Random Encounter

The wind clawed through the trees, a strange and unnatural weather for such a strange and unnatural place. Tir'Rielle, the mystical land barely clung to the edges of reality. However, this place where dreams took substance had a unique and surreal beauty to it. Deadly was never a word associated with a place far to steeped in magic for any living creature to be at mortal risk. However, this wind that crept and hovered along the land like a scandalous lover. There was a taint to the air, but it wasn't a particular smell or hue to the moonlight, rather it was a stillness. No animal made a sound. No spell broke the varriated swell of lunar light.

Marjah strode though the overture of silence, and swells of luminance from the leering moon, trying to make her way to the Thatchers. When Marjah thought of her guide, the frail, wrinkled man who had thatched roofs in his youth. She thought they could not have been more different. For all his talk of a wild childhood where he had done so much and ripped up trees and plants and moved mountains to help his people, now he languished. Marjah had the still-thick bones from a childhood herding the Raku. She had wide muscles from wrangling the thick necked beasts.

In these rare moments when Marjah was brave enough to reveal her vulnerabilities, there was no one to vent to. Her brothers had since married and moved on. Her being the only girl, and being born on  the Island, unlike them, set her apart. She had her mother's temperament, volatile at times, but she had her own sign that she had been on the Island too long. Her brothers were scarred from the time in the Real World, as Devar grumbled through mangled mustache and lips.

"Be careful in Spring, of raiders." he would chant, then carefully, so he didn't frighten anyone, he would go off to watch the edge of wherever they were. Marjah was glad that Sajelle had taken to caring for her brother. She was a kind woman though Marjah had not gotten to know her that well.

Marjah had been spared loosing her brothers, and they guided their mother here. Though they had lost their father early on, the roof thatcher, Jemri had helped guide them out of the city. When the glowing mists of TIr'Rielle summoned Marjah's mother and brothers to the mystic Island, Jemri accompanied them. It was he who Marjah knew the best. As she moved toward the shaded thatchers home, she shuddered at the still silent gloom surrounding her.

"Marjah..." choked a voice, Marjah felt her stomach flipping as she fell back, hair sticking to the back of her neck. She was on the edge of panic, her body already fluxing, preparing her to run. She spun away from the door to the root of the sound. She felt a flush of relief, her body sagging into an uncomfortable ease. It was Jemri, though he leaned against the building, staring out at a string of glowing stars, fluxing in the distance.

"Saj...."she began with the inflection of the title he had drilled into her. "What is it?" She asked him, trying to see him better. He waved her away with an easy hand, and she fell back, leaning against his door as he wildly waved a cane and she backed up, watching him as he made his way to her. She would help him, but she knew the cane was for self defence and rather unnecessary. For all his frail look, entrance to Tir'Rielle had cured any pain he had once had, and it had made once-blind eyes see with new sight. New sight indeed.....for it was unlike any sight humans had experienced before. It was the whip and flux of stars and energies, of folds of energy and power that spiraled around existence. To describe it or understand it was beyond Marjah.

"Saj Jemri." I am here to answer your call.

"Good." He moaned, then he motioned for her to follow. As she trotted up beside him, "You have somewhere you must go. You should go because you are strong and smart and know the herd animals. Keep quiet, follow them close. Save them if you need to. They are more precious than the Raku." This made Marjah laugh but before she could make her rebuttal, Jemri quieted her with a white-eyed glance. She looked suddenly guilty as she looked at the ground and followed obediently.

"You have responsibilities." He choked out to her. "Go to Tariel Nimara. She will tell you more of this." Of course Marjah recognized the name, she was the warden of the Island.

"Of course, but...." Marjah suddenly realized they were not alone....

TO BE CONTINUED