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"Ok aq’ab qetet ri q’ij re ri jach’ bantajibal" whispered the beautiful girl. Matted hair clung to her sweating cheeks. Her eyes flashed like lightning. Her dripping flesh glistened in the small fire between them.
She pressed her lips against the ancestral pipe and inhaled deeply of ancient memories.
Red hot embers lit up the dark smoky hide draped diving place.
She walked without moving. Searching for answers in the umbra. A place the young man dared never enter.
That was not his realm.
Sutra's brow arched a bit at the interrupting revelation. The foreign tongue demanded understanding. She had remained silent for the past hour. He had learned patience while sitting at the feet of seer's. She was no exception, though her beauty was a pleasant diversion.
Her coal black eyes spoke of archaic tomes of knowledge, stored away in her fleshy library. He secretly yearned to know her secrets.
Perhaps in another life.
The day had come and gone. The crown had been handed off, voluntarily.
His time of rule had come, he had seen and felt things that a mere handful of the masses could only ever imagine. He had grown strong and wise. His youthful arrogance tempered into a new comprehensive patience.
He was thankful for that.
Memories flooded back of the fateful night. She lay in his arms, her last breath escaping her bloodied lips, again.
He could remember the cold sensation of the traitorous dagger severing his spine from his skull. The knight he once held dear was now an ominous reminder of how light and dark can easily become tainted.
The images of his own knight returning from an impossible crusade, successful. The regent's crown shimmered like a fading sun in his ancient hands.
His flesh crawled as he visualized the dark knight who took his place. His words were dark and foreboding. They had struck a deal, and he delivered on his own terms.
The wave of relief washing over him was still fresh on his spirits mind, whilst at the mercy of the new monarch, he was granted the place as a guard at the Queen's right hand.
He had been reborn that night.
He had taken to studying the arcane arts. His path to becoming a shaman had begun.
His own ancestral imprint flooded back now. The deep verdant forest, so foreign to him would become the source of his devotion.
The divinely painted fathers and creation bearing mothers would become his teachers.
Those who had been sacrificed in the name of preservation would become his cause.
"What do the spirits say, Elibal k’uxaj?" posed the intrigued young man.
She exhaled a cloud of thoughts and smiled for a moment.
"Dark grows the day that nears the harvest of creation." A girlish giggle trailed off her last statement before losing herself in the umbra once more.
A new dawn had found it's home here in the hills. How the kingdom would cope with this new shadow was of keen interest for the young man.
He prayed his inner-light would not falter.
S
[con't]
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The general who advances without seeking fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do service for his sovereign, is the jewel of his kingdom. -Sun Wu
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