Awakenings

[Bethany Kismet]

"They say, you see, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about- and that was the beginning of fairies."

The dark haired woman looked up through the bars of the cage, confusion and pain written clearly across her pale features.

"That..... makes no sense."

"Of course it does, darling."

The other woman snorted. "Well, yes, of course it does if everyone were insane like you are."

A green finger flicked out, using the force to tug the woman's chin up.

"Still rude. And everyone always went on about how nice you are. You just don't understand the context. Let me show you what I mean......"

Her lips curls up in a smile that was anything but pleasant.

"Now. Laugh."

*****

Present Day​

Raykka​

Vessa picked her way carefully over the roots of the tree- they were arched high over the polluted water that ran beneath them and while someone else might have casually dismissed it as merely caused by erosion, Vessa knew better. Her small hand paused on the bark to steady herself and she winced. Her hand didn't actually leave a mark behind, but she could almost imagine it did, the pressure of the support to keep her from falling as she clambered over, leaving an indent in the pain the tree, barely alive and just clinging, felt.

She didn't remember how she'd gotten here. But that didn't matter much. She knew she hated it. The air burning, the ground sucking and acidic, and the plants....

Vessa wanted to weep for the plants.

The animals could get up and move- could migrate and take their destiny into their own hands. But the plants?

They could do no such thing. They were trapped by the whims and the mercies (not that there was any on Raykka) of those who had polluted this place. Somewhere deep in each one, she could feel it, was a seed like memory of a world with crystalline waters and blue skies, of sweet smelling grasses and rich black soil. But when she withdrew from that tiny seed all she saw was the ochre miasma spread to every crevice. The curled, burned leaves, the dry and strawlike grasses. The air that made her eyes water and her throat scratch.

But she pushed on- she didn't remember how she got here, but she remembered why she was here.

Well, sort of.

She'd know it when she saw it.

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

The Dalan was rooting around the dirt with its claw-like fingers.

It felt good.

Why... it couldn't say, but it felt natural and it felt perfect. The dirt rubbing up against hardened black nails, between its toes, it could sit here all day in the clearing and soak up the burning sun. For anyone else it would have been scorching, the air dirty, but for one who knew nothing but the ash and grime of Gadana City? Well, this was basically beauty incarnated.

Carefully it shifted itself, letting the dirt rub against its hinds and it chuckled softly.

The break would soon be over and then it would be back to mining, the endless, endless mining, but just for now... it could enjoy itself. On the ground a little worm was rooting about as well.

The Dalan leaned in, sneaking a look, sniffing a little bit. Then- the claw lashed in and punctured it whole, bringing it up to see closer. "It's good." It murmured softly as it sprinkled some pollen from the Tixi root on it. Then dropped it back to the dirt again, letting it slowly die there. Within a week there would be new life from it and while the Dalan didn't know why it had done it?

It felt right.

 

[Bethany Kismet]

Vessa heard the scrapping and scuffing before she saw anything, and the girl slowed down. She hadn't been going particularly quickly to begin with, but now she positively crept, peering between branches to get a look at the hulking form, playing in the dirt.

The girl smiled softly, watching for a minute. The scene with the worm didn't phase her in the least. Nature was, without exception, merciless. And the worm could have been somewhere else anyway.

She shifted and a dry twig beneath her feet snapped.

Emerald eyes blinked slowly as the creature turned.

And then, without hesitation, stepped out into the open.

"Hi," she said softly, like she was talking to a small animal, voice gentle and almost cooing. "It's okay."

She didn't ask if it could understand her. She already knew that even if it didn't speak her language, it would be able to. That was just something she knew without having to think about it.

Vessa edged closer, cautious, but not because she was afraid.

"I'm Vessa. And you're why I came here."

She knew it when she saw it.

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

The Dalan grew very quiet and silent for a moment.

It was not supposed to be here after all. Slowly it shifted, until it caught the outline of the.... human? It had seen one of those before, yes, they were strange beings and very squishy. They didn't often visit Raykka and for good reason, but this was the first time it met a miniature human. "Hello." Its voice rumbled softly, still wondering if this was a trick or a ploy.

Would it need to forsake this sanctuary of light?

It slowly rose, but froze once the human said it was the reason for being here.

Oh, no. "Did... they send you?" Images of fire, smoke and ash. Would they send him back to the city again? They did that to those who didn't work hard enough. He thought he had been working hard enough, but playing here was against their rules. It mattered not how long or hard he worked. "I don't want to go to the city." It declared and squinted at the human.

Maybe... maybe she could disappear?

Nobody had to know, had they?

 

[Bethany Kismet]

"No," came the small, gentle voice.

"No they didn't."

Vessa didn't know who 'they' were. Simply that she didn't come from them. She'd come from..... someone. Maybe? No, that was wrong- as soon as her mind settled on the idea it scuttled again, sinking back into the simple nagging of the subconscious as if it had never been.

