Michael

‘’Hey guys,’’ John calls in a whisper throwing something into the fire. ‘’Do you all know that kid Morpheus?’’ He asks lowering his voice and I think I already know where this conversation is going. I remain quiet, Max grunts his assent and Ed throws another stick into the fire signalling that he is still awake and alert.

‘’Who are that kid’s parents? Really now.’’ John asks and looks up directly at me before looking down picking up his stick and stirring the flames.

We all remain quiet, Max and Edward both look up at me as though I’m expected to answer, Mirabalis is lying on her cot pretending to be a short old woman sleeping fitfully.

I look at each of them stoically before snorting and facing the thick darkness of a Gaian moonless night, if they expect me to answer such a loaded question they have another thing coming. The silence stretches pleasantly as it brings to the fore the ringing of crickets, the rustling of the grass, laughter from the next such fire almost a stone’s throw away.

‘’Oh come on guys don’t make me seem like an asshole for asking, it’s a genuine question,’’ John exclaims dramatically. I smirk at his indignant expression.

‘’As far as I know he is Sachihiro and Ingwe’s kid,’’ Edward says coolly, not looking up to the flames but somehow conveying that that’s all he has to say about the matter.

We remain silent again a moment listening to the fire crackling, the temperature is perfect out tonight. Or is it just me and my strange temperature adoptation abilities that make me feel this way i wonder, such an interesting place this Gaia.

‘’Not to be a complete asshole but I’m not the only one who has noticed the kid is a monkey right?’’ John finishes in what started out as a statement and ended as a whisper.

‘’I mean elves, dwarves and magic. A stretch but it’s what I woke up to and I accepted my new reality fairly quickly considering I grew up reading about such things here and there. Then there the beastman people and other strange races, a stretch for any man. How will I ever know peace before finding out first hand how these people have their pretty tails attached... But come on guys, that kid is definetly demi-human’’

Max nods, indicating he has also been thinking about that, I shrug and leave it be. We enjoy the fire, it’s been a day since we caught up with the ‘caravan’of non combatants going south either to watch, loot, explore, have fun and any number of reasons. There are some merchants, some servants following the masters they have chosen for themselves, wives following husbands and husbands following wives. It’s a diverse group, and there actually are a few caravans in the procession but storage rings are cheap for citizens of Paradisum.

The main army the ’Host’ is over a day ahead still, a day here is 100hours so that’s still a lot of ground to cover but Saya and her team advised caution for now. After a quick Q and A with the fae that left them thoroughly unsatisfied we rushed after the Host with all speed, I didn’t even get a chance to be alone with Saya, who is now out on guard duty by the perimeter.

*

‘’So what’s it like?’’ John asks solemnly.

The fire cackles, the cool breeze blows carrying laughter and voices in muted tones from the hundreds of other camp fires around us.

‘’What’s what like?’’ I ask with a slight smile as I consider his question. Ed and I share a silent look, I now understand why he was so mysterious about his Awakening.

‘’What I want to know is how big a difference it is from before,’’ Max grumbles. Sometimes grandfatherly habits come out of him, I forget he is an old soul sometimes.

‘’It’s a big difference,’’ Ed says quietly leaning back.

Max grumbles inaudibly with the scowl on his face strengthens with his worsening mood.

I grin/smirk.

‘’Yea but that doesn’t say anything, ‘it’s a big difference’, how do you quantify that?’’ John insists.

‘’Remember how we used to ask why there were two arenas in the city?’’ Ed says referring to when we had only been in Paradisum a few weeks.

‘’The Awakened Arena for the ‘’Awakened’’ and the other less ostentious arena barely within the Inner –City for everyone else, yes.’’

‘’Well there is a good reason for that, it’s a whole other league out there in the Arena, I’m almost sorry you didn’t get a chance to experience it Michael.’’ Edward adds with a mischievous sparkle in his eye.

A snort comes from the ugly old crone supposed to be sleeping not far from the fire. ‘’Be glad not to face to face those psycho’s, you wouldn’t believe what they do to each other in that place.’’

‘’What do they do?’’ Max asks too eagerly, too quickly.

‘’They fight,’’ is all Ed says before getting that stubborn set in his body language ending the conversation.

‘’You and your fucking vague responses,’’ Max grumbles throwing a log into the flames violently. He is frustrated about being left behind, he apparently went through with his last match at the arena and lost of course but at least all his limbs are still intact. John left without fighting that last fight citing that he doesn’t want to take the risk of dying before getting with a cat-girl.

*

I walk wth Saya next to me holding my hand in a tight warm grip, the worry evident to me since our spirits are so connected but outwardly she potrays the cool confident visage everyone expects of her. We are amongst the carraiges, the horses, the camp following non-combatants eager for the opportunity to loot the Maori of all they have I gather from what they say. My beautiful mate is in a warriors kilt sewn together by her grandmather Divina and reinforced with katari metal by a Barbarian smith. She has her two short swords on her back, a dagger on her left hip and a throwing axe on her right. Over her silver, red and black vest tunic is a rhino hide leather breastplate visibly enchanted with strange runes carved into it.

Soal is not far behind, apparently charged by her father to 'babysit' her she said with a grumble but i'm gratefull for his presence and I feel she secretly is as well though her dislike of him seems genuine. We talk silently as we walk, the main body of the host over half a day away but with a few hundred named warriors scattered amongst this ruble of non-combatants. the barbarians seem at first glance to look down on non combatants and place no value in them as a whole but the trueth is that no barbarian is really a non combatant. The few that choose craft instead of battle as their main vocation are just that much more talented in what they do that it would be a shame to have them focus more on killing than they do on crafting.

