yrd and Jana’s Cottage [New Anvard](#19858R)
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You stand in a small, one-room cottage. The wood floor is grimy if clean-swept, the bed and adjacent crib in the corner have been left half-made. A few other articles of clothing lie in a pile on the floor between table and fireplace. There is a pole fixed into the fireplace–for holding pots, presumably. On the other side of it are some baskets for storing food. Most of them are empty. There is also a chest among these things, long enough to hold a bow or sword and deep enough to sit on comfortably.
The decor is Spartan, except for a few special non-necessities. Fine but gray curtains hang on the window. Among the baskets and chests in the corner is an elegant box that looks as if were made for holding jewelry. A few books and prettily carved wooden toys can be glimpsed among the shambles. The inhabitants seem to prefer these sorts of fancy things, but the niceties seem so anomalous amidst the ramshackle home that it is pretty clear they cannot afford them.
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Raistlana is sitting quietly against the side of Jana and Myrd’s house… the side that does not include the door and is well away from the window. One leg is drawn up to her chest, while the other remains straight.
Jana emerges into the settlement main, her cloak over her shoulders and her heavy basket over her arm. She pauses just outside the door, her eyes on the heavily trodden snow for a longer moment than would indicate normal behavior.
Raistlana glances over Jana’s way and, after a moment, calls out softly, “Hey.”
Jana slips around the side of the cottage at the sound of the voice. She stops at the corner and leans on the wall with her shoulder, eyes narrowed as in thought.
Raistlana chuckles soundlessly, but she’s not smiling. After a moment, she speaks. “I met one of the slaves.”
Jana’s brows furrow and she shifts her basket. “You mean, because of them Calormene folks,” she concludes.
Raistlana answers patiently, “Yes, he was one of theirs.”
Jana considers the other woman for a moment, then pushes off the wall and dusts the snow from a rock to sit beside her. “Well, ain’t suppose that was too pleasant, then.”
Raistlana takes a deep breath and sighs. “I asked him his name. I don’t know why. He isn’t my problem. I should have just… ignored him; kept on walking.”
Jana asks, “What’s his name?”
Raistlana states, “Does it matter? He’s not a person, he’s a slave. Slave’s are just /things/ to be bought and sold and… used until they wear out. Then you throw them away like any other trash.” She shivers slightly from the snow soaking through her clothes. “I’ve done some cruel things in my life… but nothing as cruel as that.”
Jana asks, “Them Narnian kings ain’t mind that?”
Jana’s eyes narrow again, her lips and brows drawing in. After a moment, she stands up. “Wait here, please.” She disappears back around the corner from which she came. When she returns, several moments later, she is without her basket. “Would you come inside? I’m froze half-through.”
Raistlana gives Jana a /look/. “I’m trying to avoid your husband, not sit down with him.”
Jana gives no more explanation than, “Ain’t at home.”
Raistlana shrugs and stands up. Much of her clothes are damp from snow by this point, but she pays that no mind. “Might as well, I suppose.”
Jana leads her indoors. The place is the same as ever, save a few children’s toys and the toddler napping on a nested blanket on the bed. She pulls out the chair on the fire side of the table and removes her cloak before sitting in the other one, which is nearer the bed and Tristran. “Ain’t reckon it was the most thought-out thing you ever done, no.”
Raistlana follows Jana indoors, taking the seat offered to her. She glances at Tristran absently. She scoffs slightly. “The look on his face… Why did I feel like I had to do it?”
Jana glances at Tristran as well. “Reckon maybe because you still feel slave, but you also feel person.”
Raistlana hehs. “I’ve been trying to avoid all of them. When this is all over, they go back to Calormen and that’s that. I get to stay here. Free.”
Jana asks, “And them Narnian kings ain’t mind that?”
Raistlana shrugs. She shivers ever so slightly, warming up to the fire. “They probably mind it, but they have… bigger problems.”
Jana scowls skeptically. “Reckon it’s their job to have any size problem.”
Raistlana states, “And what does freeing a few slaves solve? It doesn’t change Calormen.”
Jana shrugs, a frown etched into her lips, and gets up to make something warm to drink. “Changes ruddy Narnia.”
Raistlana leans back in her chair. “Unlikely, but they would probably be happier. Still, is the happiness of a few slaves worth giving the ambassador an extra bargaining chip?”
Jana puts the kettle on and returns to Raistlana. “Sorry, I thought slaves were ‘worthless’?”
Raistlana says, “To him? Yes. If he knows that slavery bothers the High King, however, then he will use that to his advantage.”
Jana gets up again, to cut some bread this time. “Then the king is acting stupid.”
Raistlana raises an eyebrow. “How so?”
