sylphgarou

Against all odds, Ketra wakes up. The world comes back to her slowly, and in bits and pieces at first. A glimmer of light, there and gone as she faded back into unconsciousness; the sound of a deep voice, a rumble she identified as soothing before the terror kicked in and she passed out once more. Sometimes she wakes and she can’t even tell the difference, except that the darkness has a different sort of tinge and the world tastes salted and heavy on her tongue. The ocean, she thought once. When she wakes, Ketra’s first thought is that she’d been staring at the statue for a long time. Her eyes felt dry and tight from how long she’d been staring. It was a bright, clear and crystalline structure that reflected into her eyes, and there was a glimmer of light catching on her nose that made it all the brighter. She blinked away from it, and it took a long time for her eyes to open again…but she didn’t go to sleep. She heard the steps approaching lightly across the sand, and managed to

San stood at the edge of their circle of protection within the copse of trees, gazing out across the surrounding field and into the storm. It was like a wall of white, blurring everything into an indistinct, terrifying mass of howling rage. She knew, somewhere in this direction, was the mountain pass at the Eye of the storm. San had made a habit of watching for the Eye since the very first day. Most of the time, no one disturbed her. Being trapped here was beginning to wear on everyone, though. Arguments had become more frequent, the children were restless and upset more often than not, and food had been running low for days already. If the storm lasted much longer, things would become very uncomfortable, for everyone. Once upon a time, She thought to herself, and shivered. Many of them had begun to ask what Tale they were in, and she’d had to fight off more than one that hadn’t liked her answer. She would not endanger her student, however, and telling the Tale might do exactly

Amethyst eyes gazed back at the swirling clouds from the base of the final mountain canyon, tracking the long road she’d followed back to the storm. Ketra had traveled for weeks, and knew the storm grew behind her with each day she was gone. She could see it on the very edge of the horizon each time she turned to look back, clouds that pulsed and swirled, tinged a sickly green that she had come to learn from years on the mountain meant that hail fell as well as snow. Ketra twisted around to face forward again as the thunder rolled ominously close. She pushed her malnourished body to continue on, despite the pain and disease that plagued her, because in spite of her concerns, and no matter how quickly she pushed herself to travel each day, she never outpaced the storm by more than a day. It was growing stronger the farther away she got—and she grew weaker. The distance closed between herself and the Lightning Master drained her more with each day. The first week, she was fine. A

The ceremony for receiving the Mark of Age was far more personal than any of the other trials, so Yin Liang and Boji attended separately. However, the celebrations after the fact, joined by several other young newly-made adults, were lively and very much a public venue. Boji didn’t see much reason to attend, except that Yin Liang would be there and he wanted to be able to congratulate the younger Niravar for achieving her Mark at such a youthful age. While he was pleased with his own Mark of Age, felt relief and joy that he’d finally passed the trials for adulthood officially, his way of celebrating that accomplishment was much quieter. He built a place to keep it. It took effort and concentration, still unfamiliar with his magic and its capabilities—those were the Rites he’d be taking next, now that he’d passed the first hurdle—but by the time Yin Liang arrived to walk with him to the party, he had a serviceable shrine-like cubby of carved and shaped stone, with room for his Mark of

Boji and Yin Liang met up again several days later. There was a brief ceremony with the elder Valcyon before the ruby Nir sent them out on a quest, to find an important life lesson for their rites to adulthood. What that life lesson was going to look like, neither of the lapis Niravar could say—but hopefully, Yin Liang thought, it would come to them quickly. She was not looking forward to being out in the jungle until they figured it out. Boji was slightly more concerned with the recent reports of Void Reapers in the jungle, and how the pair was going to have to deal with them even peripherally if it became necessary. Hopefully it wouldn’t become necessary. Boji, for one, didn’t want any life lesson that the Void Reapers would be able to give—and he suspected Yin Liang felt the same. Those were harsh lessons to be learned, for certain. He would much rather something gentle to bring back to Valcyon, but they had at least three days before the elder would allow them back through the

Yin Liang was asked to look after the neighbor’s new cub, not a Niravar but a big cat similar enough that she’d at first mistaken him for one. They had to travel to the aether pool in the city to pick up their litter, so presumably the elder cub wasn’t too much of a handful; the father had mentioned that they’d first gotten her as a sort of training companion in order to prepare, and that the cub would likely find another home with a couple looking for something similar. Yin Liang couldn’t find a way out of it, so she’d agreed to watch the little one. She even thought to bring the cub outside for a while on a little adventure This turned out to be a mistake; she should have tried harder to find an excuse. She had only been with the cub for an hour when Boji arrived. In that time, she’d had her tail bitten four times, snapped at the little monster twice, and lost the cub once. Yin Liang was busily searching for the white-and-blue figure when she heard the footsteps creeping up behind,

It had been almost a full year of traveling with Matka Ihme before they finally returned to Kutoa. Since they’d made her a fully fledged member in Kei, Eurielle had performed in multiple shows with Naia and Su. She was constantly practicing on the road, fully absorbed in her role on this wonderful adventure. All along, she had known…one day they would leave her behind, just like they had to leave Lonoke. The thought was a dreadful one, as much as she missed her home and her family. She was far happier on the road than she could ever remember being in town, and she knew, once she went home, that the luster would wear off again…and then where would she be? Fortunately, Matka Ihme kept her busy while they traveled, and even finally approaching her last stop on the journey, the fear and sadness were both outweighed by delight. Her parents had surely missed her, and she was looking forward to their warm welcome. She was even looking forward to seeing her friends again; much as they had