Equation
07-19-08, 01:30 AM
Notes
This journey actually begins on another continent, but will end somewhere on Althanas, likely Alerar. It's written in first person perspective, which isn't what I intended but it's the way it wanted to come, so let me know if this isn't acceptable here. I understand to use third person when interacting with other writers (It's a little awkward otherwise, no?). Also, don't always expect lengthy installments in this.
Dictionary
Drüin - Earth linked race. See character link in my sig for more info.
Blessing - A drüin's markings. Bitonal scroll-like patterns on their skin; different in each.
Kethe - Typical four letter curse word, only it's five letters and it's not english.
Mother - As in Mother Earth, she from who all life comes to be, and where all life returns.
L'jiah - King/leader/ruler
Protector - Sworn protector of the L'jiah
I was in my usual place, atop a crag covered knoll that overlooked either the heart of the glen or the docks and the ocean, depending on which way you sat. I preferred my back to the glen with my eyes and my heart cast ocean-ward. My son was up in the trees, up high. If I were anywhere else, I likely should have been worried, but this was drüin land, and here the Mother took care of her kin.
I was thinking, but I pushed the swirling thoughts back down into their oblivion because I was about to be interrupted. My L'jiah was coming to visit me; I could feel his steps rising on the hill. I had a good idea what he wanted, too, and so my head didn't rise when his shadow finally fell over me.
He sat down. "Give me your hand," he said.
I just shook my head. We'd been over this, and I wanted no part of the cleansing. He was still trying to save me and I loved him for it.
He didn't argue. Rylin was as patient as he was pale and beautiful. Not only was he covered all around with the blessing, from eartip to toetip so there wasn't an unpatterned visible part to his body, he had these unnerving eyes that were the color of crystal sky, and the depiction of innocence and wisdom in one. It didn't help that they were smack dab in the middle of a face that was too young to be a ruler, let alone a revolutionary leader, but that's what he was. I still found it amazing.
I could feel those powerful eyes eating the nose right off my profile, but I was good at being stubborn and even though he was waiting for me to speak, and he was patient as heck, I knew he had things to do and I was going to win the standoff.
"She's not coming," he said, and I wished he'd stayed silent because I hadn't been thinking about her. 'She' was the gorgeous vixen of her creature that had fled her homeland in search of her her brother, found me, and well, one thing led to another and pretty soon we were pretty tangled, physically and emotionally and otherwise.
It wasn't to be, though. Her people came and took her away to a place I couldn't follow. She didn't run away again and two years later I received a little miniature version of us tumbling off of a ship with a letter that said 'please raise him', and so here I am. And now I was thinking of her again. Mother, have mercy.
I gave Rylin a quick, cutting glare. "I'm not waiting," I said, which wasn't entirely true. I wasn't waiting for her, per say, it was all those pieces of me that she had that I kept expecting to somehow return to me. I suppose I should have figured out by then it wasn't going to happen, but you can't blame me for wanting to feel whole. My son helped, but there was still an element of sadness there because she should be here too.
"You're restless," Rylin said, and my thoughts came back to the future. He paused for a second, giving me a chance to argue, but I didn't because he had nailed it. I was restless. You didn't fight thirty years of war and then not get flustered when idle peace came around.
"Why do you refuse?" He asked, meaning the cleansing.
I had to think about it, not because I didn't know the answer, I just didn't know how to phrase it for him. I had always felt more human than drüin, though I was equal parts each. He was full drüin, and their philosophies were different than human. Heck, they were different from the rest of the world, I would wager.
They didn't fully experience pain, or suffering, really. I mean, during their repression there was certainly sadness, and a great amount of suffering, but it never was to the degree that it should have been.
See, they have this pact with the Mother called the earthbond, or just bond if you're lazy, like I am. The bond is this: Take care of Mother Earth and she'll take care of you. So they spend their lives honoring and cultivating the land, and in return the Mother grants them protection and makes them content. So while they feel sadness, it isn't the nasty kind of sadness that humans feel. For example, drüins don't die, they transcend. It's a celebration because you're returning to the earth, and those who knew you are supposed to celebrate your memory with stories and stuff. They don't mourn forever on end.
