When the days were long

[suryallee]

When the days were long

Is someone actually reading this, lol? Sometimes I wonder.(Not you, Cal! i know you do, huggles)
Sury

Part seven

The next days were a blur.

First thing that I did together with Oorontes, since we still were bound together by our stubborn hair, was to meet up with my brothers. Said bunch refused to look me in the eyes and instead choose to look everywhere but me in order to avoid my wrath. That was until dad showed up too and asked what was going on.

Lets say, he wasn’t amused either what ended into a lecture in the end.

I was the laughing one now and they had to confess what was actually rather comical to watch. I also got their bidding entries handed over, what made them rather mad but who cares? Me? Not gonna happen! My lovely brothers deserved it. Sciamander made even Soixie give his win over to us. He spit practically fire for weeks after in his ire.

They went by new names now just like me.

Out of Dimitri became Dimas, my second eldest was now Rayvn and the last one before me went now by the name Aluthe. Only Akim had not changed his name, he kept his old one. Somehow, he and Soixie and he ended up into an open relationship. What scared not only me after a while.

Both were notorious troublemakers and good their chosen trades.

Akim, given his history in warfare fast advanced to a kind of war and defense leader.
Soixie was actually in charge of espionage and defense and together the two soon set defenses up on our borders. They secured trading routes with other tribes and between ours and so on. Many a Har soon cursed their names in unison, the Varrs the most I guess. Since both seem hell bend on making them their enemies left and right all the time.

However, ours was the territory nearest to the Varrish territories it wasn’t a wonder that their generals and the two did clash all the time.

Father, he did change his to Laruen and that was that. Under that name, he soon should become a great and well-known artist, just as Sciamander had predicted it. His sculptures soon became wanted from many. Some newer tribe that until then no one had heard much about before and that was prospering under Thiede’s protection, they called themselves Ferike, even tried to lure him away a few times. He never did leave thought he was pleased to be wooed in such a manner.

Desirable and courted by hara of many tribes that he became fast, not that one ever got a chance to get near him that was.

Silently Sciamander made true on his other words. Soon it was very clear to all of us that my fathers new Lover was the High Archon, although, no one from the outside got aware of it for a very long time to come. Most just puzzled about whom it may be that held my fathers affection. Both stubbornly kept it a secret out of the necessary to keep father safe from outside attacks. It made me dizzy only to think of it how many could want to do that.

Both were of an almost equal age, Sciamander even a bit older as dad but in mind, they were much alike. Both loved their silent ways and did not like crowds much.

Still, it is really creepy to see your parent suddenly giggle, yes giggle like a young teenager, around with your teacher, Urgh! All of my brothers agreed with me here, we all got the creeps when we stumbled onto the pair by accident. Cute, Rayvn called them, my brother Akim simply duped them lovely-dovely and we all gave tails when they got moony-eyed as Aluthe called it. Dimas, stoically as he could be and as mulish as our entire family could get when poked, he simply ignored them mostly and cuffed us rest over the heads when we got too idiotic as he called it.

Still, it is kind of creeping me out when the two get mushy!

On the third day after my first Aruna, Oorontes finally crumpled and let the wall between our rooms carve in. The newly formed open hole was fast made into an open archway. He watched the sniggering hara who did his bidding with a dark scowl all the while it took them to break through the massive stonewall between his living room and mine.
After that, he strode into his quarters with me in tow still bound to him by strand of our hair, to get some of his overdue paperwork done.

Turned out he had placed my new home right beside his rooms. That wasn’t very normal. Usually freshly incepted Hara had to share rooms with each other. Like my brothers did it currently. The nearly entire bunch housed together in a newer out carved flat like section that would later house one family in the future.

Only a few had up until now, their own rooms.

Soixie being one of the few lucky ones, well until Akim moved in and somehow… never moved out again? Not that Soixie complained much that was. Since the mountain dwelling was still in the build, my rooms were a bit uncommon. A bit selfish that Oorontes was, but who was I to truly blame him? As if our hair was acknowledging his silent defeat, it now let us runs separate ways in our rooms at least. If one went outside without the other, our hair still reacted almost violently after a short moment.

