Silver Beginnings

This story is set on the planet Krystaal, which is a hot planet made up of diamond-like crystals that the Natives work and sell off-planet. Once, Golden Bloods, who possessed great power, ruled, always sending their first born bairns (child) to the temples to train. White and Grey Robes always worked as a team to cover the planet as peacemakers. But only the Grey Robe could kill. This caused a huge imbalance when they were invaded by other planets, with most of the Whites and Goldens either murdered or killed. This story is set several generations ahead when just maybe, there might be hope for the planet from one very pregnant, once damned woman.





                                          Silver Beginnings


    “It’s time to die!”
    Kanadari, of the Silver Robe of Salmars, once called Spirit Walker for her stealth among the shadows, had once prayed for nothing more than an honorable death. It had been a time of darkness and damnation, as the shadows ate at her soul. However, that time had passed. Now, as she found herself cornered by the cutthroats, she only wished for life for herself, and the bairn that lay nestled in her belly.
    Many what ifs passed before her as the rogue mercenaries closed in. She had little she could.use against them The majority of her self-made weapons had been left at her last stop, to be duplicated into many more, in preparation for the arrival of the Invaders. Once, five dirty thieves, all undoubtedly damned, would have been easy to judge, and send on their way to the planes of Hellstone. Once, she might have used her immense energies to draw a protective shield around herself, but the bairn in her rounded belly took the choice from her.
    She gently swung the crystal leki in an ever-widening circle, allowing the razor sharp shards to glitter ominously, to taunt them if anything else. She wondered why she was stalling. She should have been sending waves of spirit up her spinal column in preparation for a final, physical departure. But what if there was a chance to live? And she desperately wanted to live!  She had spent several lifetimes trying to save her poor world from itself. For the first time, she wanted nothing more than to hold her unborn baby in her arms, and let her poor world collapse around itself.
    Kanadari sent a finger light tendril of thought to her bairn.  It lay safely enclosed in its casings of light, thankfully unaware of any disturbance or trouble. Feeling her mental touch, he happily tapped against her stomach lining. Vertigo swam before her eyes as the action forced a ripple in her shields. She hastily surrounded him in light and love and withdrew, knowing it could be their last time together.

    “Let us take you alive, Robed.” The assassin’s voice rumbled with  venom and poison, abruptly reminding her of all she was about to lose. “It will go so much easier for you,” their portly leader urged.             
    “Ye be bringn’ more at tha market if ye be movin,” another grinned around a mouth of rotting teeth. He winked. “An ye baba may live. Ye want that, prettie girlie?  Ye want ye baba ta be liven now?” .
    “You are a fool if you think to take me alive.” Kanadari pulled back her strong teeth into a smile of promised death, her eyes as cold as a crystal storm. “And you are a fool twice if you think not to die in the trying of it.”
    Another attacker spit on the ground in derision. “You are Robed, my deluded lady. You may maim one or more of us, but you will not kill. You must take us for fools indeed to spin us such a tale.”
    She spun, disorienting the bairn, as well as her own body. She was too far along to disconnect herself from its emotions. The natural law that was intended to help mother and bairn, well might cause their deaths, she thought grimly.
    “My Robe is Silver, petty man. When I slice you down, it will not be a kill, but a judgment.” She turned in a circle as they drew closer, smiling a grim promise of death. “Should I judge you now, dorse-ass, and leave your soul to wander the hell-worlds, or do you stand aside and let me pass?”
    It had been a good play, and if she had met any of the other four first, it might have been enough. She could see that the scurvy rogue before her had been trained in the depths of an assassin’s lair, and would likely be the face of her death. Yet before he could act, the hunting call of a desert sibara was heard, answered quickly by its mate from the opposite ridge.

