The Ape Delivers to the Spider [Veldrys]

[Asha]

“Oh… maybe eight or nine hundred years old. That’s just a guess really, no Jamoura has died of old age yet but we speculate upon our expectancy. Marn is the oldest of us and he is somewhere over five hundred years old. Marn was in fact alive during the Valterrian. A few others, but he remembers best. Or so I’m told. I’ve never asked him about it personally, I often think it a difficult subject to approach.” Asha shrugged her shoulders somewhat regretfully. The Valterrian was a difficult subject for anyone, probably even more so for someone who had lived through it. She wasn’t about to go bothering the most respected elder of her people with bad memories though doubtless Marn would have answered her kindly and informatively. “I see. A god of the family is worthy of worship indeed but I am afraid I am confused. What has blood to do with community?” Asha asked her question hesitantly. She tried to be careful surrounding the faith of others. Some were very private with it, and others very protective of it. She thought it best to always tread carefully around the discussion of it with others. Asha was not the sort of person to purposefully offend another, or so she liked to think of herself. “Well, the gift can be hard to explain. It is for me anyways. I’m very removed from that before time so its difficult to think of myself as possibly having been so different if I had been born at another time. Back, in the time before the Valterrian, my people were simple minded and lived on the forest floor. We were the same as the deer and wolf, we were beasts as humans would say. The humans encroached on our home grounds, pushing us further into the forest. Caihya took pity on us and planted seeds which rooted deeply in the brains of my people. During the Valterrian those roots sprung forth and flowered, and we became the creatures we are today. Caihya gave us the ability to shape this city and we give thanks to her by coexisting harmoniously with the forest.” Asha said and spread her hands out to indicate peace. The story of her people calmed and excited her at the same time. It was a thrilling tale, her favorite, and yet it brought a calm peace of mind that things were as Caihya meant them to be. She and her family were not forced to fight desperately for survival nor were they living in fear of the human’s movements. “What happened to make your people leave their trees?” Asha asked softly. She had a feeling that the story of his people was the reverse of her own. The Valterrian had changed them from their original being but it had allowed them to become equals to the humans in the world. Perhaps more than their equal though Asha pushed the thought away quickly. Humility was the virtue she sought the hardest but seemed most difficult to attain.

[Veldrys]

„Nine hundred years?“ Veldrys repeated. From the look on his face it was obvious that he had problems believing, but at the same time he sounded … hopeful. „How can anybody reach such an age? This Marn you speak of, do you think he would be willing to meet with me? I’m trying to find out more about the world before the Valterrian, about the way my people used to be. Maybe he could help.“

He had come to Denval to find out more about the old world, but there had only been fragments at best. Denval had been isolated since the Valterrian, but the people that had actually witnessed the catastrophe were long dead. His god had come to him in Denval – and he would forever treasure that memory – but his initial mission had been unsuccessful.

„You were … animals?“ he asked as she spoke of the gift her people had been given, but he didn’t really expect an answer. „You are truly blessed then. It is comforting to hear that the Valterrian made at least one race’s life better.“ But was it really better? Was it really better to have such a complex mind, to worry, to constantly have to think? Sometimes Veldrys wished he were driven by his instincts, that he were more like his lost love, Lucette, more animal than man.

In some ways an animal’s life was easier.

„The Valterrian happened“, he replied as she asked him about his people. His voice was almost emotionless. The past was the past. It had already happened. He had stopped crying over something that couldn’t be changed anymore a long time ago. There was only the hope for a better future left now.

„Our floating city was destroyed, and we were forced underground. All that magic changed us, and in time we became paler, and our bodies adjusted to a life below ground. The magic weakened us. It changed something inside of us. Nowadays most women don’t survive the birth of their child, and no male Symenestra ever fathers more than two or three children.“

„For us the Valterrian was the opposite of what it was for you.“

[Asha]