One time it nearly garroted Oorontes when he defiantly tried it out, he gave up after that.

Now he did the most of his chores from his small office in his former rooms instead from his in build office rooms in another section of the mountain. Later he would move there, so much was already clear. A functioning Government was something that a healthy community needed to function and he was determined to get this on the way from the beginning on. In years to come, many would silently thank him for that foresight.

It reduced our troubles almost down to zero from the beginning on.

We had our rooms a bit redecorated after the break in. He had actually put a great deal of thought into his building project I learned that way. Had already made rough plans when he finally got us incepted and some of his projects were already in work.

Nevertheless, Oorontes still needed mining specialists to make the mountain dwelling to what he wanted it to be. My second oldest brother had worked for a building and mining company in the late. Now he got a new job because of this and his night school studies in becoming an Architect.

He had wanted to major in architecture and room decorations. He had also taken some classes in Fengshui what now made up the most of his work.

He too had gotten books and a teacher at hand to master this fully as well as he got teachings in his caste trainings too. We all did, my father from Sciamander himself what did not wonder any of us at all. We shrugged it off. Oorontes and my rooms became a made over from Rayvn that included taking out his kitchen area to make room for a bigger office and study for him. It made my lover less grumpy in the end.

Since that included a little garden area, not bigger as room, that he could use in the summer months to sit outside or simply open the now two big windows to. Beyond the small garden, it had a wonderful view into the valley and the ocean cost below after it was finished. The garden was made up in a traditional Chinese stile with even a little lake in the middle. The fish in it, my brother *found* inside an old Chinese restaurant, Oorontes never complained about them.

It soothed his mood I guess.

In turn, my kitchen grew bigger and got an extra room for a dinning table when my former sturdy room was rebuild into one. My brother insisted that a leader of a tribe should have one. As much as it seems to vex Oorontes, he saw the logic in it in the end and gave his ok with a sigh. That my rooms had more windows as his was aiding that plans. Now we sat here in the mornings and quietly talked about anything and everything while savoring the view into the Valley.

He often joined me when I was cooking our meals now. Bringing some papers with him to work on them while he sat on the kitchen counter and I was hacking vegetables or doing other things. Sometimes he simply watched me and we talked.

It wasn’t something any of us both wanted to miss after a while.

Rayvn slowly grew into the one person who now made the plans for the new flats and their rooms and who made the plans for the interior. It seems to suit him and he obviously enjoyed it too. Even if he complained on daily basis about the stress.

Dimas did what he had done always best; hard labor.

He had before worked in the docks and before that, Dimas had worked inside the mines as a building expert for tunneling. Since he had the needed knowledge and skill as well as the talent, he soon began to learn how to make the tunnels in the fashion of our tribe. He and Rayvn often worked now together and in the most evenings, the two took to pester Oorontes and me when the hunger drew them into our kitchen.

Oorontes just grumbled about my disrespectful family but never did he actually throw them out… much to my personal amusement he endured them with stoically silence.

He really took his duties very earnestly. More often than not, I woke in the middle of the night and had to tell him to go the hell to bed. Otherwise, he would have worked himself into an early grave I fear. And there was so much that needed to be done. Even I got that after a short while. The building of the new tunnel systems, how to feed and house us all in the next years to come and so on.

He interviewed several of the new hara personally. Holding his eyes out for those whose skills he could use and needed.

This way we soon had a leather worker in our midst that got an own workroom and shop free house. Another had learned sewing and design and was set up the same stile. Two bakers and a few cooks soon set up smaller shops in the areal designed for it as well as one of them took over the big Mensa alike open dining hall where the most of us went eating in the beginning.

Even after the most had own housings it staid open for everyone, although later it was mostly used for guests and their entourages.

