Bry'e the Ambassador

“There is a world which has always existed… a world some have never seen, because they chose not to see. I know this because my own tribe of Amnamar, born to be ambassadors to both Earth and Man, *chose* blindness. I was one of the lucky ones, because my eyes were opened to what is true about both Man and Earth - my eyes and hearts were opened to what is possible - opened to the realization that some things deemed impossible are only so because of the fear others have built in themselves. I do not have to build this same fear in me. Neither do you. And if both you and I are not afraid, we can then build this absence of fear in others. This, I believe, is how we can rebuild a world.

The earth is speaking of great change, which it will manifest in many different ways, in many different places. If we, those of us who depend on earth to live, do not prepare ourselves for these changes, and do not also change ourselves, earth will persevere. But we will not."

- (section of her speech from the Earth Summit)

***

As Bry’e and Lonna of Iridia traversed a green and stony gorge softened with dense moss and ferns, for a time the two did not speak. Lonna watched the skillful movements of her bird companion, quietly frustrated with her own uncertain feet as they slipped irregular volcanic rocks.

“I will tell you something,” Bry’e began, reaching back to pull Lonna up along a rough, vertical black stone trickling with long, cold streams of water and moss. “Something that may bring us to a more equal place.”

Lonna was still out of breath, her legs weak beneath her, but Bry’e’s gentle insistence drew the woman forward.

“I have long had a vision while I sleep,” Bry’e continued,  “a series of pictures shown to me by something vivid and powerful. It reveals a vast landscape of mountains and plains, a landscape dead with ash, and in it, there is a gathering of figures, in the ruin of a world they once knew. There are no trees, no birds - even the sky is dead. I see myself, also covered in ash, and it seems that this gathering of the living looks to me for something. I know I must speak, and I open my beak to do so, but I cannot find the words. And each time the vision shows itself to me it is the same, and when my words will not come, I wake, and wonder why these visions have been shown to me.”

Bry’e turned now to find the gaze of her travel companion, and Lonna, who was still a few steps behind, puzzled for a moment before answering. As they walked, a brief squall of rain pelted the canopy above, and droplets sifted down around them. Bry’e’s tufts of red body feathers were soon tipped with tiny beads of water. She shook her tail and a spray of mist swirled behind her as she moved on.

“Why would you telling me this make us more equal?” Lonna asked at last. The blade of suspicion was at last gone from her inquiries, but a skepticism lingered in her words.

Bry’e continued to climb for a moment. They were nearing an apex of rock shaded by great boughs, knotted with roots and littered with the great cones of massive trees. More ferns, taller than each of them, came up like spouts of green foam from gaps in the stone.

Reaching a shelf of rock on which to pause, Bry’e squinted into the distance, and a bead of Suryama seemed to fall slowly, comfortably, in the time that passed. Bry’e closed her eyes, and could almost see Suryama herself, the great celestial string of beads breaking into the pieces of time that kept everything from happening at once.

“It is my thinking that this place, this world, is like a dream to you, and perhaps in it you have not yet found your voice. The place is confusing and frightening, perhaps desolate in its strangeness, like a world of ash.” Bry’e regarded Lonna carefully, in observation rather than criticism. “As one from the other side, from the human world, many look to you for answers, and while you have answers there, in your world, here you only have questions. The answers do not come. So like me, you cannot speak as you should.”

They crested the ridge and the land again dipped down, revealing a broad stripe of blue sky ahead between rifts of pale cloud, and beneath this, a rolling panorama of wild, green conifers spreading out in every direction. They made their way down the slope grasping the trunks of the trees bracing at the hillside, and for a moment only the wind spoke. Rain fell behind them, and the branches ahead were dappled with pale bars of sun.

“When you have the vision of the ash…” Lonna thought aloud,  “is it your world you’re in, or mine?”

They came to a stream and Bry'e knelt to drink from it, going down on her haunches as she answered.

“I have never considered the answer to that.” Bry’e thought about it. At last she said, “I would say neither.” She stood, swallowed, and wiped her beak with the feathered knuckles of one hand, her irises scanning the furthest horizon.

“How is that possible?” Lonna asked, filling the gourd flask Bry’e had made for her, and then rising to stand beside the Amnamaran.

“Because,” Bry’e said, stepping into the stream to cross it, “if my vision becomes true, both your world and mine will no longer exist.”

The Dharak

"The path comes to you more swiftly now," Bry'e observed, as Lonna sprung over a sticky bog of mud. The quizzical look Lonna gave her melted away into an understanding, and Bry'e saw that her words had confused the woman at first.

"Sometimes," Bry'e chuckled, "even in my best Iridian speaking, Amnamar's way of words makes my other speech wrong.”

