Dear Kafisa
I know that i should have written to you earlier given the circumstances but i judged it too risky or without importance but as the wise fool says " thou est better lateth than never " . I ignore how you feel about me or if mother is still alive , but i count on learning more about that later on .
I , Geonas Stanlin , brother , son and soon to be orphan set off with our father to find the angel in charge of sickness and health ; our ship faced a revolt in which father sadly passed away-eaten by his very own men , i thereof became a slave and later had to face off with a titan by the name of Grootslang , i would have died then but i managed to survive in both blood and bone , we landed at shore on an island one knew not to exist , and there i was betrayed and sent off on a sled at the search of death , i wound up covered in snow , in a pityful state without recourse nor aid .
This morning of which i jot down - scribbling on paper of my experience : i awoke , i lay on a bed thatched from straw and simple craftmanship , weak and unable to move a muscle ... the bed was warm and comfy but it wasn't like that at home ; i missed our room , the pale walls and uncomfortable beddings , i missed you beng their , mocking me every now and then , wishing for my death but we both know that was just a phase - though i did nearly die while i was trapped under the snow : maybe this is an effect of the near death experience but i must admit that i got so addicted tp your presence that i now miss it next to mine ... in other words i miss you and that leaves a question on my mind - In your eyes , what am i ?
What do you think of me , do you even think about me ; miss my presence like i do yours , do you even remark my absence or did you already replace me with somebody else , do you still waste a breath on my aching soul or did your short term memory eat me raw - deleting me from the syntax of your brain ?
The memries one would expect to bring them at ease while on their death bed , flood my head and they leave me in a needful state ;, i swear this is your doing and not the ice in which i fell , it's sadder to know that it wouldn't be fair to judge you knowing that you are a victim of Spinal Muscular Atrophy and Alexithymia and so you might not be seeing the situation as i am but i promise to quench your possible need for answers , help or direction when you write back .
The room in which i was in suddenly went dark and in it came a lady dressed in a cloth made from the bark of a tree she said to me but this cloth in particular was ornemented and welly sewn even for the sons of man , compared to it , our clothing standards were far too low .
She approached my bed and i can could tell that blasphemous sight from miles away , she was a hexer : and to think that we had exterminated their whole kind , she attempted to sit down but i withdrew myself and pushed her away , she smiled and said "That is one way to treat somebody that saved your life "
"To hell with your kind , hag ! " i yelled trying to put her in her place and remind her that she's just another demon that pretends to be human
" To be human or not , that is not the question ; to have humanity or hate there so lays the real question that determines everything else " she said trying to control my mind , i shut my ears and started reciting the prayer of Adehad out of fright and fear " I don't have anything to judge you for , afterall you are just a child that has been taught and indoctrinated with a history rewritten by the sons of man ; long ago way before our kinds divided they lived in harmony in a village called Humanity ; but all that went in flames when the sons of man decide that they were destined to rule just like maudit Adehad had acclaimed boastingly before his counterpart , Mother Stephioza to whom all the creatures bowed ; the sons of man attacked together with the Africkanis and in that way , out of jealousy and spite , they managed to destroy humanity and divide all the classes of Human ; propaganda was spread and lives were lost at the price of vengeance against a people that committed no wrong if mere existence be not a flaw. We have taken it all in for centuries now , your murders and crimes we consumed in the breaths and sounds that i alone can't take in , we have wrecked eachother planned just as Adehad had planned and his wiseness Stephioza had warned , do you believe that we are just beings of which none of us had chosen to be , and what if i told you someday that we are not just the taxonomy you call us by , we aren't the propaganda in your minds , we are alive in blood and bone , and we have survived through good and cold , we have breathed in all the smoke that arises from the ruins of humnity , we are still human even when to you we really aren't , you can wreck us up all you like but we still are even withgouth blood and bone " she added and this got me thinking as i listened more carefuly and stopped reciting the prayer .
A tear went down her left cheek , and i had a voice screaming in my left ear - a phantom sound that directed me on what to do , i wiped her tears and held her shoulder , she was presumably my height despite being way older and i just couldn't go on living like the sons of man , the same brethren that killed my father , endangered my life more than once ; why would i evedn in my right mind believe that they hoarded the truth when all that they - we ever did was burn down civilizations and rampage ; and in their ashes we would bask in a false gloery that makes us feel alive : is this who i really am , another one of those zombies made of only blood and bone , how do i manage to even live with myself ?
