(no subject)

As her studies come to a close, and her decision draws nearer she asks that she might take part in the duties of the acolytes, to see what of the things she is deciding between she will do.

The first day she sits and copies words written long ago—then rewritten, then rewritten, so that the book she is copying from is in an acolyte’s hand of only eighty years past—onto crisp pages with the other four acolytes and three of the hands in the room. She has done this before, but this time with each dipping into the pot of ink and each scratch, scratch against the page she tries to make herself think of doing this for four hours a day, every day, and she cannot. This is not how she will serve.

---

The second day Helen follows several acolytes—all older than her, one only to wait until the next day of Light before becoming a Hand—between the fences and through several courtyards to the small storage building that they open the door of carefully before unlatching to covering on the floor and calling down.

“Is there a Hand below?” The eldest of the acolytes calls out. Below there is the sound of rushing water and Helen shivers, slightly. She’s never been to the water source before—she is only just old enough to be allowed. 

The others give her small, assessing looks and she straightens, hair falling into her eyes.

“Who wishes to come to the source?” A voice echoes back up, sounding distant.

“Those seeking to quench the world’s thirst,” The acolyte calls back, with the tired familiar tone of the young with the ceremonial words. “Would it please you to send up the ladder?”

It apparently does, and Helen spends the rest of the day down in the purifying rooms, cleaning those water supplies that will be consumed by the people and animals of the House with chemical processes.

If she had managed to make a mistake, with all of the wary eyes of the acolytes and the Hand on her, she would have decided to serve here to  keep her honor intact. She does not, and it is with an imperious posture that she leaves that place, quite certain that unless she is forced she will not return.

---

The third day she repairs a wall under the sun, and a couple of the farm children try to make conversation with her. She shows them her arm, though, and feels obscurely satisfied when the girl shrieks and they avoid her.

But with all of the shadowed looks she does not think she will serve here, either. 

(no subject)

“They say the fourth try is blessed,” the Hand who instructs her in Magic tells her at breakfast that next morning.

She mutters a soft affirmative, and soon gathers her plates to deposit in one of the serving carts and walks to the library.

The Hand caring for the books looks up when she enters and she says, after glancing around to make sure no one is studying, “I am in need of entrance to the archives.”

“Yes, Haras-uquara,” he says, handing over one of the burnished keys. “I believe young Pani took his breakfast early, so he should already be down there.”

“My gratitude to you and your shared knowledge,” she replies in kind, pushing some of her hair behind her ear and taking the key.

Through the archway to a sturdy metal door made a thousand years ago (and kept in perfect condition) that she unlocks carefully and relocks behind her, down a short stone staircase in a cylinder of brick, to a landing on sheer rock and another doorway that she lays a hand against and speaks a word, before unlocking it and closing it behind her (re-locking and speaking another word with her hand against its surface).

The caverns that hold the archives are the deepest, for they are the largest, and the best secured because of the stored knowledge and living spaces below. The House has fended off sieges from below ground twice over the past millennia, and they have a long enough memory to defend it.

Finally she reaches the heavy drop-door, which no group of men could lift on their own without many House-taught wizards lending them strength, and calls through a small barred partition.

“Is there a Hand below?”

“What?” Comes the startled response. “Oh, yes—well, there’s me—who wants to come to the archives?”

“One who wishes to preserve the knowledge of Uquar,” she replies, with patient exasperation. 

She can hear him make his way to the crank, below, and spin it a few times, easily.

The drop-door lifts off of its lintels straight into frame above it, and Helen scampers through and down the ladder as it closes back off.

“Hello, Haras-uquara,” says the man in spectacles with amiable deference, as he settles back into the chair in front of his desk—in front of him some type of vase, several large books from the library, and many sheets of paper. “I am trying to prove the relationship between the artwork of the Era of the Sands and the poetry of the Ni.”

“…Which is none,” Helen supplies, eyeing the Three Fingers suspiciously through a space in her hair.

“Of course. But it will hopefully let them leave me alone long enough to find a subject I can actually turn into my research to be a full fist,” he replies with a small, quick smile that disappears as rapidly as it shows. “I heard you were thinking of serving down here, Haras-uquara? What work might you wish to do?”

She shrugs, suddenly unsure.

“Maybe if I leave you alone long enough you’ll find out,” he continues gently, after several moments pass. “Explore as you wish.” 

(no subject)

It is half way through her second day in the archives—she has only browsed the edges, knowing that they spread far into the recesses of the caverns and not willing as of yet to stray so far—that she tucks her hair completely behind her ears, raises her chin, and approaches the desk having come to a decision.

"Honorable Three Fingers," she says, with all of the bearing a ten-year-old might have of the queen she will be in the future.

His eyes rise from his paper and he straightens. "Haras-uquara?"

"Is Uquar’s knowledge in need of being documented anywhere in the archives?"

The Hand’s face brightens. "Now that you mention it, Haras-uquara, it has been four and a half centuries since the ancient archives have been re-documented. Three Hands attempted to start it in the past century years, but they all found new areas to research before they finished with the fore-room and lost track."

...Helen has been raised for five years among the scholarly priesthood of Uquar and is not particularly surprised by this, though the idea of being allowed into the ancient archives at her--

Well, why shouldn’t she? She is the Haras-uquara, and she is not an idiot enough to break priceless artifacts. They would be fools not to trust her.

She nods. "I shall begin my service tomorrow, then."

Amongst the treasures of the great god.