[Flashback] A Thousand Woven Lives

[Kavala]

Timestamp: Winter, 496 AV
Location: Denusk Pavilion - Sea of Grass
Purpose: Webbing Training

Smoke rose up from the central fire, curling in knotwork that so reminded Kavala of her peoples history because it entwined in and out of the darkness, illuminated below by the fire and above by the stars that could be seen through the draft in the roof of the Pavilion that was sewn in to allow smoke to escape. It was akin to history because Kavala knew that each drykas was a line – unbroken since the first of them – that would carry on after them unless death or accident took that smoke and cut it off. She stretched her hand out, toying with the fire’s breath, letting the pale sinous bands of smoke weave in and out of her fingers. She snuffed one tendril and encouraged another, wondring if that was indeed what the gods did if left to their own devices. Kavala was suffering from a typical Konti affliction. She did not belong among the people residing alongside her because her skin was white, scaled, and her neck flanked with gills. Prone to a life more than twice that of her older siblings, she’d out last them all.

Kavala was the equivalent of an eight year old human, though being Konti she was far younger of mind than she truly was of body. Her kind matured fast so the difference between herself and the other children sitting in the circle inside the central Denusk Pavillion was vast. She knew it and they knew it. Half of them would be able to learn the lesson that was taught. The other half would be steered to other things, other skills, and encouraged to succeed elsewhere finding world magic not their forte. Her sister wasn’t there. Two years earlier had been Akela’s turn. Now was Kavala’s time.

Webbing.

They were here to learn about the great webs and how to make them, at least a little, so they could carry on the Drykas tradition. The learning was called Baviaka, and it was an important rite of passage. Each child when their parents felt they were mature enough were sent to the webbing classes and each one got to touch and see and understand the web first hand.

All the children were tied to the web already, of course, some from birth. But just because someone was tied into something didn’t mean they understood what it was. Kavala did, though not because she was of a higher intellect than the rest of the children milling around. No, she understood because Eachann had taken it upon himself to make sure she understood. Kavala was the youngest daughter of Eachann, the Ankal of the Denusk Pavilion of the Sapphire clan, by his third wife, Ay’aka. Ay’aka came to the Sea of Grass having been Called from Mura to aid the Denusk and thus the Sapphire Clan as a whole to help cure a plague that affected the clan’s horses. But she’d died from a fall shortly after curing the plague… leaving her two Konti daughters alone.

Alone.

Eachann promised the web would make sure Kavala was never alone again. It was a lifeline that crossed the width and breath of Cyphrus in a complex weave of different personalities and energies, some of which were rogue. So the little girl sat, waited, knowing the lesson would start for them all soon.

[Kavala]

Eachann looked carefully around the room at the collected children. Kavala was one of three that day to take the teaching. She was excited in the knowing, extremely excited, because all her life she’d heard about the great webs and what they meant to family and to the ancestors. Secretly, in her heart of hearts, Kavala had often dreamed she learned to wield the magic of the webs and walk among the great conductive lines… and would find the soul of her mother. It was an old hurt, an endless wound, that plagued Kavala ever since her Konti mother had perished from a fall off her Strider. Her father, Eachann, had told both girls that their mother was tied to the web through marriage to him and her bond with her strider. That meant, in the eyes of all the Drykas, that the woman wasn’t lost, only buried in the web. Somewhere, Ay’aka still dwelled. Kavala wanted to find her.

Her father was a talker. He loved to start out lessons on anything important with talk of the past. Kavala hated hearing about the past in only the way an eight year old couldn’t sit still or be relied upon to understand fascination with what had passed before. As she listened, all she really got out of the story of Arin Drivankali was that he was a powerful mages that left home to study in Zeltiva and returned with new knowledge that lead him to experiment with his djed. His mother had been a weaver who had taught Arin a bit of her artform, and like a typical rebellious child, instead of using it for actual weaving, he’d stumbled upon using the techniques Sondrasina Drivankali, his mother, had taught him for weaving his own web. From his webs sprang the first webbing magic. And when Arin had gotten good at his work, he’d taught ten other Ankals, and from those eleven original weavings, the whole of Cyphrus’ web had sprung.

The Konti wondered if her father had planned this, giving this lesson here and now, upon the ruins of old Endrykas where the original Origins glowed brighter than the sun – all eleven of them. Later, when he was done talking – Eachann was always taking – he’d march them out so they’d get a good look at them. Then they’d touch them, let the ancient enormous webs bigger around than even the barrels of their seme horses sing through them.

Kavala yawned. Being Drykas, she’d seen the webs hundreds if not thousands of times. All the Drykas could who were tied into the web. They always looked like glowing lines across the land, across within living things, across even water. They crisscrossed the Sea of Grass so heavily that Kavala was grew confused if she shifted her gaze and looked for them. That technique in itself was one Eachann had taught her. Djed had to be pooled in her eyes, dazzling her sight, before the glowing lines – a lot like earthbound lightening – materialized before her gaze. The Drykas didn’t want to see them all the time. It was too distracting. But when they wanted to see webs, all they had to do was bring djed up into their gaze, pool it, and look. The lines would light up like crisscrossing of spider webs woven by some ethereal cosmic spider. It was hauntingly beautiful, especially at night.

But this lesson wasn’t about seeing webs. This lesson was about setting their first origin and learning to weave them. Kavala was overly excited about it.