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Daxia

Daxia watched the interplay between her companions, considering Kadri’s question for a few moments. It wasn’t until Kay got up, uttering a word Dazi herself had uttered and muttered more times than she’d care to admit, and stomped off after Bekkah that Daxia was able to answer the question.

Of course, it was after she chuckled at her feisty young initiate’s... well, feistiness.

“The past is immutable, I think. Kay’s presence here doesn’t change the past, it only change the future,” she said as she watched the young Dayalan. “The future is never set with certainty, despite knowing that one ought to take this Path over that. While there may be Paths I am meant to walk, there is no certainty of events or outcomes on any of those Paths.”

Dazi looked at Kadri. “Even for Kay, her past is her past and will always be her past. That can never change. But her future is...” The redhead smiled slightly and shrugged. “Well, it is not the future she would have had three hundred and fifty years ago had she been given the chance to have a future, but it is still a future that she will discover and create as she will.”

She glanced between Dean and Kadri. “As it applies to your attempts at modifying our good Squire’s perception of my dear sister... Like the past, what Dean has learned and come to believe cannot be changed.” Daxia looked at the Squire and addressed him. “Only you can say if your teachings and beliefs will allow you to see my sister in more than one way. And having learned to believe one thing deep in your heart...” She looked at Romana, then Mikal, and back to Dean. “...it is not always easy to convince the heart to learn something new. It can be done, of course. I am not so extraordinary that only I can change how I think and feel about Eastern Princesses, Jvrillians and those who follow Rames. But if you do not wish to change how you view Bekkah, then you cannot change how you view Bekkah.”

Daxia looked at Bekkah and Kay, memories of their childhood, memories of the letters they’d written over the years all flashing through her mind in an instant. She shook her head and looked back at Dean. “I know more of the hardships young woman go through in their training to become Ladies of Attera than most outside that church. But it’s only because Bekkah is my sister. Still, I think we can all agree that training in our respective areas has not been easy, and guess that the Ladies of Attera do not grow into the Ladies of Mercy and Compassion without having to suffer in order to understand what mercy and compassion are. I do not have a strong sword arm because I wished for one... I have a strong sword arm because I was required to hold a sword heavier than the one I wield now from breakfast to lunch, day after day until I could hold it up that entire time without lowering my arm to rest.

“My point, I think, is that Bekkah is strong in ways I am not... I am strong in ways she is not. Each of us in this group has strengths that are unique to ourselves. What we all have in common, though...” Dazi again looked around at her companions, looked at Kay and Bekkah returning to the circle around the campfire. “I think it fair enough to say we all would like to be seen as comrades, as equals with those in this group... no greater than any other, and no less than another other. There may be games to be played when one might be seen by others as greater and more important than the rest of us. But games are not the truth. And I think, perhaps, in our hearts we might all admit that when there is no need to play the games, we are glad to be simply comrades and friends.

“Even Ladies of Attera,” she said, wink at Dean.

But then Dazi looked at Romana, serious once more. “I’m not sure you need to apologize, Romana. If the Archdruids planned and waited and planned even more, and made a very big sacrifice they thought would kill all Cohrlayans...” The Dayalan furrowed her brows in thought. “That would be a very big thing that would do more than just kill all the Cohrlayans. It would... I don’t know know, but I think it would be very bad for anyone between the Archdruids and the Cohrlayans, yah? Maybe very bad for anyone near the Archdruids. Or even anyone not so near the Archdruids.”

She shook her head again. “But they didn’t kill all the Cohrlayans even if they tried because here you are. But if they tried... if they tried and made a big mess instead...” Dazi seemed lost in thought for a moment. “Our stories say after the Coven was broken at Silk Creek Bridge, the Eastern army marched into the Dirkwood to reach the High Tarn, but never came out again.

“Your stories, Romana, say no one returned home from that battle.

“From what we saw last night, it would seem that the Knights of Roth laid waste to the Eastern army. Perhaps there might have been a few who survived, who fled into the Heartwood that was not yet the Dirkwood.”

She blinked and looked between Romana and Jankin.

“Isn’t that a significant point? That Tashka and Linette and Kay knew the great forest as the Heartwood... the World Forest? Doesn’t it say something that we now know it as a place of darkness, a place with a terrible, evil reputation, a place called the Dirkwood?

“Don’t you think, maybe...” She shuddered at the very idea. “Maybe there is darkness there, maybe the Heartwood is now the Dirkwood because that is where the Archdruids did whatever they did? Or, even worse, that it was the Heartwood itself that they sacrificed?”

Daxia rubbed her arms, not from the chill of the night, but from the chill of thinking that even the slightest possibility existed that the past could have been that horrifying.

