[Flashback] After the Fall (Kavala)

[Callisto]

Timestamp: 30th of Spring 508AV Location: Southern Beach Purpose: Meeting Kavala Eternal light. Eternal blessedness, the woes of a mortal life forgotten for nearly 400 years. How did she arrive where she was? Alone, wet, trembling and shocked. What were these flashes that spiraled in her mind’s eye; the image of her Goddess, cloaked in rays of sunlight and her kin, mingling with one another in a savory dance of life and enchanting words. It had been so quick, how she slipped through the rift of Ukalas, and fell, feeling her divine grace diminishing with each passing moment, but she hadn’t crashed into the sea. Her mind had gone black, and when she finally opened her eyes to the alien world around her, she realized she had come from the sea, reborn onto the mortal world of Mizahar without her consent, without so much as a helping hand from her cherished deity. Callisto had been paralyzed with the revelation of her fate. She had drifted in the waves surrounding Konti Isle, citrine eyes were wide and full of fear. She knew not where she was, nor what people resided on this land. But when she had glanced down at her wading hands, she noticed that she still retained her Ethaefal figure, the shimmering, shifting colors of gold and copper brought on by the light of Syna that blazed overhead. She brought a hand up to touch her curled horns, then the length of her long, straight hair. She was the same. The same as she had been while she dwelled in Ukalas, and this comforted Callisto, if only slightly. However, there was that looming sense of exhaustion and confusion. The divine realm was becoming muddled despite her efforts to recollect how she had fallen to begin with. She was keeping herself afloat, but she knew if she didn’t swim herself to shore, she would sink and be lost to the depths of the oceans. Propelling herself through the water with her legs, Callisto slowly made her way to the inviting shore, grasping at the soft sand, clawing at whatever lever she could to push her forward. But the overwhelming desire to simply collapse overtook her, and she did just that. Sand particles coated her, and the waves lapped at her legs, but she didn’t care. This was not the reality she knew. Perhaps she was in a dream state? A hallucination, something, anything that would explain why she was here. Half lidded eyes focused on her hand, long and slender, fingers digging into the soft sand beside her head. The texture was there, the salty scent of the sea was there, the sound was acute. This was her reality now. She was lost, separated from her beloved Syna. She lifted her head up to glance at the sky and the blazing sun overhead. It was an absent gesture, bringing her hand up to caress it from afar, but a heart wrenching one all the same.

[Kavala]

Kavala had been here a year, though if someone had told her she'd been so restless bound on a circular island, she would have laughed. Mura had grasses, trees, open sky right? It wasn't the same as her homeland though. Mura had a beauty all its own and here she'd come into her own learning to be what she was meant to be: a healer. But her gifts were far different than her fellow sisters here. That's what they called each other - sisters. It seemed strange, for Kavala had a sister all her own, Akela, and she missed her dearly. It often brought her comfort to picture Akela safe and warm at home with her father and the rest of the family, sparring with Vanator and generally being happy. Did they miss her? Did they wonder if she was alright? Kavala wrote regularly, spoke of her studies, and gave them insight into her life. But she never told them about the restlessness - the feeling of not being quite in the right place or where she was needing to be in life.

It haunted her to the point she knew she'd return home soon.

But not today. Today was a day free of classes and one in which she had Windsong out and at a full gallop down the beach outside of the city proper. Then galloped along the flotsam, debris and interesting bits tossed up by the storm that had raged the night before. Kavala shrieked her Drykas war-cry as she rode along, drumming her bare heels into Windsong's buskin flanks, clinging to his Yavas as she rode bareback down the sand. The women here didn't like horses nor tended to keep them like Kavala did. In some ways she was regarded as a little bit uncivilized when she charged unfettered down the beach reveling in the ocean and the wind and the waves. For it was here finally that Kavala had met Laviku's world and fully came to realize how much the Konti needed the sea.

She spent every free day there, swimming, exploring, learning about her konti heritage. Half of Mura was underwater anyhow, so to shop or even to go to some of the civic locations she had to be underwater. All the storm shelters, for example, where there. Though leaving Windsong above ground to brave the rage of the weather had troubled her. There were sea caves for shelter though, so that cushioned his exposure.

So she was unleashing her pent up energy from being confined to a shelter all night and riding Wind like his namesake churning up the sand. He leaped the occasional clump of kelp or tossed up log, but she really paid them no mind. They were part of the natural surroundings. However, when he jumped a luminous gold figure, snorting in surprise, Kavala took notice and pulled Wind up by leaning back in her seat and urging him to halt with her legs. She nudged him around with inside leg pressure and then halted him again before the sprawled figure.

A shift in weight and she was sliding off to land neatly beside her horse. She swiftly hurried up to the figure that looked dead, and knelt beside... her. It was a female. Kavala had no idea what sort of a female it was, but she quickly went to work. The Konti healer checked the figures pulse, breathing, and then began to search for injuries.

"Hold still." She ordered when Callisto's hand reached upwards to caress at the sun. "Don't look direclty at Syna. Her light will burn your eyes." Kavala advised, laying a gentle hand over the woman's eyes to prevent her from staring directly into the sun. She'd seen coronal burns before and they weren't pretty. "My name is Kavala. I'm a healer. I can help you. What happened to you?" She asked in a calm voice, still checking the stranger for injury, especially bumps on her head with smooth gentle hands.

