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Post by Raga on Apr 26, 2006 9:09:57 GMT -5
"We walk between the worlds, sister," Ren said. "We walk between and peer into each and hope we can make enough sense of what's there to piece together where to walk next."
Raga nodded, not so much because she understood what he meant but because it was good to hear her dead brother's voice and because she sensed she should nod. The voice came from darkness that rustled now and again with the sound of feathered wings, but Raga never thought to be disturbed by the lack of a physical presence that resembled Ren. It was him, and she never doubted.
Raga's physical body knelt on a hilltop in the Stonetalon Mountains. There had been no drumming to guide her spirit journey this time, only the throb of her own pulse. She hadn't set foot on this particular hilltop in years, and had certainly not walked in the valley that lay below it. She'd feared the memories would be too thick here, good memories and horrible ones, so she'd avoided the place where her village had once thrived, where she had been born and married and borne her own children--and where those children had died. Where her old life had died.
But it was this place that had called to Raga, so it was here she'd come. Here, she had chanted and let the drumming of her own heartbeat guide her into the gray forest between this world and the spirit world.
"Show me what you will," Raga told Ren, without speaking.
A massive wing beat rolled like thunder. The darkness illuminated for a split second, and Raga finally glimpsed the source of the rustling feathers--an owl. Then the flash of lightning faded, and she was further down the hillside, still above the site of her village but not so far above.
The village was there--Raga saw the banked cooking fires circled by the shadows of tents in the cool twilight. Behind her, she heard the quiet ripple of water and understood where she was.
She sat on the edge of the swimming hole outside her village, with her feet dangling into the cool water. Moonlight danced through the leaves, keeping time with the soft song of the wind and the low murmur of insects. The birds had gone quiet long ago. All traces of sunset were gone from the indigo sky, save for a tiny strip of pale pink and lavender along the horizon. The breeze caressed her face and her bare arms and ran itself through her mane.
She recognized the moment a split second before Tal spoke, and her heart tried to rise and sink at the same time. Of all the memories to relive at this moment...
"You're here already." His voice was a quiet rumble, faintly amused, with an undertone Raga recognized. She knew without turning that he was looking at her, not just at the profile of her face but at all of her that he could see in the kilt and vest she wore. She didn't mind. She liked it when he looked at her like that.
"I'm here already because you're late," Raga replied, smiling a small, bittersweet smile to herself. She knew the words to this memory, remembered every step of this dance. Even if whatever force drew her into the past hadn't come with an odd compulsion to do and say exactly what she'd done and said the first time, Raga thought she could have done this anyhow.
"I'm right on time," Tal said, but he wasn't really arguing, just saying words to fill up the silence as he had one more good look before coming to sit beside her.
His arm was warm against hers, and she could feel the solid bulk of it. His leg brushed against hers as he swung his feet into the water.
"I spoke to your father today," he said, abruptly. Raga's heart rose and fell and rose again. It wasn't all that different than what it had done the first time.
"Did you?" Raga managed to say. She knew exactly what they'd spoken of. And he knew that she knew it. There had been no coy maneuverings in their courtship. One day Tal had been aiding her brothers in holding her down for noogies; the next day he had punched Ren for pulling her hair and then kissed her when she berated him for fighting her battles for her.
"You'll marry me," Tal said, and it wasn't quite a question, and it wasn't quite a command. It was more a statement of what they both already knew.
"Yes," Raga replied, and it wasn't quite an answer, but just a confirmation of what they both already knew.
His leg brushed hers again, not quite accidentally this time. Raga felt the warmth of his breath against her ear a split second before he nuzzled her neck. Everything inside her melted, not just for the Raga she'd been, but for the Raga she had become. That dangerous place inside her that she'd feared to disturb shattered and split wide open.
Tal's hand slid around to her back. Raga thought she could feel every crease in his palm, even through her clothing. This was the moment where she had pulled away and reminded him that they weren't wed yet. This was the moment where she had taken her inexperienced self away from the pool and Tal and the temptation he presented, and gone home.
"I miss you," she murmured. "So much."
Tal hesitated, and Raga sensed his confusion. It mirrored her own. She felt the turmoil of the Raga who had been. She felt her own pent-up loneliness. It uncoiled inside her, battling with her uncertainty that changing the past was wise, even if it was possible; with the knowledge that this moment could hurt her, past and present, no matter how tempting it was; with a certain vague sense of guilt that surely had to do with someone who wasn't Tal.
He was still breathing against her neck. His hand was still on her back. His leg was still pressed against hers. It had been so long since she'd seen him, heard his voice, felt his touch. And who knew if the whims of whatever brought her here would bring her this way again? What could it hurt? What could it possibly hurt?
The memory of a memory faded, and Raga turned to stare into the now-empty swimming hole. She'd given the time device back to the gnome. She'd given up on the fantasy of changing her past and saving the lives of all the loved ones she'd lost. She'd worked through the pain of what felt like losing them all over again. She'd adjusted, with the help of a few friends and a whole lot of booze, to the sensation of having too many memories buzzing around in her head--some of what was, some of the overlapping moments she'd created, and some of things that might have been. The memories of possibilities.
Raga frowned. She'd tried to push the memories she knew weren't real out of the way and held onto the ones she knew had actually happened. This one moment, though, of making love to her future husband when what had really happened was that she'd held onto her virtue and gone home... This one, she'd never known quite what to do with. Why was Ren showing her this place now? What could it possibly have to do with anything?
Wings clapped again, and Raga felt the world between slip away as she rose into her physical body. Kneeling on a hilltop and looking down into an empty valley, she waited for an answer. What she got was the distant howl of a wolf and a few drifting flakes of snow.
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Post by Raga on Apr 26, 2006 16:53:38 GMT -5
"I can't keep her." The voice was a woman's, young and tearful, but also gruff with determination.
"I don't understand why not," a male's voice replied. "You'll be married soon. What's a little supposed dishonor compared to your firstborn child?"
Ayu couldn't see them, the owners of the disembodied voices. Her vision was fuzzy, shades of gray and white glow that sometimes almost resolved into a clearer vision, but never quite clear enough. Both of them spoke in Taurahe, in a dialect that was both familiar and unfamiliar to Ayu, as though it was a part of her that was out of practice from lack of use--or a thing she had yet to learn.
