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Commission: Twelve Stars 1
🕑 Added 2024-11-03 20:22:51 +0000 UTCOktai closed his human eyes, looking out over the world with the eyes of his beast self alone. The colors were sharp and searing, flakes of snow and specks of dust were thrown in sharp relief, and even the waving descent of the sun's and star's light was visible, a hazy skein over the iron grey sky.
“None will begrudge you for not taking this trial, my son.”
“I would begrudge myself, father,” he said. Claws dug into the stone, his beast-self’s wings rustled, feathers fluffing as his human hands tugged at the reign. He clapped a fist to his chest.
He beheld his father—a man reduced, his bow arm a wrapped stump, charred with the clinging devil flames of the lowlanders. His spirit crippled and scorched under his skin, the eyes of his own beast self empty sockets and scar tissue over a cracked beak, boiled away in battle. Vibrant crimson wings bleached to ashen grey.
But in the etching and paint of his mask, in the patterns woven into his sleeves were many victories. Even his last. How could surviving a meeting with the Devourer of Songs be anything but a victory, he had fought, and they had escaped.
So it was said. He did not know that the shadow that had returned could be called the same man. “The Great Khan needs us all to give our best, if we are to resist the lowlanders march. Will you tell me who else of our tribe is better suited, Father?’
He almost flinched when the towering buzzard’s claws scraped over the lichen-covered rock and his father's remaining hand came down on his head. It was shaky, and so much smaller than it had been. Oktai knew it was the illusion of a child’s eyes, but still…
“There are none other, and yet I stand by my words.”
“..I can hear the starsong, Father.”
He clutched his mask to his chest, the still smooth bone only barely cut or inked. A fingernail’s width sliver of the holy stone thrummed, cut to sit high upon his brow while he wore it.
“You can. What of it? My son, our blood is the open sky. Never reduce yourself to saying ‘I must’. Only when a man can say ‘I choose’ can he call himself a man, and not a slave. Can you say this?”
Oktai fidgetted, he wanted to bark a yes, but… no, he understood the lesson. Many treated it a strange bit of strawsplitting, but Father had always insisted that it was the core of the lessons of Father Sky. he searched his heart, and forged his resolve. And only when he could look at Father without flinching or fidgeting did he answer.
“It is my choice to seek the starsong, Father.”
“Then this old man will not beg you to stay at the hearth. You are a boy no longer,” he wished Father did not sound so sad when he said those words. Even if his brothers were…
“I will return a warrior you will take pride in.”
“You will. Take flight with pride.”
A rough arm pulled his man-self into an embrace, a cracked beak nuzzled against that of his beast self. His hand shook, gripping the horn of his saddle so tightly the leather creaked.
He had no more words, it would be unmanful to ask for more reassurances. He parted from his father, gave the old man a nod, and wheeled around, claws clattering on the stone as he spread his wings and flew from the cliffs that had been their home this past half year.
The hidden sanctuary, the resting place of the Fallen Star, now filled with countless ger and yurts and tents. Six months he had been there, longer than he had ever rested in one camp in his entire life.
Though he was anxious to leave his Father, and his family behind… Okatai could not say he had not been feeling the deep itch in his bones, the discomfort of being rooted down. He knew the reasons for it. The Great Khan Galidan was wise The lowlanders were too many, too strong now. He needed to bond fully with the Starchild.
…And more young souls needed to do the same with the others.
Father faded to a speck behind him, and the hot wind tore at his hair and feathers alike as he flew north. The high crater walls wavered in his senses, becoming yet more unremarkable peaks and valleys.
Once, the people of the Clouds had been the men of three souls. With the fading of the stars, they were two. Now they were to be three again. But only a small few could still hear the stars sing and not go mad. Most were shamans able only to see and listen. Fewer, fewer still had shown the potential to be complete again.
He only hoped he would be more than a potential.
And so he turned his wings toward the blackened concave mountains of the north and east, which had born the brunt of a falling sun, overlooking the black sand of the deathlands. It was a cruel and empty land where only the most desperate tribes eked out a living.
But it was where the whispering song of the shard of starlight on his brow called.
Pale Night. Liberation Night
Burning Bright
Forever young, forever old
Standing tall, bathed in gold.
Brother. Brother, where art thou?
Scoured away, scoured away?
Battered, slain by dying sun laid low?
O Brother…
Pale Night, Liberation Night.
Burning Bright.
Return to me, to Ruin’s Light
His head ached, and he tasted copper on his tongue when he pressed his thoughts to the shard affixed to his mask. His ears could hear, but he could understand but little.
But he would not fail to find the Liberation Star.
***
Oktai flew for three days and two nights, watching the reddened sullen sunlight reflected from the black sands in the north play off the warped mountainsides. It was awe-inspiring, and terrifying in its own way, the reminder of how great earthly powers could be. The mountains here were curved, as if some titan potter molded them all, pressed a great divot into their centers to make each peak a curling claw pointed at the desert.
And it was monstrously hot. By the end of the first day, he had shed his cloak and mantle. By the end of the second, he had stripped himself to the waist. His lungs burned, his mouth burned. The water he had brought in his saddlebags growing less frightening fast. The air here wicked away the spiritual strength that he would normally use to sustain his flesh on a long journey.
And so, reluctantly he had been forced to push the starsong away and look to more mundane needs. He was not so ill-prepared as to be out of water yet, but he would not drive himself to the edge before solving the problem. His search called for wisdom, not childishly winging right into the teeth of the storm.
Although this land was a strange kind of barren, different from the stark cold and misty vales of the deeper Mother Mountains, some parts of the fieldcraft he had learned as a bot held true. Look for the green, and there would be water not too far away.
His first attempts found little bubbling basins, with only a bare mouthful of water left behind from rains. The plants here were hardy to survive on so little, but eventually, he found a more promising stretch of green, a falling curtain of twisted and brittle vines trailing from the mouth of a cave, which nonetheless flowered brightly.
He was wary of course, circling, but could swiftly discern that the plant's poisonous pollen would not affect his constitution. Indeed going by the bulb-like growths which smelled faintly of rotting meat they were meant for beasts far smaller than he.
He landed on the vine-covered ledge and swung down from his beast self. He took a moment to brush his dull orange plumage, brushing it down for the grit and the dust he could feel irritating his beast self’s skin while his long-necked head rose, twisting to and fro, keeping an eye out for danger while his man self worked.
He clicked his tongue in satisfaction, in time with the clack of his beak as he finished. Already, he could hear the bubbling the spring inside, and the slightly cooler air. He would have to check but this at least seemed a renewable source. He would make this his camp and immerse himself in the song anew tomorrow.
But as he stepped away from his beast self, avian ears caught a sound. His head rose, neck twisting, catching on the sound of crumbling rock.
“...Well not deaf nor blind after all, are we?”
Comments
Calle
Twelve stars FTW! Down with the empire!
Meredith
tyftc!
Meredith
“he had learned as a bot” … was bot supposed to be boy?
