Private Tales Thither and Yon

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Light glistened off the waves, the golden light of afternoon twinkling on the unfathomable expanse of brown water.

The woman stared across the gulf of water as one might look across a vast crevasse in the mountains. It was as effective a barrier to her progress as a wall or an ocean would have been. She had never seen an ocean, either, until coming to Alliria, but even that city was behind her now. Far behind her, as was her home and everything she had known before. Never had she thought she would come this far into the land of the traitors and betrayers of eld, so far that even the scent of the Sea of Grass had long faded and been replaced by other alien things.

And still she could not escape. Still, the cold and reptilian creature coiled in her head, round her soul. Still it radiated disinterested amusement at...well, at everything. The undead beast had spoken of a past that had not been - could not be!! - but it had not begun its residence in her head then. Oh, no, that had come before, while she was imprisoned.

Aeyliea Tiel'an - that is not my name - of the Kel'tin No'rei. And once an adherent of Ty'rath. Once, but no more.

"Those bonds thou hath built are as naught, child. Thy kinship is with me, now." Terrible, implaccable, remorseless. Words that ran contrary to...to...

"<Enough,>" she muttered raggedly in her own native tongue, and turned away from the waters. There was no way across here, where the water was a quarter of a mile across at best. A native of the Sea of Grass, where the ground greedily took in any rain and the rivers, such as they were, only ran seasonally and briefly, she had no ability to swim. This body of water for which she did not even have a name forced her to turn back. In the near distance, the range of the Spine marched north to south, jagged peaks streaked with clouds and snow and ice.

A wall on one side, and an impassable obstacle on the other. There was nothing to do but try and pick a way across, perhaps move further north. She did not know how one would flee a demon that had already curled its claws around her soul, but there was no rationale in the face of superstitious fear. Or in the dissolution of everything she thought she knew of the world. The singular desire to run, farther and farther from home, was all that remained...and this water would not stop her from escaping.

The woman definitely looked as though she had seen better days. The twisted, crippled limb that was her left arm still pained her a great deal, but at least it had become bearable over the preceeding months. Her clothes were travel stained and spattered with mud - mud, much of it drying, clung to her thighs almost all the way to her crotch and coated her arms in a dried crust of clay that she had ceased to try cleaning off after the last several attempt to find a way through bogs and sloughs and oxbows. Her pants were tattered to the point that they barely qualified as keeping her decent, and all that remained to cover her top was a winding of half-rotten cotton and leather scavenged from an abandoned wagon some weeks before.

Which left the small tattoo at the middle of her back exposed, the scales along her spine and shoulder blades and the back of her neck and arms all gleaming dull blue-grey. What flesh wasn't caked in mud was instead welted by the bites of the ludicrous number of insects that lived in this humid-as-hell swamp (another thing she had no words to describe).

In short, she was walking case-study of human misery, even though she was very definitely not human. All she carried with her were a couple of short stabbing spears and one longer one for throwing and one battered and splintered buckler wrapped in rotting leather. Even as frazzled as she was, even as superstitiously terrified as she had been, she still moved with the remnants of the hunters grace that had come so effortlessly in a different land than this.

A stranger in a strange land, she moved forward. Forward, and away from that which she feared.
 
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In the Northwestern corner of the Delta, a skiff was carried along one of the many waterways that branched out from the River Iuk. Within it, along with a few sacks and some carapace armor in the floor of the vessel, sat a somewhat diminutive young man dressed in a brown cloak and wading boots. The hood of the cloak was pulled over his long, silver hair, golden eyes peering out from the shade.

The Swamp Rat was on his way to one of his dryer shelters, having stopped by the late Mikael's home to harvest some of the black cap that had infested his hut. Assuming the current, sun drenched weather held, he would have little trouble dehydrating them and putting their deadly spores to use. Spring was ending soon and the Iuk was beginning to swell with the thawing of the Spine, leading most scavengers to pack their bags and leave the region for their own homelands. Likewise, the number of visitors to the region, such as relic hunters and archeologists, slows to a trickle. As the only scavenger living in the Delta year round, the Rat usually took this time to consolidate his shelters and supplies, scout favorable travel routes and rest spots, and keeping track of any developments in the region such as animal populations and changes in the environment.

