<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC Commentary</div><div class="spoiler_body">I happened to be listening to The Bastard Sons of Enoch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txnshMTdm7Q) while writing this in my half-awake state, and so I ended up inserting a corruption of the prophecy of Nefer-Rohu (http://books.google.com/books?id=KR8J5WM04VsC&amp;pg=PA211&amp;lpg=PA211&amp;dq=Readings+from+the+Ancient+Near+East:+Primary+Sources+for+Old+Testament+Study+nefer-rohu+said&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=E-dYAXmYnC&amp;sig=DygAI1Az73rjKPQ4laH9mfob3gA&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=oyUIVN-VOoLOiwLo9oHQDA&amp;ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA) into it, because somehow it worked perfectly in just as I was describing the Prince of a fallen land and there were the (barely audible) lyrics at the trailing edge of the song...No more dire description of a land in turmoil was ever carved into stone, but I'm quite sure my past-tense variation has watered down the impact it had as a future-tense prophecy.</div></div><br/><hr/><br/>The pale gaze of the wolfess gave Kairavi pause, but she nodded, keeping her hand far from her husband's weapon as she thanked her for her advice. She pressed on through the snow, leaving the strange sentry behind her, as she could not leave the words of the unwelcome burden she bore.<br/><br/>The rat-demon's words burned in her broad ears. "Hush thy tongue, oh bringer of misfortune, lest I seek out her company to spite thee." She longed to reach back and grip him for his insolence, for the deaths he had caused, the pain he had brought to all who she knew, but this was no time nor place, and who knew if the creature might get loose among those here? "Thou are bound to<em>me</em>, not I to thee. Call me 'slave' again and I shall find a tree of a thousand years and use thy chisel-toothed face as a wedge to cleave it, then leave thee in the notch." Kairavi regretted the words almost as soon as she had spoken them, for if her memory served, that trick had not ended so well for the hundred-handed god, and the demon had, in time, escaped the cloven tree when it had fallen to the earth.<br/><br/>As a guest at their fires, the elephant bowed and nodded to others as she passed them, giving respectful greeting, but as her husband had spoken of it being given...Not one member of the community, and a woman, to another...but rather as a wandering warrior and an outsider to a community she did not yet know. The gestures were not comfortable, but the weight of her dead mate's maille and weapons were a constant reminder that here she was not 'grandmother' or 'mother' or 'neighbour' but a different thing indeed, and in her heart she was still not sure what thing that might be.<br/><br/>...Though the weapons and armor had fit her, more or less, as her husband's lessons and training in their keeping had fit her, once long ago.<br/><br/>She thought about the lessons and dangers of his wanderings which he had oft-recalled while she made her way to the largest of the fires and set foot upon the rugs and hides laid about it, bowing to the bear, Paz, with her hands held not together before her but grasping the belt that bore the weight of the blade she wore. So. Clumsy, perhaps, but the greeting became more a part of her each time she made it.<br/><br/>"I, ah...I am not one whose storytelling others may cherish," she begins, looking around her at and meeting the eyes of those seated around the blaze. "Although my sons or their sons would mayhap speak more kindly of, ah...A moment, I beg you, for I have not such a great wealth of tales..." She thinks desperately, but Paz's hospitable demand has laid an expectant silence over those around her, and naught comes to her ears as distraction but the faint keening of the wind down the valley as it sings around a tent-flap. The wind, hm? Kairavi remembers, and speaks even as she tries to remember more.<br/><br/>"You may know..." She shakes her head, broad ears splaying in a moment of distress. No, that isn't right. The voice of her father's brother comes to her in memory.<br/><br/>"Know, oh travellers, that the peak which rises above ye into the winter sky is but the daughter of a greater peak, and above the bowl at its crest, where my people live in peace," (she said, armed and armored) "...there rises yet another great tooth of the earth to meet the Heavens, and so high does she rise up from among the other teeth of the Pasadar Kosh that one may see from her heights the lights of the gods own halls, and so we call her the Mountain-of-Lights. But there are other names, too, ahm...Mountain-of-Bones, and the Tooth-of-She-it-is-Misfortune-to-Name...for many try to ascend to her heights to visit the heavens, but few, very few survive the climb and return, and my people rarely go there save to consign ourselves to the gods."<em>...save when we are young and in love and daring to impress those around us. Where is that courage now, oh my husband?</em><br/><br/>"There, ah, there was a prince,"<br/><br/>("<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;">There is always a prince</span></span>," the hated voice whispers behind her ear, and she reaches up to tilt her husband's helm back from her brow, letting it fall atop her pack.)<br/><br/>"A prince of the River Folk, strong, and brave, and who spoke great wisdom...and, ah, the measure of his wisdom was that he knew how little of what the world offered was truly known to him." Was that how it had gone? Probably not. She plowed on, frowning. "And yet...And yet his kingdom was imperiled. There was drought upon the land, and the great River was a trickle, and the lesser rivers cracked clay. Clouds hid the sun for days uncounted, yet gave no rain."<br/><br/>("<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">Bestir thyself, oh heart!