She then rose up to leave probably ashamed of having let her guard down , i called out to her and said " Waiteth dear mage , In your eyes , who am i ? Am i just another one of my unhospitable kind - a name then by which thou knowst me by , a name i didn't choose to carry all my life , would you gain the courage then to eat me raw if i asked of you , bite my flesh from bone to bone so as to compensate for the loss your people hafd to overcome because of mine , would you tear me apart all because i asked of you or don't you see my plastic smile , don't you smell the poison of my tears - as a matter of fact , if so was done , would you drink my poisoned blood , lifting up the chalice fit for a king with each round of each sip then make a toast in the name of humanity , what makes you think that there is bridge between justice and humanity , do you really believe that in shedding some blood and breaking a bone or two one lightens their path - if so my people would be the happiest on earth but rather we are still dead inside even with blood and bone "
She stood there amazed and in the room came a girl about my age , she approached the lady and said " Mother , the council has called you to defend the stranger that now lays in our bed " and out they went .
With the presence of the girl in the room , light beseeched my sight to widen and acknowlegde the newly illuminted room , their was something about her that was special enough, her skin glimmered not in an intimate manner but in a real demeanor , she had radiant hair and an appealing smile , she made me feel at ease , safe and sound .My blood was boiling just from her sight.
Oh dear Kafisa , if only you were here to see what i have seen , you'd probably understand why i have had a sudden change of mind . And the best part of the news is i found the dark continent , apparently that is the land on which i reside at the moment of the writing of this letter ; the angel in charge of sickness and disease is part of the community counsel , i heard that he's called Valentino and he's pretty much of a loner , he spends his time amongst nature and avoids all contact with other humans . The lady from earlier is called Maridam and the girl that had struck my eyesight goes by the name of Aditi Bharat-Walugembe and she is also a sorcerer just like the rest of them ; i find it astonishing that a whole community of magic practitioners exists right under our noses , it looks like they have flourished for ages now and are not willing to lose that progress to anybody be it the sons of man .
Their society is divided into three classes :
The Wizards : these are a minority , both men and women can be wizards but it requires a strong or direct lineage of royalty to be considered a wizard and it also requires years of study and practice . The wizards live longest and occupy roles such as seers , royal advisors and kings or queens .
The Magus : these are comprised of mages , warlocks and sorcerers ; they occupy the legislative and judiciary , the warlocks are the army whereas as the mages serve as legislative , the judiciary is mostly sorcerers but other classes can become one with if they wish to and are willing to study for centuries. The magus have a rather shorter lifespan as compared to the wizzards but they seem to be more powerful and physically more advantaged , they are kind of the drone bees of this civilisation . To be a magus is a birth right and that makes it the only rang where marriage produces a child of another class being that only pure bloods from a magus lineage can be a magus .
The practitioners : these are witches of all classes ; sea witches , traditonal witches , hedge witches , etc and they are the lower class , they occupy all the other roles in the society and are the most popular amongst the three rangs . The strongest practicionner would then equate to the average magus thus giving the practitioners the power to teach the other classes and hoard what education they see as unfit . To be a practitioner , one must have at the least one parent that is a practitioner .
I was therefore received with open hands and not sentenced to death thanks to Magus Maridam . Dear Kafisa i will write to you so as to elaborate more on , please take good care of mother for me .
Dear mother ,
I am writing to tou to inform you about the current status of my mission, thou permitted me a quest to the far off lands so as to retrieve the angel accused of being the root of all sickness and heaviness bestown upon the sons of man , as of now i have found the angel and are due to confrontation any one of these days . I am aware of the misunderstanding to come when thou realises that i have written a letter to kafisa way before you but i would sincerely beg to differ from your judgement ; i knowst that thee rest my mother but i deem not thee fit nor in the best condition to stress thy brain so as to read and write ...
I acknowlege the time lapse since we last had the occasion to write to one another nor speak and i recognise any little curiosity thou may accordeth me , well for starters ; i was nearly devoured by Grootslang , i got sacrificed to the gods , i was abandoned to die by my crew and speaking of death well father died may his soul find peace in the other realm , i then was saved by a society of magicians and i would have been sentenced to death if it wasn't for Magnus Maridam ; she is quite like you and she seems to pay close attention to everything i say despite the slight difference in dialect due to different interpretations carried onwards by our two separate peoples .
