AU Thear: Aisling: The Beginning of North Square

[k_a_webb]

This story was written when North Square was a very different place – instead of being inhabited by a group of people, including Genevieve and her family, it was only inhabited by the last High Priestess of Hecate Genevieve, who was nearing the last days of her life. Aisling did her best to make North Square habitable alone, because she didn’t feel comfortable opening up to anyone but her family.

Aisling knew she wasn’t ready, but she didn’t have a choice. She was tempted to pass the job onto someone else, anyone else, even Bree, because every time she thought of standing in the moon garden, in front of all those people, she felt a fluttering of sheer terror. It was their first full moon in North Square. Things weren’t easy, and she was glad no one had expected them to be, but people were safe, which meant more to her than anything else. North Square was always meant to be a sanctuary for those of mixed blood, different beliefs to the people around them, and the growing number of children who were being left at the gates.

Sighing, Aisling stared out of the window. She couldn’t help feeling like she hadn’t done enough to prepare North Square. On the night of the fire, the night everything changed, it was her first anniversary of becoming High Priestess of Persephone. In less than a year she’d made as many homes as she could habitable, with the help of Genevieve, and if it hadn’t been for Genevieve they wouldn’t have as much food as they did. People said, those who knew her, said that she was being too hard on herself. If it wasn’t for her no one would even know that North Square existed, people would be without a safe place to live, and she should be proud of that.

There were days when Aisling was proud of what she had achieved. On others all she could see was what she had failed to achieve, because she hadn’t had enough time or help. More people needed sanctuary than she could ever have got ready for without help, so some had to sleep on floors in friend’s or family’s houses, and that wasn’t good enough. If they’d had a chance people had brought their own furniture, which did help, but very few people had any idea of what might happen.

A sound at the door made Aisling jump, even though she knew that there were other people in the house. She’d been sharing with Bree since she’d arrived, and it wasn’t long after that the first stream of people had arrived at the gate.

“What are you thinking about?” a voice she recognised asked, and Aisling felt her blood go cold as she turned to look at Trey.

“How much I’ve failed to do,” she replied, trying to be honest with him even though he was really the last person she wanted to be talking to about her problems. Once he’d dropped his mask he was a different man to the one she had known before, but that didn’t make them friends. “I should have been better prepared.”

Trey raised an eyebrow. “You were the only one who made any preparations for what was to come, Aisling. Without you…” He shook his head and she could see the pain in his eyes. “I dread to think what might have happened to all these people if somewhere like North Square didn’t exist.”

“I’ve seen it and it wasn’t pretty.” Aisling ran a hand through her hair. “Persephone showed me a long time ago because I needed to know what I was being prepared for.”

“You did the best you could and no one should expect anything more, not even you. Being able to live their lives in safety is the greatest gift you could have given these people. It doesn’t matter that they don’t have their own homes yet because they have food and shelter. Nothing else matters.” He sighed. “Living here has sheltered you slightly. When I was out there, in the country I loved more than anything, I found that it changed in less than a day after the fire. The fire at the Residence changed everything because it took away the only reason people pretended that, in time, we might all be able to get along.” He shook his head. “The Dorma supremacist movement never suspected that there might be equivalents in the Uisdro and Tein-Igni communities. It was stupid, but then they’ve never exactly cared about the other races. I watched once, because I had no choice, a family being…” He trailed off and Aisling knew why because she’d heard about the same thing from other people. “There really isn’t a word to describe what happened, but I found out later it was because somewhere in the mother’s family there was a Tein-Igni relative and she’d given birth to a ‘mixed blood’ child. At least here people don’t have to be scared any more.”

“Until they find us.”

“We’re prepared for when it happens.”

“What made you become one of us?”

“I was ten when I realised my father didn’t know everything.” Trey smiled but it quickly faded. “On the day I was called by Bast I knew that he had no idea what he was talking about. From then I did what I needed to do in order to keep myself and the people I cared about safe. It was impossible in the Residence to know exactly who to trust, even though Bast told me that others were working towards the same goals that we were, because I had never really let myself trust anyone before.” He shook his head. “Apart from Bree, but that was different. I knew she had never lied to me and I never had any reason to doubt her honesty because she told me when I was being an idiot. Strangely I always appreciated that. She was the only one who ever had the courage to really. To so many of my peer group in the village I was nothing more than the son and grandson of High Priests, which made me too special to treat normally. Maybe that was why I fell in love with her and never quite fell out of love again.”

