The Chronicle of the Worthy Son

Taboo

"I know!" Lark groaned then double-checked the corner of his eyes. "But if I leave it on, it gets smeared everywhere and irritates my eyes."

"Things I had never even thought about before," Able mumbled around his dry, swollen tongue. This was becoming unbearable. The last thing he wanted was to get up, but maybe he should go for a walk or—

Lark frowned and turned to face him. "Everything all right?" Damn it, how did he always do that? How much could he tell?

"Other than being sore and exhausted?" Able shrugged, hopefully nonchalantly, while his gaze mutinously raked over Lark's wiry torso. "...I'm curious about your tattoos, though, if that's not prying." He'd only just noticed the two delicate designs that graced either side of Lark's chest.

"Ah." Lark looked down at himself. "Well, I warn you, they're religious."

"I won't scoff," Able promised. The idea of a religious tattoo struck him as strange given the Prophets' negative views of defacing the body. Though in the context of using them to practice other religions, the rule now made sense.

"Okay." Lark strode up to the bedside. Shoot, of course he was going to come closer.

Able sat up and scrambled for his academic mindset as he focused on the inking Lark was pointing out on the left side, a maze of larger marks connected by a pattern of thin threads.

"So, this is my Bear's mark. Remember Punctual Oaktree back in Kettlebrook? I earned this from practicing under him."

"Practicing?" Able squinted at the marks until he recognized the pattern for a constellation. The "Bear" constellation was the Emperor's Chariot, plus many stars more.

"Bear, uhm... Mysticism, maybe? Or I guess we agreed to call it magic." Lark rolled his eyes up, again at a loss for how to explain this to an outsider. "I practiced Bear under his supervision. Learned from him. It's like communing with something inside yourself in order to mature it, I guess might...not at all explain." He laughed helplessly.

"What about the other one?"

"Eagle." Lark patted it once. "Only got this one finished last year. Practiced here, as it happens, under Just Valemouth."

"What is the Eagle? Or the spirit of what is Eagle, like you said before?" Why hadn't he thought to ask Lark before, after he'd first read about Pristine Fires?

Lark pressed his hands together under his mouth as he stared out the small window for a bit. "Think of the Eagle...like eyes on the ground...a kind of top-down view—oh, a Big Picture? The wisdom to see the big picture. That's Eagle."

"So, an Eagle-servant would be something of a guide and leader for the people?"

"Yeah, they often do that," Lark said with a nod. "Sometimes they can see the future too, if that doesn't freak you out too much. But I practice more seeing what is." Crap, is that how he—

Able stopped himself to reason the cold sensation in his stomach away. Of course it wasn't true. Lark must have learned a mental exercise that made him more observant than most people. If Pristine Fires could see the future, he had done a horrible job of doing anything about it.

Which gave Able another thought. "Hey, is Aimsby holy to the Eagle? Like Kettlebrook to the Bear?"

"Kind of, yeah. We don't really have temples, but there is a something like that to the Eagle here. You find Eagle in high places, and while Aimsby is pretty high, it's not the highest in Borealund by a long shot."

"Is it a secret?"

"No? You can go to the overlook if you want to feel some Eagle." And he grinned.