Inconsolable

Another irreparable hole has been ripped in my soul. My whole world has been turned upside-down.

When did it start? There must have been clues -- a comment carelessly dropped, a look that spoke words I did not comprehend, a lapse in discipline, an irresolute moment. A fissure opened long before I realized that the faint rumblings were the signs of disintegration.

I no longer feel secure in the streets of my beloved Home Stone. Those most loyal Askari who have bravely shielded me from harm were powerless to protect me from this devastation. I have no option but to remain behind the staunch walls of the manor and my garden and pray that they cannot be breached by this senseless ruin.

The final blow came with the urgent news. Herlit’s Rest is empty. Torvis-Herlit is vacant. The Thassan Herlit left its mooring unnoticed. No sign of struggle was left behind to signify what occurred. No Talimoore employees or slaves remain to detail the disappearance. Not even a hurriedly scrawled explanation left to assuage my troubled mind. Danethos, Dreglin, the guardians of a host of young Storms, the paragons of Schendi, companions and retainers all gone without a trace.

My will ebbs as if my blood is seeping gradually from my veins. I search my soul for a stain of culpability. Surely I bear some guilt for this inexplicable disappearance. If not he would surely have enlightened me before this abrupt departure. Was it all reckless self-delusion on my part? A misinterpretation of a simpler sentiment that I foolishly aggrandized? Vanity screams denial at these chilling judgments.

Sdaeh rieht edih dna nur yeht semoc niar eht fi.
Niar.
From Rain by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
© 1966 Northern Songs

Conceit

A month gone. Tempus does not fugit in my world; it creeps more laggardly than a snail. Futilely I awake each morn expecting this day to be different. By nightfall disappointment, once again, has crushed me.

The same ponderous questions haunt me. I have parsed each phrase, scrutinized every word. Now pride cloaks me more surely than armor, for after every tedious analysis, the conclusion is the same. An immoderate, risky proffer was tendered and declined.

I rarely act without considerable forethought. This was no reckless iniquity spurted out in the heat of the moment. It was a sensible, practical solution that was repulsed ab initio. A priceless favor deemed shabby. Men would kill for less.

Despite the persuasive counsel of my confidante, I am sure that a profession of emotion is not the remedy. I bear enough scars from that course. I shall give no one that supreme power, despite the tantalizing aspect. Perhaps her alternative suggestion is right, but my haughty pride demands that I reject that theory. It is the covert aspiration that has always eluded me. It is preferable to lick the wound of conceit then to dwell on foolish dreams.



I'll run in the rain till I'm breathless
When I'm breathless I'll run till I drop, hey
The thoughts of a fool's kind of careless
I'm just a fool waiting on the wrong block

From Fool in the Rain by John Paul Jones/Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
(c) 1979 Flames of Albion Music Inc./Warner Chappell Music Ltd.

Apres

I have never been a giggling, girlish sort, at least not since my return from Treve so many years passed. The romantic notions of a child were culled from my soul under great-grandmother's stern tutelage. She replaced such nonsense with a myopic reality that has guided my life. Some might call it hyper-vigilance, this indefatigable, externally effortless decorum.

That is not to say that I cannot or do not enjoy life. I am constantly in search of, when the Ahns of monotonous responsibility allow, diversion. My wit is dark and seems to spring out of thin air at times. Abu has often accused me of being too serious as if that were a sin against nature. Contrary to popular belief, I can laugh and frolic with the most frivolous men and women, though I confess I bore with such easily. Give me an earnest debate, a game of badinage, a challenge to my intellect and I am in my element. It is doubtful I would ever be labeled effervescent, but under the right circumstances, I allow myself the luxury of the vivacious spirit that must, perforce, often remain tamed and silent.

Thus I find myself bewildered of late. Rare have been the moments I have wallowed in puerile fascination; and more uncommon the times I have squandered in libertine contemplation. One would not be human if one never faced one's most basic nature, the organic requisite to seek the inverse of oneself, some might say the completion of oneself.

