Cessair reached the end of Moonflower's wheat field with a huff, a bundle of grain on her back and another in her free hand; not to mention the seventeen waiting in the barn to be processed for the silos. It was always grueling work, keeping the fields by hand, but work worth doing is rarely easy-- even if she was still befuddled about the section of their fields that seemed a donation to a local ant... bug... creature.
Given all her work, she let out a sigh, settling to sit under the nearby trees for a swift break, letting the swishing leaves and dancing, dappled light from above steady her for a moment.
It was... strange, to think that this was home now. Strange to think that spring had arrived and while she still gathered herbs and tended the farms, so much else had changed. There were no stone spires in need of carving with the history of the old archive, no solstice dance to prepare for, no young Hakkahni who would be praying to the trees, asking the forest to provide what would be their mask in but a few months. Spring had always meant change, but the change she knew seemed a ripple compared to the tidal wave Templehelm was eternally battling.
No. Templehelm was different.
Here, it was bracing for the next bout of chaos, the next threat to rear its head, the next friend to turn up hurt. It was raising a hospital in a day because too many people stumbled to the door hurt to keep shuffling them into the Bomb House for her to frantically treat. It was standing before an altar and refusing to kneel as she said a prayer.
She drew in a deep breath, shaking her head. Gods, she was getting dour. To think of only the terrible things that surround them...
Templehelm was spring itself, really. A realm of eternal change and evolution, never resting before it became something new. It was being spirited away by a knock at the door to drink copious amounts of booze at a bar with Hazel. It was Svarog and Faerl's intertwined hands, despite all that twisted their flesh or form. It was Ada's eternal creative ways to create challenges she could defeat. It was Richard and every odd new proficiency in a random skill he seemed to discover with delight. It was Lockridge's ability to solve any problem except how to get his hair to lie flat under his top hat. It was Beroe, eyes glowing in the night and hands warm against her own, drawing her into the woods, moving like there was music only she could hear.
It was ever a part of the Cycle it seemed, that even the very concept of change must evolve. That the expected ebb and flow would give way to the wild, that the wolf turned prey to the hunter, then lives in surprise of being made a pet.
This isn't how she expected to be living, in the spring she turned 22. She always thought she'd spend every year amongst her kin; mother and father at her side, sister close at hand. At the wild minimum, she would have expected to still live within the confines of the Hakkai.
But life does not give the expected, nor is it often kind, so she does not even live to be 22; truly, it's more a formality to call her such, after so many years amongst the Beyond, waiting for Nothing that became Something.
Here she was, though, and for every fault and flaw, Cessair Who-Lost-Her-Name would never be known as one to waste an opportunity.
She'd live, or whatever this state she had could be called. It was a simple, comforting thought, as she hefted the bagged sheafs of wheat back over her shoulders, preparing to drop them off and reseed the fields. It was comforting to remember change, of the best and worst, would be eternal. Every down may not result in a corresponding up, but things could not be for the worse forever.
Templehelm evolved every day; and she had no intention of being left behind.
"Tepiatekwi, Dahwahni," she murmured in a tongue unchanged even by countless seasons, eyes set upon the freshly green trees, the warming winds of the season, the animals milling in their stalls, spoke it to a world ever shifting. "Ne ma'i aiki."
Tepiatekwi, Dahwahni - "Welcome, Spring"
"Ne ma'i aiki" - "I am here"
((Ignore me forgetting to post this until the last possible moment-- and happy spring!))
