by Orr, Krystal
"You are blessed with life?" The question cut off Bela'luin's thoughts. She turned toward Sed'dya. The woman was smiling at Arizira, her eyes shining brightly in the daytime sun. Arizira swallowed nervously and met her friend's happy face. She said nothing, but nodded her confirmation.
"A baby?" Bela'luin whispered, her eyes cutting to Talliea, who stood in front of her. "H-how? She is Esu."
"I am half Esu," Arizira said, looking at D'jiira. "Aitla blessed us with a child. I do not seek to question that, Bela. The night you speak of, I had only recently learned of being with this life. The thought of any harm coming to her in my weakened state paralyzed me with fear."
Bela'luin said nothing. She looked around at the many faces surrounding her and lowered her head. Her mind had much to ponder. Iolirthas took that time to step away from her family and toward Talliea. What she needed to say was of utmost importance and her physical form was not meant to last much longer.
"Talliea Aldis," she said, her voice sounding like the soft hum of chimes on the wind.
Talliea's eyes widened at being spoken to. She stepped closer to Iolirthas. "Y-yes?"
Io smiled. "I have watched you since your clan arrived here. Ever have my eyes been set upon you. My goddess knew who you were and who you were meant to be to Arizira. I protected you when you were alone, just as I guided you in accepting your feelings for my daughter. You are one amongst many, but your true strength lies not in numbers, but in your love for Arizira."
Talliea listened earnestly, but said nothing in return.
"The powers you possess are a gift from both Aitla and Esuval. Only one whose love is true and pure, and whose heart is filled with beauty and hope, could be given them. However, there can never be light without darkness. For every pure emotion, there is also a negative one. You must learn to accept this within yourself and balance it, lest the gift of the Moon and Sun corrupt you. Your uncertainty keeps you from your true potential."
Talliea shook her head, her heart pounding in her chest. "I do not understand. Corrupt? Potential? Why? How? If you were protecting me, why did you keep Ari in slumber the morning we were separated? Why not reveal yourself and tell us of what peril awaited us? Why the riddles and the secrecy?" Talliea's questions were plentiful. She felt herself becoming agitated. Her life was her own and she was tired of being told what she must do without being informed of how she was to do it. She had not asked for power. She had not asked for a destiny. She had not asked to be a part of some prophecy or to be responsible for the path of the future.
If peace was what the gods desired then she was happy to help in that pursuit, but she needed more information than she currently possessed. She needed answers!
Iolirthas regarded her with a playful smirk on her lips. Talliea noticed the look appeared very much the same as when Arizira did it. "Your questions shall be elucidated. In time. I can not answer them for you, for that role is reserved for another. It is information that is not mine to give nor to know. However, your other questions I can illuminate. I kept Arizira asleep, the morning you speak of, because your path to be walked differed from her own. She could not interfere with what was to transpire between you and the Esu man. Doing so would have prohibited your powers from manifesting. As for the secrecy? All the actions, of everyone here, were meant, however unintentionally or intentionally, to bring this possible future into being. Each of us was a thread in a vast tapestry. I could not reveal myself, nor could I leave the form I was in."
Talliea furrowed her brow. "You are presenting yourself thus. How could you not do so before?"
Iolirthas lowered her eyes sadly. She looked from D'jiira and Arizira, whose faces were a reminder of a beautiful tragedy, before regarding Talliea once more. "I appear to you now, in this form I once held, to say goodbye to those I hold the most dear. I have used the last of the power Aitla granted me to manifest as I am now. This is no permanence, I am afraid. Aitla is allowing me to say the goodbyes I was denied before. The power wanes, as does the moon, and soon I shall return to the stars above, never to grace this plane again."
D'jiira pulled away from Iolirthas. Her light brown eyes were pained and her expression was tight. "No," she whispered brokenly. "I can not -- I c-can not say goodbye to you twice."
Iolirthas touched D'jiira's cheek sadly. Her eyes moved over the face of the woman she had loved in life. "I am sorry, my love. Aitla offered this chance and I took it without question. Long has it been since my eyes held yours and I longed to see you this one last time."
