Original - With Wrath, the Fall

Kalvin - Chapter 15: The Path You Walk

Loneliness... that was all I felt... My mind wandered. My heart ached. My soul screamed. I wanted to forget the pain, the suffering of my death. It would have been an escape but in those last moments I was not ready to leave. Tethered when it all finally ended, I was drawn to a limbo where night and day were one.

I stood there knowing that I had yet to die but I was no longer living. I was trapped. Driven by a need to help Keagan, Lane, and Randal, understand I seized the first chance I got to see them. I had so much to say. So much to tell. Perhaps, though, that was not a need but a desire feed by my own selfish emototions.

I stared in the distance, "But, as per usual, we were torn away..."

That voice that I had once not known but now found to be familiar echoed, "So is the path you choose to walk, jauni."

"I chose nothing. I did not want to die. I did not want to leave them. I did not want any of this..."

"Does the bird choose to leave the nest? Does the sun choose to set? Does a river choose to run? No. They are all slaves to the circumstance of survival, of appropriation.

I argued, "They are not conscious. They have no will of their own."

"Who's to say that anything has a will of its own?"

"So, what? We are all slaves to fate?"

"Perhaps we are. Perhaps we are not."

I let out a sigh, "For a spirit guide you lack knowledge of the unknown."

"For jauni you lack devotion."

"I guess you're right."

"You shouldn't become so concerned. It'll fog your mind. Fortunately, there is nothing more I can teach."

"Just like that? After all this time?"

"Yes. It's been weeks since you've returned to be whole."

I looked up to the moon, "Yet it has been years here... The realm of spirits is odd."

"Tell me, have you chose your path?"

"I have. I must return. My friends need me and I need..."

I trailed off into memories of Keagan. The way it he smelt. The way he spoke. The way it felt to be close to him.

"You can't return if you die again, jauni. You will be watkai, fallen."

I smiled. I raised a hand to the eternally shining moon. Its rays shone gently through my spread fingers.

I brought my hand to my heart, "Then that is my fate. Isn't it funny? All this is our fault. Though, we can't even see it. When we are together chaos seems to follow. I know they know it too. I can feel it. Yet, we're still drawn to each other."

"You all are naïve, even you jauni. There are forces at play that even ouwai do not seek to understand. Still you four seem to seek it. I will never understand the mind of mortals."

I closed my eyes. A flurry of emotions ran through me: loneliness, regret, longing.

"Love..."

My heart beat was rapid. It flipped with joy and excitement.

The ouwat looked at me, "Love?"

"It's why we jauni are naïve. We feel. We lose our rationality to it. We forget our duties to it. We both lose and find our sense of self to it. We need emotions though. They are what separates us from ouwai. It's what separates from ninawou. They make us what we are. Don't you see," I looked into the eyes of the ouwat.