#we had one job ghoa

[shaelstormchild]

Out of Reach

While Shael would be the last one to boast about knowing anything related to healing, her proficiency in magitek was something she took pride in. So, it stung her ego to admit that she needed Marius’ help – an Imperial soldier of all people – to figure out what was going on with Saltborn. Shael had the tech to gather all the data, but not much of the know how's on the interpretation of it, in relation to the hyur’s current coma.

Nabi had been the one to monitor Saltborn’s ongoing ailment and communicate with Marius with the device that the Imperial had given them. But in teaching Nabi on how to operate the tech along the way, Shael was picking up knowledge on what various readings meant. 

So, when the scan after exiting the lighthouse revealed Saltborn’s entire body lit in bright orange, with angry red blotches pulsing in various areas, Shael’s first thought was to bring him to Nabi at all costs. It looked critical, and if something dire happened to the Confederate and Nabi was not there to help him, the xaela would never forgive herself. And Shael couldn’t have that. 

But their linkpearls were fried during their excursion into an underground cavern heavily saturated with corrupt aether and crystallized zombies to boot, and the alarm that had since been raised by Maelstrom at the unauthorized intrusion into Pharos Sirius had made immediate departure out of Western Noscea too risky. 

One small measure of comfort was that Marius was able to analyze the data and reassure her that Saltborn was in no danger of dying any time soon. He was suffering from aether sickness, possibly triggered by an overexposure in the lighthouse. Brick had already tried to comfort Shael in telling her what she already knew – that she couldn’t have stopped the midlander from taking on this mission – but she still blamed herself for letting it happen. In Nabi’s absence, she was supposed to ensure his safety through this. 

It was only with Brick’s aid that they were able to contact a chirurgeon in Moraby, and with Shael’s knowledge of the area near Swiftperch, she was able to smuggle Saltborn’s unconscious body out. They couldn’t go directly to Mist, they had to avoid all areas that had Maelstrom patrol gating the passage. But at least, Saltborn was in no immediate danger. He wasn’t well, by any means, but he would eventually come out of this aether sickness.

And that was the same news that the chirurgeon gave her once she reached Moraby. There wasn’t anything he could do, other than provide medicine for pain and nausea, and hydrate the man. It was up to the hyur to come out of it.

Shael was certain that Nabi would be able to do something more, the lass always had an inexplicable effect on Saltborn. But her messages sent by courier to their place of lodging in Mist came back unanswered. She nor Ghoa was there.

Had they gone back to the Nylor mansion? Hells… without the pearls, how am I s’pose to know if they are alright? 

Then Shael remembered. She smacked herself on the forehead before rising from the table, retrieving Saltborn’s pack to rummage through it. She had given him and a pearl to Nabi! Except his was put in a lined pouch to protect it from his own corrupt aether. So, by all rights, it should have been protected from the lighthouse too.

Shael held up the pearl, and with lips pressed together with hope, she placed it into her ear, calling out into the aether. “Nabi?” She waited. There was no answer. “Nabi,” she called again. “It’s Shael.”

But rather than a voice coming through the pearl, Shael felt something else. The hair on the back of her neck began to rise, just an instant before a pulse washed through the room. She recognized it, it was a much weaker version of the forceful push of aether that Saltborn occasionally manifested in times of need. That version could have thrown her across the room.

Shael immediately spun around, eyes wide on Anchor. One hand went to his forehead, and while it felt still warmer than his usual temperature, it was noticeably less than what it had run the sun before. She pried his closed lids open and blinked when she saw his iris shimmer gold. Not the usual amber of his corruption, but gold… like Nabi’s. What in hells…

Without hesitation, she snatched up the scanner. And what she saw, she had never seen in any previous images before. There was a different color, lighter, less angry, but rather a soothing iridescence, that was rippling through his entire silhouette. But as soon as she saw it, the effect began to fade, as if whatever triggered the process was already over.

Shael stared at the image that was left behind. The angry red hue that had spotched over various parts of his body was gone, and the orange that had filled his entire frame was cooling back to yellow, leaving remnants behind where it hadn’t been before. But mostly, things were returning back to how it had been before the lighthouse.

This had to have been Nabi. Shael couldn’t explain it any other way. But how could the xaela affect Saltborn without actually being present? Unless this was something entirely on his part. He had been around Nabi long enough, had one affected the other? She glanced down to the scanner to note the data that was already being sent to Marius, and for a second she considered stopping it. But short of destroying the device, there was no other way. Besides, the man probably could give more insight on the matter. They had all trusted him thus far…

But there was still no answer over the pearl. Shael’s finger rested lightly over it as if that would beckon the other to answer. But her scowl grew darker the longer the silence went on. Shael shoved the scanner back into her pack and strode quickly out the door to find Brick. They couldn’t sit around any longer. Something had happened to Nabi and Ghoa and she needed to figure out what.