Metalworkers like smiths and such he filtered out of the many incepted as well as businessmen who had a handling in making money out of everything they got their hands on. My brother Aluthe was the one who set up our first kind of newspaper. The first one he made had everyone in tears from laughter besides Oorontes and me. Since the first article was about our stubborn hair problem that was still making us almost inseparable for the most time. Soon Oorontes had an almost completely self-sustaining and working community build up from a scratch.

I admired him for that as many others did too.

Mostly I gave him companionship when he was working on that. He had begun to teach me several things in between. The names of the main Dehara for example, as far as they were known and what they represented, like Aruhani and Lunil. Of what lesser Dehar he did know of and of the many tribes Dehara, he had come to know about on his many travels.

Including our own, Ophidien, there were a many in existence and all had to be considered when one entered others territories. Hubisag was a good example for this. The Kakkahaar, a nomadic living tribe did worship him. That Dehar, Oorontes told me stood for dark magic and death, under many other things and I made a special note to myself to not take him lightly. In addition, my early dislike for that particular tribe, the Kakkahaar, begun in those days.

They specialized in dark magic and deception from what I learned and that alone made me abhor them almost instantly.

How one did summon a Dehar and why. When were the best and worst times to summon them, which deity did like and dislike what exactly and many minor spells he taught me in masses in those days. One day in the beginning of our lections, he let me repeatedly draw the Caste system and their levels repeatedly into a sandbox. It was late in the night when he was finally satisfied enough with the way my sigil looked.

This way, a few months flew into the land.

I was schooled in politics of our tribe and that of others, mostly our direct neighbor tribes. Taught who was ruling whom and how powerful the Archon’s and Phylarch’s of the other tribes were supposed to be. Yes, supposed to be. As in, what one could believe and what was based on myths and carefully spread propaganda and what was real in the end.
Alternatively, who was leading all others on a goose chase and was more powerful in truth as he did lead on.

One of the names under the last lists was that of Thiede, another one was named Orien and another name again that he made me learn was Lianvis of the Kakkahaar. I slowly grew a healthy respect for those hara. All of them were immensely powerful and none to trifle with. In the last case he even warned my to never let that one see me. Seemingly, that har was not only dangerous, he was also dabbling too much into the dark arts and my tribe considered him and his tribe just as tainted as the Varrs.

Now we come to a name that had my lovely Oorontes nearly spit fire when he told it to me. Namely, the har called by it: Ponclast Har Varr, leader of the Varr tribe and his leading General and tactical head Terzian Har Varr.

To say that he did dislike that Hara was the understatement of the century I guess. Whatever lead to it that he hated them this much, it would later lead to him lending help to someone else that he did not like at all either, in order to get a bigger evil out of the way by a lesser one.

In all the time that was to come until those days, he and Ponclast warred in silence over territories.

From what he taught me, they were a kind of Nazi Wraeththu tribe. Consisting of an army like structure that went down into every aspect of their lives and they did something that I really could not understand at all. They divided their hara in gender roles as humans had them before. Some were pressed to become strictly Soume and the rest was Quana only. Honestly? It made absolutely no sense to me. Where was the point in it to not enjoy both sides, they made us to what we are.

Hermaphrodites and not one-sexed beings.

Ponclast had also overrun the smaller tribes in his area in the late. His army had also attacked the peaceful Suhl. Even if our tribes now had different paths, ours still holds them dearer as all the others. Oorontes hate could come from this information’s and doings I realized slowly over the time. That and that he had lost former friends when the Varrs attacked.

“I will rather be found making deals with the Uigenna as with the Varrs!” He once told me rather angrily and I wisely stored that info away for later use.

At the same time, Sciamander made true on his promise and began to teach me how to walk the dream-scape safely and how to avoid troubles while doing it. There was actually a lot more to it as I had formerly known. It could be dangerous out there, even for Sciamander and that alone told me something.

As I had formerly thought already, his power and wisdom was immense!

