Prophet

§ 2020-05-30 16:55:49

[17:54] Voskudat was not quite far enough from the Sanctuary that it was easy to miss.

Their Za'alseki guardians discouraged exploration of the geography around Sanctuary – the less you knew about its whereabouts, the less could be beaten out of you if everything went pear-shaped – but that argument could only hold if you insisted that the very best kavkema anywhere could hope for was to stay hidden.

[17:55] Karodaga had no such insistance. She was perhaps a little impressionable at her age – well into what lax kavkem culture considered autonomy, but without any life experience, and not yet grown to full size – but surely a predator could not spend its life cowering before even a herd of prey?

And so she had deluded herself into thinking she was leading Taranidad out of Sanctuary. Women were leaders; of course she was leading. That it had been his idea, that he was her spiritual mentor, didn't matter to her instincts as they cut through the forest along its gentle, barely perceptible slope.

It went against the wishes of the Za'alseki elders; it went against the wishes of Sanctuary's most senior ryrhakenem. It was not formally forbidden, but this was a semantic squibble at best – to most kavkema, the notion that one's fellow kavkema were bound to anything by more than their own personal honour was simply foreign.

And so Karodaga had now reached the edge of the forest, the bulk of her body hidden behind a tree, peering past the same across the meadow and Voskudat's singular building, without yet knowing the name of the place she had discovered, and Taranidad beside her.

[18:09] Taranidad inhaled the many smells of the meadow opening in front of them. He wasn't expecting to find any Nayabaru presence so quickly. The smell of Nayabaru disrupted his daydreaming about all the vague yet so inviting greatness that he and Karodaga will (necessarily) achieve.

[18:11] He focused on his surroundings, and instinctively moved a few paces back into the forest. The open meadow didn't feel welcoming at all.

[18:19] He hated the feeling of his heart sinking. All the lofty words of encouragament he ever spoke to Karodaga were so distant at that moment — just because of that large Nayabaru settlement on the other side of the valley.

[18:21] It was right, of course, to be wary of the open plain. Without cover it would be easy to see them and Nayabaru had guns that cared very little about traditional 'safe distances'.

They were ambitious, but not stupid.

The light of dawn tinged the scene in soft blues that were only gradually gilding at the edges. It was a little too early for Nayabaru to be bustling about, although some of them were no doubt already rising – not that Karodaga had any experience with that, but some education was universal.

"Do you think we could get away exploring the building?" Karodaga whispered in quiet fascination and horror, thrilled by the idea of simply breaking into Voskudat and plundering whatever they might find inside despite all danger.

But even as she asked it, something moved at the top edge of the complex. It only took a moment to see that it was a kavkem, gradually clambering down the artificial, three-storey cliff of the building, cautiously and quiet.

It was hard to see who it was from this distance – perhaps it was no one from Sanctuary at all. But she still found herself wondering: Had someone beat them to the exploration?

[18:30] "Do you see them? What are they doing? You're still young, your eyesight is better than mine…" – whispered Taranidad.

[18:34] "The sunrise will be any minute now. That kavkem will be lucky to save their skin. We can't get closer."

[18:36] "I know what to do when they get down…" – he said to reassure more himself than Karodaga.

[18:38] "I don't recognise—" she commented, confusion and the strain to make out an identity cutting her short. "Just— climbing down?" How had they even gotten up the building in the first place? It wasn't an easy climb in either direction.

Then the stranger deliberately detached from where he was currently dangling and dropped into the grass, transitioning to a tense, slow slink away from the building.

He didn't seem to have any belongings – not even the customary tool necklace, much less any loot from some kind of glorious raid. His path was taking him away from the building as directly as it could, but not quite into the direction of Taranidad and Karodaga.

"...do we try to follow—?" Karodaga asked, still trying to place the appearance – but she'd never seen this kavkem before, she was increasingly sure of it.

[18:44] Taranidad didn't answer. With his eyes fixed on the stranger he started moving along the edge of the forest to intercept them. He gestured at Karodaga to follow him.

[18:52] That, too, was an answer, even if it rubbed Karodaga's instincts the wrong way to trail after him. Silence was important on any mission, regardless how much one was convinced of its success – and this one had just been thoroughly derailed.

She traced Taranidad's path swiftly, letting her gaze track the stranger occasionally.

Said stranger was reaching the edge of the forest himself. A paranoid glance over his lowered shoulders revealed that he fully expected to be followed and wanted to know if there was a dart about to bury itself in his skin – but there were no Nayabaru in sight just yet.