Saya talks me through a number of things I should now know and expect as an Awakened, she talks about some of her concerns about the pregnancy, she talks about her family and her home in the Foothills on Pangaea. She mostly talks and I lisen because she is sending and I can't yet send, this also being a lesson in the art of talking without talking. I'm enjoying myself though, half listening and frustrated at times that I can't respond out loud but the spies already pointed out to me are easy to spot now that I know what to look for.

I didn't know this family had so many people interested in it, both enemies and allies but adding up everything Saya is saying with my own experience living in the tundra these past ten months it all seems to add up somehow. firstly Sachihiro is a spy working for the Conclave of Shadow, then the is the complicated stories about the swords known as zanpakuto's, then the celestial ore the Council suspects Divina has secreted away somewhere at a time when the ore is running scare again. There are even some spies that are apparently from Sandoria but instead of spying on Paradisum as a whole as all good national spies should they focus instead on Divina and Sachi for whatever reasosn they have.

I can see why the family decided to scatter into many different groups and with this many enemies I can't see why Sachihiro would go anywhere before ensuring their safety. Saya assures me that her dad is not that powerful, the most powerful person in the van Damage family being Shea, a tier two Albino Awakened Blood Mage. Anyone watching the apartment back in Paradisum has surely noticed how empty the place is by now though, so i worry, but i also feel indestructable and I feel that may just be me being big headed.

I'm not sure how Awakening works for other people but I feel amazing, i'm lighter on my feet yet I have more weight than I did, my skin is hypersensitive yet practically ten times more impervious to damage than it was before my Awakening. I'm faster, stronger, can see further and better, can hear further and better, am just wholey better at anything physical was able to do before my Awakening. Then there is the chakra...

After leaving the time chambra I went through two obstacle courses and talked with the fae through my Awakening, apparently as payment for the use of the time chamber. I didn't mind revealing everything oncce the boon of being able to Awaken in a tme chamber was conveyed to me by Saya, but i'm concerned with the extent at which my new family has mixed themselves with the sidhe, I hear very few good things about those creatures even from other fae.

But my true family is Saya and the baby in her stomach, those are my first priorities if shit ever hits the fan. My friends and the rest of her family come second, if my involvement doesn't jeopradise Saya and my babies to be. But I do know that Saya will likely never abondon her family n time of need, difficult predicament or maybe i'm just resentful for having to 'pay' for a debt i didn't ask for. Still, what can they really do to me just by knowing how I Awakened? Knowledge is power though and though i've been here for years now I still know nothing when it comes to the greater scheme of things, but by gods i feel good.

We walk hand in hand, basking in each other, watching people interact, talk laugh, sing, drink, fuck. It's more like a carnival train than a group of people going to war, an ambience I find strange even as i enjoy it.

* *

It's a 22 day track from Paradisum to the no man's land that seperates the Tundra from Sandoria, and here the Host only stays 20 hours ahead of the followers whilst we increase our pace to a constant jog for those on foot, even the children. Day and night don't mean much to the people of Paradisum as even in the dead of night we travel, with my Awakening the night holds less threat and the beauty of the night birds, the ghosting animals, the bright moons that shine our way its a great experience. The beauty of this fantastic world is unquestionable, little things like luminous pollen floating in the air like fireflies, rain that falls upwards, rainbows that are tengable, expansive moons that come and go following no disearnable patterns. Sight we 'earthlings' still consider magical that the native people of this words take for granted as part of their daily lives.

An adventure that is the gap between a starting point and a destination, I love it.

*

Nyye

I walk passed a caravan of human marauders harassing a clutch of elven concubines, I assume the slavers will eventually sell the women in the Sotho slave markets for gold or crystals. I watch for a little while as they slaughter the guards and mutilate the menservants. I watch dispassionately, shaking my head at the waste and uselessness of it all. There has always been violence on Gaia and there will always be violence on Gaia but these days things were changing too quickly.

Because all the monks of the Elner Water cult were murdered no one purified the everbgrydom and it rained acid in the Foothills there was a drought that forced the Aldermen out of their ancestral lands and the Six-Cities found a convenient source of slaves running right towards them, the Aldermen learnt to keep slaves as a form of revenge and have found they like the taste of it, now there are slavers hunting elves and hal-rlv-um (half elves/helves) from the Six Cities now that the Alderman found another source to trade with the rest of the world and save themselves from starving.

So I watch at the waste of life that is happening before me as the rapid acceleration of event just fairly recently that has change the entire natural evolution of a people from worshiping ancestors and hardly ever leaving the vast borders of their ancestral homeland that protects them from all outsiders with the strength of their claim on that land, but even that will weaken now over time as their blood mixes with the outsiders they invite into their land but through that weakening they have bought themselves other benefits and opportunities for growth.

Maybe it is this new institution this ‘conclave’ that the young man Sachihiro belongs to that has accelerated these events as it impacts Pangaea. Sirg, Fisco and I have noticed its impact in a number of places across the continent and apparently it was even discussed as one the Brothel acolyte training grounds in future. Our many brothers from the Order that have made this new organisation their cause have not been idle in helping it establish relationships and gain prestige, I will asses for the brotherhood whether or not they are lost to us.

Using combinations of secret Order teachings and other strange teaching this conclave is quickly becoming a power and changing the dynamic of the peoples across Pangaea that have lived in the transient but well established status ques. Though I rightly can’t blame them for all this change, many things seem to be odd with the world of late and now that I have finished my ten years of Chastity at the Brothel its time I find that boy Sachi and see how I like or dislike this conclave myself.

I’m not sure why I like the boy so much but if this conclave is a pit of snakes then surely the boy will need my help in extracting himself as well and if it isn't then I will likely enjoy my stay with them. I look up at the sky and already the vultures are circling hungrily, the way of the world.