Listen to the Wind, Sister

Anything between ‘Itallic ‘ Are the voices of the wind.

Mana

“SHUT UP!”

Mana shouted into the air.

“Mana!” A startled Chukwu came running over. He nervously gazed around to see if someone heard her cry. “You know we have to be careful.”

He looked at her, with his brown eyes very kind.

“You are so much like your mother … Try not to draw attention ..”

“I know dad.” The girl sighed. “I just .. keep hearing things. They drive me mad.”

‘Mad mad mad is it you or him?’

“I don’t want you to end like your mother. I’ve swore to protect you.”

‘Lies Lies Lies…. the truth is hidden in lies!’

Mana nearly growled. The voices just never let her alone!

“Dad … If those voices are the wind .. Isn’t their a way to learn to control them? Like we control the wind?”

Chukwu swallowed. He seemed to think. She had struggled with them for years.

She was his.. his alone .. but he couldn’t do anything to stop those voices .. No .. HIS HIS HIS ALONE!

“Dad?”

Mana hesitated … she hated it when he suddenly dreamed away … he seemed to do that more and more these days.

“... Their … is .. perhaps .. No. We can’t.”

“What?”

“No.”

‘Yes Yes Yes!’

“Dad, tell me. Now.”

Mana’s voice was determend. With nothing to distract her, she could go on about the same subject for days. Chukwu swallowed.”Their might be a herd that knows how to deal with the voices…”

“Then we visit them!”

“NO! We can’t!”

‘Yes Yes Yes, we can!’

“Dad! I need this. These voices will drive me crazy ..”

‘Crazy crazy crazy, sure you’re the one who’s crazy?’

It would take a few days, but after a while, Chukwu suddenly agreed, on the condition they would sleep away from the herd, and she would return to him each evening. Mana couldn’t make sense of that decision, but happy she could try to control the voices, she agreed none the less.

After a few days travel, they came to a herd they called “cape splinter”.

Without hesitation, she walked into the herd, and simply waited. She wasn’t sure who to talk to. She had the confidance to walk into a herd of strangers, no problem. But then ask someone to help her? So she waited … Someone would talk to her right?

Tzilan

‘Someone comes for you, my stag of stags, someone comes...’

“Who?”

Tzilan turned his head slowly to face the wind, ears swivelling towards it, but it spoke no more. It told him only what it thought fit and it seemed all it wished to tell him today was that a fawnling had come for him.  Well, he would have to find out who the wind had brought.

Carefully, the lean stag unfolded his legs and stood before turning towards the mainland. The stranger would be coming from there to the peninsula and it was not long before he caught sight of the pale figure; much closer than he had expected. The guards should have spotted her before she came this close, but she did not appear to be a threat.

He watched her for a moment before moving and when he did start towards her it was with a steady, deliberate gait.

“Stranger,” he called softly, sending a breeze to carry his quiet voice to her ears, “where have you come from?”

Mana

Mana sighed slightly. When she would like some advice, those voices shut up of course. So she just looked and waited. The guards had just let her pass.. A golden colored stag … what’s up with his manes and tail? Different colors? That’s unsual.

“Where have you come from?” The golden stag asked.

From all questions, Mana wasn’t sure what to awnser. She didn’t have a home, she was always traveling…

‘You come send by us.’

“Whatever happened to saying things 3 times?” Mana mumbled, but was sorta glad with the awsner she could give.

“The wind was blowing in his direction.”

‘That’s not what we said! That’s not what we said! That’s not what we said!’

“NOW you’re talking back in treefold?” Mana sighed and rolled her eyes annoyed. She hoped she spoke soft enough for the stag to have missed her mumbling…

Tzilan

Tzilan leant forwards towards the doe a little - she was muttering something to herself, it seemed, but he recognised the signs. Many who came to the Cape muttered, apparently to themselves, as they came. They were rarely mad though; they simply listened to the voices that were speaking to them.

“I told you she came for you… I brought her for you!”

“The wind often blows ones such as you to the Cape,” he replied, nodding and smiling gently as he spoke.

She looked a little unsure, perhaps frustrated, and the lean stag did not want to disturb the smokey doe by leaping to conclusions before she had a chance to explain herself.

“My name is Tzilan, I lead those of us who make our lives here. What is your name?”

Mana

Mana tiled her head. The way he spoke of the wind ...

He understood. Dad never did.

