Guardian of the Grave
Title: Guardian of the Grave
Author: liregran
Artist: dragon_gypsy
Mixer: dragon_gypsy
Type: Gen
Word Count: 16,122
Rating: PG to PG-13 (maybe)
Warnings: Violence at the end as well as a death. There is also mention of a character's previous death.
Summary:
Rand, a trained knight and former member of a Warrior Company, is accompanying Tala, a girl whose spirit is now embodied in a white wolf after the Spirits of her people returned her from the dead, on her journey back home. Along their way, they encounter a band of colorful and nomadic people known in Rand's homeland as the Vagar. The Vagar are having a wedding to bring good luck to them after they discovered cracked gravestones in their local burial ground - a sure sign that a Draemort, a very evil presence, has moved in and is disturbing the sleep of their dead.
It is up to Rand and Tala to find a way to rid the Vagar of their Draemort.
Notes: The story is still in the process of being beta'ed. It will likely undergo further edits and posts will be updated as needed.
Link to story master post: Part I || Part II || Part III
Link to art master post: Cards
Link to mix post: Beyond my Memories
( Edited: Because I'm an idiot and forgot to add the art and mix links. :( )
Cool night winds ruffled the ends of her fur, petting and playing with her pelt like an old friend...or a young child. The white she-wolf grinned despite herself and chuckled at the thought. The sensation still seemed strange to her, even after all the many long months since she’d waked clad in the body of a wolf in lands far distant from her own. Just how far distant, she had only begun to realize.
The Spirits must have a horrible sense of direction. Worse even than Tayen’s sometimes, and I wasn’t even certain that that was possible.
She sighed and shook her head, rising enough to stretch before settling into her sitting position again on the hilltop. A not so great distance behind her, Rand’s horses stamped and pawed the earth, whuffing nervously from their place at the edge of camp, still uncertain about this strange wolf that their master travelled with. Indeed, she and Rand had met before he purchased the horses and agreed to go with her on her journey, not that the horses themselves cared for such details.
A slight rustle in the night caused her ears to prick and swivel, trying to find and follow the source of the sound. Her muzzle lifted as she tried to identify the scents borne upon the winds that still played around her, trying to sift out the stronger scents of smoke - both from their own campfire and from one distant. But the scents from that fire had been growing stronger throughout the day as they travelled. She smiled again, tongue lolling slightly, as she found the scent that she had been looking for. She gave a violent shake of her body as she stood, trying to both dislodge the memories that had gathered around her and discourage the invisible fingers of the wind...
In the end, she had precious little success with either.
Lupine lips curled upwards in a silent snarl, both at the wind and herself, as she began walking towards the place where the disturbance from a moment before had stopped. Reaching her destination, she sat down next to the still, silent and dark shape of the man that both travelled with her and that she travelled with - the pale plume of her tail curling demurely over the toes of her front paws.
“I’d offer you an Alampa for your thoughts, but I fear that when the Spirits returned me to the world of the living, They didn’t think to return any money with me as well.” She paused, feeling the human frown beginning to take hold on her face, despite the wolfish features, and let out a snort of displeasure. “Let alone a form that could actually carry money.”
“An Alampa?”
She felt more than saw him turn to her, and fighting back a grin, glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She focused her attention back on the distance, trying not to smile broadly at the confusion that showed clearly upon his face thanks to the twin blessings of a full moon and a cloudless night. Instead, she shrugged at his question and, failing at feigning indifference, chuckled softly, some of her humor restored, as she stared out into the dark distance rather than looking at him again. “Yes, an Alampa. It’s a shell that is used as money where I’m from. I suppose the nearest thing to an Alampa among your people would be the little copper coin you used at that inn in Erorya. At least that’s how it is among my people.”
“Ah.” Rand sighed softly and shifted his position slightly, presumably finding one that was more comfortable as he turned back to face the depths of the night stretching before them. It was some time before he continued, the pause long enough to make her wonder if he was even going to and worry that he wasn’t. “I was just thinking about tomorrow and what we’re likely to find. The only other people that are out here that I know of would be the Vagar, so that smoke probably means that they have a camp nearby and to be honest, I’m not sure what to expect.”