D'jiira bit the inside of her cheek defiantly to keep herself from crying again. She reached up and held the hand that touched her cheek before turning her head and kissing Io's wrist. Her eyes glimpsed Arizira's stricken face. Iolirthas turned to regard her daughter once again. Her form began to fade in and out of existence. She flickered as if some mirage in the desert.
"No, no, lana'vira. I need more time with you," Arizira pleaded. "I need your wisdom. Please do not go. Help me with this stage of my life." Iolirthas shook her head sorrowfully. She turned away from D'jiira and hugged Arizira tightly. Her body continued to shimmer and fade.
"Would that I could, beloved child. You do not need my wisdom, Arizira. Everything you've a need or desire to know is around you. Motherhood is a gift. Follow your instincts and trust in those you call friends. Your love for Talliea is more powerful than you are aware. It can light even the darkest of places and provide shelter from any storm."
Arizira continued to cry. Her tears were bittersweet. "No, lana'vira. I need you."
Pulling away, Iolirthas held Arizira's face in her hands and smiled. "I live on in you, Arizira, just as a part of me shall forever touch your child. It is the way of things."
Iolirthas turned next to Cynra. Her time was quickly coming to an end. She could feel the pull calling for her, gently requesting her to accompany it. No words were spoken as the two of them embraced one final time. They held one another tightly. When Cynra pulled away, her face was pleased. Aitla had given her this special time with her daughter. She could ask nothing more.
"My gift to you," Io said, addressing the group, "is communication. Whosoever you view in friendship shall understand your words. If the goal of those you encounter is common to your own, no longer shall language be a hindrance. "
Talliea stepped forward and gently wrapped her arms around Arizira from the side. Her love continued to cry as they both watched Iolirthas fade and flicker and grow brighter as time passed. D'jiira stood off to the side and kept her eyes on the woman she had shared a part of her life with. Her tears had dried, but her eyes were red-rimmed and her face flushed. Her time with Io, once again, was to be too short. They were not to be given enough time together.
Iolirthas looked up at the sky above and smiled. She took a deep breath and looked down at those gathered one last time. Her eyes found Talliea's. A voice sounded in the clearing. Though it was Io's, her lips did not move.
"Your time for answers is at hand. Be strong and embrace that which makes you unique."
Before Talliea could respond in any way, Iolirthas blinked out of existence. A blinding flash of silver light engulfed everyone present. When it faded, Iolirthas was gone. Arizira turned in Talliea's embrace and hugged her in comfort. Everyone glanced around in a search for answers or direction, yet no one spoke.
Talliea caressed Arizira's back in a soothing pattern before a familiar and dreaded sensation crawled up her spine. She felt herself sway slightly. Her vision blurred and a strong sense of vertigo nearly crippled her. She blinked as a blanket seemed to cover her and mute her senses. The sensations were like those she experienced before the visions came to her. She swayed again. Her feet twisted and her legs gave out beneath her.
A voice called her name in concern, but it sounded muffled and distorted. She could not make it out. "No, not again," she managed to mumble before everything around her grew black and disappeared. She fell to the ground in a painful heap. The sound of her breathing was loud in her ears.<
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Opening her eyes slowly, she panicked at the scene that greeted her. There was no Arizira. No, D'jiira, or Cynra or anyone. The others were gone and she was alone. Talliea looked around quickly. Her eyes were wide and her mind was racing. She scrambled around in the dirt in an attempt to find something that could shed light on her friends' disappearance. Her heart hammered inside her chest with a painful anxiety.
What had happened? Where was she?
At the thought, she quickly noticed that the scenery was different. She was no longer where she had been before. Instead of tall trees with thick branches and berry laden bushes surrounding her, Talliea was now near some sort of settlement. A town. Grand buildings rose before her in the distance. The sounds of people and commerce caught her attention. She could smell freshly baked bread and produce, as well as smoking meats and the sweet scent of flowers.
