[Veltzeh]: 39.The Heritage of Humankind.Tales from Kyerrion.project 38

Spring was well on its way and the joy of reunion had started to turn into familiar routine. Tegafel, young as ey was, wanted to talk with the other younger ones. Riyhneon and Leitsel were not that young anymore, but did still share some of Tegafel's youthful curiosity. Arike was young and curious, but Tegafel had come to know em during the winter. However, talking to other people than Tegafel and Availon brought new sides of em into view as well.

Taikehel would have wanted to talk with Availon, but as the falangezka was talking to Krezagon, Taikehel figured that the best way to avoid Krezagon's and Tarkavinel's company was to stick with the talking young ones.

Krezagon and Availon, then again, finally had a long-waited confrontation. Tarkavinel was there as well, and true to eir nature, did not speak.

Krezagon was a sergeant in the military of a femehan nation called Kervanela. Most femehan nations were allied with jinhaliares, the age-long enemies of falangezkas. The reasons were simple: jinhaliares wanted new lands to live in, and femehans had thought it better to fight with them than against them. Femehans might not directly benefit from the alliance, but the losses would be smaller than if they would not have allied with the jinhaliares. Or so it might seem.

Availon was a falangezka, and one of the few ones who were adamant about destroying the alliance by any means necessary. For a few years, ey had traveled across femehan lands, killing first jinhaliares and then influential femehans, thus crackling the alliance. It swayed and shook but did not yet crumble. Availon wanted to see the end of it.

"Availon, was it?" said Krezagon. Availon looked uneasy, but not sensing Krezagon's mind did not make em falter as much as it did Taikehel. "Tegafel and Tarkavinel have told me something about what you've been doing while running around. I have no particular predisposition toward the megalomaniac femehan leaders or jinhaliares, but I can't say I particularly liked murderers either. Is there a reason why I should not take you before a femehan council to be judged?"

"I have been before a femehan council and I have been judged," replied Availon with a tone of resentment. Eir face and arms were adorned with scars that the nation of Gaoranola cut and burned on people they deemed traitors.

"Not for those murders, though."

"Will you listen to what I have to say, even if my actions have been made on the basis of the end justifying the means?"

"I don't see why I wouldn't..."

Availon took a deeper breath and went on: "The alliance between femehans and jinhaliares cannot end in anything good. At some point, the jinhaliares will turn on you and wreck far more damage than if you had opposed them from the start. If they don't turn, they will make slaves out of you, or turn you into the kind they are. Do you know how the jinhaliares are like in reality?"

"Do you understand that I am, in fact, a slave? A gzoozing slave to my own kind! Jinhaliares would probably judge me as a person and not as a representative of their own twisted beliefs of what ankods are. Yet, I'm aware that jinhaliares are twisted too and I suppose I would rather be a slave to my own kind than them. I wouldn't have trusted them, but I would never have been in a position to decide about that, even if I wasn't an ankod. It's not for sane people to be rulers, you know? You should, because your kind is sane. I'm not sure about you now."

"Why would you not help me then and make this alliance crumble?"

"Why should I? I may be looking out for personal convenience, but can you fault me in that? I have no power to legally hinder the alliance in any way, and I have too strong a sense of self-preservation that I won't go about it the only way, the illegal way."

"So you would allow making the world a worse place for the next generations, for your children?"

Krezagon was not the kind of person to have children in the first place, and had ey been something else than an ankod and unable to have children, ey would have laughed. As it was, ey just became furious. Even Tarkavinel looked accusingly at Availon; for once, a silent reality-impaired gekod introvert was a better judge of character than an extroverted, mind-reading falangezka expert on social relations. "I would have the whole world freeze, and there would be nothing here!" Krezagon's anger did not last long, though, but before ey could say anything, Availon apologized.

"I am sorry, that was a really inconsiderate remark from me..."

"Forget it. I don't think I'd have the world freeze as long as there was something that I had enjoyed in my life." Krezagon glanced briefly at Tarkavinel, and then at Tegafel. Ey was not tactful when it came to messages less obvious than direct speech.

"Yes, well... being conquered by the jinhaliares is not much better than being like a dead tree in winter."

"Femehans don't really know how to run nations or how to lead people. Or maybe they do, but that way probably isn't that different from the jinhaliares' way. If the way jinhaliares treat us would get intolerable, we would rebel, and eventually we would be free of them."

"Or not."

"Who cares. Why, why do you care? You live far in the south, in the tundra, where the jinhaliares can't live. They will never come there, because they'd just die there."

"That does not stop them from sending suicide missions just to annoy us. But what if, one day, they come there and survive? What if they learn how to handle the cold or keep themselves warm enough?"

"That's a worry for that time. Your family was killed by jinhaliares, wasn't it? And you hold a grudge."

