The Philosophy of Seclusion
As Sunset had explained to her, the girl’s injury was not deep, and therefore not life-threatening. A steady stream of remedies and poultices made their way from the long table on one wall, onto bandages, and onto the girl’s reddened shoulder, where they burned and soothed; although usually the former rather than the latter.
“The pain means that it’s working,” Sunset would say with a slightly twisted smile.
As Sunset had advised, the girl remained in her cot for the worst of it, but was up and around within two days, already having gotten bored within the first two hours. Her shoulder stiff from pain and lack of use, she managed to walk around the small dwelling, and then outside. She found little to remark upon.
Sunset’s house – the girl supposed it to be a house – was built between two monolithic stones, one of which seemed to have collapsed against the other at some point in its past, creating a triangle of space where a sturdy yet simple structure of clay stood, not unlike a bee-hive or wasp’s nest, built into the space. Outside of the doorway, still within the titanic shadow of the leaning stone, was a small, low table, where the girl frequently espied Sunset seated.
“You should be resting,” Sunset said, her eyes closed.
“I got bored,” the girl shrugged, sitting a respectful distance from the table. When Sunset didn’t respond to this, the girl went on. “You spend a lot of time here.”
“It is my home.”
“No, I mean at that little table,” the girl elaborated. “You sit there for, like, hours.”
“It is important to me,” Sunset said quietly. “And the word you’re looking for is altar.”
“Is it a traditional thing?” the girl inquired, looking more keenly at the little statues and burning bowls on the crude stone table. “Sitting there and... breathing.”
“It originates from amongst my people,” Sunset conceded. “Although I dare say other cultures have derived similar rituals.”
The girl pursed her lips. “You’re very none-specific. Did you know that?”
“I fail to see what elaborating on my activities would accomplish.”
“Because I’m interested.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know more about you.”
Sunset opened her eyes. “Has it occurred to you that perhaps I live alone on the dusty plains because I don’t want people to know more about me?”
The girl looked away, feeling perhaps she’d overstepped herself. “I’m sorry.”
“There is no need to be,” Sunset assured her, closing her eyes again. “There is no shame in curiosity, but like any tool one must be careful how it is used, and where it is applied.”
The girl frowned. “What?”
“You should be careful where your curiosity leads you,” Sunset said, the slightest note of impatience permeating her determinately calm voice. “It can get you into trouble if you’re not careful with it.”
“Oh,” the girl said quickly, nodding. After a slight pause, she asked a question. “Aren’t you curious about me?”
“Yes,” Sunset replied. “In some regards.”
“How come you don’t ask me any questions?”
“Because you are not ready to tell me anything of yourself yet.”
The girl felt the colour leaving her face. Her eyes widened, and she suddenly felt the dull ache in her shoulder more keenly than before.
“What do you mean?” she blurted, feeling all-of-a-sudden boxed in.
For the second time, Sunset’s eyes opened, slowly, and only part way. Slits of aqua appraised the girl carefully.
“Do you want to tell me about yourself?”
The girl bit her lip. Was Sunset trying to avoid the question?
“No,” the said finally. “I mean... no, I suppose not. Not yet, or—“ She stopped herself.
“When you move on, it will no longer matter,” Sunset commented.
The girl rather thought Sunset meant it in a conciliatory way, but she felt it more like a dismissal.
“I’ll leave soon,” the girl assured her. “But, don’t you want to know my name?”
“Do you want me to ask you what it is?”
“No,” the girl said again. “I suppose, really...” She swallowed down a sudden feeling that’d lodged in her throat. “I don’t want to cause trouble for you. You helped me; I couldn’t put you in danger.”
“Your name is dangerous?” Sunset asked, sounding either intrigued, or amused; it was difficult for the girl to say.
“I suppose you could say that,” the girl mumbled, looking at the floor.
“Then, might I make a suggestion?”
“I guess,” the girl replied, a little nonplussed.
“Choose a new name.”
The girl blinked, her eyebrows rising up her forehead. “Choose one?” she said dumbly. “I don’t know about where you come from, but my people generally don’t just choose new names for ourselves.”
“When I came to live out here, I left my old life behind,” Sunset said. “My name was a part of that life, so I left it behind too.” She raised her hand, and showed the girl the mark on its back. It showed a red and yellow sun, with four intricate flares. “I fashioned a name from the deepest, truest part of myself. Something that defined me, no matter who I am in life. Simple, but the truest of names that can describe me. There’s no reason that you could not do the same.”
The girl stared at her, amazed. “Wow,” she said flatly. “That’s the most I’ve heard you speak so far. And you still managed to tell me almost nothing about you.”
