season of passage. (kavala)

by **Caelum** on March 16th, 2012, 2:43 pm

The locket was hot as passion warmed flesh, pulsing against his palm when Kavala offered it back. Physician’s fingers closed over it, holding it tight in his fist as he exhaled what felt like a life’s worth of comet dust from his lungs.

“Thank you,” he spoke at last, clawing his way back toward the surface. Lean shoulders rolled back, trying to hold up the sky’s weight or maybe just that of his sins.

Did he know what thoughts trespassed through the mind of his hostess, he may have had an argument to counter all of his apparent crimes. It was for the better, doubtless, that he was ignorant, corporeal shell swimming with the effects of the herbs earlier gifted him and heart near too battered to beat.

He turned to study her, hands sliding into the pockets of his jacket, slumped and piecing together the splotches of need decorating her shadow.

“It was a cruel thing,” he said finally. “Wasn’t it?”

by **Kavala** on March 16th, 2012, 4:11 pm

Kavala simply stared at the Ethafael. She watched him with concealed eyes and wondered how she should respond. Agreeing with him would be a kindness, but she wasn't a liar. "We all walk the world for a while, leave it, and return again to continue our stroll. There's no cruelty in Lillis' ending. She found happiness and felt the growing life within her, something she wanted more than anything. I felt that about her, how happy she was. She also saw her daughter and died with a smile on her face and a man who loved her by her side. It is far more than most people get to have, Caelum." Kavala said simply, deciding to assign nothing to it, no emotion nor accusation. What she really wanted to ask was why...

Why he had to roam? Why he had to leave her? Why men were never satisfied with the gifts in their lives? But it wouldn't be questions in regards to Lillis, not really. Instead they would be her own questions. Kavala had more in common with Lillis than superficially she had with Caelum. They were both healers, but in that Lillis had been abandoned for parts unknown by her love because love wasn't enough to hold anyone to one place made Kavala more kin than naught with the dead woman. Kavala knew how such things felt.

She would not judge Caelum for them though. Perhaps he fancied himself with a far greater cause than just settling down and loving someone. And maybe it was true. Did the gods drive him away from any happiness and that in itself gives him the right to mourn? Kavala didn't know. Had it given Hatot the right? Would one year or two have cost him so little? The Konti sighed softly and let go of her anger. It was easier and easier to feel nothing these days when it came to the subject of love. Love was a complete waste of her time, even if it was the one thing she really wanted. Caelum was a handsome creature, sensitive, and understanding. But he'd never stay home easily. She felt for Lillis in that moment, wishing she could have sometime reached out and comforted the woman, telling her how much she understood and how much it hurt to be left. And she wondered, ultimately, if Caelum had any idea of what it did to a person. Kavala was glad, thankful even, that in the end Lillis had what she wanted. He wasn't Caelum, but he had been more than enough.

"You look like you need some rest. Would you like a place to sleep?" She said finally, not knowing if his kind even needed to take their rest, and not knowing what else she could say and not wanting to hurt her friend.

by **Caelum** on March 29th, 2012, 12:43 am

"I am glad she was happy," were the words that came slow but no less genuine for it. It was a lump in his throat as if he did not already possess enough roadblocks to his heart.

The boards of the veranda creaked as he rolled forward, pacing toward where Tavisal slept to sink down and, with gentle hands that knew children and understood the way of them, lifting the baby into his arms. Kavala's son was cuddled close, secure as Caelum turned back towards her, responding belatedly to an unvoiced need that had crawled across the skin of his soul.

"I mean you, though," he murmured, words pitched low in an attempt to not further disturb the child. He drew to a halt before her, nodding with a rise of his chin and a lifting of sun needled eyes. "It was cruel, walking my dream. Wasn't it? I can see it in you, the sorrow it offered."

He hesitated, listening maybe to somewhat in the wind or the gentle depths of the baby's breathing.

"I'd have happier dreams to give you, if I could hold them long enough."

by **Kavala** on March 31st, 2012, 4:34 pm

She watched Caelum pick up her sons and studied the action curiously. Hatot and Radris had never held his sons. Would Cugacon? Tasival would survive growing into adulthood without a father because Kavala surrounded herself with strong men that had already taught her more about her sons than she would have ever known on her own. The endless crying had caused an Akontak in passing to simply glance at the boy and make the comment that he was unhappy his mother didn't like him as well as she liked his brother. Raiha had given the silent side a name and with Shayru's introduction came a different set of toys, a different set of routines, and individual attention that had calmed the crying and turned the tantrums inward so that only the two souls fought with each other rather than their mother or those that gave them care.

Akontak children were not easy. No easier, Kavala supposed, than Akalak or Konti children would be. But they still brought her joy. Both her sons and whatever seed Cugacon had planted in her belly would more gratifying than a life alone and so she eagerly welcomed both.

When he halted in front of her and asked her how walking his dreams made her feel, Kavala looked thoughtful. There was much she could say but nothing that could convey her true feelings appropriately. How could she tell him that with each Chavi she walked she learned more and more about the nature of men and felt less and less like they were reliable in any sort of manner. Tizack's chavi had been like that as well. Humans, Eth, even Akalak... there was nothing more she wanted from them. Once, perhaps, but she understood their true nature with a glimpse here and a glimpse there, and it gave her pause because they wanted inherently nothing she herself wanted. Their restless hearts and wandering spirits, despite anything they said to the contrary, tended to betray them every time.

"I've known cruelty, Caelum. Walking your Chavi and then hers was not even close to that." She offered instead. A full explanation would probably make no sense to him because of how differently they thought. Had Kavala walked Caelum's shoes, she'd have never left the woman who's locket he held. And as tangible to him as she was, he was more comfortable with the reminder of her than he ever was actually settling down with her.

