Questions Clever Girls Never Ask
Day in the life of an animated puppet
When Zhiva entered the dimly lit underground bedroom, her master was just shrugging off his sleeping robe.
"Good morning, Master." Setting his tea on the side table, she hastened to hold up his underrobe and then his pristine white clan robes. As always, she couldn't help but compare his physique to hers: He was taller and his skin less smooth, his arms and legs tighter, coiled with barely contained energy. Unlike her, he could make expressions with his face and blink irregularly but one of his cheeks was deep reddened and rough. Sometimes she imagined what it would feel like under her fingertips.
She had seen others show disgust toward him but didn't understand why. He was the master, and thus beautiful in every way.
She stood by the door while he broke his fast with bitter root tea. Then she cleared the table and followed him into his workshop. He had no other assistants and no one but her was allowed to enter--a fact that filled her with inexplicable pride.
He was assembling her little brother who, he'd confided in her, would be called Zhiven. She handed him the tools he requested as he fastened limbs, adjusted angles and tightened screws. Other than the occasional command, he barely spoke to her but this was how it had always been and Zhiva was content.
Sometimes stories bubbled up in those silent hours in the workshop, stories she couldn't remember hearing but that were as familiar to her as her own hands and feet. They all came to her in the same voice--the master's.
Once she'd asked him about them, and he'd said: "You were asleep then."
Zhiva knew that 'sleep' was what the master did in his bed after he worked and before he drank his root tea. It was something of his, not of hers. Maybe that answer was just another one of his riddles. Many of the things he said were beyond her understanding but she didn't mind.
After all, she was clever. "My clever girl," he called her sometimes.
At some point, the master asked her to fetch his lunch from the kitchens. After lunch, he'd go to the combat halls to practice on his own or spar with one of his kinspeople if one was around. Zhiva liked it better when no one was around. His kinspeople had their own servants with them, servants that were like her, but not as clever. They looked up to her, which was annoying. Their masters and mistresses hated her, which was distressing.
When he'd worked up a good sweat, her master returned to the workshop and took a brief nap by the fire. Then it was time for his afternoon tea and more work on her brother Zhiven.
"Master," she'd asked one day, when she'd been younger, "why do you work alone? You are much better at making servants than the others. Wouldn't they like you more if you showed them how to do it right?"
"Clever girl," he'd said, smiling. "That's a nice idea. I tried to show them but they were jealous of how good I was. They wanted to hurt me and destroy your elder siblings, the ones I made before you."
She stared. "They did?"
"It was before your time." Then he'd gone back to stoking the fire.
He usually worked late into the evenings. Sometimes he sat staring into the distance or struggling to keep his eyes open. She was allowed to tap him on the shoulder or tug at his sleeve then.
Sometimes he went to bed after the first time. Sometimes he nodded off another two or three times before finally shuffling back to his sleeping quarters. Zhiva helped him undress and stood back against the wall as he climbed into bed. Since she didn't have to sleep, she watched over him--an important task that also filled her with inexplicable pride.
Once, drunk on her own boldness, she'd asked: "Master, do you want me to lie next to you?"
He'd started and looked at her funny. Like he'd never looked at her before, or after. "No. Never," he'd said eventually and turned away on the bed.