The white she-wolf turned to face him fully and felt her furred face wrinkle in strange ways, wolfish features contorting slightly to accommodate an all too human looking frown - based part on confusion and on the twitch at the corner of his lips, betraying his fight to not smile as he resolutely didn’t look at her. She resisted the urge to snort considering she’d done much the same to him a moment ago. “Vagar? Like that man that warned us in Erorya and told us where to find the pass over the mountains? I thought you knew him, or at least knew his people...”
He apparently lost the fight against the smile seeking his lips as he continued staring out into the distance. “Yes, like the man that helped us in Erorya. And I have known Vagar in more than a few lands east of the Ice Wall Mountains... but those are their travelling camps, ones that are almost as much travelling show as camp. West of the mountains is where their home camps are - and no one that I’ve ever known besides the Vagar themselves have ever seen one of those, and the Vagar that I’ve talked to about it just smile and say that the home camps are ‘different’.”
She felt him look over at her again, heard the creak of his leather belt and scabbard announce his intentions as he twisted to face her more directly. When he didn’t continue right away, she felt her furred brow lower into a frown as she looked over towards him, again... once more confused.
“Shouldn’t it feel more strange to talk to you like this? Shouldn’t it feel more strange to be talking to you at all? You’re a wolf.”
“Well, I used to be human...but then I died. That tends to limit chances for conversations with those among the living to just the Shamans, so I don’t have any other opinions to tell you.”
“See? Not only are you a wolf, you’re also a damn ghost.” She turned enough to watch him, her head tilted to one side in amused curiosity as he frowned sullenly into the night, muttering almost to himself. “Your lips don’t even move.”
Shoulders clad in dense white fur shrugged as she didn’t even bother trying to fight the grin that spread to those same lips. “Of course they don’t move. As you said, I am a wolf. Why would a wolf speak? It is the spirit of the person within that remembers speech, not the body of the wolf without...and spirits do not have to have lips to move in order to be heard.” She only grinned more broadly, the expression eerily human even on the face of a wolf, as he turned to glare at her before turning back to his vigil of staring into the dark. They sat like that in the companionable silence for some time, then...
“What is it like, your home?”
She started at the question, surprised both by the suddenness and the softness in which it was spoken. He didn’t look at her as he asked or after, the only change in his posture being a very slight, thoughtful tilt of his head. She stared at him a moment longer, studying his profile that was sharply etched in the bright light of the full moon. Then she sighed softly, and laid down, resting the chin of her muzzle between her front paws.
“Home... the village where I was born was called Abedadabun. I suppose technically I should still claim that one as a home, although Hevataneo, where I was killed, was far more of one to me and that is the one where my spirit marker rests. The great forest surrounds them both, though, and that is what I really consider ‘home’. The forest is filled with countless tall trees, turning even bright midday to twilight in the depths of its heart. You don’t have to worry about hitting your head on branches there, unlike the forests I encountered in your homelands. The trunks are so tall, the branches arching high overhead, almost seeming to create a second sky beneath their sheltering arms. Some tower even over their neighbors, the great Ancients of the forests. Some have been struck by lightning, their great and massive trunks hollowing over time. Some few of those that have met such a fate are so large, that people have made homes within them.”
She broke off as he snorted, interrupting her. “I find that hard to believe.”
“It is true! Tayen and I slept in one, once, although that one was not so large that I’d want to live there permanently. It made a very nice camp, though.” She lifted her head slightly and tilted her head to the side to grin slyly up at him. “I told you that our trees were older and greater than yours. The forests of your lands are young children as such things count age.”
“You’ll excuse me if I reserve judgment until I see that for myself.”
She chuckled softly, and gave a gentle shake of her head before lowering her muzzle back to between her paws. “Suit yourself, but I promise... the giant Ancients of the forests will not disappoint you.”
“Tayen, she is, or I guess, was your shaman?”