Naturally, the last thing he expected was to find a traveler out in the wilderness, even in the northern border lands. And yet, to his surprise and nigh bewilderment, a woman that could almost be mistaken for a relative of his was staring angrily at the water, as though it had slighted her somehow. As the outsider turned their attention towards the Spine, the scavenger grasped the oar of his skiff and gently brought small boat to a stop behind her.

"You can stare at them all you want," he spoke just loud enough reach her. "Them mountains ain't gonna uproot and carry you 'cross the water."

Aeyliea
 
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She froze.

Even out of place as she was, certain instincts were strong. Among them was a keen awareness of her surroundings. The sounds and sights might be very different from the gentle soughing of the wind through the chest-high grass, and the horizon might be much more claustrophobic compared to the endless skies of the Sea, but human voices always stood out. The splash of oars on water were alien to her, of course.

The entire world of water was alien to her.

She spun round to face the voice and found the odd shape on the water with a man - a boy - settled in it. Impossibly, they sat upon the surface of the water much like the big vessels in Alliria had. For all that she had slipped through that city in the dead of night, overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. Too many, daunting in their multitude...and each one a descendant of traitors and betrayers.

...the world in thy head, a lie...

Without realizing it, she had dropped into a crouch with the longer of her spears in hand and ready. She registered the boys' words but could not understand some of them; the dialect he spoke was strange to her ears, and some of the words unfamiliar. Unsurprising given her weak familiarity with the common tongue.

So she stared at him with eyes a similar color to the distant mountains, pale blue-grey and cold as the peaks themselves. Working through the words one syllable at a time, trying to make sense of them. "Mountains," she parroted before pressing her lips into a thin line. "Not know." What she wanted to know more than anything was how he had snuck up on her. Also, not quite as trivial, how it was he was on the water and neither wet nor drowning. Her naked distrust was the only barrier between the desire to know and asking.

Also - and probably - a healthy inability to articulate herself in common, and what common she did speak being so thickly accented as to be nearly unintelligible. The upcoming conversation was sure to be delightful. She remained crouched and wary on the bank and far from the water. Wary...but curious.
 
The young man raised an eyebrow at the woman's antics. Tourists were always a strange bunch in his eyes, but this one looked as if she'd seen him floating in the air. Had she not ever seen a boat...or a river? Well, she was armed and the Rat didn't have his sling at the read, so it'd be a problem if she through that spear.

"Uh, yeah..." He pointed to the Spine in the distance. "...Mountains." He then pointed to the water and then the skiff. "River, boat." Was he getting through? The Rat really couldn't tell whether his words were being registered and part of him wondered if he should just take his chances and keep rowing.

"So...What you come down here for anyway?" He asked apprehensively, unsure of whether he was possibly breaking a foreign rule or something. "You don't seem like you take to it, if I'm to be honest."

As a precaution, he casually untied the sling around his neck, trying not to draw attention to it. Hopefully she wouldn't recognize it.

Aeyliea
 
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Her lips made a thin line at his questioning, as she parsed through his words as carefully as she could. And watched him like a hawk, watched his hands go to the weapon tied round his neck. Her eyes narrowed further, and she became far, far more alert.

She might not know a boat or a river, might only have knowledge in passing that people could use such contrivances to cross vast waters...but she knew weapons in their myriad forms. Her people had been at war for thousands of years. With the outside world, with each other, with the very land itself. The weapons she carried were not for show, and the stains on the hafts were not decorations.

"No where to go," she offered in a low voice. There was no way in all of the seven hells that she would admit that she was running from something. No way she would admit to cowardice, even when the enemy she fled was beyond her ability to defeat.

How can I defeat a voice in my head? How can I kill something that is already dead? She couldn't, and that was that. Even thinking of it so raised the specter of amusement in the back of her head, and a tremor of superstitious dread crept up her spine.

"Big...place, full of people. Not for Seven-blessed," she added as though that would explain anything at all. Technically not true in any case; with a demon in her skull, she did not know whether the Seven would have her any longer, Seer or no. "So...go dawn-wise." For days, for weeks. But no matter how far she travelled, her unwelcome guest crouched in her mind. Her grip tightened on the spear in her hand as her slate blue-grey eyes followed his hands. "Fight, you want?" A change came over her, a readiness than the previous wariness had only hinted at. She was exhausted, malnourished, and filthy...but there wasn't a No'rei alive that would not fight to the death before being captured by another, or attacked by another.

