The Land of Ver-Anda: Destined

"The Prime Beings and their followers, chief among them the gods of our current pantheon, waged war for so many generations the ground was scarred with the remnants of their long and hard fought battles. Mountains and Oceans are the marks that these primordial beings left with each movement, the continents and islands across Ver-Anda forming with each attack. As the dust settled in the aftermath, the Primal Beings, each one represented by our ways of life, had settled into slumbering beings of great power, hibernating over a seemingly eternal slumber." -Excerpt of Kieva's Mythological History

Jiva has been closer than a best friend from the time I met her. The very night she discovered me on the roof of the guard tower was the beginning of a friendship that would last into our adulthood, where we would find that maybe our future together was deeper than first imagined. The night turned to day on that tower and the guards change of shifts occurred twice until we finally got down from and stopped talking.

I returned the next night,as discussed and found her waiting for me, not turned away from my status, at least. She was as strange as the first night, and yet I could only find myself more interested in what she was saying, Everytime that she said something, I had to listen, though sometimes I found myself drifting off into thought about her hair, which was curled off to her left in just the cutest way or something similar.

I'd never met someone like her.

"What is the moon made of?" she giggled, looking up at the two moons above our heads. We laid atop the tower again, for the third night straight now. I had learned alot about her, that she was born during the summer, probably during the year 2834, the same year as me from what we could tell. The tribes of the north and the south keep very similar records of the stars and each child is noted among them when they are born.

From what we could tell, Jiva was less than a month older than I was, born sometime on the 11th of Kinte'asgha, a month that was generally considered summer, save where she was from where it was generally chilly and foggy during that time of year.

In the Siregal Valley, it was the opposite during that time of year, it was mild temperature and rainy, sometimes even hot. The hills were lush with greens and plant life during that time, and after a rainy spring especially so. 

The travelers had been rather lucky in fact, since the journey could have been waylaid by any number of storms or attacks on the road. The roads and seas were both dangerous from what I had heard, though my father was mostly the source of the news, of course.

"Which one?" I looked to the two moons that hung in the star speckled sky. Each one orbited the planet in the same direction though the smaller, Er's was much further away than the large red moon of Wal'a'lan but both were full in the sky, though Er's was beginning its waning phase. 

"The close one, Wal'a'lan."

"Cheese is what my mother and grandmother told me as a child, though even then I didn't believe that. Then itansi says that they are part of Yornus, something that was torn off his body during the Prime War and turned into the moon we see today. They were either his arm and leg, or something more explicit depending who you ask," I chuckled thinking about how I have heard the story of the Primes in different ways from so many storytellers.

"So they do tell the same variation here about the moon being his- uhh," she laughed and made a motion that she was referring to the member of the god. I roared in laughter, thinking that the story was funnier when you imagined the moons were a god's dick and balls, but could see why another version may have been formed. I did not find it particularly enjoyable to imagine it happening to myself especially, murdered and then have my parts thrown about my home for eternity. 

"Was it the folly of Yornus to trust his brothers and sisters when they were known to be jealous of him?"

"His folly was believing they were genuine,yes?" She had ways to phrase things sometimes that were rather intriguing, and confusing. Are you always this way? Does everyone feel as stumped from the questions you ask? I could never catch a break as she asked question after question, making me think even more than any of the tutors and teachers I had throughout the years.

"He was the most powerful being in the realm, controlling more souls than any of the other prime beings. What did he do with that, Semsì?" She asked, inching a little closer to me underneath the shine of the twin moons; one the color of red ochre, while the other was a dull gray.

"He was a sacrifice for us," I hesitated, almost unsure of what she was getting at.

"He was murdered, for us to exist."

"Murder, sacrifice, they do not have to be mutually exclusive," I added.

"Good point, but that does not change the fact that Yornus was our ancestor and we came from his blood. Without his murder, we would still be the souls under the control of the Prime Beings, something me people viewed as slavery. Something we can never return to."

"What do you mean?" My people did not view the death of Yornus as something that was bad, he was what the other Prime Being offered to create us, though after our creation they devolved into war and infighting, destroying all of them in the process. 

"I know you do not think of Yornus as a victim, but as a willing participant to a point, but he was still not slated to perish yet, according to the gyta`de, my peoples library. 

