Something stirs.
As the shadows lengthen.
The wind is unbelievably cold this high up. It lifts the gentle snows off the surfaces it fell on, turning lazy crystals into biting knives. Thick fur wrapped like a cloak protects from it, a little. The wind still finds you, somewhere. Your face. Up underneath the furs, or maybe you're not holding it shut well enough. The hand you hold the fur tight with to keep the wind from stealing it altogether. Painful, but bearable. You're familiar enough with it to know when it becomes too dangerous. When you'll start losing bits and pieces. The ones that aren't already gone, at any rate. Anywhere else you'd be perfectly comfortable and safe in an environment suit no thicker than a fingernail but not here. It's no longer home, but some respect must be shown even if only to acknowledge what it meant. Once. Ignoring that tradition might be the gentle nudge that turns the clan from simply shunning you into violently ousting your unwanted presence.
The memories surface of course. Unwanted, but there we are. Anger and shame both rising as you can practically feel the needles piercing the sensitive cheeks dozens of times every second, each time leaving an infinitesimal speck of ink lodged in between the cells beneath the top layer of skin. The pain of it barely noticed beneath the shame that grows unbearable as the shape forms. From the perspective of the man holding the sadistic little paintbrush, a black teardrop. When seen the right way up, a curved black fang. One on each cheek. Slaver's Fang.
Undeserved in that you've never held, taken, traded or owned even one. Killed quite a few, but never enslaved any. Deserved in that you are equally responsible for the sins of the other half of the entity carved into the mountainside above you. Two names having become one. The first time one of the names weren't Minmatar. The last time, most likely. Not surprising, given the result of this... experiment.
Shaking off the memories of facing the consequences of foolish trust and foolish emotions, you realize you've reached the place. This section of the mountain wall is angled just sharply enough that snow doesn't stay on and yet it can be traversed. It's where the names are displayed. Not that of the unions. That is above, in a holier place. Desecrated by your entry, but there above you nonetheless. These names are one entity, no two halves joined together but one whole person recorded into stone in a custom so old it predates the clan. No one knows why, but it's still done. It's the recording of a birth. No matter the age of the person joining the clan, it's referred to as a birth. The clan grows. Someone has come
home from the loins of their parents or from the vast darkness beyond the planets and system itself. Your name is at your feet.
Carved into the mountain, not for any sort of eternity, but almost without a doubt for longer than the clan and the people will even exist. Home. You even believed it, at the time. Somewhat. Deep down you knew it wasn't entirely true. You didn't belong like those who were recorded while suckling the teats of each mother in the community. You'd never done that. Not like those who were raised to understand the ways of old, the new ways, the history and the future of the clan, the tribe and the people. You barely satisfied those presiding over the Voluval, years older than all the others, even after having worked so hard to learn what they'd learned through a lifetime. Understandable. You'd gotten the mark, though. Didn't help that the mark was what it was, but it was never the real reason why this wasn't home.
The sound of footfalls in the snow doesn't make you turn around. Even now, you recognize that gait. Back then - before sight was returned through means more expensive than you could believe - you learned to recognize such things. Identify people by their footfalls. Their voices. Their scent. As the wind brings it to you, you know you're not going to have to let go of the heavy fur to defend yourself. Not yet. You greet her with one word. "Völva."
She doesn't respond, but you can hear the momentary hesitation before she finishes the trek to your side. While the urge to let loose a howl of rage, shame and anguish rises within you, the wind is the only one giving voice to the sorrow. Once, such silence from one of the völur would have unnerved you enough to start fidgeting, as they were grooming you to become the first not born among them to rise to that status but now you match the silent authority with ease. It's funny how a little - or quite a lot - of experience changes things.
"You were recognized the moment you were seen. They may not be the same prosthetics as back then, but there's little point hiding your face if you're going to show off that arm and leg."
"I was never hiding. I was denying the more zealous the excuse to get themselves killed if they saw the marks."
"Should we be grateful for that?"
"Yes."
"Not what I wanted to hear."
"You're the one who taught me never to ask a question I didn't want to hear the answer to."
Turning your head to look her in the eyes - for the first time, you realize. You never had the implants when she was around before - you're slightly shocked to see that the woman you held in your mind as a giant force of authority is no bigger than you. Older. More frail. Weak. No... not weak. There's a strength in that frail body that many twice as heavy can't project. A völva is not the same as other women.
"Why are you here? It was all we could do to keep the varyags from violence when they learned you were back."
"I'll be gone soon enough. I just needed to see."
"See what?"
"What we pretended. What we tried to make real."
"It was always real."
"The intent, maybe. The desire to change what was. The need to know my kind were still your kind."
"You are our kind."
"Only by blood. The spirit comes from elsewhere."
"You can't know that. Your ancestors were of the clan, we know that. It's why you were brought to us after the DNA sequencing."
"A long time ago. Too long ago. They are very clever people. There's a reason why they hold so many generations."
"The blood remains. You and I have the same ancestors."
