I saw her just melt away the same way she came. This meant so much to me in an array of feelings that might fly high into the clouds or linger in a gasp of air within the warm yet suffocating mud. She gave me a light. That glow of learning. Made me stronger, gave me a shell like the one I polished faithfully every day. She gave me so many books, with pictures that told stories that now swarmed in my mind. Her touch had been cool like the feel of ice across my lips. The chill wasn't one of ache, it was one of being alive! So when I watched her form melt away with a single drop of water suckled by the grass and ground, I did weep, not of pain, but of thankfulness.
Her wagon would be kept warm for her return one day.
This left me in a fit of question on what to do? I was weary, yes, my first step had been one that slipped on the grass like fresh dung under a blind fools foot. I could do it again. I had to. For that is what the grass showed me. Forward Noelani forward.
I walked home, and saw my brother sitting on the lower wagon steps. Which was odd, cause he never was home this time of day. I smelled the sage, and rich strong herbal smell of combinations I didn't know from him. That told me he had spent some time at the Haruspex wagons. The older I got the more time he spent there. I remember ahns in the afternoon we would be out in the plains, I chasing bugs as a little girl, and him telling me to settle down and just watch the clouds while he was looking for, something. Even then I knew every Haruspex was different. I didn't get the gift of growing up with my parents. A wagon of warmth and learning. Eesamer kept me sheltered. Ignorant. I didn't feel remorse for it, but I felt bad he struggled now I was old enough to go find myself. It was a fight him and Grandmother had ever now and then. Mostly when the buzzing was too much and I couldn't make the confusion go away.
That is when I discovered the Sky Warrior. Or so, he captured me. The fair Tuchuk Maiden every Warrior fought for and captured in the battle by some Lone Rider to take me as his mate. Of course he wasn't some speckled red bug at first, he was a brave strong Warrior, who came and right before he took my hand his heart burst into flames cause he couldn't contain his love for me, and the sky opened up taking what was left of the ash and flames in a cradle of the breeze lifting him away. All but one smoldering red and black ash..that flew down to my finger tips, and has stayed with me forever.
When I woke up from the surrounding of grass on the hill with him on my hand, I knew it had to be true. Not just a dream. It was enough to help me stop the tears when the buzzing came, and she would whisper in my ear, how it was the sound of wings. The Sky Warrior's off to battle. Watch them with pride, fly to battle and come up in honor of our souls. They were saving me.
So I would I would sit on the steps, like Eesamer was doing now, hearing the raised voices trying to muffle emotion argue about me. "They are saying she is a curse, we should have given the water back what was taken" "Eesamer, you know better then that. No child is a curse, you let old vulo hens gossip get to you cause people fear what they don't understand" "She keeps telling people her parents died before she was born, does that not give off an eerie sense enough?" "Why would she lie..they did" "That is not the point, the point is, they say she is the reason they died, that it was the seeking that found death when it came to her" "Then the only fool there is..is you Eesamer, and you of all know, we need not question the sky" Yes, I remember those fights, to let me learn, or not to let me learn. Grandmother taught me to listen when he tried to teach me to mute.
I walked up to him, smiling, a kiss against his cheek, before finding a seat beside him. A hand against his side, embraced, my sweet brother who only did his best for me cause I knew he cared. He would place a hand around my shoulder, kissing my forehead.
I'm sorry Noelani.
He said, and all I could in return was...that it was okay. I understood, I did. I took away from him also. No mate who couldn't get past gossip to enough for her parents to take a bride price to help raise a cursed child and care for a blind old woman. I understood, everything and I loved him more for taking care of us, without a thought, other then, what I should become. Now I had seen sixteen years of my life, and was still reckless as child first learning to make fire. The gift was there, I just didn't know how to control it. For now, it was just me and him. I forgot the pain of seeing my teacher melt away before me. I was, content.
