[Flashback] The meaning of sacrifice

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

Timestamp: Winter 54, 492AV

"Nassana was not pleased with your last piece of work I heard." Tall and meager a man slunk into the work room, arms crossed before his chest. A crimson red robe was draped around the thin, shell like armor he wore, granting his gaunt frame the illusion of substance. Eyes in the color of watered red wine settled on the boy working one of the looms. He was the only one left. The other children finished their lessons an hour earlier, the aging Symenestra had seen some of them on his way.

"When is my aunt ever pleased, uncle?" Velarian looked up from the piece of fabric he was working on. Under his fingers the wooden shuttle he used for passing the thread between the warp yarn stopped. "The time she used to scold me, she could have woven twice the length I did, without my failings. Instead I have to do the entire work again, wasting my afternoon."

Avandrin took his nephew's complains with a dispraising look and the hint of a smile. Often praised for her skill at the loom, his sister wasn't well liked even among her own ilk. Her child-bearing days had come and gone without her marrying one of her many suitors and now old, she was the unloved mistress of half a dozen students more or less willing to learn the art of weaving under her tutelage. Folding himself into a nearby chair, Avandrin chuckled dryly. "Not all to eager to become the city's best weaver, are we?"

"I won't become a weaver. When I am grown up I will become a knight."

"Is that so?" Visibly amused his uncle tilt his head to the side. His cool eyes resting on the boy, he was the picture of a spider watching its trapped prey. A prideful, devout spider with a distinct sense of duty and a hint of humor, but a poisonous insect non the less.

"The traveling merchant said they have great knights in Syliras. They wear shining armors, much better than ours." Heavier too, from what Velarian still recalled, but how hard could it be to wear one still? Falling silent the boy watched Avandrin for a long moment. Of all his relatives the old man was the only one he would tell secrets to, yet even his uncle had limits of what he would accept without chiding him afterward. "I could go to Aventhal too. They have ice bears there," he suggested into the unfolding silence.

"Do you even know what an ice bear is?" His uncle looked at him expectant, shaking his head when his nephew remained silent. "I always imagined you would be more clever than your brother, Vel."

"He got a sword the other season."

"Let's hope he doesn't cut his own hand off with it," his uncle replied sourly. "See... what do you think are the duties of a knight? Or a guardsman for that matter?"

His loom all but forgotten, Velarian tried to recall all the things he had heard from the merchants in the past months. "Hmn, they defeat their cities of course. They slay bandits and robbers and those not abiding to the laws. Oh and they save pretty young ladies from distress." The later he was not quite sure about what it meant, however it sounded very noble. Also woman didn't seem to mind it. Most foreign woman he knew tend to scream around and try to get away from them as fast as they could. Viratas knew why.

"They guard their city," Avandrin agreed, to the boy's dismay ignoring the rest as if it wasn't all that important to him. "They do their duty to their people by keeping them save, the way farmer produce food for them to have to eat and tailors make clothes to keep them warm. Everyone does his best for the community. Why do you believe that important?"

"'Because a piece of fabric isn't woven from a single thread either'?," Velarian offered the saw old Nassana was preaching to them whenever she felt one of her charges could benefit from her wisdom. To her students' annoyance that was the case rather often.

The old Symenestra inclined his head, lips pursed in yet another smirk, his hollow features reminding of a grinning skull. "Right. I knew you had your wits about you, boy. At least when you try," he added, shaking his head. Reaching for a fold of cloth his brother's son had finished in the morning, he let his stick thin fingers wander along the threads. Velarian knew he was searching for the mistakes he had made so plenty of.

Finally his uncle put the sheet aside, his pale eyes finding the young boy once more. "Your father wants me to teach you, so you can take on my duties to the family once you are a man grown." When his nephew started to grin, he shook his head a second time. "Don't get too excited. You will finish this before we start." He nodded towards the loom the boy was sitting at. "You know the quarters for the foreign merchants I take it? I will see you there in the evening." At the door he stopped again. "And try to give your aunt no new reasons to complain about your work."

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

Night was about to settle. The sun sunk behind the horizon in a smudge of red and purple, the moon loomed over the mountains pale and faint, waiting its time. Little of either was noticed in the depths of Kalinor, and still Velarian was aware of the time, like an animal sensing the change of seasons. Subtle shifts in the light, in temperature, told him it was time to meet his uncle and when he climbed down the way to the merchant quarters he couldn't deny to feel slightly excited.

