Danae

Danae - Beloved of God

Named for Danaiette

"Once, in an age long past, Danaiette lived as a mortal on the land of Elyniah yet she did not have proper respect for her God, D'omkhet.

D'omkhet was an angry God and tolerated little from the people he ruled over and it was known that he was a cruel and harsh master. Danaiette did not heed the warnings she was given to fear D'omkhet."

"I will fear nothing I cannot respect first." (Something like that)

"D'omkhet was furious when he heard such things and caused great destruction in the lands. Yet Danaiette stood firm in her beliefs that he was not a God to bow down before.

"The heavens themselves quaked and the harsh light that killed the land was blackened. Not a man nor an animal could see, each stumbled about unknowing.

And in this darkness one stood strong, it was the girl Danaiette. She raised her face to the blacked sky and called for D'omkhet to face her, to see what it was he did to her people."

"If you could see what I can you would know that you are wrong!"

"In his anger, D'omkhet did what he had never done before and stole the child from the land, taking her to the immortal realms and imprisoning her. As she ascended the land became light again but it was a mixed blessing as it came back harsher than before.

"It was a time of great agony for the people as each time she angered him the people would suffer. And she did anger him, yet he was impressed by her courage and strength.

"In time, his demands for respect and submission became something else and still she refused him. For a time he was angrier than everytime that had come before, no one had ever refused him, a God and master of Elyniah. And she was a mere mortal.

"Centuries passed and Danaiette was still firm in her beliefs. At a loss for how to appease her D'omkhet asked how it was he could please her and make her his.

Taking her chance Danaiette turned to him and in a voice so strong as to span the realms asked for the release of her people from the torment he inflicted upon them.

"For a while D'omkhet did not know what to say, it was such a wild request and he pleaded for another option but as she had always done Danaiette would not change her mind.

With many reservations D'omkhet agreed and as the two immortals entered an age of peace and love so did the people."

The child tilted her head to the side thinking,

"But what hppened then?"

"Well, everyone was happy"

"But everyone's not happy now"

"Ah, that's a different story"

"Can I hear it?"

"Maybe tomorrow"

"But I need to know now"

The old man sat in though for a time,

"How about I tell you some now then the rest later?

Elyniah Khet – Y486 S.G. (of the Sun God)

The small isle of Yhmana was over flowing with bustling activity first thing in the morning. After what seemed like an age in between, D’omkhet, father of Sun and War, appeared to be expressing some of his rare sighted benevolence to his largely oppressed people.

In a stage were the sun burned down hotly on the people, causing endless amounts of disease and failed crops, the morning that would dawn with a faint breeze and the visible promise of even some slight rain was cause for much celebration. And of course, even more work, for who ever knew how long the God’s strange temperament would stay thus?

Heading down at a fast paced stride through the middle of the main street and all of its stalls and rapid exchanges of goods, Danaiette had a smile for every person that she came past with her all but overflowing basket of freshly caught fish from her father’s boat on the harbour. Her father and family were very well known upon the isle. It was oft times said that her father was the best-known fishmonger that there had been in several generations. However, for all the gain that he made, more than half was given as offering at the start of everyday to hopefully increase D’omkhet’s goodwill over his people.

“D’omkhet’s will seems favourable over us this morning, does it not, young Dana?”

Danaiette had stopped to give a portion of her father’s pick to an elderly woman who paid well for the resources at least three times a week. If the smile that she offered the old woman was strained, the woman never said ought of it.

“If we spent all our time measuring the favour of such a God, Marei, I’d say that we would have no time to sought and dispatch our offerings to Him,” Danaiette all by scoffed.

The old woman, Marei, appeared more than shocked at such a bold outburst. Her eyes widened to the size of small saucers.

“Oh, shut your mouth, dear girl!” she said, and for a moment, Danaiette really worried that the woman might have a heart failure at her words. “Such words should not ever be uttered in His presence. He is always watching, you know!”

“As though I could forget,” Danaiette murmured, collecting the money from Marei, and noting with distraction the kind tip that had been added in respect for her father. “Although I sometimes think that He must, else we should have more mornings like this one. Good day, Marei!” she hastened to finish with cheer, before starting off down the street again, her load slightly lighter now.

In high spirits for the morning, Danaiette’s step had a definite spring as she came to a stop at the next purchaser’s stall.

“And a good morning to you too, Danaiette,” greeted another customer of her father’s, this time a middle aged father with kind eyes named Jeroff. His eyes widened as he looked down in some surprise at the load Danaiette had just set down on the top of his stall to give her arms a brief reprieve. “My, this is a larger load than recent others. One of your brothers then must be delivering the second half to D’omkhet’s shrine as we speak, no?”

“No actually,” Danaiette said, counting out with him the amount that should be his by standard issue. “I’m on my way there after I’m finished here. It makes little sense to go there first when this street is right along the way.”

Jeroff looked up from the fish in sudden shock and, Danaiette was surprised to find, a sort of fear. His hands hurriedly lifted away from the fish in question as though he was suddenly afraid to even touch them.

“Are you alright?” Danaiette asked in quick concern. “Is there something wrong with these fish?” She began to look at them more closely, picking through them with the tips of some of her fingers.

“You must get them to the shrine immediately!” the man hissed suddenly enough to have her jerking her fingers away from them in reaction. His eyes had still not left the basket. “You know that it is D’omkhet that gets very first pick of the day. All those that are the best quality are to be reserved for Him!”

“Oh, is that what bothers you, Jeroff?” Danaiette asked in some relief. “Rest assured, they will be offered to him. I would not dream of trying otherwise!” It took some control on her part not to roll her eyes at the words.

“No fish today, Danaiette,” Jeroff decided, turning his back on the basket in a hurry. “We have no room to store them. Tell your father that tomorrow, maybe tomorrow we shall get more. After the offerings are passed.”

Danaiette raised her eyebrows some at his turned back, before grabbing the basket once more and hefting it up to a position where she could carry it without dropping it.

“Are you sure?” she asked with doubt, standing there a little longer.

Jeroff only nodded his head vigorously without ever turning. With a shrug, and a heavy breath, Danaiette turned to leave his stall without bidding him a good day. Not that he would have seen or heard her if he had any say in it, she thought with a level of frustration.

This was getting way past ridiculous, Danaiette was thinking to herself as she reached the stone shrine, having bypassed at least three other customers of her father’s. No doubt they would have had the same reaction had they heard she had come to them before giving her family’s offering to the all seeing, all knowing God first. She almost cringed when she imagined the reaction Marei would have as soon as she found out about her purchase.

Heavily, she dumped the basket down on the pyre from her standing up position, rather than bending at the knees to deliver it properly. How would he ever know, she thought sourly. He was probably too busy oppressing another land right now. That would be the only reason for their cool reprieve today. It would all be the same again tomorrow, Danaiette knew. Theirs was a vengeful God. All the offerings in Yhmana would not satisfy his lust for control and domination.

Danaiette was moodily picking out the fish and dumping them on the pyre next to the whole basket. This was strange in itself, for Danaiette was a kind person at heart. She had offered help more than most on the island when they had come down with the symptoms of the Sun sickness. More often than not, she was called upon for these very cases. It was for this reason that she was beginning to get rather sick of her lot, for still, after all else, the people she belonged with insisted on this continual worship of an unworthy God.

The sound of stone scraping against stone alerted her that she was no longer alone in the Shrine of D’omkhet. Turning around slightly, still on her knees, Danaiette peered curiously at the newcomer.

It was not someone that she recognised. In fact, it did not look anything like the people on Yhmana at all. By trait, people on the island had richly tanned skin and dark to black hair. Their clothing was little more than off colored rags draped across their bodies. It was ordinarily far too hot for anything more. However, it was more than any of these things that stood this newcomer out as something other than a usual Yhmanan. Work in this heat on a daily basis was hard. It stunted the growth and made for uneasy movement in the early aged. Also, most were, well, short.