She was silent for a long moment - staring off into the darkness, the unknown miles they had yet to travel, reminding herself that she had been the one to mention the name again and thus had opened herself up to the questions he was sure to ask.
“Yes. Tayen was, and still is, my shaman. I am the one that died defending her and in doing so...” The voice of her spirit drifted into silence, losing the sharp edge that it had held when she started and, while she finished her thought in the safe confines of her own skull, she didn’t speak the shameful words to him. And in doing so, I left her. Another sigh escaped her and she shook her head, before continuing. “But yes, I was the Companion to her Shaman, the Guardian to her Guide. There were four of us born that generation, two Shaman and Companion pairs, and none born for the two generations before that.”
She looked over at him, only to find him staring at her in less than mild confusion. She shook her head, the weight of her own fur pulling at the skin of her neck with the motion as she sought for the words to explain - to explain without betraying too much of her people to this man that was, by very definition, an Outsider to them and one the elders would surely claim she should have been quick to avoid. As if I’d had a choice or would have chosen to avoid him even if I had.
"Shamans and companions are...different. We are marked from birth, a companion for each shaman. We are bound together, our spirits, our souls linked. The reason for that is woven in the very beginning of our world." She drew a deep breath, her gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. "I am not the best to tell this and can only relate what Tayen would tell me in the evenings after studying under Oota Dabun.
“But - in the very beginning - people and spirits existed as pairs...twins, if you will, joined together. The way they were conjoined differs some in various stories, some say they were joined at the front, others at the back, still others at the side. But something happened and the pairs were separated. Ever since, most people are born with a bit of each 'soul', a little of the spiritual, a little of the physical.
“Once every generation or two, there is a child born with a 'spiritual' soul, a throwback to the very beginning when all lived as two-in-one. Around the same time, the other half of their original 'soul,' the 'physical' half of their soul is born into another child. The one with the shaman mark below and behind their left ear is the one with the spiritual soul, the link between the Spiritual and Physical worlds, able to walk the Dream Paths, speak with the dead and the spirits.
“The one born with the companion mark behind and below their right ear is the one with the physical soul, the companion to the shaman. We walk with them throughout their lives, live with them once training is finished, support them, protect and defend them. Two halves of the same coin, each balancing the other. Through the link that binds us, we can tell some of what the other is feeling, where the other one is.
"It is why one rarely outlives the other for more than a year, even if the one that dies first is taken by illness or old age and why, when the death is sudden and violent the other typically dies just as suddenly...we each experience the death of the other."
“May I?”
She chuckled, laughing softly as he reached for her right ear. "Feel free. I can't exactly check myself, but I know it's still there."
“So...did Tayen, your shaman, did she die, too? I thought she was part of the reason you need to get back so badly.”
It was a moment before she answered. When she did her voice was soft at first, but became more sure and clear as she went on. "She lives, or at least walks the lands and woods. It was more than a seven-day before she awoke after the attack even though she was untouched. Her spirit searched for me along the Dream Paths, even venturing to the Spiritual World... torn between finding and following me and her duty that still remained.
“She was the world shaman, you see. When the spirits as well as humans were split in the beginning, the Spirit of Creation and the Spirit of Destruction were separated. It is the world shaman that has to defeat the Spirit of Destruction, or at least fight it to drive it back into the depths of the Spirit World and away from the Physical World. But, that part is another story - I died before she finally faced it and she would not wake... she was torn, but she had to be whole... the Spirits knew it and I knew it...
"So during one of her wanderings in the Spiritual World, I found her and we talked for a bit, then I told her that she might as well live." She shrugged again, a sad smile crossing her lips as she finished.
"Then she woke up."
The mood lingered for a moment but then she snorted, the sound expressing frustration and a hint of anger. "But she didn't really go back to living. Which is why, even though I don't have hands anymore, I WILL find a way of punching her the next time I see her and tell her just how much of an idiot she's been."
They heard them before they saw them. The cheerful sounds of drums, flutes and bells stretched outward into the surrounding countryside, inviting wanderers and travellers alike that happened to be passing by to come and join in the celebration.
