#about jastfaer

[theiravelproject]

She mouths a prayer to Jastfaer because she knows he's the only one who will listen. She, who is often pushed aside or shoved into the background. Her whispers are pressed into the forgotten fabrics at the back of the closet. Your kind should be unknown. And why, she wonders, because there is no excuse, really. Fear drives their actions, if not their hate, and she is but an ant in the face of their magnitude and breadth.

Jastfaer of the Long Winter. Jastfaer the Watcher of the Forgotten. He would listen, wouldn't he? The only one who would reach out to find her in the backrooms and caress her face with his kind hands. Tell her that she has been heard, and no longer must she scream into the darkness.

Being an enthys in the world is devastating. All this power and bound by the rules. All this power and still they look upon you in disgust and horror, as if your very existence has invited something they would rather have buried. To be half is even worse. She cannot help being what she is, cast out of her own world to be forced into one that wants her even less.

When he touches her hand, she breathes a sigh of relief. A prayer answered.

Just a moment of your time Jastfaer, I fear the world is ending, she says and Jastfaer gives her an inquisitive look.

You can see the threads of time, my vadya, you can pluck the strings. We are on the brink of collapse. I am on the brink of collapse. She squeezes his hands. He never once looks away, does not mock her words. He does not brush her off or laugh. Instead, he breaks one hand away to gently brush a lock of dark hair from her face.

Yes, the thought bounces around her head and it is not her own. Always ending. We are always ending, on the brink. Could pluck the strings. Would bring us to the end. Yes. What do you want to do before we end?

She has never been asked that before: what does she want? It is always what they want. Be quiet. Remain unseen. Hide away until your needed, not because you are wanted. And not because you want.

Home. She says. Because this isn't one, and the one she had was long tore from her fingers. All because she was not enough of one or the other. To be an enthys. To be an ildrat. Never enough of one or the other. Not enough to be accepted.

Yes... Remember, always have one here. He presses her hand to his chest. Just whisper. Will always hear you.

It's not enough, she says, gripping his ice cold fingers with her clawed ones. What if the world ends and you're not here?

Don't be silly, Alane.

Wouldn't ever leave you behind.

[theiravelproject]

It was the littlest things that triggered a walk down memory lane. He was reminded of something mother would say, or he would see a field of yellow pixie flowers and think of home. His peers teased him for the sentiment. Home. It had been over a thousand years since the settlement existed. Why did he feel such connection to a place and a people that had long since died? Jastfaer wished he could explain how the soil was embedded in his essence and there was no amount of time that could ever expunge it. Did Solnaer think of the past as often as Jastfaer? The question had been on the tips of his fingers a million times, only to be trapped by the cage of his fists, and held there like shards of glass embedded in flesh. Jastfaer didn’t ask those questions, didn’t bring up home, and he definitely never mentioned their parents, or if he missed them. Because even with over a thousand years between the present and the past, Solnaer couldn’t reopen the wound. And so Jastfaer was left to remember on his own and swim in the sea of nostalgia. “If you have something to say, enado, give me your thoughts,” Solnaer said without looking away from the mirror he was fixing himself in. The vanity table glittered with an array of jewelry under the light globes above them. Jars of paints and dusts mingled in between to help accentuate Solnaer’s features. He had told Jastfaer thousands of times that even on the cusp of a battle one must look their devastating best. Jastfaer looked away from his reflection and back to the corner of Solnaer's room where Ornan had set a vase of flowers. He wondered how that visit had gone. Had Solnaer taken them with open arms and looked upon the yellow pixie petals with any wonder? Or had he set them down in the corner of his bedroom without a second thought? Had he looked at them since and wondered what they signified? Jastfaer remembered picking those flowers in the fields whenever their clan settled for a few days at a time. He would bunch them up and tie a string about their stems. His mother always took them with a smile, even though she had to have bushels of them, or maybe she tossed them in the morning where he would never see. “Jast?” Solnaer called, and Jastfaer blinked, turning back to look upon his elder, wide-eyed and ears perked. Solnaer’s expression was stern, with just a hint of concern furrowing his brows. “Why is your head so far in the yaidas lately?” Jastfaer looked away again and down at his hands, thinking. Why, indeed. He raised his hands, signing his response, lights dancing on his fingertips and leaving a halo in their wake. <We doing the right thing, Solnaer?>

beginning excerpt from The Dome.