The new comer was none of these things, although he must have been older than her eldest brother, who was already showing the signs of discomfort in movement. And he was tall. Not just tall in the height sense, but there was something about him that filled up the entire shrine just by his standing there. His hair had a shine to it that made it seem entirely brighter than the blackness that was dull and dirty for everyone else, including even Danaiette. And his clothing appeared to be clean and fitted. This man did not belong here, but in the same strange way, he somehow did.

All at once, Danaiette realised to whom she was facing. Already down on her knees, although this would have been the singularly last place she would have willed to find herself in His company, she refused however to lower her eyes. After a moment of stalemated staring, the God just raised one perfectly formed eyebrow.

“Is it possible that you know not who I stand before you as?” D’omkhet asked of her. Danaiette had to refrain from blinking in amazement or darting a tongue out to lick her lips. His voice was unimaginable to one who had never heard it. She knew then that she would never be able to describe it to anyone hereafter.

“Do you not hear me?” He asked again. As though she could not, Danaiette thought, slightly dazed, although through that, she was beginning to hear the tone of arrogance and cruelty that she despised him for. It helped to strengthen her resolve and bring her back into proper focus.

“Or are you merely a dumb mute?” He questioned, his eyes narrowing as though he could not permit himself to be in the company of so lowly a person.

Slowly and defiantly, Danaiette rose to her feet in front of him, but even so, she reached barely up to his shoulder.

“I am neither dumb nor mute,” she uttered each word with deliberation. “And I am completely aware of exactly who you are. I do however wonder why.”

D’omkhet gazed into her as though he could scarcely believe how he had just been spoken to. At any moment, Danaiette half expected him to turn his head around to make sure that there was nobody else in the shrine whom she could have been directing that comment to, she thought in mild hysteria. Had she really said that to Him?

All the same, although it might decimate her from the inside out, she held fast to his eyes that were boring steadily into her with such innate strength that Danaiette was feeling vastly drained by the time that he considered speaking out again.

“You dare speak to me thus, even though you would know who it is you are speaking to?” He did not wait for her to reply. “I had thought to grant your people reprieve. They have served me well over these years, without question or complaint. I have indeed been watching,” He told her deliberately, as though he had known the very doubts that had resided inside of her head.

He probably did, she thought wildly. A reprieve? Could he be telling the truth?

“However, you will be the cause for my wrath,” D’omkhet continued, his voice totally devoid of any and all emotion. Danaiette could scarcely believe than one, even one such as Him, could be so cold. “No crops will grow, nor animals prosper. Your community will falter and fall, and go back into the oblivion from which it came. I leave of you in absolute.”

Danaiette blinked. Surely he could not be true in his words.

It became apparent in a moment that he was more than true. He was gone, as though he had never been, and Danaiette was left staring into the space that he had formerly filled. Spinning around in a fright, she found that neither the fish or basket remained on the pyre.

Bastard, she thought with the strength borne of fear. He took the lot with him!

A somewhat muffled gasp from the entrance to the shrine had Danaiette spinning around once again. Her younger sister stood there, one hand up to her mouth as she too stared at the place that D’omkhet had so recently stood.

Oh no. She had witnessed it too?

“What have you done?” Kaiet asked, her eyes slowly lifting up to those of her sister. Danaiette saw the beginnings of tears shining in them. She was willing to bet that had Kaiet taken her hand away from her mouth for a second, her lower lip would have been trembling.

“Kaiet, I. . .” Danaiette took a step forward, wanting to explain herself, needing to explain what had happened here.

She never got that chance. As soon as her first step was taken, Kaiet started, turned around and darted away without once looking back over her shoulders.

*

Elyniah Khet – Y485 S.G. –

The sun was still yet to be seen. As first days, and then numerous weeks had passed, the people of Yhmana had become first anxious and then all out afraid over the continuing, relative darkness that had settled over them almost as a plague. They forgot how terrible to harsh, beating sun had been on crops and people alike in its absence, and focused only on that crops were growing no better now and wild animals were fast going scarce. Even Danaiette’s father, Reishal’s business was flailing.

All together, it made an increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere during family mealtimes in Danaiette’s house.

Kaiet had of course run straight home that day, white as the sheets their mother had been washing in the river when she had found her. After moments of formless utterances borne of fear and no sense, Medhera had been able to glean the outline of what had happened from her youngest daughter, and had hastened immediately to her husband who was still working on the boat with their elder boys, Simeon and Christov.

By the time Danaiette had dredged herself back home again, the family had been in a meeting and stared at her with hollow eyes, greeting her with what her actions meant she had done to the people of Yhmana. As she had sat down to her usual place at the table, she’d known that things had changed forever. There didn’t even appear anything that she could say. This went beyond all words. None of the family could even eat that night.

In the following days, word spread around the entire of the isle. It seemed to Danaiette that she could go nowhere without groups of people turning away from her, or little children pointing her out to others before anxious mothers turned them aside and shuffled away as far from her as they could manage. Nobody seemed to remember the good she had done, could still do. They all seemed most concerned with showing their continuing loyalty to their absent God.

Her whole family became outcasted within the community, and as Reishal’s business went from flailing to nonexistent, there seemed no reason to even communicate with any member of the whole family. Even Reishal’s boat was taken away from him in the end, and given to a more worthy family of five who could do better things with it. Danaiette’s family was completely without income or any type of support.

There was only one thing that Danaiette could see to do. However, as she was not allowed inside of the Shrine of D’omkhet, which had been kept in even better condition since the day-the-sun-had-gone, Danaiette had to find some other way around it. Some time when the constant flow of guardians to the shrine rested, or changed over, or something. Anything to give her a chance to set right what had gone so wrong.

And then one day came her chance.

One of the youngest boys of the family who had taken the boat off Reishal’s hands had fallen overboard. It was his father who was on guard in front of the shrine that day. Hearing his son’s cries for him, he had sprinted away, without further thought to his duty at the shrine. Danaiette too had heard the cries, but instead of running to help, as she would once have done, she saw the opportunity that had been granted to her, and without anyone else’s notice, stepped inside the stone walls of the shrine.

He was already standing there waiting for her when she entered.

“You wished to see me.”

It was not a question, Danaiette noted, at the same time as she seethed inwardly at the smug tone that he was using. Gritting her teeth though, and forcing anything that would not help her cause to the lowest depths of her mind, Danaiette concentrated on her family honor, and what she could still do for her people.

“I did,” she answered, hoping that it was in just the right tone of respect as she lowered her head marginally.

So much did she hate the act of submission, even telling herself that she was only doing it so that she need not looking into his so smug face did not help. She thought that she heard laughter in his tone when he next spoke, and hated him all the more for it.

“Why is that, I wonder? You are certainly not sorry for your actions as they were before. Why would you come to me now, in this very shrine?”

“I am not sorry, you are right. But my people need you. They are dying without you,” she replied, head still lowered.

There was a pause, designed to keep Danaiette in suspense, she was sure. Then he spoke again.

“It seems that you need me only to make your lot in life better again. That is none of my concern. You have made your own trouble in life. I merely dealt it out.”

“Then undeal it!” Danaiette cried, lifting her gaze up to his.

He’d been baiting her, she soon realised. Knowing that it would only take that little bit to push her over the edge and give him even more reason to punish her people.

“Please,” she ended lamely, hoping that this would somehow be enough.

With a gaze directed at her deliberately to let her know that he was not unaware of her tactics, D’omkhet lifted a hand to his chin and paced a step or two to the side and looked out of one of the shrine windows.

“Your people are indeed looking the worse for wear,” he murmured without any real sound of emotion. “But I wonder, is it really any worse than the sun that you so complained about before? If I gave it back to you, would you still continue to complain?”

He gazed at her significantly, as though knowing whatever she replied here, she would be lying in her heart of hearts.

“Please,” Danaiette replied, as meek as she had ever sounded. “I will personally do anything that you would require of me. Just please, if you would do this one thing. . .”

