Home Archive by category "Traveling Home" (Page 2)

Category: Traveling Home

Book 1

Dark Song 1

 
Watchtower’s Song
My steps echo as I walk through the empty Watchtower.
The visitors are all gone for Meesa, the day of joy.
Everyone gathers with family or close friends to celebrate the wonder of life, and the joy it brings.
Everyone, but me.
One guardian must always remain with the tower.

Shazira eats the holiday meals with her parents.
She has seen one child die, and the feelings of loss still race through her.
I have no memory of it, but I can sense her feelings through our bond.

She keeps watch over Tzina, remembering the … Read more

Message

 
A Call for Help
The tower is quiet without Shazira.
She sits most of the day at her parent’s house, holding Tzina’s hand, and wonders where hope has gone.
Tzina slips toward death, already empty, her spirit gone.

Shazira’s parents are silent around me.
They disliked the old Yagrin, and they like me even less.
No time now to change that.

Many healers have already come, but I call for more.
“Why, Yagrin?” asks Shazira.
“What can any healer do?”
“They can prolong Tzina’s life,” I tell her.

“Her spirit is already dead!” shouts Shazira.
“Who cares about the … Read more

Dream Schools

 
Artists
The artist’s guild has one leader, one name, and pretends to be one guild, but it’s not.
The guild binds together many familiar visual and performance arts: painting, drawing, sculpture, pottery, digital imagery, story, theater, song, music, and dance.
One art remains that only energy masters can perform.
FlowSong, an art form built on flow and weaving, mixed with song and sculpture.

One simple idea that brings all the arts together, reaching toward unseen worlds of possibility.

Golden Eyes

 
Guild Circles
Two days after moonwatch, Shazira sends me out of the Watchtower.
“The guilds will never follow you, Yagrin, unless they know you.”
“Go meet them.”

I spend two days in the city, in the marketplace, the parks, and the guild halls.
I’ve spent time with the healers, teaching the thunder voice, but I’m a stranger to the other guilds.
They’ve heard of me, but they don’t know me.
Legally, I’m newborn, and a traveler no more, yet no one forgets.

The masters stare at me when they meet me, and see the three bands of color on … Read more

Thunder Voice

 
Stone
The world feels broken today, as I wake, but what does it mean?
Usually, I love greeting the sun, but now I have to push my way through it.
I eat almost nothing for breakfast.

“Are you sick, Yagrin?” asks Shazira.
“You barely eat, and your smile is gone.”

I scan my body with the listener, searching for sickness or injury, but my life energy burns strong.
The answer is somewhere outside of me.
“I’m not sick,” I tell her, “but I have to find out what’s wrong.”

I sit in the healing room, and spread my listener … Read more

Healing the Watchtower

 
The Curse of Moonwatch
The full moon comes every six weeks, too soon for the guardians of the Watchtower.

The tower shines every night and drives away the Krale.
The full moon saps the strength of the tower, leaves the sky unprotected, and gives birth to the night we call moonwatch.
Two guardians, a bonded couple, live in the tower, flow master and weaver.
It’s a great honor to be chosen to be guardians.
The flow master prepares an ancient crystal, and the weaver absorbs it.
Then the weaver releases a wave of energy that fuels the tower … Read more

Lessons and Betrayal

 
Twin Visions
The brief contact with the Jiku sphere of mirrors takes my strength.
I feel the smooth stone under my Jiku body, as my awareness returns to the marketplace, but only for a moment, just before I collapse.
I sleep, but without peace.
A vision comes and takes me.

I fly quickly through endless, empty silver skies — no worlds, no life.
In the vision I have no strength, but something carries me, keep me always in motion.
I see nothing, but I know that I’m not alone.

“Show yourself,” I shout to the empty world.
The world … Read more

Storms and Voices

 
Voice of the Storm
I sit quietly on an island and watch the waves and the clouds in the distance.
My perch is a ring of small hills, covered in green and flowers.
I learned of the island from the old ones.
It reminds me of the sacred hills in Tshuan, though the hills here are much smaller.
We are far from Tshuan, but long ago the kings would send their children here.
Age eleven is called the age of will.
At this age, a Jiku child can declare her desire to enter the guilds.
The Jiku believe … Read more

Listening and Healing

 
Listening
My whole life, I’ve circled around a dream of healing, hiding from a voice that whispers:
“You are born to heal.”

I’ve always been an outsider, looking through a window, at a clear, bright world, never finding my place, never reaching for the door.
I am Yagrin now.
There’s no more time for turning away, and letting the world pass by.
Now, healing calls me, in a voice that shakes the whole world.

My energy rises within me, and I easily cast off the fear.
Then, I turn all my strength toward healing.

Gifts and Mastery – 2

 
A Different Path
My life turns toward Flow, and becomes filled with masks and transformations.
There are five hundred common masks to learn.

I know a little about energy masks.
Shazira once taught me how to shape a mask and float it on my energy body.
It covers the pattern body like a golden garment of light.

The mask doesn’t penetrate the energy body, but it binds to it.
When the mask takes hold, your physical body vanishes.

I remember the excitement when my body was replaced by the animal body of a Twikul, a great hunter.
My … Read more