The Fall Of The Tribes

by Philip Read

  “We do not name our spawn until we are sure they will survive, but she is fully human and maybe one day may become fae but she will never become a sidhe.” She says with a disappointed sigh and turns away to look out the window.

  “I see…” I say but no I don’t see at all. I thought you were born fae and then became a sidhe with time, not become a fae from being a human and then became a sidhe at some other point.

  “Am I to raise her?” I ask, suspecting where this is going from the reputation the fae already have on Paradisum with the few children they’ve had since being established here.

  “Yes. I cannot raise a child that isn’t born fae and it is already too late for her to become an aeonian.” She says as though that should make sense to me.

  I place her head in my face and I revel in the clean nostalgic scent of a baby’s head and she giggles as she grabs my beard. Another Didi this, she feels slightly like me but more different than not and she looks absolutely nothing like me or her mother.

  “How should she be raised?” I ask, another child coming at me this way is a big surprise but Ikigai has already been born into the world and is only two months old. Adding another new born won’t change our current plans by very much.

  “She can be raised just how your other children are raised, but I will ensure you have access to fruit that have been known to aid child development in our people.” She says, then sighs. “You seem displeased, did you not want me to cultivate your seed within me?”

  “Did you get my letter?” I ask and she gives me a look. How do I even begin to answer that loaded question and keep my head either from this crazy person on the crazy women I already have back home.

  “Yes, but those are things far beyond your power to affect. Whoever even told you about such things was being irresponsible and making you needlessly worry.”

  “So the sidhe are aware of all these prophesies and have plans in place to address it?”

  She frowns at me and her beautiful voice that had me with a constant erection changes flowing in the air between us and flaying into my spirit with ease. Causing phantom pain that has me trembling and the toddler in my arms starts crying loudly. I take several steps back as my spirit seems to be suppressed somehow, I can’t heal myself.

  “Do not question the Sidhe Courts if you value your life, I have found great pleasure in you and would hate to see you die needlessly.” She says leaving the room.

  I take a deep breath then I make faces at the crying baby while my spirit energy gathers itself around me again after being blown away by her voice.

  She calms down as I calm my still racing heart. I wrap her again in her little blanket and I walk from the manor slightly peeved but kinda happy to have another child.

  “You are a beauty aren’t you little one? All the boys will be besides themselves over you, don’t worry I will introduce you to so many other mothers and siblings that you won’t feel the lose of Vevina.”

  I’m presented with a bag of seeds as I leave the estate and am on my way home at a leisurely walk. I’m not sure how my mates will take me bringing another child into the family, especially so soon after Kuyoki has given birth to Ikigai. So far I’ve been lucky to have their understanding and the joy our family has been experiencing through the births and how all three of my mates have been getting along.

  The sex helps as well I’ve gathered. I’ve been made aware by the people training me to be a spy that I’ve Awakened to sex as much as anything else and the magical sex I’ve been having since my Awakening is actually due to mana concentrated to my penis. I’m almost embarrassed to realise I’m a stud but the benefits I cannot complain about.

  But as a warrior to realise that nature or the universe or whatever prioritized my sex life over other things I’d have considered more important is telling. I have since realizing I’ve Awakened to sex also realised that besides interxourse feeling better, me being better at it, and apparently my penis tasting and feeling better than any normal penis should it also changes shape to conform to the different vaginal canals I place it in.

  Kuyoki, Ingwe and Mira are very different women and my penis has never been small enough to fully fit into Kuyoki, nor wide enough to fully stretch out Mira after a few hours. But since Awakening it seems to be changing shape to conform to their canals as I change sex partners, and all three of us have been humping like rabbits this past year since my Awakening.

  Ingwe is the onle one unable to keep up but not from lack of enthusiasm or trying. A mundane just can’t keep up with an Awakened we are all realizing but I think she may be with child again, I’m not sure. I have never imagined myself with this big a family and Gaia and his sister have also been guests at our house while everything has been so busy.

  I sigh as I turn the corner leading to the area with my house but I diverge towards the parks. I need to spend some time with this little girl and find her a name. I have a lot of problems and responsibilities but I just can’t not spend time with all my girls. I’m not sure what is coming over me but maybe having so many daughters and so much amazing sex addles a mans mind some.

  I’m the only Awakened in all of Paradisum that is yet to enter the Awakened Arena. I have been so busy learning spy craft under the tutelage of the twins and magic under Sergei that all I have time for when I get home is quick sex and spending time with all my girls.

  I’m not sure whether awakening to sex brings about these urges or I’m just a horny bastard by nature but even my little girls know to give daddy time with one of the mommies before he is ready to play and hang out with. Mira is the most happy with my sex expertise and enthusiasm as she has never been this consistently sated by a single person before.

  I sigh, my mind is all over the place today. I breath in the scent of the oak trees as I walk underneath their leaves. I show the new baby all the sights, spirits beyond how I love it here. I greet a few people I know and a few I don’t, I go to the pond and splash some water on the paper who grimaces cutely before yawning.