“She is in here!” came a cry from outside. Danaiette’s eyes widened in fright. She hadn’t realised how long she’d been in here. But now, looking across the shrine, she saw that D’omkhet had left as suddenly as he had the last time, leaving her nothing but herself to answer for herself in this.

“Danaiette!” her father raged at her, causing her to cringe anew. She had just rained even more shame upon her family. “You will come with me at once. We will discuss this insubordinate disrespect from there!”

“I do not believe that we should be satisfied with that,” the former customer of Reishal, Jeroff spoke up. His face was hard in a way that Danaiette had never seen it before when he gazed into her. “This girl has already caused enough troubles for our people, and now she seeks to make it even worse by desecrating it even further for those of us who still wish to prey!”

“No! That isn’t what I was trying to do at all!” Danaiette swiftly attempted to appeal, but it was no use. Nobody was listening to her anyway.

“I seek demand that she be punished immediately for all of her crimes!” Jeroff cried, encompassing the growing crowd into his demands. “Who is with me on this?”

There were several shouts of ‘Aye’ as the question spread around the group. Danaiette’s head swivelled around in growing fear, lastly gazing up at her father, whose eyes were suddenly just as cold as anyone else’s there around.

“Well Reishal? This is your daughter. Are you with us or against us?” Jeroff asked, as the crowd suddenly hushed so that every ear could listen into his reply.

“Think of the rest of your family, Reishal,” a woman’s voice intervened. Danaiette looked to see where the voice was coming from, and saw Marei’s raised hand getting her father’s attention, at the same time as studiously avoiding Danaiette’s own eyes. Well, she had wondered what her reaction would be when she found out about the fish, Danaiette thought through the dim reality of what was happening from all around her. “What is going to happen to them if you side with your second youngest? You and they could prosper along with the rest of us if you just gave her up.”

Danaiette looked desperately at her father’s face one last time. Surely he wouldn’t. Surely he couldn’t! But now, it was her father’s eyes that were studiously avoiding Danaiette’s. She felt that she almost couldn’t bear a moment more of this.

And then something changed the dynamics of the whole situation. At first she thought that it might be the rest of her family come to back her up and stop her father before he made a terrible mistake. But then, she realised that it was something so much worse.

For the first time, D’omkhet had appeared in front of the whole of his people. There were gasps, and shuffle backs so as not to crowd the God who was suddenly in their midst. Several of the women outright fainted.

“I have heard your cries,” He began, in that massive voice that Danaiette could remember scarcely believing that first time that she had heard it. It felt like a century away from her now. “And I see that you are sincere in your pleas. I hope now that you can more greatly appreciate the gifts I give down to you in exchange for your reverence and offerings. I will give all back graciously if you but answer my one demand.”

With a sort of prophetic sight, Danaiette realised exactly what D’omkhet was going to demand even before he locked his steely eyes with hers. She panicked in that one moment that everyone else rejoiced in the promise of the sun. She didn’t know how she could live through it.

“I want the one who first displeased me. I will take her with me and none of you will ever see her again.”

All at once, Danaiette saw that this could be taken as both bad and good. At the same time, she knew which one her people were leaning toward with all the events of late. They couldn’t give her to him though, she inwardly begged. But she knew they would. She knew without even watching what happened next.

All she remembered later was that none of her family ever said goodbye. Not a one, from her father to Kaiet. In that moment when D’omkhet claimed her to him for unbearable immortality, she stood utterly alone.

*

Elyniah Khet – Y483 S.G. –

This would not get to her. She would never give Him that satisfaction.

Already, Danaiette had lost track of the weeks since she had first come into the prison of D’omkhet’s making. Time had no real relevance in this place. She had aged not at all since the day He’d first brought her here. He came to her every once in so often, but on each visit, her refusal to His wishes infuriated Him and he left her again in a rage until the next time.

The thought came into Danaiette’s head without warrant as she heard the familiar stride down the hall, before she could hear as He paused and the door swung open to admit Him.

“Danaiette.”

“D’omkhet,” she responded, without looking up from the window she gazed out of, thinking ‘Anywhere but here. Just take me anywhere but here.’

She felt his gaze upon her a moment in silence before he spoke to her again. She didn’t allow herself the mercy of thinking he had just left the room. He always came here for a reason.

“I believe I may have something to show you that will be of interest to you,” he informed her.

With reluctance, Danaiette turned her head around to face D’omkhet, before standing up. She knew that he would not order her to follow him. She was expected to do so anyway. She didn’t see much of a point in disputing him in this when there were far bigger battles between them to be fought and won.

She followed in behind him down the hallway, grudgingly glad for the opportunity to be out of her prison.

In front of an oddly shaped picture at the end of the hall, D’omkhet came to a stop. While waiting for D’omkhet to say something to her, she gazed into it, wondering as she did why it seemed so familiar to her.

“Do you know how long you have been here in accordance to Yhmanan time?” He asked of her in a deceptively disinterested tone of voice.

“Weeks,” Danaiette answered at a guess. “Perhaps a month?”

“Two years,” D’omkhet informed her in that same tone of voice. His expression did not change as her head whipped around to face him.

“Two years?” she whispered weakly. “By the. . .”

She clamped her lips shut hurriedly as she realised what she had been about to say. What a thing, especially when she was standing beside one such being! Her eyes closed for a moment so as she might deal with what this could mean to her in her own mind, without interference of D’omkhet’s constant gaze.

Opening her eyes, she realised suddenly what it was that was so familiar about the picture in front of her. Obviously it was different, two years on. The people had aged badly, she noticed. She had the feeling from looking at it, that had she extended a hand towards it, she would have felt the heat emanating from it.

“How hot did you make it for them?” Danaiette questioned without looking at the Sun God.

“They said they would never complain. They never did, after you were gone from them,” D’omkhet murmured from behind her.

Danaiette took a deep breath, forcing the inner calm that she had worked on constantly from the time that he had forced her here. It had been the only way to keep from flying into a rage during their every confrontation.

She thought that she caught sight of what she would have imagined her eldest brother, Simeon, to look like two years on. He was walking along the port hand in hand with a young girl near enough to his age. Had he married? It would make sense. He would be, after all, well of age now.

“There is no need for you to continue in your self appointed prison while you are here,” D’omkhet rejoined after a moment of silence between them. “Do you think that I brought you here just to imprison you for eternity?”

“At the beginning,” Danaiette murmured with a nod. Her eyes still hadn’t left the picture, hungry for the sight of others of her family.

“You have been more than trying, Dana,” the Sun God informed her harshly. “I am not used to taking such insolence from so lowly a being. Nor should I have to be.”

She so hated it when he called her by that shortening of her name. It always reminded her of Marei and the way that the old woman had avoided her eyes in that last time that she had ever seen her. She wondered if the woman was even still of the living. Marei had called her by Dana ever since she had been a small girl. She didn’t fool herself that D’omkhet had come by the shortening by accident or coincidence.

However, in replying to the Sun God’s comment, she saw no point, so she remained silent. Behind her still, D’omkhet gave an impatient sigh, and pulled her around to face him.

“You will grant me enough respect to look at me when I am speaking to you,” He ground out, shaking her slightly.

“I can not respect someone who has no thought for others,” Danaiette gritted out in reply.

“I have thought for others. Had I not, believe me when I say that you would already be dead. I do not keep you alive for your silence!”

“Then why do you keep me here?” Danaiette asked him daringly. “Go on, tell me. Why would you even bother to condition the sun back for my people through taking me away in the bargain? It obviously wasn’t about me. You punish them still with the intense heat of your ‘gifts’. Do you even know what you punish them for, or is it just for your own fun?”

Danaiette’s eyes sparked into His, as a small smile crept across his features.

“That is why I keep you here,” He informed her. “That spark; so infrequent in a mortal, especially when faced with something so much greater than they.”

Danaiette glared away again, infuriated that he would take her emotion and laugh at it. But then, what had she expected? She should never have allowed him to bait her thus. Would she never learn?