I'm half blooded so my bond is pretty lousy. Half the time the Mother just forgets and doesn't bother with me at all, so I don't have any of those constant warm fuzzies inside me like they do. To me, dead is dead, and it isn't a fun thing to witness, and it hurts when people I care for are gone. Like her. But I don't know how to tell him that giving up my grief, because that's what the cleansing does, would be like giving up her, if that's all I have left of us. He just wouldn't get it.
So I said instead, "I owe it to Evam." My son.
"You owe him sadness?" He raised a perplexed, snow colored brow, and I realized I'd spoken too simply.
"I owe it to him to remember her." I saw his expression do an 'aha' and he went silent. I knew he would understand that part, at least, even though there were arguments he could make. I could offer her memory to the land and Evam could learn of his birth mother that way, but Rylin knew I was human-sided, and he knew when an argument was lost. I wasn't going to go for the cleansing, and he had to deal with it.
See, the cleansing is a ritual when you have too much stuff built up inside. Negative stuff, like I do. You connect to the core of the earth, or if you can't do it you get someone to guide you, and you just open yourself and allow the earth's energy to find all the bad stuff and replace it with earthbond. So if you are bonded already, the ritual will strengthen it. If you aren't, then there is your window to try to be.
The process isn't always perfect as sun, though. Things can happen. The core can overwhelm you, and you'll get lost, sometimes forever or sometimes you won't come back all the way. You know, mentally. Sometimes the Mother will reject someone, and when that happens they usually erupt into a pillar of flame that just burns and doesn't leave ashes. You have to be really terrible inside for that to happen, though, and usually the drüin helping you - because you aren't bonded if you're terrible - ends up dead, too. I've never seen it happen, and I don't want to. I don't want to witness it nice and up close, either, and with the Mother already partially rejecting me, you can understand my nervousness. Then there's the part of possibly losing any memories, especially those associated with the negative stuff, which I don't want to risk either.
So I'm notdoing the cleansing, and I know what it means, and I wish he would just say it.
Instead, he jarrs a memory. "Do you remember when I found you by the lake?"
Oh, Kethe. I had eight summers under my belt and all I knew was that my blood was boiling my body from the inside out. It seemed the best way to be rid of the pain was open myself and let it all out. He'd found me, and instead of making a fuss about it, he just picked up my knife, carved a piece of himself, and then we were both standing there bleeding like idiots. It took five drüins to heal us.
I nodded, with a little bit of caution.
"Do you remember what I said?"
I nodded again.
"Say it."
He hadn't said much, but I knew what he was looking for, and it made my throat thick. "I bleed, you bleed," I said. Barely.
He nodded. "She bleeds, too." He meant the land. He opened up his palm and held it between us. "Let me show you."
I hesitated, but he wouldn't do the cleansing ritual withou my consent, so I gave him my hand and even though I didn't need to, I closed my eyes. He guided my hand to the ground and pressed it flat, and my heart started hammering in my chest because he called up the earth to hold me there, and so I sat with my fingers captured in stone waiting for whatever he was going to do to me and I felt only a little better when I felt his hand over mine again. His energy swelled, I felt a brush of mental reassurance, and he dove.
He went all the way down, too, and if he had been teaching me, there is no way I would have been able to follow him. I could feel his energy pulsing below me. I could feel him spread himself out, clamp onto whatever he was looking for and bring it to me. He connected me to it, and then he caught me because I immediately wanted to leave.
He had plunged me right into the reflection of myself, the essence of the energy the Mother took from me, as she took from all living creatures, and Kethe it was ugly. I was like a big black mar on her face, wrecking her life and her beauty, nothing green in my essence at all. Nothing even alive. I was a hole with a void, and dark doesn't even begin to describe it. Tendrils tried growing in the void, trying to fill it, but the hole just chopped them down and devoured them. It had an appetite that wanted everything dead and I was terrified it would consume me, too, but I couldn't leave because he had trapped me here.
I could sure as heck try, though. With what little talent I had, I clawed at my own essence, trying to climb my way out. The hole just laughed at me and crumbled beneath my attempts, and left me there watching it eat things. I could feel the void pulsing and growing.