Finally, he crept between the trees, for the moment oblivious to the two friendly onlookers.

[19:03] It's not every day that you meet a new kavkem. Taranidad's sinking heart sensation returned, but he knew that it was too late for them to hide from the stranger. He anxiously ruffled his feathers and in a loud whisper said "Hi, who are you?"

"Don't run away…!"

[19:17] The stranger stopped, about four metres away from them, snapping his gaze around alertly to settle on the approaching kavkema. His eyes widened slightly as though out of some deep concern, then he cast his gaze back over his shoulder, past the trees, across to Voskudat. His posture communicated tension.

"Gazhil," he said, and it took a moment for them to parse it as a name, rather than as the word force. He didn't ask their names. Instead: "Are there others nearby? If so, find them and leave, as far away from here as possible. There's an invisible danger here, it will be a problem soon."

He slipped further into the forest, his attention evenly split between diving further into its shadows and the two kavkema he had come across.

[19:24] "Only us. I know a safe place." – Taranidad ignored the sinking heart sensation and moved to close the distance to Gazhil.

[19:26] In the back of his mind a warm thought started to form that he was rather pleased with how he managed to make a good first impression on Gazhil.

[19:41] "Technically," Gazhil insisted, slowing enough to let the both of them catch up. "Nothing is going to be safe. But some places are going to be safer than others. Do you have the luxury of food stores?"

It took Karodaga a moment to realise he was not asking out of personal hunger, but out of some deeper concern for their survival. "...what is this about?" she asked, funnelling her full confusion into the question, flustered and alienated by his behaviour.

"Unless we get very, very lucky, Voskudat and the surrounding landscape is going to splinter and that will be the least of your worries," Gazhil informed them.

From context and from the sound of its syllables, it sounded as though 'Voskudat' referred to the Nayabaru settlement he had come from. He sounded deeply nervous in a way that lent implicit credance to his claims – he was clearly worried about the scenario he was describing. "Are you religious?"

[19:54] "Yes, we have food. We better move, the Nayabaru are starting their day." – Taranidad felt a bit silly stating the obvious, but felt a pressing need to take initiative anyway, in whatever way he could think of.

[19:57] "We can talk more on our way. So, uhm, this place is called Voskudat, huh…?" – He consciously side-stepped the question of religion. He wasn't exactly sure how much he wanted to trust the new kavkem. All this talk about catastrophic urgency sounded quite weird to him. And what did it even mean for all this "Voskudat" to splinter?

[19:58] Whatever it all meant, moving away from here was the first priority.

[20:22] "Voskudat, yes," Gazhil confirmed, letting Taranidad and Karodaga pass him by to lead the way to the place of purported safety. As he lingered for a moment to allow them to pass, he again looked over his shoulder as though expecting a more subtle hunter to trace him than any Nayabaru.

"The Nayabaru use the infrastructure here to send things into space," Gazhil elaborated. "In the past months, you may sometimes have seen new stars, moving overhead on a steady path. They're not stars; they come from here." The only orbiters he knew of with any certainty were the Thread funnels, of course; but there could easily be others.

Karodaga, however, was less willing to let the question of splintering rest, and muscled her way into the conversation. "What do you mean when you say Voskudat will splinter?" she asked, sceptically.

"The Nayabaru are likely going to move the planet and it needs to be attached somewhere," Gazhil commented, a little hesitantly, as though loathe to simplify something he knew to be more complicated under the hood. "Turns out Voskudat is that 'somewhere' and a whole planet is heavy, so this landscape is almost surely going to suffer for it."

[20:35] Taranidad had seen a line of fire moving across the sky in a big arch a few months ago. Was it that what Gazhil meant, the new stars? He never dared to mention what he had seen that night to any other kavkema.

[20:42] For the time being he chose to stay silent. Karodaga was asking many of the right questions, but the most important question burning in his mind was why the stranger asked about religion. That seemed very suspicious…

[20:55] And it was still quite unclear whether or not this stranger was telling the truth. He seemed sincere – there was nothing in his body language suggesting this was some kind of ruse – but it did sound rather strange, not meshing with the perception Karodaga or Taranidad had of the Nayabaru.

Karodaga was willing to be contrarian about it, if a bit hesitantly so. "Why would the Nayabaru do that? Destroy their own settlement just to move the planet? Where?"

