Open Always Better in a Shadowy Place

[Krisa]

1st Day of Fall 513AV

The environment was wrong. Everything else was the same as always. All the Inartens, her twin older sisters and brother and mother and father. All of them present in the crowd. And there she was, watching herself get jostled through the crowd in her shapeless billowy Lontev, marking her as different. Marking her as lesser. But the looming nightmare seemed wrong somehow. Foggy with sleep, it took her ages to pin point the reason for the feeling. Krisa wasn’t being ignored. She was not in shadowy back alleyways and under shade of building. No. She was in the middle of Lhavit Plaza. The whole population of wind Reach seemed to have replaced all the residents, and all of them were glaring at her hatefully.

They looked down at her bare legs, the shrunken white tunic barely able to cover her thighs. She pulled it downward to shield herself from the discomfort. She felt like every man in the crowd was looking at her with lustful, evil cold blue eyes. This nightmare was worse than any she’d had before. “Kieran! Kieran!” She called out desperately. But she didn’t see her lifeline anywhere. her own voice was weakening. Becoming almost childlike. When she looked down at herself she was a child. She held in her arms a little bow and arrow, and her classmates jeered at her. The little girl was filled with dread. She’d failed. Her arrows hadn’t hit a signal rung of the target. Useless.

Her hair was so much shorter when she was a child. Now she felt it grow, and when she looked around, all she could see was Lem. “Lemma…?” She asked, wearing a beautiful beaded bryda and looking into her eyes, molten, like warm honey. “I’m not really here Krissie” She purred softly “You’re really naked, and people laugh at your weakness. You’re backed into a corner. Weak. Useless”

She wore nothing. She was backed into a corner like Lem had pointed out. All around her people sneered and laughed at her vulnerability. Krisa tried to cover her nakedness from their unkind eyes. She began to cry, to sob, to wail as she sunk into a ball. Her knees were hugged to her chest, and she rocked back and forth, sobbing like a baby.

The other nightmare was better. lonely darkness is much better than painful scrutiny. She was exposed and open to attack. Nothing, not even the basic comfort of clothing shielded her. All she could do was cry and shrink away from the jeering.

“Let me escape… oh gods get me out of here…"

[Lavira]

Lhavit had always been a place of picturesque beauty, a jewel so far from the firey peak of Wind Reach where Zintila ruled and schedules were strange. And yet, it did not feel so foreign to Vira as she stood in the crowd of red heads and blondes and brunettes, though even they had the glint of ginger in their locks.

As for herself, Vira could still feel her heart thundering in her chest and her breaths coming in heavy pants. The nightmares always left her gasping for breath, but she'd never left one to enter into another, and this one was so strange! The clones around her were staring at something ahead, something that was curled on the ground, pulling Vira's eyes towards it. The shape looked small and effeminate and seemed to be pleading while voices rose around her, taunting and staring and leering at the poor girl.

The woman did not even know what was happening when she stepped forwards, then, her body forcing those before her to simply part ways, to let her through. Her mind did not realize the reason the shape seemed so small was not because it was actually very tiny (though the girl did seem quite frail to her) but because she was so very high! It was as if the movement through the crowd had made her grow to an unfathomable height. The soft whoosh of feathers that ruffled in the wind when the broad wedge of a tail swept across the heads of the gathered was dampened by the delicate click of massive talons on the ground.

For whatever reason, she had taken on the form of a wind eagle in this dream, the enormous bird approaching the little girl and turning to screech at the crowd with a mighty voice. Her wings flared in warning to them before turning back to the child and lowering upon feathery, booted feet before her.

Why do you cry, little girl?

Her thoughts were shared with the child, a telepathic inquiry like what she often shared with Mohya.

What is it you are afraid of?

The eagle that was Vira could feel the press of the Inartan's eyes behind her and she raised her head again, hissing in that birdly fashion once more, warning them back or she would gobble them up like so much other pointless trash.

Such a pretty child shouldn't weep. She should stand up and see the sky! Isn't it beautiful? Her head lifted to the sky where the stars shown brightest, Zintila's gown glinting in the moonless night so that all the sailors could see.

[Krisa]

The girl looked up as the crowd parted and felt even smaller. What was she doing here curled into a ball. She had to work. To work or she wouldn’t eat. She had no time to cry. She would probably be hungry tonight. But something stopped her in her tracks. The Wing eagle was enormous, majestic and beautiful. Why did it bother talking to something so weak and pale. Was she it’s prey? Then she heard it’s voice in her head. It said many things but all she heard was the order. She stood up, covering her nakedness with her hands, and awkwardly she bowed to the creature.