The only sticking point here was that he could strike her, and she could strike him ... once. And then, the gulf of water between them would prove the most effective barrier of all. A stab of frustration that she could no longer draw a bow - a pulse of pain from the twisted thing that was her left arm, mocking her.

The amusement in the back of her head turned to exasperation, a sense of long suffering annoyance drifting across the connection between her and...
 
The Rat let out a sigh and re-tied the sling.

"Alright, alright, calm down..." He said as he sat back in the skiff, resting his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee. What exactly was he meant to make of this? He could just leave her here, but it's not like he can stop her from following along the river. It would be a problem to have some half-baked vagrant wandering into one of his shelters. But what could he do with her?

"Okay...you got any money? Anything to trade?" It occurred to him she might not even know what he was referring to. "You know, money? Coin, like metal discs?"

He could certainly be persuaded to ferry her across, but giving favors to a stranger would be poor practice. "Look, if you got somethin' good you can give me, I can get you 'cross the water" The Rat scratched his head, wondering how else to get the idea across. "Uh...how do they do trade where you come from?"

Aeyliea
 
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She visibly relaxed as he sat back down and stopped reaching for his weapon. She did not release her own, though; the boy was descendant of traitors whether he knew it or not. That was what she had been taught all her life after all - the world was full of traitors that had turned on the Seven. Their offer of peace had been sneered at, and a knife had done for the Mother.

Or so she had believed. Amusement along that link between her and it.

Faith shaken, her world had crumbled. Now she was not sure of anything.

Of course, that did not undo a lifetime of teachings and belief. "Yellow metal and silver all that outsider crave," she said with a sneer on her face. "The People not use." She looked at him with hard eyes. She searched for a word in the common tongue to describe their methods, and shook her head. "Barter. Among clan and tribe, no need. Only need for outsider." Beads and bones clicked in her hair, feathers fluttering in the wind.

She bared her teeth in what might pass as a grin. "Home, very far," she said. And then the grin melted away. Very far. And even then, she could still see those eyes.
 
At this point, the Rat was more frustrated than worried, placing his face in his hands and sighing. Why exactly was he still here? Did he pity this women? But that was never his style. Still, it certainly didn't seem as though he stood to benefit from the exchange. In any event, the young man had no idea how to move this conversation forward.

"Fuck it." He grunted, taking the oar and paddling the skiff to shore. "Alright, get in already. I'm gonna lose my bloody mind trying to talk this out." If nothing else, ferrying her across would mean he'd no longer have to continue this fruitless effort. Of course, it then dawned on him that she would likely just bump into the same thing on the next land mass, given the nature of the Delta's crisscrossing waterways. Another sigh escaped the newly minted ferryman and he braced himself for another headache.

"Where are you headed, exactly?"

Aeyliea
 
Another debt to owe. It seemed, more and more, that she was to be saddled with debts from every person she ran across out in the wider world. Perhaps that was the basis of money in the first place, to avoid having to owe everyone you met some debt of honor or other things.

She watched warily as the boy brought his craft in closer to shore, nosing the vessel into the reeds and mud. She looked at it as though it were a viper that would strike if she came too close, and looked at the wide expanse of water with scarcely less distrust. She took a step forward, eyeing him as warily as the craft.

And slipped on the bank, sliding down to the water's edge after landing hard on her side. Her bad side. The muffled curse was half surprise and half pain and it was followed by a grunt of distaste as she slowly got to her feet, sunk into the foul-smelling mud to her knees. She took a moment to recover from the pain - that twisted, scarred left arm of hers still hurt abominably even all of these months after the injury that caused it.

She grunted as she pulled herself over the side of the skiff, fighting against the suction of the mud. As to his question, though...

"Not know. Not know where am," She paused for a long moment, shuffling back to the furthest point in the unsteady little boat from Dmitry, and shook her head so that the beads and bones clicked. "Away," she added with hooded eyes. Away from the demon in her head that even now amused itself by looking through her eyes.

She wanted to scream. Instead, she kept her face carefully neutral.
 
The young man had to stifle a laugh as the poor woman fell; he was actually starting to feel bad for her.

"Well, that's helpful..." He muttered to himself. "Alright, away it is." The boatman pushed off and into the deeper waters again, resolving to deal with the strange woman later. "Folk call me Swamp Rat by the way." The rat said as he rowed westward. "And the wonderous land you find yourself is called the Iuk-'u Delta."

