FFXIV Writing Challenge - Prompt #16: Deiform
Part ten of the tale about the Golden Vipers Seeker of the Sun tribe after most of them were tempered by a false depiction of their Goddess for many turns.
Part One || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6 || Part 7 || Part 8 || Part 9 || Part 10 ||
“We aren’t alone anymore,” L’khua said, softly enough that only L’rkah could hear him. The two men had been waiting for what felt like a lifetime, on their knees in front of the ancient tree. They both knew it was important to the Wanderers they hoped to call upon, sacred even, so they showed it the same respect any idol depicting their own Sun Goddess would receive. Even if holding that pose had been tiring, and doubts had creeped in that anyone would answer at all.
Rkah glanced around, but didn’t spot anyone else in the woods with them until he happened to look higher up to catch the reflection of faint light in the eyes of someone up in the branches. His breath halted, the hairs on the back of his neck rising in a primal kind of fear. The one that makes cubs frightened of monsters in their furs. Piercing eyes in the dark looked down at him. Not just one pair, but many all around them.
A large figure jumped down, landing beside the two Seekers without making a sound. A tall, broad-chested Wanderer with skin and hair as black as the night itself looking at them with a guarded expression. He might have been Khua’s age, but where the Sun Nunh had been beaten down by the ordeal of the Lost Cycles, this Wanderer was still well within his prime. Strong and confident.
Two more followed. One a lanky man with a mossy mane of hair and piercing green eyes, the third was grey of hair and moon-pale, though it seemed to be a natural colouring, not one born of old age. Three Wanderers stood before them, curious but weary, while dozens of others were in the trees. Though he could detect no hostility, Rkah knew that if things came to blows, he and Khua would be left for dead among these tall sentinels.
It was Khua who broke the silence. “Well met, Moon Wanderer,” he rumbled in his deep voice, making the gestures that conveyed the same sentiment in Huntspeak. “I am L’khua Nunh, of the Golden Viperss. This is L’rkah…”
“This firsst son of Tamani,” the Tia interjected. He was supposed to keep his mouth shut and let his elder talk, but something compelled him to speak the name of his mother. He couldn’t rightly say why, and he briefly eyed the Scent Tree, wondering if the voices he thought he had heard before were responsible. “As L’khua iss the second son of Mhina. Both of the Golden Viperss.”
The thee Wanderers turned their gaze from Nunh to Tia, and Rkah thought he saw the eyes of the grey one widen briefly. No reply came for a long, agonizing heartbeat or two, but then the dark Wanderer cracked a small smile of what Rkah could only hope was approval. Behind him, the grey-haired Wanderer signed to the other, but it was so rapidly done that Rkah could only make out a few words. Something about someone’s sire, he thought, but then the large man spoke, demanding his attention with a deep, clear voice.
“Well met, Mhina’to and Tamani’a of the Golden Vipers. I’m Rava’a, of the Dark of Nightbloom. I speak for the Wanderers of the Stargazers. Do your Souls have names?”
Khua hesitated with a frowning glance to Rkah. The Tia had broken up the usual manner in which they greeted the Moon Wanderers, and now they were testing them to see just how far the Seeker’s knowledge of their culture went. He realized that both sides had never truly taken much time to learn each others ways before. They had just taken from each other what they needed without much interest in the rest.
Rkah’s mind raced. A Soul Name? Would it insult the large Wanderer if he didn’t have one, or wasn’t he supposed to? The blood of the Moon ran deep in him, so if all of them had such a name, he probably had to claim one too, the Tia figured, and blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Mhina’to iss the Golden Viper,” he declared, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “And I am of the Dark of Sunshine.”
His large ears twitched a little as he heard himself say that, and although he didn’t dare glance to Khua he thought he could imagine the bemused look on the older man’s face. Rkah supposed he had Cain to thank for this, but despite his embarrassment it felt good to claim the name. This Wanderer didn’t have to know where it came from, or what it meant to him.
“We honour the pact, and you are welcome among the Stargazers,” Nightbloom declared, accepting the names without delay. “But you have not walked among us for many a turn. We thought you gone from this world, and although we are glad to see you are not, this is not a good time for the Moon Rites.”
Of course they knew that’s why they’d come, Rkah figured. That’s what they had always done. He felt himself lose hope, but for the sake of Sahali and his tribe, he had to know more. “We honour the Path of the Sstargazerss,” Khua was telling the man, his voice tired like it could only get when he felt his efforts wasted.
Rkah interjected again: “We need you now, more than ever, Nightbloom. Will you not hear of the Journey we have made, and perhapss tell us of yourss. Golden Viper and Sstargazer have been alliess for many generationss after all. I myself have been ssired by a Moon Nunh.”
It wasn’t their way to question each other, to beg or barter like this. Nightbloom didn’t seem offended though, and again he smiled a little, if sadly. “Yes, I remember when my dearest friend claimed that title, and how charmed he was by the Viper woman Tamani, even if they only shared a few nights together.” As he saw Rkah’s eyes widen with curiosity, he thought it best to not let that hope grow too big. “He is with the Goddess now, the first son of Nemi, of the Dark of Steelbark. I can see some of him in you, Sunshine.”
The Wanderer hadn’t expected to see such grief in the eyes of this golden youngster, only barely a man grown and smelling of the city as much as his own tribe. Had he longed to know a sire he had never met?
“Steelbark would have wanted us to help his son,” Shimmerstar, the grey-haired Wanderer who had come down with him rumbled behind him, only to be met with resistance from the green-haired Mossheart. “Wanderers do not have sons,” he pointed out in a sharp tone, to which Shimmerstar scoffed. “Tell that to any Wanderer who has brought the male-cubs they sired to the Burrows when they came of age.” Nighbloom raised his hand, indicating that the other two should hold their tongues. They embodied the struggle he now felt in his heart so blatantly that it felt like a cruel joke played upon him by the spirit of his old friend himself.
“There is no harm in listening,” he conceded eventually, placing an arm around the younger Viper’s shoulders. He already saw him as one of Steelbark’s, he realized with a wry sense of dark humour. When Rkah’s face lit up with a hopeful smile, he could clearly see his old friend in him. How he had been before forest magic had turned him more tree than man.
“Come, we will eat together. Tell us of the Path wandered these past turns.”