“You think that you are so powerful merely because you are immortal and inspire fear in the ones you have power over.” Danaiette spoke low, still looking away from him. “You will never know that true power lies in the compassion, love and unity one can bring to their people. In that way, you will always just be another weak being, hardly better than those mortals you have power over. And like the larger boys who pick on the small, you are nothing but an oversized bully.”

It was a moment before D’omkhet reacted at all to her words, calmly spoken as they had been. When he did, she knew it immediately. Her arm was suddenly grasped within his roughly powerful hand, and she was shoved closer to the picture she had been so eager to study just moments before. Now that he was forcing her to look into it, however, she was not so sure that she wanted to see.

“Why must you always push it that little bit too far?” He raged. “You have no place unless I grant it to you. See what your actions are wreaking? Did you think that just because I took you from them, they would be saved from your careless words?”

Unfortunately, He was giving her no choice. Suddenly, in front of her, all she could see were the dead and the dying. An old woman, Marei, collapsed under the sudden rush of heat that beat down on her. Others rushed around to try to help her to her feet, but even they were not faring much better.

Another flash; a young boy she only recognised vaguely by sight, not name, was lying on a bed, hot and angry looking blisters covering his face.

“He’s having trouble breathing,” Danaiette heard a voice coming through somewhere. “We think that the disease has moved into his windpipes. This latest rush of heat has not helped any.”

“Do as best as you can, Kaiet. There are too many others who are in need of your immediate support.”

Kaiet. Danaiette was too much in angst at that moment to relish in the fact that her youngest sister had stepped up to her old position in the helping of others with the sun diseases. And the horrors rushed on.

Her father was at home with her mother, dabbing her drained face with a wet cloth, every so often withdrawing it to wipe his own face, before returning to his caring ministrations.

There was never any sight of her second brother, Christov. Did that mean that he was dead already?

“I believe that’s enough excitement for today,” D’omkhet informed her coldly.

Danaiette lifted her head proudly and carefully wiped her face of all emotion before He could glimpse it. Complacently, she allowed Him to lead her back to the room that was her prison. Still, it was a prison that would keep Him away from her, so in that moment, she was glad for it. It barely registered when the Sun God glanced at her in residual anger before slamming the door behind him.

His heavy steps echoed down the hall, taking Him away from her once again.

*

Elyniah Khet – Y378 S.G. –

A century passed. Could have been two. There really didn’t seem much of a point in counting the days when each one was much the same as the day before, and you had immortality to look forward to ahead of you.

Despite all of this, Danaiette had never let this drown out her strength of will or optimism that things would one day get better. And slowly, over the decades, they had. Eventually, D’omkhet had permitted servants of his employ to enter into her area of his massive estate. She was even permitted to talk to them, and they to her. And as D’omkhet came into his charming little visits less and less, the servants became more comfortable around her presence.

She found out that in effect, she was just the same as them, only without the chores set that they were expected to fulfil. Over time, they had opened up to her enough to let her know they too had once been of the mortal plane, before D’omkhet had plucked them from their former lives and taken them here. None had ever heard of such a place as Yhmana though. Danaiette did not know whether this meant that they were from different places on the same planet, or differing planets altogether. She supposed that it didn’t really matter, and in either case, she really had nobody to go to and ask about it.

Most of the servants were okay with her wondering down the hall when they came to sort out her room, so long as she wondered no further than that. Thus, Danaiette was able to keep a more or less constant vigil over her changing people as the decades went past. First her siblings’ children, of which were relatively few. Childbirth had become a difficult thing for the woman’s health and oft times, more than one child per couple would be the death of the mother, and/or the babe.

She found out that Christov had indeed died a young death before that first time that she had glimpsed the picture. Her mother had not died long after. Thankfully, the other two of her siblings had lived long lives with their loved ones, although Simeon had been the only one out of them to have children; one boy and a girl, Jakobe and Kristina. He had lost his wife through the birthing of Krist, but through the grief, doted on both of his children all the same.

On one mild afternoon while one of her favorite servants, Jaiyn, was busy in her room. Danaiette had been dreamily gazing at Jakobe with his only grandson, until his son returned from his work, when Jaiyn reached her side, all flushed and appearing distinctly in angst.

“Jaiyn, what is. . .” she began, turning around.

“Danaiette, what are you doing out here? You must get back into your room. That was no way for you to sneak out of the room while my back was turned!” Jaiyn said, riding over any words Danaiette may have spoken.

“Jaiyn, I don’t understand. What are you. . ?” Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed D’omkhet’s familiar figure striding towards the two of them. “I’m sorry Jaiyn,” she hastened to fix, “It’s just that it’s so cramped in there. I needed to stretch my legs.”

“Jaiyn, you are dismissed. Go downstairs at once!” D’omkhet’s voice beckoned without compromise.

Jaiyn bobbed deeply a couple of times, before hurrying away, too feared to even cast a last look of apology or ought else in Danaiette’s direction.

“Enjoying your time out here?” He questioned of her, stepping entirely too close for Danaiette’s comfort.

“Did you not say once that you had not brought me here as a prisoner?” Danaiette challenged him mildly.

“So I did,” D’omkhet acceded. “It has been a long time between then and now. I wonder, has your tongue softened at all in that time out here alone?”

“I have hardly been alone. I can return to my quarters if that is your wish,” Danaiette said, the barest hint of a question in her voice.

“That is not necessary,” D’omkhet dismissed. He gestured vaguely towards the picture. “I trust that your people carry on well enough?”

“As well as can be expected, yes,” Danaiette answered, giving him no quarter for what she still rightly believed to be his harsh and unfair treatment of the people of Yhmana.

“Ah yes, because I continue to treat your people so badly,” D’omkhet said with irony. “Yet if I take away the sun from them completely, it is only then that the people themselves actually begin to worry.”

“You have given them no cause to expect anything better!” Danaiette argued. “And yet you see yourself living in. . . well.”

There was no need to expand on that. Both Sun God and his ‘prisoner’ were quite able to view the splendid scenery and weather conditions that D’omkhet surrounded himself with.

“I am a God. Why should they expect any better?” D’omkhet asked her, incredulous.

Danaiette looked at him, slowly narrowing her eyes, but without the naturally accompanying anger for this once.

“You really don’t see, do you?” she questioned of him, although speaking more as if she were speaking only to herself. “They are your people as well. Why should it matter whether or not you are a God next to that?”

To that, D’omkhet had no answer. Instead, with one scathing look in her direction, he turned on his heel and left her standing there, forgetting for once to make sure that she was locked inside of her prison. For a moment, Danaiette stayed where she was in a state of paralysed shock. She had never seen it before, but suddenly, she conceived that she’d begun to understand.

*

Elyniah Khet – Y347 S.G.

Danaiette was restfully meditating in the centre of her room as D’omkhet strode inside. He appeared to hesitated uncomfortably a moment, before berating himself that he should even care. This was still a part of his estate after all!

It didn’t matter; Danaiette had already begun to come too the very instant that her room had been entered by a second person.

“D’omkhet,” she greeted neutrally.

He nodded stiffly towards her, His jaw still hard. She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head as though to silently question why he had come to her in this way.

“I have decided that I no longer want you locked away from the rest of my estate in this little corner.” D’omkhet halted. “It does not please me.”

Danaiette glanced up at him a moment longer, before she broke eye contact with him and moved carefully up to her feet to face him on more level grounds.

“I see. And when, prey, did you come by this epiphany?” she questioned mildly, before turning to her window to open her curtains and let some light into the room, not waiting until he gave any answer.

He waited until she was finished with her fiddling and again standing with her attention on Him before speaking even one word further.

“What has that to concern you?” He asked her. “You will have Jaiyn to help move your belongings to a more desirable location immediately.”

He had turned so swiftly and was already at the door before Danaiette had the time to reply with a mild, “No.”

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob as though she had shouted the word. Before he turned to face her again, Danaiette went on.