And then I could feel Rylind, thank Mother, and I clung to him like a traumatized child, which I suppose I was in his eyes, and he drew me out slowly, coddling me in his own essence for long moments to soothe me before returning me to my own.
The first thing I did when I could move again was turn my head so I could hide my shame. Here I was amid my own people, trampling this disease all over their land, killing all their hard work. Rylin wasn't paying attention to me though. He had cupped his hands over the earth and was concentrating again. I could guess he was healing the rift, which made my embarrassment compound, but I knew he didn't hold it against me or he would be angry. And he wasn't angry, just mystified.
I had a hold of myself by the time he was through, but I didn't know what to say so I just sat there picking at my fingers, wishing I could jump over the ledge, knowing I couldn't because of my son.
"Let us help you," he said.
"I don't want the cleansing."
I think I stumped him. I think he really thought I would change my mind after encountering myself like I had, and it baffled him that I didn't. But I couldn't help it. There was too much human in me, and with the Mother not really liking me right now, I wasn't taking the chance.
Behind me, Evam was crawling down from his trees. He could sense my life force the way I sensed his and I knew he was coming to see what was wrong with his daddy. Mother bless the little squirt.
Rylin felt it too, cause he shifted. I stood with him and we both spent a minute soothing our clothes, he his robes and me the overadorned tunic he'd bestowed upon me with the emblem of the protector on it, a title I didn't feel I deserved.
He looked at me and I gave up trying to make him say it. I could see how hard it was for him to make me go, so I let him off the hook even though something bitter in me wanted to make it hard for him. "Where will you send me?" I asked, and I tried to keep my voice casual.
"Alerar," he said, not missing a beat. That means he had never thought once about sending me back to Sueya, which was good. It also meant there must be a ship coming soon.
"When?" I asked.
"A thrence."
Three days, I thought, rolling the fact in my mind, trying to accept it already. A short, bungling body bumped into my leg and I sent down my hand so Evam could grasp it. I glanced at Rylin and we shared a few private thoughts. Then we walked down the hillock together, Evam swinging my arm.
This journey actually begins on another continent, but will end somewhere on Althanas, likely Alerar. It's written in first person perspective, which isn't what I intended but it's the way it wanted to come, so let me know if this isn't acceptable here. I understand to use third person when interacting with other writers (It's a little awkward otherwise, no?). Also, don't always expect lengthy installments in this.
Dictionary
Drüin - Earth linked race. See character link in my sig for more info.
Blessing - A drüin's markings. Bitonal scroll-like patterns on their skin; different in each.
Kethe - Typical four letter curse word, only it's five letters and it's not english.
Mother - As in Mother Earth, she from who all life comes to be, and where all life returns.
L'jiah - King/leader/ruler
Protector - Sworn protector of the L'jiah
I was in my usual place, atop a crag covered knoll that overlooked either the heart of the glen or the docks and the ocean, depending on which way you sat. I preferred my back to the glen with my eyes and my heart cast ocean-ward. My son was up in the trees, up high. If I were anywhere else, I likely should have been worried, but this was drüin land, and here the Mother took care of her kin.
I was thinking, but I pushed the swirling thoughts back down into their oblivion because I was about to be interrupted. My L'jiah was coming to visit me; I could feel his steps rising on the hill. I had a good idea what he wanted, too, and so my head didn't rise when his shadow finally fell over me.
He sat down. "Give me your hand," he said.
I just shook my head. We'd been over this, and I wanted no part of the cleansing. He was still trying to save me and I loved him for it.
He didn't argue. Rylin was as patient as he was pale and beautiful. Not only was he covered all around with the blessing, from eartip to toetip so there wasn't an unpatterned visible part to his body, he had these unnerving eyes that were the color of crystal sky, and the depiction of innocence and wisdom in one. It didn't help that they were smack dab in the middle of a face that was too young to be a ruler, let alone a revolutionary leader, but that's what he was. I still found it amazing.
I could feel those powerful eyes eating the nose right off my profile, but I was good at being stubborn and even though he was waiting for me to speak, and he was patient as heck, I knew he had things to do and I was going to win the standoff.