“I think it might be possible that what happens over and over at Highside Heather when the fogs rolls across the land could be tied to what happened to the Heartwood,” she said very softly.

She looked into the night beyond the circle of firelight, to the spot where a unicorn stood.

“Morning Star said that the Heartwood cannot return to what it once was. But even a cobble block such as myself can see the truth of that now,” she said, almost as if talking to herself. “No one and nothing can go back to being what we were or what it was yesterday. Because the past is immutable. But the Wise One also said that does not mean curses cannot be broken. It does not mean mending cannot be done. It does not mean wounds cannot be healed. It does not mean Darkness cannot be banished back into the night where it belongs.”

Dazi looked at Jankin. “Perhaps our quest has become bigger than we might have imagined.” Then she looked between Mikal and Dean. “I have seen maps, old and worn, of the Tarn. These seem to show that there is no way to come near the Dirkwood on the Highside Tarn except closer to Talesan’s Village. If this is so, then we may need to defer this quest until our arrival there. His Magnificence also said that entering the Dirkwood is a matter of finding the proper path. If the proper path is not to be found there, or along the coast of the Sea of Opals, then the path may well be along the Eastern Road. That would be a quest very long deferred.

“Jankin, remembering any of your old teachings would be very helpful, if you could do that.

“Romana, perhaps you have other stories that you will recall for us that might be useful on this quest.

“And Kay...” She looked at the youngster oddly, with emotions she probably couldn’t even describe herself if asked. “You remember the Heartwood as it was before it was poisoned. I don’t doubt even the smallest thing you could share would help this endeavor.”

Finally, she looked at Bekkah sitting beside her. “And don’t forget, dear sister, that you promised young Dominie to visit his brother in his tiny village when we pass by there.” Dazi nudged her sister’s shoulder with her own and grinned. “That little scamp is going to get hung in the rafters the next time I see him, I think. But only because I think he’d like that.”

Daxia stood and stretched. “I will take first watch. The rest of you should finish your dinners and get some sleep. Mikal... Dean... Kay... which of you would like the second watch?”

Jankin nodded as she spoke, feeling within himself the truth of much of what she said.

"I also would like a watch tonight. Perhaps solitude in the darkness will jog my memories some."

Cesare

Just to clarify that he is understanding Daxia's proposal.. because he often doesn't.. well, at least the full extent of it anyway.

"So the idea is that we go into the Dirkwood, attempt to find the source of the curse or sacrifice.. and then see what we might do to rectify it?"

He doesn't know if the Rhoni have any tales about the Dirkwood.. but he tries to think back to the old tales his mother and his Aunt and Uncle told him.

Mikal

He listens to Dazi and nods every so often. "Yes. It seems to point to the Dirkwood, and I agree we do not wish to wander in there aimlessly. We must find, and follow, the proper path."

He leaves it at that, as he hs no way to know what that path might be at this time.

"I will take second watch, and would be glad to have Kay and Dean join me if they so choose."

Bekkah

"I will share the watch with you Dazi." she said in that older sister tone that was most definitely not a question.

"Perhaps we can catch up a bit while we watch." she said her tone and eyes softening.

[ooc: Of course if Wolf tells me that she really needs to rest after the rounds of healing she did, then I'll edit this.]

Daxia

Daxia nodded to Cesare. “I think that’s essentially the plan. Of course, there’s no telling how long it will take to get down to the area around Talesan’s Village to even begin looking for the proper path.”

She sighed and smiled wistfully. “I really would like to see the Sea of Opals.”

And then Dazi chuckled at Bekkah’s ‘older sister pretending to be stern’ tone of voice. “Have I ever been able to talk you out of doing something you were set on doing, Bekkah?” She hugged her sister. “No, I haven’t. It’s not any more possible than you talking me out of something I’m set on doing.”

Looking over her shoulder as they walked toward the edge of camp where Kay watched — prepared to defend them all with nothing but her knife, her fierceness, and her wits — she said to Mikal, “I’ll wake you when the second moon rises.”


[OOC: I kinda thought we were done here. Jankin and Cesare are trying to remember stories; something may come to them in the night, who knows? But unless you, O Great GM, have further plans for hanging out around a camp fire, I suspect we’re ready to move on. I believe we’re continuing to ease on down the road, with the next stop being the large town surrounding Dominie’s tiny, tiny village. Well, that’s the next blob on the map anyway, as far as I can tell. ]

<<OOC: Jankin can come up with tidbits in the morning after a night's reflection if need be >>

[OOC But only if GM supplied! Certainly in Cesare's case anyway! ]

[[60 HOUR WORK WEEK DOES ME IN]]

[I wasn't nagging just saying that Cesare's player doesn't have his knowledge! ]