“You come in here just to tell me that you intend to uproot me just like that and I’m supposed to meekly agree?” she asked him with an eyebrow raised. “Just like that?”

He had turned to her again by now, and was regarding her with carefully narrowed eyes, saying nothing in return.

“I must have been here almost 150 years by now, according to Yhmanan time. I think that I deserve more of a reason for this sudden desire to upheaval me to a place more desirable to your whims.” She glanced away from him with a small amount of irony as she added softly, “Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to agree.”

D’omkhet was silent for longer than she would have expected, having used this tone on him many times over the century and a half. When she hazarded a glance up at him however, whatever expression had been on his features dissolved into his usual indifference.

“I rather believe that you will soon find out on your own soon enough,” He answered her, the vague sense of disgust in his tone that caught Danaiette’s sense of curiosity. “Jaiyn will arrive in the early morn; you had best be ready.”

“I have a condition,” Danaiette stated firmly. She didn’t quite know where she had gotten the gall for such a statement, but now with D’omkhet’s intense eyes boring into her, she could hardly go back now. “It was your time to condition the last time that I was uprooted from all I had ever known. You have nothing to bargain with this time, no reason so far as I can see. I shall only be moved if you relent on my people.”

Had D’omkhet been an ordinary mortal, Danaiette was willing to bet that his jaw would have dropped to the floor at her audacity. However, the Sun God was far too proud for such a lapse. Instead, his reaction was swift and decisive as the stab of a sharp knife blade.

“No. It shall not be done.” He turned away from her, not even willing to consider the matter further. “On the morn,” He reminded her before the door was shut with an air of finality.

*

“I did not move you here so that you could become as a prisoner only in new lodgings!”

The move had gone ahead as per D’omkhet’s ordered instructions. Jaiyn had arrived at first dawn, and the two of them had begun the move. Unwilling to cause Jaiyn undue harassment, Danaiette had gone along with it with no more trouble than to take the picture off the wall at the end of the hall and stow it into her room under the cover of sheets and blankets without even Jaiyn knowing of it. The move had been a short one, and since, Danaiette had not moved from her new quarters.

It had been in exactly this position that D’omkhet had stridden in to find her days later; sullen and unprepared to move any further to his wishes.

“You will appreciate these surroundings. I have not brought you to them without adequate reason,” D’omkhet told her.

“Relent on my people,” was all that Danaiette would say.

Gritting His teeth, D’omkhet answered, “It shall not be done.”

“Then I shall not be ‘appreciating these surroundings’,” Danaiette replied, without the barest hint of care in her tone.

The Sun God all but growled out his frustration at the woman in front of him.

“You sorely try my patience, mortal,” He warned her harshly. “One day you will try it too far.”

“And an interesting day that will make indeed,” Danaiette murmured, her shoulders only tensing slightly at the harsh bang of the door against its frame as He exited.

She pulled out the picture and continued to behold its happenings.

*

Again and again over the coming years, D’omkhet came into Danaiette’s new quarters, only again and again to storm out of them severely displeased afterwards. Tensions around the estate were beginning to run high, as even the servants we being affected by the continued happenings between Danaiette and D’omkhet.

“Please, Danaiette, won’t you at least consider stepping out of these quarters. If only for a short time?” Jaiyn begged her, twisting her hands uncomfortably together when she came to fix up the room. “It would lighten the Sun God’s mood ever so.”

But Danaiette remained ever silent, and in the end, Jaiyn moved out of the room again, lips pursed in worry, mostly for her own self.

*

Elyniah Khet – 320 S.G. – Yhmana (Pre 3rd House)

“She will not talk, she will not move, she looks only into that blasted picture until all I want to do is rip it from her fingers and break it into a million pieces!”

The Sun God paced back and forth in ever increasing frustration.

“Why does she do this to me? She must know how it makes me!”

D’omkhet rounded on several of his servants who were watching him in a mixture of fear and awe. That he was being so vocal about anything emotional was beyond belief to them. That all this was over a mortal, effectually, just another one of them, was even more than that!

“What are you all gawking at? While you stand there, dozens of chores could be tended to. Of with you all now. I shall settle this myself!”

As they hastened from his sight before worse temper was turned on them, D’omkhet strode with heavy feet to the door of Danaiette’s quarters. Having heard his approach, Danaiette had stood to open it for him, and from either side of the doorframe, they appraised one another.

“You have cast your picture aside,” D’omkhet noted stiffly, glancing at where he knew she had hidden it.

Danaiette’s faint blush was more than enough to proclaim that she had actually believed that as he had never said word of it, he had remained unaware of her possession of it. Mockingly, D’omkhet scoffed shortly at this.

“Today they fare well enough for you to rest of your vigil then?” He asked, one eyebrow raised.

Danaiette did not bother an answer. With awkward deliberation, while resolutely not looking at her, D’omkhet thought a moment of how to attempt his next sentence.

“Were I to agree to delegate the extreme heat of the sun for only half of the year, would that suffice to see you come out for a turn in the gardens with me?” He asked of her gruffly.

Danaiette looked up at him for a moment as though she could scarcely believe his words, or even the fact that it had been he they had come from. However, getting over that before such a show of shock could be considered offensive, Danaiette lowered her gaze slightly, before offering to him her arm.

The door to her quarters was closed quietly behind them both.

*

“Why would you do this?” Danaiette asked of D’omkhet softly. They had spoken barely at all ever since they had stepped outside together.

He didn’t answer for a while, but Danaiette had grown quite used to these pauses of his over the many scores of years.

“Does it not please you?” D’omkhet asked her.

“Of course,” Danaiette answered without hesitation. “But that does not answer my question of why you would do it.”

“Because it pleases you.”

The words were stated with a neutrality of a Sun God without emotions. The words themselves though were what perplexed Danaiette.

“Because it. . . why should that matter to you?”

They had come almost to a stop, and at that question, Danaiette halted completely, forcing D’omkhet to come around to face her again. There was that typical impatience of his, she noted dully, before he beheld the earnest expression upon her face and the expression on his lessened noticeably. He looked severely uncomfortable at her line of questioning.

“Come, we should not speak of this now,” he answered gruffly instead. “There is, I believe, something I could let you in on that would interest you far more greatly.”

He took her hand in his, and they were striding together again before Danaiette could make an objection.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?” she asked, perplexed anew as they came as far as she had ever seen from any of her rooms’ windows.

“You must close your eyes. Rest assured, I will tell you when it is time to open them again.”

Slowly, and with a last cautious gaze up towards the Sun God, Danaiette did as she was bid. A short time later, and some tingling that had left her unsure as to whether her had was still held within D’omkhet’s larger one or not, her hand was squeezed to answer her silent question, and a voice called to her that seemed far and near at the same time.

“You can open your eyes again.”

She did. And immediately the shock of what she was seeing all around her sent her reeling. She would have quite possibly swooned to the stone fall of the shrine, almost 200 years since her last sighting of it.

“Come now, it is not so bad as that, surely.”

When she looked up into D’omkhet’s eyes, expecting to see smug laughter, she saw instead a gentle caring that she had not known he possessed. With tenderness, he set her upright to her feet again, before claiming both of her hands in his again and staring into her eyes, much in the same positions they had been standing in the very first time they had met in this place.

“Are you alright to go on now?” he asked of her.

“Why have you brought me back here?” Danaiette asked, suddenly afraid of seeing the land in which she had once, so long ago, lived her life.

“The people of Yhmana must see my new Queen,” D’omkhet answered as though it were completely obvious. “How else are they to have their scribes write of it in their ongoing records?”

“Your. . . Queen?” Danaiette asked faintly.

“You’re not about to swoon again, are you?” he asked, as though the idea held no pleasure to him.

Danaiette dumbly shook her head no. With a satisfied nod, D’omkhet dropped one of her hands, and leading her with the other, they stepped out of the shrine as one.