“I understood what you said," Lonna responded, "eventually.”

“You begin to trust me,” Bry’e observed, touching Lonna at the forearm, and then dropping her hand away to her side once more.

Lonna shrugged, wiping trickles of rain from her brow. “How did you learn English?”

“It was not among the duties of Queen Eyabrenna to attend to offspring," Bry'e explained. "So, many females were my mother. Some,” she chuckled softly, “were more… observant than others. For many beads I was free to wander alone into the trees. This,” she sighed, “being alone, was not the way of the tribe, as many dangers in the ferns could quickly take life. But I was a hatchling, and no one had taught me fear." Her eyes sparked, and as she walked she seemed to see past the world around her, into a vast memory. "I first saw only earth and sky, and the others, snails, lizards, things with wings, who moved freely between these places. Earth and sky together," she said, making the shape of a ball with her two red feathered hands, "I regarded as one of my many mothers, and within its shapes and motions I felt similar comforts, and so I was drawn into it.”

She stopped, stood on a massive root sheathed in moss and flexed her toes, leaning on the trunk of the massive tree that rose like a living beam into the wandering mist. Craning her neck, she gazed far up the trunk as she spoke again. “I had not long been wandering into the trees before I felt something, something not so quiet and still as the branches, and not so quick and busy as the water. It moved like me. It’s scent was like me. Yet it it seemed it was made only of patient shadows. I began to go into the ferns seeking it out, feeling it move around and above me, but always I was unable to see it. And when I had done this a number of times, finally, it showed itself to me.”

“What was it?” The curiosity in Lonna’s voice uplifted Bry’e, and her eyes squinted as she smiled.

“First," Bry'e glowed, "I found only feathers, some gray and some white, some edged with red. The scent of the feathers was like smoke and blood and wet stone, and these same scents moved in the trees with the shadows. Then I saw many gray feathers moving together. At last," she chuckled, "I saw two eyes looking down at me through leaves - wise eyes, still pools of knowing, large enough to look deeply into. And when I spoke to these eyes, a voice answered me.”

Bry’e’s enthusiasm was infectious - obviously the creature about whom she spoke was no threat. Lonna waved the bird woman on with one hand.. “- And? What did you say?”

“I asked what he was made of.” Bry’e smiled to herself. “His answer was ‘Sheh, L’awah, Yirth, the Amnamaran words for wind, water and wood. And then he added ‘Chim’qiti,’ which, on your tongue, means stars. Then he spoke the words as you would  - and so these things were the first human sounds I heard.”

“I asked if he was made of shadows,” Bry’e added. “He did not say yes or no - instead, he said ‘yit Cre’aphau’ -”

Lonna blinked, and as her brow furrowed, Bry’e cocked her head to one side in inquiry.

“You know these words?” the bird woman inquired.

Lonna grimaced. “Yit feels like ‘and’, and Cre’aphau… it means Light.” She squinted now, and slipped her hands into her armpits, seeming uncomfortable, as though she stirred in a quiet pain. “Doesn’t it?”

“These are an older language I only learned later, but…” Bry’e nodded. “Yes.” Bry’e squinted quizzically, and the silence the bird woman and the Iridian held a gaze that was both accepting and fertile.

“Still I was curious," Bry'e went on. "I asked if he was only eyes and feathers, and these strange things, wind, water, shadow, wood, light… He told me he was also leaves and thoughts, songs and paths, bones and dances. He told me I was made of the same things. And then at last he stood, and he was a tree, tall - both bird and man like me, but he was also sky, earth and water… it seemed he had not lived with these things, as I had, but that he came *from* them. His arms and legs were branches, his wrists and ankles feathered, and his great face, neck and beak were also dancing with soft plumes. His tail was like the rays of the sun as it is rising over the hills, the feathers dipped in red. His face was long, that of an egret or a stork. He was very large, strong through the chest and long through his back - the males of Amnamar are all small, thick and broad, low like ferns - this creature was was much more like a tree - but there was nothing..." she paused, searching for a word, then sprung upon it "... menacing, about him. He had painted himself in a red pigment of mud, making thumb prints on the bare skin of his body… In some places he had plucked away his feathers to make elaborate patterns, spirals and dots.”

Lonna stepped deftly over a crack between large roots, and Bry'e took note but said nothing. “Was he old, wise, like a shaman?”

“I do not know how old he was,” Bry’e mused. “But yes, he was a constantly turning wheel of medicine, a seer, a river of wisdom, memory, and teaching. Every day after that, I went into the woods and learned words and secrets from him. Sometimes he was very quiet, and let everything else around us teach me. Sometimes he let me teach myself, making room for my thoughts and perceptions, letting me answer my own questions. And then," Bry'e giggled, "sometimes he talked and talked - until my ears fell asleep.”

