8.1.920, 9th Era
Endergaln
It took them five days to realize they were, supposedly, 20.
Time wasn’t counted the same way here, of course, which contributed to the delay. They were accustomed to thinking of the day as 3 Spring, and here there were no seasons to measure the passage of time by, just numbered months and the steady orbit of shattered stones in the sky. Besides, their birthday had never played a large role in their year; after their mother died, there wasn’t really anyone around to know or make a fuss, with one exception.
Still, the realization put them in a thoughtful mood for the rest of the day. A birthday, and of a theoretically significant year. Did that mean anything? It hadn’t, for most of their life. The last birthday they could recall had been seven, eight years ago. Also supposedly an important year, hadn’t it been?
That hadn’t turned exactly wrong. That had been the year Kelwin turned on the Two Shoes and Sav had deserted. Not the day—that didn’t come until Turns and Turns later, in the winter—but certainly the year.
3 Spring 213 | Isendel
“Hey. Savvy.”
Sav tensed momentarily, looking up from her morning mess of gruel. When Minara sounded like that, rare was it that anything good followed. “Whit?” Around her, the others of the unit were dispersing, getting ready for the day ahead—not anticipated to be a full one, with them still in winter quarters and no known orders for activity yet.
“A little bird,” Minara stopped to smirk at her own pun, hands on hips, “tells me that today’s your birthday.”
Sav stared at her blankly. Whatever she might have expected, that had not been anywhere close to it.
The smirk faded as Minara took in her look. “What is it? Hold on, was Lark wrong? Ugh, not again, fucking Hunt—”
“… no,” Sav managed, before Minara could stomp off to have words with the cohort’s supply and payroll officer. She supposed it made sense—If anyone would know Sav’s birth date, it would be Lark. While the young draftees never saw any actual coin come their way, they were supposedly paid a stipend, the cost of their food and upkeep deducted out of their “wage,” and the payroll officer kept accounts of all the soldiers in the cohort, including their stated age, birth date, family, education, specialties, and who knew how many other tags of information. Lark and Minara were thick as thieves from a shared childhood in the wealthy merchant strata, even if Minara’s family’s fall from grace had led to her ending up here. “On’y I wasnae expecting anyhing of the sort. Hasnae been important for a hag’s age.”
“But it’s your birthday! And your 13th, too! That’s an important year!” Minara looked surprisingly heartfelt in her indignation. For all that she’d had a rough few years since her family’s penurious death, it seemed she retained some assumptions about the importance of certain occasions.
“Reckon so?” Sav raised a brow at her. “How? ‘Tis jist another year an an excuse for a buncha adults t’ blether on mair about whit ye oughtae dae.”
“Because!” Minara gesticulated wildly. “You’re leaving the world of childhood behind! Taking your first steps as an adult! Gaining responsibilities and new perspectives and maturity!” She squinted at Sav. “Though you are rather runty still, I’ll admit. Are you certain you were born in 200? You look more like you’re 10 than 13.”
“Certain as I can be—my mum was nae like t’ let me forget, gi’en as she kept sayin’ ‘twas a great year and sure but that I’d be daein’ great hings cos of it.” Sav snorted at that and just jerked her chin around in a well, look at where that ended up gesture.
Kalikka, passing by as she carried her bowl to the washing-up station, paused. “What’s all this about then? You bothering her?” The older girl’s voice held a note of warning; she’d never quite trusted Minara since the snail incident.
“It’s her 13th birthday,” Minara declaimed, pointing at Sav, “but she won’t admit it.”
“That ent exactly whit—” Sav started to protest, but it was too late.
“Your 13th!” Kalikka grinned and bounded over to clap her on the shoulder, nearly sending her into the remains of her own bowl. “Why didn’tcha say so! Now we haveta go scrounge up some gifts—hey, here’s the first ‘un, you’re on pot duty after this, right? I’ll take over it so’s you can have a bit of a rest!”
Kalikka’s voice, never soft, carried even further when she was happy; others around glanced up, and while many of the soldiers and camp followers nearby didn’t know Sav beyond a nodding acquaintance, there were some nods and whistles of goodwill.
Sav winced a little at the unexpected attention, and Minara grinned smugly at her, clearly enjoying her discomfort. “Let that be a lesson to you to shut up and accept it and just say ‘thank you’ when people are trying to be nice to you.” She opened her arms wide, looking beyond Sav. “Now, everyone!”
Sav whirled, mouth dropping at the sight of the various members of the Second Siege Unit—who had all been scattering to their various duties, she’d thought—assembled behind her. They started to belt out, in a ragged chorus, the coming-of-age song.
It came out later that Minara had found out the factoid about Sav’s birthday a few days ago and had spent the intervening days telling everyone else (except for Kalikka, predictably); as such, they’d already organized amongst themselves for what they could execute of the traditional festivities of 13, which largely boiled down to just singing at her and then giving her advice. Most of them were older than her, so there was no shortage of people to offer her the 13 pieces of advice, one for each year lived:
Skelta: “Hold on to those close to you—even if you don’t always like them every moment, you’ll never be able to replace them.”
