milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Another time, maybe," Thalestris says regretfully after long thought. "I haven't much to trade for it, not yet, anyway. And I don't doubt buying much of the stuff will use up what's left of the gold from the arm-band I gave this place some time back. But that should not be a problem, once we've taken our bull from the field and begun proper practice with him. Thank you, Sam."

Oh, frak.

"Hey, this one's on me." He gestures to the spoon, to the chocolate, to the kumiss. "So have whatever you want. As much as you want."

Some people call him a sucker and yeah, maybe that's true. He's just used to being able to treat, being able to provide, to be able to take care of people. As far as he's concerned, he still can. He'll just do an extra shift or two or whatever, or if he ever does get back out to Caprica he'll bring back a lot of commodities to set things straight.

Easier for him than for Thalestris, or at least he thinks so. What the frak does he really know? Nothing. He oughtta know better than to make assumptions.

"My thanks," says Thalestris. "When I was taken to Crete I had only the clothes on my back and what little food and such my mother could pack in a hurry to send with me. It'll be different soon enough, though. I've seen the gifts the spectators send to the bull-dancers, even to the girls."

A picture's starting to take place in his mind's eye. "That what you do back home? You're a dancer?"

Gods, she's awfully young. Where he's from, girls that age who become dancers usually also sell themselves to make ends meet. She looks a little innocent for that, but again, what the frak does he know.

"And you were taken away from home?"

He's trying real hard not to make any judgment on anything. Not yet. He needs a lot more information before he'll let himself do that. In the meantime, he sets that chocolate bottle closer to her, just in case she wants more. He can't help it that he has a protective streak a mile and a half wide.

Thalestris nods. "Not by choice," she says, "but yes. The kings of Crete have claimed tribute from all the shores the sea washes since time out of mind, and while they take wool and dyes and precious stones for taxes, they also take youths and girls for the bull-dance. My own country is too far up into the mountains to be subject to the tribute, but my clan was down in the country around Lake Maeotis some time ago, and it was the season when the ships came to take tribute. All the unmarried boys and girls older than thirteen, who were healthy and of my sort of build, were brought together under spearman's guard. They drew the names of three boys and three girls from all of those there. Mine was one."

Oh, frak him.

"Frak. I'm sorry." That's some shit luck, and he's not gonna ask her if she misses home and her family 'cause he knows she does.

"If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?"

Just when he thinks things are bad for him, he hears something that makes him realize that at least they've got their freedom. They might be holed up at Delphi Union -- he might sleep on top of a couple munitions lockers with a loaded machine gun at the ready -- but at least it's his choice to do that. As much as he has a choice to start with, he's in charge of his own destiny.

"And what's the bull dance?"

"Fifteen," says Thalestris, "or at least I think so. My mother was never very good at keeping count. If not fifteen, then sixteen."

The numbers matter little to a people who have no written word. Counting is for things like numbering over your flocks, not for something as pointless as a person's age.

She shrugs a little, accepting the apology, and then says, "They have a rite in Crete, to honor the Earth-Shaker and Mother Dia- or so they name her, anyway. We know her by other names in my country. But Crete is a land very subject to earthquakes, and so the Earth-Shaker is a god they have got to pay attention to. The bull is his sacred animal, any bull, but the Cretans have a herd they say is descended from the cattle of the Sun, and they take the bulls for the dance from it. A team of seven youths and seven maidens goes into the arena as the music plays, and then their bull is released in there with them, and they dance about with him and lure him this way and that, taking care all the while not to let him do them harm. The bravest and the best, the ones with the skill for it, run at him when he is ready and take him by the horns, leaping into the air over his back and coming down again after. They do this again and again until either he tires and gives up, which means the god is satisfied for the day, or until someone dies, and their blood is the offering to Poseidon."

Gods.

When he thinks about it, that's probably the most appropriate utterance he can make.

"So do you do that? The... horns thing?"

It's kind of fascinating, but he's not that much of a student of history, either his or anyone else's. What he does know is that this girl, this girl who might be fifteen or sixteen, was taken away from home to do it and he wishes he could just... just frakking turn off caring about people. It would make his life so much easier.

Seems like there's no real way out for her either. Except to die, and maybe that hits a little too close to home for comfort. Then again, he's making assumptions. He has no frakking idea how she feels about it. But it's not his business to ask.

"Not yet," says Thalestris. "Before we ever enter the ring we have three months' training; we've only just finished our first. If I've got to be in Crete instead of my own country I intend to be a bull-leaper, if I've even the slightest skill or chance at it."

