Partings...

[Mayetoro]

Maye knelt in the warm waters of the lake, singing along with the other women as they worked in the heavy, still heat of the afternoon, washing clothing. She could hear the sounds of the children on the bank, laughing and giggling as they flung various wet objects at each other and squealed at the occasional hit. Glancing up toward the bank, she could see the small huts of the village, the small figures moving about amongst the skin covered homes. Jungle trolls lived simple lives, trusting in the warm green to provide. Several small boys were practicing with their bows with Hinwaye over near the dead tree, deadly serious at their target practice while the old troll smiled at their intensity. In the back of her mind, the knowledge that the followers of Hakkar were probably burning villages just a valley away tugged at her.

Water sprayed over her from one side and she laughed, turning into a fresh onslaught from Kiru and Iroe'je, each using their now empty woven baskets to scoop up water and throw it over her. Maye abandoned the last of the clothing and began to hurl water back at the other young trolls, happy to have an excuse to cool herself on such a stifling day, to forget what was happening outside their little world.

Kiru was the first to cry surrender, "Stop! Stop! I can't breath and it'll hurt the baby!"

Iroe'je and Maye both laughed in disbelief. Maye smiled happily, "Ki, you could probably wrestle a croc and walk away without hurting that baby."

"What croc would eat her, looking like that?" Muttered Iroe'je, and Maye could just sense the younger girl's jealousy. Kiru's pregnancy had filled her out so that her natural thickness and the added roundness of her belly made her resemble one of the dire trolls of story time.

Ki pouted darkly at her two companions, resting her fists on her ample hips with a soft snort of derision, "Just because no boys are waiting for you beside the fire…"

Iroe'je frowned darkly, trying striking a pose designed to show off her young body and failing, "Are, too!"

"Kiru, be good." Maye chided gently, pulling back an endless mass of heavy, wet hair from her face, "There is plenty of time for Iroe'je to drive the boys crazy. Jily is already stumbling every time she walks by him."

Iroe'je looked to Maye with wide eyes, "He is?!"

Maye laughed as Ki rolled her eyes. "Oh yes…though it could just be his huge feet." She teased, gathering up the clothes floating about her in the lake and placing them back in her basket.

Kiru smiled at Maye, "Well, since you've caught Srin, the rest of us have to settle for the ones with big feet."

The druid blushed deeply and looked down, busying herself with finishing the last of his shirts, "Oh shush."

Iroe'je laughed brightly, happy the attention was off her, "Maye should be a mother! You two are always touching each other!"

Maye shot Iroe'je a look meant to quiet her, but Ki just laughed as she joined it, "I am surprised they don't have three, already. Aren't you trying hard enough?"

The young druid's reply was cut short by the expressions of her two companions. Maye's eyes followed theirs and came to rest on three figures on the shore. Two were covered in armor, dented and stained with a darkness she did not really wish to consider. The third was smaller and wore the simple robes of a dreamwalker. Maye left her basket with the two gawking girls and waded toward the shore. The other druid was much older than she, a man bent by years of listening to the whispering of the leaves. She was surprised that she did not recognize him, since her training had taken her to almost all of the nearby villages and even to Zul'Gurub. She finally stood a little off shore from them, naked and dripping, ankle deep in the lake. She could tell something was wrong by the way all three looked down. She did not consider herself beautiful, but men were men and when they behaved this way around women, it meant something heavy was weighing on them.

"I am Maye, Yis to Mother Ujemb. Welcome to our homes. May I offer you a place beside our fire?" The ritual greeting rolled easily from her lips even as her apprehension grew.

The old druid watched her with eyes that she could not read then finally sighed, as if the words he had prepared failed him. In that instant she noticed that he was missing half an ear…that his robe was patched recently…that his eyes were a shade of green she had never seen before…that his hair looked as if it had not been combed in years. All of this wrote itself across her mind as he lifted his hand, holding something toward her. She looked down.

It was a necklace. A simple strand of cord with a single twig strung on it. A twig she remembered so well. The twig she had strung on that cord for Srin to tease him for the nickname he had given her as children. The necklace he had worn the day he left. She felt his arms about her shoulders, the warmth of his breath on her throat below her right ear. His body was so hard against her back, so completely filled with the power he threw about him so carelessly at times. Lips on skin and his hands spread over her belly as she leaned back into him, wanting become part of his being. She had felt him on her skin even as she watched him pick up his shield and club. Standing in their tiny home, she had watched his broad shoulders weave out the small doorway, filling it with his armored back. The scent of him, the space he always filled in her, the warmth of his hands on her shoulders in the early morning as they lay on the small sleeping pad.

Other hands were on her shoulders, now. Distant voices. Something in Maye's unravelling soul wanted to sleep, but the voices would not let her. She felt water about her legs and slowly came to see her hands on her own thighs, the water shining with the sunset's reflections about her. Gentle hands held her shoulders.

"Maye…Maye…it will be all right."

Kiru. Lovely Miru and her child. So full of life. So far away.

"Maye…please…say something."

Iroe'je was so young. Like she had been in some other life. Another Maye that had never been.