Jana leans her hand on the table and turns to look at Raistlana, behind her now. She emphasizes her words by gesturing with her breadknife like a fishwife. “Slaves’re worthless. King ain’t acting like they bother him. Obviously the king likes to use slaves for his own purposes,” she points to Raistlana with the tip of the knife, “– reckon it’s ruddy /rude/ for them Calormenes to be so tight they won’t even offer a couple worthless slaves as a sign of goodwill toward Narnia. He should be acting offended on his own part, not theirs.”
Raistlana looks at Jana, mouth hanging slightly open and brow slightly furrowed. Eventually, she lets out a short, “Hah!” and favors Jana with her trademark smirk, unseen in months. “I underestimated you. But you’re wrong about one thing.”
Jana mms, finishing cutting the bread and moving to check on Tristran before taking the kettle off. “What’s that?”
Raistlana explains, “The King will not do it. The ambassador has already given his gifts and even if he had not, the High King… well, I have not seen him deceive once in all my years serving him. He simply does not lie.”
Jana, finding Tristran still sleeping peacefully, covers him a bit and then takes the kettle off and pours them both drinks.
Jana asks, “So… he’s not offended on his own part by the way they are disrespecting him with this slight, and his culture with the way they handle their slaves, then?”
Raistlana shrugs. “The topic has not come up yet.”
Jana hands her her cup and a piece of bread. “Ain’t seem out of turn /to/ be offended, and I stand by he’s stupid if he ain’t acting that way, whether it’s real or no.”
Raistlana states, “You can try telling him that. He is unlikely to follow your advice, however.”
Jana says, “I had quite gathered.”
Raistlana glances down at her tea and takes a sip. “Well, either way, it is not my problem.”
Jana places her cup and bread near her own seat, “I mean, it sort of is.”
Raistlana casts a sidelong glance at Jana but says nothing.
Jana says, “You are the person who knows best what them Narnian kings are thinking, and what them Calormene fellows are thinking, both the slaves and the high folk. Most likely, it’s you they’ll want to pry at to learn about the other, though if they’re more clever, it’s you they’ll want to avoid to keep from being known. Either way, you work for that king, your knowledge makes it your problem.”"
Raistlana states, “The Ambassador knows he’ll get nothing from me.”
Jana says, “Fine. King assumes he will, though, I imagine.”
Raistlana takes another sip. “Not quite.”
Jana gets up yet again when Tristran sits up and blinks sleepily at the strange woman. She picks him up under the arms, kisses his temple, and settles him around her waist to sit down again. “Well, reckon I ain’t understand that king one way or another, anyway.”
Raistlana scoffs softly. “Only the do-gooders understand him.”
Jana asks, “Do they, then?”
Raistlana shrugs. “I suppose so. Who knows?”
Jana gives Tristran her bread, which he glances at as if he’s not quite awake enough to know what to do with it yet before returning a wide-eyed (if frequently blinking) gaze to the intruder. She shrugs, “Ain’t matter I guess. It’s your business the same as he’s mine–” she indicates the child in her lap,”–because you’re in a place where you’ll have an effect on things whether you try to or not, and because you know what them slaves’ future will look like if you ain’t try.”
Raistlana sets down her teacup and sighs. “You think I should help them.”
Jana says, “Reckon I think you think so, too.”
Raistlana asks, “Why?”
Jana attempts to draw Tristran’s attention back to his bread. “Why did you ask his name?”
Raistlana says, “I don’t know.”
Jana gives up on distracting Tristran from the interesting woman and sighs. “I ain’t know for sure why you asked him either. But you were unhappy enough you come to me, reckon that can only mean there was something inside you you didn’t want them kings to see, and I reckon either its you feel weak or you feel guilty, or probably both.”
Raistlana states, “Guilt /is/ weakness.”
Jana merely nods and combs Tristran’s hair with her fingers.
Raistlana resists a little more futilely than the last time, “I don’t know them. They aren’t my problem.”
Jana says, “Reckon if you didn’t know them, you wouldn’t have any feelings about asking for a name.”
Raistlana insists, “They’re just a few out of thousands. My helping them would change /nothing/.”
Jana says, “I /do/ know you ain’t think that’s true.”
Raistlana asks, “Isn’t it?”
Jana helps Tristran eat his bread, around which he shouts an observation of Raistlana’s appearance, pointing at her to make it clear what he’s talking about and looking up at his mother for approval. She shushes him scoldingly. “Weren’t for you.”
Raistlana makes a grumbling noise in the back of her throat and stands. “This was a bad idea,” she announces. “Thank you for the conversation and the tea, but I should go.”
Jana rises as well, adjusting Tristran’s weight more comfortably. “Ain’t nothing. Reckon I’m easy to find if you’re looking for me again.”
Raistlana replies succinctly, “Of course. Goodbye.” She casts her eyes over Tristran for a moment, quirking an eyebrow for a moment, before heading for the door.
Jana smirks a little when Tristran breaks into a big grin and a barking laugh at the quirked brow, and adjusts him again, opening the door for her guest.
Raistlana heads outside.