The red silk beneath his feet was gently vibrating under his weight when the boy made his way to a structure at the cities fringes. These days it was often housing foreigners, traders, the few who would come to seek them out, looking for silk other fabrics. It was quiet here, most buildings unused and his own kind eerily quiet at times. All the more surprising he did hear something when he reached the structure, walking inside under the wary eyes of two Symenesta standing by the entrance. There always seemed to be some of them around, Velarian found, if to keep an eye on their guests or to help them move around the city, the youth wasn't sure. With a last glance towards the two of them, he headed for the source of the noise.

It turned out to be a girl his age, unsuccessfully trying to scale one of the walls. He knew her. She was the only daughter of a merchant visiting once a year to buy silk and linen from his family. It was the second season she had accompanied her father, but he had first talked to her just two days ago when her father had come to see how the fabric was woven. Her name was Marweene.

"Told you, you couldn't do it," he reminded her, nodding towards the walls with a shrug. "You are just not built for that."

"But you are?," Marweene wanted to know, her chin risen risen in defiance. "Just wanted to try it," she continued off-handedly, absently straightening out her dress. Smaller than Velarian she was built stronger than him, indicating she was no stranger to helping out her father and the others on their travels.

"You felt that swinging? If I was you, I wouldn't jump around so much, else we might fall down with the entire building, getting smashed like insect under a rock."

One long moment she starred at him, her eyes big blue puddles or fear, but then her expression suddenly changed, becoming a frown. "That's not true- You are a liar," she proclaimed with firm voice and Velarian didn't knew what to say. It had not been meant a lie, merely a joke.

Childish annoyance was written all over her face, tingled with triumph on account of her own cleverness, looking right through his claim. Quickly he tried to change the topic. "Hey, you remember when you told me about the knights?"

She sniffed, and her expression could not have been more scornful has he called her an idiot. "How could I forget that? Father said we would soon come to do business in Syliras. Then I will be able to see the knights. Isn't that great? I always wanted to see them. The horses. The banners." Clapping her hands together she grin, her earlier anger forgotten. A soft shade of red crept over her cheeks as she leaned to the boy before her. "Maybe I will marry one of them one day."

Velarian shrugged. He had watched her expression change with relief an a certain lack of understanding. When he spoke again he did so slowly, carefully weighting his words. "I talked with my uncle... I don't think he would mind if I became a knight. At least not when I would guard a city or so," he added remembering his uncle's words, deliberately misinterpreting them and feeling slightly bad for it.

"You have knights in Kalinor?" For the first time Marweene looked excited and she went so far to step closer to him, something she had always avoided in the past.

"No, we just have hunters. Oh and the Ochya of course, they have an eye on the city and keep it peaceful. They are really... capable fighters, who would, hm, do everything for the city," he stressed, hoping to squeeze a bit of the same excitement out of her she seemed to garner for the knights of her kind, but his hopes were met with disappointment. "I though I might be able to come to Syliras. With you and your father? You are stopping in Avanthal too, don't you?"

Marweene laughed so hard, tears started to well up in her eyes. She shook her head. "You can't become a knight."

"Why?" Although he tried to keep the chagrin from seeping in his voice he couldn't help it seeing her expression. A mere week ago he had not known what a knight even was as such the young girl had not really crushed a dream for him, but it stung still.

"Because no one would teach you." Leaning forward she lowered her voice, as if she was about to tell him a secret."My father says you steal people. Woman. And no one ever sees them again."

"We don't steal woman," Velarian protested weakly, his words missing the firmness he had tried to archive. Truth was, he knew there were a lot of foreign females in the city, many more than traders who occasionally visited the city. They were no prisoners though. He had seen their quarters once. They were nice and strangely exotic to his Symenestra tastes. His father had even allowed him to speak to one of the woman there. She had been rather nice. For a while they had played games together at least until his father had been done with business and they had left.

"You are lying again," the girls voice pulled him from his memories.

"We really don't steal them. We just marry them. Sometimes." Or at least he imagined some did. He was sure his father had not been married to his sister's mother. Unless you could marry more than one woman. His tries to investigate that particular question however had never proven successful.

"Why would you do that?" Irritated the girl took first one step backward and then another, arms crossed before her chest.