I am aware of the shock that must be baffling you at this moment , you must now then feel estranged and it is one of a series of expected valid emotions need i say , even i - the subject to this wicked change fall prey to the bewilderment once in a few bluemoons , if i was informed that one day i'd respect a woman let alone a witch and then so , i would be shocked ; i mean i respect women but respecting witches is a feeling alien to my being and it sends shivers down my spine knowing that i live in this wierd society _ that is to say a society capable of modifying reality as we know it :but all i can say to justify this change is ' That lamb passed away '
They have these objects in which one can see thy soul , they call them mirrors and they tend to be a source of attraction , at times i look in the mirror at midnight and ask myself why i am doing this and i question my love for thee , maybe it is me being racist but their mirrors are nothing like those we own , the mirrors these ends become spaces for catharsis and contemplation , they become portals through the scarry midnight that lead to deep self reflection.
I am amazed by all the change that i have been through and how a society this magnificent can be burnt to the ground in the name of cleansing a planet that doesn't want anything to do with us , dosteth thou see that our blades prove not our innoccence ?
Thee claimeth to love this planet , to doeth the deeds as wished ol' great Adehad but what is there as proof when in the mirror is only a reflection of you and not your point of views , i realized that something as intangible as a point of view can be edited orally before it is passed down to the next generation , and what if back in the day we actually lived in love with the planet , what if we got along with other humans and advanced with them , what if we actually did live the way that oh Great Adehad and his wiseness Stephioza desired for us .
All of this is abstract , but do you realize that i am writing to you in the night after such a traumatizing week and an overwhelming day . Magnus Maridam , did say to me and i quote "To be human or not , that is not the question ; to have humanity or hate, there so lays the real question that determines everything else "
Are we so proving our humanity by insulting a race of people as innocent as saints or are we doing it as we burn and stack up their bodies over a fire that burns down their cities and children , and so do we mean it when we say we love Adehad when he loved the very people we saccage and rampage today , do we not hate him then since we pillar ashes on top of all his childish dreams from which we were created .
This then brings me back to my state , i find myself abused by my very own people with whom i am meant to abuse the rest of the world , and amongst the abused i find peace and comfort , i find respect and love - i find people that actually love Adehad more than us and to even make matters worse they chose the goddess mother , Stephioza and not the goddess father , Adehad .
Hypocrisy and lies have leached off my people and just like how i have nohing else at heart to write as i stare at my mirror , they have nothing else to burn as they say they love Adehad ; this is where we are ; at a junction between humanity and our false ideologies , oh dear mother i have chosen on which side i lay , i know it might sound like betrayal but i believe it till date that our ideologies have done more harm than good , they are the reason you are sick , the reason doctors prescribe pregnancy as medicine to every condition a womzn will ever have , our ideologies are the reason we burn witches in the name of preventing mind control when in the actual sense they are trying to open our blinded eyes to see reality as is , we live in a messed up world and if we do nothing about it , it will fall apart under the guise of reparations . Be safe oh dear mother .
Dear Adehad ,
The sun has risen and so has the whole village in which i find myself ; i now have to face a people that mine slaughtered to honour your name , Magnus Maridam as she did yesterday will come fetch me , she will then leave me with Adhiti for the rest of the day , it has been two days already of me living like this if i count the day on which the counsel decided i'm better off alive than dead , how could they ? By the crimes my people have caused against them , i deserve to be but prisonner but instead they took me in with love and didn't judge me for who i was.
Not in their hands nor in those of my crew have i yet perished but the fear that i'll soon face my reckonning soon haunts me - yesterday , the instant Magnus Maridam left me with Adhiti ; despite the light that seemed to follow her around , i still felt the darkness overtaking the breadth of my very mind , it was like the winds hushed ans in the quiet there i was left to meditate , the birds sang no more and the voice of Adhiti disintergrated at my very ears , i could hear a whistle though and my spirit in this state free to yonder , searched for its source and to my surprise , was Grootslang : it is one thing for one to be in the hands of death and another when the ghosts of zir past begin to emerge and haunt zir life , I backed away and begun to pray but she watched me cower like a child that i actually am , but in her eyes was no fear at all and neither was their hate ; this made me wonder what happened that fateless day . As i stood their baffled in dream , i felt a warmth touch on my shoulder and amidst my worries and fears , it said everything is alright , i opened my eyes and their she wa , Adhiti looking down sharply into my face , me who had had a convulsion , she placed her hand on my cheek and her light begun tracing patterns on my skin , i felt at peace , her scent was masking that of the crude air and her very long thick and wild hair was all around my head and so all that i could see was her . She smiled as she then rose up but i still blushing stayed down on the ground for a while before she forcefully helped me up .
