by Philomena on May 30th, 2013, 11:30 pm
The other night, in my half sleep i was thinking about the Jamoura, because I'd been speaking about the Spires with Fallon earlier in the day, and I found myself thinking of what sort of character I would love to play, there. In that strange half-dreamy state before I went to sleep, here is the image of Jamoura story I had - for all good stories begin with a vision (Minnie and Ara both did, as did Iha - I could tell you if you're ever interested).
The old Jamoura woman, Huili, meditates quietly, her hands resting in her great, muscular lap, across from Hopscotch - a Symenestra woman who, of course, this is not her name, but she will share no other name with Huili. Huili is teaching her the way of silence, of looking within. Hopscotch has a great facility for it, and breathes deep and slow, almost with the placidity of a Jamoura. They both sit, and wait, turning their eye inward, looking.
Huili is old, she has seen many of her lives, but there is one life, the Secret Life she thinks of it, which she has never seen. She can smell this life, can almost taste it, and has yearned for it for many years - for it has the smell of the wood, and of the Jamoura, the Jamoura before the time of their awakening, and she wants to understand why it is so important to her.
But as she meditates, she feels a moment of Hopscotch meditating beside her. This does not startle her. She has grown quiet and still enough over the years to feel the edges of her soul blur, to feel wher eshe is and is not the rock, the tree, the earth, the air, the other Jamoura. And the young student in front of her - they are all young, these outsiders - is clear and clean and quick.
But then, she sees it at least, the secret life, because she looks at the life, and smells the scent of Jamoura in it, and smells it coming from Hopscotch - it was Hopscotch who was the Jamoura in this long ago life. She had been, then, a male, an elder of the wandering, hunted peoples of her ancestry, strong, and frightened, leading his people north, ever north. And Huili looks round at all his people, to try to find herself there. But she isn't. And then, she sense her body in the secret life, and it is pulling down a sword, and there is blood, and she is a human, rnaging through the troop, and cutting down one Jamoura after another laughing wildly, lopping their beautiful hands as trophies to take home. The man who was Hopscotch then bellows forward wildly, to fight her. And she stabs him cruelly in the neck.