My parents are making me write this because they think I need to apologize to you. I think that’s silly. You know that I am sorry, so why do I have to tell you again? But my mother wants us to be friends, so I have to write to you.
Big lumpy Qorin horses don’t interest me, and neither does archery. I don’t know what we can talk about. Do you like flowers? I don’t know if they have flowers on the Silver Steppes. Peonies and chrysanthemums are my favorites. Most of the time I can guess what everyone else’s favorite is, but whenever I try to think of yours, I can’t do it. If you don’t like chrysanthemums at least, then you’re wrong, and I’ll have to show you all of mine when I see you next.
I’m going to see you again. You’re not getting out of that. My uncle is the Son of Heaven, you know. I don’t really like him but that means people have to do what I tell them.
Respectfully,
O-Shizuka
After horse riding, reading your letter was my favorite way to spend my time. Kenshiro had other things to take care of, though. My mother insisted he learn how to wrestle and shoot and ride in the traditional way.
The trouble was, I didn’t have any friends while my brother was away.
While Hokkarans hate me because I am dark and flaxen haired and remind them of a horse, the Qorin dislike me because they think I am too pampered. When I was a child, it was worse.
My nose didn’t help.
I have my mother’s round cheeks, which you always seemed to have an unending fascination for. I have her wavy hair, her skin, her height, her bowleggedness, her large hands, her grass green eyes.
But of all the features on my wide, flat face, my nose stands out. It is narrow, pinched, and begging for a fist to reshape it. My father’s stamp on me.
Qorin children are not known for being well behaved. One day I was out riding on a borrowed colt, and when I returned, I found a half circle of my cousins waiting for me. At their head stood a pudgy ten-year-old whose face was round as a soup bowl and flecked with freckles.
“You’re Burqila’s daughter!” she said. “The one with the stupid nose!”
I frowned and covered my face. I tried to nudge my horse forward, but my cousins did not move.
“Needlenose,” called my cousin. “Come off your horse, Needlenose! We’ve got to wrestle!”
Wrestling is my least favorite of the three manly arts. Riding? I can, and have, ridden a horse all day. Archery is more a passion than a chore. But wrestling? I’m still a lean little thing, Shizuka; my cousins have always been able to throw me clean across the ring.
“What?” sneered my cousin. She slapped her broad chest, smacked her belly. “Are you afraid?”
I touched my horse’s shoulder. Horseflesh is always solid and firm and warm.
“No.”
“Then you’d better get down off that horse!” she said. “Don’t make us get you!”
I raised a brow. I was on a horse. The entire purpose of riding was to be able to get away from things fast.
But maybe I was a bit too cocky about that, seeing as I was surrounded by people who spend their whole lives around horses. Who own horses. And, as fate would have it, the colt I was riding belonged to one of my bully cousins. My mother thought I should learn how to handle a stranger’s mount as well as I could my own. I thought that was silly—as if I was ever going to ride anything but my grey. Still, she plopped me down on this colt and set me off for the day. My cousin couldn’t have been happier. He whistled and pulled out a treat from his deel pocket, and the horse trotted right up to him.
Which meant I was now close enough for my half dozen cousins to pull me off my horse and slam me to the ground.
What followed was a beating that I shall not waste any words on. You know how savage children can be. Qorin traditions forbid us from shedding one another’s blood, but that has never stopped us from beating the tar out of each other. Kicking, punching, hair pulling—none of these draw blood. So it was.
I limped back to the ger in tears. The moment my mother laid eyes on me, she sprang to her feet and wrapped me in an embrace. Through sign language and interpreters, she told me she’d take care of things.
It wasn’t hard for her to find out who put me in such a state, given how few Qorin are left. Within two hours, my mother corraled a half dozen of my cousins near her ger. Mother paced in front of them. Her fingers spoke in sharp, punctuated gestures.
“I understand the lot of you beat my daughter,” Kenshiro translated.
My cousins shifted on the balls of their feet. A boy toward the end of the line cried. I stood behind my mother and sniffled.
“You are children,” Kenshiro continued. “My sisters’ children, at that. If you were anyone else’s brats, I’d have the beating returned two times over. But my sisters have always supported me, even if they have spawned lawless brutes.”
She came to a stop and pointed to the tallest cousin, the chubby girl who wanted to wrestle me. As she stepped forward, I wrapped my arms around my mother’s leg.
“Otgar,” said Kenshiro, “Zurgaanqar Bayaar is the meekest of my sisters. When she was young, she was quiet as Shefali, and half her size. Tell me, would you have pulled her from her horse and beaten her senseless?”
Otgar crossed her arms. “Mom doesn’t have a stupid nose,” she said.
What was it with her and noses? Hers was dumb-looking, too! Her whole face was dumb!
“Otgar Bayasaaq,” said Kenshiro, “you speak Hokkaran, don’t you?”
Otgar nodded. “Who doesn’t?”
“A lot of children your age don’t,” Kenshiro said. Ironic. My mother chuckled at her joke, making my brother speak those words. “And you can read it?”
“Yes,” Otgar said. “My father is a merchant, Aunt Burqila, you know this!”
My mother nodded.
“Very well,” she said through Kenshiro. “Since you have such a fascination with my daughter, you are now assigned to be her companion. For your first task, you will help her learn to read and write the Ricetongue. She’s received a letter from Naisuran’s daughter. Start with that.”
“What?” Otgar and I shouted at once.
“She’s scrawny and dumb-looking!” Otgar protested.
“She hates me!” I said.
But my mother shook her head.
“My word is final,” Kenshiro spoke. “Get into the ger now, or I will throw you in it.”
We trudged into the ger, all right, but it was some time before either of us spoke to each other. Two hours in, I decided that even if she was uncouth, if she could read Hokkaran, she could help me.
So I handed her your letter.
She yanked it from me and read it with a frown. “Grandmother’s tits,” she said with all the grace of a ten-year-old. “It really is Naisuran’s daughter. Guess I shouldn’t expect any less from a spoiled tree-baby like you.”
“Don’t like trees,” I said. “Too tall.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t move around either,” said Otgar. “And neither do you.” She sighed. “Fine. Let’s take a look, I guess. Can you write?”
I shook my head.
“Can you read this?”
Again, I shook my head.