One day we almost run into an entity that made Sciamander bare his teeth in a snarl and then hide us both quickly from its sight. To me it looked like a horse made out of smoke and energy. Sciamander called it a Sedu. He warned me strongly to never let one of the white or black ones see me when I wandered around. He even went so far to teach me a complicated spell to hide myself from them. One that normally only higher Caste level Hara were taught.

Calling them Thiede’s spies and something else.

Obviously, the horse form wasn’t their true one and neither were they from our world even. I staid out of their usual paths. It was safer that way. Their coloring did not indicate good and evil, more like lesser and bigger trouble if I could believe Sciamander here and I had no point in not doing so. Something was off with these creatures and I did not like them much.

They gave me the feeling of following only their own hidden agendas.

Spring came and we went out more often. I took up on my former studies and was short before getting my major when summer came. I also had taken on the duties to care for the snakes together with another har by the name Hernurien, who had come from another tribe offshoot on Oorontes bidding to teach me and to care for the snakes in our settlement. He liked it here so much that he staid.

Almost nine months had passed since my inception.

In the past winter, our tribe had taken to literally raid and than flatten what was left of our former city. They had cast spells after spells to let all whither away in record time. In the end, the city did just… vanish. First turning to rubble and that then in turn did change into earth and soil. At the end of my first year as a har, almost nothing was left of it. Only a few buildings that Oorontes wanted to keep, as the mining museum and some other places like that were still standing and currently were restored.

Not even the metal skeletons of the skyscrapers kept standing in the landscape he now formed by using a great deal of magic.

What we could use was recovered or taken from the houses and former shops. Mostly furniture was finding its way into our caves as well as fabrics and all things usable. All else were turned that way. It took four Grissecon’s to make that happen and I learned that way what that was. Having to watch Oorontes perform two himself with Ormelte and Ormelte one with Soixie. The last did Sciamander himself with a har called Turmindor. Turned out, he as Ormelte and Oorontes had been one of the originally fife.

These Grissecon’s lead also to our first real clash.

Since he had to stay celibate for a while before he did them, what was one point that got me a little more than miffed and the other was… I simply hated to see him with someone else! Especially this way. Why I did that, was something I needed to find out myself. Therefore, self-searching I did much in those days. I knew already that Aruna was shared much under Wraeththu and that this was nothing personal or to get jealous over. In the end, I couldn’t help it to still feel that way.

It rammed it home to me that I began to want more as to only have him as my lover.

Looks like it did the same for Oorontes in the end. After the second Grissecon, he asked Ormelte to perform the third with Soixie instead of him. One point was the violent reaction of our hair. His had tried to strangle Ormelte out of the blue in the last one, what had both look rather stunned and hurry up to then separate rather fast.
The second was my sudden avoiding him in many ways.

I had not done it on purpose, rather to avoid getting hurt more. I found the most unusual tasks to do, suddenly did develop a new hobby, namely gardening and so on. Until he finally snapped one day and literally stomped into the garden area of our home to first glare down at me and than seize me and carry me back home like a sack potatoes!

“Whah? Oorontes! Set me down immediately! You oaf! What has gotten into you? Oorontes!!”

Needless to mention that he did not let go and that we earned a lot sniggers on our way home. Once inside he closed the door with a heel behind him and threw me onto our bed rather efficiently before he trapped me under him. Eying him warily and he eyed me angrily back. We had our first awkward moment in history I guess.

Finally, he sighed and fell boneless onto me.

“From all the things I had to deal with in my life, you Myrthal are the most vexing, insufferable, stubborn and still most cute one ever!” He told me muffled while his face was somewhat buried into my shirt and one finger raised and waggling into my direction. I couldn’t help it; I had to laugh madly at his strange and comical declaration in the end.

It ended in us both having a full day off.

Well, truth to be told no one dared to enter our quarters was more like it. I don’t know how often we took Aruna with each other that day and the following night. Often enough at least to have both of us walk rather funny the next day and avoid to stressful work. What had Soixie laugh madly when he meet us the next afternoon.