Sunset kept her eyes closed, but the girl thought she saw the corner of her mouth twitch. The girl looked down at the back of her own hand. The mark that all of her own people gained when they came of age; the symbol of who they were, and who they were destined to be. She thought vaguely that Sunset’s people must be in some way the same, if they too bore marks like her own. Marks that showed the truest parts of themselves...
A new name. A new life. She had to admit that given how things were, this was deeply appealing. But leaving everything she’d known behind... She shook her head; she had already done that. There was no undoing it. She stared at the mark on her hand, and she felt a sudden recklessness or excitement burgeon within her.
After a few moments, she smiled and looked up. Sunset opened her eyes yet again to find that the girl was holding out her hand. She looked up into the girl’s bright magenta eyes.
“It’s a handshake,” the girl said, whispering for some reason in a conspiratorial way. “Grab my hand.”
Her expression unchanging, Sunset reached slowly out, and clasped the girl’s palm. Ignoring that she had done it wrong, the girl moved her hand up and down, her smile widening.
“How do you do?” she announced. “My name is Sonata!”
Sunset looked between the handshake, and Sonata’s beaming face. “A tradition amongst your people,” she said warily, and then smiled a little. “Hello, Sonata.”
For a while, Sonata wandered a little ways beyond Sunset’s home, not going too far in case she felt her injury catch up with her. Looking across the plains, she saw that it was beautiful in a way. The blue of the sky was perfect and unblemished, except for the small round disc of the sun, which seemed to Sonata to be resting at a respectful distance even as it baked the ground beneath it. Trees lay huddled together in several tiny oases, or in the shadow of more of the enormous rocks like the two Sunset’s house rested between.
She thought how easy it would be, in this vast and featureless desert, to lose one’s self, and to never find again where one had already been. Even Sunset’s peculiar stone home could easily amalgamate into the landscape and leave no impression upon the minds of its beholders.
Was that the point? she thought, looking around from the outcrop of stone she’d found to peer around from.
“Why are you here?”
Sunset didn’t respond immediately. Her fingers in the midst of weaving some kind of dry but still fairly malleable grass, she looped an end of it before reaching for more.
“I live here,” she responded, slipping several more blades into the length of entwined grasses.
“But why?”
“So many questions,” Sunset breathed, as though speaking to herself.
“I don’t want to pry or anything,” Sonata lied, sitting down. “I just wondered if...” She let the sentence die as her thought turned in on itself. It was presumptuous of her to ask or even speculate on Sunset’s motivations really. Especially when she’d already told Sonata that she didn’t want people to know about her.
“I came here to find enlightenment,” Sunset said simply.
“Enlightenment?” Sonata repeated, confused.
“Yes.”
“Like... knowledge? Wisdom?”
“Peace,” Sunset clarified.
“Peace?” Sonata echoed again.
“Please don’t make that a habit,” Sunset muttered, tugging at her creation so that the blades of grass tautened into what was now evidently some kind of thin rope.
Sonata considered. “So, you’re like, a mountain sage.”
Sunset blinked and looked up. “What?” she asked, her usually collected tone faltering into something like bewilderment.
“Well, without the mountain, I guess,” Sonata admitted. She looked up at the sheer face of the two enormous stones looming over them. “You wouldn’t consider this a mountain, would you?”
“I’m not a sage,” Sunset said, returning to her work.
“You kind of are,” Sonata persisted.
“Under what operational standard of the term?” Sunset inquired, sounding either annoyed or amused. Again, Sonata found it hard to tell.
“Whu’?” Sonata asked, puzzled.
“How do I qualify as a sage?” Sunset asked.
“You’re a lonely person living in a difficult to live place searching for knowledge about life and the universe. And stuff.”
“Firstly,” Sunset said, tugging sharply on the next weave of new rope, as though it were a chicken’s neck she was trying to snap. “I’m not lonely. I’m simply fond of my solitude.”
Sonata personally couldn’t see the difference, but she let that one pass. “Well, the rest still counts. Sages don’t have to be lonely, I suppose. My village had stories where there were a bunch of sages up on a single mountain together.”
“Secondly,” Sunset said a little doggedly, cutting through the tangent. “I don’t live on a mountain.”
“In a mountain?” Sonata tried. “Under a mountain.”
“This isn’t a mountain.”
“It kind of is.”
“Oh, sweet Celestia...” Sunset groaned quietly, setting her weaving aside. “I am not a sage,” she said firmly. “I’m not lonely, I don’t live on a mountain, and I’m not wise or knowledgeable. I’m just a person trying to live in peace away from people I cou—“ She stopped herself. The look that came across her face was hard to read, like so many of her expressions, but Sonata noticed a tinge of colour suffuse her cheeks.