"I don't know, most of them are really just screaming around." He had never hear them, but some of the woman in his family sometimes mentioned it when they thought he was not paying attention to them. Most of the time he did however and he had found them source for all sorts of weird stories he only ever heard the half of.

Marweene shook her head again. "You are odd. And you still can't become a knight."

"Stop saying that."

"And you are a liar. Those wont become knights either."

"I said y-," Velarian started, but was interrupted by the girl before he could finish.

"But it is true." She said it with such a confidence, that he could feel the cold anger in his chest soar, felt the light itching in his mouth he always experienced before his fangs would grow. Even the girl seemed to realize she had gone a bit to far as she suddenly grinned again, shrugging. "Hey you know what? There is something I want to show you."

"I should wait here for my uncle." The boy said reluctantly, looking around. He had forgotten the old Symenestra altogether, but he was probably waiting for him somewhere, less than pleased his nephew had simply forgotten him.

"He is talking to father about business. Will take a while till they are done, I would think." Walking a few steps she looked back over her shoulder once more. "Now come already."

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

"We found them on our way to the city. Father has shot the hare for supper, so we picked her young ones up. Aren't they cute?" With a little effort Marweene lifted a young buck from a wooden box, showing it to the boy who had crouched down beside the crate. It was one of just three young rabbits, the fur of a rare white color, the eyes pinkish red, a lighter shade than Velarian's own eyes. Lazy the animal blinked at him and the girl grinned. "Father said we would sell them in the city if someone wants to have them. If not, I am allowed to keep the white one." Carefully she placed the buck in her lap, looking up to her newest acquaintance. "Father said he has sold rabbits and other animals here in the past. Would have never thought you people like so fluffy pets. Thought you all had spiders or so."

The last bit she said making a disgusted face and Velarian shrugged. "Some people do have spiders. They are very clean and easy to keep. You just need something to feed to them, but they don't eat that much. The larger ones are really soft to touch too." The unbelieving expression on the girls face let his voice fade and he cleared his throat uncomfortable. "We do have some other animals too, of course," he added quickly, looking back down on the rabbits. Many of his family kept pets like rabbits or reptiles caught in the swamp, but frequently they ended a sacrifice to Viratas before they could die of old age. However that was a subject he knew to better avoid. As his aunt liked to say so often only an other symenestra could understand how and why the lived the way they did and arguing with an outsider could be perilous.

"When I am grown up I will own a lot of rabbits," Marweene declared while she ruffled the fur between the buck's ears.

"You will marry a knight too," the boy reminded her, unable to keep the sparking grin from his features. Once more his eyes found the two remaining rabbits in the hope the girl had not noticed. Other than the buck Marweene held, the two remaining animals looked much like the wild hares he had seen around Kalinor. One of them seemed a little sickish too.

"Indeed I will," the merchant daughter agreed solemnly, her expression suddenly changing into a frown. "And don't make fun of me. I just know what I want."

Velarian couldn't argue that. She seemed to know what she wanted, even when the mental image of her with a knight, surrounded little fur-balls almost made him bust into laughter. Only to distract himself he looked around the girls room. It was very much unlike his own, with furniture he had never seen and could only barely guess what it was used for. It seemed impractical to waste space placing everything on the floor, but he could see humans might have trouble reaching spots higher up the walls or the ceilings. The bed was especially strange, but he avoided looking at it since the time he had tried lying on it. He had been kicked out of it by Marweene, who didn't believe him to never have seen a bed before.

There were other furniture too. A wardrobe, a large wooden chest sitting in right next to the bed, a small table and a chair, a bedside locker with a lily bouquet standing on it in an expensive looking vase. The lily was a common decoration through out the room, carved from stone and wood, embroidered on silk, it was hard to find a spot without a symbol of the flower the room was named after.

Noticing the girl to look at him and realizing she had probably done so for a while already he quickly nodded towards the rabbit in her arms. "So... what are you naming her?"

Marweene gave him a strange look from her blue eyes. He had never seen such eyes before, intense and lucid like the summer sky he would only have liked them more had he not seen mockery, anger and annoyance quite so often in them. Even so they got him hooked.

A bell bright laugh, tore him from his thoughts. "That's not a girl. Do you know anything at all?" Rising the animal half from her lap, she pulled one leg of the animal to the side, showing the bucks bottom to Velarian. "See? It's a boy. I have been living with my aunt when I was younger. She had a lot of animals so I would know."