"Your people's library? I asked, leaning forward. 

She nodded and smiled looking rather proud before she responded. 

"We write our history on a single person each generation, giving with them our greatest prophecy and our greatest laws. It generally will be someone who reaches their hundredth year after the death of another gyte`de." 

"I understand but nothing you say ever makes a bit of sense, I hope you know that." I smiled, doing my best to be supportive even though so much of what she said was as foreign as the language of the cat people of the north. "The words you are using are familiar to me then you say something that has no equivalent to me here."

She chuckled before responding, something I had become used to now. I think she was constantly laughing at my expense.

"Our lives are so much more similar than you know, Semsì. Our people are the same, when you think about it."

***

"What say you, U'turk of the north? Why have you bought our time for your meeting?"

The mahogany skinned elf stood as straight as he could, though he may never be as tall as the obsidian skinned elf before him. The elf had long, straight black hair adding to the sleek and long features of his face which only became longer with his smile.

"Respectfully, Elder Watub, we of the Misty Forests call for your aid." The older elf stood firm against the elders of Rency, a city not unlike he had dealt with many times before in his own homeland. The elves to the north were just the same as the elves of the south, some lives in cities with wall and cannons atop and others live among their herds of livestock or in their small jungles villages. 

"U`turk, we hear you." The council said.

"Thank you, wa`kata, I am sure you have heard that the north is bound to be embroiled in strife soon."

"No, U`turk, we do not hear everything that happens to all of our cousins across the world."

"I assumed I would be the bearer of bad news," the wood elf continued, "We have entered a time of uncertainty again. The humans of Clethorp are going to be going through a crisis soon, their leader is nearing his expiration and the next ten years could be tenuous for the humans and others in the area. I would like to gain your approval in backing a successor to help their transition. The Republic of Siregal is respected among the human cities for your acceptance of their kin into your lands. You showing support to them would also look good with our kin who still struggle with the concept of acceptance." He slid in. 

U`turk was right, the Republic had built itself off of a mixed partnership with the cultures that naturally inhabited the valley. The capital city was roughly twenty five miles to the east, upriver near Siregal Lake and while it was historically an elven city, the past thousand years has seen an influx of humans, dwarves and other species of sentient life that live across the continent. 

Hurex`vite, a tabaxi with a slender snout and an undercoat of light brown with a streak of black that ran across her face sat forward and spoke for the first time.

"You want us to back a candidate for succession in a city more than five hundred miles away that hasn't even actually had its crisis of succession yet?" she began, in an incredulous tone.

"Let me finish," the old elf said, sighing slightly as he began again. "The north has been held together by a thread for generations. The league's relationship with its internal cities is strained, the Union of Keheath is growing hungry for war and the dwarves of our mountains rumble for change."

"What does that have to do with us?" an older elf of the council named M`calon cut in.

"Your trade will dry up once the humans of those places forget the last war they waged, but even soon we will forget what war does and the world will light up in the fire again. Our gyte`de, the one of stories, is aging in my tribe and the mantle must be passed on."

A female elf cleared her throat and the entire assembly of just over half a dozen council members and the entourage of the wood elves looked at her as she opened her mouth.

"I don't think we have made clear, kiin, what does the happenings of the north have to do with us? The humans have warred before and we of Dras`si have survived it. We of the Siregal Republic have withstood it. My people are armed with Ui`ta`vati and the weapons and magics of the humans, we have the firepower of the dwarves from the very mountains my people, the deep elves came from, what have we to fear?"

The man from the mountains of the north closed his eyes for a moment and clasped his hands together, with his palms facing the ground. The energy of the room shifted and the council all grasped for their weapons at nearly the same time. With a swirl of energy the wood elf suddenly exited whatever 'trance' he was in, and as his eyes lit up with a flash of energy and his voice vibrated with the amplified power.

"You of the Sevata family have been chosen. One of you will be given a choice, to choose between what you love, and the world you live in. The other will become a footnote to history, someone who is forgotten along with the heinous crimes you have committed to the denizens of Yornus, and yet one will choose to undertake a quest to uncover what the true meaning of love is. You do not know yet what you will do when the time arrives but you will choose to help us to save yourselves."