Kavala quietly watched Hirem take all that she had to say and let it sink in. He could have said a number of things, balked at what she was trying to explain, or even refused to share the orange with her. Instead, he seemed to settle within himself and close his eyes as if letting the weight of all the information she’d just given him settle onto his shoulders. He seemed to ooze a peace that sometimes people of devote faith held about themselves like armor. He did not get visibly upset. He did not override her words, and he did not react generally negatively which meant he was listening.
It was all Kavala could ask.
Sometimes, she got the oddest feeling among all the preparations she was constantly doing, that her purpose in the world at this time wasn’t for keeping everyone safe or rebuilding the Cytali. Sometimes she just wondered if it wasn’t as simple as opening other people up to the possibility love. It was such a fundamental thing, so simple, but Kavala had walked a hard path in life, one that had taken her from her rugged but sheltered youth among family, to strange healers and a time of learning. From there she’d fallen into slavery and later that had moved from being enslaved to being contractually obliged. She’d done her duty, served her time, and was a free woman now. But she understood that the road behind her was fraught with a lot of self doubt and negative feelings towards who she was and what she had become.
Many people feared the Akalak and living among them. And the people that knew she was an ex Nakivak probably wondered why she didn’t feel the same way. But the truth was when she’d gone through the reality of being a slave with a destination as food for the Zith, she’d been grateful for her rescue from that fate by the jewel toned men of Riverfall. And that they’d asked her to bear them children, in the long course of what her life had been and would have been if she hadn’t come along, really wasn’t all that much. She could see their perspective, but Kavala could also say with certainty that she had walked a shadowed time hating herself and those that held her contracts. It was only when freedom came – at almost the cost of her life through brutality – which she could forgive them their nature and even in the end forgives herself. And she knew why that had come about. She loved her children. Their wide eyes and curious ways and all the promise of their lives to come had healed the anger. Them being in the world had been worth it to Kavala, in the end, and she would have paid the price the Akalak asked many times over to have them.
It had been her first and hardest most long lasting lesson in love.
And so when the Benshira started to cry, Kavala faced the storm. Being a healer she knew what people carried inside at times. She too had cried like Hirem cried a time or two and she knew how good it was for him to do so. Rather she stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder, equally moved by his reaction and wanting him to know she was sincere. Kavala also knew his words, the ones he uttered with such devote gratitude, were not meant for her. She could not understand the language, but she recognized the prayer, the reverence and nodded, knowing he talked to his God. She stood there, hand firm on his shoulder, squeezing him gently until the flood subsided and the waters retreated and he could breathe again. And when he made to rise, she stepped back, giving him room and her full attention.
“Sometimes there is no better waste of water than to let it cleans your soul of the pain you carry deeply.” Kavala said softly, sensibly, and when he thanked her, she simply nodded. “I think it was something you needed to know, Hirem. And I think, in a way, its something you are already very familiar with but have been lost too in this life. I know it was that way for me when I was coming into my awareness of the greater length of my life and what I have done and what I have been. It gives a person a deeper understanding of what passes around them and why. It makes you wiser, stronger, and it reminds you… reminds you because you cannot teach someone something they already know… that you have been through much worse or have survived different things to the point where its far easier to be courageous, embrace dangerous things or ideas, and know that you do so because the need is so very real and the danger is not something that is just inside your head.” Kavala said, then quietly listened, hearing what he had to say.
Kavala nodded slowly, letting his words wash over her, and then she closed her eyes.
She knew this feeling that filled Hirem. She knew the lifetime of feeling lost in direction and then the sense of coming home and knowing that something was so utterly right and utterly accepting it in the same breath.
Kavala stepped forward and ran her hand into Hirem’s hair. She picked a single strand of hair and gently tugged it, knowing it would cause him pain. Then she did something drastic, something that she knew Nysel would hear, for all that she was only one of his Dreamwalkers and not one of his priestesses. First, slowly, she looked around and noted they were still alone in the oppressive heat.
She knelt with the hair in her fingers, held aloft like a woman would hold a precious flower, and closed her eyes. Her head bowed forward and Hirem could see that she almost instantly drifted asleep still kneeling, still clutching his strand of hair. Then she passed from one world to the other, almost instantly, leaving only her body behind. To Hirem it would seem that the Konti was asleep. But he’d also feel a profound disquiet because when someone was asleep, there was still an awareness of them being present. But Kavala’s body, while she was gone, seemed to simply cease being alive in the sense that it was full of life. It became instead a shell of flesh and bone, discarded instantly, and left to haunt the living with the reminder that death could come so swiftly and be so utterly final.