"Oh-"

The sound of foot steps, let the boy halt, his eyes finding the door. A moment later it knocked once and a tall, corpulent man entered the room, looking around. Velarian knew the man was the merchant they had so often made business with in the recent years, Marweene's father Kawen. The guards usually liked to pick straws for who had to carry him, as the balding men left even two guards exhausted when they had to navigate him to the public house. Now Karwen briefly skimmed over the two children on the ground before settling on the crate on the floor between them. "That they are," he told the man entering behind him as he nodded towards the animals. "Take your pick."

"Do you want to chose one, Vel?"

Avandrin had followed the merchant on the foot and now he nodded his gratitude towards the other man. He was still wearing the dark red robe he had worn earlier in the day, but now his old cave bat was riding on his gaunt shoulder, its wary black eyes scanning the surrounding. "I would think the white one is quite suited for our needs, what do you think?," his uncle continued, red tinted amethysts focused on the albino buck in the girl's arms. Velarian could see her flinch the moment the old symenestra walk over and the sight let his heart beat harder just for a second.

"I... actually thought we would take this one." He gestured towards one of the rabbits in the box, the smallest of the three, the sickish one. Compared with its siblings the animal was a rather miserable sight and he could see his uncle rise an eyebrow. Suddenly the boy was afraid the older man would disagree. In the silence the bat stretched his wings, tiny claws scratching over silk the only sound for several heart beats and before Avandrin finally nodded.

"My nephew has picked. We will take this one." The aging man pointed towards the meager rabbit and to his feet Velarian could hear Marweene breath a sigh of relief, a sound which made him feel strangely accomplished, more so when he saw her smile.

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

"You know, I don't want to become a knight anymore."

Half an hour had past since Velarian and his uncle had left the meadow public house to make their way home. Leaving the brightly lit Inn behind, the darkness of the cave once more engulfed them. The circumstance did not interfere with their ability to see, yet the light was different, colder, a hint more blue. Riff, the bat, was riding on his shoulder, while Avandrin carried their freshly acquired hare neither of them had bothered to name.

His uncle snorted. With ease he balanced along the thread leading deeper into the cave, to the place the Zantedeschia web made their home. He glanced over his shoulder, ignoring the ample dark gaping to their feet. "Is it because of the girl? Maweene?"

The boy stopped playing around with Riff to stare at the man's narrow back before him. Under the robe he could see the plates of his uncle's armor move like the chitin shell of an insect. The compound was made of plates in different sizes, making it more flexible, but also lighter than the mail pieces foreign merchants sometimes tried to sell. One could walk more quietly in it too, especially when wearing some fabric over it to mute the scratching sounds of the moveable parts further.

Doesn't that make them better than anything a knight could possibly wear? Remembering Maweene's blissful expression whenever someone had mentioned knights just briefly, let anger well up in the pit of his stomach. She had not even listened to what he had tried to tell her about the Ochya, the Eyes. Maybe I should have picked the white buck, just to see what face she would have made then. Sullen he kicked a pebble out of the way, listening to its impact on the ground a long, long moment later. In the end she had smiled though, so maybe it had not been an all to bad day.

When Velarian finally searched for the face of the aging symenestra, the man had turned already. Something in his uncle's voice had made him feel guilty, uncomfortable, although he was sure to not have done anything wrong. Not on purpose. "I don't really want to talk about her."

Avandril took his nephew's indecisiveness with a little shrug. "I hope you didn't upset her. The Aconites don't appreciate it when someone interferes with their pet peeve of pampering outsiders. Following their suggestion we let Kawen look around the weaving mill, but I hope we wont need another trip again anytime soon. I fear your aunt might have used up her petty amount of pleasantries for this season."

"Hm." Casually the boy had reached up, stroking the bat's fur for comfort. It was soft and silky to touch. He could even feel the the small animal's heart beat under his fingers, regular and strong. His uncle wasn't usually one to grow close to his pets, but Riff was somewhat different. When the bat had still been young the boy had often imagined he would get it one day, but Avandril had made no move to do so and Velarian had resolved to pet the animal at the few occasions he got.

"If you still want to fight you might be able to join the Ochya. It would be a rare path to take for one of our web, yet I don't think your father would hold it against you."