Aisling, seeing the hurt in his eyes, couldn’t stop herself feeling sorry for Trey. “It was different for her.”

“I know it was. That doesn’t stop it from hurting, but when I think about it I know she could never love someone like me.”

“Someone like you?”

“Aisling, when I tried to convince Bree to handfast me I told her that she had mixed blood, I could keep her and her family, and it didn’t have to be real, because I was too scared she’d reject me to tell her that I loved her.” He sighed. “She needs someone who can be honest with her too.”

“You could still tell her.”

Trey shook his head. “It’s too late. She’s in love with someone else, so I’ll only cause her pain if I tell her that I’m in love with her, I’ve been in love with her since we were children, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fall out of love with her.”

“What about you?”

“I need to do what’s right for Bree, not what’s right for me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “When have you ever done what’s right for you, Trey? Everything you have done is for someone else. Surely it’s time you did something for yourself.”

“I could say exactly the same thing to you, Aisling. If you don’t want to lead the festival then pass it on to someone else.”

For what felt like a long time all Aisling could do was stare at him. “How did you know?”

“I watch people. You’ve been wandering around like a huge weight was on your shoulders for a while now and it’s really not hard to work out why. For some reason Sophia told me I should talk to you, so here I am.”

“It’s something I should do.”

“Why, Aisling? Give me one good reason why it has to be you to lead the full moon celebration.”

“Who else could do it?”

“All priests and priestesses are trained to lead all of the celebrations, even if we never put that training into practise. I could do it, Logan could do it, or anyone of a number of people could do it even if they have never been trained at one of the training temples because they will have been trained by their deity. Sophia, maybe, or Caden.”

“North Square is my home.”

Trey shook his head. “Right now North Square is your burden. You have done everything you could, so what you should be doing is letting go. People are here to help you now.”

“I failed, Trey.” Aisling blinked away tears. “There isn’t enough space for everyone and I should have made sure that more of the homes were furnished for people.” She sighed. “I never expected this many people to arrive so quickly.”

“You didn’t fail.” Trey crossed the room and, in a movement she never could have predicted, wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t know how many times people have to tell you this or how many different people have to say exactly the same thing before you get it. You were one person, alone, attempting to fix a town that hadn’t been lived in properly for at least four hundred years. Houses in the east and south quarters need repairs that you would never have been able to do, unless you learnt to be a stone mason in the last year. Neither are you a carpenter, so I think that getting the furniture here that you did was a major achievement. You, Aisling, are a priestess and that is exactly what you need to be now. Stop holding the weight of everything on your shoulders.”

“How do I let go?” she asked, for the first time feeling like she might actually be able to stop clinging on to all of her fears.

“Tomorrow is a good day to do a ritual by yourself. It’s the full moon, so I’m sure if you put your mind to it you can think of something you can do that would work. I know normally the waxing moon is used for letting go of things, but I don’t think you want to let go entirely. You just need to change your focus.”

Aisling pulled free of his arms and stared at him. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

Trey smiled. “I guess I am.” He shrugged. “There was a book in the Residence, for the High Priest of Herne. It was written by the first High Priest after the burning of the histories. I’m sure you’ve seen a copy of the book he passed around, but he wrote something else. If I knew what Father was planning I would have put it in my pocket because it was something I think you’d have found interesting. He mentioned solitary rituals and called them a form of witchcraft, which was strange to me because I’d been doing them with Bast for a long time. Then I met Genevieve.” He bit his lip. “I will always be grateful to her for talking to me about the history of Thear as she knew it because there were a lot of things I understood for the first time, including why solitary rituals had become witchcraft.”

“The first High Priest of Herne to lose touch with his own deity.”

“Who is the deity who has filled Herne’s place?”

“Persephone told me on the day you ask that question I didn’t have to answer it. She wouldn’t tell me anything more so I didn’t know what else we would be talking about, or why it would even come up, because I thought you didn’t believe in the deities. No one did. You even managed to convince Sophia.” Aisling raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know how, but I applaud your acting skills.”