"It isn't about dishonor," the girl's voice replied. "It's about her survival. If she stays with me, she'll die before she even has a chance to grow."
"But--"
"No." The girl's voice was sharp, now, almost angry. "Don't fight me on this, Ren. You've kept the secret this long. You have to keep it forever."
A long, sad sigh. "Very well," the male replied. "Until I die."
"Don't say that," the girl snapped. "Don't say that again. Ever."
---
"Are you ever afraid, Bada?" Ayu said, breaking the mostly-comfortable silence as they strolled along the road outside Bloodhoof Village.
"All the time," he replied, with a twinkle in his clear blue eyes and a jovial tone in his deep voice. "Elementals, demons, dragons... But those are easy."
"It's the things that aren't tangible," Ayu said. "The things you can't see or touch."
"Exactly!" Kerbada laughed, and Ayu had to smile at the delight on his broad face. "You understand!"
Ayu nodded, her smile fading. "The things you don't know, and the things you wish you didn't know."
Kerbada's expression sobered, too, and he smiled sadly. "Yes," he said, and Ayu remembered the things he'd told her. I'm sorry, she wanted to say. I'm sorry for making you think of it. She wondered, though, if he ever really stopped thinking about the things he knew.
But he was peering curiously at her, and Ayu knew what he would ask if she gave him enough time. She had to answer before he asked, so that she could choose what she would tell and what she wouldn't.
"I know things about myself," Ayu said to Kerbada. "But I don't remember them. It's like I was born only a few weeks ago. I know who I am and where I came from, but I don't remember living through the times before."
Every word was a struggle, even though Ayu had come to Mulgore specifically to find Kerbada and tell him these things. She wanted to trust him, but this felt more like a debt being paid than an unburdening. He'd shared his secrets with her; she owed him some of her own in return. But every word she dragged out of herself circled closer to revealing all of the truth, and she didn't think she could speak those final words out loud.
She didn't stop to wonder why she felt she owed any of this to Kerbada. She just did.
"What things do you know?" he asked, the gentle encouragement in his voice in sharp contrast to his black-furred, heavily-muscled bulk. "And how do you know them?"
Ayu shrugged. "I just know. And then there are the dreams. And the owl."
Kerbada glanced briefly around, and Ayu did, too, but the owl wasn't there at the moment.
"I'm not sure what to make of it," she said, before Kerbada asked. "I thought it was watching over me. But maybe it's just watching."
They walked without talking a while, with only the rustle of wind in the grass and the shuffle of their feet on the path to break the silence.
"I dream about my mother," Ayu said, finally, and those words were harder than the rest. They tasted cold and sour in her mouth. "I dream about her leaving me."
Pity crept into Kerbada's eyes, and Ayu had to look away from him. She'd told him the other night that "Ayusta" was a less a name than just a label she'd chosen for herself. It meant "abandoned."
"I'm afraid that I can't be who I am, until I am who I was," she said, quietly. She sensed Kerbada's confusion, but when she looked up at him, he nodded.
"You have to make peace with your past," he said. "I understand."
Ayu wasn't sure he really did, not in the way she'd originally intended to confront the past. But that was one of the things she didn't think she wanted to tell him, so she just nodded back at him.
"I've tried to just be who I am, to ignore her existence, to let her not matter," Ayu said.
"But she does exist," Kerbada prompted. Ayu nodded.
"I have to seek her out," Ayu said. She let Kerbada interpret her words as he wished. She knew he would assume only the best intentions. That was how he did things.
Kerbada stopped suddenly and turned to face Ayu. He looked down at her, directly into her eyes, holding her trapped there with only her own frightened gaze to hide the whole truth from him.
"We all need allies," he said. "And I am yours. I'll be here to help you."
You say that now, Ayu thought. She managed to scrape together a smile for him, but she turned her face away from him as soon as she could.
"I was going to use you," she said, suddenly, surprising even herself. "I was going to use you to get to her."
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Post by Raga on Apr 27, 2006 14:07:44 GMT -5
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, but there was no taking them back. Utter confusion washed over Kerbada's kind face, and Ayu turned away so she didn't have to watch what emotions might come next.
"I was angry," Ayu said. "I wanted to get back at her."
I still am. I still do. But for a while she'd forgotten to be angry, forgotten to think about it at all. Now, faced with this difficult conversation, she was angrier than ever.
"I'm sorry," she said, when Kerbada didn't say anything. She was sorry, but mostly for herself, for this impossible situation.
"What changed?" Kerbada asked, his voice low. Ayu felt him watching her.
"I didn't want you to be angry with me," she said. But he would be. Someday, he would be.
Kerbada's hand was heavy on her shoulder as he turned Ayu to face him. With his other hand, he stroked one large finger along her chin. The touch sparked along her neck and down her spine, and again she found herself trapped into looking directly up at him--into blue eyes that were calm but also relentless.
"I can't promise I'll never be angry," he said. "But it will be a temporary thing."
You think that.
She forced a smile anyhow, and Kerbada smiled in return. He seemed to think the matter was settled, but she knew it wasn't. There would be more questions from him, and there would be answers she knew she couldn't part with.
"How did you intend to use me to find your mother?" he asked.
Ayu stared at him. There was no answer to that question that wasn't going to lead to places she didn't want to go. She stood there with his hand on her shoulder and looked at his kind smile and wished it would stay that way.
But it wouldn't.
"Ayusta?" he said, a puzzled look creeping across his face again.
"I didn't need you to find her," she said, quietly. "That's not what I meant."
She stepped away and turned to look back the way they'd come. Bloodhoof Village was faintly visible in the evening haze. A coyote barked not too far away. Kerbada's hand was no longer on her shoulder.
"You know who she is?" Kerbada asked, after a moment. And then, as the implications of that sank in, "Do I know your mother?"
"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Ayu said, and she heard the harsh bitterness of her voice, and she knew it would hurt him.
He sighed, and she heard his disappointment. That disappointment wasn't going to change--except to grow worse. Because already, the things she'd kept from him would disappoint him, and because she couldn't be anything other than what she was or do anything other than what she was going to do.
And that was her mother's fault, too. She'd tossed Ayu away, and Ayu was the one paying--always the one paying the price.