"I-I have to… I have no time to look at the stars… I don’t even have time to cry… I have to work… work or die…" She said "No time… no time… no time for a Dek." She was speaking to herself again now, only a young teenager with short hair and a lopsided fringe that she had lopped off herself without so much as a mirror. She’d no clue, even as she said all this to the creature, where she could go. She felt as if she had to wait for permission first anyway.

The crowds had disappeared at least. She was all alone, apart from this beautiful creature "Why are you talking to me?" She asked, swiping tears off her cheeks. "Aren’t I a waste of your time?" She looked like she believed it as well. Any notion of self-respect was absent.

[Lavira]

No time for a Dek.

The words echoed in the eagles mind but all she could do or think or even say as she stared down at the girl was how frail she looked, how in need and alone. Forgotten. How alike she was, even if she was different.

Dear, there is always time; won't you look and see the stars? They're very pretty tonight. Vira insisted again, great head moving nearer Krisa now, the predatory eyes somehow softened into the knowing shine of a mothers. There is always time and it is never wasted.

The eagle extended a wing over the girl, presenting the comfort of her side to Krisa now, a warm presence of reassurement. Nothing of the massive bird spoke of despisment or loathing or even grudging toleration. Her eyes did not see a Dek, but a chick in need of comfort from a mother.

Let me tell you a story, child. It's about a young girl, not unlike yourself. Her head was always down, her eye upon the ground, even when the sky was all around. She was a very nice young girl, so smart, so determined. But fate has a funny way of changing things, a funny way of preparing one for something greater. It will bring you low, low, low to the ground, before the climb begins. It will lay the rock upon your shoulder and you are sure that you will be crushed, until you see the first step. It is a hard step for it is high and the climb difficult, but it is a step, and it leads to a most wondrous ray of light.

That young girl was brought low, too. And she was afraid that her step would never come. She feared that she would stay in her pit of darkness, always able to see the light, but never able to reach it.

The eagle shifted her skull closer until she could touch her beak to the girls arm, churring gently. Until a hand appeared, to help them get back on their feet. Won't you stand with me?

The eagle had changed now, taking on the form of a young woman. She wore a white shift that flowed to her knees, the light silk straps barely clinging to her shoulders. The woman's hair was long and flowed out wildly behind her, looking the waves of light in a sunset, the deep oranges and reds highlighted in particular. Her face, however, was marred, an ugly scar running the length of her right eye so that it was left white and blind. The other, however, blazed with the same knowing intensity as the eagles had in a green as rich as for pine forests that littered the valleys of northern Kalea, while a ring of gold blanketed the green iris.

"Won't you stand with me? There is always time."

[Krisa]

Confusion creased her brow as the eagle ‘spoke’ to her. She just stood there listening, as a child. It was almost fitting that she embodied a child as she listened to those words. The dream had taken a agreeable turn, even though she was still so small. The eagle spoke of a girl she had known that was like Krisa. ‘Low to the ground’. That was where Krisa was when she was a child. She had never really reached for the step, though it was there. The story touched a heart that was barly beating under layers of stone and ice, and broke through. “That girl sounds brave,” She whispered. There was a long pause as the eagle touched her arm softly with its beak. The beak turned into a hand and suddenly she was staring at a young lady. And Krisa felt happy looking at her. It was like her kind words had made everything about the place they stood brighter.

Krisa smiled and transformed into a grown woman in a blue dress with slashed sleeves that had been given to her as a gift from a friend in her new home in Lhavit. A cocoon of silk that made her feel beautiful. A cool breeze blew back her orange locks and they seemed to grow longer before fluttering down by her shoulders “I’ve grasped that step many times, it’s always there in front of me. I haven’t reached it yet, but I’m trying. Every time I slip and fall, I reach for it again.” The woman was so beautiful “It is certainly kind people like yourself that make the world that much better” She told her, still smiling.

When she left Wind Reach, she’d taken a step. When she’d started busking she’d taken another. When she’d met Liriah, another. But most nights she succumbed to grief, or madness, or voices. “I’ll stand with you,” Krisa told the young lady final, momentarily stunned by her presence, as she had been with the eagle. She gazed at her scar, gazed at her eyes, her hair. She was beautiful.

Then Krisa looked up to see the stars, and it was like she saw them for the first time again. Brilliant, and vibrant. “What’s your name?” She asked her softly as she looked up.