A boy only a scant year from adulthood, as she had been when she had first confronted the Sun God was the first to see the two of them striding down the path towards the main trading street of Yhmana. His eyes opened wide, but before he could utter anything to either of them, he spun around and sped towards the rest of his people.

“Will he be okay?” Danaiette asked in numb concern.

“He is merely telling of what he has seen. We shall be welcomed by the entire people as we come into their street,” D’omkhet answered, having seen it all before.

“Oh.”

Sure enough, what D’omkhet had spoken became true as they emerged from the roughly beaten track. Danaiette faltered at the onslaught of patent worshippers, each eager to make their own mark on their God and his companion who had both chosen fit to bestow their presence upon them this blessed day.

“My people.” D’omkhet’s voice rang with unforgotten authority as Danaiette’s eyes darted around the people whose eyes were also darting across at her between D’omkhet’s words.

They saw her as so far above them, she realised in shock. They cannot see that I am just another one of them from centuries past. You’d think that one of them could see!

But of course they did not. And D’omkhet’s voice rang on. Dimly, Danaiette chose to tune in to the words he was actually saying.

“Two seasons. One for the sun, where animals and trade shall prosper; one for the clouds to cover, offering rest and reprieve until the coming sun again. I present to you my Queen, Danaiette, who has brought this mercy from me upon your people. She came once from your humblest beginnings, but has since ascended to my side.”

D’omkhet drew her forward marginally to the cheers and applause that greeted her and the Sun God’s proclamation. Awkwardly, Danaiette offered a smile to her people, lifted a hand to greet them in return. She said nothing. What could she possibly say?

There. On that child’s face, the very features of her second brother Christov at the same age. He was smiling at her, waving frantically in order to get her attention. Looking up at the ones standing with pride behind him was a young lady who looked as Kaiet had the last time Danaiette had beheld her sister through the picture. The man with her had one arm around her waist, and one on the shoulder of their child, quite possibly the only thing that was holding the child back from leaping forward at her. There was obviously a great amount of love shared between them. And as she met the eyes of the woman who was obviously her very own descendent, she smiled up at Danaiette invitingly.

She knows, Danaiette thought suddenly. Not consciously, but somewhere in her deep recesses, that woman realised that my roots are as her own, and those of her son.

D’omkhet was squeezing her hand silently to get her attention once again. Danaiette gazed up at him, hope shining there with the promise of all new lives.

“We must prepare to go. We are not able to linger long in mortal plane where they age and whither and die. It is not for us to stay,” he murmured at a volume that only she could hear.

She nodded her head at him slightly to indicate that she had heard and understood. As he gave his final words to the people, Danaiette heard none of them, so wrapped was she in the ongoing immortality she had just found within her people; her own family.

Coming back up to the immortal plane where they had left it, Danaiette bestowed a great smile of fortune upon the Sun God.

“You have given me a wondrous gift this day,” she told him.

“It was time,” D’omkhet replied carelessly. “You realise now that you have no choice in your station as Queen by my side.”

“It is not a station I would wish to pass aside,” Danaiette replied. “Who bar me could bring out even so scant amount of humanity forth of the immortal Sun God?”

D’omkhet narrowed his eyes at her warningly, before grasping her shoulders tightly and pulling her towards him without compromise. Their bargain was sealed for immortality.

*

Elyniah Khet – Y 298 S.G.

“J’niah, once mortal child of Shimata, a life short lived to prepare for the immortality of Godhood that is to come. J’niah, now daughter of D’omkhet; father of Sun and war, and of his immortal Queen, Danaiette, formerly of Yhmana.”

The words, spoken with D’omkhet’s usual authority and monotony, were stated to a circle of witnesses made up mostly of their servants, and Danaiette standing closely at his side. The child was barely more than an infant now that the growth of her physical life was drained of her body. On her back, she lay on a marble pyre of pure, shining white as it basked in the power that the Sun God bestowed upon them.

Her Ritual of Becoming was almost complete.

As it was coming to closure, three of D’omkhet’s servants, specially chosen by him beforehand, gathered J’niah up between them and hustled her away. Danaiette was taken by the whole experience.

“Is this how the Gods are born?” she asked D’omkhet quietly, once they were finally alone together.

“How else?” D’omkhet asked with a raised eyebrow. “Once a God, you will not experience death. Not physical death. However, as a God, you must have experience of all mortal woes. This is the only way for it.”

Danaiette considered this piece of information for a while.

“I have never died a mortal death,” she murmured, almost to herself.

D’omkhet’s dark eyes rested upon her.

“No,” he answered. “You instead became immortal.”

Danaiette murmured a small reply to this, before turning and wandering away to her own private quarters, her head bowed down with the weight of her silent thoughts.

*

Elyniah Taeltkah – Y 293 J.S. (J’niah’s Sovereignty)

“Dana.”

J’niah had not spoken since her ascension to the Goddess of her old people, having preferred to spend her days and nights constantly looking down watchfully upon them. Danaiette turned, her lips parted in surprise as her ‘daughter’ came to search her out for the first time.

“You too have been through this,” the young Goddess murmured, with a ring of wisdom that was already far beyond her years. “Gone from your people only to watch down over them. You gave them a better living. I only hope that I might in time do the same.”

Danaiette lifted a hand tenderly up to J’niah’s petal soft cheek, and smiled at her with immense loving.

“You will,” she reassured. “You will do that, and you will do so much more. You are their chosen Goddess of your people. They gave of you for your immortal life and everlasting faith in them. You will not fail them.”

J’niah smiled up trustingly into her ‘mother’s’ eyes.

“I will not fail them,” J’niah answered. “But perhaps, I have failed you?”

Danaiette’s face crumbled at the thought in her child’s mind.

“No!” she hastened to deny. “No, you have not failed me at all. Why would you ever think such a thing?”

“I have lived a full mortal life. I remember it all now. I have come back again to ascend to a Goddess. That is my place in everlasting life.” J’niah’s large eyes burned sorrowfully into Danaiette’s. “You have been robbed of that.”

“Robbed?” Danaiette had not thought of it in this way before. In the beginning, she had been unhappy to be separated from her people, but that time seemed so far removed from her now. She could never remember feeling robbed of anything though.

“Your mortal life never found completion,” J’niah answered her ‘mother’s’ unasked question. “That opportunity was never yours.”

“You are right,” Danaiette conceded. “But it matters not.”

“Does it?” J’niah asked gently. “Or is that just what you have been telling yourself for so long?”

*

“You are unsettled. What is it?” D’omkhet asked of her as they lay together peacefully.

“It is. . . nothing,” Danaiette answered, looking away from his intense gaze.

“Dana.”

“I just,” Danaiette shook her head slightly. “There is nothing ‘unsettled’. It seems that J’niah is coming into her destined role more smoothly of late.”

“And this is which plagues your mind?” D’omkhet asked, leaning forward on one strongly defined arm.

“I never said that anything plagued my. . .” Danaiette trailed off, seeing the futility of pursuing this denial in front of a God who could and probably would probe into her mind himself if he did not obtain the answers that he was looking for.

“It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a little while now,” Danaiette admitted, deciding on a different tack.

“I know this. I have been feeling it,” D’omkhet murmured from beside her, while still giving her the space she needed.

“Yes, well.” Danaiette took a breath, even though she had no real need of it. “J’niah said something to me. You said something the day we had J’niah brought to us here. I think that. . . I want to have a full mortal life.”

D’omkhet sat back slightly, not a great motion, but something that Danaiette felt deeply. It was clearly not what he had been expecting her to come out with.

“A mortal life,” D’omkhet echoed, as though there were some part of this that he was not able to make sense out of. “You know that you are not able to exist for long periods of time in the mortal plane. Why should you wish even have wish of it when you have immortality at your hands?”

“No, I do not mean within this body,” Danaiette told him without looking at him still. “I want to live again. To be born again into a new mortal body.”

Utter silence descended over the room. Danaiette felt it as D’omkhet distanced himself from her further still.