He was still looking at her, Ayu knew. All she had to do was turn around and tell him the truth, and it would be over. She could turn around and tell him that one last thing, and he would set about smoothing things out and coaching her on the right thing to do next.
Ayu didn't think she wanted to do the right thing, though. She blinked into the breeze that suddenly stung her eyes and refused to turn around and kept her mouth firmly shut.
"I won't try to force you to talk about it," Kerbada said, finally.
He went quiet again, and Ayu imagined he was trying to think of what else to say. But what else was there? He sighed, a long, exasperated sound. Disappointment.
"I'll go now," he said. "Take care of yourself, Ayusta."
She nodded but still didn't turn around. She felt the breeze freshen and pick up as his hearthstone activated, heard the slight pop and sizzle of the magic as it faded. Ayu glanced over her shoulder to confirm that he was really gone, then dropped into cheetah form.
But she didn't feel like running.
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Post by Raga on May 4, 2006 14:33:16 GMT -5
Raga felt... wrong. Unsettled, like a desert blown and drifting under the influence of a restless wind. The booze didn't taste as strong, and the buzz didn't last as long, even though she drank as much as ever--maybe more. She defended Horde territories, but the zeal she usually felt, the satisfaction in a job well done, was missing.
"Seek mystery," Ishnara said. The other Tauren woman leaned against one of Freewind Post's totems and squinted against the harsh midday light. "That's what Tawa Owakeri means, yes? Why that name?"
"Hrm." Raga shifted her weight, scuffing the hard earth with her hooves. "I like to think it means something to every individual. It's an invitation to go looking for whatever it is you feel called to find."
"What are you looking for?" Ishnara asked, startling Raga with the abrupt shift of focus to herself.
"Well. I look for booze in my packs every day," Raga said, opting for the humorous slant. She chortled quietly, but it was the only sound in the hot, still air.
Ishnara didn't smile, not in the least. She hunkered down in the shade of the totem and continued to eye Raga with a curious but cool expression. After a moment, Raga shrugged uncomfortably.
"I was thinking more long term," Ishnara said.
"I try not to think that far ahead," Raga replied. "It's far too likely that what you think you'll always have, you won't. So I just stick with today."
That wasn't it entirely, though, was it? She didn't plan ahead because there seemed nothing to plan for. And because there was nothing she really wanted. Something to do, something to love, something to hope for. Raga had heard once that those were the three things required for real happiness. She had something to do. She had someone to love. But what did she hope for?
There was nothing Raga could think of, nothing that lit a fire inside her and drove her to pursue it. Did that lack of burning make her content? Or did it just make her lost and pathetic?
It was almost as hot in the Barrens this morning as it had been in Thousand Needles that afternoon, but the shade here was more expansive. Raga strolled out toward the tree beside the watch tower, intending to settle herself into the welcoming curve of its lower trunk and drink until she stopped thinking.
An owl was perched on one of the tree's overhanging branches, staring at Raga with unblinking golden eyes. She stopped and stared back at it. It tilted its head sharply to the right, suddenly, and its gaze shifted beyond Raga. Raga turned, but there seemed nothing to see--a troll boy dancing on the mailbox, a glimpse of pale fur as a Tauren druid shifted into a cat and pelted off toward Ratchet, the purple flames of a Forsaken's horse as he rode through town. None of those things meant anything to Raga.
She turned back to the owl. The branch it had perched on was empty. To the west, brown wings beat against an empty, hard blue sky. The wings stretched, tilted, and then dipped down over the mountains.
Raga sighed wearily. Booze and forgetfulness sounded better, but she knew from long experience that there was no point in avoiding what she knew she'd have to do sooner or later.
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Post by Raga on May 4, 2006 17:19:23 GMT -5
Ayu ran, and the road between the Crossroads and Ratchet slipped past beneath her, cat's paws soundlessly devouring the distance.
She saw me. Stupid, traitorous owl. I know now, though. I know not to trust you.
Ayu was afraid, at first, and the fear made her feel like flying. With speed came clarity, though, and Ayu slowed and then stopped. The cat slipped away, and Ayu turned to gaze back toward the Crossroads through the slits of her wolf mask.
"The winds speak good things about you," Calam said, the eyepatch he wore somehow making him seem more fatherly than fierce. The elder druid nodded reassuringly. "If you have questions or need anything, only whisper to them, and I'll hear."
Ayu frowned worriedly. "You hear things about me in the wind?" she asked. If he did, they couldn't have been as good as he said, surely.
Calam's old face creased into a smile. "Of course. That's how I know your name."
It was still not reassuring. Ayu peered at the old bull, trying to decide what he really knew.
"You're one of us now," he said, his expression somber again. "With the wolfshead, you are a Druid of the Claw. Wear it long and well, Ayusta."
The memory of her discomfort jabbed at Ayu now. It was hard to listen to these good-intentioned others--Kerbada and Calam and the nameless warrior who'd spoken of honor and duty while they stood in the gloom of the swamp. They saw an illusion when they saw a dutiful young druid. Was it hiding her true self that made her feel so ill at ease, or was it the possibility that they really saw something she could be, if she only chose a different path?
No ghost wolf sprinted through the Crossroads' gate after Ayu. No dark-furred Tauren woman on a white kodo thundered after her. After a moment, Ayu's panic faded.
"She didn't see me," Ayu murmured. "She didn't even know I was there."
Anger burned through the lingering remains of fear. Ayu took the anger with her as she embraced the lion's spirit and slunk back toward the Crossroads. Following the perimeter of the wall, she rounded to the north entrance and came in from behind the inn.
Ayu smelled the alcohol before she saw the shaman. It was a weary, bitter smell that burned in Ayu's sensitive lion nose. Ayu hesitated, then prowled along the side of the inn until she could see the shaman.
Raga Blackmane was writing a letter. Ayu watched as she folded and sealed the parchment, as she peered first into the inn and then toward the wind rider and then around the general area inside town. Ayu lay flat and pressed herself into the shadows of the crates she lurked behind, but she doubted she needed to worry--Raga wasn't looking for her.
Raga took the letter to the mailbox. Her arm extended, the edge of the note touched the slot.
"Raga!" a voice boomed from inside the inn. The shaman turned to greet Drotto as he stepped from the inn's interior, and her fingers released the letter into the mailbox.