She stopped, startled since she’d expected them to go on towards where the Vagar were presumably having a revelry of some sort, and looked back over her shoulder at the sudden halt to the sound of hooves that had been so steady behind her. She resisted the urge to lift an eyebrow, an expression she’d discovered she could still do, even as a wolf, but only with some difficulty, and sat down facing the mounted Rand and his horses instead, her head canted to one side in confusion and question. The mounted man didn’t look at her, his eyes and attention focused beyond her - presumably on something that his present elevated height gave him the advantage of rather than her.
“Rand?”
She whispered the question, focusing it in case there were those nearby that they wouldn’t wish to alert. If we’ve stumbled across more of the Creation Spirit’s creatures... But if that were the case, neither he nor either of the horses gave any sign of it. A quick sniff of the air told her that if any were close, they either had a way of neutralizing their scent or were downwind where their scent wouldn’t carry.
“It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting there to be music.”
Furred shoulders shrugged as she stood once more, giving her body a vigorous shake before turning to continue on while Rand clicked his tongue against his teeth to encourage the horses. “We’ll need to stop a little way away. They’re bound to have mares with them and probably a stud already.”
“And their stud will view your stud as a challenger for his herd. I understand. I may not be that familiar with horses, but I am familiar with other herd animals.” She didn’t break her long loping stride as she spoke, still focusing the voice of her spirit towards him until they better knew the occupants of the camp. “I can scout ahead and find a place for us that should be an easy enough walking distance for us but far enough away to keep the hooved ones at peace. Would you rather be upwind of the Vagar and their horses or down?”
“To be honest, I’d prefer somewhere to the side out of the direct path of the wind in either direction - maybe a hollow if you can find one. Oh, and Tala? Try to stay out of sight. In some of the stories that I’ve heard from the Vagar I’ve met, some of them have strange ideas about white wolves.”
That brought her up short and almost caused her to stumble as she tried to stop too suddenly before turning back towards him.
He seemed to expect her confusion and shook his head before she could speak the question still forming in her mind.
“They didn’t elaborate. One of them had a necklace with a charm on it in the figure of a wolf carved from white stone. When I asked, he just said it was for protection, but I don’t know if it was for protection from wolves or if the wolf was there to protect him. Just because the Vagar from Erorya didn’t have a problem with you and actually seemed to like you doesn’t mean that all Vagar will welcome you.”
Remember your welcome when you arrived in our lands.
She could almost hear the unspoken warning behind his words and shivered slightly despite the warmth of the sun shining warmly down on her as he and the horses drew nearer while she was stopped. Rav, Rand’s young, sleek, black stallion danced sideways slightly - whether because of coming closer to her presence or perhaps sensing the camp that lay ahead, hidden possibly by a rise in the land. I wonder if he can sense Rand’s uncertainty? The wahei that her own people rode could. This creature certainly seemed intelligent enough to pick up on that sort of thing, especially when his owner and rider, the only human any of them had been around for many months, was astride him.
She shook her head and turned back around as Rand corrected the young stud with a frown. She returned to her lope - her head down to keep her profile low and as hidden by the tall grasses as she could manage - wishing that her troubled thoughts would settle as easily as her body did into its movements. Of the last two times she’d approached people since being returned from the Spirit World to the Physical World as a wolf, she’d once been hunted for a full week with hounds and archers and the other she’d been grudgingly welcomed as she had lent her assistance to the defenders of an ambush.
The odds were hardly in her favor of being welcomed this time unless they thought her a strange choice of hunting dog, owned by the man behind her.
A breath sighed from her as she paused a moment, the sun warmed earth beneath her paws beginning to slope gently upwards, to better gauge her distance from the camp. White furred ears twisted and swiveled, searching for sounds of habitation beyond the musical sounds of celebration while her nose lifted to the air, testing scents to see what animals they might have with them that could possibly detect their approaching presence. She turned her head behind her, in the direction that Rand and Rav, along with his pack horse, were following...