  I can’t believe I Awakened to a water affinity. Even Awakening to sex the way I have makes more sense than me becoming some sort of water mage. I like swimming and drinking it but that’s the end of my relationship with water. Yet amongst the entire array of things I’ve finally Awakened to water is the one that bewilders me most.

  “What should I name you little one?” I ask the now sleeping toddler in my arms. I can’t believe I now have 5 children and maybe a 6th on the way.

  I sigh, “I can’t find your name little beauty.” I say kissing her head.

  And just like that it comes to me. “Your name is Hannah.”

  Chapter 92

  Om

  I wasn’t regaining consciousness I realised as I came to, no I had been conscious whatever amount of time I had been in here. And I knew it had been a very great amount of time. I blink my eyes slowly as I get up from the floor I’ve been lying on. My body crackles and strains tightly as I move like an old tree twisting from a position it has held for thousands of years.

  Sensation or at least awareness of sensation comes to me slowly, sound coming like a dull ‘gong’ that is slowly getting louder before becoming audible surprised voices though interpretation is yet to come.

  Light shines behind my eyes the memories of the glimpses I’d seen of the dark beyond of realms outside eternity. There is a primordial roar at the back of my throat as I remember the Truth that a scream is so primal that even children do it as they come into the world.

  My joints squeak to my own ears and my sockets release tension I wasn’t aware it was possible to have in places I didn’t know had muscle to be tense. It could be tendons though, my tendons are comparable to cords of malleable elemental steel fibres holding objects of great weight and substance together.

  I come back to awareness slowly and with deep pondering stumbling approach like a humongous turtle surfacing from the ocean, at least that’s the image my awakening takes as I slowly became aware of myself. I get another
image of a sleeping mountain shaped like a man standing up again for the first time in eons with the falling of dust and accumulate lose stones and something clicks in me.

  I have Awakened to Images I suddenly realise profoundly and with a deep satisfaction which’s origin, I don’t understand. The realisation comes again in empathic communication that after a scream there is silence, after which there is laughter thus almost all sapient humanoid creatures are birth from their soul homes repeating that cycle of primordial sounds according to their depth and power.

  I notice my bones are different almost immediately after the first seconds of moving my body. Bones are not usually something one is aware of or even feels unless there is discomfort or some other complaint but I feel mine and they seem to have… aged? Yes, my bones seem to have aged in a way that increases their affinity and density on a spiritual level.

  Like fine wine, they have gained substance through the passage of time and like long cultivated alchemy ingredients they are ready for harvesting now. They feel strange and a bit sluggish but not to the extent that they would slow me down.

  I fully stand with both feet bare and planted on the ground, I take a deep breath with my eyes closed and sigh to release the tension that has built within me. I stretch my arms and neck and immediately the Image of an old tree twisting into better alignment fills my mind. That Awakening was a rough ride I instinctively know without remembering everything.

  I do remember having to choose a state of being, a state to strive towards and try to maintain within myself. Not necessarily a state to be always within but one that will be pure when I’m within and its purity will solidify my Images further and be an Aspect of Law in itself one day as my state of being gets powerful enough to affect the world around me.

  I have chosen the present in every moment, to be within myself in every moment, to deeply use and appreciate the now I have to live through of every moment, I have chosen to be in the now.

  I knew Awakening would take a long time but the age I feel my soul has accumulated is more than I think reasonable so I look to the stunned servants standing at the door still with a bit of worry that I have spent centuries Awakening in this room.

  “What year is it?” I ask with a hoarse voice the seems to rumble and shake things causing one of the servants to fall on his knees on the pile of piss he has created. The other just stares at me wide eyed and open-mouthed, both are clearly human and both too easily intimidated to have worked for the sidhe Namid long.

  Standing here in an old pair of pants and a tunic I find myself in a slight predicament. I feel I am almost done Awakening but not yet there and I also feel like I’ve been in here close to a millennia or more. How much time will have passed outside the chamber for millennia to have passed within, is that even n possible?

  To spend so many years Awakening sounds absurd to me but what do we truly know about Awakening? I vaguely remember letting the unfathomable depth of the ether as I let it direct me forward before choosing a direction in all the options it presented to me. The going further forward in said path and again choosing a path narrowing my focus, specializing.

  From the many options of body types I think I chose the body of stone, and from the options of blood types I chose the blood of a Titan, from the weight of ages available for one who had already narrowed so much I chose age of tree and was pleasantly surprised to be likened to a Suntree as I gained knowledge of what that is.

  From there I remembered Sachi’s many drunken nights as he spoke of one day Awakening like it was a sure thing. How he hoped he would be able to resist the need to direct the path himself but let the ether which knows best what is needed do as it so chooses. So from there I let go of the reigns trusting that the friend I look up to most knows what the fuck he was talking about.

  I fell then into a void, I fell and it was very very painful, excruciatingly so as though my soul was being rendered again in a forging for the longest of time. Awareness of the paths I had missed out on by making the few choices I had made came to me and I almost regret not letting go from the start.

  Since I had already chosen to body cultivation path I had missed out on any form of magic Awakening but I did still have a smidgen of psionic potential. Just an increase in intelligence and not actually any power, I Awakened further in the path of body mana building becoming a true Awakened warrior but it is the path the ether took with my soul that truly astounded me.