Sonata wondered whether she should drop the conversation entirely; it was clear she’d made Sunset uncomfortable somehow. Whilst she puzzled on a change of topic, or a means of segueing into another activity and thus alleviate the tension, she was saved by Sunset abruptly standing and walking over to the side of the vertical stone of her home.
“Come with me,” she said a little tersely.
“Um... w-where?” Sonata asked, feeling cold. Had she pushed too far? Strayed upon a subject she ought to have stayed well away from? Was Sunset about to dismiss her? Send her on her way?
Sunset picked up a pot, and weaved the rope she’d been making between the pot’s handles so that she could hold the pot on her shoulder. This action did nothing to alleviate Sonata’s fear. But then Sunset said:
“I need to show you where the water is,” she said, her tone ebbing back to its usual calm. “We’ll be running out soon.”
“Oh!” Sonata exclaimed, relieved. “Should I—“ she began, noticing a second oval-shaped urn where the first had lain.
“It would not be advisable with your injury,” Sunset said, looping the rope through the second set of handles so that both could be carried across her shoulders.
“Oh,” Sonata said again, absently feeling the wrapping over her own shoulder. “I guess you’re right.”
Sonata was astonished to discover that the watering hole was in fact not a minute’s distance away from the two-stone home. She hadn’t seen it on her scan of the surroundings, she now saw, because it was concealed between a small clump of trees with heavy-looking fruit of unfamiliar shape and colour, and a jut of rock that looked as though a massive hammer had struck the plain at one point.
“Probably the Caster,” Sonata said wisely, rubbing her chin and pretending to examine the shape of the pool whilst Sunset gathered the water.
“Who?” Sunset asked.
“The Caster. The god of making stuff,” Sonata explained. “He probably struck his hammer here and made this pool.”
“Ahh,” Sunset replied, nodding. “Your people’s patron deity of crafts and artisans.”
“Artisans, yeah,” Sonata affirmed, snapping her fingers. “I always used to forget that word.”
Sunset placed the full jug against the jutting wall of rock, and went to sit beneath one of the trees. After a moment of hesitation, Sonata tentatively joined her. During Sonata’s period of indecision, Sunset retrieved several fruit from the ground around her, and began to peel one of its skin. She handed another to Sonata, who eyed it doubtfully.
“You should keep up your strength.”
Sonata attempted to copy Sunset’s peeling of the fruit, revealing a pleasant orangey-yellow flesh beneath. Sniffing at it a little, she licked the flesh gingerly, and then nibbled at it.
“It’s sweet!” she cried, delighted.
Sunset smiled a little at this reaction, tossing a large stone from the middle of the fruit into the trees.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Sonata said, hunching over her knees a little. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You did not,” Sunset replied. “There’s just...” She paused, and then seemed to change tact. “I don’t agree with your definition of a sage.”
Sonata looked up at her. “Okay. How would you define a sage?”
Sunset chewed slowly on the fruit in her hand, staring into the pool. “Mm.” She swallowed. “Where I hail from, a sage is a man who has devoted his life to the study of elusive and esoteric knowledge. They cut themselves off from the world to be free of distraction, and are only disturbed from their studies by the summons of... erm, one important enough.”
Sonata lifted her hands and counted something on her fingers.
“Well, you’re three of those things.”
Sunset scowled. “How do you come to that?”
“Well, you’re not a man,” Sonata conceded. “But you’ve devoted yourself to studying el-oos-iv, and... what was that word?”
“Esoteric.”
“Yeah, that. Esoteric stuff. And you’ve cut yourself off from the world, and you’ve only been disturbed by someone important.”
Sunset’s mouth creased into a slight smile. “Indeed?”
Sonata grinned cheekily.
“Well, granting you that last one,” Sunset said, sounding amused. “I hardly call peace, esoteric knowledge. And I’ve not cut myself off from the world; just my fellow creatures. Besides, when I said that sages cut themselves off from the world, I meant that they sequester themselves away in libraries or other places of study, not experiencing life or the world.”
“I’d call peace esoteric knowledge,” Sonata said a little grimly. “And I still don’t see how you’re that different from your description,” Sonata concluded.
“It’s a matter of subtleties,” Sunset said with dignity. “Something I rather suspect that you somewhat—“ She was interrupted as, with a strong over-arm throw, Sonata tossed her stone into the water, where it made a loud plopping noise. “—lack,” Sunset finished, as Sonata sat back down again, biting her lip and clutching at her shoulder.
“But I used my good arm!” she moaned.
Sunset sighed.