"You never have to go to a city, not ever again. Not if you don't want to," she said, voice lilting with hope and promise.

She just.... needed.... to touch it.

She didn't know why she needed to. The Force shifted, shuddering around her, but she barely noticed. She knew what she needed to do, but she paused, halfway across the clearing to studying the being in front of her.

She wanted to ask first.

Ask what?

So many things.

"My name is Vessa. Do you have a name?" She asked.

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

She wasn't.

That was... good.

It believed her without question and it didn't know why. Just something about her that made him want to believe her and maybe even understand her. Vessa approached and the Dalan took a step back for no other reason than reflex. Then a step back... the sun was brightest in that patch. It settled down on the ground again and watched the worm.

"I don't like cities." It declared with a satisfied nod, before rubbing at the dirt with its toes again. "Vessa... what an odd name."

It squinted at her and decided then. "It fits." One more nod. There was no malice in it, but this human was so strange it deserved to be observed. Then it pondered on her question. It didn't take long for an answer to come this time.

"They call me 43." The wooden ridges twisted in a frown. "I have no name of my own." This it knew from its very being.

Forty-three was *wrong*.

 

[Bethany Kismet]

"Ooooohhhh that's not truuuuuuue," Vessa murmured in a sing song voice.

She closed the gap between them, crouching back on her heels on the other side of the worm. She looked down at it, then back up at the Dalan. She had no interest. Verdant eyes searched his face.

"You have one, you just..... don't know it yet. Forty three?" She snorted. "They don't know anything."

Vessa licked her lips, rocking forward onto the balls of her feet slightly and springing there, up and down- still knees bent, still crouched, but barely containing something inside of her.

"Do you want to know what it is?" She asked. "I.... I don't know what it is either," Vessa admitted, face falling for a moment before the earnest expression resumed. "I can't tell you. But....."

A paused. There was intensity. Almost need in her face, but she tried to keep it in check. She needed to do this, let go of the Force that was coiling inside her, but she wouldn't do it if it didn't say it was okay.

That mattered.

"But I can help you know it. I can show you.... where to find it. But once you know it, you can't unknow it."

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

The Dalan were a beaten people.

Subjugated and broken.

The centuries passing were only grinding them down more, making them lose more and more, until eventually they'd be nothing. That last bit was still far off, yes, but it would come one day. Perhaps for those that had been there during the reign of the Dalan. When the jungles were lush, when they stalked the vines and leaves, growing the forests around them with their song. Perhaps for the rare few who remembered (little, very little of those left) they'd be happy with their fall from grace. Nature by its own definition was not cruel.

No.

It simply had no mercy to give in the face of nature's wake. "You say words... do you know what they mean?" It asked of her. Softly, but its voice full of sudden longing at the mention of a name.

Because today was not the day they wasted away completely.

There was remembrance within it and it wanted to get out. Needed it. No matter the rules forced upon them by the overseers. No Dalan was to receive a name, they have forgotten why, but the rule remained... for good reason. "A name would change everything, little one. Show me." It leaned in deep, almost enough to touch her with the tip of its brow.

 

[Bethany Kismet]

"Not all of it," she admitted without hesitation. Her eyes were wide, pupils far too wide for the light that came in from the yellow sun. Dilated with power.

"I can't know, don't you see?" Her voice was soft but earnest.

"I saw some of it in the trees-" with a small t, rather than a capital T. They were just as important, just as dear as a Tree like him. "They sleep and I can't wake them. I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to wake up to this nightmare either. But you..... you're already awake. You're just...."

She reached out, fingers poised.

"Still....."

Fingertips brushed the side of his face.

"Dreaming," she whispered and let the Force flood between them.

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

It followed the attention of her eye to the trees around them.

Somewhere within it its name sorrowed at the state of them, but it was dull and the Dalan did not feel too much of it at the surface. She was right. It had been sleeping since the day it had grown from the warm living soil, never truly waking up, life grey and fire and ash. Vessa touched its bark as it was distracted by the blurry memories of those early days and at first nothing happened.

Then everything happened at once.

A burning light cutting lines in its bark like symbols, crevices, a sea eroding the in-land for a millennia but done in a matter of the blink of an eye. "Mrrrr." It hissed between clenched teeth as the fundamental of Self was shifted within him.

She had been wrong about one thing.

Before her touch the Dalan had been tree. "Mrrrrr." Eyes closing as the Dalan rose up, he was growing under her touch, back forcing itself from hunch to straight. Somehow as the strength and power build around them... the forest reacted to it. The air immediately around them clearing as poison was pushed back, the light shining just a little bit brighter, animals... staying away or running away if they could.

They remembered.

Then the moment was over and the Tree stood firm. Looking down on the child, next to them? Where once there had been worm, now a lush flower (Tixi) had grown to half the size of the girl.