  There is a power to every soul, a deep pure power that at some levels can eventually be unlocked. Levels of power we may call celestial or tier 7 power unlocking the use of the soul as a weapon or the natural formation of a soul weapon as though from nothing. Not every tier 7 or 8 creature chooses this path but those that do eventually discover something called a Soul Art, a power of the specific soul that can be used both for creation and destruction.

  In my Awakening something within my soul was stirred though my stone hammer and I are yet to be whole I already have a soul weapon. And my soul weapon has an art, an art that the uninitiated may even mistake for magic in their ignorance but the soul in general is a very dangerous thing when used correctly for it is almost indestructible.

  Remembering all that causes me to remember that my stone hammer is in this room and I turn and looking directly at it without even a though. Yes, I feel I will always be able to find this part of myself no matter how far from me it ends up.

  I walk to the hammer and the two servants take the time to flee the chamber as my back is turned from them. It is such a beautifully done hammer, the iron-stone head looking heavy and dangerous, the shaft beautifully decorated spirit iron but simple. I feel whole in a way I didn’t realise I was lacking as I hold my hammer in my hand.

  I heft it easily and with great satisfaction, it has missed me these many years it seems to convey. But its solitude has increased its affinity with itself as well, it has a deeper personality and it has Awakened in some way as I have Awakened.

  I slowly walk towards the exit, I feel so heavy that I can hear every single step I take inside my head. I exit the chamber and walk the corridor and up the stairs. A servant brings me a chalice of water on a tray. I gulp it down and realise its water from Hilton. Energy suffices me and I thank him with a bow.

  I walk through another passage and am met by the Sidhe Namid standing there and looking me over. I look back.

  “You feel bigger, heavier.” He says then indicates to the lounge area for me to take a seat. I notice no immediate threats and this is a sidhe so I’m not sure how well I could hold my own if he became a threat anyways. I walk and take the indicated seat.

  We watch each other for a while and it isn’t long before a feast of the richest of fair is placed before me and we are joined by 2 other sidhe and 5 fae. “Eat, you have gone without for a long time considering your human constitution.”

  I nod and drink from a chalice of wine but I take nothing else before the others do. He nods at me and smiles and puts grapes in his mouth followed by the rest and I do likewise. Before I know it we are all eating and the food is very very ether rich and potent.

  The meal is finished and I feel rejuvenated, fresh, whole and very very powerful. It’s a power that’s been building up from the pit of my stomach but there is a molten core somewhere within me that is slowly simmering up to blow. I don’t know how long I was in there either by the chambers perspective or the real world perspective.

  “How do you feel?” Carmela asks casually looking me over.

  “I feel fine, thank you for asking. How have things been in my absence?” I ask and she smiles and me with the predatory smile women sometimes have.

  “I think its best you get rid of that excess maelstrom brewing within you before you see your mates and child yes?” She says placing a hand on my arm.

  “You will need a very good fight and very strong sex or else you will blow a casket.” She says. “I am happy to offer my services, my descendant Ororis will make a worthy opponent and of course the sex drive I can
relieve myself.”

  “I thank you but I am sure other Awakened at the Arena will more than be able to manage me if I go to them for aid in this.” I say, Gorr doesn’t trust these too beautiful creatures and neither do I. I wonder how I will be paying for the time I spent in that time chamber even, conniving sidhe, always have an agenda.

  “You have no idea what your capabilities are as of yet and the danger of facing a mortal opponent not knowing the limits of your own strength are something all you tribesmen are aware of.”

  “I would be more comfortable amongst my people.”

  “Ahh.. I see, in that case let us invite Sachihiro, Damage, Divina, Chief Stom, and your mother Tabita to the exhibition yes? You should feel less threatened by us in such a setting.” She says with a smile.

  I think about that a moment and I give a nod of ascent. “That would be acceptable to me.”

  “Excellent! I have never before heard of a human Awakening for so long before, and the power I see in you is intriguing. Namid, prepare for guests.” She says standing smoothly.

  I clear my throat. “Excuse me, how long was I in there?”

  They all look at me and Carmella smiles that predatory smile of hers. “From our perspective you have spent a year away from your family Awakening. From your perspective it has been nearly 30 years since you entered the chamber.

  “Congratulations, you are now 30 years older than you were last year.” She says with a smile as I digest that information.

  Chapter 93

  Sachihiro

  Time is against us and the time for my mission to Tiba is upon me, but I’m heading in the opposite direction currently with Gorr, da, Om, Kuyoki and Volvox. A lot has happened and changed in the short time since I’ve been home but everything is already prepared for my departure with my family. But that’s for when we get back to the city, right now we are racing straight for the depths of the tundra to see my brother.

  I’m glad Om is back from his Awakening, and he does seem different in some ways but he won’t speak of his experience, not that I’ll directly ask. He has been Awake for over a ten-day now and seemed eager to leave his two mates when I mentioned the expedition into the Dawn, knowing Kiera’s fiery personality I sympathize with the man.