Adhiti then unbuttoned her shirt and i covered my eyes so as to give her privacy despite it appearing like the wrong time to do so , she held my hands and slowly pulled them away and on her body were feathers made of silk , the first layer then rose up and it revealed its form as a pair of wings , Aditi had four wings that wrapped around her like a silk cloak , She held my hand and leaped into the sky , my heart was racing and that's when she told me her story ; i learnt that she was unable to speak but her light enabled her to describe events in imagery , Adhiti is Magnus Maridam's adopted daughter , she was adopted after a raid that took out an entire mercrystal population but she among others survived .
She toured me from the sky of the whole community , even the forbiden sites and then so i spotted Valentino , your most loved angel , i asked her to take me to him and she glided downwards at a dangerously high speed thus making our fall extraordinarily painful , we had landed just ahead of Valentino that is to say in his path , he stood there with his wings spread and observed , by the time we had fully recovered , i stood up on my wabbly two feet and bowed to him like your scripture demands , i asked him for aid .
Valentino turned away and said " The angel thou seeketh passed away , no other angels came to its grave , no crows flocked in its rot and neither did the cattled , the practitioners however were there to heal its wounds at the price of its power becoming a useless tool , and on the fateless day it was reborn a practitioner known as Valien : the person that thee seeketh so has no roots whatsoever in thy story nor thy future now if thee mayest excuse me , i have a garden to attendeth to "
I cried out to him informing him that i trekked this long journey all for my mother , my sire ; that i won't take no for an answer because she is all i have left and that i have paid such a heavy price to reach where i am today .
His eyes shed a tear as dark as coal as he moved on , he stopped and said " I am the angel of death and illness not the angel of life and birth , either the angellic code forbids us from changing the course of fate , thou doesn't realize this but the angel of death nearly died , doesn't that prove to thee that power can't be harnessed and controlled , power is a being of her own , even without me , death would go on , the goddess Dharma would probably take on my role only for the power of death to stab her in the back like it did me , as a younger angel , i had failed to understand that , i used that power reckmlessly and it nearly led to my death and now here i am alive and well , why would i interrupt its course again , go ask Yanx , he's the angel of life and he lives a few shrubbs from the community "
I felt enraged , the dust around my feet begun to rise and from around me clouds formed the shape of Grootslang , i rose in thge air lightning all around my body ; when Valien saw this , he stood in amaze and shock , he held Adhiti's hand and pulled her away " He has been chosen as the heir of Grootslang's power , she is dying as i presume " he whispered , i then fell down .
I felt so weak and helpless and Valentino or Valien whatever , came to my aid and said " And now thou knows why power isn't controlable , thee has just been a victim of power except thou aren't properly trained to channel it , such a power in thy body is deadly , we shall set off for Yanx's at dawn but as for now , Adhiti take him inside and make sure he has some rest "
At that very moment i lost conscousness , dear Adehad , i so then have to face a day of travel in such a vulnerable state and i acknowlegde this to be your will but why now when i have already seen enough , that moment when i invoked such a power , the courage in me burned out and was reborn as fear , i know with power comes responsibility and courage but with me it turned my whole world upside down .
Please dear Adehad , give me the strength to overcome this day when Magnus Maridam arrives .
Amen
Dear Stephioza ,
The early dusk befell earlier for those of us that had channeled energy too immense to be tethered by our human bodies , i was exhausted and without memory of what had occured during my shut eye , i couldn't feel my feet and that was sign that i was stuck in the bed - oh bloody mary !
I fell back to my bed and stared at the grass thatched roofs , the witches that happened to serve as construction workers seemed to be green witches ; they use a specific pattern of vegetation , a word i rarely use , they edit the roof in astonishing patterns all accurate in measurement , the roof then continues to live after they are done with their vegetal grafting , the choice of plants and herbs create a certain sweet aroma like that of lemon grass deeped in ginger and cinnamon , a scent of its power could mask the most horrible of musks specifically those secreted by a teenage boy as i though as not to , brag his wiseness , i was born lucky not into a family with a history of body odours , i even showered but not as regularly as my cousin sister and my late sister , Amethyst and Diasporase , three times every six days ... the scent of the roof was also strong enough to rub off on me , i was feeling ,as fresh as a freshly picked vegetable with a glimmer like that of a red mango picked up from a tree during the dry season , as sweet the nectar of a lavender flower and vanilla essence , as wild honey newly harvested from the beehive , as beautiful as ... ADHITI!!!