Trusting her to find a suitable campsite.
Author: liregran
Artist: dragon_gypsy
Mixer: dragon_gypsy
Type: Gen
Word Count: 16,122
Rating: PG to PG-13 (maybe)
Warnings: Violence at the end as well as a death. There is also mention of a character's previous death.
Summary:
Rand, a trained knight and former member of a Warrior Company, is accompanying Tala, a girl whose spirit is now embodied in a white wolf after the Spirits of her people returned her from the dead, on her journey back home. Along their way, they encounter a band of colorful and nomadic people known in Rand's homeland as the Vagar. The Vagar are having a wedding to bring good luck to them after they discovered cracked gravestones in their local burial ground - a sure sign that a Draemort, a very evil presence, has moved in and is disturbing the sleep of their dead.
It is up to Rand and Tala to find a way to rid the Vagar of their Draemort.
Notes: The story is still in the process of being beta'ed. It will likely undergo further edits and posts will be updated as needed.
Link to story master post: Part I || Part II || Part III
Link to art master post: Cards
Link to mix post: Beyond my Memories
( Edited: Because I'm an idiot and forgot to add the art and mix links. :( )
Cool night winds ruffled the ends of her fur, petting and playing with her pelt like an old friend...or a young child. The white she-wolf grinned despite herself and chuckled at the thought. The sensation still seemed strange to her, even after all the many long months since she’d waked clad in the body of a wolf in lands far distant from her own. Just how far distant, she had only begun to realize.
The Spirits must have a horrible sense of direction. Worse even than Tayen’s sometimes, and I wasn’t even certain that that was possible.
She sighed and shook her head, rising enough to stretch before settling into her sitting position again on the hilltop. A not so great distance behind her, Rand’s horses stamped and pawed the earth, whuffing nervously from their place at the edge of camp, still uncertain about this strange wolf that their master travelled with. Indeed, she and Rand had met before he purchased the horses and agreed to go with her on her journey, not that the horses themselves cared for such details.
A slight rustle in the night caused her ears to prick and swivel, trying to find and follow the source of the sound. Her muzzle lifted as she tried to identify the scents borne upon the winds that still played around her, trying to sift out the stronger scents of smoke - both from their own campfire and from one distant. But the scents from that fire had been growing stronger throughout the day as they travelled. She smiled again, tongue lolling slightly, as she found the scent that she had been looking for. She gave a violent shake of her body as she stood, trying to both dislodge the memories that had gathered around her and discourage the invisible fingers of the wind...
In the end, she had precious little success with either.
Lupine lips curled upwards in a silent snarl, both at the wind and herself, as she began walking towards the place where the disturbance from a moment before had stopped. Reaching her destination, she sat down next to the still, silent and dark shape of the man that both travelled with her and that she travelled with - the pale plume of her tail curling demurely over the toes of her front paws.
“I’d offer you an Alampa for your thoughts, but I fear that when the Spirits returned me to the world of the living, They didn’t think to return any money with me as well.” She paused, feeling the human frown beginning to take hold on her face, despite the wolfish features, and let out a snort of displeasure. “Let alone a form that could actually carry money.”
“An Alampa?”
She felt more than saw him turn to her, and fighting back a grin, glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She focused her attention back on the distance, trying not to smile broadly at the confusion that showed clearly upon his face thanks to the twin blessings of a full moon and a cloudless night. Instead, she shrugged at his question and, failing at feigning indifference, chuckled softly, some of her humor restored, as she stared out into the dark distance rather than looking at him again. “Yes, an Alampa. It’s a shell that is used as money where I’m from. I suppose the nearest thing to an Alampa among your people would be the little copper coin you used at that inn in Erorya. At least that’s how it is among my people.”
“Ah.” Rand sighed softly and shifted his position slightly, presumably finding one that was more comfortable as he turned back to face the depths of the night stretching before them. It was some time before he continued, the pause long enough to make her wonder if he was even going to and worry that he wasn’t. “I was just thinking about tomorrow and what we’re likely to find. The only other people that are out here that I know of would be the Vagar, so that smoke probably means that they have a camp nearby and to be honest, I’m not sure what to expect.”
