Kara

Chapter 2

My spear was a tool that my mother and I crafted together just a short time after my painting ceremony. "It's a tool for safety, and must be handled with care," she said that night long ago. I scanned up and down the long wooden shaft of this slender weapon, following the geometric patterns etched into it. Rings looping together loose chaotic triangles into patterns that spiraled downward. It wasn't long enough to throw, so it was used almost like a sword mixed with a staff. It had an area near the base wrapped with leather and a club-like bulb at the end for smashing things. The metal point at the end wasn't a clean cut. It was a shard from one of the harvested metal spark trees. The black metal point was slightly curved, but in a way that was wavy. Some edges were jagged and broken into random bits, making it difficult to cut with. The benefit of metal spark shards is that they are good for stabbing. While our tribe had no way of making them into blades, the natural points we found were incredibly sharp, and thus were used for hunting some of the forest creatures. As a good luck charm, Mother's sigil was placed hanging off from the point, along with a plume of blue feathers. Mother's sigil was like a lotus but with 3 petals. The petals were in the shape of her eyes, and they were marked with her blood to leave a light blue stain on the white stone they were carved into.

Each member of the ceremony carried one of these charms with them on their excursions into the wild. They stood in clean rows in front of the pavilion, watching and waiting for the High Matriarch to permit them to enter Mother's domain. I wasn't sure where to stand. Each member had their waist lined with a belt of glowing veins filled with Mother's blood. I didn't have that. They wore cloth gloves and around their necks were flowing scarves. All of their skin was covered in some form of fabric to not taint the forest. I didn't dress like that. I wasn't even blessed. Though Garo was well known, there was no way for him to convince the High Matriarch to let a random child tag along in the gathering, but my mother didn't seem to think that far ahead. Either way, I couldn't find a way to go with the team to the forest, I still needed to come home with something to avoid our lie being found out.

The High Matriarch creaked up the steps of the pavilion, arms outstretched to address the gathered people. Her earlobes sagged down to her shoulders with thick wooden rings. She was wrinkled and weathered from years beyond any memory and, in stark contrast, her robe was in the cleanest possible condition. Not a crease, wrinkle, or stain in its gilded lining. Her hair dragged along the floor in a nest of tangled braids, and the center of her forehead was marked with a lotus petal. "Children of Mother. The Kohtari." She held a warm smile on her face, looking over the clean rectangle formed by the ceremony team. Then she looked at me. Her eyes judged me from head to toe, understanding what my uniform meant. She continued with her speech, but her eyes would occasionally meet mine as I stood awkwardly at the corner of the rectangle, blatantly out of place. "Mother has made clear our borders with the river. It divides the land she has given us, from her divine domain, and only sparingly we shall enter it. Like the erased, those who believe they can conquer nature face a steep price, so tread the soil of Mother with reverence and take only what is needed. You may proceed."

The ceremony team stomped in unison and raised their spears to the air. Clutching their sigils, they marched single file around the pavilion, and using a long pole they vaulted across the river. At the end of the line, one of the team members looked at me through the coverings of their scarves, just before taking off to the other side of the river. The High Matriarch, locked her eyes onto me with a cold unfeeling stare. I knew to come over to her to explain myself. "H-Hello Matriarch, my name is Kara and I served an apprenticeship under Garo some time ago, I helped build the river wheel."

"Yes," She replied. "You're Komi's daughter. She was so happy to fulfill her duties and have you dedicated to the tribe, then let you spend your first years with such a strange man. What are you doing here?"

"That strange man needs Mother's blood for work he is doing. I thought it would be right for me to help him since he taught me so much."

"Mother's blood is sacred. Garo has shown little care for anything holy and in my opinion, he's no better than those wretched Oonagi. Though that wheel is useful, it treads the border of what we permit. If he wants to use her divine blood for his experiments he can meet with me himself." She eyed me inquisitively, and her gaze reached deep into my soul as if she was searching for my real intentions. "You want something."

I could tell she had figured out my lie, but I couldn't tell her what I was looking for. I could never get to just romp around sacred ground for some unknown object. "I'm not sure what you mean High Matriarch."

"Child I know the look of curiosity." her grave voice spoke the warning "If not guided in the right light, knowledge is destructive. The thirst for it is one of the most corruptive powers in the human mind. Knowledge gained will always seem good to those that achieve it, but what is done with knowledge, and the intentions behind the pursuit determine its true nature. And what a person is willing to do to gain knowledge shows their character. Stay away from the wilds, or you may find yourself somewhere beyond return." With that, she left.

I was all alone in the creeping hours of the early night, the stars gradually twinkling awake above me, and without a clear way into the forest. The ominous words of warning still hung in my mind, but all they did was drive me to learn more. I needed to know. Two watchers stood by the vaulting pole with lanterns, to ensure that no one entered the forest without a proper blessing. My spear wasn't long enough for me to vault over from a different spot but I could jump from something else. I just needed to get high enough. "The tower," I thought. "I can vault off the balcony."