorts of fish do you have up this way?”

Also I am as impressed by the library as everyone hoped I’d be. It’s amazing! I couldn’t even begin to imagine how massive it is. I heard there’s a (gosh now it’s my turn for my memory to be bad — Tale Master?) and I didn’t know that was a job but now I’m fairly certain it’s the coolest one that exists.

"Mostly salmon and some other cold weather fish. Cod and that sort of thing. Where to next?"

(Yep Tale Master!)

"I... honestly don't know," Zander admitted. "Running out of ideas of places to wander."

How are Anneke and Raina? And everyone else? I miss you all terribly already -- even though I know I'm very privileged to be here.

She hesitated. She was privileged. This was a kindness. She needed to be grateful.

Oh and Zander is staying a few days now, which is nice. He said he wanted to leave right away, but it turns out Gaius wants him to leave, but they both agreed to him staying a bit longer which I really, really appreciate. I am worried about him getting involved, but he promises it'll be okay, so hopefully it will. It'll be sad not to have him here, either, though.

"Well, we can just sit down to lunch or stay in one place. The library's a nice spot to relax."

"Ah, yes, I'm told I need to see this renowned library. Where is that?"

Pratik's here, too. And some other used-to-be slaves from Tarr, Ada and Rickard. Ada is a Seer.

She considered what she could say about Ada that was both truthful and kind.

She's from the Isi in Akaratara and dreams and can tell when you're lying. Rickard is from Austraka but he doesn't remember from where because he got taken when he was very, very young. But he's SO kind. One of the kindest people I've ever met, ever. And he speaks like 8,000 languages -- an exaggeration, obviously, but he actually does speak twenty-seven, which I am very impressed with. He's going to teach me to speak Nortung.

There's another former slave here named Ivar who is from the Far North and he's very grumpy and I can't really talk to him, yet, but I think I'm winning him over anyway. He's going to help me practice my Nortung and I'm going to teach him Upper Tongue and Moon Speech, because there's another woman here named May and that's all she speaks but they're really good friends even though they can't talk. So I'm going to help her learn Upper Tongue as well, and am going to attempt to help her along with Nortung, but I expect that to go very badly. Hopefully, Ivar is better at helping her learn it than I can be.

She was writing too much. Going on a classic Ky-ramble, which was that much more obnoxious since she actually had time to think about what she was saying rather than just word-vomiting. But she felt like Tomhas may be hurt if she gave a brief, formal letter. So. Ramble.

"Up on the third floor. Follow me!" Emery hurried off. "Before the lunch bell rings!"

Zander smiled and started after him quickly.

There's also an older woman named Imali who seems really nice, but she doesn't have a tongue so we can't really talk, but she can kind of write a little so I'm going to work on getting better at knowing what she means by them so that Rickard doesn't have to do all the translating between us.


Gosh, that sentence was entirely too long.

Aleth would make her start this letter over.

But Aleth wasn't here. This was her letter. And, well, she was allowed to make mistakes--

That word was almost enough to make her crunch up the letter and start over. She didn't want to make mistakes. Didn't want to show her imperfections to Tomhas and Anneke. And certainly not via a letter that she had full ability to trash and start again. Maybe she should restart it...

"So this place is huge. Like, enormous. Takes up three whole floors and has a bunch of Librarians running the place. They're all split into specialty groups. It's amazing, the work that they do."

"They're experts in their fields, right?" Zander asked. "Sort of like advisors, in a sense?"

Ky crumpled the letter and pulled out a new sheet. It was wasteful. But better waste Gaius's paper than Tomhas's affection. Had he ever seen her writing? She wasn't sure. But that meant she had to do even better with this one than a normal letter. It had to be perfect. She'd have to keep trying until it was perfect.

"Yeah, exactly! And they catalogue and organize and stuff, too."

(Aww Ky)

( ;-; a n x i e t y lolol)

"That's neat!" Zander said with a grin. "What section of the collection is your favorite?"


Ky was more careful this time. The contents were more or less the same, and she kept the tone casual so that he wouldn't worry, but she was far more careful to punctuate things correctly and had never used such good penmanship before in her entire life. Well. She supposed she'd practiced her very best handwriting in letters to the Taral and such. But still. She gave it her absolute best, which was neat and angular, and didn't have even a single droplet of ink out of place.

She also softened the bit about Zander. Whining had been inappropriate. Instead, she simply said that Zander was going to stay for a few days, and took out all her resentment and angst regarding the matter entirely.

There's also a little girl here named Ua. She and Tasia are already best friends, even though they can't speak a word of each others' languages. Tasia is determined to learn, though, so I'm going to do my best to teach her, too. I'm not a fantastic teacher so all these reading and language lessons might not end particularly well. But I'm going to at least attempt to be as helpful as possible.

"History, specifically pre-war Eastern history. That's some ancient stuff; we have to turn pages with special tongs and the scrolls had to be transcribed onto newer paper."

"Oh, gosh." Zander shook his head with a grin. "Those stakes are too high for me to enjoy as casual reading. Glad you enjoy it, though."


She was, for the first time in her life, running out of things to say. But she couldn't talk about Rönn. Couldn't talk about how cowardly she'd been in the barracks. Or how terrified she was of literally all her options in trainers. Or how upset Gaius was after he went to the prison -- how was he doing, anyway?

And it's been nice to see Sera and Emery again, now that things are less tense than when I met them the first time. Sera took my stitches out for me and said my arm healed well. And Emery is spending all of his time with Zander -- and I, too, am spending most of my time with Zander. So it's nice that he's nice.

God, she was getting stupid again. She stopped writing to think about the next thing she wanted to say, before she ruined this letter, too. Her hand was getting cramped and she didn't want to have to write all this out a third time. Maybe she should have made a rough draft first without using her fancy handwriting.