The Tribes of K'haren - Completed

Chapter 5.2

That day, their gseirut already flew for a little longer and after a break, they flew once again for about an hour before sunset. They had left the forest far behind and now rested on a soft hill that was surrounded by many other hills with grassland all around them. The gseirut fairly enjoyed that, he first ate for a long time, then started rolling from one side to the other. Nume was surprised it didn't injure its large wings by doing so.

'Kran,' Nume started. 'how come gseirut listen to us? I mean, they could just as easily live without us... After all, the only thing they are scared of are dragons and from those we can't protect them anyway. So why would they stay with us and not just fly wherever they'd like?'

'Well,' Kran started and Nume had the impression he was going to tell her a long story so she lay down on the ground. 'my father told me that, a long time ago, a phraio had grown up with them. Because they are such social creatures they will accept other species as part of their herd. When a tribe found the phraio, they wanted to take him back but the gseirut refused to let him go as they didn't want to lose him so they followed the tribe instead. With time, we learned to control them and they never showed interest in leaving again. Through splitting, new tribes, which were once part of ours, now had their own gseirut and so every tribe with gseirut is somehow related to ours.'

He continued talking for a long time, telling her about the different cousins and cousins of cousins and their tribes. Nume didn't listen very closely but she didn't want to interrupt him, she'd always liked his voice. But when he tried to explain the relations between the tribes which were of more political nature, she sighed and suggested to have dinner.

A few days later, Sethara first appeared in Nume's dreams. It took a while until Nume got the feeling that the calling voice might be real but when she did, she woke up immediately. It was cool and a soft wind blew over the hill they had built their camp up on. Nume was sitting there and looking at the stars, startled for a moment, but then she heard the voice again. For a moment, she considered ignoring it and trying to go back to sleep. Resignedly, she then got up and walked up the hill for a bit. Sethara appeared out of nowhere as usual and didn't seem to mind that it was the middle of the night.

'Good morning.' she greeted joyfully.

'Morning?' Nume started, but she was too tired to fight about the definition of daytimes.

'It is morning, isn't it? Well, you couldn't really greet somebody saying good night, that is rather something you'd say as a wish before going to sleep, isn't it? Or did I get your language wrong there?' Sethara spoke too quickly for Nume to keep up in her tired mood but she didn't seem to notice or care too much.

'What did you come here for?' Nume managed to say when Sethara stopped to breathe.

'Oh, I came here to tell you to go back. You're heading the wrong way. Have you forgotten about your mission already?'

'No, but...'

'Then you must understand that you've lost your path. I've told you that you have to help restore the balance in K'haren but you seem to be trying to get out of these lands instead.' Sethara said critically.

'Well, you haven't exactly given me a clear plan on what to do or how to do it.' Nume started. Sethara wanted to interrupt her but Nume was now awake enough to counter before her opponent could even speak. 'Also, you haven't helped me convince Kran of what I'm supposed to do. How should I get him to abandon our perfectly reasonable plan without telling him what I'm trying to do, and without knowing what I'm trying to do?'

'I've told you that I cannot explain these things to you. You are the chosen one, you will find your way.'

'You're the one who chose me, aren't you supposed to be of some use, too?' Nume shouted. Sethara's expression showed how offended she felt upon hearing these words.

'You...' she started. 'How dare you... It's not as if... ugh!'

Sethara turned around and the soft waves on the pond underneath her got bigger. Nume considered apologizing to the woman but her pride and anger wouldn't let her.

'You have no idea what I have gone through to find you.' Sethara said in a changed voice. It was soft like a whisper but there was a hardness in it that came from past pain. 'I know that I'm asking much from you but you must, you just must understand that this is not a selfish request.'

'Selfish or not,' Nume said into the silence that had followed Sethara's words. 'it is not easy to accept and especially fulfil a quest without having any idea what it is really about. You talk about a cruel race in K'haren but when I go to the dragons, you make me turn around, you want me to recruit my friend but you won't let me tell him even the little bit I know. Why would I even trust you? I don't even know what you are, you're clearly a magical creature but other than that I know nothing about you. And such a stranger dares to ask me, an unimportant runaway who has lost all honour and impact she might ever have had, to fight a whole race?'

'But don't you understand?' Sethara now turned around and fixed Nume's eyes. 'Only one who's lost every connection to the things that go wrong is able to fully see and understand them. You are no longer a part of it, you are now ready to fight it, to make it better.'

Slowly, very slowly, Nume started to realise what Sethara meant. The cruel race she'd been talking about all the time, it was not the dragons. Dragons don't know cruelty, they hunt for food only. No, Sethara meant a very different race indeed, one Nume could not possibly accept to be the enemy. Unless, unless...

Kran woke up when he started feeling cold. Nume had been sleeping next to him and her body had warmed his comfortably but when he woke up, he realised that she was no longer there. Worry immediately filled his chest and he jumped up quickly. He looked around and it took a while until he remembered where he was. The sky was now slowly getting brighter but the sun would not rise for a few more hours. Yet the soft light sufficed for him to see Nume's silhouette on top of the hill. She seemed to just be standing there all by herself.

For a moment, he thought she might just be enjoying the view, but he soon saw that she was gesturing intensively as if she were in a conversation. Kran failed to see anybody else up on the hill. He wondered whether he should walk up to her and find out what she was doing but he felt as if he were watching her without permission so he cast away the idea, turned around and lay back down. Obviously though, he couldn't sleep anymore. Kran was sure that, if Nume figured out he'd been watching her, she'd get angry, so he decided to pretend to be asleep when he heard her coming back down and sitting down next to him.

When she was just sitting there, probably looking at him but not saying anything nor laying back down, he nearly said something but before he got to do so, he felt her arm gently hugging him as she tried to get back to sleep. A part of Kran wanted to forget what had happened and enjoy a few more hours of sleep before the sun would rise but the rest of him knew that something wasn't alright. He knew Nume too well to not notice when her mind was troubled, it felt to him as if he himself couldn't stop thinking about something, just that he didn't know what he was thinking about.

// Did you see that great book cover? Thanks @Neromir for making this for me! Let her know what you think about it in the comments and don't forget to vote ;)