A single unguarded moment can leave an indelible mark. Introspection ignites the fight or flight response in my brain. Commanding synapses urge my thoughts in other directions, my feet back to the self-righteous path. But my soul disobeys the nagging voice in my mind, preferring to bask in unbridled fervor. Inevitably I divest myself from the petty melodrama best left to the casteless; yet it haunts the edges of my consciousness like a predator.

I hear the drizzle of the rain
like a memory it falls
soft and warm continuing
tapping on my roof and walls

From Kathy's Song by Paul Simon (c) 1966

Justin

For two cycles of the moons I remained locked in despondency. Simba dead, his ashes swirled in the currents of the Nyoka, carried back to our beloved jungles. I became the personification of the negative connotations of my name.


It was not so much the question of honor that plagued me, although that certainly weighed heavily on my spirit. I scrutinized that puzzle from every conceivable angle until I had convinced myself that his actions, though tinged with the brashness of youth, were noble. His untimely death, amidst the premiere of his prodigious caste skills, was no stain on the venerable name of Storm. I took great comfort in that rationalization, but it could not erase the loss.

We were an unlikely pair, my half-brother and I. He was birthed by a mother who shunned me. His life in Shaba was vastly different from mine in the city, our paths rarely crossing until his sixteenth birthday when he chose to swear his allegiance to Schendi and returned to live in Storm Manor. Inexplicable forces drew us together, whether they were born of the old language we shared, or the circumstances of our proud lineage, we became as close as twins. His adherence to the old ways mirrored mine as though he leeched Drusilla’s catechism from me. The modern world was changing before our eyes and we, steadfast in our views, and despite our lofty status as scions of the Ubar, were loved best by each other.

But it was Justin who held the right of primogeniture. Many years my junior, it was he who was heir to the legacy of Abu. He was the man I should have been. That might have produced an abiding hatred in some women. I cannot deny that there were, in unguarded moments, fits of jealousy and regret. But I am vain enough to admit proudly that I developed instead a fierce protectiveness and affection that was returned in equal measure by my brother.

Months earlier, another companionship for Abu had stripped me of the title of Mistress of Storm Manor. Convinced it was the gracious thing to do, I removed myself from the manor and lodged in the small beach house on the estate Uncle Arioch had gifted to me on my twenty-fifth birthday. I remained there nursing my pride despite Abu’s impeachments. It was not until Abu, at the height of his grief during the pyre for his son, implored me to be at his side again, to be his solace in our shared bereavement.

Thus the long days of mourning passed, melancholy aggrandized in the selfish belief that the one person who loved me unconditionally, who accepted my rigidity, who, in fact, exalted it, was gone forever. I saw no one but Abu and the slaves sent to cajole me to eat and bathe.

The world did not stop revolving. Events I had no hand in nor gave thought to, little by little drew me back from solitude. A renaissance in Schendi could not be ignored. Hesitantly I emerged from the shroud of woe into the glaring light of Tor-tu-Gor, into the society where my duty required me. I like to think that, in breathing the acrid smoke from his pyre, I have taken Justin’s spirit inside me. I will nurture it every day of my life facing the world a better person for having his company if only a little while.

Na’kupenda, tiba Simba.

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

From A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan © 1963

Sigh

Sigh is gone ....again.

There was no discussion. No tearful goodbye. I went to Vigilant Witness to visit and the caretakers left behind informed me that the lady had packed her belongings and taken The Promise to Sais.

It is silly of me to be heartbroken. I was raised without a mother and did quite well. Sigh came into my life after I had passed the age of majority. The serums were given me at the end of my twenty-fourth year, so I appear much younger than I am. Her first arrival was perhaps six years ago. One day she just walked into the house with Abu. I confess my reaction was not as one might expect. I did not fling myself at her, nor welcome her with gushing professions of filial love. I did not know this woman. My mother had been dead all my life and now stood before giving face to the lies I had been told.
Abu never explained the reasons for the long deception and I, never one to confront him, did not inquire. It would be Sigh who would tell me the sordid truth over many hands. She held back none of her animosity for her former companion, although I believe she circumvented the entire history, leaving out the kernels too painful to reveal.