She saw droplets falling into the water around her knees and thought it must be raining, but the world was too bright for rain, too clear and open and terrible for clouds. Maye blinked and more rain drops fell from her, running down her cheeks, falling over her legs and into the lake creating tiny ripples that spread out into nothingness.

"Maye…"

Arms wrapped around her and a distant voice said something about being sorry. It was a voice she did not know. An old voice. A voice full of pain and time and a thousand other apologies. Maye looked up and that other soul was with her in the silence of the dream. He reached out and touched her with the gentleness of a breeze, "Cry, little one. Cry."

Maye cried.

((Awww. *Sniffles* Powerful story.))

[Mayetoro]

The Vilebranch attacked in the darkness of cloud smothered night, swarming against the small village's defenses in a screaming, whooping suddenness. The noises pulled Maye violently from her sleep and into two places and times so far apart they were different worlds. For several moments she was that younger woman, the far away novice Dreamwalker in a small village in the jungle. The cries of mothers collecting their terrified children, the clash of weapons, the twisting, violent shadows cast as fires sprang up were the same across the span of time. She drew herself up and the terror of that long ago moment filled her for what seemed like ages, sweat suddenly chill on her skin. It was this chill which broke the spell. She was not in the jungle, she was not that long ago girl, she was not a helpless child and she needed to act. She rose from her sleeping furs, completely naked, reaching out into the forest about the village and the sea beside it, wrapping herself in it's power. Walking to the opening of the small hut, she drew aside the strip of fur.

Death groaned to her left and she looked over to see two troll warriors locked together in its grip. Blood ran down the side of one and she saw it was a young man she had spoken to that morning about fishing and turtles. His grip faltered as his life ran from him as the older, scarred attacker he was desperately trying to defeat growled exultation at the certainty of victory.

Maye took the older trolls life with a twist of the power around her, a flash of light casting shadows about the closely spaced huts and two young troll girls huddled against a mound of nets. The young warrior almost fell as the strength and fury that had just an instant before held his life in its grasp was suddenly extinguished, leaving him holding a limp, lifeless weight. He fell to the ground atop the corpse of his adversary with a groan of pain…unable to rise from the sodden dirt, wet with his own blood. The troll druidess whispered softly, motioning with her hands as a soft, green light surrounded the young warriors body. She could feel the forest flow into him, knitting the wrongness the attacking warriors blade had done upon the younger trolls body. He stood, still panting, staring at her in wonder for several moments, then muttered, "Thank You, Mother."

Some part of Maye registered the term and her image of herself and the moment became completely divided, the older self looking out over the chaos of the small, intense battle writhing amongst the haphazard buildings of the village while the younger one ran in panic through a long ago place that smelled of flames and blood. The druid turned, walking into the battle, gathering power into her hands…her footsteps soft and completely lost in the random music of fighting. Eyes began to turn toward her as her figure was limed in crackling light. Several of the attackers charged toward her, their war cries full of the berserk rage she knew warriors embraced to conquer fear.

She lifted her hands and death began to rain down wherever she cast her glance. Bright, crackling strikes of lightning so dense the ground vibrated as it struck from the air above, twisting the bodies it hit in a moment of terrible rictus before they fell smoking and still. Somewhere at the edges of her being she could hear the battle change as she walked toward the gates of the village and the thickest struggle. She was not what they had come to expect. The tall, slim creature walking toward them, clothed only in lightning and power was not something the Vilebranch trolls had ever seen. Theirs was the magic of darkness and blood. She cast about white fury like small stars and their brothers died about them, struck down in terrible, burning instants of pure, unblemished power.

She followed them even after their courage had broken and they retreated in howling terror, drawing up the very roots of the trees to hold them, crushing them in slow, agonizing moments of bone breaking strength, then drawing the twisted bodies back into the dark, churning ground. When there were none left around her alive, she stood for minutes still wrapped in the moon's bright power, a figure of terrible brightness, her chest heaving with the rage that seemed to belong to someone else. Maye felt that long ago self screaming helplessness and anger at the murder of her people on the much warmer jungle night long ago, but the rage seemed no longer hers.

She let the power flow from her and looked about the darkness. Voices and calls from the village worked their way into her mind and she turned back to the small village. Many were rushing about putting out several fires or tending to fallen, but a small knot of warriors stood at the entrance to the village, watching her with open distrust. Ku'hye, the village shaman, watched her as he held his staff. There was a narrowing of his eyes she knew for the question it was, a question she could not answer. She looked down at her hands, now dark in the cloudy shadows of the night.

Maye walked through them and they parted without a word. The mothers held their children close, eyeing this creature that walked among them in skin like theirs, but which was not one of them. The druidess could not meet their eyes or answer their questions, either. She gathered her things and drew her robes about her in the close space of the hut they had let her use. As she walked from the village, only the young warrior approached her, following her to the gate. His voice finally drifted from behind her when she was some twenty paces along the trail that let up into the wild.

"Thank you, Mother." He called softly.

His voice sounded so like Srin's.

((Wow. Thank you!))