But it didn't go into the mailbox. It balanced on the edge for a second and then slipped to the ground. Ayu waited, with the patience only a cat can manage, until Raga had turned and walked a few steps away. She ignored the grating sound of the drunken Tauren woman's voice, too loud and full of slurred words, and slipped out of the shadows just long enough to pick up the letter in her mouth. It tasted like booze and ink and dirt, but Ayu held it between her teeth until she was well away from the Crossroads.
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Post by Raga on May 5, 2006 8:26:03 GMT -5
Bull,
I need to spend some time in the Stonetalons--a week or so, possibly. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, and I'll see you when I get back.
Love,
Raga
That was what the shaman had written. Ayu laid Raga's letter beside the one she'd struggled over for the past hour and compared the handwriting. The breeze ruffled the twin parchments, but Ayu had anchored them to the hard ground with a pair of rocks. She frowned in concentration at the original and then at her imitation.
I'm going. I don't know if I'll come back. I don't know if you're worth coming back to, so don't wait for me.
Raga
It would be a cruel thing to do, but Ayu didn't dwell on that. She glanced up for a momentand looked down toward the distant town from her vantage point on the hilltop. She couldn't make out any details from up here, but she knew they were probably down there. Together. Secure in knowing they had each other.
Ayu thought the forged letter would pass at least a casual inspection. Bullhoof had no reason to doubt Raga had really written what her name was signed to. Maybe Ayu could find a way to keep Raga away for longer than her planned week. Maybe Bullhoof had enough doubts to believe the letter. Maybe the rift would be deep enough that Raga would have her first taste of how it felt to be abandoned.
Ayu refolded the first letter, the one Raga had really written, and tucked it carefully into the very bottom of her pack. The second, the one she'd written for Raga, she folded and sealed and took into town. When she dropped it into the mailbox, she made very sure that it did not fall back out.
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Post by Raga on May 15, 2006 20:26:38 GMT -5
The beginning of Raga's spirit journey went as it always went. It began with a period of kneeling on the scrabble of the mountain slope above the emptiness where her village had once been, feeling the hum of gnats around her head and hearing the bird calls and smelling the thick, sweet sap of the pines. She pulled her awareness ever inward, away from the distractions of the physical world so that she could seek out the spirit world. The process was slow, measured in a counting of breaths and a growing awareness of her own heartbeat.
The thrum of her pulse grew steadily more discernible, until she felt it in her ears and her chest as deeply as a drumbeat. The beat rolled in an ever-moving wave, and Raga traveled with it. Behind closed eyelids, she envisioned a dark circle, the entrance to a tunnel, and she let the drumming wave carry her toward it.
And then, with one smooth transition and only the faintest sensation of falling, Raga was no longer moving toward the tunnel--she was in it, surrounded by a warm and welcoming darkness. And then she was through it, in a silvery gray grove of moonlit trees and fog. Wings rustled over her head. Raga didn't look, but instead waited for Ren to show whatever had been so important that he called her back here yet again.
The surrounding trees shifted position, and the sky visible between them darkened to twilight. The silver fog lifted, revealing an all-too-familiar swimming hole. Water lapped and murmured against the edges of the pool, like the caresses and sighs of lovers.
"I know this part." Raga frowned, impatient with Ren's obsession with this one moment in time. Or was the obsession hers? "Show me something I don't already know," she said.
The fog returned, abruptly, so thick that Raga could see nothing else. Sudden pain gripped her and squeezed, dropping her to the ground in less time than a thought. Her abdomen stiffened, and Raga instinctively put her hands against it.
The swell of pregnancy pressed out against her touch. Raga felt the contraction ripple beneath her fingers. Brilliant agony and heartbreaking joy trembled through her; colors exploded in the silver haze.
A birth. Talta? Ral? Raga couldn't see her surroundings well enough to match the memories of her two children's births to this reliving of them.
Wings rustled above and around Raga. Peaceblooms drifted out of the fog, blowing like a cold wind against her face. A wolf howled, close by, and in its long, hollow cry, Raga heard the answer to her question.
Neither.
The birth pains vanished. Raga found herself standing again. The blizzard of peacebloom petals blew away the fog, revealing the dim interior of a tent. The fire was banked low, but it was warm inside. Raga cradled a small bundle in her arms, but her gaze was fixed on the other Tauren in the tent with her. His face was younger than it had been the last time Raga had seen him, but it was good to see her long dead brother, just the same.
"I can't keep her," Raga heard herself say, in a voice that was both far younger and far older than she thought she'd ever sounded.
"I don't understand why not," Ren replied, confusion and sorrow written across every line of his face. "You'll be married soon. What's a little supposed dishonor compared to your firstborn child?"
"It isn't about dishonor," Raga replied.
As she spoke, she at last heard the words echo in her own memories, and she understood. Her gaze was drawn downward, to the babe in her arms, to the green eyes and the pale fur of the girl calf who had become her first born because Raga had been unable to resist the temptation to change the past. The babe's eyes met Raga's, full of an accusatory understanding that did not belong to a newborn.
The wolf howled again, and the spirit world spun away from Raga, leaving her stranded and alone on a mountain slope in the Stonetalons. She stared up into the night, counting stars and trying to comprehend what she'd just learned and what it meant.
It had been such a small thing to change, to lay with Tal one time when she hadn't before. Of all the things in her past that she could have changed, it had been such a seemingly unimportant choice.
Just one little thing.
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Post by Raga on May 16, 2006 19:34:38 GMT -5
The Crossroads had become a horribly uncomfortable place to be, and Ayu gladly left it behind. Kerbada had come by just after she dropped the forged letter into the mailbox, and it was terribly difficult to lie to him.
"Just don't do anything foolish," Kerbada said.
"I can take care of myself," Ayu replied.
"I know." Kerbada smiled that sad smile of his, the one that tempted Ayu to give him nothing more to be sad about. "It's your competence that frightens me."
Bullhoof had been there, too. For the first time, Ayu had come face to face with him, and she'd felt certain that every lie she'd ever told, everything she'd done, was written clearly on her face. But he'd only been quietly polite, with a sense of silent strength that Ayu found both appealing and confusing.
Poor fool. What could a bull like him ever see in such a drunken, selfish cow?