"You are certain about that?"

Avandril laughed. "I couldn't say so, no."

Velarian shook his head, but he had to grin. His father's grip on the family was weak. Everyone was allowed to pursue whatever goal pleased them, yet it did not mean the patriarch wouldn't publicly express his disapproval of all and everything he saw unfit for the reputation of the web. "When I am honest, I have no desire to fight. And I know we need the money from weaving and selling fabric. It isn't that I don't want to help... it is just not..." It wasn't a grandiose task. Nothing people would look up to or remember.

"It is still important work someone has to do," his uncle added for consideration, his voice softer than a moment ago. "Hunters assure the survival of the city, yet without those they serve, without the work we, the others, do and the knowledge we hold – would it be worth the price woman have to pay bearing new life? We are no locusts seeking to destroy all and everything in our path, rather we are preserver of what made our people great. Even if you never gain recognition in the face of the city your children will always remember your name, they way you know about your father, your grandfather and the father before him. What does Viratas teach us?"

"To honor life and family, the connection between the two, the history, the blood." The answer came quickly, without much thinking. Words he had heard countless times from family and teachers came into his mind and he just had to pick a few examples.

Pleased Avandril inclined his head, his face thoughtfully. "However, I heard your brother refused to learn Animation from your father, taking up the spear instead. It seems he is certain it would aid him better in the harvest. Your father was foaming." The man clicked his tongue in a disapproving manner. "I can't say I have seen him that angry since the death of your brother Dra-zare. If I was you, I would take the chance to ask him if you could learn it in your brother's place."

Velandrin did not answer immediately. His father's work was interesting, yet it required a patience the boy was not sure to have and his father was a teacher at least as strict as his aunt Nassana, a prospect he was not looking forward to. "I will think about it," he finally said hesitantly, eyes fixing the tips of his shoes.

"I was sure you would. You are a clever boy and you know what's best for the family."

Something about the praise, about the older man's words, made youth's skin prickle uncomfortably, but there was nothing he could have add to it and so he fell silent. Around them buildings peeled from the darkness of the cave as they walked the red thread of the main street and they passed the nest, the place of purging. In the distance the boy could make out the black and white stone of his own home. His father would be there and so would eventually be his brother in case the older boy had returned from training early. Stopping Velarian took a deep breath. "Uncle Avandril? Maweene said we would steal women. That isn't true, now is it?"

One long moment the boy was not sure his uncle would answer at all, but then he did, his voice smooth and casual as if he was talking about the weather. "Can you see the bridge ahead?" For the first time since they left the inn the old symenestra actually turned, dark, knowing eyes coming to rest on his nephew.

It was his uncle's stern expression, which let Velarian answer in the end, although it was not the quick reassurement he had hoped for. "Sure. It is the thread connecting our place with the main avenue."

"Your mother's great grandparents helped with its construction. Not an easy task, as the mounting had to be driven deeper into the stone than usual. The rock was too porous, breaking away four times till they managed to anchor the hooks to the wall. It was your great grandmother's first and only work before she gave birth to her son Sandroval. She was twenty-two when she died."

Instinctively the boy's eyes searched for the crude iron constructs anchoring one end of the bridge to the wall. A complicate knotwork of silk covered the iron hooks to hide the metal, but Velarian knew they were there, the way he had always wondered about the tracks and traces covering the wall beside them.

"Imagine what she could have archived had she lived longer. Her family was rich with gifted builders and architects and still she chose life, that of her son and that of the woman which might have died in her place over her own, over learning what her web could have taught her. It was a noble way to go, yet if more of us pursued it, our numbers would dwindle, our culture and achievement falling to the wayside."

Quietly the boy had listened and finally he nodded, slow, hesitant, as if he had to force himself to move. It wasn't an answer and yet it was, one he had rather not come to know. Although his uncle spoke about his great grandmother with the same appreciation he harbored for all their ancestors, the boy couldn't help put feel the man was not agreeing with the decision she had made.

"Death is an inevitable part of life and for us there is no life without death. We can not allow past sacrifices, our history, to be forgotten, Velarian. A family's legacy ends with the death of its last descendent and that has to be avoided, even when it forces us to make hard decisions."

Again the boy nodded, but he wasn't sure if he could agree with the said, no matter the apparent logic, his uncles convincing words.