"A-Ari?" she called hesitantly. "Ahmanae?" Her voice was hoarse and laced with panic.
"She can not hear you," a voice said behind her. "She is not here."
Talliea whipped her head around and looked up into a pair of turbulent grey eyes. A woman stared back at her. She was Esu, like herself, with long black hair pulled away from her head and fastened with a clip. Talliea felt as if she had seen the woman somewhere before. Her eyes were painfully familiar.
"W-who are you? Where am I? What have you done with Ari?" The woman smiled, the act appearing more haunting than reassuring, and offered her hand to Talliea.
"My name is Tareya Aldis, and we have much to talk about, Talliea."
Chapter 31: A Divergent Path
Time was far too short a device.
In moments of sorrow it passed in a stagnant memory of remorse, as if the gods desired one to remember such grievous suffering as a testament to mortality and the lugubrious nature the heart was capable of withstanding. In stages of happiness, however, time moved akin to a flowing river. It passed quickly and in the blink of an eye. Time was both history and the future, existing simultaneously, leaving one to wonder if it was real and true or rather one's perception of it caused it to be thus.
It was a cruel dichotomy as opposed to one another as the moon and sun, yet dependent on the contradictory mood of the other for its sustaining life.
D'jiira's reunion with Iolirthas had been a moment in between grief and joy. It had defied time with its desire and confused it with its agony. For far too brief and far too long a time, D'jiira had been with her first love. For an instant, she had been with the family that was now only a distant hope. She had been with both her daughter and her daughter's nurture mother, the woman whom had opened up a whole new side of her so many years in the past.
Yet as beautiful as the moment had been for D'jiira, it had also been one of sadness and despair. It had been a reminder of what was gone and what would never be again. It was an occasion that had followed a battle of sweat and blood and was now followed by another possible tragedy. Immediately after Io had left the plane of life to be with Aitla, Talliea had lost consciousness and fallen into another deep sleep. Long had the minutes been without any change. At first D'jiira had tried to convince the others and Arizira that it was but another vision, but the longer time had stretched without change, the more she had come to suspect that matters were not as they appeared.
That suspicion had only been confirmed by Arizira. "This is different. I can not feel her as once I did. It is as though I walk alone without her by my side. Where she was now resides a void."
No one had been sure how to respond to the cryptic words and time had continued to pass. D'jiira looked around her and took in the group's appearance. All stood with varying degrees of heartache and confusion. Bela'luin appeared stricken with both remorse and guilt, but her respect for Arizira was noticeable. Sed'dya looked conflicted over matters, as if she struggled with some decision within herself. Markahn, for all of his stoic mannerisms, was nearly as lost as Arizira over Talliea's predicament.
As for Cynra and Taetylona, the two older women stood together in close confidence discussing possible solutions in hushed tones. The silence of their surroundings was broken only by the sound of a wolf howling somewhere in the distance. Orange rays of sunshine danced between the trees and shimmered across the faces of rock and stone that dotted the forest landscape. It was a farewell, a last bid to beckon the party to seek their destination before the sun retired in the west.
"Arizira?" D'jiira asked as the silence grew and the sun continued to set. "We can not stay here."
Looking up from where her head rested against Talliea's neck, Arizira found her mother's eyes. Her face was still covered in dirt and blood from the recent battle and her silvery-blonde hair was tangled and unkempt looking. She took in the drawn expressions of those around her. In a rush, her senses came alive with vivid information as she allowed herself to focus on everything transpiring around her.
She noticed the wind was cooler than it had been before. It carried with it a growing night's chill. The sun, far to the west in front of her, could still barely be glimpsed retreating into the canyon of Li'nas Dei. The sounds of birds, rabbits, and far off deer now mingled with the songs of insects, owls, and wolves. Around her, the evidence of the fresh skirmish with the Esu could still be spied in the disturbed earth and the dark red blood that covered the surrounding brush. Though Talliea had returned the bodies of the dead Esu men to the earth, Arizira knew they were not far off, dreaming in an eternal sleep.