    A huge female sibara moved into sight, its eyes shining eerily like ancient crystal stone, hardened beneath both of Krystaal’s suns. The much larger male appeared; giving an ominous snarl that vibrated up the valley, and it seemed ready to shake the ground beneath them. Although the group feared the furries, it was what they represented that seemed to leave them shaking in fear.  Clearly, there was something she should know, and did not.
    On cue, a woman moved into sight.  Her intricately coiffed, blonde hair took on a shining glow beneath the shimmer of the burning sun. Gold colored veins swirled up her arms and pulse points, marking her as one of the elite Golden blood, and as incredible as that was, she was dressed in the pure robes of the White. A crystal tambros lay embedded in her forehead, glowing pure, undiluted energy, and Kanadari gasped as she raised her hands, for they were also implanted with the same holy stones.  As brilliant, pulsating lights pulsed from her head and hands, Kanadari felt her own tambros connect with the unexpected power and mirror it. A deep blue light encased her bairn, lulling it to such a deep degree, that she could suddenly move unhindered.                                                                                                       
    The White raised her hands in a gesture of defense and protection, effectively freezing the villains in place. “Karr, Eptorn, Zarer, Ligers, Nark,” she intoned in a power-filled, yet compassionate voice. “This is your final warning. There is a reason I allow you to walk Krystaal, but by the White Light of the All, if you attempt another such transgression, I will send you to planes you will never find your way out of!”
    “You mean you will try to kill us,” Eptorn snarled, his eyes warily watching the beast at her feet.
    She sadly shook her head. “You always confuse it, assassin. As the Silver attempted to teach you, we do not kill.” She smiled coolly. “We perform a judgment.” The White suddenly brought her hands together, and the ground at their feet rumbled threateningly.  “Go I say!” she hissed, her voiced vibrating across the canyon. The male sibara added his own roar as it impatiently paced the rim.
    The protective circle around Kanadari dissolved, as five very frightened men fell over themselves to get as far away as possible from them. She did not move for several moments, while a thousand questions bombarded her. Finally,she lowered her leki, slowly coiling it and securing it in her pack. She impassively climbed the ridge, feeling the charged atmosphere around her, and unable to read it.  The strange White awaited her, a sibara on both sides, hands submissively lowered, her tambros clear of thought or power.

    “Jeod be with you, my sister,” she offered in a neutral tone. She held her palm ready to take up weapons if the situation demanded it, all the while praying her rescuer was as peaceful as she seemed. “We are servants of the All,” she began.
    “We serve the All: we serve the land, we serve the people, as we serve ourselves,” the stranger recited quickly, clearly just wanting to get the formalities out of the way. “It is well that you have come, daughter of mine,” she said happily, as a smile lighted her face. “I regret that I was not here sooner, but Bliie, lazy creature that he is, was playing in the sands, when he should have been walking the rims.” She laid an affectionate hand atop the beast’s massive head, as the furry gazed up at her, clearly happy to sit by her side.
    Kanadari felt herself sucked into the woman’s personable orbit, when she should have been highly suspicious. Too many things did not add up with this foreign Robed. Her light-colored hair signified a Golden, once part of the ruling class of Krystaal. Before the last great wars, they had routinely given up their first-born to the temples, to be raised in the yoke of a Robed. Because of their strong psyche, they usually became a White, once the highest religious order in the temple. However, that time had passed, for there was no longer a pure Golden left to rule, much less to be sacrificed in the service of the temple. And why were focusing crystals impressed into her hands?  To carry two sets of implanted facets in the body created an imbalance that was impossible to overcome.
    “My kita is close, my sister. Behia will soon be highest in the sky, and as you know, the heat will soon be uncomfortable. I pray you join me in refreshment.”
    Kanadari almost smiled at her new companion’s understatement Behia was the smallest of  Krystaal's suns, but when it was combined with her sister sun, Dehie, the sands would soon become unbearable to walk on, and the air like the flaming coals crystal masters used in their kilns. If she was  offered the smallest shelter, then for her bairn’s sake, she would accept it.

    She took up position behind the moving sibaras, as they forced their way through the shifting mounds, wondering if both she and the animals were being called and controlled. However, when she touched the mind of the female, she found its thoughts clear and open, and eager to return to the cool shadows of the kita. The furry suddenly brushed against her in acknowledgment of her presence, and she marveled at the satiny smoothness of the hide.
    The kita was deceptively ordinary. It appeared from out of nowhere as they moved into its conjured circle. Though it was tall enough to stand up when entered, which was unusual, every other detail, from the thickly woven cloth that formed the dwelling sides, to the neutral colored tapestry that blanketed its entrance, looked similar to any other a traveler might happen upon in their journey. But as the spell closed around them, worked crystal was suddenly revealed from every open space, swirling and dropping, turning and dipping, with a brilliance and elegance that astounded her.
    The Silver felt her eyes widen as she slowly turned, eager to see the next miracle unveiled before her eager gaze. Flying creatures from other dimensions, with multi-hued tails hung from slivers of crystal so thin, it swayed with the thud of the sibaras paws as they bounded into the compound. Miniature dorses, with faceted manes of streaming colors, flew across a glittering plain. Playful sibaras lay belly up, watching them with large eyes of transparent diamonds, their striped tails of crystal slashing the sand. A sweet tinkling sounded in rhythm to an unexplainable cool breeze, and Kanadari saw that many layers of crystal chimes hung from the roof, their delicate spirals joined mysteriously.

