On Akajia
"The night is purer than day. It is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night, everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning." - Raiha
Unlike some people for whom being touched by, much less living amongst the Divine is a strange concept, Raiha and Kanikra grew up on Mura. They were marked by Rak'keli when they were born, and have never not known that instinctive need to try to heal and help others when they needed it, as much as Kanikra disliked it -- until she learned how to skirt around it -- and knew without a doubt that the gods were there, they were real, and they were watching. They spent their first ten years with only themselves, books, and the shadows for company. They were sickly, sickly children. Their mother, Tanaha, was completely unprepared for an Akontak girl-child, who needed something far more than just she and her fellow Konti could provide. She never realized that just like she named Raiha, Kanikra, the child who stumbled from her bed at night to touch things and sit outside in the darkness, needed a name.
She didn't know how Kanikra came by that name - for Kanikra never told her. She just told her mother that that was who she was. To this day, Kanikra swears that when she was just a little, sickly girl with blue skin and sky-high fevers, that it was Akajia who first called her that, telling the little girl without a name, who long felt she was born into emptiness, that she was Kanikra. It wouldn't be until much later that the sister-souls of the Akontak would find out that their as their mother has named Raiha for herself and Raikev, her Akalak lover, Kanikra was named for herself and Kanrath... Raikev's brother.
Since she was small, Kanikra prayed to one Goddess and one Goddess only - Akajia. She called her her Nightmother - perhaps the only one who understood her when everyone else would call her broken, or say that there was something wrong with her unnatural malevolence and lack of emotion and empathy for others. She is incapable of it - were it not for Raiha, Kanikra would not have any little voice in her head telling her right from wrong, because to her, what was right was what -she- wanted. Selfish, solitary, and sadistic, Kanikra learned to hide, to manipulate, to mimic. It was more interesting for her to pretend to be Raiha, to confuse and frustrate others. She learned to temper her own impulses through Raiha, though she is still a profound believer in if you want it, you have to take it - no one gives it to you.
But secrets were very much a part of their life. Raiha didn't have friends to open up to about her sister, and trying to explain it to her mother made no sense. Tanaha meant well, but... it was very difficult to understand Raiha's situation when she was on the outside of it. Relief did come in the form of some Akalak that they met, who were able to help and guide her, offering advice that Raikev and Kanrath might have, had they been there to do so. Kanikra would not have let Raiha try to explain about her anyway - she knows that being forewarned was being forearmed, and she was, and remains so, a very private person. Kanikra, in a lot of ways, became Raiha's biggest secret. Kanikra's biggest secret was her ambition to utterly destroy her sister and see what happened. Could she strengthen her by rebuilding her sister-soul herself, purging her of what she felt was the weakness instilled in her, blemishes, bruises from Mura?
Even after arriving in Sanctuary in Riverfall, Kanikra planned and watched, manipulating her quiet, solitary sister who loved to work with vicious birds of prey and dogs, to hunt with them, to inflict winged death on anything they could catch. The first part of her experiment, influencing her sister in ways that guided and shaped her behaviour, lending to silence and watchfulness and a seriousness that few children that age should have, was a success. Raiha, in the meantime, watched and learned, seeing everything and repeating nothing, from years of holding her counsel until it was asked for, and sometimes even then. When Kavala asked to meet Kanikra, the two of them actually brawled in the sea. And yet, all the while, Kanikra kept pushing... and pushing... and pushing... inching Raiha off of the razor-thin precipice of sanity that she hung on to.
It would take Akajia to balance them out again.
It took the Nightmother to put Kanikra in Raiha's shoes, and to make Raiha see the world through Kanikra's eyes, devoid of what Kanikra termed the rose-coloured lenses of emotion, to shake both sisters up and make them realize, and make Kanikra in particular understand, that they needed each other to work together. Kanikra scrapped the plan of destroying Raiha and casting her into oblivion in favour of working with her, of strengthening her, while Raiha understood that she needed to be more cynical, and less soft about the way she approached the world. There was a time when the gloves had to come off, and she needed to learn that. Akajia marked them that night, leaving the sisters rebalanced and needing to work out their new relationship. In many ways, they owe Akajia their lives and far more.
They keep secrets. They watch and listen, they say nothing. Oh, they will barter with the shadows, but nothing yet that is so deeply, truly important to them ever gets repeated. They are the keepers of Sanctuary's secrets. Raiha never told a soul who her father is, though both Raiha and Kanikra are proud of Raikev and Kanrath. They never told anyone about their initiation into Reimancy, or their ability to read Auras, or where their gift from their mother's blood goes and why that helps them with Raiha's work as a falconer and healer. She reveals little about herself, even her age or birthday. They never told Kavala, Raiha's best friend in the world, about Akajia and what she had done for them. She doesn't tell people about Kavala's secrets, and there are plenty - some of which she could probably profit in some twisted way by informing of her activities to the Oathmaster in Riverfall. She kept Rath and Uruk's secret, about who and what he truly is, even from Kavala. She doesn't tell people what she hears and sees, or what the shadows tell her, or the company that she keeps. She rarely shows her awareness of information that comes from external sources, adopting Kanikra's studied blank unreadability. She doesn't even talk Akajia with her lover and mate, who would doubtless tell her their life stories if she so much as asked... telling them only one piece of the puzzle at a time about herself to them in return.
Prayers are not enough. Whispered promises of love and devotion are not enough. This, to them, is not faith. Actions speak louder than words. Their every day, from waking to sleeping, is a dedication to Akajia, to doing what they can, to learning and keeping secrets. They live it. They spend as much time awake in the night as they do in the day because they do not want to miss what the night has for them... or when She will want them.