Now he's fascinated: she's talking his language when she talks about training and bull-leaping and all that. He rests his chin on his hand, leans over, automatically tops off her glass with more kumiss.

"So what kind of training have you had? I've gotta ask. I'm an athlete by trade."

That oughtta speak for itself, but if it doesn't it won't be the first time he's had to elaborate on it.

It's enough; there's a girl on the Cranes, Helike by name, whose trade was being a tumbler before she was taken from Athens. And she's heard of all the kinds of athletics the Hellenes have, and how they give prizes for them; so it's as good a trade as any.

"We started with learning the tricks any tumbler has to know," she says. "Handsprings at a moment's notice, back flips and forward ones, how to spring forward with the help of another's hands, how to catch someone and steady them so they land gracefully but safely at the same time. And the dancing, of course, because you cannot just run around flailing your arms. It's all got to look graceful and swift and so you have to practice that with the others in the Bull Court. Once you have all of that down the trainer sets you to the vaulting-horse, to run at it and plant your hands and lift yourself over swiftly without fail, every time. If you cannot do that you will never make a bull-leaper, and so the trainer will set you to other tasks instead of wasting his time and yours."

"And once you have got that down, there is the Bull of Daidalos. Wooden, with hide stretched over, and bronze horns. It looks very like a real bull, and even has someone sit inside to move the head so it tosses or sways sideways. This is where you practice how best to take a leap on the horns, and how to land on the bull's back, and how to spring away before he can do anything about you."

Yeah, he's gotta like the progression. Smart, not that different from learning any other skill: you start with the little things and work your way up. Not that handsprings and backflips are particularly little; he can't do a convincing backflip to save his life but he's not the showoff at the arena some of his teammates are. No, he prefers to prove himself through the plays he picks to run and the passes he makes, and the goals he scores when he scores them. He's not half bad at it.

Or at the whole leadership thing.

"Well, man, I approve of the training. That's gotta be something. I'm not sure I approve of the whole having your name drawn thing and not being able to have any choice in the matter, but what do I know."

Not your world, Sam, he reminds himself. Don't impose your own sense of social justice or whatever on it, she's just a kid, just a kid taken away from home a month ago, and she's making the best of it, and you can't fix it.

Frak it. He can't even get the front door to open. And that means he can't fix a godsdamn thing in any world.

"Oh, my mother tried to call the Cretans out for a duel when they insisted on putting my name in the pot," says Thalestris, "and when she could not do that she turned on the king of the city, and offered to duel him instead, because he wasn't man enough to stand up to Minos. The Athenian team has a leader who went of his own choosing, but he's the only one, so far as I know. The rest of us, I think, would fight if we could; but the Labyrinth is far from any harbor, and Crete is an island so far from any mainland that you no longer see land for half the journey. Only an Egyptian sailor might manage to go so far, and Minos sends them gifts, not demands for tribute. So we would have a bad time of it, trying to flee."

So this girl, this sweet kid who wants to learn to leap over the horns of a bull in some sort of arena, is basically a slave. That really doesn't sit well with him, but it's not his business.

None of it's his business. He can't change his world, and he has no business even thinking about trying to change anyone else's. At least he can be some sort of pleasant diversion, he hopes. Keep up a fun conversation, things like that.

"So how'd you find this place?" Seems like as fair a question as any, and all the answers he's heard, they're all so unique. Someone oughtta write them into some sort of register, just for the frak of it.

"By accident," Thalestris says readily. "A different one each time. The first time, it was on my first day in Crete, and we had just been called to dinner. There was a crowd, and I tried to find a way around it; I came here. This time I was at practice after seeing the Cranes perform, and when I did a series of somersaults, I went down for one in the Bull Court and came up inside the door here."

"By accident. That's gotta be the way it always is at first." Towel in hand, he wipes down Bar's surface. This place, man, it treats people well and he figures it deserves to be treated well in turn. "One of these days, I'll be able to tell you how it happened for me a second or third time, but so far, I've only managed to find it once."

Not that she asked.

"Must be a big change, right? What kinds of things are familiar to you from... it's Crete, right? Or is everything different?" Just look at the way she's dressed, man. That alone's a pretty big clue.

"Have you been here very long?" Thalestris asks curiously. "I don't recall seeing you before- then again, I seldom stay long when the place finds me..."