"I wake." Coniferous declared with a voice worn and calm.

 

[Bethany Kismet]

It was the best feeling in the galaxy.

There was rush and weft, weave and warp as the Force wrapped around them and within them in the same moments. She didn't do it with any particular intention, but it was natural like breathing and she shifted it slightly, using it to draw from the inside and help crack the outside. She felt the water moving through xylem, the increased flow of life through phloem, felt its bark shift and reorient to the way it was meant to be, sliding easily once the blocks were cast off. That was all she did, really. Cast off the dreaming. It was a trade of one nightmare for another, but this nightmare he had power over. At least the power to choose.

Vessa beamed up at him and clapped her hands together.

She was, in a word, delighted.

"Coniferous.... it's a good name."

He hadn't said it, but then, he hadn't needed to. She'd seen it just as clearly.

Her smile fell slightly, face growing suddenly serious.

"You won't be able to stay here now," she said. "And for that I'm sorry."

She didn't need to explain further, he'd be able to feel it. The pollution, the shift in the way the sun shown through the clouds. For a little while yes, but the changes done to Raykka's atmosphere and the poisons in the soil would kill him now. Slowly but surely. He needed fresh air, clean water. His leaves, glossier and thicker than they had been before, would shrivel again, the cambium layer beneath his bark cry in pain as poison was filtered through him.

Vessa didn't know what 'home' meant except as viewed from the outside. She didn't understand it herself, but she knew, somehow, that it meant something to others.

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

He rose up, stretching new limbs and height to its breaking, almost clawing at the sky above.

Then Coniferous released the breath he had been holding for what seemed to be a lifetime. "Don't be, child." Slowly he knelt in front of her, soft, squishy, smol little human child but with a strength of the ancients. How had she come here? Why? What purpose had driven her hand and who had given her the strength to awaken one of the Dalan after millennia of slumber?

Why would they want that?

"Rayyka has been lost to me and mine for millennia. Its fate sealed." This much Coniferous knew. He looked back, inwards, gauging the feelings he held for the Raykkans and found himself strangely... ambivalent.

One predator conquering the other.

Strength ruled.

Was that not nature at its finest? "You have woken me from my slumber." His claw retreated as soft bark touched her jaw, tipping up so their eyes would meet. "What boon would you ask of me in return?"

 

[Bethany Kismet]

She looked up at him easily. There was no fear in her. Not of him. Possibly not of anyone but certainly not of him. Or of any plant. That was her gift, even if she didn't have words for it. The connection and the empathy flowed both ways.

He wouldn't hurt her. And it wasn't naivety that told her so.

Her hand rested on his bark and she smiled.

"Let me come with you?"

She didn't know why she asked, didn't know she would ask until the words had already left her mouth. But it felt right and she didn't worry about it over much. There were plenty of things in life to worry about, she figured, but things that felt right? Well, that was just silly.

The reason they felt right? Well, Vessa couldn't know that yet. In time. Perhaps.

"I won't be a bother, or a burden. I can take care of myself! But.... let me help you."

It wasn't the idly plea of a child. She really could help him. Help keep him healthy in places his kind might not otherwise thrive. Protect him from things he might not otherwise expect. He couldn't put root down deep. So let her be those roots.

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

Now that was a request that Coniferous had not been expecting.

He considered her, tilting his head causing some spare leaves to shiver and some dirt to slip down to the ground. "I do not aim to leave Raykka immediately, little one." The warning came finally while the decision was made. Of course, the Tree would bring his gardener with, it seemed... obvious now that she brought it up. As if it was a bond that had already been formed for years.

"You woke me, yes, but a part of me... is still grumbling in slumber. I miss something still."

The heart.... it was the heart he was missing.

Coniferous did not yet know what the heart was, but he could feel it tugging at him. Deep, deep below the ground, it was locked away from them and he needed it if he were to unlock his full potential.

"I aim to find it, little Vessa, are you prepared to follow me as I do?"

 

[Bethany Kismet]

"I know."

Well, she hadn't known in words before he'd said them. It wasn't like that. But the fact that part of him was still dormant? That she had known. It annoyed her. Frustrated her in a way she couldn't put a finger on. Like the annoyance bubbled up from someone else almost. Which felt strange and uncomfortable, but she thought that- maybe, just maybe- if she saw the rest of that through, that feeling would go away.

She stood up from her crouch finally, tilting her head to look up at him.

"I'll help you," she said firmly, nodding her head once as if that was all there was to it.

For her, it was.

"The planet isn't the way it was when your kind walked before." She didn't really need to say it, they both knew that. She shouldn't have, but she did. Part of it was the gleanings she had gotten from the other slumbering flora. Part of it was simply a knowing she couldn't tell someone where she had learned it. Like knowing how to breath.