    “You are a Crystal Master!” she impulsively exclaimed.
    Her host smiled with real pleasure. “A Crystal Master? No, not even close, I pray you. But to work the singing shards is my greatest joy, outside of Jeod. No matter what might be expected of me, there is always the crystal, to gather to me, hidden in its dark stone, and release it to live, in whatever form it may choose.” She nodded knowingly. “But then I see you also work the crystal stone.”
    Kanadari suddenly remembered where they were, and what the circumstances. “How would you have such knowledge?” she suspiciously questioned her, wondering if spies had been there before her.
    The White clicked her tongue against her teeth in soft reproof and drew closer. As the woman studied her, Kanadari pulled her shields tight, still feeling the foreign power seeping through. “I know many things. I know you are Kanadari of the newborn Silver, and that you are on a quest for Crystal Makers, be they Robed or not.” She gave a lilting laugh at her surprise. “I know that you apprenticed under the Master Agnetha, and that you much prefer to create Light, than to form the petty weapons that you do.” She shrugged her face ruefully. “Yet there are many things I do not know. That is why I sent out the calling…”
    A chill washed down her spine. “I felt your need many turnings ago, but I could not read who called me or why. The calling trailed me from the temple and into the desert…” She broke off least she had revealed too much, though it seemed the White already knew everything she might try to hold back. “Why did you send out the calling, Sister?”  The word seemed rude upon her lips. Something was not right. She knew every mature White that walked upon Krystaal, and this strong Golden was not one of them!

    “I am Lanita of the White,” her host finally offered.  Embedded crystal swirled with stored energy as she held up her hands. “And in the name of Jeod, I bid you welcome.”
    Against any rational action, other robes might have taken in her place, she held up her sun-browned hands, and after pushing back the folds of her silver dipped garment, activated the gems in her palms. “I am Kanadari of the Silver, and I accept your welcome, and wish lighted peace upon your home.” She drew in a sharp breath as their energies connected, crisp and bright.
    Lanita beckoned her to move forward. The united light gradually surrounded her as she moved into its circle. “Enter Kanadari of the Silver, and be welcome.” I have many questions to ask you, and I know you have the same for me.”
    She warily followed her into the kita, the sibaras pushing past to throw themselves down on the cool floor. More crystal pieces hung on the inside of the doorway, so exquisite she curled her fingers into her hand to keep from touching them. Her eyes widened as she looked into a lighted interior that flowed ten and more times further than its length should have been. Burning candles flickered deep into the recess, as abundant as they would have been in one of their temples. At Lanita’s gesture, she gratefully pulled a mat to the wall and ponderously eased her weary body to the cool ground.

    She accepted the cup of ponta offered her, as the Golden held her own, and intricately crossing her legs, sank gracefully to her own waiting mat. As she did, the male sibara roused to flop down behind her, and fall back asleep.  Not so much as looking back, Lanita rested her back against its solid weight, and continued. “I regret that my need placed you in danger.  I had thought to monitor your crossing. But my attentions were unexpectedly called elsewhere.”
    Kanadari hesitated. All was not as it should be by a long shot, yet she felt no threat from the robed stranger. Instead, she felt a hungry, questing need for answers. Answers as urgent as her quest to find others to reproduce her crystal weapons. “If there is a need,” she began formally, “I will hear thy need, judge thy need, heal thy need…”
    Before she could finish, the Golden held up a gentle hand, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “There is a need," she agreed, "but not what you speak of. Jeod has not turned from me yet, though I am sure I try the patience of the All god.”  She hesitated, opening her hands wide, palms out. “I would know more of you and your world. My kita is off the trade routes, and though I touch the minds of those I heal, their thoughts do not satisfy my curiosity. Bless them; they cannot relate what they do not know.”
    “So…you could have sent out a calling to anyone. Why do you need me?”
    Lanita’s face lit up with an infused light, as her face broke into a dazzling smile. “You, my little Silver, are part of a wonderful revolution that may yet save our poor world.” As Kanadari opened her mouth to speak, she held up one lone, crystal scarred finger. “They say that you came back from the dead,” she whispered excitedly, thrusting her chin in her hands like an excited child. “Will you not speak to me of your death and birth?”