He couldn’t understand.. but he did. Perhaps he was the right one to help her.

‘We picked him, of course he is! of course he is! of course he is!’

Mana ignored the voices.

“I’m Mana.”

Insure, she waited for Tzilan to act. She didn’t often come near other fawnlings, and definatly not near the leaders. The guards, and very rarely the captain of the guard. But the leader? She was she supposed to act? She’d heard stories about kings, great leaders. You had to bow to them. Is that what she had to do here? What costums did she have to apply here?

Tzilan

Tzilan paused before he spoke again, expecting her to perhaps explain more. She looked uncertain still, and it seemed that she was debating with herself whether to proceed and explain herself or not. It would appear that Tzilan would need to draw her purpose out of her.

“Welcome, Mana,” he replied, dipping his head in a gentle bow. He might lead the Cape, but he was not beyond greeting new fawnlings with respect.

“So the wind has brought you here. Did it tell you why?” he asked, looking closely at her face. He wanted to see her reaction to the question; if he was right the wind would have given her a reason to come here.

Mana

Mana was surprised to see the stag take a bow for her. She wasn’t used to any kind of costums … And this guy seemed to know a lot of them.

‘Talk to him, Talk to him, Talk to him.’

“It’s mostly saying things that don’t make sense.”

Mana briefly hesitated, but then said:

“I came here to learn to make them shut up.”

‘Tralala, Tralala, Tralala, curses and hexes, hexes and curses, magic all kinds all around!’

“Before I go nuts.”

Okay, sorta a blunt awsner, but why she was there.

Tzilan

Things that didn’t make sense? Almost unknowing, the golden stag let the ghost of a smile light his face for a moment. The wind rarely made its meaning clear, particularly to those it favoured. Sometimes it would give instruction or provide counsel but mostly it spoke in riddles and gibberish; he knew well how difficult the wind could be to understand.

What she said next, though, surprised him.

“You do not wish to hear the wind’s message?” he asked, surprised. Tzilan had been in the wind’s embrace for too long; although he had only recently wrung free from its madness and beaten it down to do his bidding the years of running already seemed a distant memory. He sighed, softly.

“I can help you with this. But you must understand, the wind does not speak lightly. The only way to silence it is to know what it is telling you,” he said, his voice grave and low. “What does the wind say that does not make sense?”

Mana

Mana was slightly annoyed by his awsner. It doesn’t stop till you do what it tells you too?

“Isn’t their a way to silence them, other then doing what they ask?”

Mana didn’t want to tell him what they asked of her. What they told her. It wasn’t the truth anyway. And besides, she promished her father not to talk about him.

‘Lies, lies, lies, liars all around! Who whispers the truth? They who hear the truth speak it!’

She gave Tzilan’s words some tought.

“Who speaks anyway? And why doesn’t everyone hear them?”

Maybe the awsner to fixing this was elsewhere.

Tzilan

This was all not quite right… Tzilan shook his head, ever so slightly and his brow creased in slight disappointment. If she was unwiling to listen to the wind, he was not sure how much he could help her. The only way to control the voices was to understand what they were trying to say; that or to send the wind away altogether.

“It is the voice of the wind that speaks. Some call it Molach, Voice of the North,” the lean stag replied. “Only those who are attuned to the wind hear the voices,” he added a gentle smile touching at his features. He must remember that - that she could hear the voices meant that she must be alive to the wind’s touch.

“If you do not wish to hear them, the only way is to understand or to master them,” he went on, the smile fading and his voice becoming harder. “If you do not wish to understand them, then you must control the wind that speaks to you and not allow it near your ears. That is the other way.”

Mana

Mana found his voice surprisingly soft and gentle. Her father never spoke to her that way..

It somewhat confused her. To hear a strange kind of gentleness, that her own parent couldn’t display…

“Molach.”

Mana repeated for herself

‘YES YOU CALLED CALLED CALLED?’

And regretted that almost immidently. She pressed her ears in her neck, uncomfrable with the volume. “I just don’t understand how a voice so loud can’t be heard by some.”

This time, she heard the voice of Tzilan. It was harder then before ..

“Control the wind?”

Mana’s eye’s widened. That could work.

“So I just … send the wind in a different direction?”

She could do that. How come she’d never tought of that before!

‘Blow Blow Blow the horn, Blow blow blow, we’re always here here here!’