“I was trying to keep people safe.”

“I know. When I first met you Persephone told me that I needed to keep an open mind, people aren’t always what they show on the outside, but I never realised how much you kept hidden. It has been hard for me to get used to the new Trey. Sometimes I thought it was possible you were still acting.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry for that. I need to listen to other people more.”

“Sophia?”

“Of course. She told me, no doubt in her voice, that you were a good person and I should trust you. The Residence was a place where no one was true to themselves because it was hard to know who really was a priest or priestess and who wasn’t.”

“I think it was made to become like that because it was good for each of the separate races, but helped to destroy any chance of Thear being a place where everyone, including those of mixed heritage, could live safely.” Trey shugged. “Four hundred years was made a long time in the Residence when the rule was made that all Highs had a five year tenure and then the very position itself was destroyed when the Highs began choosing their own successor because so few of the priests and priestesses were actually in contact with any deity. They just picked the one they were meant to.”

Aisling made her decision and surprisingly it wasn’t a difficult one. “The deity who took the place of Herne was Artemis. Soon Poseidon will be stepping down and we’ll have another deity in his place too. I don’t know who yet, I’m not sure that they do either, but when they know we will.” Aisling bit her lip. “I haven’t told anyone this yet but it also looks like another three deities will rise at some point in the next few moons.”

“So within North Square there will be ten deities and outside there will be three leaders who pretend that they are talking for their deities. My father, the man who speaks for Herne, an Uisdro who speaks for Poseidon, and a Tein-Igni who speaks for Anubis.”

“How long do you think we have before they realise North Square is here?”

Trey looked at her. “We have long enough to get ready to fight if we need to. The wall is still strong and no one wants to lose the freedom we have here to be who we are. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to convince them to leave us alone but if we can’t then it will be easy enough to keep them away.”

“Who’s is going to take control of that?”

“I think the time has come, Aisling, to begin electing leaders. In the last few moons we’ve just been taking one step at a time because that’s all we’ve been able to do, but we need to begin planning for the future.” He bit his lip. “Between Sophia and I we’ve made a list of everything we think needs doing, and she suggested I show it to you. If you’re happy to let other people take some of the burden of looking after North Square off your shoulders.” He looked away. “If you can trust me to do what is in the best interests of this town.”

“Look at me.” Aisling stayed silent until Trey did look at her, and she felt guilty that she hadn’t listened to Sophia. “You have people here you care about and I trust you to look after them. North Square is mixed into that, so I believe that you will do everything you can to help with the burden of looking after our new home.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t, Trey. I’ve been wrong to act the way I have and I want to start making things better between us.” She smiled. “We may never really be friends, I honestly don’t know if that is possible, but we are allies and I want you to take part of the burden of looking after North Square from me.”

Trey nodded. “Our starting point, unfortunately, is how we’re going to protect the town.” He sighed. “I hope they leave us alone, but I doubt they will. A community like this will prove that the leaders of the three races are incorrect and keeping their races’ blood pure is not in their best interests.

“After that we need to work on our food reserves. No one thinks we’re going to run out any time soon because of the mass preservation drive you had going during harvest time, but spring isn’t far away really, so we need someone in control of the farming and maybe someone separate in control of the gardens for a time.”

“Are we going to split the control of the livestock off too? We have a herd of cows that need to be looked after, and there’s the chickens.”

“That is something I hadn’t thought of, but it’s a good idea. One of the Dorma who arrived early took automatic control of the cows, so maybe she’ll take on the job for a while. Also the bees need looking after. I know we have at least one bee keeper here. I just don’t know if they had a chance to bring their equipment with them.”

“We need a couple of gardens to be under the control of a herbalist.”

“Do we have a herbalist?”

“I don’t know, but someone needs to learn quickly if we don’t. Herbs provide both tea and medicine, so we need them, and I think we might need some for Bree’s ink. I’ll check with her though.” Aisling saw the flicker of pain in Trey’s eyes when she said Bree’s name and wished there was something she could do to help. “There’s plenty at the moment in Genevieve’s garden, so maybe that would be a good inspiration if we don’t have a herbalist.”

“Healers, obviously, will be needed if someone does decide to attack us in some way.”