The seeming tranquility of the landscape was misleading. "We can not remain here, my daughter," D'jiira said again noticing she held Arizira's attention.
"And what would you have me do? What would any of you have me do? Leave her?"
Arizira's emotions were heavily present in the how she addressed the others. Her normally mellifluous tone of speech was riddled with vehemence and strain. Her eyes were two orbs of silver fury in the growing dark. "I remain where she is! Without her, we are lost."
Cynra moved closer to Arizira. "Child, none here are suggesting that you leave your love. To do such would defeat the purpose of all. However, your mother speaks truly. We can not remain out in the open. Night comes, as does Aitla's return. It shall be harder to reach the tribe with our Esu friends unable to move with such lack of light. Also, there could be other Esu patrols that move toward us. We must seek refuge."
Arizira shook her head, her tears washing away some of the dirt on her face. "I can not leave her. Where does such refuge live, Nai'lana? Where are we to find peace when war both follows and awaits us. Without Tah-li, we have no hope."
"Arizira--" Cynra chided.
"No, do not. She is a part of me, Nai'lana. Without her, I am nothing. She does not dream. This is no vision.
"How do you know, child?
"Because I feel it! I am less, aimless. Where she walks, I am forbidden. You all should make haste to depart."
Bela'luin stepped closer at Arizira's last words. She knew her counsel was the last that was desired, but she had not come as far as she had and lived with the burden she carried for it all to end so quickly.
“Arizira, war marches. The drums of change are heard all throughout our lands. We must be with our people when the hour of our history looms before us."
Arizira lowered Talliea's head gently to the ground and stood to face her fellow hunter. Her shoulders were squared and the color of the blood covering her was stark against her pale skin. "Our people? Your tongue speaks with banter as its companion, Bela. For whose people would I be fighting?"
The sound of Arizira's raised voice carried far into the forest. She did not mean the words, nor did she intend to be difficult or discouraged. For everything she had been through, everything she had learned, Arizira had always carried herself with a certain honor and poise. She had never allowed her title or her own worries to stand in her way. Always, she had been with Talliea and the other woman had served as her strength and her stability.
Even when the two of them had been separated, Arizira had followed her
only chance to reunite. Knowing that she moved with a purpose that would bring her back to her love had given her a sense of hope. Now, there was no such hope. Not that she could foresee.
Two groups of Esu had ambushed them. They had nearly been overcome. Arizira had put herself and her baby in danger by protecting her mother. D'jiira had suffered injuries, Taetylona's vision was clouded due to the blow she had received to her head, and both Bela'luin and Sed'dya still bled from various wounds.
Arizira had not been given a moment to recuperate or tend to anyone's injuries, let alone any possible ones of her own, before her nurture mother had manifested before them and spoken her bittersweet farewells. Arizira was tired. She was exhausted mentally, physically, and now emotionally. The adrenaline she had been surviving on, the tiny part inside of her that had been forcing her to press forward and do what must be done, had run out.
When Arizira looked to what lay ahead, all she could see was pain and suffering and possible death. She felt alone and scared and cold without Talliea. She could not explain how she knew something was different this time to the others. They could not understand. They had not experienced her connection with Talliea. All Arizira knew for certain was that she felt the way she had before she and Talliea had bonded for the first time. That singular feeling, that expression of being simple rather than complex, pervaded every fiber of Arizira's being. Talliea's thoughts and emotions were dark to her. She could not sense them, could not feel them. Her best attempts at rousing her love had been met with nothing but a setting sun and a rising sting of panic inside herself.
She was alone, despite the company of the others around her. Without Talliea, without her spirit touching Arizira's own, she was alone.
Hearing her mother and grandmother, and now Bela'luin, telling her that they could not remain where they were was just the final straw on Arizira's already fragile state of mind. She could not think of their task or of reaching Talyn. She could not fathom possibly meeting the Esu on the pristine springtime forest of her childhood. Her only concern was for Talliea. Without her, what hope was there for any of them? What did they all hope to accomplish by marching to the Arnira? For all Arizira knew, the Esu were already upon her people.