Spontanéité

Will of the Keeper 🔹 snapshot

There are horses and chariots burdened with too many riders, too much cargo. There are screams, moans, whispers, wails, curses, last-moment prayers. Men and women, feet dragging or limping along the disturbed dirt floor, wander aimlessly or with purpose, backs hunched, eyes hollow, faces and clothes smeared with dirt and bright red splashes of blood. Most of them drag their lifeless companions to the chariots and horses that keep returning to collect the next round of bodies. It's pitiful, really. So much blood poured out across the ground for- what? For what? For the sake of it?

Behind a thick and disorderly large clump of trees are flocks of grazing sheep, goats, cattle, kept under control by a group of shepherds and shepherdesses with their children and dogs. A few of the Pack are with them, too, but most Pack members are heading up and down the mountain, bringing herbs or poultices or cloth bandages to tend to the wounded here before they are taken back to the Fortress of the Land.

Not far from the flocks and their keepers are the empty tents, the cloths fluttering in the wind. The camp currently holds only one or two Guards, a few cats, a dog, scattered fowl and no more. Almost all the Realm's belongings are still there, not that they own much.

I turn at the sound of approaching hoof-steps, watching as a man, a Son of Wanderers, dismounts and drops to the ground, landing easily on his feet. The woman beside me goes to meet him with a tight hug. I still can't believe none of the Wandering Realm were injured seriously at all. Not one man or woman. Their armour is of thick leather, not metal like ours, or like that of the Children of the Earth, and while they fight well and with plenty of skill, they aren't particularly exceptional. But the fact remains this: not one of the Wandering Realm are seriously injured. Not one is dead or in any near threat of death.

Among my people, a few of the Pack members who fought will take over a moon to heal from their wounds. I myself won't be able to use my left arm for some time. Currently, it's bandaged tightly and strapped to my chest so I don't move it or make the break any worse. The worst injury suffered by the Wandering Realm is a somewhat deeper cut down the thigh. And that is it.

I won't be able to fly. I won't be able to hunt. I'll have enough difficulty just trying to get back into the Citadel.

But the Wandering Realm... It's completely unnatural. Ridiculously fortunate.

The General and her husband are talking now, but I don't think anybody can hear them, they're so quiet. He slaps the horse's rump and the horse tosses his mane, rears up on his hind legs a little before trotting away. She smiles, laughs, even, and he kisses her forehead with obvious affection.

I don't understand. The General is the leader of the entire Wandering Lions' Realm, defender, judge, ruler, guide, whatever. The weight of a few hundred, perhaps, rests on her shoulders, maybe a little on her husband's shoulders too. From what I know, they lost their own firstborn daughter only a moon ago. But here they are, still obviously strong and capable, even able to smile.

Another of the Realm told me it was their Keeper who protected them, preserved every one of their lives. If that's the reason they're all largely untouched, then why didn't their Keeper preserve the General's daughter too? I don't understand.

I look over this battlefield, this plain land where bodies are still being collected by the Children of the Earth and some of the Pack members are kindling a fire to burn clothes, pieces of armour or weapons discarded by the dead or dying. Some Children of the Airs believe in a Keeper too. I look to where the Children of Wanderers play in part of the forest with the sheep, with lambs, kids, calves and dogs under the watchful eyes of their parents, the shepherds, the shepherdesses, and some Pack members. They have no idea of the danger they'd been in. They have no idea of how fortunate they are to be alive now.

"Are you alright, Daughter of the Airs?" The accent of the Wanderers is still unfamiliar, but not unpleasant, and I turn to see the General standing a few steps before me. Her husband has passed by and is now behind me, headed for the forest where the children play.

"What kind of Keeper do you believe in?" I ask. She raises her eyebrows. "Why would Someone preserve your Realm under threat of battle but let a child- your child, no less- die in innocence?"

Her face twists a little in pain and I feel a prick of guilt. Regret. I shouldn't have asked that. She's the General of a People, after all, and with her authority, she could kill me without any questions being asked. I'm just a Pack member, nowhere near the position of leader, and now incapable of returning to the Airs for a moon at least.

"A Keeper beyond our understanding," she says finally.

"What, you don't try and understand?" I ask, again regretting my words. This is part of the reason I'm not going to be a Pack leader for a while. My older sisters have no issue reminding me to watch my tongue whenever I speak without thought. Unfortunately, since it occurs several times each day, I've grown accustomed to their reminders.

"Of course we do." There is a hint of sharpness in her tone. "But we don't often succeed. We are men and women, created and not the Creator." She eyes me. "The Airs are beyond your understanding, aren't they? The snowfall. Storms." I don't answer. "It doesn't mean they don't exist. Our Keeper exists." She gestures around us. "Look at me. At my people. Are we not living proof?"

"That still doesn't explain-"

"I know," she cuts me off. Her fingers shift along the staff of her spear, and I suppress the urge to step back. "But true faith means accepting that the Keeper's will is His own, and that maybe we'll never understand why certain things happen."

I don't have an answer, and sensing this, she dips her head to me before walking past me to join her husband and her people. I watch her go, watch her touch hands with the shepherds, the shepherdesses, the parents, touch the heads of the oblivious children, laughs as a dog tugs at her cloak hem and a shepherd hurriedly snatches the young animal away. I watch the Children of Wanderers head as one for their camp at an instruction and gesture of the hand from their General, watch as she and her husband don't move until every one of them, every lamb, every dog, every person, has begun the procession back. I look away as the husband of the General kisses her deeply, and I start heading for my Pack.

True faith... Is that what gives her the ability to smile after her daughter's death? The ability to stand untouched by the Children of the Earth with the rest of her people?

'The Keeper's will is His own,' she said. What is His will towards me, then? This Woman of the Airs, clueless as to who He really is, careless with her words, unlikely to rise to any position of importance for plenty of cycles yet? Who knows?

Who knows the will of the Keeper?

Certainly not me. 🔹