To Dreamwalk one was opening oneself to the control of the Dreamwalker. Nysel trusted his own and imbued them with equal parts dream and nightmare. They were not shining beacons of light and hope in the dark. Nor where they dark writhing pockets of disease upon the worlds. Instead, Nysel's Dreamwalkers were a mix - beautifully dark and menacingly light. Their casualties were those they dragged into the Chavi with them. Sometimes they came out enlightened and sometimes scarred. But regardless, it was easy for their escorts to understand what it was they were thinking. Emotions rolled around them like the chavi swirled around them in the chavena.
Kavala quickly understood Branimir thought the Chavi set like carved stone was, unmovable by man and by the forces of nature. But that was so untrue. Chavi could be rewritten or even unwritten if the Dreamwalker was powerful enough. She wanted him to understand, even if he thought he already knew.
"The Chavis... like these two... are just as written records are in books days if not hundreds of ages old. But like those books, it can be rewritten, falsified, and changed. And if you are still living that life that is tampered with, your mind will remember as the tampering reads, not as the truth." Kavala said softly, wanting the man to understand how fragile the thing was they witnessed, how precious it was.
"They can be made blank too... when information is too dangerous." The Konti whispered. If one wanted something to go away a dreamwalker could make that happen. She hoped he understood. "Choices can be bitter every day... day in and day out. We choose to come here, to know, to understand and when you wake up in the morning... you'll try to convince yourself its a dream. Only it won't be and you won't really believe it." Kavala said, softly, as if the words were only slipping from truly uninvited. "But you won't be able to convince yourself that its not real. Because deep within you, you already know its real. And you will wake up being Branimir but also Hasuthep will be awake again. You'll itch to do more of what he did. You won't be able to help it. He will be just as real to you and you will get to know him as you know yourself now. It's another layer, Branimir. And the more you walk these Chavi the more people will live inside you. They will be real. Your head will be crowded. And you'll know things that one single human simply can't realistically know in one lifetime. And that's because he will lend you his mind, his experiences, and so too will the others if you take the time to meet them." Kavala said, feeding him more information than she truthfully had meant too.
But what she said was true and why she did it was obvious. Shanru trusted Hasuthep. She knew him. She wanted him as informed as he could be because she understood that knowledge was power. He had, long ago, taught her that in the rolling desert of Eyktol.
When Branimir admitted he didn't work with stone, Kavala almost smiled when he augmented it with fact he would in time. Yes, of course he would... how could he not?
When Kavala left him with Shanru, she took to Hasuthep. His thoughts were alive with secrets, both mundane and far far more complex. The secrets shocked her because inherently Kavala only knew what Shanru knew... and his cousin was not involved. The secrets were the kind that got families killed, in accidents that weren't accidents. They were the kind of things that damned a young girl to loneliness in a house where she was shoulder to shoulder with a cousin. Kavala probed deeper, overhearing his thoughts as if they were his own. Shanru would never be his weakness. He'd ever let anyone know she meant anything to him. He carefully and methodically, with an intelligence that was staggering, germinated the idea that she was wholly a burden and even an embarrassment to him. He played up her weaknesses - her need to drink sometimes, her need to shop and socialize, fostering rumors with payoffs that had all but ruined his grieving cousin's reputation and social standing.
He was protecting her. Even now, pretending to be surprised that she was leaving and pretending to be unaware that it had been for magic, he still played games upon games. He would not be caught in the corner again forced to throw down his queen in surrender by letting his family die.
Shanru was a chess piece as well, a Queen that would never fall. All he had to do to see that it happened was to get her north away from the eyes of his enemies and out from under the cloud of misfortune he did not cause but somehow was determined to see put to rights.
Oh, she'd go north alright. He'd not let her go alone, though those that came with her would seemingly join her journey by chance. They would be finely paid and untraceable, and she would live unlike the rest of her family. And most certainly unlike what fate potentially awaited him if he played the game wrong or made one false move.
He glanced at the ruined plans again. He would leave them in a prominent place where the servants could find them. He'd quietly storm until even the servants were afraid. Then word would get out that Shanru was gone and then she'd be safe.