About half an hour later, they came upon an island just large enough to support a house. In fact, upon closer inspection, the stone ruins of a root cellar could be seen at it's center, nestled by a few trees. A thatch roof sat atop it with mud filling the gaps between it and the stones. Naturally, there no windows, but a makeshift entrance was left using one of the larger gaps. About eight paces from the hut was circle of reclaimed stone with a bed of ash and a few pieces of charred wood in the middle.

"I'm guessing you know how to make a fire." Swamp Rat said as he hopped out of the skiff, dragging it along side the hut and unloading its cargo. "If you build one in that pit, there's a meal in it for you. Woods inside, kindling too."

Aeyliea
 
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She could see the amusement on his face as she crawled into the craft, but any resentment she might have held towards the youth was quickly swallowed by a rather unfamiliar feeling.

Fear.

The vessel swayed with the waves, and the water... there was simply so much of it. Even during the rains, the wadis and washes only held a fraction of the water on display here. So much water, all in one place and moving so sluggishly that it looked about how it tasted - muddy, turgid and wholly unsuitable for anything. Despite her loathing to show such fear, she found herself crowding the center of the boat, trying to keep away from the wide expanse of glittering water. Couldn't even fathom the depth of it below her, and knew all too well that she hadn't the faintest idea how to swim.

Not precisely a required skill in the deserts and grasslands.

"Delta," she muttered in thickly accented common. She kept her eyes on the bottom of the vessel, away from all the water. "Aeyliea," she added. And then after that remained silent and queasy. To her credit, she did not throw up with the gentle rocking of the vessel, but it took quite a bit to make a No'rei sick. Drinking river water wouldn't do it, eating rotting flesh wouldn't do it, and this gods damned boat wouldn't either.

Probably, anyway.

It was with a sob of relief that she practically scrambled off the skiff on to the island. A short lived relief, as she realized that she was entirely surrounded by water. Trapped, no way to leave without the blessing of this stranger. She turned and looked at the slow flowing water and scowled. Trapped, and to escape she would have to climb into the 'boat' again and go back out there.

She said nothing as she parsed through his quick common tongue. It was clear she was deciphering the language, and just when he might have decided it was time to repeat his earlier instructions, she went to the aforementioned wood and took a small bundle of it out. She did not bother with the kindling, instead arranging the whole mess into a loose tower. And then hunkering down on her haunches and staring at it.

For several minutes. There was no strain on her features, only a look of concentration. Inside, though...

...casting back across the miles to a place where the beast lay. One reptilian eye half open and looking at her with meager interest. And then...

Smoke curled from the wood, a thin, feeble stringer of it...and then burst into flames as magic flooded the Seer, as she sent that alien power into the pile before her, set it to work. Even as the flames took hold, though, she continued to stare into the middle distance. As if she were looking beyond the world and by the expression on her face as the seconds ticked by, not liking what she saw.
 
The Rat walked out of the hut with a cauldron full of water in time to see the visitor staring at nothing, pausing a moment before continuing on to the fire. The pot fit almost perfectly on the stone ring, allowing the flames room to breath. He went on to bring out a clay pot full of wild rice, another set of rocks that he piled next to the fire, a tea kettle, various jars and sacks, a wooden board, and finally, a mortar and pestle which he handed to Aeyliea. "Mind workin' on that?" The host said to his guest. "Zephyr leaf, kindle-root, misty-fern seed, and pinberry. Helps the stew and I got other things to work on."

Whether she accepted or not, he built another, smaller fire surrounded by the stones he brought and placed the tea kettle on top. As the cauldron began to simmer, the Rat waded out into the river, his knee high boots keeping his feet dry while he moved as though walking on land. Arriving at a seemingly nondescript stalk, he reached down and pulled it up at the root and giving it a slight rinse in the murky water before heading back.

When the cauldron came to a full boil, he used a ladle to scoop some of the water into the rice pot, covering and placing it next to the fire. He also used the water to properly clean the plant he uprooted, planting it in the cauldron along with a couple strips of salted river drake. As the kettle came to a boil, he removed it from the flame and dropped a few leaves inside.

"Gonna be a while yet." He said in a modest voice, handing her a water skin. "You're probably thirsty, yeah?"

Aeyliea
 
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She started at his words, blinking and trying like absolute hell to hide the fact that she had even been startled to begin with. Next thing she knew, she would be jumping at fae lights and glow-flies like a girl barely off her mothers' apron.