We stoically ignored him.

Since Oorontes now had his own part of the tribe, the Colurastes now had four main tribes and several offshoots of them all over our part of the map.

The last of the original fife was one har that I became not fond of from the very start and I met him at the middle of my second year as a har, barely a month after my second caste raising ceremony from Neoma to Brynie and so the end level of the caste Kaimana. Saughan was that kind of har that I would never be comfortable with for the rest of my existence. Cold, cynical, analytical, calculating, outright aggressive at times, swift and deadly.

He was entirely offense were I was defense.

He never spoke much but when he did so, he always spoke in an emotionless voice. Hearing it always sent shivers down my spine and even Soixie made himself scarce when he was around. We meet for the first time when the two harlings came running to Oorontes and me in fright of an unknown har that had practically interrogated them about Oorontes and me. Saughan had heard that we often took to visit the two, even thought about it to maybe adopt them when we were finally bound.

At that time, this was just a month away.

Somehow, it all… had simply lead to this?

Honestly told, I still have no idea who of us came up with the idea of becoming chesna first. Him, me? It doesn’t matter, we both wanted it that way and in the end, we went to Sciamander to let him set a date. He just grinned impishly and did so rather fast, what made us both snigger in return. He had in the late trained me to do more than just walk the dreamscapes.

Sciamander had shown me how to do minor spells when there and how to transport items through the mists in one piece.

The later had taken a lots of failure runs to finally work out right. It had raised my level in the end anew from Neoma to Brynie.

The first level had been easy to reach, the second had taken a lots more our of me. Mentally and physically. But most of all, psychologically. I had to rethink many things, did rearrange a great deal of my perspectives and had slowly grown into my new live. In the middle of my first year, I learned to redo my barriers. Now I know what had made me slowly insane, it had been the massive amount of power that I had used unknowingly.
Without any help to sustain me and to help me manage that all, I had fast broken down.

Now I did work with a focus to use it to maintain it as well to build it. It had its difficulties but worked after a while better for me. Turned out that my talent wasn’t one that could easily be copied at all. One was born with it or not. A focus could only hold so much; in the end, you needed the talent to make the barriers.

What made me a price possession of my tribe, I guess.

In the beginning, my barriers weren’t that big as before and even one and a half year later, I needed to constantly work on them to keep them going. In turn, I wasn’t going insane anymore and I actually learned how to use them from the very start. I now could even distinguish between tribes by feeling, so to speak. Could filter them a little if I wanted it.

Some like the Varrs I rigorously lead away from our safe haven.

Others I watched until Oorontes had decided what to do with them. They never got aware of it that I did that. It was a good thing that my suggestions worked that good. My barriers kept us our of trouble. They also aided a slowly gaining reputation of our tribe to have the vexing talent to vanish on will if wanted. How those stupid hara came up with that rumor was beyond me but in the end, the most other tribes believed that we could vanish on demand… silly fools!

Did they even imagine how much work that would have been for me?

Oorontes just laughed when he heard it and hushed me when I grumbled about it.

On that day, I meet Saughan I had a rather taxing training behind me and I was tired and grumpy more than usual. We had planned on it later to talk with the two little changelings in the afternoon about our plans to adopt them. So, when Lethan and Imerle suddenly run up to Oorontes and me, crying their little hearts out, I was unprepared for what was to come. Saughan had scared the two so much that day that they had taken flight when they saw him coming again and had run straight to our dwelling area to hide from what Lethan called the nasty har.

Oorontes was not amused learning from Imerle and Lethan what Saughan had been up to lately.

Stalking practically out of our door, my hair for once kept rather to it to swirl around the two little ones instead to hinder him. While his was a mass of angry snake imitations that had each har in the tunnels run from his mere sight in fear of his obvious ire. Only Akim and Soixie did not, they rather went with him silently as sentinels as I was told later. It ended into a nasty word match just outside the little ones sections of our mountain home. Later both took their brawl to Sciamander who had to smooth the waves so to speak.