My heart, at first, was steeled to her regret. How could I forgive the years of deception? Many of those years were spent right here in Schendi and she never sought me out. Even as her station improved, as Ubara of Treve to my great-uncle Kaleb, she made no attempt to see me despite the fact that I spent some years there in my great-grandmother Drusilla's home.
In the end, I think it was her patient, fervent need for my acceptance that won me over. Regardless of the separation, I was quite like my mother. Both of us are Storm women, rigidly proper, cunningly perceptive, outwardly serene. Uncannily, many of our mannerisms mirrored one another. My heart gave in to my own need for maternal love.
I know now the difficulties she bore in returning to Schendi, to face both Abu and me. I am not sure I could have endured what she did. It was all done for me. We became fast friends. To this day, she calls me Rainbow. She knows my secrets now and protects them as fiercely as her own. Yet, as she has withheld some of her past, so I have concealed some of my thoughts regarding her.

I never told her the man who sought her as companion had sought to make suite for me. I could not have hurt her like that. He was a sword of the city, a boon comrade of my father's. I hoped his joining her would keep her here forever.
It was not to be. Soon after their contracts were signed, he took her away. I could not regret that she had found happiness in her life again, but I resented being left behind. The restrictions of my travel imposed by my protective father did not allow me to visit her; nor did she, in all her travels with her companion, ever dock in Schendi. Her own home, Vigilant Witness, remained, tended by caretakers, to remind me of the loss.

Years passed and so did the man she loved. Eventually she returned and, as if no time had passed, we resumed our close relationship. As it is wont to do, time had changed her. She was no longer the silent, accepting Sigh who took few chances, licked her wounds in private. The old ghosts of the past caught up with her here and threatened to diminish her novel spirit.

And so it is that I, unknowingly, went to Vigilant Witness one morning to invite her to some state function in the city, only to be told that she had moved to Sais. The stately house with its Widow's Walk was vacant but for the old couple who maintained it. No word left for me.

Since then there have been invitations to visit, and I have actually been to the distant city and seen that she thrives with her new friends, her new work. I cannot condemn her. Schendi was hard on Sigh.


Have you seen her all in gold
Like a queen in days of old
She's shoots colors all around
Like a sunset going down
Have you seen a lady fairer

She comes in colors everywhere
She's combs her hair
She's like a rainbow
Coming colors in the air
Oh everywhere
She comes in colors

From She's a Rainbow (c) Jagger and Richards, 1967

Duty-Family-Home Stone

Over the years I have developed a motto: Duty-Family-Home Stone. I came to this through the intercession of Drusilla's lessons, Abu's example and the realization that life is worth living only if one has motive.

Duty is the price one pays for freedom. Selflessness does not always equate to altruism. Obligation and accountability are rewarded with Honor and Honor is the keystone of my caste. Even the tedious, mundane tasks one must perform in service to others can be a boon to one.

Many think that the life of an Ubar's child must be frivolous and pampered. Surely the children of wealth and power know privilege, as I did. I lacked for nothing in material goods. Too often, however, I, as I am sure others of my ilk would attest, took second place when duty required my father's presence.

Many times I resented those citizens who clamored for the Ubar's judgement, wisdom, attention. But as I matured I began to understand why he allowed the masses unfettered access. I have bristled at a lower caste person addressing with me without the honorific Lady. I have also learned to take such affront as unintentioned insult from the citizens of Schendi~Ushindi.

An Ubar's citizens are, by extension, his children. They look to him for guidance, protection, assurance. Some great men, like my father, go even beyond the basics expected by his subjects. They cherish each one -- from the strongest warrior to the poorest peasant. By example, I learned to honor them as Killian does. With wealth comes responsibility. With privilege comes obligation. I, who was born to eminence and prerogative, owe a duty, both as the representative of my father, my Ubar, and as a human to those less fortunate. Charity and service are lessons deeply ingrained.