She'd told Kerbada where she was going before she could think better of it, but not why--never why. He'd wanted to come with her, but she'd convinced him this was a thing for her to do alone. By the time she finally reached the first sharply sloping hills before the real mountains began, Ayu estimated that she was almost a full day behind Raga. In cat form, she had little trouble picking up the shaman's trail, though. And even if she hadn't been able to track Raga, Ayu knew where to go.
I was born in the Stonetalons.
It was one of the things she knew.
Ayu's conscience whispered with a sound like wind through feathers: Why do you think she is here? If she cares so little, then why does she return to this place?
"She comes back to grieve the others," Ayu grumbled into the brush she slouched through. "My father, my sister and brother--her other children, the ones she loved enough to keep with her."
Ayu stopped in mid-prowl, her attention shifting abruptly from the boozy trail left by the shaman as she realized the sound of wings wasn't just in her mind, but also somewhere overhead.
The owl. It had already betrayed her once. Ayu's sharp gaze scanned the sky, the trees, the surrounding brush. The feathery sound had stopped, and she saw no sign of the owl.
"I won't let you stop me," she growled in warning to it, anyhow. "I won't let any of you stop me."
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Post by Raga on May 17, 2006 18:53:38 GMT -5
Raga sat on the mountain slope until her knees were stiff and her legs were numb beneath her. Eventually, sometime after the moon set but before the sun rose, she hauled herself to her feet and stumbled down the slope to the small, sheltered place where she'd slept the night before. She'd stowed her packs there, beside the cold remains of her fire, before climbing to the spot where she'd spirit journeyed. She ignored the fresh wood that could have reignited the fire and delved into her packs instead. House Gnome had done her work well--the booze was stocked and organized neatly, and the first flask of bourbon found its way into Raga's hand with ease.
Raga noticed a faint, floral aroma as she uncapped the flask--some blooming bush or patch of wildflowers that she couldn't see in the dark, she supposed, but she was too distracted by reliving every detail of her recent vision to think too much about it. The bitter aftertaste was a result of her own recriminations, and not the bourbon itself, surely. And that shadowy movement in the rocks--only clouds flitting through the dim starlight.
She hadn't thought she would sleep--she was prepared to settle for a drunken haze. But it was after noon on the next day when Raga woke. The sun was hot and her mouth was dry and she hadn't eaten since the day before. She didn't feel hungry, oddly enough--or perhaps not so odd--but she made herself chew and swallow a chunk of bread anyhow. She moved into the shade of the largest nearby rock and washed down the bread with a healthy swig of bourbon. She thought about babes and mistakes and regret; she thought about Bull and about going home. She dozed off, instead, her thoughts clouded by the booze and the late afternoon heat.
It was night again when she woke the next time, caught up in the dull, hazy certainty that she'd been dreaming--one of those dreams, with the peaceblooms and the sound of calves crying and the beat of owl wings. She couldn't remember the details, though, and it was too late for traveling that night. Tomorrow she'd go home. In the meantime, there was the bourbon.
Raga didn't go home the next day, or the day after that. She managed to eat, and she certainly managed to sleep, but she couldn't summon the energy it required to get up and call for Thunder and ride back out of the mountains. She didn't even want to think about telling Bull what she'd learned--and he would ask. He would ask how her trip had been, and there would be that awkward moment when she either had to tell him everything or commit a lie of omission.
Drinking sounded far more appealing, so she drank. She didn't drink as much as she usually did, because she fell asleep so easily. As the flasks ran dry, Raga tossed them empty into the bottom of her pack and pulled out a new one. She lost track of the days, but eventually the feeling of constant lethargy wore off, and her yearning to see Bull, to hear the inevitable calm optimism in his voice, won out over her desire to sit on the mountainside and drink.
But even as Raga threw her packs onto Thunder's back and mounted, even as she urged him down and east, the itching need for a drink remained.
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Post by Raga on May 19, 2006 22:44:20 GMT -5
Written by Bull:
---
"If you could change the past, would you?, the voice said.
*Darkness envelopes the voice and view, moments later a brightness and the voice.*
"If you could save your loved ones, would you?, the voice said.
*Darkness envelopes the voice and view, moments later a brightness and the voice.*
"Would you?", the voice said.
Blackness covered his view and consciousness, nothing but the knowledge that he existed in nothing. Even time seemed to not exist in this place, this empty void. Then suddenly as if a switch was thrown, the world around came in to existence. A place not far yet so distant from now, voices and cries of those that suffered reached his ears. The sounds of combat and the thundering of hooves in the dirt as Centaurs ransacked the village.
"Would you?", the voice said.
*Darkness envelopes the voice and view, moments later a brightness.*
The young tauren sat up, a large lump had formed on his head where something had hit him earlier. The young bull couldn't steady himself and looked about only to see his mother being dragged from the inn, a heavily armored centaur rode up and trusted his spear in to her chest killing her on the spot. Horror and shock filled the young tauren but he couldn't even cry out as his own head wound drew him back to unconsciousness.
"Would you?", the voice said.
*Darkness envelopes the voice and view, moments later a brightness.*
Slowly the young tauren's eyes opened, a loud roar greeted him as in the center of the now ransacked village several centaurs circled about a large animal. As the young bull squinted to see more he realized the beast was actually his father as a bear. The old druid was pitted against six centaurs with five more watching.
"Papa..." whispered from the young tauren's mouth as each centaur took turns jabbing at the druid. Visible holes in the druid bled profusely as the young one started to force himself rise up. As he sat up a large dark paw landed on his shoulder and pulled the young bull from sight. A great roar was heard as the tauren druid fought his last and was subdued by six spears piercing his flesh at once.
"Would you?", the voice said.
*Darkness envelopes the voice and view, moments later a brightness.*
The sounds of a stream trickling along its way woke the young bull. Looking around he suddenly saw two centaurs walk in to view, they took sight of the young tauren and approached him. Suddenly one of the centaurs cried out and the other turned to see a large dark panther ripping away at his comrade. Quickly the centaur turned his spear on the cat only to have it swatted away and become pinned as the panther leaped on to the centaur. The young bull lost consciousness as the panther looked over at him.
"Would you?", the voice said.
