Sequel

I've had the conversation with Una and he's had long debates with others. His understanding of power is stated below but he forgets, always, to tell others that it was the oddities in the lines that brought about certain powers. The Talen became healers because when this specific thing happened to cause power in the line, they were already healers. The Whisen were a learned line and such and such.

I very much love how power is whatever you make of it in this world. Anyone at any time can completely disarm Rel or Paw by believing, or convincing them of the fact that, they have no power or are incapable of using power. It is how Rel's father kept Rel from using power for so long, why as the man was dying and Rel was being poked in strange ways, that Rel's powers awoke.

Una is quite adept at distracting people at the oddest times. He can also get very. Very. Annoying. That thing he does with Mari's first born and the questions? He does that all the time! And you just want to hit him with a skillet upside the head.

Which I've tried before. He's faster than he looks.

*EDITED* because I said the child was mute and blind but then said it couldn't see or hear. Because being mute totally means you're deaf...

Read, Review and Enjoy.





When Mari returned, Muan still hadn’t awoken. Mari threw the bag at Rel, nearly catching him upside the head while Rel read the news online. Rel pulled each of the tests out of the bag and read the sides of each box carefully. All were early detection tests. All.

Rel could have made with chemicals found in any common bathroom.

But he didn’t say that out loud, he didn’t tell Mari that he probably could have made a more effective test and saved her money and even time. He explained that they were all the standard, pee on a stick test. Wait ten minutes, the full ten minutes, to be certain that the chemicals had reacted the proper way and such and if she was pregnant a plus would appear.

Pee on the stick, do not collect it in a cup, do not pee in the toilet and then swirl the stick in the toilet. Do not suck on or lick the service end of the stick.

What, no warning about sticking the pregnancy test into his ear or eye or other orifice?

After explaining this, Mari went off to the bathroom to perform the necessary actions. Una watched her go and then gave Rel a look.

“What?”

“Any other species can tell you when you are pregnant but you still rely on tests.”

“You can tell me when I’m pregnant?” Rel asked, pretending to be shocked, “well. Am I? I did have unprotected sex, you know.”

Una glared at Rel, “you know what I mean. And you should be in there with her.”

“While she pees.”

“Yes. This is a difficult time for any woman, let alone one who has lost everything.”

“While she pees.”

“Well. Alright. Not while she pees. But Rel.” Una gave him a look.

Rel sighed out and looked away, then back to Una, “Una. I might be damaged, but I’m not daft.”

Mari came out of the bathroom, three stick in hand, all with the little safety caps on them. She set them on the table, atop the bag. She sat beside Rel and looked at him.

“If this is real,” she said.

“I’ll be there every step of the way.”

“I don’t expect anything from you.”

“They would be my child as well.”

“Men always say that and they never mean it,” Mari said calmly, “I mean it when I say that you need not worry about any of this. I will be with Una’s troupe, he would very well take care of me and mine. As I am sure he takes care of any of his people.”

“I want a part of this. I’m not some seed bag for you to extract from and then toss away. It would be mine as much as yours. Not some burden to simply pass off to whomever we please.”

“Big words,” Mari responded, “my first breeder said the same thing, Then he decided that he couldn’t possibly have conceived anything like that from me.”

“Anything like that…?”

“Mari’s first child is blind and mute. Can hear everything, can process it all, but can’t see or speak,” Una responded quietly.

“He’s a reservoir. Those with power can tap into the information in his head. Under the Illuen he might survive to adulthood, but once he was implemented he wouldn’t survive more than a few years. They don’t know how to use a reservoir of knowledge without killing it.”

“Dabbling in a dead art,” Una responded, “of course they also don’t realise what they did have.”

Rel and Mari looked at Una expectantly as the immortal swirled his tea with a spoon. Una glanced up at them and blinked innocently.

“What?”

“What do they have?”

“What do who have?”

“The Illuen.”

“The who?”

“Illuva’s priests.”

“They have Illuva,” Una muttered with the assured tone of someone who was avoiding the answer that people obviously wanted.

“What is my child?”

“Which child?”