She thinks a while. Eventually she says, "The place is very little like Crete, or like my home in the mountains, either. About the only thing I see here that's like to Crete at all is that so much of the building is made of wood; Crete is a land of timber. And there are horses, the great breeds that can carry a man, not the silly little ponies you find among the Minyans or in the Cretan hills. Oh- and no one here goes about armed, or hardly anyone, anyway. In Crete you find it so, although in my homeland we begin to use and carry knives as soon as we're old enough to walk."

"I only ask 'cause you treated the spoon so gently." He picks up another one, taps the condiment tray with it. "It won't break, you don't have to worry about that. The glasses and bottles, sure, but not the spoons and forks and knives."

At least the trappings of a place like this are familiar as frak to him. Seeing as how he's spent a disproportionate amount of time on the road, stopping in at whatever bar or restaurant was available.

"I've been here a couple months. Maybe a little more. I don't know, it's easy to lose track of time when there's not a whole lot of reason for keeping on top of it." And time being relative and all... "Sometimes the days go by real fast, and other times they inch along. But if I could leave, I would. Door hasn't been kind enough to open for me, not once. Everyone says it'll happen eventually, so I'm doing my best to be patient."

Yeah. That's about it.

"It's no metal I've ever seen," Thalestris admits. "Not bronze- never bronze. Not silver, either; silver doesn't shine so. Tin, maybe, but I've never heard of anyone making spoons of that. And the- forks?- I've seen people here use them, but we had nothing of the kind at home. One of the other bull-dancers says the Cretans think a man's fingers unfit to touch his food, and so they must use things to pick it up instead. Are they like that?"

As he speaks of months, she shakes her head. "Your pardon," she says, "I hadn't meant to wake bad memories. A pity the door can't be bribed, as the guards on the Bull Court can, after dark. Not that I'd know what you might bribe it with, but-"

She shrugs. "You understand, I think, what I mean."

Not once in his whole life -- not even when he worked at the all-night diner back on Picon -- has he thought a whole lot about tableware. It's just... just there. He considers the spoon for a minute.

"It's an alloy. A combination of metals, more durable together than either of them alone. That's why you don't recognize it, it's not a pure metal." He hands it over for her inspection. "And yeah, they're all designed to separate hands from food. I don't know who thought of that. They're supposed to make people feel... polite, I guess? I don't know. Either the hands are unfit to touch the food, or the food's unfit to grace someone's fingers, I guess. And now it's just customary where I'm from."

He never thought he'd be telling the story of silverware. Live and learn.

"And don't even think twice about the whole door thing. I've tried everything I can think of, bribery included, but I guess I just have no choice. I'm gonna have to wait until whatever or whoever runs the place decides I've done enough time here."

There's no point sharing his theory, that when he leaves here he's walking back into an ambush. No one in their right mind would go to that much trouble just to keep his sorry ass alive, but it's about all he can figure.

"Your drinking vessels, too," says Thalestris, and indicates the one in front of her. "I'd thought them carved from crystal at first. But there was someone here who said no, they were blown by mouth; I've never heard of anyone strong enough to do that. I know I've never seen something so fine and clear to drink from, unless it was worked with gold as well."

"The glassware?"

No, Sam, he tells himself, the frakking golden goblets. Of course she means the glassware.

"These things start out as sand. Heat it up high enough and it turns into glass and yeah, you put a gob of the melted sand on the end of a long enough pipe and blow into it, and they take shape. Where I'm from they're made by machines, not all by hand, but a lot of artisans still do glass-blowing. Glasses, bottles" -- he points to the Kumiss bottle -- "lamp shades" -- he nods up" -- and jewelry. Probably a lot more stuff than that, too, but I'm no artist. Just a ball player."

A ball player turned resistance fighter, but no one cares about that. Not here.

She shakes her head in wonder and says, "I've seen glass jewelry. The harbor-folk had it, and sometimes glass beads reached us in the mountains, through this trader or that. But never anything so fine or clear as this; you could see forever through it."

Then she laughs and says, "My family were herders. Goats, mostly. What you know about the craft of these things is still more than I."

"And you know more about goats than I ever will, so we're even."

That's... kind of the way it goes. Everyone's knowledgeable about something, even if it's only themselves.

"And you've already told me more than I ever knew about what things are like where you're from. I haven't even heard of those places before, so you're still a step ahead of me."

He's not just being generous, he's being honest. It's a much bigger universe than he imagined. Much bigger.

"I've found it means very little here," says Thalestris. "Everyone here speaks of places I've never known and acts as if I ought to have heard of them, even if I never set foot there; and they have words here, too, that I've never heard. Not even Greek ones, which would at least sound like something I might hear in the Bull Court."