Lonna chuckled. Then she pondered something. “You left him behind as well, when you abandoned the tribe... It seems he was important to you.”

“He told me I would leave," Bry'e said resolutely. "I think also that he may have seen you were coming. But I have been given visions that tell me we will meet on the path again.”

Lonna thought for a moment before inquiring again. “Why do you think he showed you these things, you and no one else?”

Bry'e stopped, hunched down at a break in the roots and placed her fingertips on the moist soil between her knees. “He said I could hear the earth, and that the earth could hear me, in a way that others in my clan could not." She looked up at Lonna, her gray eyes filled with the light pouring down through the leaves above. "He also said that to make myself small when danger threatened was wise… but he said to always be small and hide away was a different danger." She rose, and walked on into the mist. "I think his eyes could see that my tribe, out of fear and rejection of humans, had made itself dangerously small.”

“But if he only taught you, and no one else in the tribe, then…” Lonna trailed away, and Bry'e understood the paths on which Lonna's thoughts moved.

“There is one I left behind," she answered, and a fissure of sadness mingled with love moved through her brow. " One to whom I gave all the secrets the Dharak gave to me. It is my hope that she can plant the same seeds in others that have now flowered in me."

Kalilie B'Urendi and Zakor Iwo : Resources

The Summit Continues : On the Terrace

"Iridians search for energy," Kalile began, "in the strangest of places, in oil wells and coal mines, which are dangerous to build, which are difficult to maintain, and harmful to the natural process."

Zakor's brow furrowed. "But coal and oil, these things are 'natural', are they not?"

"Yes," said Kalile at first. "Earth has produced coal and oil, copper, uranium, and other resources in her many wombs, but the *way* that Man has chosen to utilize these Children of the Deep Earth is decidedly unnatural," he said, meeting the girl's gaze. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Zakor nodded. "I see your point."

"There are many," Kalile explained, "both in Iridian lands and in Mirico, who say there are better powers of nature that we can look to - the powers of the water," he said, gesturing to the cistern by which they stood. "...The power of the wind," he added, opening his palm so that the light flickering through the boughs above their heads danced in fractured coins of gold across his fingers. "And the power of the light," he added. Putting a palm gently on Zakor's shoulder and crouching to be eye to eye with the girl, he continued, "These things gave our ancestors life, and gave them the strength to bring us into being - and so it should be clear to us that, unaltered, these same resources would further sustain the generations to come. It is these things, water, earth and air, that we must protect."

"We," Zakor smiled.
"Yes," Kalile glowed. "You see, as I do, one of our greatest resources, which to some seems invisible, or impossible."
"Each other?" Zakor grinned.
Kalile's eyes sparkled kindly. "Exactly."

Children of the Universe

The Womb, The Tomb and other Cosmic Energies

(Creation Myths of Mirico, continued)

Chimaquatka - The Great Tortoise Cosmos, the Mother Universe - she is older than sound and light.

Chichiari - The Trickster, the Spider, the Cave. His intricate web divides everything that exists, yet holds everything together. 

Glynmarra - 'The Gaia', First Child of Chimaquatka, the Patchwork Bird who created the known universe. She cried the first stars, and some believe the Earth is her back as she flies through the vastness of space.

Minotajo - The Double-Headed Mantis - After Glynmarra the Patchwork Bird flew to tatters, Minotajo followed behind her to put her fragments in their cosmic places.

Tyamulare - 'The Dark' - A great crab moth. Mother of the moons, sister to Oraphau. She is most often the symbol for night, and her energy is benevolent and mysterious. 

Oraphau - the Lion Moth - Father of Suns, Light, The Torch. His roar is felt every day at sunrise. It is said that once he passed too close to the earth and sheared off the branches of the First Tree, called Yirdilfi - the tree that gave birth to many of the creatures of Earth. 

Akhenn - The Sound - Concentric Circles. One of the oldest of Chimaquatka's children, Akhenn's presence can be both felt and heard in reverberations through the Universe. 

Iquatha'apir - The Air, the Unseen Hand, The Winds. He is the atmosphere, often depicted as a strange Jellyfish-like cloud swimming sideways through the sky. 

  Ra'Awudul - The Scorpioth, 'The Warrior, The Survivor  Brother to the Great Ray of Change, D'Mythren. He is the willful, fighting spirit of all who strive to live. It is said that his carapace cannot be permeated by anything, even light. He is ancient, one of the firstborn of Creatoli the Earth Serpent.