Gazhil grimaced. "This isn't really anything that lends itself to a quick summary," he said. "But in brief, the Nayabaru have reason to believe that the very sun currently rising at the horizon is in the process of being turned into a weapon and the only way to run from that danger is to make sure the planet is elsewhere."

But as sheltered as Taranidad and Karodaga were, surely they would know if the Nayabaru had such mighty technology as to simply put the planet somewhere else? At least the kavkema had not been raised on geocentrism; they knew the sun was much, much larger than the planet, and at a staggering distance.

[21:09] "Hah, the sun is a weapon. Now, that's a thing that all the kavkema would agree with." Taranidad was starting to warm up to the stranger. Did the stranger knew about the arch of fire moving across the sky?

[21:11] He'll have to talk with the others once they get back to the Sanctuary.

[21:22] "That's why I was asking about your beliefs," Gazhil revealed. "Who do you imagine would use a sun as a weapon?" There was a wary sarcasm laced through his words, as though he had personal gripe with the author of said weapon. "I'll give you three guesses, but you'll only need one."

"...Tkanetar?" Karodaga offered, sceptically. "I thought Tkanetar was banished or something like that."

"More 'something like that'," Gazhil offered, noncommitally, grimly.

§ 2020-05-31 16:40:56

[16:40] "Tkanetar created the Nayabaru, and so much strife followed as a result. Now you're saying that what you saw in that Nayabaru place was that they want to destroy this whole place with a splinter."

[16:48] "It's so good that you ran into us. You see, the kavkema around here aren't as meek as elsewhere. We will stop the Nayabaru from using their place to launch things into space. They will never turn wield the sun itself as their weapon." – with each word Taranidad was speaking faster. He could see how he'll lead all the Za'alseki kavkema. Together they'll be strong. They'll face this new threat together.

[16:50] Taranidad sped up. It was important to reach the Sanctuary as soon as possible. Now was a time to act.

[17:24] A cringe visible ran through Gazhil at Taranidad's fervent musings, though it was mercifully brief to stay. He had, of course, anticipated being misunderstood to some degree – there was a lot going on and they'd only exchanged a few words so far. He quickened his pace to match the other kavkem's.

"I may have put the emphasis on the wrong thing," Gazhil said with a hint of tense irritation. "The Nayabaru are trying to prevent the planet from going up in flames. I wouldn't recommend trying to sabotage them, unless you want all life on this planet to be extinguished."

...to be fair, there were likely plenty of kavkema to whom complete planetary extinction would sound like an acceptable outcome. qanu was hard to come by for kavkema, and all other life was surely expendable, barely a tragedy worth noting. Gazhil hoped these new acquaintances weren't of that sort; he rather intended to live for a while longer, both as Gazhil and as Valcen, and both incarnations were bound to the threatened planet.

§ 2020-06-03 19:20:37

[19:20] Taranidad absent-mindedly ruffled and stroked his mane. He needed a quick retort, but he felt as if the right words escaped him at the moment. Someone freely escaping from the Nayabaru compound must clearly not be a regular kavkem. Could it be that the gods sent him an omen? A hallucination? But Karodaga saw him too! She spoke to him!

Everything about the new kavkem seemed more and more bewildering by the minute.

They crossed a creek in silence. The cool water snapped him out of his doubt. "Tkanetar, the god of light and fire, created the Nayabaru so that they don't allow the sun to be turned into a weapon!?"

[19:21] "Who are you, really…!"

After a pregnant pause he wanted to add – "What you were just saying was…" – but a dragonfly buzzing right in front of his muzzle broke his train of thought. He snapped at it angrily, but it escaped. He didn't want to finish that sentence.

[23:04] Karodaga was about to add to Taranidad's objection, when Gazhil twisted his forepaws outward lightly and spoke: "Any mythological allegiances you've been taught are unfortunately going to be of limited helpfulness when analysing this situation.

"It might help you comprehend what's going on if you remember the Nayabaru are mortal, they live on this planet, and they have a vested interest in not dying in a fire. They have no concept of qasai; they do not have even have the concept of ut, they know only adreth, and they are afraid of death, thinking it can grant them nothing."

He returned his forepaws to their previous relaxed position. "And I am still Gazhil. You may also call me Valcen, or Yirhrash'razai, although I don't recommend it. Regardless what names you choose to call me by – I am a kavkem, no more, no less. I just have the questionable pleasure of knowing about some very dangerous things."

