Lady of Light #Wattys2016

Chapter 9

That shower was the most beautiful thing I'd ever experienced. Not only was it a fantastic shower anyway, I got to wash away the dirt and tears of the past few days. I washed my hair at least three times before doing anything else, and after the shower I rubbed in a handful of some leave-in conditioner that had been on the counter before gently working out the knots with a comb. Once I was dressed in the tee shirt and cotton shorts I'd snagged from the suitcase, and my hair was somewhat behaving, I left the bathroom quietly to avoid waking David. Climbing into the warm, queen bed was the best feeling I'd had in several days, and I was out immediately.

~~~

When I looked at the clock after reluctantly deciding to get up the next day, I realized two things. First, that I'd slept for around 14 hours straight and second that I could smell pancakes.

Once I rolled out of the bed, I saw that there was a wheeled cart with food on it and that David seemed to be staring at it wistfully.

"What are you doing?" I asked him, vaguely confused and slow with sleep. The corners of his mouth twitched.

"Waiting for you to get up so I could be sure there would be plenty of food for you. Luckily for my patience, this has only been here around a half hour. Longest half hour of my life though," he added thoughtfully. I grinned as some of the fog began to lift.

"Then let's eat!" And we devoured everything on the tray in a much shorter amount of time than it had taken to make. There were fluffy pancakes with butter and flavored syrups to drench them in, cheesy scrambled eggs, bacon that was just perfectly crispy so as to not seem burnt, hash browns that I suspected had been made straight from potatoes and not frozen, pitchers of ice cold milk and orange juice, and a huge mess of tea and coffee pods with a small Keurig, mugs, everything you could possibly consider putting in either, and a note that said it would stay in our room for as long as we stayed at the hotel.

"I think I've fallen in love with room service," I announced as the last crumbs were finished from the plates.

"I think I have too," David replied, fake swooning. I giggled.

"So what are we doing today?" I asked.

"Today is for rest," he replied, "And then we're going to start the work to get to the Igigi to see if you're the Ninti."

"How are we going to do that?"

"Our people have been in contact with the Igigi stationed here. You must understand that our people don't have a lot of control over them. They have a lot more power in this world than you'd think," he cautioned.

"I can see that," I replied thoughtfully after a moment, "They tell you essentially what your future is." I paused, thinking for a bit, then voiced a new question, "What happens if a child of one of your... priests? people? has no powers?" David sighed slightly.

"We try to treat them the same way we treat each other. They get the same physical training that we do, and we also train them in some kind of trade that the Igigi senses their aptitude for that they can use either in the real world or in our society. They get to make the decision, and they're actually allowed to switch around a bit since they're simply humans. Actually, we call them the Mare Ali or just the Mare, which means citizens."

"That's actually really great that you take care of people and don't just throw them out," I smiled. He smiled back ruefully.

"Initially, our people didn't treat them well. But around a thousand years or so ago, we realized that not only should we help them, but they could help us. We don't have the time or the resources to devote our people to things such as research or teaching. The more of our people that we can have available for the field, the better. Eventually, our forefathers realized that if we stopped maltreating them, the Mare could be a huge help to us, and we could give them a boost in return. The only reason that it's so peaceful now is that we fought for a thousand years to teach the people that they're no better or worse and they deserve care."