“Have you got any idea what your father might do?”

“No, I’m sorry. If the secondary wall didn’t exist I’d worry about him setting fire to the trees because he seems to like fire, but I think they should be safe where they are. I doubt there’s a way he could get anything alight over the wall and as far as the trees. He doesn’t like sailing at all, so I doubt he’d try a boat, and if we make sure we have watchers out at all times we should be safe if someone does decide to go around the wall.”

“Will talking to him work?”

“I doubt it. Father is very set in his ways and I know he won’t like the idea of North Square at all, although he may see a use for us. If he stops to think for five minutes, which doesn’t often happen, he may realise that having somewhere out of the way for mixed blood child, somewhere they can live happily, will be better for him. He won’t have to kill them, which is very bad for the people who are living in the Dorma villages and don’t realise that somewhere in their bloodline there is a Tein-Igni or Uisdro.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know whether that is something he would think of.”

Aisling thought for a moment. “We need to send a letter to all of the leaders.”

“Saying what?”

Aisling smiled. “North Square is a town outside their jurisdiction. It always has been. They just haven’t know it existed until now. We can either have a long siege, which won’t be productive for any of their communities, or we can work together in order to fulfil their wishes. Children born mixed blood can be brought here where they will be brought up in safety and they won’t leave the town. None of us really need to leave, but they don’t need to know that. Anyone who finds that they have mixed blood ancestry can live here if they wish to.” She shrugged. “I think they’ll end up having to, but I can’t do anything about that. Nothing I can do will change the beliefs of those people who think that having mixed blood is a bad thing.”

“Even if it doesn’t work it’s worth a try. The word is spreading about North Square and it won’t be long until someone turns up to find out what’s going on, so making a diplomatic first move is probably the best thing we can do.”

“I’ll get Bree to copy out Genevieve’s transfer information to go with the letter, because I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m making up anything.”

Trey looked at Aisling. “Are they going to accept it though? None of them will even have heard of the sect of Hecate because everything about them went up in flames, so I don’t know if they’ll just ignore it.”

“There’s no guarantee that they will. I hope they do, because it will make things a lot easier, but at the same time I have a feeling that they won’t. At least one of the leaders, I’m thinking your Father is the most likely person, won’t accept that they don’t own the land that North Square was built on.”

“So, no matter what happens, we’re going to need people ready to fight for the town.”

“Yes, we are, even though I don’t think anyone’s going to get past the first wall.”

“At some point we will need to trade with the communities outside North Square, probably sooner rather later, because we’re not going to be able to do everything here, even though I wish we could.”

“I know. When I first saw North Square, in Persephone’s vision pool, I had this image of a large market in the area between the first and second walls, but I don’t know if it will ever happen. Even if I can convince your father and the other two leaders to leave us alone, I can’t imagine them wanting to trade with us.”

“Have you asked Persephone about it?”

Aisling shook her head. “I’d rather wonder than be disappointed.” She sighed. “Sometimes I hate knowing what the future will bring, even if they are only possibilities that are all dependent on other people’s decisions. Being the High Priestess of Persephone is wonderful most of the time, and she’s taught me so much over the years, but I wish that I wasn’t the person who had to know what was coming.”

“Without someone in the sect of Hecate being told of what was coming almost a millenia in the future we wouldn’t have North Square. There wouldn’t be a town built within two thick stone walls where mixed bloods and people with different beliefs to those of the majority of their race were safe. If you hadn’t been told about North Square and to prepare for what was coming this town would be utterly useless. Everything you’ve done had been for other people, so I think it’s well past time you started thinking about yourself.”

“I can’t.” She sighed. “There’s still so much to do and I am a priestess of Persephone, even if there aren’t Highs any longer.”

“Aisling…” Trey shook his head. “Just think about it. We do still have a lot to get done, but you have other people to help you now. Ask Persephone if there is a reason you need to know the future and if she says no, then take some time off. If there’s anything important she can tell you.”

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever done. I don’t know what my life would be like if I wasn’t working with Persephone to make sure the future is the best it can be.” She sighed. “I hate it, but at the same time I don’t know how to stop myself from learning what may come and how I can make it better in some way. We did talk about how seeing what was going to happen could affect me before we started, so I knew this was a possibility.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure I realised what it would be like to have an effect on the future, especially since I took on the job of making North Square as habitable as possible in the short time I had.”