*Darkness envelopes the voice and view, moments later a brightness.*
Hamman and Carnol Stonehoof began their usual patrol of Thunder Bluff. They'd always taken the south west elevator down and circled the bluffs on kodo twice before returning to patrol the streets from the north east elevator. The brothers always had something to chat about and as the elevator reached the base of the bluff they heard a muffled cry. They walked down the ramp and saw off to the side a young tauren with his head wrapped. They both recognized that it was Wildhoof Runningbear's child, though why he was here when he should have been with his parents in Desolace was a mystery. They scooped him up and carried him up to the guard hut.
"Would you?", the voice said.
*Darkness envelopes the voice and view.*
"If you could change the past, would you?", the voice said.
Bullhoof woke up in a cold sweat, his eyes wide as he looked straight ahead. "No.", he replied with a tear starting it's run down his cheek. The innkeeper looked at him oddly and Bullhoof got up, grabbed his things, and was out the door quicker then a cheeta.
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Post by Raga on May 19, 2006 22:45:11 GMT -5
"You ok?" Bull asked.
The faint sound of murlocs gurgling slipped between the slaps of waves against the rock they stood on, but they drifted just as quickly away. Raga and Bull had walked the waves to come out here, away from the murlocs and everyone else, for a quiet drink and a little down time. Their communication stones, so often buzzing with alarms from every corner of Azeroth, were still for once.
Raga shrugged. "More or less."
Under no circumstances was that reply going to ease Bull's sense that something wasn't right, and Raga knew it. She supposed she hadn't tried harder on a white lie because she was going to tell him the truth. Some part of her was still reluctant to say it all out loud; some part of her feared he wouldn't understand. But deep down, in a place within her that she was just beginning to trust, she knew there was nothing at all to be afraid of.
Bull poked gently at Raga's ribs and wrapped her in a hug. She smiled and leaned into the hug, then looked up at him.
"Yes?" he said, and waited patiently for her to get to whatever it was this time.
"If I'd made a really ugly mistake," Raga said, looking away and going to stand at the very edge of the rock. The sea foamed persistently against the side of the rock. "You wouldn't just... walk away, would you?"
It was the dumbest of dumb questions, and she knew it, but she needed to hear the reassurance anyhow.
"Everyone makes mistakes," Bull replied from behind her. "Sometimes they aren't mistakes. Though they seem to be. All depends on the point of view. And the reason."
It was pretty much what she'd known he would say, but for some reason it was good to hear it, anyhow. The water continued to slap ineffectively against the gray stone Raga stood on.
"I suppose," Raga said. Her hands itched. Everything itched. She rubbed her hands together and lifted her flask of bourbon. The amber liquid burned going down, but it didn't ease anything inside her.
"Damn goblins," she muttered. "I know they're watering this stuff down."
"So what's on your mind?"
Raga turned to find Bull watching quietly, with that imperturbable expression of his. "I will be here," the letter she'd found when she got home had read. It had been worded oddly--if she came back?--but those few simple words had seemed so large.
I will be here, his eyes said to Raga, now. He eased his tall, broad frame into a sitting position on the higher part of the rock and smiled patiently at her.
"I really messed up," Raga said.
"And how did you do that?" Bull asked.
"Well." Raga sighed. "You remember that whole time device idiocy? You remember I told you I changed something? Just one thing."
Bull nodded, but Raga muttered to herself.
"Just one little damn thing."
"Tempting wasn't it?" Bull said. "I've had thoughts about seeing that gnome myself."
"Yes." Raga squirmed uncomfortably, then blinked as his last remark sank in. Something in his voice brought her up short.
"What if you could change the past?" she'd asked him, once. "Would you?" He'd answered so logically.
"You did?" she asked. Bull was the strong one, the sensible one, the one who knew the right thing and did it. Always.
"Oh yeah," he said. Raga was suddenly struck by how tired he looked, by the weariness in his eyes. Had that always been there, and she'd just never noticed? Or had he never let it show before? She settled herself onto the rock's sloping surface beside him.
"What would you change?" she asked. She supposed she knew, but his answers had surprised her before.
"My parents," Bull said, as Raga had thought he might. "I'd kick and scream to leave the village before the centaur came. Or kill the centaur. Depends on where I went to. Or how."
Raga nodded slowly. Bull had looked away from her and out at the view, or maybe he was looking at something inside his own mind. She watched his face.
"But you didn't go see the gnome," Raga said. She expected to hear again how changing the past was dangerous, or maybe about how things happened as they did for a reason. Bull looked at her, his eyes a truer blue than either water or sky.
"I didn't want to lose the chance to meet you," he said.
Raga's heart rose and fell at the same time. Tears burned, and she leaned into him, her face against his shoulder, needing to touch him and at the same time needing to hide her face from him. His arms closed around her.
"I might not have even been a druid if they were still alive," he added.
"Lots of possibilities, of how things could be different if you change just one thing," Raga said.
Bull didn't say anything, but Raga felt his waiting, as steady and sure as the sound of his heartbeat against her ear.
She told him everything.
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Post by Raga on May 23, 2006 21:00:02 GMT -5
Kerbada finished his story and grinned, a grin that as maybe a little too white and a little too wide. Ayu wondered yet again at the odd sense of danger that lurked beneath his kind behavior. It reminded her of where she was, and she glanced nervously around. From where they sat beneath the Crossroads' guard tower, she could see all the way into the inn. There was no Raga Blackmane, no Bullhoof Runningbear, no one at all that Ayu recognized. She turned back to Kerbada with a small smile. She'd tried to dodge him when he first showed up in town, but he'd already spotted her. Now, after listening to his good-humored, charming story, she was glad she'd been unsuccessful.
"Now, little Ayusta," Kerbada said. A little of Ayu's contentment dissolved as she realized he was going to hold her to the agreement he'd come up with--one of her stories in exchange for one of his. He'd told his, and it was her turn now.
"I know." Ayu sighed, and Kerbada echoed the sound.
"You owe me," he said. "Pay it now, or pay it later."
Ayu frowned. "I only said maybe," she said.
"You're so standoffish, Ayusta," Kerbada said, with no trace of cruelty in spite of the words. "What makes you so uncomfortable?"
It was the truth, and Ayu knew it, but she still winced. She shrugged. "Everything."
"The owl for certain, eh?" Kerbada said. "Me for second?"