[Lavira]

Vira listened in silence as the other replied to the stepping stone analogy, nodding encouragingly with each reference of taking a step, only for dismay to fill the young woman's face when she described being brought low again. "That you know the step is there is good; acknowledge it and you can accomplish anything. But the journey is never easy."

The shift pulled tight against the young woman's body, fitting snug in a gust of wind that showed the puckering of further scarring up and down her right side. "It is frequently difficult; sometimes the steps are higher than you have the ability to reach. It isn't bravado that is needed then, but courage." The wind settled at last, allowing the blazing hair to settle around her shoulders and back while Vira reached for the other womans hand to pull her away from where she had cowered. She was offering guidance in this darkness, something many of late were giving her in return.

"You see, being brave is easy." her hand would leave Krisa's in order to hook into the elbow as they walked a leaf-thickened path, the world around them already seeming to alter. Lhavit was being left behind as the path extended ahead of them, stars dancing all around now. "Those who are brave haven't known fear. A soldier is brave; but a warrior is courageous." Vira had never thought of herself as courageous, and yet the description fit.

"A soldier knows he may be hurt or killed, that what he faces may be beyond his abilities to defeat, but he feels no fear in its presence. It is a dangerous tactic since fear should not be avoided, but confronted. Embrace it like an old friend as you would death, life, a lover." She bumped the others hips for emphasis as they continued on the path. "A soldier is brave because to him, he is always stronger than the problem he faces."

"A warrior, on the other hand. Well, a warrior is courageous. Likewise, he knows that the pain is great, that the battle will be greater; but unlike bravery, she knows what fear is and she accepts it. It is an inevitability in the odds she faces and cannot be ignored." They came to a great pit suddenly and the woman looked down into it where a woman of white hair and white skin, the faint sheen of scales visible upon it, could be seen leaning over another woman, practically a girl herself, with hair like a sunset. One eye was blinded, though the scar was old, and her side was shredded. The pale woman, she who looked like a Konti was doing something to the woman on the ground. There was a crunch and then the red head let out a horrendous scream of agony, rolling and scrunching herself beside the konti.

"The courageous are always driven by more than their fear, however, and thus it lets them overcome it." The pit disappeared and the ginger turned to smile at Krisha, it was kind and warm, not unlike a mother's smile, though she did not look old enough to yet have children. "They know what is to be faced and have accepted the inevitabilities for the sake of the goal. Would you go into a building that burns to save your son or daughter knowing that doing so may well kill you? Or would you let them die?"

When asked her name, Vira beamed with such youth and vitality, one would think Sivah had favored her. "My name is Lavira. What's yours?"

[Krisa]

Willingly, Krisa released the strings and let the young lady lead the dream. She let her pull her gently along as they navigated the darkness together. She listened as the lady talked of bravery. Bravery and courageousness. They were synonyms, but she made them sound like two completely different things. The soldier, and the warrier. Two things of which she was neither. What she did well, she did for others. To impress her girlfriend she had spent hours every day trying to focus on learning archery. She’d spent every evening mastering common tongue. She’d gotten over her limited attention span, and her complete disbelief in herself, because she was trying to make someone she loved feel good.

Last season in Lhavit, she had killed a man in order to save herself and a stranger. She’d hung behind when she was being chased in order to check if that stranger was alive, and healthy, and then thrown them both behind a rock to high. She could have easily just run off and escaped herself, she was much faster than her pursuers, and would have made it. But she valued the lives of others, even strangers, above her own. She would even die for her little songbird, Kieran.

Her train of though was interrupted as the pit opened out in front of them. Krisa cringed away from the crunch and the scream. “I would go into a burning building to save anyone, even a stranger…” She told her “I’m scared of death, of course I am, but my life is worth less than most others. What have I brought to the world?” She shook her head “Especially that of a child, weather it was mine, or someone else’s, if I have lived longer, their life is more precious.”

She though of how she’d killed that bandit in the forest again, and felt like a hypocrite “But there was a time where I valued my life over another… and I killed him.” She looked at the ground “He was trying to kill me, but he faltered, and so I had to stop him. There was another girl there too, a stranger, but even when I did it, all I thought about was ‘I don’t want to die’”

She smiled meekly as the woman beamed at her “I’m Krisa” She told her

[Lavira]

"Well, Krisa-" The woman began, taking her arm once more as the pit faded from sight and the konti and sunset-haired woman within it disappeared. "-it's okay to be afraid of death. I mean, death is an inevitability but it's still scary." She kept walking, a world seen from above now rising beneath them, clouds and mist tickling their skin. The sensation brought with it fond memories of flying again and Vira closed her eyes, smiling as she put her face into the wind.