“I have no idea how it must feel to be in that sort of position, but you’re not the only priestess of Persephone. There are others who could help you, take the weight from your shoulders for a while, and give you a chance to learn who you are again.” He smiled. “You could be anything you want to be.”

Aisling shrugged. “I’ve been a priestess since I was six-years-old, Trey. It’s who I am, not just what I am, and I never want to be anything else. At the same time I do think I stop being nothing more than a priestess. There is so much to do that I need to find another job, something else I love, and have that too, so I’m not just a priestess.”

“What do you enjoy doing?”

“It wasn’t until I become High Priestess that I realised how much I enjoy trading. I would spend time in all the different markets around the country, which is something I know I could only do because I was a priestess, and trade.” She sighed. “That’s probably why my daydream included a market. Being able to have a market stall would just be…” She shrugged. “Even though it’s probably never going to happen I can’t help wishing it could.”

“Include your wish for a market in the letter you’re going to send to the leaders of the different communities.” Trey bit his lip and then smiled. “The North Square market will be for trading between the races. If they don’t want to have people of other races in their towns and their markets, then they can come here. To begin with it will just be on two days, but if it does well we can have them more regularly.”

“Do you think it would work?”

“It’s worth a try, Aisling. Maybe none of them would want to because we allow mixed bloods to live in our town, but I would include it and just see if anyone is interested. Send a blank piece of paper with each letter so they can return it with a list of people who would like to have a market stall and what they plan on selling.”

“I’ll include it, and once I’ve sent the letters off I’ll ask Persephone whether she thinks it will work out.”

“Having the market will mean that we need to have the first gate open for at least two days a week and if we do that we’re going to have to have a collection of people who patrol the area in order to make sure that everyone is following our laws. That does mean that we need to create them, which may be worth doing at the next meeting.”

Aisling nodded. “If we’re going to create laws specifically for North Square we should read the books that Genevieve left behind on the laws the sect of Hecate used.”

“Do you think there’s anyone who should be in control of this? In our village the law makers included everyone, but in the end it was up to them how everything was worded and how each person was punished when they broke the law.”

“There will be ten deities, so maybe we should split the control of North Square into ten areas and then give a priest or priestess of that deity six moons to show us what they can do in that position.”

“Law is the jurisdiction of Anubis, which means Logan would be someone we could ask if he would like to be a lawmaker.”

“I’ll talk to him. After that we need someone to take control of the protection of North Square.”

“A priest or priestess of Artemis might be good in that position, but I do think we should split that into different sections. We could have someone in full control and then others working under them to look after the watchers, the guardians, and the patrols.”

“The watchers are?”

“People who work at another job, but keep an eye out for anything unusual. Fishermen would be good in that position.”

“The guardians?”

“Everyone who works in the watchtowers or is available as muscle when there’s a problem somewhere else. They should have some form of weapon training, one long distance, such as archery, and one hand to hand.”

“The patrols.”

“All the people who walk the market, if there is one, keeping an eye on things to make sure that no one is breaking our laws.”

“Did you just think that up as you were speaking?”

Trey smiled. “Yes, I did. I think better when I’m talking things through with someone.”

“Your ideas might actually work.” Aisling smiled back at him. “I really need to thank my sister.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“How about the everyone who works in a practical job, like carpentry?”

“There are different types of practical job. You have those who work in food production, and the preservation of food, and then those who build things, whether that’s furniture or clothing.” Trey shrugged. “Create is probably a better phrase to use, but it doesn’t really matter. Really I think you need to have two areas, which can then be split into more groups. So you could have food production as one, which could then be split into farming, animal control, bee keeping, and gardens. Then with the other side of production you could have the carpenters, the stone masons, the clothes makers and I can’t think of any more. I’ve never been a very practical person.”

“Neither am I.” Aisling smiled. “There are, thankfully, people we can ask about these things. After that we need healing and really that can be split into two groups. The actual healers and the herbalists, whose job it is to grow herbs and then make mixes.”

“Make mixes?”

“I don’t know what to call it.”

“Neither do I.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

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