    Pulling back her long dark braids, she thoughtfully studied the ceiling, idly watching diamond encrusted flyers dip toward them and then withdraw, their gemstone wings moving on invisible currents. “I was a White. It would have been my first joining.” They both smiled. To join was a Robe’s first physical encounter with another Robe. “I knew the moons were lining up wrong. My temple was too proud. They bragged that I was the new hope for Krystaal, and not the new Silver Robe. I was so fast I need not perform a judgment, they whispered to the others.” She stroked the tiny wings next to her head. “I knew it was not so. I tried to tell them, but I was little more than a bairn to them. And then the tiles were cast for partners, and I learned Simon was my partner.” She laughed, still feeling the madness in her soul. “It could only have ended wrong. Simon the strong and the quick, they called him. Simon who could perform a judgment and then led the soul to Jeod. Simon of the Silver Robe.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

    Her arms were suddenly full of the female furry, as it forced itself against her, pushing with its huge head until her arm lay atop it. She laughed shakily, despite her streak of self-preservation, wondering if she might next find her arm down the beast’s throat. “The day before the ceremony I came upon babenappers in the marketplace. They were many and I was one, and my foot slipped.” She shuddered.” I never went back to my temple. I hid in the desert, waiting for the madness the Holy Parchment tells us will come” Her hands tightened in the thick fur. “I wanted only death, but it was denied me. I woke each day and said to myself, “This day I die.” It was near the storms, so I built a kita, waiting for the minions of the soulless to find me and suck me into their swarms.”
    Kanadari looked at the White, wanting her to understand why she had not killed herself immediately, as she should have. "My tambros was dead. Jeod was dead to me. I know I was abomination to Robe and temple! I tried to die, but he never took me, though I prayed nightly for a swift, perfect death. I threw myself at Gorrart many times, but the death god ignored me! I started to make crystal again, and the Invaders came. I knew then if I could die fighting, I might find an honorable death before...” she faltered.
    “Instead of being damned for all lifetimes in layers of burning ash,” Lanita finished for her, quoting from an ancient script from a well-known teacher. “But then Simon found you,” she reminded her eagerly, as she rose and replenished her ponta, pausing to scratch the sibara under the chin.

    Kanadari let out a laugh. “Nay Sister. I found him dieing in an Invader camp. The human garbage I drug home that day was well met indeed.” She gently petted her large stomach. “Though for many days I feared I wasted my time, and he was meant to feed the sibaras and dorses upon his body‘s death.”
    “So tell me, my reborn Silver- do the temples accept your Robe ? And how is it that a Silver can perform a judgment, yet still lead souls, and merge in Jeod’s light? I have sought to understand this thing. It is easy to prattle of it to soulless assassins, but a curious thing to explain to one such as me.”
    “Many of the temples do not accept it,” Kanadari sighed. “After all, the Holy Parchment is very clear that a White may not kill and still perform the duties of the pure. I struggled with this myself…nay; I could not begin to believe such an evil thing, until after Simon gave me no choice. He forced me to judge and then merge.” Her eyes hardened. “He was lucky I did not find a reason to judge him.” Anger filled her voice. “I knew then that the Holy Parchment was nothing more than a farce, meant to lead my poor planet and her people to their death!”

    “Nay!” Lanita let out an involuntary cry of alarm. “I pray thee my Sister, it was never meant to happen! In the beginning, before the Holy Parchment, before the necessity of the White and Gray Robe, there was no structure; the temple was without rules, and we could not easily merge. Do you understand, Kanadari?  We were without, to the point of losing our souls. Ah child, we walked filled with the love of Jeod, yet those that judged before a merging were pulled down by their guilt. They found it impossible to merge, and harder still to lead the souls back to the bosom of the All-God. A deep confusion began to grow in the heart of the temple. It was then that six of Krystaal’s most devoted merged with Jeod for an entire turning, and after they returned to their bodies, with their eyes still aglow with the wonders of what they had seen, they wrote the Holy Parchment.”
    Kanadari suddenly felt it hard to breath, as Lanita excitedly lowered her shields, thus giving her a glimpse of the rolling energy below the surface. “Who are you?” she whispered.
    “But never was it written that a White was damned into hell stone for a judging,” Lanita continued. “A million Whites were slaughtered in the wars because they would not perform a judgment. Tell me, Kanadari, where was it written that a White must die to be able to judge and merge? You must tell me how such an evil came to be taught!”