Saughan had wanted to make sure that I was no upstart that was after Oorontes position and power.

He was… just like that?

It is hard to explain but let me tell you; subtlety was never and will never be his forte. Neither will it ever be a friendly attitude. He is as said before, the offence to my defense. On that day, he learned that it was I who made the barriers in the late. Only Sciamander, Soixie, Akim Oorontes and me had known it so far… oh, and my father.

All else had been kept in the dark for safety reasons.

Soixie and Akim due their profession as our leading protectors in the mountain and in our land. Sciamander due his position as my teacher and being the High Archon, Ormelte since he was our Tribes official leader and Oorontes since he found me and since he my Phylarch and future chesnary to boot.

Saughan was something different from Ormelte who did function as the current Archon to the outside of our tribe. He was our universal war leader and the head of our army if you could call it one.

That cold har was the darker part of our tribe so to say.

He incarnated all those things that our tribe is feared for and rightfully so. We can be that way, much too much actually. He had dabbled in dark magic’s when being younger and now it gave not many who could match him. The Kakkahaar perhaps and Sciamander of course but all in all he was more suited to be a war leader in my eyes as Ormelte. He was the living proof of how dangerous we could become if needed or angered too much.

His hara where mostly feared from the other tribes for their cunning ways to get what they wanted, even thought they never attacked the other offshoots of the Colurastes tribe.

They dealt mostly with the Uigenna and Unneah and lived from trading magic to said tribes for information’s and goods. Theirs was the territory nearest to that of those tribes. Saughan gave me one look when I entered glaring daggers at him with Imerle on my arm and Lethan hiding behind my legs, then he shrugged. He was tall with dark brown hair that shone almost red when light fell onto it. More like blood as anything, it gave me shudders.

His eyes were dark brown and his skin surprisingly dark too.

He was originally afro American origin and it showed in his still dark skin easily. Later I would learn that he had come from a street gang that had been pretty feared in the past. Saughan had never fully lost that heritage of endless fighting; neither had he ever wanted too. It suited him with his interactions with the two wilder tribes of our neighborhood.

Just, sometimes his brash way of taking things into his hands did not aid him well.
Right now it lead to a unique almost all out scuffle with Oorontes and… me.
“What were you thinking Tiahaar, interrogating two little ones like that?! They are barely ten and you act as if they are criminals. I don’t want you near either, Imerle nor Lethan ever again, did I make myself clear? And you will also stay away from the rooms of the other younger ones; they are scared of you enough as it is!”

He gave me a lazy look. “And if I do not? What then, hum?”

What lead to the following. Me, suddenly activating my barrier out of the blue in my anger to surround Lethan, Imerle and me with it, to then simultaneously push him head first into the next wall with it.

Moreover, Oorontes actually was hissing like a cat before he jumped after him to knock Saughan over the head to ram it home to leave his family alone.

In the end, Sciamander held his head with both hands while he murmured something about stupid hotheaded morons under his breath… after he had separated us all. That he could not ground us like teenagers was it all I think. Not that I could blame him, we did act stupid. All three of us. What lead to an rather awkward binding of Oorontes and me, done by Saughan… of all people… who looked as joyous as we two felt too, to have to be the one to do it.

Sciamander had practically forced him into it and stood with crossed arms the entire time behind him.

As said before, I never grew comfortable with him but in the end, he and I had more to do with each other, as we both wanted it. My barrier had proven to have power enough to stop even him if needed and so in turn, I had from now on to work with him when it came down to work out troubles addressing our tribe. Meant, when he needed an areal surrounded by a barrier, he got it. Nevertheless, if I said he that was a moron he actually listened.

Then we mostly had to work out another strategy.

It required of me to learn strategy and how a military functioned something, I was never fond of. Sadly, this would become one of my bigger problems with the following years, since Ponclast went soon after my second year as a har, into an all out war against the most tribes that were left on the map, the bigger ones.

Including ours, the Colurastes.

Suryallee