“How does that work? I have to send the wind into a different direction all the time?”

She swallowed, and realized it would be hard, if not impossible.

Mana suddenly looked directly at Tzilan.

“You hear them.”

It was an observation, not a question.

‘Yes he does, does does… Does do, does does do ..’

“What do you do?”

Tzilan

The golden stag stared deeply into her face when she spoke. It seemed his dark eyes were trying to somehow bore their way into her mind, to find what she was thinking; but nothing came to him. The wind did not speak and her words gave nothing more than she wished them to give.

“I ran, for a time,” he said, still gazing on her face. His gaze was less intense, less hungry for knowledge now, but still he watched her features carefully. His story would perhaps help her, but she must be willing ot understand it first.

“I did not understand what the voice was telling me. I did not wish to hear it and so I ran; much of my life was running,” the lean stag said, and he desperately wanted to look away to the plains where he had run. He did not like ot think of it, though he had only stopped running in this year past he did not run now and it was now that was important. When he spoke of running he spoke of the past, and he did not wish to bring the past into this any more than he had to. He forced himself to keep his eyes on Mana’s expression, hoping for any sign that she understood.

“I only understood when I stopped. I only stopped because I understood. I mastered the wind by listening; I listen because it is mine to master.”

It was almost a riddle, but not quite. He wanted her to know that it was not one or the other; it was both. If she wished the voices to quiet but not to listen the only way was to beat the wind into total submission and to chase it from her forever. No fawnling had the strength for such a task. Tzilan had not had enough strength then; he did not now.

He was master of the wind only because he heard its song.

Mana

Mana looked at him. She was … slightly, confused. He ran? She didn’t understand this part quite well. How was he able to run. And .. how could one be the cause of the other? That doesn’t make sense. She looked confused. She sighed.

And she wasn’t running. She was just always on the road. She traveled with her father …

‘Travellers have destinations .. What’s yours yours yours?’

Mana put her ears in her neck.

“I’m not running.. “

Her voice wasn’t convinced. She hesitated.

Then she shook her head. What was she saying? Of course she’s not running!

“I travel, I’m not running.”

She looked at Tzilan. “Please teach me how to push the wind away.”

Tzilan

The golden stag’s expression softened and his ears slackened when she spoke again. He looked at her now with something like sadness on his face, sadness for her rather than for himself.

“She doesn’t know she runs, my stag. She doesn’t know…”

The wind’s voice was a whisper and he knew he would hear no more from it about Mana now. It had brought her to him and she did not wish to listen; all she wanted was to quiet the voices and not to listen. He sighed, softly, but nodded all the same.

“Very well. Though I must warn you, you will tire of pushing the voices away. All of your magic will focus on this one task and you will grow weary more easily. You will not be master of the wind this way, Mana, but you will be its slave as you forever turn it from your ears.”

Tzilan’s voice was soft and grave as he spoke and sorrow was still written on his features.

“You must take hold of the air in your ears and always turn it away. You must be aware of all of the air that surrounds your face and push the wind away from the dishes of your ears. It is tiring and it is particular; if you grasp the wrong breeze you will suck the air from your own lungs,” he said, his voice becoming more severe as he spoke this last warning. “You will hear less well, but you will not hear the voices.”

Mana

Mana looked down to the ground. What he said … No, it couldn’t really be true ..

‘You will learn one day, one day, one day..’

The voice didn’t sound so mocking this time. It had a sense of .. compassion in it.

“I understand. Thank you.”

Mana could swear she heard the wind sigh.

She let go of her breath, and focused on the air around her face.

The wind almost wanted to say something, but she pushed it away, forcing the wind out of her ears.

Mana sighed relieved. The silence was welcome. She could finally hear herself think.

“Thank you.”

She felt relieved, but something was gawning on her. She couldn’t put her tail on it but … She shook her head. It was nothing. Her father wasn’t laying. Couldn’t be. He was her father.

Tzilan

Sadly, the stag shook his head, but he did not speak again. There would be no changing the young doe’s mind - she did not wish to hear the wind and so he could not help her.

“If you ever wish to listen to the voice on the wind, you would be welcome here, Mana,” he said, calling softly after her. “But we could not welcome you here now. Goodbye.”

He paused for a moment, and he felt the anger of the wind for a moment, but it faded as quickly as a summer breeze.

“Good luck,” Tzilan added, shaking his head once more and turning back to his herd.