And where she went was where all Dreamwalkers longed to be. She found herself in the glittering world of the Chavena surrounded by dancing silver cords of life. Kavala picked out her own, knowing it from the others immediately. Then she followed it backwards, farther and farther and farther until she passed its origin and passed into where it tied into the Chavena. She had no body in the Chavena, but was only a spark of light that glowed with intelligence. But once she passed the barrier between the Chavena and the Ukalas, then and only then did she get granted a physical form. Kavala materialized in Nysel’s realm and dropped to her knees.
“My Lord, I have found one of Yahal’s faithful and one of your lost. He is here.” She said laying the hair still clutched in her fingers upon the swirling ground. Nysel’s realm looked like a glass lake frozen hard with a sunset sky reflected in it. The horizon stretched forever in a hundred and eighty degrees with the deepest darkest part of the sunset reflecting stars. “Help him to find his way, and if it is your will, My Lord, return him to our fold, etch your mark upon his body so he too could Dreamwalk with us and see the truth of all I have told him for himself. May this please you, my Lord? If it does, I will induct him into the Cytali.” Kavala said, opening her eyes and gazing about the realm. She rose to her feet, stretched, and opened her hands wide turning in a circle to take in the breathtaking beauty of Nysel’s realm.
The Eth of Syna and Leth often talked of mourning the loss of dwelling in those realms. But to Kavala, being a Dreamwalker was far better than that for they could live among the living and still visit the realm of their father to refresh and relax them and to re-infuse them with energy any time they liked. Nysel’s mark granted her that permission. So on her second twirl, arms open, receptive to the beauty, Kavala felt a rumble echo through the plain of glass that she stood upon. It caused the stars and sunset sky reflected in it to rumble and dance. There was a joy to the rumble, an acceptance, and that was all she needed to know to understand the fact that Nysel approved.
Kavala bowed her head once more, left the hair lying where it was, and pushed off from the ground, rising up through the sunset sky and passing once more out of the Ukalas into the Chavena and following her Chavi back to the land of the living.
If Hirem was paying attention, he’d see the single strand of hair still pinched in Kavala’s fingers disappear after glowing brightly for a moment.
After that, it was only one shallow breath or two before Kavala opened her eyes and smiled up at Hirem. “My Lord approves…. I think he greatly approves.” She said, rising to her feet and offering Hirem a smile. “There is a ceremony, a small one, to welcome you. You may do it now, or as I would suggest more strong, wait until the season plays out, think your life through and know that this path is one that once you set foot on changes everything about how you see life and what you know of the world. If you give it that time to think on and still want it, I would love to induct you to the Cytali on the first of the fall under Leth’s harvest moon.” Kavala offered, knowing that it would give both the Cytali in existence now time to get to know Hirem and acknowledge him as one of their own plus it would give Hirem the hunger and need he should surely feel to be open to new things.
“Hirem, once you join the Cytali, you become a target. You are already a target, truthfully, just knowing what I have told you. But once you formally accept your role and set out on a path that your Gods lay out for you – and there will be one – then there is no going back and no walking blind and ignorant again. The Ruv’na does not care about the blind and ignorant. They are, to them, easy to control. Instead they care about those that could oppose them. And those include the folks that know about them, are strong enough to fight them physically and mentally, and those that have a firm conviction of the heart.” Kavala said, and then nodded to Hirem. “Once you accept and take vows, things will have to change. You will have to settle down for a time and you will have to train and learn new things. Those things are up to you, but you’ll need a skill set that will allow you to face people who have been trained to kill from birth and survive. You have a fine strong body right now, but it is not strong enough. I can tell by the way you move you have had little training in combat and turning your body into a weapon. That will need to change. And you will have to either work with or be able to work around magic, because the Ruv’na strives to use it to destroy the Gods and you can’t fight what you don’t understand.” She said firmly, knowing all these things might or might not be a deal breaker for them.
“Can you do all this? I don’t want you to answer, Hirem. I want you to think on it yourself. And when you know the answer… be it a chime from now or a season or two, I want you to come back to me and tell me what it is. I will either follow through with what you have asked or welcome you to the Cytali or I will give you supplies and wish you well on the continuance of your journey. There is no ill in my mind of stepping aside in this life and taking a break from the fight. That is especially true if you have been heavily involved in the last one. There is only shame in saying you want to make a difference or fight, and then do not have the heart or conviction for it.” The Konti added, hoping he understood without her saying so that the Ruv’na was not going to take a break. They were never going to stop. And that one lifetime could make all the difference over ten lifetimes spent in waste.