"She's not coming," he said, and I wished he'd stayed silent because I hadn't been thinking about her. 'She' was the gorgeous vixen of her creature that had fled her homeland in search of her her brother, found me, and well, one thing led to another and pretty soon we were pretty tangled, physically and emotionally and otherwise.
It wasn't to be, though. Her people came and took her away to a place I couldn't follow. She didn't run away again and two years later I received a little miniature version of us tumbling off of a ship with a letter that said 'please raise him', and so here I am. And now I was thinking of her again. Mother, have mercy.
I gave Rylin a quick, cutting glare. "I'm not waiting," I said, which wasn't entirely true. I wasn't waiting for her, per say, it was all those pieces of me that she had that I kept expecting to somehow return to me. I suppose I should have figured out by then it wasn't going to happen, but you can't blame me for wanting to feel whole. My son helped, but there was still an element of sadness there because she should be here too.
"You're restless," Rylin said, and my thoughts came back to the future. He paused for a second, giving me a chance to argue, but I didn't because he had nailed it. I was restless. You didn't fight thirty years of war and then not get flustered when idle peace came around.
"Why do you refuse?" He asked, meaning the cleansing.
I had to think about it, not because I didn't know the answer, I just didn't know how to phrase it for him. I had always felt more human than drüin, though I was equal parts each. He was full drüin, and their philosophies were different than human. Heck, they were different from the rest of the world, I would wager.
They didn't fully experience pain, or suffering, really. I mean, during their repression there was certainly sadness, and a great amount of suffering, but it never was to the degree that it should have been.
See, they have this pact with the Mother called the earthbond, or just bond if you're lazy, like I am. The bond is this: Take care of Mother Earth and she'll take care of you. So they spend their lives honoring and cultivating the land, and in return the Mother grants them protection and makes them content. So while they feel sadness, it isn't the nasty kind of sadness that humans feel. For example, drüins don't die, they transcend. It's a celebration because you're returning to the earth, and those who knew you are supposed to celebrate your memory with stories and stuff. They don't mourn forever on end.
I'm half blooded so my bond is pretty lousy. Half the time the Mother just forgets and doesn't bother with me at all, so I don't have any of those constant warm fuzzies inside me like they do. To me, dead is dead, and it isn't a fun thing to witness, and it hurts when people I care for are gone. Like her. But I don't know how to tell him that giving up my grief, because that's what the cleansing does, would be like giving up her, if that's all I have left of us. He just wouldn't get it.
So I said instead, "I owe it to Evam." My son.
"You owe him sadness?" He raised a perplexed, snow colored brow, and I realized I'd spoken too simply.
"I owe it to him to remember her." I saw his expression do an 'aha' and he went silent. I knew he would understand that part, at least, even though there were arguments he could make. I could offer her memory to the land and Evam could learn of his birth mother that way, but Rylin knew I was human-sided, and he knew when an argument was lost. I wasn't going to go for the cleansing, and he had to deal with it.
See, the cleansing is a ritual when you have too much stuff built up inside. Negative stuff, like I do. You connect to the core of the earth, or if you can't do it you get someone to guide you, and you just open yourself and allow the earth's energy to find all the bad stuff and replace it with earthbond. So if you are bonded already, the ritual will strengthen it. If you aren't, then there is your window to try to be.
The process isn't always perfect as sun, though. Things can happen. The core can overwhelm you, and you'll get lost, sometimes forever or sometimes you won't come back all the way. You know, mentally. Sometimes the Mother will reject someone, and when that happens they usually erupt into a pillar of flame that just burns and doesn't leave ashes. You have to be really terrible inside for that to happen, though, and usually the drüin helping you - because you aren't bonded if you're terrible - ends up dead, too. I've never seen it happen, and I don't want to. I don't want to witness it nice and up close, either, and with the Mother already partially rejecting me, you can understand my nervousness. Then there's the part of possibly losing any memories, especially those associated with the negative stuff, which I don't want to risk either.
So I'm notdoing the cleansing, and I know what it means, and I wish he would just say it.
Instead, he jarrs a memory. "Do you remember when I found you by the lake?"