Family is the foundation on which one builds a life. Whether in joyful celebration or the throes of heated debate, families ultimately love one another. Blood will out.

Adored and doted upon during my childhood by Abu, I did not miss the lack of a mother (that emotion would not conflict me until I found that she was indeed alive). With the love of my Uncle Arioch, my grandfather and great-grandparents, the camaraderie of my cousins, I was nurtured in abundance.

All families have their disagreements from time to time. The Storms are certainly no exception. On occasion I have known the disappointment of my father. The recollection of those episodes can still make me cringe with shame. Certainly I have been subject to the wrath and antipathy of his companions. They are only unhappy memories now, but my family is still strong.

Some would say I am fortunate that my father's Ubarate has been at peace so long, that his unassailable position has not made it necessary for him to companion me to someone for political gain. I do not disagree; but at times I fear that men often feel unworthy to seek to contract with an Ubar's daughter.

I am a woman of the rarius caste. Without children of my own, I have performed my duty to my caste by helping to instill the codes in my brothers, nephews and cousins. My maternal instincts led me to serve as surrogate for cousins who lost their mothers. This is what family does. Despite any differences we may have, I would stand by my own against any enemy.

Home - Home Stone, the two are interchangeable. Whether it be the hovel of the peasant with a tiny pebble placed in reverence on the hearth, the mighty estate where a polished stone rests in splendor on a plinth or a city's symbolic monument so sacred a slave may not look upon it, the Home Stone inspires chauvinism. From the youngest child with a stick, a farmer with his a rake, a free woman with her frying pan, to the mightiest of rarii with sword and spear, the preservation of our beloved Home Stone comes naturally to each citizen. Touting her praises comes easily to the tongues of her people.

The Home Stone of Schendi~Ushindi is black volcanic rock, the same rock that rain and waves have pulverized into the fine grain that composes her black beaches. Although I have seen much of this world, there is no where else I would rather live. She is truly a tropical paradise. We have the bounty of Thassa and the rivers, the largess of her fertile soil, the plenty of her fauna. Warmth year round and daily showers give us the splendor of vivid, colorful flora and aromas to soothe the senses. Deep beneath her surface, she harbors sapphires and diamonds, emeralds and rubies to adorn the wide world. Her jungles produce the myriad of herbs that physicians require to bring healing and the cocoa beans that tempt the palette of young and old alike.

I am a daughter of Schendi. She provides for me. I cannot take for granted such generosity. Raised to be an ubara, I may never hold that privilege. Yet I have found my place in service to my Home Stone. I stand at the Ubar's side for state occasions. His doyenne, it is I who plan his outings and parties, greet official guests, welcome visitors and express the Ubar's congratulations or condolences with gifts to friends and citizens, allies and associates throughout the world.

This then is my mantra, the cause that gives purpose to my life. My duty, my family, my Home Stone.

Walk into splintered sunlight
Inch you way through dead dreams to another land
Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted with words half spoken and thoughts unclear
What do you want me to do
To do for you to see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain
And love will see you through

Its just a box of rain --
wind and water --
Believe it if you need it,
If you don't just pass it on

From Box of Rain by R. Hunter and P. Lesh, (c) Ice Nine Publishing

The Coming of a Storm

I come from a mighty line of Storm's out of the North. My great-grandparents, Daemon and Drusilla, founded the family in the hidden city of Treve. Their second son, Kane, branched to the south and helped tame paradise -- the grand city of Schendi. His sons, Arioch and Killian, have ruled for more than fifty years.

Kane, the epitome of the puissant rarius, became enamored of a beautiful, purple-eyed woman, Phoebe, a singer of the Machaka tribe of the Ushindi. Their son Killian, my sire, inherited her gift for music, her love of poetry and her open-hearted spirit. Alas, circumstances and custom conspired against him. His birthright was the sword and mantle of authority; the arts would be demoted to avocation. Abu has taken many companions. None has had the tenacity, spirit and indomitable will to withstand the scrutiny of his pre-eminence or the comparison to the paragon Phoebe.