Then she would be gone. So too would the temptation of her. The man would never let Shanru into his life, not as the girl wanted to be, because he had far too much honor to let their parents fate become their own. It was just a fancy dream, where the girl thought she'd bully him into sending her into the vipers nest. Geneticists were partially to blame, match making and breeding Eypharians for power year after year. Their family was a result of such things. Sending them, even the fourteen year old children, back into their heart to further the madness was not something Hasuthep was willing to do. Nor was he willing to take her to bed, to wife, or otherwise mingle their blood. Power to power beget immeasurable power. No, he would not be planting that seed, and certainly not in her. He loved her, for all that, too much.
He would let her fly, protectively, and see what she could do.
Kavala pulled out of his awareness, a little more stunned than she was used to. People surprised her, occasionally, but not usually someone like this. Hasuthep was a well layered person.
She pulled Branimir out as well, drawing him lightly along the lines of the two tangled Chavi swirling almost around them.
"You should come find me, if you are in a position to travel. You have family south, not quite to the desert, but in Riverfall. To the north of the city is a fortress crouched on a cliff overlooking the Suvan. You will find me there. Come home. Let me shelter you as you once sheltered me. And together we can study this more." Kavala said, pulling back.
They'd lingered a long time in the Chavena as it was. Too long, perhaps, for Branimir's first time dreamwalking. "I need to send you back. We can return and see what fate held for them or you can ask yourself deep inside what happened because you truthfully already know." Kavala said, already pulling him back along the chavi, escorting him towards his current reality and hers as well. It was a funny thing, watching her own Chavi spiral off and away from his, vanishing from his life - his lives - for a length of time immeasurable to her not counting the lives in his chavi that still lingered below.
Time flowed past them, the lights of the Chavena a whirl. When she finally halted, she was at the tip of his Chavi, and hers had spiraled back in, free-flowing around his indicating her abduction of him and their meeting again.
She'd give him a chance to speak... to say anything he had on his mind. Then she'd remind him quietly of her offer.
"Come to Riverfall if you want. Don't forget the offer. If not today, in the future is fine. Konti are long lived and I will be around as long as I can. And you will be welcome. I am not just a geomancer in that place. I am a healer and breeder of horses. You will understand if you make the journey." She said, and then gently, knowing it was time and very very necessary... she thrust him back into his sleeping form.
He would come or not. He wound understand or not. For Kavala, she was just glad to know he was in the world and that he had endured.
Kavala quickly understood Branimir thought the Chavi set like carved stone was, unmovable by man and by the forces of nature. But that was so untrue. Chavi could be rewritten or even unwritten if the Dreamwalker was powerful enough. She wanted him to understand, even if he thought he already knew.
"The Chavis... like these two... are just as written records are in books days if not hundreds of ages old. But like those books, it can be rewritten, falsified, and changed. And if you are still living that life that is tampered with, your mind will remember as the tampering reads, not as the truth." Kavala said softly, wanting the man to understand how fragile the thing was they witnessed, how precious it was.
"They can be made blank too... when information is too dangerous." The Konti whispered. If one wanted something to go away a dreamwalker could make that happen. She hoped he understood. "Choices can be bitter every day... day in and day out. We choose to come here, to know, to understand and when you wake up in the morning... you'll try to convince yourself its a dream. Only it won't be and you won't really believe it." Kavala said, softly, as if the words were only slipping from truly uninvited. "But you won't be able to convince yourself that its not real. Because deep within you, you already know its real. And you will wake up being Branimir but also Hasuthep will be awake again. You'll itch to do more of what he did. You won't be able to help it. He will be just as real to you and you will get to know him as you know yourself now. It's another layer, Branimir. And the more you walk these Chavi the more people will live inside you. They will be real. Your head will be crowded. And you'll know things that one single human simply can't realistically know in one lifetime. And that's because he will lend you his mind, his experiences, and so too will the others if you take the time to meet them." Kavala said, feeding him more information than she truthfully had meant too.
But what she said was true and why she did it was obvious. Shanru trusted Hasuthep. She knew him. She wanted him as informed as he could be because she understood that knowledge was power. He had, long ago, taught her that in the rolling desert of Eyktol.