Raykka hurt. Not just her soul. But her eyes, her lungs. But Coniferous was her charge now.

And she wasn't going to leave him.

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

No... no, it wasn't.

Just like her Coniferous could feel it.

In the air, in the life around him, within him. There was a change that had occurred not over the span of a few years. The change had seeped into the very being of what Raykka was... no, not Raykka. "It's name was Din, before they made it Raykka." Din. Din. It felt good to say, it felt... right and a part of him purred in appreciation. The moment he mentioned that name something strengthened, the bond between himself and that heart of hearts elsewhere.

He knew where it was.

Well... the direction, that much Coniferous knew.

"It is beneath the ground. Hot, so hot. Iron locks it in place. It is of theirs and they do not want to release it." They were afraid, weren't they? That if the Heart would be released that it would bring up change- or perhaps they simply kept it away, because they had been doing that for ages.

In truth the Heart wouldn't save his siblings.

They were too far gone for intervention like that. "Far from here." A nod followed, before he crouched down deeper. "On my shoulder you go, little Vessa. Hurry, hurry, my break is almost over and they will come."

 

[Bethany Kismet]

She started to climb up, but her feet slipped and she made a face. Standing on first one foot, then the other, she removed the ridiculous slippers she'd been wearing and then scampered up nimbly, her toes finding the rough patches she needed to get traction. Once she was settled on his shoulder, she looked at the shoes quizzically. And wondered idly where they'd come from. Then she shrugged, balling them up (really they could barely be called shoes anyway) and shoved them into a pocket.

She held on tight as Coniferous stood up, the leaves in his branches rustling in a soft whisper she could almost understand, like words on the tip of her tongue. As he started to move, his swaying gait took a moment to adjust to, but only just- Vessa adapted quickly, finding a rhythm of her own swaying to accompany the motions. She smiled, holding onto a branch and looking out curiously from the unaccustomed perch.

Some part of her knew that she had never been this tall.

As quickly as the thought occurred, it vanished again, and she forgot she'd had it at all.

"Is it far?" She asked a moment later, glancing over and slightly up at his face.

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

He rose slowly and accommodated his little attendant as best as Coniferous could.

Her weight was minuscule, like the air slowly finding its way on his shoulder, it was only the high chiming of her voice that reminded him that she was there in the very first place. "Very." Coniferous replied as he rotated in a circle around his axis and finally pin-pointed the exact direction they'd have to go. It would have been easy, if fate or the Living Song (the Force?) ordained them to have awakened him right where he needed to be.

Sadly it wasn't so.

"We head north, far north, we will need to stop..." Coniferous thought about those words before finishing it. "We might need to fight. Can you fight, little one?" The Tree wasn't sure what her reply would be as they set forward to North.

His steps heavy, leaving the clearing behind, and finding a rhythm between the trees and forestation.

The acid in the air was almost forgotten as the awakened Dalan found life behind the slumber.

 

[Bethany Kismet]

Small hands wrapped around the branch to steady herself and she looked thoughtful for a moment.

"I don't know," she said truthfully.

But it was clear that wasn't the end. She was considering.

"I cannot take a sword and remove an enemies head," she said finally into the quiet. "I cannot aim a gun and take out a man's heart from a hundred paces."

Again a pause.

"I cannot summon lightening to crisp the air in someone's lungs. I cannot bite or rend with teeth or claws."

She tilted her head, watching as his long strides ate up the distance as they moved.

"But I don't give up. I have things I can do to stop someone- things I know. I have friends." In this case she meant the very forest itself. "And I know how to ask them to help me.... So I guess," she paused, choosing her words with careful deliberation, "Just what you mean by 'fight,' Coniferous."

[member="Coniferous"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Vessa"]

They wandered and in the meantime the Dalan weighed her words against that which he knew.

"The forest, the jungle, nature is the truest friend one can have." He then replied, showing that he knew which friend she meant. "It is all encompassing, it is... eternal-" Until it wasn't, one simply had to look at Raykka to know the truth of this, but even when the last tree was cut down... the forest was eternal. It was the spirit of the planet and while it could be dulled, it couldn't die.

It could only slumber and stay frozen.

"Our strength lies in different pursuits, little one, if a fight erupts... stay behind me and assist as you can." This much the Dalan knew- while the bullets would create havok within her, it would be less effective against them.

The rest of the journey was silent, interrupted by some words and thoughts, until... they reached the grove.

Deep within the dying forest.

A singular spot, down the slope of a hill, beneath a mount. There was a small trickle of water, a single tree in the mist of it. There was spirit here and the Living Song chimed for now. One day the Raykkans would touch this place too, but for now it was one of the few sanctuaries that still existed. Far away from valuable resources that they valued so heavily.

"Drink, rest, this place is sanctuary." Coniferous murmured as he settled on one knee to give her room to drop off.