I am not Killian's first born, though I am the eldest of the his surviving children. My brother Alexander was murdered in utero by his mother only days before he was to be born. He will ever be mourned. The melodramatic details of my own birth do not merit iteration herein. Let it serve the tale to know only that Sigh Honoria Xenos, a scribe, bore me. I was given to believe she died shortly thereafter. Needless to say, I was disabused of that notion many years after reaching majority. From Killian, I have two half-brothers and from Sigh four younger half-brothers (interestingly, those four are also Storms by blood, sons of my great-uncle Kaleb). Though we speak of her no more, I had an adopted sister who was dear to me.

I have been my father's darling since the moment of my birth. I have known the glory of his praise, the warmth of his love, the generosity of his heart and the wrath of his will. Disdained by subsequent companions and heedless of the briberies of those who unsuccessfully attempted to join Abu, I thrived on his attention and sought to be the quintessential noblewoman.

My first memories are of song -- Abu's voice in lullabies, the trilling of his czehar late in the night as he lulled away the oppressive burdens of daily sovereignty. His patience never wore thin as he taught three-year old hands to strum and pluck my first miniature kalika. Simple melodies and lyrics to delight a child kept me enthralled. Frequent trips up the Ua to visit my other great-grandmother, Letti'ya, Phoebe's mother, herself a tribal singer, inspired my voice. In guiding me through the phrasings and intonations of the jungle song-stories, she helped me become fluent in the melodic tongue of the Machaka, my people.

The child of an Ubar not only must be above reproach, she must also be learned in the ways of politics, diplomacy, law, propriety and tradition. The grand dame Drusilla, a lady of noble grace, fierce pride and unerring strength saw to my education. During a -- dare I say it? -- stormy companionship, I was sent to Treve, to the relentless tutelage of my great-grandmother. Only twelve upon my return to Schendi, I was, none the less, a Lady, sophisticated, adroit, proper, graceful, polished. In essence, I had become a true Storm woman.


Goodbye, my friend,
I'd like to leave you with something warm,
But I have never been a blue, calm sea
I have always been a storm

from Storms by Stevie Nicks (c) 1979

What's in a name?

Why does rain have bad connotations? Must it always be associated with gloom? Tears mimic rain cascading from the cloudy skies.

Rain brings fresh breezes and cleansing water. Rain washes away the dust and gifts children with mud puddles for play. Rain fills the wells to slake the thirst and feeds the flora, bringing the abundance we need to thrive. Rain makes the world vivid and green. At the end of the storm, rain leaves promise in a rainbow.

I am rain -- the bringer of sadness and the giver of life, the pounding storm and the harmonious patter, the cruel vengeance of the flood and the cooling drizzle on a steamy day. I am the driving rain that batters ships on Thassa. I am the constant mist of the rain forest.

I have been ridiculed for my name -- its unsubtle play on words -- but I would not trade it for all the world. It was the name dreamed by a boy singer who had blades shoved into his hands and destiny hung from his shoulders like a yoke. It was the name of hope for him. Abu. My father. My Ubar.

I am Raine -- Raine Storm -- my daddy's little girl, the Jewel of Schendi on some lips, the eye of the storm, the shelter from the storm, a righteous pillar of tradition, a cunning child of the jungle, and a maker of music.

Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm.
I know; it's been coming for some time
When it's over, so they say,
It'll rain a sunny day.
I know; shinin' down like water.

I want to know, have you ever seen the rain?
I want to know, have you ever seen the rain
Comin' down on a sunny day?

Yesterday, and days before,
Sun is cold and rain is hard.
I know; been that way for all my time.
Till forever on it goes
Through the circle fast and slow.
I know; it can't stop, I wonder.

I want to know, have you ever seen the rain?
I want to know, have you ever seen the rain
Comin' down on a sunny day

Have You Ever Seen the Rain by JC Fogerty (c) 1970