Count: 2,206
It was all Kavala could ask.
Sometimes, she got the oddest feeling among all the preparations she was constantly doing, that her purpose in the world at this time wasn’t for keeping everyone safe or rebuilding the Cytali. Sometimes she just wondered if it wasn’t as simple as opening other people up to the possibility love. It was such a fundamental thing, so simple, but Kavala had walked a hard path in life, one that had taken her from her rugged but sheltered youth among family, to strange healers and a time of learning. From there she’d fallen into slavery and later that had moved from being enslaved to being contractually obliged. She’d done her duty, served her time, and was a free woman now. But she understood that the road behind her was fraught with a lot of self doubt and negative feelings towards who she was and what she had become.
Many people feared the Akalak and living among them. And the people that knew she was an ex Nakivak probably wondered why she didn’t feel the same way. But the truth was when she’d gone through the reality of being a slave with a destination as food for the Zith, she’d been grateful for her rescue from that fate by the jewel toned men of Riverfall. And that they’d asked her to bear them children, in the long course of what her life had been and would have been if she hadn’t come along, really wasn’t all that much. She could see their perspective, but Kavala could also say with certainty that she had walked a shadowed time hating herself and those that held her contracts. It was only when freedom came – at almost the cost of her life through brutality – which she could forgive them their nature and even in the end forgives herself. And she knew why that had come about. She loved her children. Their wide eyes and curious ways and all the promise of their lives to come had healed the anger. Them being in the world had been worth it to Kavala, in the end, and she would have paid the price the Akalak asked many times over to have them.
It had been her first and hardest most long lasting lesson in love.
And so when the Benshira started to cry, Kavala faced the storm. Being a healer she knew what people carried inside at times. She too had cried like Hirem cried a time or two and she knew how good it was for him to do so. Rather she stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder, equally moved by his reaction and wanting him to know she was sincere. Kavala also knew his words, the ones he uttered with such devote gratitude, were not meant for her. She could not understand the language, but she recognized the prayer, the reverence and nodded, knowing he talked to his God. She stood there, hand firm on his shoulder, squeezing him gently until the flood subsided and the waters retreated and he could breathe again. And when he made to rise, she stepped back, giving him room and her full attention.
“Sometimes there is no better waste of water than to let it cleans your soul of the pain you carry deeply.” Kavala said softly, sensibly, and when he thanked her, she simply nodded. “I think it was something you needed to know, Hirem. And I think, in a way, its something you are already very familiar with but have been lost too in this life. I know it was that way for me when I was coming into my awareness of the greater length of my life and what I have done and what I have been. It gives a person a deeper understanding of what passes around them and why. It makes you wiser, stronger, and it reminds you… reminds you because you cannot teach someone something they already know… that you have been through much worse or have survived different things to the point where its far easier to be courageous, embrace dangerous things or ideas, and know that you do so because the need is so very real and the danger is not something that is just inside your head.” Kavala said, then quietly listened, hearing what he had to say.
Kavala nodded slowly, letting his words wash over her, and then she closed her eyes.
She knew this feeling that filled Hirem. She knew the lifetime of feeling lost in direction and then the sense of coming home and knowing that something was so utterly right and utterly accepting it in the same breath.
Kavala stepped forward and ran her hand into Hirem’s hair. She picked a single strand of hair and gently tugged it, knowing it would cause him pain. Then she did something drastic, something that she knew Nysel would hear, for all that she was only one of his Dreamwalkers and not one of his priestesses. First, slowly, she looked around and noted they were still alone in the oppressive heat.
She knelt with the hair in her fingers, held aloft like a woman would hold a precious flower, and closed her eyes. Her head bowed forward and Hirem could see that she almost instantly drifted asleep still kneeling, still clutching his strand of hair. Then she passed from one world to the other, almost instantly, leaving only her body behind. To Hirem it would seem that the Konti was asleep. But he’d also feel a profound disquiet because when someone was asleep, there was still an awareness of them being present. But Kavala’s body, while she was gone, seemed to simply cease being alive in the sense that it was full of life. It became instead a shell of flesh and bone, discarded instantly, and left to haunt the living with the reminder that death could come so swiftly and be so utterly final.