When Branimir admitted he didn't work with stone, Kavala almost smiled when he augmented it with fact he would in time. Yes, of course he would... how could he not?
When Kavala left him with Shanru, she took to Hasuthep. His thoughts were alive with secrets, both mundane and far far more complex. The secrets shocked her because inherently Kavala only knew what Shanru knew... and his cousin was not involved. The secrets were the kind that got families killed, in accidents that weren't accidents. They were the kind of things that damned a young girl to loneliness in a house where she was shoulder to shoulder with a cousin. Kavala probed deeper, overhearing his thoughts as if they were his own. Shanru would never be his weakness. He'd ever let anyone know she meant anything to him. He carefully and methodically, with an intelligence that was staggering, germinated the idea that she was wholly a burden and even an embarrassment to him. He played up her weaknesses - her need to drink sometimes, her need to shop and socialize, fostering rumors with payoffs that had all but ruined his grieving cousin's reputation and social standing.
He was protecting her. Even now, pretending to be surprised that she was leaving and pretending to be unaware that it had been for magic, he still played games upon games. He would not be caught in the corner again forced to throw down his queen in surrender by letting his family die.
Shanru was a chess piece as well, a Queen that would never fall. All he had to do to see that it happened was to get her north away from the eyes of his enemies and out from under the cloud of misfortune he did not cause but somehow was determined to see put to rights.
Oh, she'd go north alright. He'd not let her go alone, though those that came with her would seemingly join her journey by chance. They would be finely paid and untraceable, and she would live unlike the rest of her family. And most certainly unlike what fate potentially awaited him if he played the game wrong or made one false move.
He glanced at the ruined plans again. He would leave them in a prominent place where the servants could find them. He'd quietly storm until even the servants were afraid. Then word would get out that Shanru was gone and then she'd be safe.
Then she would be gone. So too would the temptation of her. The man would never let Shanru into his life, not as the girl wanted to be, because he had far too much honor to let their parents fate become their own. It was just a fancy dream, where the girl thought she'd bully him into sending her into the vipers nest. Geneticists were partially to blame, match making and breeding Eypharians for power year after year. Their family was a result of such things. Sending them, even the fourteen year old children, back into their heart to further the madness was not something Hasuthep was willing to do. Nor was he willing to take her to bed, to wife, or otherwise mingle their blood. Power to power beget immeasurable power. No, he would not be planting that seed, and certainly not in her. He loved her, for all that, too much.
He would let her fly, protectively, and see what she could do.
Kavala pulled out of his awareness, a little more stunned than she was used to. People surprised her, occasionally, but not usually someone like this. Hasuthep was a well layered person.
She pulled Branimir out as well, drawing him lightly along the lines of the two tangled Chavi swirling almost around them.
"You should come find me, if you are in a position to travel. You have family south, not quite to the desert, but in Riverfall. To the north of the city is a fortress crouched on a cliff overlooking the Suvan. You will find me there. Come home. Let me shelter you as you once sheltered me. And together we can study this more." Kavala said, pulling back.
They'd lingered a long time in the Chavena as it was. Too long, perhaps, for Branimir's first time dreamwalking. "I need to send you back. We can return and see what fate held for them or you can ask yourself deep inside what happened because you truthfully already know." Kavala said, already pulling him back along the chavi, escorting him towards his current reality and hers as well. It was a funny thing, watching her own Chavi spiral off and away from his, vanishing from his life - his lives - for a length of time immeasurable to her not counting the lives in his chavi that still lingered below.
Time flowed past them, the lights of the Chavena a whirl. When she finally halted, she was at the tip of his Chavi, and hers had spiraled back in, free-flowing around his indicating her abduction of him and their meeting again.
She'd give him a chance to speak... to say anything he had on his mind. Then she'd remind him quietly of her offer.
"Come to Riverfall if you want. Don't forget the offer. If not today, in the future is fine. Konti are long lived and I will be around as long as I can. And you will be welcome. I am not just a geomancer in that place. I am a healer and breeder of horses. You will understand if you make the journey." She said, and then gently, knowing it was time and very very necessary... she thrust him back into his sleeping form.
He would come or not. He wound understand or not. For Kavala, she was just glad to know he was in the world and that he had endured.
