Ashen Earth

Chapter 1: Yara

There were no paved roads to her mother's grave and the mountains were treacherously icy, especially this season. Morning nibbled Yara's nose and blew at the tips of her ears. Her father rode on his elk and she sat in front of him. Both of his arms out stretched in front of her, preventing her from falling from the great height of his elk. Yara nestled deeper into her thick coats and threaded her fingers into the cinnamon fur of the gentle giant they rode. The pair rode on the elk through the woods, without a word. Papi was silent, as he always was every half-moon when his wife passed. On the ground the moonlight still rained a silver glow on the snow. Her father's elk imprinted hoof prints as they journeyed on. Laovϵ was kind. Today was a clear morning, without a trace of fog.

And at last they arrived where Mami's ashes rested. The branches of her pyre still remained after her funeral. She had never seen Papi cry before Mami passed, but when she passed she promised herself Papi would never cry again.

Papi dismounted first, sweeping one long leg over the back of his elk, taking his satchel with him as well. He turned toward his daughter, lifting her from his elk. Then he tied the elk's straps on the arcing tree as he had done when he had visited. Yara rummaged in her own satchel before producing a canister of hot broth. She took a deep sip, warmed by the liquid sinking slowly and tenderly to her belly. Then she passed the canister to Papi, who also took a portion of the broth. The both of them sighed and their breaths unfurled white into the morning air.

They knelt by the grave stone. Motionless above Mami's remains. Yara wondered about Mami's transformation in the pyre. Her mother's skin reminded her of newly baked bread from the oven, a bold golden color. Mami's long dark hair tumbled down across the woven blanket outstretched across the bundles of branches below her. Flames over took her quickly, hastily blackening the tapestry covering her mother's bare body, but Mami's form still remained for a long time. Papi couldn't take his eyes away, wetness long evaporated in the heat. Yara joined him quietly. And at long last, she vanished and Papi reached into the charcoal and took a hold of the ashen earth, the last of Shirali.

"How did you meet Mami?" Yara said, resting her cheek on her father. 

For a moment he remained silent. Then, Papi engulfed Yara in his large furs and arms. 

"I met your Mami when she visited Grȕn on one of those moving cities from 'Ahn," her father sighed, "Her city would sometimes visit my village on the border of Grȕn and 'Ahn to trade-"  

"Cities can't move" Yara interrupted.

"That's what I thought. Here in Grȕn as well as the other two major nations, there are no such things as moving cities. But in 'Ahn, they all shift, floating like clouds from place to place."

"Oh," Yara leaned against her father. The 'Ahn must be odd people, Yara thought. "But, Mami isn't from 'Ahn."

"No, not exactly. Her family, the Suma, moved from Marea to once of 'Ahn's moving cities a long time ago and if you remember your lessons, you'll remember why?"

She scowled and scrunched her eyebrows together, "Marea fell apart after the second war."

"Yes, in short," her father conceded. "But remember, Carlin played a large role in the divide of Marea's Suma and Balena families--" 

"Those are just a stories from a long time ago," Yara drank her fill of broth from Papi's cannister.

He shook his head, "No Yara, these stories happened at great cost. We honor the costs by remembering history."

Yara watched her father kneel in front of the stone marking her mother's grave. His thumb brushed against the cold stone, revealing the inscription:

"Sumai Shirali-leva, daughter to the walking descents of Marea, wife of Lord Ilya the blood-branch of Old Grun and Master of The Halls of Records, mother to their daughter Yara-leva"

It felt odd to see the title '-leva' attached to her own name, Yara thought, scrunching her nose. '-leva' was granted to the women of Old Grun's blood-branch. Papi explained, Shirali came from one of 'Ahn's moving cities housing what was left of the old realm of Marea, refugees of the second Great War. Granting this title to a foreigner was an unusual honor, but an honor nonetheless.

"But how did you meet Mami?" Yara insisted. Her father managed to turn everything into a history lesson. 

"We met when she visited the border. And eventually she decided to stay and leave her family behind."

"Why'd you marry a foreigner? People always ask me where I'm from, since I don't look like I'm from Grȕn."

"Well you are. You were born here. You're not a foreigner and she wasn't a foreigner, to me at least. You're your mother's daughter. You're never quiet. You always ask questions and you're a sponge, you take in everything."

"Was Mami nice? Was she pretty when you met her?"

"All of that and much more importantly, much more. She was made of stories."

Both of them sat by the grave watching snow begin to fall from the sky. Her father unraveled memories of her mother growing accustomed to the cold and so little sun. Yara loved this. She thrust a small journal and a pen at his hands asking him to draw Mami as he remembered her. Gradually the somberness of Mami's grave transformed into a nostalgic happiness. She watched a small smile lift the edges of Papi's mouth and buried herself deeper into his coat, dozing off into the warm memories of her mother resting below them. 

---

"Yara." 

She felt a hand shake her shoulder determinedly and tasted a bitterness in the air. Her eyes flew open. Her father had rested her on his elk when she fell asleep. He hurriedly fastened the saddle and ties before hauling himself a top the elk. 

"Hm?" She sat up right. 

"I need you to stay awake and hold on."

"What's the matter?"

"Greyfire," her father growled. "The worst kind of fire that burns through snow. There's no stopping the speed of greyfire."

Papi jolted his elk's reins as they mounted into action, propelling themselves towards the mountain pass for the city road. Yara looked behind them and watched a wave of dark smoke devour passing trees. Smoke took to the sky like a murmurations of starlings. Tossing and stretching from a long slumber. Greyfire raced through the woods, burning the tender green leaves into kohl. The dark fire sparked red and orange flames in it's path, turning nearby barks the shade of twilight.

"How could this have happened?" Yara yelled against the wind in their faces. The elk galloped at full speed.

"Save it for another time," was her father's clipped response. An expression of great unease passed through her father's face.

Yara looked behind her again, still tightly grasped to her father, and saw what seemed like a small white bird fluttered like paper out of the flaming forest and to the south. Wisps of smoke trailed behind it's wings. The scent still burned her nostrils as they rode safely for the city.