Challenge The Proud

The Night Sky

"You confuse me." - Challenge No.13 

RAD'UXEN HAD NEVER thought of himself as special or, even great at anything. His older brothers were masters in lighting fires, hunting boars, tanning hides and all other domestic things a real man was expected to skillfully perform in order to help sustain his clan and eventually, to make a new clan of his own.

But Rad'Uxen was no master cook, no agile hunter, nor skilled tanner. He was unremarkable and had been unremarkable ever since he had been born the fourth boy and seventh child of the Uxen clan. After him there had been five more children, of which three had been sons. So he was neither a big brother, nor a little one.

Rad'Uxen had no place and no importance.

By the time he had reached the age of seventeen he was tracking boars for his older brothers. Any five year old could track boars, and the others made sure he knew that.

But it never bothered him. Rad knew his place.

He didn't mind being the last to eat, and he didn't mind having his brothers' leftovers - if any actually remained.

Rad's brown, earthly gaze pierced at the wooden bowl as he rocked the remaining soup from side to side. A mouthful. More than last time. A deep sigh escaped his throat before he drank his meal from the wooden bowl. With eyes tightly shut and a growling hunger eating at him from the inside, Rad kept his lips on the edge of the upside down bowl hoping to get even a drop more.

After a while, his neck began to hurt and he was forced to admit that no more was left.

At that late hour, his little brother always refused to sleep and just gawked outside, through a crack in the main hut's clay wall. So Rad'Uxen placed the wooden bowl on his head in a playful gesture, knocking on his improvised hat and winking at his brother. A giggle usually followed from inside the hut, then Rad laid on his back, getting ready to sleep on his most precious possession - a boar's hide. But he rarely fell asleep so quickly. He marveled at the jewels shining in the sky, wondering about those sparkling pebbles stuck to the dark fabric of the night.

That night, those precious stones were hidden and Rad'Uxen knew that meant rain, or even worst, a storm. The wind howled a terrifying warning, urging anyone outside to search for cover. Rad cuddled against the side of his clan's hut, hiding under the boar pelt, waiting for nature to do its worst. But that night nature would step aside and make way for the unnatural. The extraordinary. That night, the Goddess had come to walk among the humans of Janda'Alai.

He had heard about this and some of the elders swore to it being the truth.

Once every fifty winters, the Goddess revealed herself to her worshipers, searching for a worthy young man to be her servant. None of the people that Rad knew had ever actually seen the Goddess so he had never really believed the Goddess was real.

Yet,there she was, a tall, pale, luminescent woman. She wore something that looked like a white veil wrapped over her torso and thighs. And her black hair was so long and straight, but with a life of its own, as if floating around her.

She stood there, in the field outside his clan's hut, for what seemed like forever. The Uxen Clan and their neighbors were gathering to see for themselves, the wonder and majesty of her beauty that was lighting up the entire village. Some bowed. Others prayed. Gifts of what little the villagers had were brought from their huts and offered. But she never moved or acknowledged anyone or anything. She was simply there, waiting in silence.

Rad'Uxen stood up from his hiding place and approached the holy manifestation. He smiled at her - The Goddess reminded him of the stars. In that moment, her deep, unnatural gaze fixed upon Rad and his fate was sealed.