D'Mythren - The Seasons, the Cycles - The Great Ray who breathes the underwater blossoms onto the rocks in rivers and streams. He is also a constellation, often referred to as 'The Kite'.

Suryama - One of the eldest born of the Universe, 'The Beads', 'The Strand'. Suryama was at first a great string stretched across past, present and future. She realized that only by falling apart would everything take its place in time - thus she became the string of beads that broke, and within her expanse everything unfolds. 'A bead of Suryama' is a unit of time as it passes. 

Qyla and Oturra - 'The Orb', 'The Moons'. Being a double-headed snail that shares a single shell, the Moon sisters take turns appearing in the sky. The cycles of the moon gradually reveal one snail, and then the other. When a full moon is present, both have drawn into the shell, and when there is a new moon Chichiari the Trickster is creeping across the sky and covering their shell. 

Yirdilfi - 'The Tree of Flame', 'The First Fire'. At first his leaves were lava, and his branches were the beds of steaming stone that stretched across the lands being born. His roots reached deeper into the earth than anything alive, where the beating heart of the Earthfire stirred. Later, as the world cooled, Yirdilfi solidified into a great host of branches, and became greenly alive. He was the father of the Forests, and his fruits were the creatures, among these the people of the Hand, Earth Ambassadors and Humans. 

Q'dala - 'The Muses', 'The White', 'The Architect'. Depicted as a mist of varying shapes Q'dala is among the most mysterious and widely interpreted earth energies. She is silence, and has the properties of light without being able to glow. She is credited by many artisans and musicians as their inspiration, and her whispers are listened for by many creative spirits. 

Creatoli - 'The Root', 'The Earth Serpent', 'The Male Twin'. It is said that Creatoli was a root broken off of the great tree of Yirdilfi, and for a time he swam in the deeps of the world, swallowing earth and growing to enormous size. Slowly he burrowed to the surface, and as the stars fell from the sky to the infant Earth, Creatoli leaped from the soil and swallowed them, taking the sky fire into his belly. Doing this he created mountain ranges and hills, It is said that in a great battle with the fire of the sky he finally fell to rest in the place where the Himalayan Mountains rise, and this place is the bones of his great Earth body. He is brother to L'Wambwah.

L'Wambwah - 'The River', 'The Flow', 'The Deeps', "The Female Twin'. As the atmosphere of Earth began to establish, drop by drop L'Wambwah's watery form began to pool together. She flowed through Creatoli's every crack and crevice, and became ice, vapor and stream. Anywhere she slept became a lake or an ocean. She went to sleep in the far north, and froze into a single mass of ice that is now the Arctic Circle. 

Into Mirico : A Traveler's Poem

Upon the Unexpected Road

On quite an uneventful day, in quite an uneventful way

Walked I within a forest near, and this is what I heard it say:

"Annuk'ha qu'andonad - On'peqin amad-odod."

And inquiring of the nearest tree to speak again - It gave a nod!

And then it spoke the forest deep, as if awaking from a sleep.

"Welcome, stand among us now, and precious do our secrets keep."

"You've left behind your Earthly lands, and things made all by human hands.

Beyond these boughs held up in joy, a place of wondrous whimsy stands."

"Indeed," said I, "As not aloud, have I talked with bark and branches proud.
Into dreams have now I strayed, or with new vision am endowed?"

The trees they laughed a chorus all, and gave me pause to feel quite small.

"You are not changed," the trees replied, "But now is veil that once was wall.

You sought us in your very heart though knew you not the play or part.

The way is made for few to pass and in yourself you set the chart.

And now come in, and hearken close, to what the water speaks and knows.

And stone and wind do find as well a reason for the path they chose."

"But how tis it I've come to roam, in place so strange so close to home,

where trees converse and rocks decide and voices linger in the foam?"

"Child of Earth, the bark and bough cannot explain the why or how,

but set your foot upon the path, and find the answer, then or now."

"But welcome me, in foreign place, with human heart and human face?

Since time was time my kin have harmed, and made a ruin of Nature's grace."

Now all the boughs I saw to shake in memory of such mistake.

Yet seeming so to gently smile, the leaves above me ceased to quake.

"Oh child, do not condemn all deed, but simply plant your caring seed.

For know we well that loving heart is spark for such a fire to start.

Do come, and make your presence known, and gifts within shall soon be shown.

Better are we all indeed, when we in hope stand not alone."

And then beyond in shadows rose a silhouette in standing pose,

a hooded figure walking tall, with slender beak instead of nose.

Appeared did he into the glade, and smartly was his tunic made.

Of braided root and flowered strand and grasses wound in fine brocade.

His pointed boots at toes curled round, and wore he bells of tinkling sound,

and his cape of patch'd moss and fur did drag so gently on the ground.