[Callisto]

It was hard to hear anything above the roaring of crashing waves. Callisto hadn’t noticed anything, let alone anyone, come up behind her, although the faint sound of sand being disturbed made her turn her head slightly as if expecting to meet the gaze of her brothers and sisters, and that this sandy expanse of a beach was indeed just a dream. Oh how she wished! But instead her eyes had been consequentially covered, which at once, made Callisto erupt in a panic. The light had been shut out! It was dark, so very dark! No! “Syna will not hurt me! She will not hurt her daughter!” Callisto cried, bringing a hand up to grip Kavala’s and tear it away from her face. She wanted to gaze upon her deity once more, to will her to speak, to take the Ethaefal in her warm arms and embrace her into the heavenly realm. But there was nothing there, Callisto had turned to look at the stranger that had approached her, and found that she was face to face with a beautiful Konti girl. Flashes of a past life fluttered in the back of her mind. She saw the landscape she sat on but in a different light. Wilder, less civilized. Konti women wading through the sea as natural as it was to breathe. She remembered this life! How did she know the tongue of this land? It came so naturally. Kavala’s question was a simple one. But it was hard for Callisto to answer. What did happen? She shook her head slowly, unperturbed by the Konti’s touch. She was so wrapped in the despair that she had practically blocked everything out. “I fell…” She said softly, glancing up at the sky, as if expecting to see Ukalas. “I fell and landed in the water, and then I swam. I’m so tired, but I must get back… I have to get back…” Her words were frantic, and with a rush of adrenaline, Callisto sat up and took Kavala’s hands in her own, gripping them to her chest. There was determination in those unnerving citrine eyes. “Help me get back to my brothers and sisters, I must return!”

[Kavala]

By this time, the young Konti was starting to recognize signs of shock. She knew how to treat it, but the girls words were confusing her. Fell? From where? "Where did you fall from? A ship? One of the flying deer?" She carefully checked the girls forehead for abrasions and cuts, any signs of bruising, even as the konti shed her cloak and wrapped it around the wet girl. She helped her sit up and noted, then and there, how odd her appearance was. "Did you bump your head? Can you tell me your name and what day it is?" Kavala asked, quickly going for her kit on Windsong's yvas. The cloak would help the most, but Kavala also had medicines that would quickly bring the woman out of her confusion. Among them was smelling salts, guaranteed to offend the senses enough to perk up the heart and lungs and get the blood flowing to the brain again. She used them, breaking open a packet under the strange woman's nose.

It was a strange situation. There were no notable ships offshore and nothing the girl could have fallen from readily apparent. One just didn't ride along the flotsam line and find half-drowned people washed up. It simply didn't normally happen. So Kavala was curious as to what was really going on.


"Syna doesn't mean too, but from here her light is brilliantly bright." Kavala said. "So much so that it will burn the back of your eyes and you'll see her glow even after you close them. With enough exposure, you can go blind." She said softly...

"Now, tell me your name..." she asked again, rubbing vigorous at the woman's shoulders after determining there were no breaks and bruises that rubbing the life back into the girls limbs would aggravate.

[Callisto]

“No, no no,” It was usually a combination of that, “No” and “I don’t know,” or “Help, please.” Callisto felt as if she was going insane. One minute her brethren, the next, a pale konti maiden touching her as if she searched for something! The “newborn” Ethaefal had no inkling that this girl might be a healer, but her questions weren’t helping one bit. They only managed to further confuse Callisto, as she racked her brain for the right answer; to remember how she‘d gotten there. Soon it all came into focus, however, as the strong smelling item was placed directly under her nose. Something seemed to snap within her, and she blinked and leaned away from Kavala’s hand. “What was that!” She cried, only to pause as, finally, the recollections and events that transpired seem to merge right before her eyes. “The sky..” She said slowly, “I fell from the sky.” Or had she arisen from the sea? Then she paused, glancing at the healer before her, “My name is ….” What was happening? Callisto brought her hand up to her throat, then tried again, “My name is…” Nothing! It wouldn’t come out as she intended it to! But how? “I can’t say it… The language of my kin… It doesn’t let me! Not here!” There was panic stricken in her eyes, but soon a violent tremble shook her body, and she clutched the cloak tightly. “While I’m here I don’t have a name…” It was a bitter feeling, tormenting her on her relatively short existence on Mizahar, but it mustn’t all be so bad, to end up in this portion, for she’d been found by this girl, who seemed to genuinely care if she was alright. She opted to answer her question, then. “I don’t know what day it is… I don’t know anything about where I am, only…only it seems like I’ve been here before. This place looks so familiar… What is it called?” The Ethaefal even began to be bold, attempting to stand on clumsy legs.

[Kavala]

Kavala was patient with the panicked. She'd not experienced true terror, but she knew this woman was confused, and very afraid. Terror was perhaps not the right word, but Kavala knew trauma when she saw it. This woman was living proof of it. When she'd said she'd fell from the sky, Kavala instantly knew she was an Ethaefal, one of the Sun and Moon's lost children. There were numerous legends surrounding the Eth in Mura, which was where Kavala first heard of them. They were rare on the Sea of Grass, most likely because the people on the plains often did not come in contact with the sea.

Kavala pulled her cloak free and wrapped it around Callisto. She snuggled the girl in warmth and made a soothing noise in her throat. "You speak common well enough. If your name does not allow it to be spoken here, pick a sound from it and call yourself that. Just because you cannot speak your true name does not mean you don't have one. You do. Just work around it. You're going to be fine... more than fine. You fell near Mura, the white Isle. There are no better hands to be in than Konti hands." Kavala said softly, trying to get the woman to her feet. If she could get her standing, then she could call her horse over, load her on, and take her back to the city and get one of the Mothers to help her. "Can you stand? Walk? You can't stay here, not out in the open like this. You need a quiet place to rest and some food... quickly. Trust me on this one and try and stand. You are in a very good place. A very good one..." Kavala helped her, letting her lean against her pale slight frame.