The white she-wolf turned to face him fully and felt her furred face wrinkle in strange ways, wolfish features contorting slightly to accommodate an all too human looking frown - based part on confusion and on the twitch at the corner of his lips, betraying his fight to not smile as he resolutely didn’t look at her. She resisted the urge to snort considering she’d done much the same to him a moment ago. “Vagar? Like that man that warned us in Erorya and told us where to find the pass over the mountains? I thought you knew him, or at least knew his people...”
He apparently lost the fight against the smile seeking his lips as he continued staring out into the distance. “Yes, like the man that helped us in Erorya. And I have known Vagar in more than a few lands east of the Ice Wall Mountains... but those are their travelling camps, ones that are almost as much travelling show as camp. West of the mountains is where their home camps are - and no one that I’ve ever known besides the Vagar themselves have ever seen one of those, and the Vagar that I’ve talked to about it just smile and say that the home camps are ‘different’.”
She felt him look over at her again, heard the creak of his leather belt and scabbard announce his intentions as he twisted to face her more directly. When he didn’t continue right away, she felt her furred brow lower into a frown as she looked over towards him, again... once more confused.
“Shouldn’t it feel more strange to talk to you like this? Shouldn’t it feel more strange to be talking to you at all? You’re a wolf.”
“Well, I used to be human...but then I died. That tends to limit chances for conversations with those among the living to just the Shamans, so I don’t have any other opinions to tell you.”
“See? Not only are you a wolf, you’re also a damn ghost.” She turned enough to watch him, her head tilted to one side in amused curiosity as he frowned sullenly into the night, muttering almost to himself. “Your lips don’t even move.”
Shoulders clad in dense white fur shrugged as she didn’t even bother trying to fight the grin that spread to those same lips. “Of course they don’t move. As you said, I am a wolf. Why would a wolf speak? It is the spirit of the person within that remembers speech, not the body of the wolf without...and spirits do not have to have lips to move in order to be heard.” She only grinned more broadly, the expression eerily human even on the face of a wolf, as he turned to glare at her before turning back to his vigil of staring into the dark. They sat like that in the companionable silence for some time, then...
“What is it like, your home?”
She started at the question, surprised both by the suddenness and the softness in which it was spoken. He didn’t look at her as he asked or after, the only change in his posture being a very slight, thoughtful tilt of his head. She stared at him a moment longer, studying his profile that was sharply etched in the bright light of the full moon. Then she sighed softly, and laid down, resting the chin of her muzzle between her front paws.
“Home... the village where I was born was called Abedadabun. I suppose technically I should still claim that one as a home, although Hevataneo, where I was killed, was far more of one to me and that is the one where my spirit marker rests. The great forest surrounds them both, though, and that is what I really consider ‘home’. The forest is filled with countless tall trees, turning even bright midday to twilight in the depths of its heart. You don’t have to worry about hitting your head on branches there, unlike the forests I encountered in your homelands. The trunks are so tall, the branches arching high overhead, almost seeming to create a second sky beneath their sheltering arms. Some tower even over their neighbors, the great Ancients of the forests. Some have been struck by lightning, their great and massive trunks hollowing over time. Some few of those that have met such a fate are so large, that people have made homes within them.”
She broke off as he snorted, interrupting her. “I find that hard to believe.”
“It is true! Tayen and I slept in one, once, although that one was not so large that I’d want to live there permanently. It made a very nice camp, though.” She lifted her head slightly and tilted her head to the side to grin slyly up at him. “I told you that our trees were older and greater than yours. The forests of your lands are young children as such things count age.”
“You’ll excuse me if I reserve judgment until I see that for myself.”
She chuckled softly, and gave a gentle shake of her head before lowering her muzzle back to between her paws. “Suit yourself, but I promise... the giant Ancients of the forests will not disappoint you.”
“Tayen, she is, or I guess, was your shaman?”