</span></span>" the voice breathes quietly at her back, and the light of the fire seems to curl in on itself, the walls of the great tent dimming slightly. "<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">Bewail the land in which thou didst begin! The land was so perished that there was no one who was not concerned with it, no one who spoke, no one who wept. How was it so fallen, this land? The sun's disk was covered over, and did not shine so the people could see. The holy rivers of the land were empty, so that the water was crossed on foot. Men sought for water for the ships to sail on it, and no water could be found, yea, even in the harbor of kings. A foreign bird was born in the marshes of the northland. It made a nest beside men, and the people let it approach through want of it. The land is maddened, and no one knows the result that will come about, which is hidden from speech, sight or hearing. No protector would listen. His name was Qasim-ud-Dauwa.</span></span>")<br/><br/>Kairavi folds her ears back as if to wall off the words from the thing perched behind her head. "Ssssss...Enemies preyed upon Prince Qasim's people from the North and South, and it was not safe for a man to walk upon the High Road, nor a woman to walk in safety to the well at night. He wept for his people, and prayed to the gods, but though he raged and beseeched them, the plague upon the land remained unchanged, and so he resolved to climb the Mountain-of-Lights and face them and demand of them." Her hand settles on the hilt of the heavy khora sword at her side and she grips it shockingly hard, silently willing direst silence upon the thing intruding into the story she meant to tell.<br/><br/>"I will not tell you of the struggles of his climb, ahm, I am a poor teller, and it suffices that he made it to the peak of the highest of all mountains."<br/><br/>("<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">His hands were not his own, nor his feet, for the frost took them and he made to bargain with it for the sake of his people, but the frost only takes, and gives no reply.</span></span>")<br/><br/>The tall woman's eyes dart this way and that, as if, without moving her head, she somehow meant to see what was in the shadows behind her. Her trunk lifts, questing uncertainly at the dimming air.<br/><br/>"His struggles were many, but through his love for his people he found strength to carry him through the snow, and he stared into the golden lights of the gods' own palaces and shouted, making his demands of the wind itself."<br/><br/>("<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">The wind came from his library behind the stars of the Northern sky, and his bath behind the rains of the Southern sky, and his sitting room behind the morning in the Eastern sky, and his hearth behind the clouds of the Western sky, and roared he down upon the prince with the voice of ten-thousand thunders,</span></span>" the black voice breathes.)<br/><br/>"Prince Qasim quailed before the might of the wind. 'I have beseeched you,' he cried, 'prayed and sacrificed to all of the gods for my people's salvation. You who see all, hear all, know all, o mighty wind, how may I ease the suffering of my people? What must I do to remove this curse upon the land?"<br/><br/>("<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">Thee who hearest the faintest whisper upon the earth, who seeith the tiniest glimmer of dew upon the smallest spider's web, who counteth the fall of every leaf and guide it to its place, what must I give that my people suffer no more? I have prayed, and sacrificed, and studied. Thee hast given me no reply nor guidance! Why is my land accursed and how may I lift it? Tell me how I may save those who look to me!</span></span>")<br/><br/>Kairavi closes her eyes, both her broad hands clenched now. "And the wind, the wind said, 'Thee can give nothing to lessen the suffering of thy people, and thus nothing can guide thee. Thy prayers were heard, as no prayer escapes us, not even the cry of the least hummingbird over her cooling eggs. The land is what it is, as the sky is what it is, and the suffering of the people is what it is. There is no curse, only persistence, and salvation.'"<br/><br/>("<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">And the prince raged...</span></span>")<br/><br/>"Be still. The prince lifted his blackened hands, 'Where may I find this salvation?' he demanded. And the wind gave answer, 'The salvation of thy people is where it ever has been, o prince who leaves his throne to climb mountains. In the great temple, thy people find salvation, and healing for their wounds, and comfort for their ills. Most of all, they find hope. Hope which they cannot attain from a prince who abandons his people to climb so high above them that he feels he may contest the gods.'"<br/><br/>Kairavi lowered her head and her ears trembled, and for the moment her voice was strong and sure. "'Thy throne sits empty, and the High Priest stands beside it...for the people come to thy throne for wisdom and judgement but he will not place himself upon it. The land will heal, and the people will heal, but not by thy hand nor thy word, and thy people will, in time, misremember thee. Thee didst not need to climb a mountain to be heard by the wind, nor to hear from the wind, all that was required of thou was that thee remembered thy place. Thy pride has served thee poorly, and served thy people not at all, and in time thee wilt be forgotten, as the resting place of thy bones will be forgotten, known only to the wind and the gods.'"<br/><br/>The great tent is as it was before she began, the flames lick along rough-split logs and cast pale oranges against the walls. A log shifts in the bonfire with a quiet hiss and crackle as the coals supporting it give way.<br/><br/>The elephant bows her head further, broad ears back. "I am sorry. That...Was not the story I had thought to tell."