[Veltzeh]: 39.NaNoWriMo.2007: Tales from Kyerrion.2

The runaway party started moving, stole what they needed from small villages and made their way toward the mountains. Winter was well on its way when they reached them, but fortunately the weather was tolerable. A couple of the femehan rebels decided to stay in the villages instead and one even asked to have eir memory wiped, just in case. After they had left the last femehan village behind, the party consisted of two galanfetzcans, one femehan far-walker and five femehan other-walkers. Availon had managed to ask and get instructions for building a small hot-air balloon carrier for their food and other things, and even to get them past otherwise impossible places.

Femehans had some lore about galanfetzcans and their airships from along the millennia. They were usually considered fantasies, because the stories were so few, but some believed them nonetheless and most tended to agree that it could not be accurately known whether galanfetzcans indeed had airships.

Some of the femehans in the party asked Availon about the airships, but ey told them nothing. The hot-air balloon ey had constructed was a simple thing and the femehans did not have trouble figuring out the mechanism behind it. They asked why they could not build a bigger one, get in it and just fly away, and Availon explained to them that it would be seen from far away and that it was fairly impossible to steer. They would most likely end up back in Fetormana due to the winds.

Days grew dark and snow fell down. The snow made clear days annoyingly bright, but nights were technically lighter than in summer since the moons lighted the snow. The drifts in the mountains were deceptive; moving was always dangerous and it was often hard to know where to go. The trees and other vegetation in the mountains were adapted to fairly dry conditions—though it rained just as often as in other parts of the nearby lands, the water had the tendency to flow down the mountains and into the valleys and passes, where the vegetation was relatively thicker.

Garandals were fairly welcoming of the party because they tended to respect galanfetzcans. They sold the party food and different kinds of ways to heat the air in the hot-air balloon. The galanfetzcans paid back with information, teaching or far-walker services, and the femehans had to settle for doing physical work requiring extensive strength—garandals were even smaller than galanfetzcans, so the femehans' strength was quite felicitous. A few times the galanfetzcans were even asked to have sex with some garandals. Some garandals joined them for half a week or so, since they were heading to the next village anyway, acting as guides while at it.

Things went fairly similarly with nacrans, though they were more suspicious and distrusting of galanfetzcans since galanfetzcans were so similar to garandals with respect to their sex system. They did still welcome the runaway party, though they only took their payment from the femehans—the galanfetzcans eventually ended up disguising themselves as femehans with their far-walker abilities when dealing with nacrans.

Winter advanced and the weather became colder. Snowfall abated, but now the thunderstorms were coming. Wind, sleet, ice, hail, lightning and chilling temperatures—not a good combination for a band of travelers. They would be even more dependent on garandals and nacrans in weather like this. However, every cloud had a silver lining {ei niin paljon pahaa, ettei jotain hyvääkin; paistaa se päivä risukasaankin}: the views and sceneries were magnificent. The femehans were often fairly enthralled and kept praising it and keeping on moving. Even Tarkavinel seemed to like looking at the wilderness. The galanfetzcans had seen similar things before, but it was still a new experience every time.

The galanfetzcan hunter Gaoveel and Availon always slept together and seemed quite chaste to the femehans since they did not have sex while the femehans were in their company. The femehans, then again, had sex with each other quite freely, regardless of the galanfetzcans. They did have some issues, though, since they had along them one geniwacod, four nicods and one fairly inert gecod. No one really wanted to have sex with Tarkavinel, and ey did not seem to want to have sex at all. The two nicod ex-soldiers sometimes had sex with em, but Tarkavinel never seemed to particularly want or enjoy it—ey expressed eir unwillingness by attempting to shove them off but not really trying to and then lay quietly while they did what they wanted. The geniwacod, then again, was the far-walker, and it was usually creepy for other-walkers to have sex with a far-walker.

Availon was initially quite worried about Tarkavinel since ey seemed to dislike having sex in the first place and no one seemed to pay attention to contraception—having a child or even just being pregnant would probably be a death sentence in a situation like this.

They had two four-person tents to sleep in. One night, Availon, Gaoveel, Tarkavinel and one nicod called Karerrun were sleeping in the same tent, and Karerrun had just finished having sex with Tarkavinel and settled to sleep. Tarkavinel seemed annoyed above anything and was pulling on eir clothes. Ey had a lean, badly scarred body and eir right ear had been cut off a long time ago.

"Tarkavinel?" asked Availon, in common Gomanian. Ey wanted to speak to the gecod mentally, but Tarkavinel sometimes had trouble registering even harmless mental messages and could never reply to them. Tarkavinel lifted eir head and looked at Availon, but did not reply. "Are you alright?" Tarkavinel looked at Availon for a moment without speaking. In time, Availon spoke again: "You don't seem to enjoy ...that too much. Is there some reason why you let em do it?" Tarkavinel still did not reply and now ey also turned eir attention away from Availon. Ey fingered eir right breast a little and then pulled on a tight shirt.

Gaoveel joined the discussion: "Can't you just push em off or tell em that you don't want to do it?" Tarkavinel stayed quiet.

"Or you could tell us... or Plietti. We would make em stop. You don't have to feel bad." Tarkavinel pulled on the rest of eir clothes and still did not reply. "Karerrun can't hear what we're saying, ey's asleep. Why do you let em do it? Aren't you afraid of becoming pregnant? We can't afford that now." The gecod stayed silent. "Please, reply something..."