[sea-and-storm]

Prompt #16 - Bond ;  (Make-up)

                                                [ MANY YEARS AGO ]

Ibakha could remember when she was but a youngling when time seemed to move as quick as a startled hare. Each turn of the season would see the Shuurga moving onto their next camp, and she had spent many of those days with her siblings and friends exploring as far past their camp as their wary parents would allow them;  sometimes further beyond still when their backs were turned. Everything back then was new and exciting and an adventure just waiting to unfold. Though they never quite seemed to unearth all the secrets of the land before it was time to move along again, leaving them to pick up their search in the following year upon their return.

But as she had gotten older, time had gradually begun to slow. With each year that passed, the novelty and excitement of exploration had faded more and more. By the time she was a young teen, Ibakha had memorized the lay of the lands that they called home like the back of her hand. The bright-eyed excitement of childhood was giving way to the hum-drum mundanity of adulthood looming on the horizon.

Then she was a young woman with all the responsibilities such entailed. There was no longer any time for the adventuring of her childhood, but even so, the busy days still crawled along. Almost maddeningly so. Day in and day out, there were always the same tasks to be done. Weaving and repairing the nets. Walking the coastline in search of the plants their healers and poison-makers requested. Cleaning and cooking the day's catch. So on, and so on. A seemingly endless list of chores and tasks for the good of the clan's whole.

When naught seemed to change any longer and each day seemed more-or-less a repeat of the last, Ibakha had begun to feel as if time had stopped altogether. She had spent no few evenings staring out over the sea on the horizon, wondering what laid beyond. What new lands were there? What strange creatures and people? That thought had ignited within her a longing for something new and interesting to break up the monotony.

Perhaps she would have followed that yearning and curiosity, if it hadn't been for Ambaghai. She had known him first as the boy who had accompanied her on many of her girlhood adventures, taking on the self-imposed duty of making sure the she and the other younger children kept from harm. It seemed then only natural that as he had grown into a man that he would take up a protector's role for their people. It seemed more natural still, given their early childhood bond, that Ibakha would eventually come to call him her husband.

Life had changed and once again, it seemed as if time had resumed its forward march. It came quicker still when she learned that she was carrying their first child. And if it weren't already moving quickly enough, the days had started to positively fly by once she had actually brought their son, Arukh, into the world. The monotonous feeling of each day being the same that she had once felt was long gone then, but was instead new and exciting -- a feeling she hadn’t felt since her own youth -- as she watched her beloved son learn and grow.

When the gods saw it fit to bless them with a second some years later, Ibakha had been ecstatic at the thought of adding yet another to their family. Motherhood very much suited her, and she was all too eager for the chance to bring another life into this world and marvel with pride as she watched them come into their own.

But she had never once anticipated that when this child came, the selfsame gods that had blessed them with her would just as quickly lay their claim upon her and steal her away.

Ibakha had known what it felt like for moons to pass in the blink of an eye, and for days to drag along at a snail's pace. Somehow, this last year of her life -- knowing what was to come at its end -- had done both simultaneously. Each day that she held her daughter in her arms felt as if she had been hers for an eternity, and the love she felt for the tiny babe had only grown exponentially as such. Yet still, as she laid abed of an evening, Ibakha wept as she thought of how each coming of dusk meant that she was yet another sun closer to having to say her good-byes.

Now, as she sat across their yurt watching Arukh and Ghoa happily playing with figures of steppe creatures their father had carved for them, Ibakha couldn't shake the thought of this being their last evening together as a whole family from her head. Shortly after first light of the following morning, Elder Unegen would come and leave with the toddler in tow, to be raised by the udgan of their clan not as the daughter of Ibakha and Ambaghai, but as a daughter of the gods.

"How do we explain this to him..?" she asked in a quiet, almost broken whisper. "Arukh will be heartbroken."

Neither she nor her husband had had it within them to try and keep Arukh away from his younger sibling. Already the spitting image of his father in temperament, the young Xaela had resolved from the moment he had laid eyes on his sister to take care of her. In the beginning, Ibakha had wanted him to be able to have these precious memories to cherish, yet now she couldn't help but wonder if it had been a terrible mistake. He had bonded with her more deeply than she had anticipated. They all had.