"I killed a girl once, too." She paused, opened her eyes, then laughed some. "Well, not directly, but my actions caused their death. I wasn't at my best then and she was a particularly cruel young lady. I wound up no better than she was in what I caused and she paid the ultimate price. I was too late to intervene, then, and I still regret my actions. Many things haunt me, as it seems haunt you." When she looked back at the girl, though, the eagle had returned and the angle of observation had been altered so that she was looking back and slightly up at the other ginger, as though she was on her back.

Vira's wings flapped only minimally as she flew, carried on thermals unseen. Just as the Wind Eagles did, her mind spoke with Krisa's, So where should we go, Krisa? I hear there is great hunting in the Palithian Steppes; ixam, takin, even zyenebi. I bet you're a fine shot with that too.

The bird-Vira's eyes fixed upon a bow she could see on her back. Dreams had such strange rules, or lack thereof. Her head turned back ahead, beak pointing down as she searched the ground far below for the steppes that had been mentioned. The particular ones in question were part of a larger plateau series in northern kalea where massive herds of takin and roaming packs of wolves ruled. There were also mammoths on these flatter swaths, though they were less common.

Vira's wings suddenly angled and the pair went into a steep dive as she folded them against her body, tail spread wide to maintain her stability. When she opened her wings again and leveled off, the eagle-woman swept across the steppes, the herds scattering beneath her inky shadow. All Krisa had to do was pick and shoot.

[Krisa]

Death that came too soon. That was what was scary. Krisa was safe now. She no longer had to live the short life of a Dek. She lived somewhere beautiful and earned money for what she loved doing. Her life couldn’t be better, if it weren’t for the imprisonment of her own mind. But she had no time to dwell on things. Suddenly she was souring high, on top of a wind eagle. Her shock was followed by a mix of horror and glee. “Wahhhhhh!” She yelled out like a little girl as they dived and turned and swooped over the mountains of Kaela. “S-S-Shoot!? I can’t even hang on!” She cried, not sure where or how hard she should be gripping the bird. Had she really just turned into the worst Endal ever, and gone on a hunting trip?

None the less, even the dream version of Krisa was eager to impress. She pulled and arrow out of the quiver on her back, and loaded it into her bow. She had her eye on a takin that seemed to be slower than the rest of the pack. Maybe it was the straggler, smaller than the rest. She had time to aim before firing. She pulled the string back taught, and then fired. The arrow shot fast and pierced the takin through it’s heart. Krisa stared, shocked as it fell “Wow…” She breathed. She hadn’t expected to do well at all. Maybe it was her high spirits that had made this dream into such a triumph.

A stab of sadness filled her mind for a moment as she remembered how her girlfriends was a huntress. How she’d always wanted to bond with a mighty wind eagle. But she mustn’t let her happiness go. She had to hold onto it… because soon she would have to actually wake up and start the day. And she didn’t want to “…O can’t I dream forever” Krisa murmured softly into a fistful of feathers “…Can’t I saty here…”

[Lavira]

No, we cannot dream forever, no matter our desires. But it's a much better dream than falling with none but rocks to catch you.

The wind filled their ears again as the eagles wings flapped hard, descending on the slain takin to grab it in her talons and lift it back into the sky. The silver ridges of both limbs caught in the light and nearly erupted in fire as the blazing crest of the bird rose against her skull. She was climbing hard and fast, beating at the air and twisting her tail to gain the lift she needed. The world fell away beneath them as they climbed and climbed and climbed.

Eventually, the world ceased its retreat and beheld a view like no other. They had climbed to an impossible height, the massive summits and canyons of Kalea clearly laid beneath them. However, beyond the enormous mountain chain were three well defined sights. One was an immense jungle that faded along the subtle curve of the world. To the north was a land of white and ice and snow. To the east and west were great seas that disappeared over the horizon. It was truly breathtaking as the eagle-woman hung in an eternal suspension, letting the view be drilled into her memory.

The world is too big for the likes of us.

The eagle turned her head to the north where a distant peak just before the glinting white filled her vision, rose from the other mountains, clouds clinging on what seemed only midway up the massive peak. The gentle mists and steam and smoke that rose from various points upon it served as a reminder of the tumultuous nature of the thing which Wind Reach had been founded on. Theirs was a world of extreme isolation, set literally on top of the rest of the world.

So, Krisa; where to now?