She was silent for a long moment - staring off into the darkness, the unknown miles they had yet to travel, reminding herself that she had been the one to mention the name again and thus had opened herself up to the questions he was sure to ask.
“Yes. Tayen was, and still is, my shaman. I am the one that died defending her and in doing so...” The voice of her spirit drifted into silence, losing the sharp edge that it had held when she started and, while she finished her thought in the safe confines of her own skull, she didn’t speak the shameful words to him. And in doing so, I left her. Another sigh escaped her and she shook her head, before continuing. “But yes, I was the Companion to her Shaman, the Guardian to her Guide. There were four of us born that generation, two Shaman and Companion pairs, and none born for the two generations before that.”
She looked over at him, only to find him staring at her in less than mild confusion. She shook her head, the weight of her own fur pulling at the skin of her neck with the motion as she sought for the words to explain - to explain without betraying too much of her people to this man that was, by very definition, an Outsider to them and one the elders would surely claim she should have been quick to avoid. As if I’d had a choice or would have chosen to avoid him even if I had.
"Shamans and companions are...different. We are marked from birth, a companion for each shaman. We are bound together, our spirits, our souls linked. The reason for that is woven in the very beginning of our world." She drew a deep breath, her gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. "I am not the best to tell this and can only relate what Tayen would tell me in the evenings after studying under Oota Dabun.
“But - in the very beginning - people and spirits existed as pairs...twins, if you will, joined together. The way they were conjoined differs some in various stories, some say they were joined at the front, others at the back, still others at the side. But something happened and the pairs were separated. Ever since, most people are born with a bit of each 'soul', a little of the spiritual, a little of the physical.
“Once every generation or two, there is a child born with a 'spiritual' soul, a throwback to the very beginning when all lived as two-in-one. Around the same time, the other half of their original 'soul,' the 'physical' half of their soul is born into another child. The one with the shaman mark below and behind their left ear is the one with the spiritual soul, the link between the Spiritual and Physical worlds, able to walk the Dream Paths, speak with the dead and the spirits.
“The one born with the companion mark behind and below their right ear is the one with the physical soul, the companion to the shaman. We walk with them throughout their lives, live with them once training is finished, support them, protect and defend them. Two halves of the same coin, each balancing the other. Through the link that binds us, we can tell some of what the other is feeling, where the other one is.
"It is why one rarely outlives the other for more than a year, even if the one that dies first is taken by illness or old age and why, when the death is sudden and violent the other typically dies just as suddenly...we each experience the death of the other."
“May I?”
She chuckled, laughing softly as he reached for her right ear. "Feel free. I can't exactly check myself, but I know it's still there."
“So...did Tayen, your shaman, did she die, too? I thought she was part of the reason you need to get back so badly.”
It was a moment before she answered. When she did her voice was soft at first, but became more sure and clear as she went on. "She lives, or at least walks the lands and woods. It was more than a seven-day before she awoke after the attack even though she was untouched. Her spirit searched for me along the Dream Paths, even venturing to the Spiritual World... torn between finding and following me and her duty that still remained.
“She was the world shaman, you see. When the spirits as well as humans were split in the beginning, the Spirit of Creation and the Spirit of Destruction were separated. It is the world shaman that has to defeat the Spirit of Destruction, or at least fight it to drive it back into the depths of the Spirit World and away from the Physical World. But, that part is another story - I died before she finally faced it and she would not wake... she was torn, but she had to be whole... the Spirits knew it and I knew it...
"So during one of her wanderings in the Spiritual World, I found her and we talked for a bit, then I told her that she might as well live." She shrugged again, a sad smile crossing her lips as she finished.
"Then she woke up."
The mood lingered for a moment but then she snorted, the sound expressing frustration and a hint of anger. "But she didn't really go back to living. Which is why, even though I don't have hands anymore, I WILL find a way of punching her the next time I see her and tell her just how much of an idiot she's been."
They heard them before they saw them. The cheerful sounds of drums, flutes and bells stretched outward into the surrounding countryside, inviting wanderers and travellers alike that happened to be passing by to come and join in the celebration.