Ellery: “Let go of the people who are only dragging you down. They don’t have to mean you ill to do you ill.”
Will: “Have fun with love! Kiss lots of people. You have to see what’s out there to know what you want!”
Phira: “Forget the Harvest, Hunt and Torch. Forget the old gods and stories of heroes. Forget the new Baroness or any rulers or some idea of a barony or kingdom. Put your faith in the people next to you. Work for them, not some abstract idea that does nothing for you.”
Temios: “It’s worth waiting for the right person. Don’t spread your heart around willy-nilly.”
Kalikka: “Don’t listen to Minara.” (Minara: “I heard that!”)
Arjuvh: “If you’re sufficiently high enough and trying to hit a sufficiently far target, don’t forget to take the curvature of the land into account.”
Regin: “Don’t make decisions on impulse. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth thinking it over and doing it right.”
Minara: “Remember what I said about shutting up and saying thank you when someone’s doing something nice for you? Do the same thing if an opponent is making a mistake. Also then that’ll confuse them, which is even better.”
Old Joneth: “Always expect the worst. It probably won’t happen, but that way you’ll be prepared if it does, and be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t.”
Mirlee: “Stick to where you belong. True happiness is playing the role you’re meant to—after all, a hawk wouldn’t be happy pretending to be a mouse, nor a mouse trying to be a fish.”
Harold: “If you’re planning on seeing a prostitute, go visit the ones over by 3rd Pike Unit. Jien is very sweet to first-timers and clean.” (“Harold, she’s 13!” “So? I was 15 the first time I visited a whore, and I wish someone had told me who to go to!”)
Young Joneth (two years younger than Old Joneth): “Don’t start fights, but definitely finish them.”
Some of them had scrounged together to find a few gifts. A small square cake of soap—not the harsh stuff that was liable to burn one’s hands if you used it for too long, but a soft cake, scented like flowers, like the rich folk had. Skelta washed and cut her hair for her, humming softly, which reminded her so much of her mother she had to hold back tears the entire time. A nice braided cord of white horsehair. Two immaculate wing feathers Lenn had found, one a raven lustrous in its iridescent darkness, one a soft white owl’s feather banded in black, which Sav immediately tied together with the horsehair cord. They distributed her rota of chores for the day between them, so that all she had to do was show up for drills. They even pooled their evening mess together and picked out the least-charred roll and the bowl of soup with the most chunks of vegetables for her.
She had first watch that night, and spent most of it in a stunned daze, useless for actual watch. Lenn (who was exempt from watch duty, due to their muteness) kept her company, cooried up under a blanket for warmth against the chill early spring night and keeping an eye out in her stead. She didn’t know what to do about the tightness in her chest—she knew what it felt like when she wanted to cry, of course, and it was kind of like that, but not because she was unhappy? Everything and everyone had been so nice today?
Lenn just smiled when she said this, a curve of white teeth in the darkness, and their hand sought out hers and squeezed. She laid her head on their shoulder and gave way to the urge to cry, soundlessly. It was only a few tears, but she felt better afterward, and kept her head on their shoulder because that felt nice, too.
The next day was back to business as normal—nobody even mentioned it, although Minara was extra-smug for a few more days, after having pulled it all together. Still, it was a bright spot in the endless trudge of days in the Swans, though the further away it got the more unreal it became in her memory.
8.1.920, 9th Era | Endergaln
There was no one to remember her birthday here, of course—she’d never even mentioned it to anyone, nor anyone else theirs to her, and no records to give her away. She wasn’t even sure she knew anyone else’s exact age, for that matter, just a vague range. Or her own, even. Did time spent in a timeless blank void count? Was she actually hundreds of years old, like an elf? For that matter, she’d definitely disappeared late in the Isendelian year and then reappeared in the early-mid Ixidal year, re-living (so to speak) some months in between, so if only her lived experience counted, did that mean she was already past 20? If it even mattered—after all, if time was constructed and the world reconstructed, who was to say that this time was even the same kind she’d been born to? The world certainly wasn’t.
Truly, there was no good answer for this, and after far too much time thinking on it, Sav gave it up as a pointless tangent. Without a solid underlying framework to stake onto, reference points like “birthdays” were meaningless, and each additional day that didn’t leave them dead was good enough.
Still, that night she took herself out to a nicer pub, and got herself a fancier drink and meal than usual, and toasted Aloysius (hidden behind her book; most restaurants took a dim view of rats being brought into their establishment). “Here’s tae th’ hope a survivin’ another decade,” she said quietly, as he lapped up his tiny thimble of wine, “an’ one hopefully some less eventful than th’ previous.”
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