Thoughts of the owl stirred anger in Ayu, as did merely thinking about anything about herself that might provide a story for Kerbada. There was nothing that wasn't treacherous to share with him. Ayu tried to forget for a moment about all the things she couldn't tell him.
She managed a small smile. "It's just that... nothing I think I remember really feels like it belongs to me. Sometimes. So how do I know what to answer to some of your questions? Or tell you a story?"
"You can remember things," Kerbada said. "But they don't seem to be your memories?"
"They're mine," Ayu said slowly, trying to decide for herself if that was right. "I just... sometimes they feel very distant."
They were still for a moment, both of them.
"I was alone a lot," Ayu said, quietly. "Not uncared for, but alone often. He took me to a foster family, of sorts. My uncle. He's the one she put in charge of finding someplace to drop me off."
Kerbada nodded.
"I remember humans," Ayu said, abruptly. That was a real thing, too, but she'd just that moment recalled it. But she could remember clearly the odd scent of human cooking that had drifted into the Tauren settlement when the breeze was right. She could hear their strange voices and unknowable language, as she had when she'd snuck in close to the human settlement.
"Your uncle left you with humans?" Kerbada asked.
"No," Ayu said, weighing the new memory and sifting through it for additional information. "Not exactly. But the Tauren he left me with... they were friendly with humans. Some humans."
Ayu frowned thoughtfully. That was both right and not quite right, but it was close enough for the moment.
"They're not there anymore," she added, after a moment. "I don't... I don't remember why not."
"This was just a few months ago?" Kerbada asked.
"No." Ayu blinked and shook her head. "This was years ago. When I was a child. Before I learned to fend for myself."
Kerbada nodded slowly, and his sincere desire to understand was apparent on his face. But Ayu fidgeted uncomfortably anyhow. Something about the things she'd just remembered--was still remembering, as Kerbada questioned her about them--stirred an itching uneasiness inside her.
"I'm sorry, Bada," she said. "I don't think I want to talk about that anymore. Not because I don't want to tell you. I just... don't like to think about it." Was there any clearer way to say it? Ayu didn't understand it herself.
"That's alright, Ayusta," Kerbada said. "I can understand that it bothers you to talk about it. I don't understand why you can't, but I don't think you can either."
Ayu offered him a small, relieved smile, and Kerbada returned it.
"Or maybe you just don't want to," Kerbada added.
"Maybe someday," Ay said. She didn't really mean it.
"Someday for certain." Kerbada's grin had stretched just a little too wide again. "I think there is a story in you that will come out. The question I turn over in my head is how much of you will be left when it does get free. And how much will be broken when the story breaks out."
Ayu peered up at him, and then shrugged and looked away.
"I'm fine," she said.
"I know," Kerbada said. He patted her arm, and she dared to duck forward to hug him quickly. Before she could draw away again, he'd wrapped her in a massive hug that lasted long enough to make her not fine anymore, but instead confused and unsteady.
Then he released her, and he rode off to deal with the demons and old gods he'd pledged to fight for as long as he had strength to fight. And when he was gone, Ayu did what she did best.
She ran away.
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Post by Raga on May 25, 2006 12:42:46 GMT -5
Life had looked different since Raga stood on that rock off the shore of Hillsbrad with Bullhoof. It had felt different right away, like a weight lifted, but it hadn't been until later, when she was alone, that she'd truly seen clearly what had been right there for months.
"The past is the past and the future isn't here yet. The only thing to do now is go forward," Bull had said. "We don't know what the future holds. It's a gray mist. If we change the past, it will be just as gray. Let's not make the past as gray anymore. Promise?"
She'd told him everything, and he hadn't been angry. He had been understanding, supportive, reassuring... All the things he always was. He'd asked for a promise, using one of the words they'd both always avoided. And now, sitting in the crook of her favorite tree outside the Crossroads with the evening cool settling around her, Raga finally got it.
This is real. It isn't going away. You can trust it.
A sense of calm followed the understanding. She might even dare to label it as hope.
But it was also more than that. Raga absently fumbled in the pack beside her for whatever booze happened to be on top. The night was quiet, a lullaby of insect chirrups and the yowl of a savannah cat now and then. The air tasted sweet, with only an aftertaste of dust and heat.
Bull was her strength. Whatever she needed, he was there to help her with it. But he'd let her glimpse a sadness in him that Raga knew he didn't share easily, and it brought to mind something Raga's mother had once said.
Everyone loves strong people, because they never ask for anything--but that doesn't mean they don't need anything.
She'd been the one always needing something, and he had never asked for anything. It was time to pull her act together, to stop staring hopelessly at a past she couldn't fix, so that she could see right now more clearly--so she could see what he needed and be as strong for him as he'd always been for her.
The booze on top was wine, cheap and not very strong. Raga didn't mind. She uncapped it and lifted the bottle in a salute to promises, both the one Bull had asked for and the unspoken one she'd just made to him in addition to it.
---
For all that everything now seemed so very right, Raga also knew something was still wrong. She woke the next morning feeling thick-headed, but it wasn't a hangover. A little cheap wine wouldn't do that, and this felt different, anyhow. And even during her heaviest drinking bouts, the spirit dreams had still come to her. Now, the peacebloom showers were gone; the cries of the wolf and the multitude of whispers had fallen silent.
While Raga was tempted to think the dreams had gone because they'd told her what they intended to tell her, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that wasn't at all how it was. Her hands itched sometimes, and something in her mind itched in a similar way. It felt almost as if the dreams--and Ren's voice--were still there, but she just couldn't see or hear them anymore. It wasn't a thing that was wrong in a dreadful, immediate way, though, and so she merely mulled the problem over during random quiet moments as she went about living her life.
Then she got a letter--a very odd letter.
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Post by Raga on May 26, 2006 11:39:04 GMT -5
Feralas was wilderness, and wilderness suited Ayu perfectly. She roamed through the heavy green, testing herself against it and growing closer to the wild feral spirits that gave her power. She charged alone into gnoll camps and overwhelmed them with bear's brute strength. With lion's quick wit and fast claws, she prowled through the ogre camps and picked them off one by one. She ran with cheetah and swam with sea lion, moving with such speed and grace that she felt a near kinship with flight. She had no wings, but she flew low across the land and deep into the seas. With the feral spirits dwelling in her, she was never alone.