    Anger and disbelief rolled from the White, until Kanadari could not only feel her emotions, but also the Golden blood that pumped through her Golden veins, and with it, the limitless, seething masses of pure energy that sang to her own energies.
    “I know not. The Holy Parchment is kept locked in a room built for its preservation. The guardians only allow Elder Robes dedicated to our history or laws to stand near the holy fragment. It is five hundred resolutions old.” She shook her head in denial, ignoring the demanding pulses that beat against her. ‘I requested a viewing once. My Elder gave a storytelling and it seemed to me that sections were out of sequence. I was so bold to ask if I could be admitted to its presence and check a quote.” Her mouth turned down. “I never asked again. They were right,” she hastened to assure her. “It was an ancient text, and it was too fragile to handle.”
    “Too fragile too touch! There is a guarding on it.” She paused to make her understand. “It contains a black guarding. No amount of handling could ever destroy it!  It is explained at the beginning of the text.” Her palm slapped her mat, rustling the intertwined vines.  Rather than be upset at the sudden movement, the sibaras merely watched on lazily. “It was meant to be accessible to all the tribes, of all the robes for all time. I must read you, Kanadari.”

    She opened her mouth to protest the invasion, but before she could, a being stronger than any she had ever known entered her mind. A seething, rolling caldron of energy quickly gathered into a thin, questing tendril of light that swallowed everything she was or would be. She gasped at the feeling of being overfilled, similar to a water skin stretched to the limit. Before there could be real pain, she was released with whisper of regret.
    Clearly shaken at what she had learned, the White sat without moving for a small bag of time, before absently picking up a discarded cyaail, the tool crystal makers used to shape the beautiful, unforgiving stone into useful shards of beauty or death. Filling the cylinder with energy, Lanita melted discarded slivers into balls of light, released them to their previous form, and then repeated the action. She played the game with all the intensity of a bairn with a new toy, before she spoke.
    “The unspeakable has happened,” she said at last, tossing the cyaail down atop the discarded pile of glittering diamonds. “When the Six went into a total merge with Jeod, they risked much more than their own lives and forever souls.” Her neck arched upward, as though remembering the burning light that had held their screaming souls in limbo. “They were the strongest to walk Krystaal in a thousand revolutions, and they still lost their way. Had they died, the people would have slipped into a darkness that would have been hard to come back from.” She smiled grimly. “But they fell into a dream such had never been conceived of.  How they dreamt! And they succeeded beyond anything they could have imagined. They yanked seething masses into the light. Rules were made that should have seen our planet  through any hazard that might arise.”