Bowing low he spoke and said "We greet you well, with lowered head.

Come out now all, where 'ere you be, and child of earth be welcom'd.

And then behind the shapes of trees there moved yet silhouettes in threes.

Uncountable in numbers more appeared a flock of Feathabees!

As slender as the trees they stood, on tiptoe there at edge of wood.

And smiles upon their faces showed intention only to be good.

Some stood more than man is tall, and others were as babe is small.

Rich feathered plumage did they wear of every color, lovely all.

Most everyone wore cap or hat, bonnet, bloomer, boot and spat

and cloak and cape and tunic too, and also rags, imagine that!

Their eyes were brown and silver green, and blue with somewhat purple sheen.

Indeed, I thought, whilst looking 'round, tis strangest sight that I have seen.

"Be not afraid," they all assured, "For though you are not like a bird,

with joyful song we all have come, and of your coming we have heard."

"Do come now, join us if you will, as daylight wanes and grass be still.

And in our yonder home do rest, in safety to the dawn until."

And beckoning with slender hand, who still in hood and cape did stand

the first of them he spoke again, and said, "Of course tis no demand."

"Zwindar is my given name, and leads this merry band the same.

To take you safely to our lands was altogether here our aim."

"Go I along I shall a while," I answered with a merry smile,

and taking Westered path through trees we followed sundown for a mile.

Meadows wide and streams we passed, through tow'ring trees and fragrant grass.

And soon the winking village lights did twinkle yon in golden mass.

"Thereon be Lands of Mirico," said Zwindar paused at high plateau.

Soon all hungers, thirsts and yearns shall pass away along with woe."

And putting 'round myself his wing, he spoke as might a regal king,

"For though you be quite far from home, you shall not want for anything."

And downward into valley lush the Feathabees they all did rush,

all dancing, even singing too, at first in happy humming hush.

Then voice by voice they all sang out so merrily along the route

In homeward mood and pleasant tones a homebound tune they sang about.

"Sweetest light we bid you go, but back again you'll come we know.

Let moons against the dark be strung, and like the Beable, let them glow."

"Rest we all, together here, in comfort to each other near

and welcome Child of Earth anew, and bring her rest devoid of fear."
Given was I place to sleep, in mossy grotto soft and deep,

within the shelter of the trees in nightlong vigil sure to keep.

"This humble bed please do accept," said Zwindar, "And do safe be kept.

For many ages in the trees like this have all our kin well slept.

Do dream, and look to'ward the rise, where sun shall warm the waking skies,

and I to you will then return, as the night that now lives dies."

Then bidding me goodnight at last, Zwindar into shadows passsed.

And for a time the songs rang out, until to silence all was cast.

Then the night took up the song, with swaying leaves and humming throng.

And quite content was I to dream, for in this place did I belong.

Dashmanaug the Great Moth and Zakor

Dashmanaug and Zakor – The Origins of the Ambassadors

“In all our far travels together,” Zakor observed, “I have never asked Zwindar what he was, or why. Somehow, I don't know, it -” She shook her head now, puzzling, “- it seemed to me... Impolite.”

Hm,” Dashmanaug chuckled again to himself, and he saw as the child searched his eyes that a deep inquiry stirred in her.

“Great Moth,” Zakor continued, “I wonder if you might explain to me something I have pondered since first I came here... As I look at your books and carvings, and at the drawings and stories of many earth beings, it seems there have always been creatures who are both man and animal. I think of the gods and goddesses of my mother's religion, of Ganesh and Hanuman. I think on the hieroglyphs of Egypt, where there are godlike beings with human bodies, but their heads are those of the hawk, the wolf or the crocodile... When I was more a child I saw these heads as masks made and worn by people – but then I saw the costumes of the Native American nations, with their feathered bodies and animal faces. And also the nursery rhymes of my books, talking rabbits and bears and foxes who wore clothing. And here, again I see, in the writings and drawings of my own people, these powerful animal beings. Did we imagine so much and for so long as to make you a reality, or have you always existed, and I have only recently become aware of you?”

Dashmanaug chuckled. “Your questions are at times like my answers.”

Now Zakor smiled as well, and the moth man and the little girl regarded each other, with no uncertain barrier between. After a moment of thought, Dashmanaug answered, “We have been children of this world for ever so long as you, small one who is not so small.”

He went to a combed, ornate wall, one of many such facades in his elaborate, airy library, and from a high shelf he retrieved a weathered book on which Miriconian symbols were inscribed. Zakor watched patiently as the moth man leafed through many of the vellum pages, until at last he set the book down before Zakor. The writing, intermingled with flourished illustrations, as was often the custom with Miriconian books, had been laid down by hand to painstaking detail.

