Eternal Beasts

First Steps

Where she found the denai cleric standing, her griffon a white, gray, and silver mass behind her.

"Hello," the cleric said in a quiet voice, her westerling clean and flawless. "My name is Alma Neverdark, a cleric of the Seventh ..."

The young woman, beautiful and serene despite the scarring that spidered across her left cheek, silent testament to how close a fire spell came to ending her life, abruptly hesitated with a frown.

"Sorry. I'm no longer that, am I?" she asked, looking into Kalannar's eyes, her voice both sad and touched by pain.

"No," Kalannar replied, smiling sadly beneath her mask. In a single instant, this young cleric's life had been completely turned upside down, taking her away from the only life she had ever known. And, by the pain in her voice, it was a terrible loss.

Silently her griffon bumped into Alma from behind.

"No, Baku, it's not your fault," the denai said out loud, turning to the griffon to lay her hand gently against his beak. "The Maker just has a new calling for me now. That's all."

With her hand still on Baku's beak, Alma turned back to Kalannar, wiping away tears with her other hand before they could trickle down onto her face.

"Sorry," she said again, trying to smile. "It's just a little hard ..." She took in a quick breath before straightening her shoulders resolutely. "I'm Alma. Baku says you are our senior rider?"

"Kalannar," Kalannar replied, extending her hand nysim style, which Alma unhesitatingly took to give it a firm shake. "And senior by maybe ten minutes."

She then gestured to the other riders, who, by this point, were beginning to make their way to where Kalannar and Alma were talking.

"I think we're all in the same boat! Newly come to our callings as griffon riders."

"Three vahndim, two denai, and a nomad," Alma noted, also looking at the other riders. "The Light calls all who feel it in their souls!"

Kalannar looked sideways at the former cleric, her expression beneath the mask puzzled.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"That you are vahndim?" At Kalannar's nod, Alma explained. "It's a cleric spell we cast on ourselves every morning called the 'Gift of Discernment '. It allows us to see through illusions cast by the enemy and to clearly see each situation for what it is."

Alma smiled at her, a strangely reassuring thing.

"It also reveals that which is hidden. Mostly boobytraps and ambushes. But it works on disguises as well."

"And ... you're not troubled by your discovery?" Kalannar pressed.

"Should I be, Kalannar?" the former cleric quickly replied, a questioning expression appearing on her face.

"I, uh ..."

The vahndim rider let her voice fade into silence. To say she was astonished at Alma's easy acceptance of her, her heritage notwithstanding and the denai a former cleric to boot, was a gross understatement. And yet, the answer to Alma's simple question was equally straightforward and simple. She wouldn't have been called if there was the taint of Darkness in her soul.

"No," she said, pulling down her mask to smile, revealing her face. "You shouldn't be."

Alma returned her smile with a bright one of her own.

"Besides," the denai said. "To become a griffon rider is to embrace the unknown as we give up our old lives and learn a new one. You are no longer a vahndim ranger. I am no longer a denai paladin. We are now griffon riders fighting for the Maker, the Prophets, and the Light. Together."