    She rose and began to pace, moving farther and farther back into the recesses before she turned. Kanadari realized that the dwelling was much larger than it appeared. She marveled at the pure magic it must have taken to fashion it. The woman was suddenly standing over her with narrowed eyes, before she dropped to a crouch in front of her. 
    “Something went wrong! We have felt breaks where there should be none…the planet energies were dark and erratic…we did not think…“ Something happened to the Scripture“, she continued, after taking a heavy breath.” As long as it was whole, so also would have been the temples, and through the temples, the people. Someone tampered with it! It is the only explanation.” She tapped her finger against her cheek in contemplation. “But what can I do in the here and now to change this tragedy? How can I heal the Holy Scripture, so that it may again heal the people?”
    “Who are you?” Kanadari again repeated, knowing the answer, and yet dreading the telling of it.
    The White rose and continued her pacing, muttering to herself, and sometimes glancing at the sibaras for conformation. “I have told you,” she finally said impatiently. “I am Lanita of the White, Lanita of the first created temple of Salmars, and you Kanadari, must journey to Salmars. You must make your way to a Grey, who they call Farseer, and tell him…”
    Realization flooded through her, much worse than her original thought. “Lanita of the White, one of the first six Elders that created the Parchment? How?” she squeaked in disbelief.
    The old one stopped pacing and looked at Kanadari in surprise. “I have frightened you to death, my poor bairn. This is my human body, I assure you. And indeed, it is…strange to possess a body again, after dreaming so long in Jeod’s arms.”  She slowly sank lower to face the Silver, her tambros glowing gently. “Your new robe will be good for my people. But the existing Whites must learn to judge, and the Grays take back their power. Only that will save the planet. It will take time to cultivate the Silver Robe. It is time that Krystaal does not have.” She carefully pushed a lock of hair from Kanadari’s face. “Will you take my message to the temple? I know you fear disbelief from the Elders. I will give you a talisman so they have no choice but to believe you.” She closed her hand, and when she opened it, she held an exquisite crystal ring, with intricate carvings seared into the top.
    “The Ring of Light!” Kanadari hissed, back-pedaling to keep from touching it. Lanita held it closer still, so that it would have fallen, if she had not put her hand out and grasp it. As she relevantly held it against her, a sense of well-being and peace spread out from it, enveloping her, her child, the sibaras at her feet, the smiling Lanita in front of  her, and farther still…out…out, until it pulled back into itself and was silent.
    “You are blessed, Kanadari. The ancient White studied her with a look of love and gratitude, allowing her own love of Jeod and life to spill out from her shields. She raised her hands to her chest, and the embedded crystals began to glow a thousand colors of white. A beam of pure energy suddenly shot from her hands to connect with the Silver’s own tambros. Her consciousness instantly expanded, deeper and fuller, less and more. She became all things and yet nothing. She was the crystal sands that baked beneath Krystaal’s two suns. She was the wild dorses that galloped across the cracked plains. She was the Robed Crystal-Makers that shaped their death-bringers many miles away. She was the laughing bairn playing in the desert dwellers kita. She was merged with Jeod, but it was a merging unlike any she ever experienced. She was Jeod and Kanadari, walking together as one. As gentle as a female furry, carrying a wayward cub to safety in her fanged mouth, she was lowered back to her body.

    Kanadari cautiously opened her eyes, as she felt the pressure of newfound power against her skull. “Was this what it was like when the temples were new?” she asked in wonder.
    Lanita laughed in delight and clapped her hands together. “Yes! We felt a hundred times over what now courses through your soul. The temples are caught in rigid rituals that cage the soul. The Elders spend so much time talking about all the rules of a Robed; they have lost their joy of serving Jeod and the people! I wonder how you have time to merge with Jeod,” she motioned toward her protruding stomach, “much less find the time to join.”
    The ripples of the pair’s laughter circled together and outward in true comradeship and trust. Lanita finally rose and bowed, like  Kanadari was in the body of an older Elder; full of wisdom and knowledge, and to be admired and respected.
    “And now, my little Silver, I have a great many things to teach you before I return to other planes.”
    Somehow, as she stood beside the holy Elder, one of the mothers of her world, her task no longer seemed so daunting. The female sibara padded over to lay beside her, rubbing against her until she petted it, making it rumble with pleasure. Her bairn woke sleepily to play with his toes, as he lay in his half-shadowed world. And for one of the few times in her life, she was without fear.
   
    The next day turnings Kanadari prepared to leave the enchanted kita. Her head spun with tales of glorious beginnings and future enchantments. She felt that she could do no wrong. The Elder blessed her at the kita entrance, and as she motioned with her hand, the female sibara jumped out of the shadows to stand next to her.
    “I loan her to you for a time, Silver.” Knowing what she started to ask, the White shook her head. “Do not fear for her. When it is time for her to return, she can find her way home.”
    “I have one last question, my teacher,” Kanadari boldly requested, with a smile. “Were you the strongest of the six?” The White impishly shook her head. “The weakest?” Again, she shook her head. “Then why was you the one chosen to exist in limbo for this daunting task?” she asked perplexed.
    Lanita of the White-of Salmars and the Enchanted Six began to glow softly, light illuminating her body and spreading outward to encompass everything in its path. It enfolded the male sibara, the kita and all its worked crystal, and the surrounding sands, until they appeared translucent to her eyes. Glittering crystal glistened all around her as the first sun of Krystaal touched it, and rebounded a thousand times a thousand. The sight was breathtaking
    Kanadar’s last sight of her was in a glowing ball of brilliance, as the male batted his tail, and watched them with knowing eyes. The White’s laughter rang through the canyon. “I was neither best nor worst. I merely lost the bet”
    Kanadari looked down in amusement, and when she raised her eyes, there was only empty sand that went on forever. She laid a reassuring hand on the sibara at her side, a mental one to the bairn, and began her long trek across the desert, to give answers and life to a dying planet.



                                                                                Jeanne Amequohi
                                                                                AmiaEagle








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