“Please,” she uttered. “Don’t do this. Don’t turn from me like this. You asked me what ailed me. I have only answered your question.”

The tenseness in his shoulders lightened slightly, and his gaze which had been studiously avoiding hers before then now graced her own green eyes again caressingly.

“I have given much thought to this. It is not something I have thought of lightly,” Danaiette went on, having gone too far now to leave it go.

“This is truly your wish then?” D’omkhet asked her, a hint of sadness touching his gruff voice. “To live as a mortal for a full mortal life.”

Danaiette looked deep into her beloved’s eyes a moment, before slowly nodding her head, just once.

“Yes,” she murmured. “This is truly what I want.”

*

Elyniah Taeltkah – Y 284 J.S.

Shimara (Pre 2nd House)

“So it shall be done. . .”

“Daimonae and Jekaron, together in Ma’lia’kah; in childhood; through life and magics; together in unity and balance. Life partners from this day.”

The ceremony was almost ended. Both families of Daimonae and Jekaron were present for this major event in their young children’s lives. Nine years old they were, and as their ‘Maa’ would soon begin to emerge, so was it time for their Shimaran Ma’lia’kah/Life Partners ceremony.

Only one thing still remained. As the Jour’en reading from the front of the gathering looked up from the text and took Daimonae’s slender hand in one of hers and Jekaron’s in her other, she looked up directly to everyone else there present.

“As this is the wished binding between these two families, so shall it be in fact.”

Gently manoeuvring Daimonae and Jekaron’s hands together so that they were clasping each others’ palms under fingers, the Jour’en slid out the pale blue ribbon that had been hanging around her neck and down over her shoulders. With slow and caring deliberation, she twined the thin ribbon over both hands, around their wrists and wove both ends of the ribbon between their joined hands. When Daimonae and Jekaron leaned forward to clasp both of their other hands together between their foreheads, and pulled their ribboned hands apart slightly, both of their families watched carefully to see that the two end had knotted themselves to signify that this Hand-Fast was blessed by the Goddess.

A cheer went up by the first person to sight it, a cry that was quickly echoed around through the gathering. Jekaron smiled cheekily at Daimonae who ducked her head with a smile, before they lifted their still joined hands together to face their families, now also joined together by the ceremony of their own joining.

From far above the gathering where this took place, the Goddess herself, J’niah, looked down upon the happenings of the morning.

“She will fare well,” she murmured to her father, whom she knew without looking was silently lurking around somewhere behind her.

“Of course she will fare well!” D’omkhet growled. “It was I who set her down there.”

J’niah smiled gently, her gaze still bright on Danaiette and her mortal Ma’lia’kah.

*

“So, do you feel any different after the Big Fuss ceremony?”

Daimonae had her back to the window, busy in the ordering and shelving of her father’s many volumes. She turned around with a start, before her features relaxed into a smile as soon as she saw who was leaning up against the window frame.

“Jekaron, do you always have to sneak up on me like that?” she asked tartly. “One day you’re going to scare me to death, and then you’ll be sorry!”

“You’re right,” Jekaron murmured, raising his eyebrow in question before lifting a leg over the windowsill and shimmying his way into the room with her. “Then I’d have no one to practice my magic with as it expands. That would be a bit of an inconvenience.”

Daimonae scoffed, before turning back to the work her father had set for her in his absence at work in the High Tower. Although her father’s position was hardly one of high standing, as his power level had worked out as too low for that honor, it was a darn sight better than many of the other jobs her father’s power level managed to attain.

“What are you doing in here anyway?” Jekaron continued, peering over her shoulder at the piles of books on the floor in front of her and the half ordered shelves against the wall. “I thought we might get up to a bit of mischief today. Really nice weather outside.”

“Is that all you ever think about?” Daimonae asked with a grin. She liked being around him. Whenever he was close by, she felt the strictness of her father’s upbringing receding. It was because her father knew what kinds of job she could realistically expect to get after her ‘Maak Levels’ were demonstrated in the coming years, with the magic levels both her mother and father owned. She had just been glad when they had allowed her to be linked up with Jekaron as her Ma’lia’kah.

“What else is there?” he asked her in all innocence.

“I can’t go anywhere with you until I get all this sorted.” Daimonae indicated around herself with very real regret. “My father will get really mad if it’s not all done by the time he gets back.”

“Come on. Just for a little while. You can be back and get it done before your father ever knows that you were gone.” Jekaron flashed one of his coaxing grins. “Come on, you know you want to.”

Daimonae ducked her head to hide the willingness to go with him. Then she looked at the work she still had in front of her. It wasn’t really so much more to do.

“Well,” she murmured, undecided. “I suppose that it wouldn’t hurt only for a little while. . .”

“Great!” Jekaron enthused. He leapt forward and took her hand in his, before dragging her out towards the window.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Daimonae cautioned, “This is my house. We can go out of the front door.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Jekaron asked, letting go of her hand for a moment as he started to climb out of the window.

“I meant what I said, Jeka,” Daimonae said sternly as he held out his hand to her from the other side of the windowsill. “Only for a little while.”

“Yeah yeah, I remember,” Jekaron said, before with her hand firmly back in his, they sped away from the house like two mini whirlwinds.

*

“She doesn’t remember anything of being up here all that time, does she?” D’omkhet asked, from his habitual place by J’niah’s side as they both gazed into the picture that had in earlier years shown Danaiette a view of her old Yhmana.

“No,” J’niah murmured. “How would that have been fair to her?”

*

“Father. You’re home early.”

Daimonae stood in shock, one leg guiltily hanging over the windowsill as she beheld her father standing in front of the mess of books that she had still not managed to sort through yet. Wide-eyed from behind her, Jekaron stepped back into the shadows, sending hope and well wishings towards his life partner for the scene she was about to face. Shunte most definitely did not look happy as Daimonae subtly waved her life partner away without his notice.

Time had gotten away from them. When she had left, she had fully intended to be back in time to get the work done for her father. She had told him before he had left that morning that she would do it for him. The dismay on her face was echoed by the annoyance on her father at the fact that she had not held up her end of the promise.

“I needed for these to be done by morning, Daimonae,” Shunte said sternly. “And just what are you doing crawling in through the window like that anyway?” He strode over to her purposefully and helped her through. “I’m disappointed that you would have thrown away your responsibilities to your family like that. Were you with Jekaron again?”

“There’s no reason I shouldn’t be, and more reason that I should, at least, now that we are Me’lia’kah,” Daimonae insisted, growing red-faced as she knew that her father had every reason to be disappointed in her. They both knew that her excuses didn’t hold water.

Shunte looked at her sternly again.

“They still need to be done tonight,” he reiterated. “Now I’m going to have to do it, but as I have an early start in the morning, you’re going to help me in what you should have had done in the first place. Understood?”

“Yes father,” Daimonae said, properly chastised. She moved swiftly into position to help, hoping that that would be the last of it.

The hope was too much.

“I hope that you weren’t just fooling around with the boy today,” Shunte told her, referring to Jekaron in the way he always did to let her know that he was displeased in him as well. He did all this without looking at her, which in some ways was worse, as Daimonae could never see the expression that went along with her father’s words. “You are growing up now, and with your Maa Levels coming up, you both need to be prepared for them. If you are going to be spending so much time together, I hope that you are planning to use them wisely.”

Daimonae said nothing. She knew that she was at best only going to be able to persuade Jekaron to actually get down to work one times out of every three times they saw each other. He just simply wasn’t motivated to singular goals as her father wanted her to be. Which was exactly why she so liked him. Not that she could ever explain that to her father.

The job went by mostly in silence, and was done with before middle of the night.

“Right then, I want you going straight to bed to get some sleep,” Shunte dismissed her. “And when you see Jekaron tomorrow, I want you both to organise some kind of working schedule.”

Without waiting for a reply to him, he closed the door behind them both and headed straight to his own sleeping quarters, leaving Daimonae to do the same thing. If only she could figure out how to make Jekaron see how important this was going to be to her and her family as quickly as that, she thought to herself, before her eyes shut in sleep.

