Raivyn

Happy Wednesday, everyone! I have to say, I’m really enjoying this short series. It’s been fun to show you the early stages of my art, and it’s always fun to share some excerpts with all of you. So today we’re talking about my mum’s favorite character in Cedwig...

Raivyn

Yes, I admit it, I have a fondness for adding an I next to an A in girl’s names of this nature. I don’t know why. I always have.

In honor of my mum, and the fact that this is her favorite character, I also picked Mum’s favorite scene involving Raivyn… and possibly her favorite scene in the book. It’s a good scene: I’ll give it that. It was a very fun scene to write, and one that's left a permanent image of Raivyn inside my head. That's always fun to come across. 

Enjoy, my friends. Enjoy.

Excerpt #2 from Cedwig: People in the Vines by Rani Divine

©Copyright RAD Writing, 2016

 Raivyn had done everything in her power to ignore the shouts, and she couldn’t take it any longer. She’d finally convinced Carol to allow her some time alone in the forest, picking berries to eat with their dinner. She wasn’t allowed to stray far away from where the men were gathering their supplies, but she didn’t need to go that far. She only wanted to get far enough away that the forest would drown out the noise.

Interrogation methods weren’t her forte, but she knew that this was wrong. Neil had hardly been allowed to move in hours, and she’d seen more blood in the past day than she’d seen in all her time as an adult woman. She couldn’t stay in earshot any longer.

Now, she walked through the trees, carefully stepping over roots and brambles to reach the berry bushes. This was the first time she’d truly been allowed to enter the forest, aside from being sent to ask questions of the men. She had to admit, since they’d moved into the field, the forest seemed was much more appealing. If it were possible, she would’ve asked that her family move into a smaller clearing, some distance away from the main field. But even if she could find a suitable space, she knew that her family would not be willing to go through with it. At the very least, mother would want to remain in close proximity to other people. The woman was a socialite, if ever there was one.

When she finally reached a bush containing thousands of tiny red berries, she dropped to her knees and plucked the nearest berries from their stems. Her task, many times, had been to clean the fruits and prepare them for dinner—and she knew that it would be no different this evening. With that in mind, she took her time, finding the plumpest of berries and plucking them completely from their stems before she placed them into her basket.

It was surprising that they hadn’t thought of her for such a task before. She wasn’t afraid to be in the forest, her limbs were small enough that she could reach into the thorny brambles without getting stuck, and she knew very well how to tell a ripe berry from a sour one. She couldn’t say the same for many of the others.

In the plains, they’d only bought their food. Their mothers hadn’t thought to teach them how to tell between ripe and raw. But Raivyn’s mother was a gardener. She’d taught her daughter everything that she knew, despite Raivyn’s insistence that plants would never be her metier. No matter how hard she’d tried, Raivyn couldn’t grow anything. But she knew how to pick fruits, and she knew how to tell when something was poisonous, especially when it came to mushrooms.

Carol had been begging Raivyn’s mother to come out and look for mushrooms, but the woman was far too afraid of everything that moved. None of them had stopped to think that Raivyn might be good at it, or that she wouldn’t mind looking.

As soon as her basket was half-full, she turned to one of the other girls, Sera, who’d been searching for fruits up in the trees. The girl looked more terrified than a fly caught in the web of a spider. “How much have you found?” Raivyn asked her, trying to remain civil though she wanted to explain to the girl that the trees in which she searched were not fruit-bearing at all.

Sera trembled and shook her head, turning her basket upside down. Empty.

“Take this back to the others.” Raivyn sighed as she reached her own basket out toward the girl. “Tell Carol I’m going to look for some mushrooms, and I’ll be back before the men leave the forest.” She groaned quietly when the girl curtly nodded and walked away, leaving her own basket on the ground at Raivyn’s feet. Women like Sera should never have been brought to a place like this.

