Firesong is worth admiring. But from a distance. He's not called Firesong for nothing-he breathes in the admiration and everything else around him. Fire can warm you from a distance, but it bums when you get too close to it.' There was no doubting the truth of the feelings behind the words. He ducked under the water for a moment, then emerged and hoisted himself UP onto the bank beside her. 'Then you forgive me for being a beast?' She grinned. 'I think you could persuade me to.' Tre'valen soared the spirit-skies in a new form; that of a vorcel- hawk.
Smaller than Dawnfire-as was only appropriate for a tiercel-and with nowhere near her power, he still hoped that in this form she would see that he was trying to meet her halfway. She had avoided him for days now, and he was not certain if the reason was anything to do with him, or if it was something outside of both of them.
Surely the Goddess knew of his feelings toward Dawnfire. Could She not approve, to let him continue to pursue Dawnfire? It would take the barest blink on Her part to slap him to the ground, away from Her Avatar-yet Tre'valen sought Dawnfire still. Surely the Goddess knew that he was still devout, that he searched always mindful of serving Her people better. No matter how his heart might cry to him of how Dawnfire needed him, and he needed her-he was still a sworn shaman, and owed his loyalty to Her and Her purposes.
Hold, though-had he truly just assumed Dawnfire needed him? He did not know for certain if he read her emotions or his own. Her eyes were no longer human when he saw her. Could he believe the desire for companionship he saw in them? It was all so complex, and he had so few real facts to work with. He could only do the one thing a shaman ultimately must: trust in who he was and let his long-learned morals determine his actions.
He had always been bright-eyed and adventurous; the Goddess had not been displeased by it when She took him as Her shaman. It would be senseless to deny his nature-better to act on it.
He had walked the Moonpaths to no effect-so now he tried a desperation move. He left the Paths altogether, and turned his flight into the starry night between them.
Prudent Kra'heera had never left the Paths in all of his long life as a shaman. Tre'valen had heard of some-a very few-who had, and lived to do so again. They were not many, but their adventures had been in times calmer than these. There were new things happening, strange and promising and frightening at once, and risks were somehow more appropriate.
The risk of leaving the Moonpaths paled before the danger of his courting the Goddess' own Avatar.
Still, if Dawnfire would not come to him, he must needs go to her.
He felt the lift in his 'belly' as he lifted from the Paths, on wings made of glittering golden stardust and lit by his own life. A shiver as though from a cold wind, a knifelike wash through his sunlight-feathered body, and the Moonpaths dropped away below him.
Foolishness it might be-but glorious it certainly was.
He soared and wheeled above and under the Paths, able now to See the patterns upon patterns they coursed into, and the colors and layers as far as his spirit-eyes could discern.
But she was nowhere to be found.
Perhaps he was looking in the wrong place entirely? Well, there was nothing keeping him from using this form in the 'real' world-and if she soared the physical skies in her hawk-form, she would surely see him in this guise.
He closed the eyes of the hawk, then turned within-sought the twist that brought him home-And opened them again as warm sun flooded through him. Through, because as a spirit-hawk in the real world, he was slightly transparent.
A tiercel-vorcel of golden glass...Was it not exactly like a lovesick tiercel to court a mate with fancy flying? Leaving the Moonpaths, diving from the starry soul-sea into the physical world-was that not the equivalent of skimming a cliff face to attract a lover's eye?
He couldn't help but laugh at himself over it all, still a little giddy from the feel of the soul-sea between the Paths. Should he continue with the analogy and hope that Dawnfire would be impressed) Could they be enough alike somehow that she would fly with him? So many mysteries, but then, there were few answers to begin with in his life's work. That was, he felt, part of its appeal-in searching for Truths, he'd found few absolute ones and thousands of personal ones. He'd follow his heart, wherever it led.
Perhaps his willingness to risk was only adaptability. He felt at home in this Vale of summer nestled amidst cruel winter, as he did wherever he traveled. So many times he'd been berated for his brashness by Kra'heera; perhaps his brashness was but unrefined bravery?
He increased his physical mass, steadied in the chilly breeze above his brothers' Vale. They, too, followed their hearts as certainly as they followed the Goddess' laws. He admired them. They fought for a goal that would come many centuries from their own lifetimes as though it would be enjoyed at day's end.
They were not so different from his own people, who guarded the Plains and the deadly things under it. The Hawkbrothers actively fought; the Shin'a'in had the equally difficult tasks of unending vigilance and precise response. The Kal'enedral and the Hawkbrother Adepts were alike in some respects, were they not? Different but complimentary.
He had seen history drawn in tapestries in Kata'shin'a'in. Was it time now for a new tapestry to be woven?
Ah, if his thread and Dawnfire's could be woven together, it would be like the satisfying ending to a tale, and he would feel reborn...He angled over the Vale, careful of the sense of wonder that he felt.
He couldn't let it blind him to his goal. The point of taking flight this way was to find Dawnfire, to speak with her. Tre'valen scanned the skies, widened his view-and saw something bright hurtling toward him and the Vale.
It was without physical form, a fiery spear of crackling magical energy, larger than two men. It came roaring toward him, rushing, unrelenting, like a storm-driven grass-fire across the Plains-and struck him full in the chest. A shower of splintered mage-energy burst around him and he screamed out.
He fell half a furlong, stunned; recovered; held himself in place with unsteady wingbeats. The next blow was coming, and he warded against it as best he could.
For one moment, he thought that his fears were coming to pass, that the Star-Eyed herself had decided to punish him for his audacity. But no-No, he was not even the object of the attack. He had been in its bound-path,