Oh, Kethe. I had eight summers under my belt and all I knew was that my blood was boiling my body from the inside out. It seemed the best way to be rid of the pain was open myself and let it all out. He'd found me, and instead of making a fuss about it, he just picked up my knife, carved a piece of himself, and then we were both standing there bleeding like idiots. It took five drüins to heal us.
I nodded, with a little bit of caution.
"Do you remember what I said?"
I nodded again.
"Say it."
He hadn't said much, but I knew what he was looking for, and it made my throat thick. "I bleed, you bleed," I said. Barely.
He nodded. "She bleeds, too." He meant the land. He opened up his palm and held it between us. "Let me show you."
I hesitated, but he wouldn't do the cleansing ritual withou my consent, so I gave him my hand and even though I didn't need to, I closed my eyes. He guided my hand to the ground and pressed it flat, and my heart started hammering in my chest because he called up the earth to hold me there, and so I sat with my fingers captured in stone waiting for whatever he was going to do to me and I felt only a little better when I felt his hand over mine again. His energy swelled, I felt a brush of mental reassurance, and he dove.
He went all the way down, too, and if he had been teaching me, there is no way I would have been able to follow him. I could feel his energy pulsing below me. I could feel him spread himself out, clamp onto whatever he was looking for and bring it to me. He connected me to it, and then he caught me because I immediately wanted to leave.
He had plunged me right into the reflection of myself, the essence of the energy the Mother took from me, as she took from all living creatures, and Kethe it was ugly. I was like a big black mar on her face, wrecking her life and her beauty, nothing green in my essence at all. Nothing even alive. I was a hole with a void, and dark doesn't even begin to describe it. Tendrils tried growing in the void, trying to fill it, but the hole just chopped them down and devoured them. It had an appetite that wanted everything dead and I was terrified it would consume me, too, but I couldn't leave because he had trapped me here.
I could sure as heck try, though. With what little talent I had, I clawed at my own essence, trying to climb my way out. The hole just laughed at me and crumbled beneath my attempts, and left me there watching it eat things. I could feel the void pulsing and growing.
And then I could feel Rylind, thank Mother, and I clung to him like a traumatized child, which I suppose I was in his eyes, and he drew me out slowly, coddling me in his own essence for long moments to soothe me before returning me to my own.
The first thing I did when I could move again was turn my head so I could hide my shame. Here I was amid my own people, trampling this disease all over their land, killing all their hard work. Rylin wasn't paying attention to me though. He had cupped his hands over the earth and was concentrating again. I could guess he was healing the rift, which made my embarrassment compound, but I knew he didn't hold it against me or he would be angry. And he wasn't angry, just mystified.
I had a hold of myself by the time he was through, but I didn't know what to say so I just sat there picking at my fingers, wishing I could jump over the ledge, knowing I couldn't because of my son.
"Let us help you," he said.
"I don't want the cleansing."
I think I stumped him. I think he really thought I would change my mind after encountering myself like I had, and it baffled him that I didn't. But I couldn't help it. There was too much human in me, and with the Mother not really liking me right now, I wasn't taking the chance.
Behind me, Evam was crawling down from his trees. He could sense my life force the way I sensed his and I knew he was coming to see what was wrong with his daddy. Mother bless the little squirt.
Rylin felt it too, cause he shifted. I stood with him and we both spent a minute soothing our clothes, he his robes and me the overadorned tunic he'd bestowed upon me with the emblem of the protector on it, a title I didn't feel I deserved.
He looked at me and I gave up trying to make him say it. I could see how hard it was for him to make me go, so I let him off the hook even though something bitter in me wanted to make it hard for him. "Where will you send me?" I asked, and I tried to keep my voice casual.
"Alerar," he said, not missing a beat. That means he had never thought once about sending me back to Sueya, which was good. It also meant there must be a ship coming soon.
"When?" I asked.
"A thrence."
Three days, I thought, rolling the fact in my mind, trying to accept it already. A short, bungling body bumped into my leg and I sent down my hand so Evam could grasp it. I glanced at Rylin and we shared a few private thoughts. Then we walked down the hillock together, Evam swinging my arm.