Raivyn picked up the basket and walked back around the berry bush, not bothering to ensure that any of the men were in sight. She knew how to take care of herself, should anything come up.

She plucked a small handful of berries from the bush and placed them in the bottom of the basket, in case she wanted something to eat while she searched the ground.

Using the skills her mother had taught her, she walked into an area that seemed untouched and untrampled by the men—exactly what she was looking for. She smiled brightly as she set her basket down and got onto her knees, lifting fallen vines and branches in search of her prize. If only she could find something, anything, that would be of more sustenance to them, maybe Carol would begin to think of her as someone who could go out into the forest and look for things. Maybe she would start to be useful around camp for a change.

When she finally found a cluster of mushrooms, she pulled the pocketknife from her bosom and cut them from the ground, one by one. In the dense forest, it was difficult to tell whether this species was edible or not. But she knew once she got it back to the field, she would be able to tell. If not, mother would surely know.

Her brow furrowed when the wind swirled above her, in a pattern it hadn’t been moving before. It seemed to move toward her, rather than up through the tops of the trees.

Raivyn lifted her eyes to look up into the branches, and she had to stifle a gasp when she saw the creature perched there. From the look on his face, he hadn’t yet noticed her. He was looking in the opposite direction, likely watching some of the men. But that meant the men were close, and if they found her here, away from everyone else, she could be in the same position as Freia.

Not that she would’ve minded seeing her brothers tied up in the stocks, after everything they’d put her through over the years.

Smiling, she picked up a berry from her basket and threw it toward the creature, striking his shoulder.

He turned toward her, an inquisitive look in his black eyes.

She’d never seen one so close before. But now that she had, she saw why the others feared them. His teeth were sharp and pointed, his nails like claws, his entire body toned and fit, as though at any moment he could become a weapon. And he was wild. She knew that, just by looking him in the eye. The way that he perched in the trees revealed his inhumanity, his body contorting in a way that no human’s ever could.

But she was not afraid.

In fact, there was only one question she had, now that she looked the creature in the eye.

“Are these safe to eat?” she whispered, hoping that he could hear.

Surely, the creatures had a way to understand basic. Freia had joined them, so they must have had some way to communicate. It wasn’t as though she would’ve run off into the forest to be with a people that she couldn’t even understand. Freia wasn’t that type of person.

The creature tilted his head to the side and leapt through the wind, landing directly before her. He squatted at her side and looked beneath the vines at the mushrooms, his eyes glancing back and forth between her and them. “They are safe,” he said finally. “Though I do not like the taste.”

Raivyn lifted her fingers to her lips, trying to stifle a laugh. That was the last thing she’d expected him to say.

“Are there ones that taste better?” She smiled brightly.

“Across the river.” He nodded.

“I can’t go there.” She shook her head, automatically reaching out to place her hand on his scaly arm. “What about here?”

“You would do better to eat the leaves.” He reached up, plucked one of the darkest vines from the trees, and gently tore away a few of the leaves from its stem. “Taste.” He placed one into her hand.

She did as he said, placing the greens into her mouth. She didn’t even bother to taste it, she only chewed and swallowed.

The longer she stood there, beside one of the creatures, the more she understood Freia’s fascination. They weren’t human, no, but they were beautiful. This man seemed to genuinely care whether or not she liked the taste of the leaves. And what’s more, he could speak her language. He knew how to communicate with her, right from the start.

Why, then, were Jonas and the others so afraid?

“It’s good,” she whispered after a moment.

He smiled brightly and reached back up into the branches.

“Where’s Freia?” she breathed, before he could leave.

“Safe,” he whispered, lifting a finger to his lips. “They come.”

She nodded, cutting the last of the mushrooms from the cluster before quickly making her way back to the berry bush. If anyone asked, she’d only gone to the other side of the bush, to gather mushrooms from beneath some vines. She hadn’t ventured far enough away that the men wouldn’t have been able to hear her—and at least that part was the truth.