“The first born?”

“Well it has yet to be seen what you are carrying, so how can I tell you which will be the first born or what will they be? A doctor. That sounds very good. They will be a doctor.”

“My. What.”

“All of those little sticks have plus signs on them. That means you are pregnant, no?”

Mari and Rel both jumped to look at the sticks, knocking their heads together as they did so. Rel cringed, Mari cursed and both glared at Una when they found that the test hadn’t run its full length yet.

Una shrugged.

“What do you mean, what I carry?”

“Crossing the lines LeAniege and DeAniege, it’s always been frowned upon.”

“I’m not DeAniege-” Mari protested.

“I hardly think this is appropriate.” Rel sighed out.

Una was silent for a long moment, lips twitching upward, “do either of you know how power spread to the people?”

“No.” Rel and Mari both shook their heads.

“It was bred out to the extreme. The gods didn’t want people arising, thinking they could do as they wanted with powers. Anyone who had any sign of power was sent off to special places where they lived and bred but were shown as damned by the gods. Well when Rahl-ta came about he decided to take over the lands, being the crazy, warring god that he was. His first stop was, by the mercy of the gods, I suppose, this place where the gods had sent all those with powers.

“He slaughtered them all and one woman escaped. Heavily pregnant, she fled being driven by the basic instincts of a mother. Of any mother. She dropped her child in a village.”

“Uh-huh,” Rel muttered, “And?”

“Sounds suspiciously like how Ayato met Rava,” Mari muttered.

“Because it is,” Una responded. “Ayato was on the run from Harella-shay. She was bound and determined to destroy the goddess without a name, the goddess of mortality. Ayato was wounded and running, slammed into the one body he found. The woman was about to miscarry when Ayato and the body merged,” Una brought his hands together, “it took up all the power the goddess had left, stripping what made her, her. Leaving nothing more than an asexual soul.”

“Almost makes them straight…”

“Ayato only takes a female body when he absolutely has to. Then it doesn’t last very long. He is very much a male. Sexuality can be labelled, but gender is a slippery business when you speak of a soul instead of a person. Of a being instead of a physical body.”

“You got off of the whole power bit.”

“True. Uhm. Back then it was believed that if you take a woman and give certain herbs to her, you could prepare her to … be a clean slate. Two males could have her and the child thusly born would be of both males instead of the male and the female. And the one the pair, Rava and Ayato, chose was blonde haired, blue eyed. Every child born was black haired, green eyed.”

“Mm?”

“So?”

Una sighed, “Rava and the woman both were of the village, they had a long line of blond haired, blue eyed ancestors. Those children were Ayato’s. Each of the children had a varying degree of power. And they each had several children who all had some kind of power. And they and they and so on.”

“So. You think all power came from Ayato.”

“Not Ayato. From Eveena, his mother. Ayato just happened to be slammed into that body at that time. If he had been born to some peasant who was hideous and stupid every lifetime through and through, Ayato would have been bound to that line. His abilities as a soul have very little to do with his abilities in a body. He is powerful because of that line that he slammed into. He is beautiful because of that line he slammed into.”

“What about Whisen, Talen?”

“Talen were healers. Long before Ayato and Rava existed, the Talen were healers. Tahl-ra was born to the Talen by some coincidence, or because Harella-shay wanted her daughter to be looked after by a gentle folk. The Whisen,” Una shrugged and sat back in his table, “Ayato and Rava went off to partake with the local lord. When they returned they found their village in rubble. Rahl-ta had been through the village. Whisen was found in the rubble of his home. A twelve year old boy at the time. He had traded his soul to Shey-har for the one time ability to protect his family.”

“The first soul.”

“The first piece. The first soul existed around the time I was born.”

“So all power came from the Aniege line.”

“Thus anyone who has the potential for power is then related to the Aniege.”

“Huh.” Rel muttered, “so an Aniege who is born without power…”

Una shrugged, “I’d say it’s been ten minutes. What’s the verdict?”

Mari glanced at the sticks and went pale. Rel glanced over at them.

“Positive. You’re pregnant.”


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