At first, Ambaghai said nothing, not even looking up from the bone darts that he was carving. He had always been a man of few words, but they had become even more scarce in recent moons. She hadn't once seen her husband weep in all the years she had known him, but all the same, she knew that his heart hurt just as deeply as her own. He was trying to be strong for her sake, and she loved him for it, but she knew that even he must have been reaching the limits of the hurt he could carry in silence by now.

"He will be," he finally sighed as he put down his whittling, tired silver eyes rising first to his wife and then to the younglings by the fire pit as they burst into happy peals of laughter. A hint of a smile tugged onto his face at the sight, the barest twitch of his lips and the softening of his sharp features alone enough to speak volumes of the love and pride that he felt -- and when they disappeared again but a tick later, it spoke volumes of his sadness as well. "We all will be," he continued in a softer voice, one reserved only for her. "But we will learn how to live with that hurt. We must."

Ibakha bobbed her head in a slow, reluctant nod at his words. She knew he was right, for there was no other choice. They had already discussed it once, not long after they had learned of Ghoa's choosing. Refusing to allow it to come to pass would only see them all facing exile, Arukh included, and their daughter would be wrested from them regardless.

They had also talked of taking their family and escaping in secret, but both she and her husband knew it was no real option. Without the protection of their clan, meager as it was, they would be easy pickings for capture by either the Kharlu or Jhungid. That was, if some other hungering steppe beast didn't set upon them first. There was no life for them beyond the Shuurga's territory, and especially not with young children in tow.

At least by cooperating, both Ghoa and Arukh would be safe. As much as she hated the situation, as much as she had wracked her brain trying to figure out any possible way to avoid giving up her child, Ibakha knew as a mother that that was what was most important.

Still, it made it no easier to swallow, and the longer she sat there and thought on it, the more a frustrated, helpless anger began to bloom in her chest. How cruel of a tradition it was, to not only take a babe from their parents but to do so only after their first year of life. After giving them such and long-yet-short time to form a bond that would take the breaking of hearts to sever. She knew that, logically, it was because none of the childless shamans would be able to care for a child before its weaning. But right now, her heart wasn't thinking with logic.

"I don't know if I can, Ambaghai.." Ibakha whispered hoarsely. Her hands curled into white-knuckled fists, her lip quivered, and her eyes stung with the beginnings of tears. She had done such a good job to hide her grief from her children all these moons, always rising and hiding away from their eyes when it became too much to suppress. But now that they were down to the very last of their time together, she couldn't bring herself to let Ghoa leave her sight for even a single tick.

Seeing the impending breakdown about to occur, Ambaghai rose from his seat to kneel in front of her own. So very carefully, he pulled the much smaller woman in close, one hand rising to stroke her hair. Beneath her, she could feel a slight tremble in her husband's form, and but a moment later the telltale dripping of moisture onto her bare shoulder. Only then did the sobs begin to wrack her body in earnest, mercifully muffled against his chest.

Only fulms away, both Ghoa and Arukh continued to be engrossed in their playing, blissfully unaware of their parents' hearts breaking for them.

[bowtomypointlesswords]

Writing Tag Game

I was tagged by @damnwrites

Rules: Pick one important setting from your WIP and describe it in 15 words or less. Explanation is optional. Then, tag as many people as you used words!

Uh okay let's see... I'll do the Isle of Fae.

An eye in the storms, birthplace of queens.

Explanation: The Isle of Fae is a small island that was the birthplace of several powerful fairy queens, including Empress Talffyn, it's small, usually being rained on, and has a few small villages as Talffyn was uninterested in keeping her castle there.

FIND THE WORD

Brush: Ellery handed Rekha a small Brush, watching as she scrubbed away a bit of rust and grit from one of the arm plates. “Looks like whoever made this Automa was a master craftsman, too bad it was left to rust.”

Fool: “I was an absolute FOOL.” She admitted, curling her legs under herself as the kindly old woman handed her a steaming cup of tea. “I quit my job, which meant they weren't going to pay for my room at the hotel, and I didn't have money for the return trip.”

Tiny: Ghoa paused and handed her a TINY carving of a hawke and smiled. “Here, in my family we carve charms for luck or hope... I've been working on this one for a few days, I think you need it more than I do.”

Dry: The sky opened up, sending her scrambling for cover in a vain attempt to stay DRY. She cowered under the awning of the shop and grumbled to herself before spotting a help wanted sign across the street, one she would have missed had the rain not forced her to stop.

Silly: “You're a very SILLY man, Mister Migley.” She chidded. “You have no sense of timing whatsoever.”

I tag: @cvlms, @myconstantscribbling, @hazeywrites, @a-deanskidgellwrites, @erinwritesthings, @skyfootsteps...

As always feel free to ignore this!

Your new words are: Handle, Sturdy, Hysterical, Size, Order