She stopped, startled since she’d expected them to go on towards where the Vagar were presumably having a revelry of some sort, and looked back over her shoulder at the sudden halt to the sound of hooves that had been so steady behind her. She resisted the urge to lift an eyebrow, an expression she’d discovered she could still do, even as a wolf, but only with some difficulty, and sat down facing the mounted Rand and his horses instead, her head canted to one side in confusion and question. The mounted man didn’t look at her, his eyes and attention focused beyond her - presumably on something that his present elevated height gave him the advantage of rather than her.
“Rand?”
She whispered the question, focusing it in case there were those nearby that they wouldn’t wish to alert. If we’ve stumbled across more of the Creation Spirit’s creatures... But if that were the case, neither he nor either of the horses gave any sign of it. A quick sniff of the air told her that if any were close, they either had a way of neutralizing their scent or were downwind where their scent wouldn’t carry.
“It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting there to be music.”
Furred shoulders shrugged as she stood once more, giving her body a vigorous shake before turning to continue on while Rand clicked his tongue against his teeth to encourage the horses. “We’ll need to stop a little way away. They’re bound to have mares with them and probably a stud already.”
“And their stud will view your stud as a challenger for his herd. I understand. I may not be that familiar with horses, but I am familiar with other herd animals.” She didn’t break her long loping stride as she spoke, still focusing the voice of her spirit towards him until they better knew the occupants of the camp. “I can scout ahead and find a place for us that should be an easy enough walking distance for us but far enough away to keep the hooved ones at peace. Would you rather be upwind of the Vagar and their horses or down?”
“To be honest, I’d prefer somewhere to the side out of the direct path of the wind in either direction - maybe a hollow if you can find one. Oh, and Tala? Try to stay out of sight. In some of the stories that I’ve heard from the Vagar I’ve met, some of them have strange ideas about white wolves.”
That brought her up short and almost caused her to stumble as she tried to stop too suddenly before turning back towards him.
He seemed to expect her confusion and shook his head before she could speak the question still forming in her mind.
“They didn’t elaborate. One of them had a necklace with a charm on it in the figure of a wolf carved from white stone. When I asked, he just said it was for protection, but I don’t know if it was for protection from wolves or if the wolf was there to protect him. Just because the Vagar from Erorya didn’t have a problem with you and actually seemed to like you doesn’t mean that all Vagar will welcome you.”
Remember your welcome when you arrived in our lands.
She could almost hear the unspoken warning behind his words and shivered slightly despite the warmth of the sun shining warmly down on her as he and the horses drew nearer while she was stopped. Rav, Rand’s young, sleek, black stallion danced sideways slightly - whether because of coming closer to her presence or perhaps sensing the camp that lay ahead, hidden possibly by a rise in the land. I wonder if he can sense Rand’s uncertainty? The wahei that her own people rode could. This creature certainly seemed intelligent enough to pick up on that sort of thing, especially when his owner and rider, the only human any of them had been around for many months, was astride him.
She shook her head and turned back around as Rand corrected the young stud with a frown. She returned to her lope - her head down to keep her profile low and as hidden by the tall grasses as she could manage - wishing that her troubled thoughts would settle as easily as her body did into its movements. Of the last two times she’d approached people since being returned from the Spirit World to the Physical World as a wolf, she’d once been hunted for a full week with hounds and archers and the other she’d been grudgingly welcomed as she had lent her assistance to the defenders of an ambush.
The odds were hardly in her favor of being welcomed this time unless they thought her a strange choice of hunting dog, owned by the man behind her.
A breath sighed from her as she paused a moment, the sun warmed earth beneath her paws beginning to slope gently upwards, to better gauge her distance from the camp. White furred ears twisted and swiveled, searching for sounds of habitation beyond the musical sounds of celebration while her nose lifted to the air, testing scents to see what animals they might have with them that could possibly detect their approaching presence. She turned her head behind her, in the direction that Rand and Rav, along with his pack horse, were following...
Trusting her to find a suitable campsite.