"Not spirits. You are of the clan. Borne within it. The breath of a hundred of the clan gave you what you are. I didn't even know it existed until I was fully grown, shaped and molded. Mutilated, in more than the body. No völva, we are not the same kind. We would all have been spared much grief if we had both accepted it back then. My kind will never truly be home here, or with the other clans and tribes. We aren't Sebiestor. Brutor. Thukker. The blood of our ancestors shape our bodies and much of what we will be, but the Empire has forever changed us. It took them generations, but they succeeded. There are no Minmatar left there. Only... a shadow."
"We can't believe that. The grief would be crippling. The loss would be too great."
"Yet it is true."
You can feel her gaze on you. You can tell she's trying to figure out if the words are merely an excuse for what you have done. A way to shift the blame for your sins over on those that molded you in the past. They are certainly responsible for much of what you are but you feel no need to refute your crimes and failures like that. Better to own them. Acknowledge them and take the responsibility, remaining honest. It's almost all you have left. The shadows lengthen as the sun falls lower in the sky, slowly eating the mountain until it covers your name before your feet.
"Then what are you going to do? If what you say is true, there's no hope left."
"No hope for my kind. What they did through generations can't be undone in one."
"What then?"
"We will do what they've done to us. Their terror. Their destruction. Their indoctrination. Their methods. They will pale before what we will do. My kind will never be your kind, but maybe their children will be. Maybe, in time, my kind will find spirits from the same well your kind does."
"You have grown. In the past you'd have thought one or the other. Not both. You can't achieve something like this in your lifetime, though. What you say they have done, took generations. You have no hope of doing the same. Not alone."
"I'll never be alone. Maybe as a capsuleer. Another mad god among many, but alone. It's something I've come to recognize. We capsuleers may have all the power in New Eden to destroy and kill, but we can't change New Eden itself. Not alone and not with others of our status. We can change something else. Something ultimately far more powerful. We can influence millions, even billions of those who do not roam the stars. We can inspire those who live their lives looking upwards. I'll never be alone, when I can look down into their eyes and say
See? This is what is right. This is what must be done. Change your infinitesimal little speck of New Eden. Change the mote of dust upon which you barely even register in the eyes of us up above. Change yourself and those around you. If enough of you do this... New Eden will not be recognizable."
"You think you can do this? Even our greatest heroes and villains have had little impact in the grand scheme of things before they died."
"Unlike Midular, I have no intention of dying."
The silence is now one of disapproval but she knows she can't change your mind. The wind still howls around you and the temperature is dropping fast as the shadows grow longer. Your name is now barely visible even to your ocular implants, the snow filling the carved letters slowly but surely. When she speaks, you are briefly confused.
"I suppose you finally found an answer."
"Hmm? An answer to what?"
"The question you couldn't quite answer when you arrived here."
"... ah. Yes."
"You know you're not really supposed to be able to answer it. It's a question meant to keep you in balance when you lose focus."
"I know."
"Yet you have the answer."
"An answer. Not the answer."
"So. Who are you?"
"The shadow of what was and could be. The shadow of Minmatar. The shadow of Amarr."
"Just remember that shadows only exist when there's a light."
"I will. I have no intention of letting shade become darkness. What will happen... is that the shadows cast by the Empire will now fall upon the Empire."
Before she can respond you go down to one knee and let go of the cloak, letting it billow open in the wind. Your near frozen hand traces the letters of your name gently. She realize what you're about to do but her words of protest doesn't register as your other metallic hand shatters the rock before you. A feeling of anger and shame was expected as you literally carve out this piece of your past, this lie told with the best of intentions as they took you into the clan. The feeling of relief and a lessening of the dull ache you've barely realized was there, was not expected. The stone is cracked and torn. The name is no longer recognizable. You were never one of them. You never will be. You are not Minmatar, not Sebiestor not... not of the clan.
As you stand up and turn away, intending to leave without another word you're stopped by the völva's question.
"And what of the name carved up above? Will you erase that too?"
"It may have been as much or even greater a lie than me being Gripdjur, but no."
"Why not?"
You glance at her, the marks on your cheeks plainly visible.
"That will only be erased when I can erase both halves and finally be rid of my shame."
You can feel the völva's eyes on you as you begin your descent through the howling wind and billowing snow. You know you will never be able to put into words how grateful you are that she didn't answer. Your mind slowly begins to move on to the future. You've been gone too long to know who to trust and who to approach before you show yourself to the cluster once more. The Republic entities will never work. They have different priorities. Deep down they too know those in the Empire aren't their kind. Not their responsibility. Federation and State entities are even less useful. No. There is one man. A Thukker who often disagreed. Who often held different ideals and used different means. One who would recognize and know that it didn't matter, because the result would be the same even if the goal was different. One who would understand what those who came to be in the shadow of the Empire should and could do.
Yes, he would do nicely. It'd be a start. You can't tell where the words come from, within or without, but you can't help but whisper them upon the wind.
"Sarz'namarr."
As the shadows grow longer, they fall upon the Empire.
Author
Topic: As the shadows lengthen. (Read 1682 times)