She grunted at his request, wondering at the mundane domestic tasks she found herself doing and how exactly they fit into the world she had built round herself. Without a further word, she took the mortar and set to work. For a moment she ground out the ingredients, but quickly she trailed off into that inner world.

Darkness and empty eye sockets. A thready breath that was neither here nor there. The weight of time, pressing in all round her. Suffocating, stifling and terrifying beyond words.

"...everything is a lie..."

And started again as the boy spoke, this time letting loose a growled oath. She went back to working the pestle, her suddenly too-pale skin cold and clammy. She shook her head at the offered water; she had rank straight from the river at will for the last several days. The idea of potable water did not apply to her, after all.

Her eyes skittered across him and back to the water surrounding them before returning to his youthful face. Sun gleamed off the blue-gray scales on top of her arms, the sides of her neck as she worked listlessly at the task she had been given.

"Far from Sea," she ground out after looking him over with an appraising eye. Not a warrior, but not a soft-skinned denizen of the cities either. Interesting. "Much water here," she said. Not because she wanted to talk to him, but because she did not want to think on the haunting images burned into her mind.

Of a place beneath the earth. Of a place where her world had been killed, staked out under the sun to die slowly.
 
The Rat filled two clay cups from the teapot he'd filled earlier and handed one to his guest, wincing as he attempted to sip at his own. Besides being scalding hot, it had an earthy aroma with a slight scent of fruit to it. Thankfully, this place was shaded and the proximity to the water kept it relatively cool. As he briefly glanced over the scales on her body, the scavenger put some tobacco into a pipe before lighting it with a twig from the fire and smoking.
"Ain't that far." The Swamp Rat replied, a puff of smoke escaping his lips as he spoke. "It all gets dumped in the sea anyhow." He paused a moment, hand on his chin. "You ain't that wrong, bein' wary of these waters." The youth finally muttered. "Most-o-the tourists don't see it, but the water...hides things. Old things, 'specially the water what stays still." He took a puff of his pipe and stared out across the water a moment, the sun beginning to drift toward the tree line. "Down there, way deep down where the light don't reach, it's like time forgets. There's things down in those parts far older than you or me." The Rat fell silent again for some time, smoking a bit more and sipping from his tea. Occasionally, he turned the rice pot so the excess heat of the fire would warm a different portion of it. Eventually, he grabbed a wooden board, drew a short knife, and began slicing wild carrots and onions. They were thrown in the pot along with the herbs Aeyliea had ground, the cook removing the sweet tooth from earlier and discarding it.

"Lots-o-folks come out here to get away from stuff, you know?" He finally said as he sat back down. "Most of the people that ain't livin' in the port got a price on their head or some kind of drama they can't be around. It's rough livin', but there ain't much that can find you out here." The guide had often received job offers from bounty hunters, hoping to use his skills to track delta homesteaders. But ratting people out was bad business in these parts, on account of how much he relied on them as well as how vindictive they could be.

The sun was now nearing the distant trees when the rat finally removed the pot from the fire, his calloused hands barely registering the heat. He then scooped some of the now soft, steaming wild rice into a very slightly cracked bowl, filled the rest of it with stew, and handed it to Aeyliea along with a spoon made from bone. It's aroma was a mix of earthy and spicy notes, with a bit of sweetness and sourness and plenty of salt. The meat was now almost tender enough to mix in with the broth, adding a hint of smoke to each bite.

"That ought to set you right." He said as he filled his own bowl, both pots now sat between them.

Aeyliea
 
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"Alliasai al'M'niago," she said in a low voice, "is not big water. Sea." She stared into the cup of tea without making any move to drink it. Looking at her reflection in the smooth surface, the shadowed and haunted eyes, a face that was quite attractive to the males of the world. But it wasn't the exterior she saw. It was the thing inside her, the hideous beast coiled round her soul.

She did not know if the beast was her, or if the beast was a demon clinging to her.

She huffed a humorless laugh. "Sea," she said again, speaking the word so it was clear it was a proper noun even though her common was stilted and difficult to follow. Not merely a description of some place, but an actual place in its own right. "Sea is many suns away. Two cycle of moon. Not close." She watched as the boy continued his work, slicing and cutting strange things to add to the pot.