”Marn is a friendly man, he turns away few.” Asha shrugged again and left it at that. She could not speak for her leader but she had always known him to be the sort of person who receives visitors and questions well. He understood the importance of history and knowledge probably more than anyone she had ever known so it was likely he would be receptive to Veldrys’s query. She wondered though if he would find the answer he truly wanted through Marn. Marn after all had been animalistic prior to the Valterrian so what he might have to offer for information would be somewhat limited. But then again she knew not what exactly Veldrys wished to find out so perhaps just the bits of information Marn could provide would be enough to satisfy him. Asha perked up a bit at the mention of Symenestra. So that explained why he looked a little different from the average human she had seen and many of his previous explanations made much more sense now. She did not have enough experience with the human-like races to tell them all apart at first glance. Besides, Symenestra very rarely came to the Spires so she had little reference to work with. She had heard humans talk about them negatively, fearing the lives of their women. Asha was Jamoura however and felt no such threat so the nature of Veldrys’s race bothered her not at all. “I am sorry for what has happened to your people. For those of us who were raised with the teachings of Caihya we know that there must always be balance in the world. As one race rises, another must fall. I have heard that many places were negatively affected by the Valterrian. I cannot pretend that all that happened during that time was beneficial for us. Things were created in that event that have plagued us ever since. Monsters arose in the forest that had never been seen before that eat Jamoura children whole and places that were once friendly to us turned against us.” Asha paused a moment and looked down at the ground before returning the gaze of her brown eyes to Veldrys. She felt a little nervous discussing the Valterrian. It was a time she did not well understand and it reminded her deeply of that Spring, when the city had gone mad and her life was turned upside down. Time had passed but the memory had become easier to deal with. “The Valerrian changed this very land, just as it changed your land. We changed as well, if we had not it is likely we would not have survived. The land was not as kind to us after all that. It sounds as though it was the same for your people. If you had not changed along with your environment you would not have survived.” Asha hesitated a moment as her thoughts collected themselves and formed into a coherent idea. She loved the feeling of pieces connecting together until a whole rested delicately in her mind’s eye to be plucked up and stored away for memory. “I suppose you could say that change is life. Or conversely, that life is change. Both of our people changed because survival necessitated it. Caiyha certainly helped us but that was because she could see the potential in us. Other species were not so lucky. Extinction is a threat not easily forgotten. The changes that happened to your people may not have been the most welcomed but at least you survived. If you had stayed stagnant then it is likely your people would be no more. I wonder if all races can tell a similar story of the Valterrian.” Asha’s last words were more of a personal musing voiced aloud then a question, though she would certainly welcome any response. The gray matter of the unknown thrilled her and the unknown that this conversation brought up was enticing. Asha did not know if the knowledge of what had come before was available to anyone but now she was quite curious to investigate. Well, at least until the next unknown crowded it out of her mind.

[Veldrys]

„Don’t apologize“, the Symenestra replied. „It’s not your fault that my people suffered so. It’s Ivak’s fault, the fault of those that ruled the world before us, the fault of …“ He shrugged his shoulders somewhat helplessly. Who was really to blame? The people of Mizahar? The gods? Or was it all just coincidence, a cruel twist of fate? He didn’t know.

„The whole world was affected then“, he told her as she spoke of what had happened during the Valterrian. „Entire countries were torn apart, entire races perished. I suppose my people were indeed fortunate that they survived the catastrophe, after a fashion, although it’s hard to think like that when you’ve just watched another woman die. At least the Valterrian changed things for the better for one of us.“

He nodded at her and then he added, more for himself than for her,

„I was out there, in the wilderness, this spring. I saw what happened. I saw how the magic changed people and drove them mad. I saw people die. I imagine that the Valterrian was like this, but a hundred times worse, a thousand times worse.“

„I think most races have similar stories. Did you know that some of them didn’t even exist before the Valterrian?“

[Asha]

“Yes, I suppose that is what it was like. I saw my father… well, never mind.” Asha muttered. Her heart clenched when Veldrys mentioned the events of that Spring. His words were not for her benefit but she felt them deeply jus the same. She had found her father in the wreckage of their family home, feral and bleeding from the attacks of younger males. She brushed those thoughts away, they were too emotionally stimulating for the conversation at hand. When Veldrys mentioned that some races hadn’t existed prior to the Valterrian she felt her mind tug at the idea. Her elders were old but her race was new and she wondered what other beings had histories as recent as her own people. As self aware beings they were mere infants compared to the length of existence and she was curious how other infant races had managed to survive and thrive in such a new and hostile environment. ”What races are that young? What was the purpose of their creation? Surely something so new could not have just popped into existence. The Jamouras were created through the aid of a goddess, is it the same for the newer beings? Do the gods truly go about making new beings at their leisure? I hope not, for the implications are quite frightening. This is a strange world where you never can rely on things being the same for very long.” Asha said with a slow sigh, her words holding all the wisdom of a being on the cusp of adulthood. Or at least as much wisdom as she liked to think she had. Creatures with short life spans might be in awe at all the knowledge stored in her head but her elders would certainly laugh if they could hear her words.

[Ayviss]

Asha, if you become active with your characters again, please PM me so I can give you your grades!

Veldrys, I'm not sure if you are inactive or not, but since you haven't post in a while, please send me a PM if you would like your grades.