She came in my room and thus surprised me , it is funny how a simple notion such as sense can influence the way in our body is stimulated , in thinking so deeply of me , i was starting to come to conclusion about most of the ups and downs that i have been feeling lately , it is true that Adhiti is the most radiant flower that i have ever admired and tried to pluck off the bush but i leave her on her stalk so as to keep her safe from what i am and wht i claim to be , her dress was made from white barkcloth and it wrapped her up tightly like a gift , so ravishing , so splendid , har beauty took me off my previous thought ; she came forward and my hand which happened to be warming up within my pants slowly crept out so as to avoid her remarking it , if i failed to welly explain , today was the first day of winter and plenty of mood swings .
She sat on the edge of my bed and said " Have you yet realised that i am the mind behind this hut "
I was now in immense fear , this goddess that i had met had now the audacity to inform me that i had spent days in a house constructed by her bare hands as a class project , was scared for my life , apparently , i was then therefore living in a playhouse like a dog , i was therefore not regarded as a visitor but rather a beggar or maybe an orphan , i was at their mercy this whole time and i didn't realise it because in my family , i always wished for my own room that i never remarked that there was more to life than just that : i had been neglected to the point that even an act of pity or charity seemed to me like one of genuine kindness .I know that that is not such a genuine argument because not every family can afford plusiers rooms but in , particular i came and by the way still come from a welly off family , our house had five rooms but dad forced mom , Kafisa and i to share one as he occupied the other four , he made one an "office" , the other a store room for his "personal stuff" , another he made his bedroom and lastly he had nothing to make of it and so out of charity and benevolant will , he made it our family refuge . It is microabuses like that that make me realise how better off i am amongst this clan of people without culture nor deity .
"And to think i'd change for a friend who systemically cares less " she said as she turned her head and stood up to leave , i held her hand and asked what was the cause of her sudden departure
" Is this how you thank somebody for assisting you with a helping hand , backbiting their peoples , denying the existence of their culture and religion (breathes in deeply while trying to hold back tears ) i guess to your eyes , all we ever were , was a nickname you coded all over our ideologies , a beauty that you mock constantly behind your silver lining that isn't silver enough to block telepathy " she said as she pulled away her hand , i didn't know that she was a telepath and nor did i know that she was emotive
" I am tired of you all playing the vicyim , yes ; my people have constantly hunted you down , yes ; you are on the verge of extinction , but ... don't you all ever think about the rest of us before you categorize us as the enemies , i for one lost everything to the hands of my people , i watched them eat my sire - my father right before my eyes and not metaphoricaly , then i washed up amongst you , nearly losing my life and you came to my aid but is this how we count on helping those that are disabled , those we help , boys and girls rejected by their own kind , in order to whiten our blemished names , polish more trophies in the hope of winning them , so as to appear as saints ? , why don't you kill me then and prove exactly what i'm talking about ? " i replied as i yelled , tears were rolling down my face , i was facing a cocktail of different emotions
" Your brain , like any other is a mirror to my telepathie , i can shatter the glass and tear it apart piece by piece but if i do , does that then render your reflection me any false than it already might not be , i couldn't even if i wanted to " she replied as her face dried up
" It is a matter of would you or will you - dear sister Lily " i added in a cold tone
" Get up , we meet at Valentino's in an hour " she said
I wanted to ask for her help but she spread her wings and flew out my door , the plants on the roof begun to wither and die ...
Oh dear Stephioza ,i have never attacked somebody mentally to the point of being able to make them cry , my words have never been sharp , why then now with the woman to whom i'd sacrifice my beating heart do i speak like a tyrant , going to such measures and lengths so as to justify my cause , normaly , i'd pray to thy holy counterpart but he would take my side , but these days i'm trying to learn how to delete the mysogyny planted in my head by the roots of my origins and so i am dedicating my life to you , from today onwards , i Geonas Stanlin shall follow the ways on the inner being and not those of strength , i will serve peace and not the ways of righteousness , i will choose all of us in a sort whereby nobody gets left behind over me , myself and I ... please help me god . From today onwards , i shall be another bloody sister Lily
AMEN