And where she went was where all Dreamwalkers longed to be. She found herself in the glittering world of the Chavena surrounded by dancing silver cords of life. Kavala picked out her own, knowing it from the others immediately. Then she followed it backwards, farther and farther and farther until she passed its origin and passed into where it tied into the Chavena. She had no body in the Chavena, but was only a spark of light that glowed with intelligence. But once she passed the barrier between the Chavena and the Ukalas, then and only then did she get granted a physical form. Kavala materialized in Nysel’s realm and dropped to her knees.
“My Lord, I have found one of Yahal’s faithful and one of your lost. He is here.” She said laying the hair still clutched in her fingers upon the swirling ground. Nysel’s realm looked like a glass lake frozen hard with a sunset sky reflected in it. The horizon stretched forever in a hundred and eighty degrees with the deepest darkest part of the sunset reflecting stars. “Help him to find his way, and if it is your will, My Lord, return him to our fold, etch your mark upon his body so he too could Dreamwalk with us and see the truth of all I have told him for himself. May this please you, my Lord? If it does, I will induct him into the Cytali.” Kavala said, opening her eyes and gazing about the realm. She rose to her feet, stretched, and opened her hands wide turning in a circle to take in the breathtaking beauty of Nysel’s realm.
The Eth of Syna and Leth often talked of mourning the loss of dwelling in those realms. But to Kavala, being a Dreamwalker was far better than that for they could live among the living and still visit the realm of their father to refresh and relax them and to re-infuse them with energy any time they liked. Nysel’s mark granted her that permission. So on her second twirl, arms open, receptive to the beauty, Kavala felt a rumble echo through the plain of glass that she stood upon. It caused the stars and sunset sky reflected in it to rumble and dance. There was a joy to the rumble, an acceptance, and that was all she needed to know to understand the fact that Nysel approved.
Kavala bowed her head once more, left the hair lying where it was, and pushed off from the ground, rising up through the sunset sky and passing once more out of the Ukalas into the Chavena and following her Chavi back to the land of the living.
If Hirem was paying attention, he’d see the single strand of hair still pinched in Kavala’s fingers disappear after glowing brightly for a moment.
After that, it was only one shallow breath or two before Kavala opened her eyes and smiled up at Hirem. “My Lord approves…. I think he greatly approves.” She said, rising to her feet and offering Hirem a smile. “There is a ceremony, a small one, to welcome you. You may do it now, or as I would suggest more strong, wait until the season plays out, think your life through and know that this path is one that once you set foot on changes everything about how you see life and what you know of the world. If you give it that time to think on and still want it, I would love to induct you to the Cytali on the first of the fall under Leth’s harvest moon.” Kavala offered, knowing that it would give both the Cytali in existence now time to get to know Hirem and acknowledge him as one of their own plus it would give Hirem the hunger and need he should surely feel to be open to new things.
“Hirem, once you join the Cytali, you become a target. You are already a target, truthfully, just knowing what I have told you. But once you formally accept your role and set out on a path that your Gods lay out for you – and there will be one – then there is no going back and no walking blind and ignorant again. The Ruv’na does not care about the blind and ignorant. They are, to them, easy to control. Instead they care about those that could oppose them. And those include the folks that know about them, are strong enough to fight them physically and mentally, and those that have a firm conviction of the heart.” Kavala said, and then nodded to Hirem. “Once you accept and take vows, things will have to change. You will have to settle down for a time and you will have to train and learn new things. Those things are up to you, but you’ll need a skill set that will allow you to face people who have been trained to kill from birth and survive. You have a fine strong body right now, but it is not strong enough. I can tell by the way you move you have had little training in combat and turning your body into a weapon. That will need to change. And you will have to either work with or be able to work around magic, because the Ruv’na strives to use it to destroy the Gods and you can’t fight what you don’t understand.” She said firmly, knowing all these things might or might not be a deal breaker for them.
“Can you do all this? I don’t want you to answer, Hirem. I want you to think on it yourself. And when you know the answer… be it a chime from now or a season or two, I want you to come back to me and tell me what it is. I will either follow through with what you have asked or welcome you to the Cytali or I will give you supplies and wish you well on the continuance of your journey. There is no ill in my mind of stepping aside in this life and taking a break from the fight. That is especially true if you have been heavily involved in the last one. There is only shame in saying you want to make a difference or fight, and then do not have the heart or conviction for it.” The Konti added, hoping he understood without her saying so that the Ruv’na was not going to take a break. They were never going to stop. And that one lifetime could make all the difference over ten lifetimes spent in waste.
Count: 2,206