Watched, listened, and shook her head in response. "No run, no hide, from what inside," she murmured. No running from truths that she had been shown but could not acknowledge. Not escape from finding that her entire life was a lie, that the history she had believed was a fabrication. She could deny the truth of what had been shown to her...but how could one really dispel the words of a goddess?

Ancient, dead eyes that glowed with an inner light. And the sense and feel of millennia weighing that ancient presence down.

She accepted the food she was offered, but when she took a spoonful of it, it tasted of ashes. Tea untouched, she stared at the food with the same melancholic, distant expression. And, after a moment, she continued to eat the food offered her mechanically, with no enjoyment to be found. Two months, it would appear, were still not enough to drag her from the ashen wasteland of her soul, to pull her from the strange depression of a shattered life.
 
There was a silence between the two as they ate, the Rat occasionally stopping to smoke or drink tea. He was certainly out of his depth again. That seemed to be happening more often lately and he wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Well, if you ain't here to hide and you ain't lookin' for nothin', I'd say you'd be best off headin' back north." He finally said, finishing off his meal as the sun began to disappear behind the trees. "You won't find anythin' different from what you've seen so far, cept maybe it be wetter. Once you hit the coast, that's it. Nothin' but sea." He emptied his pipe into the now dwindling fire before lighting a bundle of hog's tail and leaving it on one of the stones, the embers producing a foul smelling odor.

"You're free to stay hear for the night if you like'. He said as he walked back to the river with the various pots and dishes, rinsing the bulk of the mess off before finishing the job with small amount of clean water. "There ain't a whole lot of room, but if it rains, you'll stay dry." After wading back, the Rat gave the dishes and pots a quick wipe of a rag and piled them in the corner of the hut. He could dry them in the sun the next day. By the time he'd finished his various chores, the Iuk-'u night was beginning to set in.

"Shouldn't be long now..." He muttered to himself. The Rat now sat just outside his hut, his pipe refilled and lit. A clay jug of wine sat next to him as he ate some potted fruit. Soon, as he occasionally sipped from the jug, the sounds of the wild night died down, as if anticipation. When all seemed silent, a tiny mote of bluish, white light emerged from the waters before floating into the sky. Others joined, slowly at first, of varying hues. One rose out of the ground just before The Rat as he drank. Soon they multiplied, emerging from the ground in droves, almost drowning out the stars themselves. And then, just as they had arrived, they slowly began to dwindle. In time, the last of them floated away and the sounds of the Delta began to seep back into the night, soon replacing the lights' presence entirely.

"Well, I'm gonna call it a night." The Rat said as he stood, taking his goods back indoors. A pile of hay and some ragged blankets had already been moved to corner opposite where he was heading, a similar bed awaiting him.

Aeyliea
 
He did not understand. None of the traitors outside the Sea understood, or at least none of them had so far. She had been cursed, infested by a demon that had corrupted the gift of the Seven that had been hers by right.

Aeyliea made no move to help with any of the young man's chores, instead choosing to brood over the same thing she had been brooding over for the past two months. The cavern buried beneath the grasslands, and the dead thing that was not quite dead therein. A gross parody of one of the Seven - the Mother, in fact - who had whispered poisonous lies to her.

That her entire way of life was a lie. Nothing too serious.

She nodded when he offered her lodging but did not move. At least, until the wraiths began to move.

The No'rei froze as the colorful things floated from the ground, the water, the swamp. Heading heavenward in the way she had always believed the souls of the People had done - flying high to the stars, becoming the twinkling lights high overhead while they awaited their rebirth.

But none of her people had been here before. Gooseflesh raising all over her, she made a sign to ward off evil as the wraiths tapered off. She stared after them until they faded to nothing, and then turned to look at the boy again with the taste of fear in her mouth.

"What...," she whispered and then trailed off into silence punctuated by superstitious fear.
 
The Rat simply chuckled at her shock; they always reacted this way.

"Nobody's quite sure what it is." He said, not bothering to hide his amusement. "Happens every night. And the whole delta stays quiet for it, even the bugs." The scavenger sat down at his corner of the hut. "This land...there's more to it than meets the eye. Some say there's a deep history of spirits and souls here. Even used to be a great tree, long ago. You can still dig up pieces of it that resonate with old magics."

He finally settled down onto the bedding and laid back. "But that's enough lessons from me. We can sort out where you wanna go tomorrow."

Aeyliea