Kavala could not pretend to understand. She'd met Eth before, several in fact, and one thing she'd noticed about each and every one of them was that their eyes were focused backwards on what had happened to them rather than forwards on what they could become. It was perhaps the one comfort she had in Riverfall. The Akalak looked forward towards the future always. They learned from the past, but did not dwell there. It was perhaps the one place in the world were someone who had known trauma could heal properly, from the inside out, instead of letting mental wounds simply scab over and yet continue to fester inside.

"It seems to me you look back a great deal, as if expecting the past to rear its ugly head and sever your ties to the future. In doing so I think you miss the beauty that is in front of you and the real reason for living. None of us, Caelum, have to be here in this life. It is a choice we've made even if we don't remember making it. We're here because this thing we endure, this long series of events, is worth it to us. We choose to live." Kavala said softly, almost to herself as she gazed at her sons in the Eth's arms.

"I choose to live. I'll deal with what comes, no matter how bad it is, and keep moving forward. And the day I finally leave this world, like Lillis, I'll know what it all was for. She died smiling because she died understanding that life is a cycle and her time was done and now it was up to her daughter to live. May my death be as good and my realizations as deep." Kavala said, glancing at the Ethafael.

by **Caelum** on May 27th, 2012, 2:16 am

"May it be," he echoed what to him seemed a grim blessing, still holding her son protectively close to his heart.

There were no threats dragging fate fettered feet in the shadows of the Sanctuary, no lowering doom preparing to pounce from the corners of the veranda. Yet he stood as if there be, as if he even had the capacity to well defend anyone.

He had tried, though, through the years.

A study was made of Kavala's face, bright as a spring moon and equally as lovely. "You're right," he raised his eyebrows a touch, a note of irony tasted in his words. "i'm ever looking over my shoulder, into the yesterdays. You're not the first to suggest to me that it was more my choice, to be here now, unremembered than some over simple accident of celestial proportions. I'm a healer. I believe in life."

He fell silent, the shift awkward at the end of what was an obviously unfinished speech. His eyebrows drew together with the passage of an odd thought deep in the recesses of him.

But I'm tired.

Those were the words he did not utter, knowing them to be unworthy. His mouth twitched and he tried on a smile after a minute.

"The road has dumbed me down, Kavala," he said in a lighter tone. "Here we are, the second time our roads have crossed, and I have to move on again. Syna," he squinted a bit, or was that more of a flinch about his eyes? "She's beckoned. Maybe next time we converge, I'll be able to do you a service."

by **Kavala** on May 27th, 2012, 7:00 pm

She stood there silently for a moment, watching Caelum hold Tasival and it touched her heart a moment. Caelum had no son. Tasival had no father. Everyone lacked something in their life and yet did it make their life any less than what it was? No. Here, in that moment, each was filling a missing void in the others life. And though it wouldn't last for more than a heartbeat or two, it served to remind her that life was unconventional as a rule. Normal didn't exist. It never would. Tasival might even have more fathers because he lacked one than a child who had a father did.

And Caelum, well, he certainly had a lot to think of.

Kavala wished she understood. She wanted to ask him why he'd left his love but a calling from a Goddess could not always be explained. What he did was cruel and selfish, but in the end it got Lillis what she wanted more than anything even if she only got to hold it for a moment.

All they had was a moment.

Kavala realized that acutely and suddenly appreciated it more than she had before. She'd take a moment, for certain, and realize it for its fragility and fleetingness. And she'd not forget to be thankful, no matter how bad things got. Carefully she laid a hand across her stomach, thought of Cugacon and let the sadness overwhelm her for a moment, welcoming it perhaps because it was so like Caelums own pain.

Cugacon had said he loved her, but it wasn't enough. Love wasn't enough. She couldn't hold him there with her just by being herself. He had other more important things to attend too and he was gone. Vanished. Just like Caelum had from Lillis' life. But Lillis had still found happiness. Was that the lesson in this meeting? Was that the golden ring she should be reaching for? Kavala didn't want to give up, but she was so tired of her situation, of the rawness that came with what her experiences had been in Riverfall.

There was so much good here. But there was so much awkwardness too. There would be another child, another fatherless child, and she wanted to weep for it. But maybe someday an Eth would hold this second child and look into its eyes and know that everything happened for the better in time, regardless of the forces that seemed to conspire in the now against that.

Was that Tasival's gift to Caelum?

Kavala's thoughts whirled. She wished suddenly she'd gotten a chance to say goodbye and thank you to Hatot. She wished the same in regards to Cugacon. But was love worth it? Or were the Akalak incapable? Kavala suddenly realized this was more about closure than anything... this meeting with Caelum. And when that thought occurred to her she stood up and gently retrieved her son from Caelum's arms.

"It's his bedtime. So I need to put him down. Caelum, if you need a place to stay tonight, to rest... feel free to bed down anywhere here. We can talk more in the morning or you can get back on the road, whichever you need. I'm glad you let me walk your Chavi and hers. The journey taught me a lot, a lot more than I thought possible. Its good that you came... very good. Enjoy the night. There's linens in the closet and upstairs is a bed large enough for anyone who needs room, Drykas style." Kavala said. "Eat if your hungry again, or wander because the animals won't mind." She added, then turned, carefully taking her son to bed.

by **Sojourn** on June 9th, 2012, 2:44 am

Caelum's Package :

Kavala's Package :

Notes:
Hmm. Yes, I already have a painfully obvious soft spot for the ethaefal in general, but I must say this thread was full of awesome—heart-wrenching, love hurts kind of awesome. Thank you both for really delving into the difficult parts of your characters' lives. I won't tell whether or not I sniffled a little over the whole thing.