*

The next day dawned, and Shunte was already gone from the house before Daimonae awoke. It was her mother whom she spoke to that morn.

“I trust that you are happy with Jekaron then?” Lainia asked of her daughter between breakfast.

“Very,” Daimonae replied happily.

“I trust also that you will not make your father regret his decision in favoring Jekaron,” Lainia continued significantly.

“Of course, mother,” Daimonae murmured, hoping that this would be enough to close the conversation.

With pressure coming from both sides, it made for a very awkward meeting with Jekaron himself later that day. He, of course, was more than understanding to her plight.

“Of course that’s what your parents are saying. I’ve hardly got a reputation for my will towards singular projects now, do I?” Jekaron said with a twinkle in his eyes. “But this is different. I want all the Maa I can get. I mean, have you seen some of the things that those men in the top rooms of the High Tower are able to do during Festivals? It’s not about getting a job out of it, it’s having it for the power and status it will get me.”

Jekaron’s eyes were positively sparkling with his words. To Daimonae, who had never seen her friend so driven by one purpose before, it was an amusing site to watch.

“What, you think that’s funny?” Jekaron asked, raising an eyebrow as he was drawn out of his own reverie.

“No, not at all,” Daimonae hastened to assure him. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you actually motivated like this before.”

“Well then, you’re in for a surprise, oh Ma’lia’kah of mine. From now on, you’re about to see a wholly different side of Jekaron. From now on, we’re going to get down to this business of practicing for the Maa Levels that your parents are so worried about. So, what better time to start than right now then?” he asked her with aplomb and waggling eyebrows.

Daimonae who hadn’t expected the conversation to go anything like this was quite surprised and gladdened by its sudden conclusion. At the same time, she was slightly disheartened by it. He was suddenly in the same mindset as her father, something that she would never have expected to see if she’d been asked about it earlier.

“Right then,” she said with a sharp nod, hoping to disguise what she was thinking. “Okay then, where do we start?”

Jerakon looked around them both. They were alone in pretty open space. Green paddocks and rolling hills surrounded them for almost as far as the eye could see, but for the semi-circle of trees to one side of them and the promise of a trickling creek a little way off. Above, a cornflower blue sky looked down on them, scattered here and there with the fluffiest, most delicate of white clouds. A gentle wind passed around them as Jekaron made a sudden movement to stand.

Bending down over her slightly to reach out his hand to her, he uttered, “Come with me. I have a place we could go.”

With a laugh, she wilfully followed in behind him. They were heading towards the line of trees at the border, she noticed. Keeping to one side of the winding creek, they followed it until they were surrounded by forestry.

“Here,” Jekaron said resolutely coming to a stop.

“Here?” Daimonae questioned, looking around them. “What are we supposed to do here?”

“Practice for the Maa Levels of course,” Jekaron said, as though it were perfectly obvious for anyone to see. He sat down and looked up at her expectantly. “Well, did you want to get this started now or what?”

What else could she say?

After she sat down, he clasped both of her hands in his and they closed their eyes. They know that the first thing they had to found out was what color Maa threads they would be working with from this point. As Daimonae closed her eyes and began to regulate her breathing, she sunk deeper into herself, seeing only the ethereal vision of Jekaron’s body sitting in front of her, doing the same thing.

The first glimpse of her spiritual self was a place that she had never before gotten a sight at, she realised in her surprise at witnessing it for the first time. Children were forbidden experimentation with Maa before they were assigned their Ma’lia’kah in ceremony. It was Shimaran law.

Now though, she would be able to prove to her parents that she could do just as well as them, that she could bring credit to her family name. They would finally be proud of her.

As some corner of her mind was occupied with these thoughts, the rest of her mind was encompassed in a blanketing, black calmness as she reached further inside of herself to bring her Maa thread forth. A slow tide seemed to be flowing up and down her body, pulsing with a power that had lain dormant all the time before this. Some honest part of her realised that she would never be able to close the door to it again now that it had been accessed.

Violet. The color brought to her inner eyes was suddenly stark against the previous blackness of her whole self. But even that now seemed as a memory, as the glowing from her newly discovered Maa illuminated through the darkness. She felt warmed by it. New.

Somewhere external to herself and this newly found magic, she found something calling for her attention. Somewhere, her hand, was being squeezed. As she inwardly searched for the source of this call, she found an orange glow in the blackness around the violet glow of her own hand.

Her head rose so that she was facing the one in front of her eye to eye. As she opened sloe eyes, she found that Jekaron was already staring intently towards her.

“Il un’i uh taine.”

I with you, one.

She recognised even as the voice that was using her mouth to speak, that the words had been said in the magical language of Shimara. Their hands were still clasped tightly as Jekaron’s mouth opened to speak.

“Un’i uh Ma’lia’kah kali.” With you, life partner, forever.

Tiredly, Daimonae smiled into Jekaron’s face as the cloudiness over her mind began to recede. Then with a gasp of indrawn breath, and a suddenness that shocked her, she was freed of it. Looking at the expression on her life partner’s face, she realised that he too found himself in the same state.

“Wow,” Jekaron sighed on an outward breath.

Daimonae just nodded as she attempted to suck more breath into her lungs. After a moment or too, she again felt steady enough to speak properly.

“I hope it’s not going to be that intense every time we do that,” she gasped, before he grinned at her.

“You know,” he said between breaths, “For a moment just then, I wasn’t sure if you were going to come out with the language of magic again or not. You did hear that, didn’t you? You spoke in that new language the men in the High Tower are beginning to regard as the language J’niah left for us.”

Daimonae too laughed, although the sound that actually came out sounded more as a cough.

“You spoke it too, you know,” she pointed out. “Oh Goddess. I’d had no idea that it would be like that.”

“No,” Jekaron sighed, then seeming to pull himself together again, he looked around at the trees that the had seemed to leave behind on their inner journeys. It had already started to get dark. “We were under for a long time,” he murmured in surprised.

Daimonae too glanced around them, an ‘O’ of surprise shaping her lips. Again, her eyes met with Jekaron’s, and they collapsed once more into nervous giggles.

“We really should make a move back home now,” she reminded them both a little while later, as they were wiping tears from the corners of their eyes. “Our parents will begin to worry if we leave it much later.”

Jekaron nodded.

“We’ll meet again tomorrow, same time?” he asked, standing up with her. “I could really do with talking this over some.”

“Yeah,” Daimonae grinned. Then, finding that she had nothing else to say, she merely said again, “Yeah.”

*

They went only like this, several different meetings in which their power and expectation would grow in leaps and bounds. Daimonae could barely believe it whenever she would sit down and think of it, having had her head filled for so many years on the low ranking Maa levels both of her parents held.

It was after the initial few months that the first dreams came to her. Strange, disjointed dreams that appeared almost forced off towards the end.

“You are better than you know of. You are greater than this. Greater than any of them. . .”

“No!”

Daimonae would find herself suddenly in full wakefulness again at this point, and none the wiser about its meaning. The Maa levels that she and Jekaron were to take together were growing ever closer, and she still hadn’t spoken a word to her Ma’lia’kah or her parents of her odd night time visions. It was almost as though they were stuck on a loop of sorts, never getting past that certain point and never offering up more information.

Daimonae was baffled by the whole thing, yet was resolved that she would do nothing about it, not until her Maa levels were over and taken and nothing more could be done to change her future chances of achievement within Shimara.

*

“Are you ready for this?” Jekaron said, clasping her hand tightly in his, the only physical sign that he too was the least bit nervous.

It could never have been told from the expression on his face; true to his outward joker countenance, he was grinning and waving to all the onlookers as the two of them followed into the seemingly small tent along with all the Ma’lia’kah who were to take their Maa levels this day. Everyone else, including Daimonae, appeared properly solemn as the occasion called for.

Two by two, they all disappeared into the tent. Inside, the real games would begin.