And yet she was never quite not alone, either. She'd allowed herself to learn to enjoy the company of others, and now she couldn't undo that mistake. But the Crossroads was uncomfortable. Thunder Bluff was uncomfortable. Orgrimmar, Booty Bay, Undercity... Everywhere Ayu went, she felt out of place and terribly exposed. She hid behind the wolf mask, put it between herself and the outside world, cut herself off from as much as possible.
She panicked every time she saw someone familiar. The things she'd done to try to create a rift between Raga Blackmane and Bullhoof Runningbear had apparently failed--Raga had returned home within the week she'd promised Bullhoof, and if he'd taken Ayu's forged letter seriously, they'd obviously figured it out. Raga had no way to know who Ayu was, but every glimpse of a dark-furred Tauren woman evoked a quickened pulse in Ayu. She sidled away from Bullhoof Runningbear and hid herself in the shadows when she saw him in Orgrimmar or the Crossroads, even though he, too, had no understanding of who Ayu was. And Kerbada...
Camp Mojache was a quiet place. Ayu learned a great deal about leatherworking every time she came into town. She liked to sit in the doorway of the inn and listen to the rain drum into the fertile earth. But she also was always reminded of Kerbada and the story he'd told her of his younger years, when he, too, had run away to Feralas. And thinking about Kerbada always brought a smile, but it was always followed by a sad sigh. Kerbada wasn't really Ayu's friend, even if he believed he was. He belonged in the shaman's world, as did so many other people that Ayu might have trusted and accepted into her life, if she hadn't known what they didn't know. If they ever did know, she'd be shut out of that world, and so what was the point of letting herself get comfortable in it to begin with?
This way was better. Live alone, hunt alone, sleep alone. The sheer simplicity of it brought a certain peace of mind. In that peace, Ayu realized that her attempts to hurt Raga Blackmane, up to and including a second letter she'd sent directly to Raga just before leaving the Crossroads the last time, were juvenile at best. It wasn't that she regretted the attempts at payback--but they'd failed. Ayu simply wasn't good enough at this whole revenge thing.
She wanted to let it go. She wanted to lose herself in the wilderness--Feralas, Tanaris, Stranglethorn, wherever else she could find--to give herself to the feral spirits and forget the past entirely.
All she had to do was let it go.
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Post by Raga on May 26, 2006 11:40:09 GMT -5
He'll abandon you, sooner or later. It's what you deserve.
Maybe I'll make sure it's sooner.
Raga couldn't decide exactly what the letter was supposed to mean. It wasn't signed, of course--that would've made it too easy. She wasn't overly alarmed about what it seemed to insinuate, either. It didn't sound like a direct threat of bodily harm. What it sounded like was someone who wanted Raga to believe that Bull was going to leave her. At some earlier point, Raga might have been troubled by the possibility, but she didn't feel particularly troubled, only mildly puzzled over who might want to cause problems for her and Bull.
It did remind her of something else, the more she thought about it.
Stranglethorn was hot and humid, which was nothing new. On top of the zeppelin tower there was at least a breeze, but as Raga descended into the Grom'gol base camp, the heat pressed damply against her. She shoved through it and dropped into wolf form as soon as she came out into sunlight again. She sensed Bull prowling north of the walls, so she darted out the gate and circled to the south.
Nothing. The alarms had gone silent, and there was no trace of attackers. They circled the camp twice more, Raga always aware of Bull's location and alert to any change in his scent that indicated he might need her, but still nothing revealed itself. They met at the main gate, both back in Tauren form again. Raga shrugged slightly at Bull, and he nodded his agreement.
"Hmmm... Guess since it's quiet here I'll do some herb hunting," Bull said.
Raga heard and understood the slight note of disappointment in his voice. The attackers were gone, whether because someone else had routed them or by their own choice, and that was a good thing for the base camp. But it was always hard to come down from that rush of anticipatory preparation that built while en route to defend Horde holdings, without any enemy on which to unleash some of that excess energy.
"I need to take care of a few things, too," Raga said, and then remembered the letter. "Oh. Before I forget... Do you still have the letter I wrote to you? When I was heading off into the Stonetalons for a few days?"
"I'm not sure I do anymore," Bull said. He was giving her that 'what now?' look, and Raga had to try not to chuckle.
"Hrm. Do you remember pretty much what it said?" she asked.
"You were going away for a time," Bull said, slowly. "And something about not being sure whether you'll be back."
"I got a rather strange letter myself. It made me think that maybe..." Raga shrugged. "Well, that maybe someone is messing around with us."
"Oh?" Bull said. "Who do you think?"
Raga was forced to shrug again. "I thought it was odd that you'd think I didn't know if I was coming back. Because I don't remember writing anything of the sort. And the letter I got... Well, it wasn't signed. But it was a warning, I guess. Or meant to be taken as a warning, maybe. Except I know better."
"Even if you weren't going to come back I knew where I could always find you regardless," Bull said. "So that wasn't a problem if I ever really needed to reach you."
Raga was puzzling over the strange letter and didn't catch the suddenly somber tone in Bull's voice right away. Then she smiled distractedly up at him and saw the solemn expression on his rugged, beloved face.
He patted his chest, near his heart. "I always know where to find you," he said.
Raga supposed she might get used to the melting sensation eventually, since Bull was getting so very good at causing it. In the meantime, she stepped in close and wrapped her arms around his solid bulk.
"You take my breath away sometimes," Raga said. "I have no idea what I was just talking about."
"I'm not sure myself," Bull said. "But I'm just happy."
Raga tugged his beard gently and sneaked a kiss.
"Me too," she said.
The letter sat quietly in the bottom of her pack, relegated to unimportance and completely forgotten.
((
I'm putting this story on the back burner for a while--not the characters! Just the forward motion of the plot. I've got some projects that need the time and mental energy I've been spending on writing this, so for now Raga and Ayu are status quo. Super thanks to everyone who's been reading, cheering from the sidelines, and/or giving me tons of wonderful inspiration and material to work with. Special thanks to Bada, who seems to actually enjoy being tortured by weird, evasive women who fidget a lot; and to Bull, who is just sweet and patient and funny and... Well, he's Bull.
Moos and hugs!
))
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