At first Zakor squinted – the style of the handwriting made the symbols harder to discern, and of course while speaking to the earth had opened her mind to the language, it was still quite new to her. So as she began to read aloud, if she stumbled upon a phrase, Dashmanaug gently asserted the correction.

Anyafa'hare'a – The Ambassadors

Now know me as the crow or jay whose hoarse voice blades against the draw of morning or of night

and coat of feather cloak me in the laughing glades where oft you find me peering from a height

and know me as the flash of scale beneath the foam who elusive swims in tide or river's run

and though to all above I seem the shadow's kin with a watchful eye can see all that is done

and know me as the light of hoof upon the leaf with antler broad and coat of shaggy hide

subarctic wood I wander under Northern light and staring from the pines keep eyes a'wide

We unbeknownst to those who walk in human ways all hear with ear far better than supposed

and keeper of each deed throughout the human days we take back to nature all so that She knows

Not long ago when humans danced to natures drum we altogether spoke in tongue the same

but wander off did humans most from rhythms old and into knowledge new the humans came

And those of us ambassadors from long before appointed to the tasks of earth and man

we mourned the time when all accord was sought and found and era new to nature soon began

And watch did we ambassadors in earthly form with fur and antler fin and scale and wing

and go we back to nature telling naught but tears we song of separation feared to sing

For spoke no more to us did people through their walls and hacked the earth with terrible machines

Forget they did the wealth of nature's simple ways and sought survival by some other means

Yes break from realm of humans said all voice of earth for they from us have broken long ago

to save all realms of nature for which we do speak we into shadow must agree to sow

And nature's human children they were most estranged but mother wished her children to come home

so some of us were given task to search and find and into human realms were told to roam

Some said too savage were our forms of earthly realm suggesting we make form of man our own

if walked and talked alike perhaps we might reach out and seed of understanding might be sown

so made ourselves part animal and then part man and cloth upon our bodies did we wear

and strode upright and learned the words to plead our case we wandered into every here and there

And when appearing to those in the human realms oft were the closed of heart and mind afraid

but children and the child in spirit did not fear and these in human realms we did persuade

and welcomed into nature's realms were humans few, and awed were they to find a kinder land

and knowledge we did pass between our world and theirs and together did we come to understand

appointed are we yet today a few sharp eyes and ears which close to human deeds do lean

and know that some among do speak in wonderway ambassadors yourselves who intervene

still awe of star and branch and beetle do you hold thinking not in thoughts of profit greed and steel

do reach out to your kin among tis time to speak, and to pose to them a spirited appeal

For as is now must soon be done in better way, and altogether must we change our ways

for all of leaf and meadow sky and sea and stream wish not to see our very end of days

not only for ourselves but for all of life we speak, and for the good of all we must construe

for humans born of earth you all are kin to us, and as such we must also speak for you

As she finished reading the words, Zakor looked up at the Great Moth, and asked, “Can things not go back to the way they were before?”

Dashmanaug thought for a moment before responding. “There are three places of awareness in which we exist. In the first we only know what is, not seeing the change which should be made. The second comes to us when something makes us realize the wrong, and yet we choose to do nothing about it. The third awareness, and perhaps the most difficult of the three, is where we choose to do something, and in doing so, we create change.”

Zakor sat for a while, and so did Dashmanaug, and it was a comfortable silence that passed between them.

“I think,” Zakor said finally, “ that so many of my people know that something should be different, and yet we do nothing. I think only with a sudden, perhaps terrible shift, which is made outside their control, will the people of my world change their ways. And perhaps then it will be too late.”

Tsukenna and Kalile : Who is Okie?

Left on the veranda of New Che-Uin, with the rooftops of the city below sparkling in the eveing's golden light, Tsukenna and Kalile regarded each other.

"This Auntie Okie," Tsukenna said, addressing Kalile B'Urendi. "She was such a strange old woman. I didn't trust her - I thought..." She hesitated for a moment, wringing her hands and staring into the distance before speaking again. "I thought she was crazy." Again she paused, longer this time, at the brink of a dark thought that had left her ragged as it clawed within her. "Did she... do something to make my children disappear?" When her eyes met Kalile's, there were tears welled beneath her irises, and a flint of anger sparked in her depths.

Kalile's gaze held hers unwaveringly as he answered, "I greatly doubt it." He touched the back of Tsukenna's hand with his fingertips in assurance, and added, "Okie is kind and strong and wise, a child of  Mirico, with deep ties to many of our greatest allies and friends."

Tsukenna looked puzzled, still suspicious and wounded. "Why does she stay in Iridia then, if she would better be here?"