Tarkavinel was still quiet for a long time but eventually replied: "Don't have anything to say."

"But, but... why do you let em do it? What if you become pregnant?" Tarkavinel was quiet again. "You frustrate me. Why won't you reply?" After a long moment of silence, Tarkavinel lay down next to the nicod. The galanfetzcans sighed frustratingly and gave up.

Tarkavinel said one more thing, however: "I won't get pregnant."

Availon sat up abruptly and went: "What? Why? You don't use any contraception... Are you sterile?" Ey did not get more answers out of Tarkavinel—the gecod fell asleep in the middle of one of Availon's questions. Both of the galanfetzcans were frustrated, and though they tried to get through to em again, Tarkavinel seemingly ignored them again. Eventually they ceased to care about the passive raping happening right under their noses.

Along the long journey, the galanfetzcans learned to speak Femen without even using their far-walker abilities much. They grew closer as they shared their food, sleeping space, personal space and even thoughts, though the other-walkers were slightly uneasy about that, save for Tarkavinel who was still quiet and unreadable.

One day the weather finally started showing signs of getting warmer. Though spring was still far away, it would probably not get any colder. However, to the party's discomfort, the next day a bad thunderstorm brewed and the temperature dropped quite low. As a bonus, at evening, Werden shone right into their eyes as the storm-clouds failed to reach the horizon. They were climbing up the side of a steep cliff as two groups; four of them tied together at even intervals of the rope. The galanfetzcans climbed first; they were the best at it and if they fell, they were light enough to not pull the whole group with them.

They had climbed enough for one day and started setting camp. Gaoveel's group had started it since Availon's was still trying to climb; they had hit a harder spot and even with help from the others, the climbing was quite difficult. The weather started turning worse. Finally Availon made it to the ledge and one of the femehan nicods followed soon. Tarkavinel took a slightly longer time, and when they finally managed to pull Johelta, the last nicod, to the edge, the storm was rather fierce. Wind blew so hard that Availon was afraid to move anywhere; the gusts would have caught em. Johelta did not dare to stand up, but continued crawling in the snow while Tarkavinel pulled lightly on the rope.

Near the edge of the cliff grew a tree barely two meters high. Johelta was just a meter from the tree when lightning struck it. The tree was electrocuted and Johelta received a bad jumped strike. Ey stood up, the wind blew and ey fell down the cliff. The rope between em and Tarkavinel tightened almost instantly, and the gecod started slipping toward the edge. Ey tried to stop and pull on the rope, but it was fairly futile. The nicod between em and Availon shouted help, taking a stable position and readying emself for pulling. Availon circled the rock ey was holding on to, making a loop around it, hoping that it would help in case things got worse.

Tarkavinel slipped to the edge of the cliff where ey was able to stabilize emself by positioning eir leg under the rope—ey did not slip over the edge and Johelta's fall was cut short. Ey had just managed to position emself so that ey would see Johelta when the weight at the other end of the rope suddenly disappeared. That was the only time anyone heard Tarkavinel yell: it was a frustrated shout of surprise. Tarkavinel jerked backwards, turned around almost immediately and looked down. Ey barely saw Johelta fall and hit the rocks below. Ey heard Plietti, the geniwacod far-walker, shout out in grief. Johelta had died. Tarkavinel stared down for a short moment before crawling back.

"What happened?" asked Karerrun.

For a moment, Tarkavinel was silent and showed no signs of replying, but then stated: "Ey fell."

A few tears fell down Plietti's face. "Eir spirit is gone! Ey didn't make it to the Spirit Plane!"

They did not speak more. They could do nothing.

In the morning, the weather was calm and clear. Some snow had fallen and covered the old snow in most places. The seven remaining party members looked down the cliff from which Johelta had fallen. Tarkavinel pointed at the place where ey had hit the ground. It was covered by snow and one could only see the body with the help of a good imagination. A few tears fell down Plietti's face again.

"Did ey... have anything essential with em?" asked Availon. It was an insensitive, even wretched question, but if Johelta had had something important with em, they would need to go down and get it.

"I don't think so." Karerrun's reply was quite stiff.

"Go down an' see for yourself!" shouted Plietti. "You shouldn't disturb the remains of people who have passed away!"

They all were quiet for a fairly long time, looking down. Then Plietti finally said: "Farewell, dear comrade. May you find calmness in nothingness."

Almost immediately after that, Availon and Gaoveel muttered simultaneously: "Live and die forever in nothingness." They spoke Galan, however, so the femehans could only guess what the exact meaning was. The general meaning, however, was clear: it was a farewell message. They did not want to ruin it by asking what it meant now.

They were about to back down from the edge of the cliff when they heard something extraordinary: Tarkavinel. And Tarkavinel did not just say something—ey sang. The others listened with their eyes wide and remembered the words until they died.



Having sung, Tarkavinel looked up to the sky for a calming moment before walking back. The others stood there thrice as long, their eyes more or less flowing—so moved were they by the austerity and desolation of the words. Not one of them ever mentioned the singing again.



It took almost one and a half months for them to cross the Watery Mountains. They were very glad and proud of themselves after they reached the first femehan village in the nation of Kattormala. They were not proud of what they had to do there, however, since they had to steal from them. They traveled fairly anonymously through the nation and gave no clear sign of themselves.

They started getting very tired and malnourished before reaching the Great River, so they stopped their journey in a femehan village after all, got themselves some work and started settling down temporarily.