§ 2020-06-05 21:38:17

[21:38] Taranidad decided to shut up. He wished that he could talk to Karodaga in private, but it was impossible without the stranger overhearing every word.

They had still a long way to go until they reached the Sanctuary. The coniferous forest was getting denser around them, which was slowing their progress, but at least it offered the relative comfort of ample shadows.

Just talking about the sunlight made him shudder at the thought of the exhausting day in front of them. They'll probably have to find somewhere to rest. He started to regret the whole adventure. What would he say to the Za'alseki leadership? That they just happened to find a new kavkem friend climbing down the walls of a huge Nayabaru settlement?

[01:35] The Za'alseki raktat manema were likely going to ask very different questions first and foremost – why had Karodaga and Taranidad gone so far out into the world on their own in the first place, putting the Sanctuary at risk of discovery had they been captured?

In any case, Karodaga seemed to recognise the merit of Gazhil's argument about the mortality of Nayabaru and their desire to stay alive. It was difficult for her to conceive of such a mindset, but that was all it was – difficult, not impossible. Taranidad had taught her that suicide was perhaps less noble than her fellow kavkema might naively assume, but she had not lost her admiration for it entirely.

But her overall scepticism was still strong, manifesting as a streak of irritation in her body language. "And why do you know these things?" she asked. "And how did you escape? No one escapes from the Nayabaru."

The last sentence might have caused Taranidad displeasure – they had no means to tell if this was always true and it seemed like a dangerous, pessimistic superstition. Apparently she had yet to get it out of her system.

"Voskudat isn't laid out to keep kavkema captive," Gazhil explained. "They might have managed to keep me detained if I had been even slightly less lucky with my timing on my way out. In any case, the room they locked me into had not been designed as a cell. You too might have escaped if they had put you into the same place and you had been stubborn about escaping and found the right timing."

Karodaga snorted, unconvinced. "You escaped from a Nayabaru facility, only to lead us away from it, after a fashion?" she asked.

"Did you want me to lead you to it?" Gazhil retorted with some scepticism of his own.

Karodaga ignored the question and instead asked, boldly: "Is there something in Voskudat you don't want Za'alseki to see?"

"...the ground splitting open, rocks falling, needless injuries being obtained, yes," Gazhil deadpanned. More gently and with a strange curiosity, he asked: "Why would I lie about this? What would I have to gain?"

§ 2020-06-08 21:53:14

[21:53] Taranidad's feathers were all ruffled in annoyance and aggravation. He was hoping that the new kavkem hasn't noticed that.

He tried focusing on just the sensation of the undegrowth plants brushing against his body. He wished he could explain to Karodaga that he knew exactly what to do about this latest Nayabaru threat, but frankly nothing that the stranger spoke made much sense to him.

"The sun is getting higher, and we still have a long way to go. There's no time for arguing."

He made up his mind. Whatever the circumstances, he's still Taranidad. He still has work to do to fulfill his prophecy.

"How much time do we have until the splinter?"

[01:11] Gazhil considered the question in earnest, suggesting he was at least not making things up on the fly. "I don't know for certain – any time in the next three days from all I know, but I would expect it to happen closer to now than to in three days. There's also a small chance it won't happen at all, but I strongly discourage banking on that."

The increasing light of dawn was gradually beginning to get taxing on their eyes, meant for night time as they were, even with the canopies of the trees becoming denser above them. At least the chance to encounter Nayabaru was diminishing by sheer distance to Voskudat, independent of the time of day.

Karodaga still did not seem quite convinced by anything Gazhil was saying, but had run out of any desire to ask questions about it. Unlike Taranidad, she was hoping that once they got back to Sanctuary, their ryrhakenem would engage this kavkem and find out what he was really up to.

Maybe he was a spy for the Nayabaru. The Nayabaru did that sometimes, she presumed; it seemed like an obvious tactic to her, at least. Whether it was realistic, she couldn't assess.

§ 2020-06-13 22:03:46

[22:03] Taranidad stopped in his tracks. "Three days?! Three days at best!? It's… It's just…" – he bit his tongue before starting a rant about how irresponsible was of Gazhil to inform them of this impeding catastrophe on such a short notice. It's not that Gazhil owed them anything in the first place.

He ruffled his feathers nervously again. He exhaled and meekly said "We really have no time." He realized that if any of what the new kavkem was saying was true (arguably a big if), then the right response to this splinter was of the uttermost importance to every kavkema in the Sanctuary. That was his chance. That was his chance to lead his friends in the face of danger.