A shadow passed through Kalile's gaze. "Some who come from Mirico cannot live here, for it has for some time been a dangerous place for those like us. When she was yet a young woman in Mirico, a raid came upon her village, led by turned Ambassadors seeking to expel all human beings from the Hidden world.These raids were common in Okie's time, as some in Nature made great efforts to bar Man from its lands. Okie was spared in the raid, but her husband Alel, and their daughter and son were lost - it was presumed that those taken would be cast out into Iridian realms, so Okie went there, hoping to find them again." He regarded Tsukenna carefully before he added, "There was nothing left for her here."

"She had a daughter with her at the house in And'yolek, but the girl, last I saw her, was ill, dying of cancer."

Kalile looked reverently grave, folded his hands and nodded, absorbing the news. "Okie has raised and buried many children, most of whom were not of her womb. Her strangeness comes, not only from her origins in the Hidden Realm, but also from the sadness of a broken world. For just as you have been separated from your young ones, Earth too has lost its children. Now, through us in the Hidden Realms, it calls out to these lost children, asking... hoping for their return."

Bry'e and Lonna : The Leaf

“You really can't go back,” Lonna said, abruptly, “Can you?”

Bry'e sighed. “Even if I could, I would not want to.” She raised her eyes to Lonna now, who recoiled from her just enough to reveal her deeper feelings; she still didn't trust this strange, tribal creature with feathers the color of blood, who was obviously stronger and faster, and perhaps even more intelligent. “I frighten you,” Bry'e said openly.
“I just don't understand – what you are. Where you come from...”

Bry'e understood what Lonna meant, and picked up a leaf from the forest floor. It was ovate shaped, simple and unremarkable. 

 

“The common leaf,” she began, “tells in its shape and vein an old story, a story so old no one knows who first said the words. Note the shape,” she said, “the paths the leaf takes away from the stem. The stem is origin. It represents the span of time when all living energies arose from a single source, a nameless power which has never revealed itself, but which flows through time, through the stem, and into everything the leaf becomes.”
Now Bry'e traced the right edge of the leaf with her index finger. “This edge which breaks away from the stem on its own path, is Nature, Mirico. This edge,” she said, tracing the opposite, “is Iridia, Man. The stem down the middle,” she said, her gray eyes twinkling, “is me.

The veins, bridges between one world and another, are my arms. With one hand I reach into Nature, and with the other I reach out to Man. Right now, the world is here,” she said, pointing to the section of the leaf where the edges were furthest apart. “Man has gone far from the source – in fact, he is farther away from Nature than he has ever been before. So here at the widest span of the leaf, the bridges between are longer and harder to cross. Here again, the leaf tells a story, but not about the past... It is the story of the future.”

Lonna sat closer, intrigued, and in some way it seemed the explanation Bry'e had given had made some barriers fall away within her.

“Just as all living things have a common origin, we also have a common destiny. So here,” she said, holding the leaf up for Lonna to see, “at the tip, is where once again Nature, you and I come back together. But to do this we must make the distance between Man and Nature smaller and smaller, until once again we are all the same. It is my responsibility to reach out to Man, and to bring him back to the source from which He comes.”

“But why had I never heard of you before?” Lonna asked, in a hushed whisper.

“Many human tribes throughout your deep time made pictures in stone or painted creatures with the bodies of man and the faces of animals. The Ambassadors have always existed, as guides and friends, as ways back to the old world. But some people have chosen not to see us – some have turned away from us because we were seen as heathen gods, or as dangerous creatures.”
“Your tribe didn't seem like it was out to help people,” Lonna said darkly.

Bry'e sighed. “This is why I left. Some of the Ambassadors, Amnamar and others, gave up on human beings, and became lost in themselves – we were given great power, possessing many natural gifts of awareness, and being able to speak with nature itself – we are above many of the creatures, having the intellect, language and structure of higher beings.”

“Not to mention an opposable thumb,” Lonna said dryly.

“Yes,” Bry'e chuckled. Her voice trailed back to sadness again. “Some Ambassadors turned against humans and sought them out to eliminate them, or to cast them out of their lands. Amnamar was one of these, and it was this way which turned me from my kind long ago. There is something in me, something which responds to the voices of Earth, which are always speaking. The further I go away from the Amnamarandhi, the louder the voices of earth become. In a way, my clan made me become much like man – I was so far away from what I am that I lost my source, and now I am crossing a long bridge to go back to it.”

Lonna processed what Bry'e had said for a moment. "If you were limited to the tribe you came from, how do you know all this about 'the leaf' and the past and the future, 'Ambassadors' and - all that?"

Bry'e absorbed the question, reading in Lonna's slight sarcasm that she believed little of what Bry'e had explained. The Amnamaran chose her words carefully. "For most of my life I went away into the deep jungles around my home; no one else in the tribe did such thing alone. It was there that I first met the Dharak, an old ascetic of the wilds. A true Ambassador, having learned both the ways of Earth and Man, and protecting and educating both. He taught me the language we are speaking now, and told me many things important to an Ambassador. He spent many beads in Iridia, and in the palms of his mind he held much knowledge about the lands of your people. His hand's grasp on Earth Speaking was of equal if not greater, power."
"Was he - from your tribe?"

"No - he and his forefeathers are similar, but they remained so close to the purposes and energies of earth that it is believed they are part bird and part tree. Going back further than any of the elders can remember, our tribe has looked to his small clan for shamanic guidance - he received visions and what is the word...?" She tapped her beak intently, squinting.

"Dreams?" Lonna offered. 

"Hm, no -" Bry'e concentrated. "Revolutions?"

"Revalations," Lonna corrected.

"That is the word. The revelations that came to him and his people served Amnamar in many ways, and allowed us to remain protected - though this, again, was part of what turned my hearts against my own people. It was our duty to reach out and to risk much. But instead we turned inward, and our only concern became ourselves. It is now my thinking that for many beads the Dharak knew what I was, but he would not make me see it. I believe he only hoped I would find it, and that once I did, I would be brave enough to grasp what I am with both hands,” she said, now making a bridge in the air with her outstreched arms as though she held both edges of the little ovate leaf.

“So is that why you helped me -” Lonna sniped in a whisper, “- because you had to?”
Bry'e blinked, her shoulders caving in a little. She seemed to fade in spirit at the question for the briefest of seconds, and then Lonna saw a resurgence of light kindle in her.

“No.” Bry'e answered in a gentle voice. “I helped you because I wanted to.”

* * *

“When we were about to jump, you...” Lonna faltered. “You called me something.”

Bry'e nodded. “Tsukenna.”
“Tsu,” it means 'good', doesn't it?” Lonna asked, grimacing a little. She was uncomfortable with the words that seemed to just rise up in her, foreign but familiar at the same time.
Bry'e nodded. “But in this case it is something more. 'Kenna' is grass. Putting the 'Tsu' before it, it becomes 'happy', or 'laughing'.”
“You called me 'Laughing Grass' when we were about to jump 300 feet out of a flying tree?”

Bry'e chuckled softly, rubbing a soothing paste onto the insect bites covering Lonna's ankles.

“I have visions... While I sleep,” Bry'e admitted hesitantly, keeping her eyes down on her work. She massaged Lonna's calves and feet gently. “Sometimes I think I see things that will happen. Sometimes I see things I fear, and other times I see things that already have been.” Bry'e kept her eyes low. “The night my tribe captured you my visions saw you,” she went on, “standing in a field of waving grasses, under a sky like this one -” Bry'e said, gesturing to the gathering twilight above them. “A boy and girl ran to you, and all together you danced. You may have cried rather than laughing, but the grass knew your tears to be joy, and it laughed.”

Now Bry'e looked up at Lonna, and huge tears ran fresh down the woman's cheeks.

“Did I see something true?”
Lonna nodded, her chin quivering.

“When we were in the tree,” Bry'e explained, “I took from my thoughts the place where I had seen you happiest, and tried to give it back to you.”

Lonna sobbed softly, but smiled through it. “I think you're the strangest friend I've ever had,” Lonna admitted, and Bry'e took Lonna's hand.

“Better?” Bry'e asked, having evenly spread the tincture of mossy paste on Lonna's legs.

“Well I look like the Incredible Hulk and I smell like a sewer,” she sighed, and shrugged. “But I'm not itchy.”

Bry'e turned, and for a moment they both stared out into the eveing light. “Do you have children, Bry'e?”
The bird woman went down on her haunches, elbows on her knees. When she didn't answer, and instead looked at the ground between her feet, Lonna sensed she had struck a nerve. “I'm sorry,” she offered. “I shouldn't have asked -”

Bry'e sighed, “Shesht,” she said calmly, as if to say it was nothing. “The ways of my tribe said that I must... accomplish some things before I bore the tomorrow of the clan. One of those things, for example, was to take your life. My tribe expected me to do this.”

Lonna fingered the ends of her hair, where Bry'e's ritual blade had cut through it. For an instant the wild, tribal fury of the Amnamaran clan flashed back through her memory, and she shuddered.

“Why did you not kill me?” Lonna asked, in a whisper.

Bry'e looked out into the far distance, exhaled, and simply said, “To kill another is to die yourself.”