"That is hardly relevant."

"It's very relevant, but not a good enough reason to want to end the alliance. You could just move further south."

"Do you give in every time?"

"I do, I suppose, though there are exceptions." Availon looked bewildered. "You speak with an unnatural certainty when you say we should end the alliance and that living under or with the jinhaliares would be scarcely better than being frozen. Yet you doubt it when I said that if conditions were bad enough, we'd rebel and succeed. Do you trust the jinhaliares that much? How can you?"

After a moment of furious thinking, Availon said quietly: "I suppose I can't be that sure... And so, who cares what I do? I think the world will be a better place if I can make the alliance end. I'm willing to risk quite much to see this through. I would not give my life, though. I want to see my children again some day."

"All those soldiers who would die in a war against the jinhaliares wouldn't see their children anymore..."

"At least their children would live and jinhaliares would not take them away into camps to be brought up their way."

"There's that evil certainty again."

"What would it take for you to trust my goal more than the jinhaliares?"

"What would it take for you to go home and never come back? Except threatening you with murder, which I don't do."

Availon was annoyed, even frustrated or desperate. Ey looked at Tarkavinel. "Tarkavinel, you traveled with me for a year, supporting my mission and everything. Are you now with em? Changed sides completely?"

Tarkavinel was quiet at first, but this time both Krezagon and Availon waited for so long that the gekod spoke: "I can only think for myself, if even that. Krezagon at least taught me how to choose what's better for me if I have choices."

"That is not an answer!" said Availon.

"I have an answer: yes, you will die."

"What?"

Krezagon stared at Tarkavinel for a while. "That is a good answer." Ey looked at Availon. "And it's the only answer. I would like to die when I'm much older, and not in a fight."

"Do you not care for anyone but yourselves!" cried Availon.

"A few people. I'm not insane enough to care about more. Did you know that Tarkavinel is the heir of the monarch of Tarakiila? Ey could have ruled a nation. My thoughts are within a thunderstorm cloud when I think that you helped killing all eir family."

Availon's eyes grew wide and eir face went almost white. Ey could not speak for a long time. "You... Is this true? So you knew... you knew all the time that... that I'd killed all your family?" Tarkavinel looked at Availon in the way that expressed that ey agreed with the implication of Availon's statement. "I'm... I couldn't... I'm so..." A few tears ran down Availon's face, and ey looked down. Even though eir hair was short now, if was fluffy enough to cover eir face, at least from the taller femehans' angle. "Do you want me to say I'm sorry?"

Tarkavinel did not speak. Krezagon answered instead: "You should do that if it makes you feel better."

Availon looked up at Tarkavinel. "Will you approve of it? Will you forgive me?"

Tarkavinel did not think there was anything to forgive. Availon had taken nothing away from em; ey had done most of that by emself. Ey did not speak, but lifted eir hand a little, not knowing a way to inform Availon that ey did not care. Availon took eir hand in eir own almost immediately, and after watching it for a little while, Tarkavinel brushed the small fingers slightly with eir thumb. Availon was relieved and content with that.

"If... Tarkavinel, if you tell me to go home now, I will go and never come back again. Do you wish I would do that?"

Once again, Tarkavinel was quiet, but the reply came eventually: "I don't see why I would wish that."

Availon was rather shocked. Ey had been fairly sure that this was eir self-caused ticket home and that ey could just forget everything and go be with eir children, no matter how much of eir work that would throw away. Even Krezagon did not seem furious with Tarkavinel's reply; ey was in fact expressionless.

Apparently Availon's shock showed right through and Krezagon said: "I find that both the outcomes that follow from Tarkavinel's reply are good anyway."

Availon collapsed on the ground and spoke no more.

The next day, Availon spoke to Tegafel after breakfast. "What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know." Tegafel looked happy. Availon remembered how desperate Tegafel had been after ey had rescued the wakod from execution in the hands of homehans. Tegafel had possibly even less options now and still ey looked much happier.

"...You don't know?"

"Nope, I'm clueless."

Availon asked the same from Riyhneon and Leitsel. They said they would follow Krezagon, since ey was their sergeant. Arike said ey would go pee, and laughed. Tarkavinel walked away and disappeared. Taikehel answered with the same question; ey was frustrated as well.

Krezagon was the only certain one. "I'll take you and my squad back to Kervanela. We'll join with some army camp and you'll be judged, again. I don't know what that Arike will do though..."

Krezagon's answer did not make Availon feel any better. Ey collapsed on the ground and wept. "I want to go home! I want to see my children and... My... my work... it's all useless."

Now Krezagon heard the word that made em change eir mind. Availon was clueless about it; ey was too preoccupied with crying. Krezagon looked at the small trembling body and tried to figure out what to say. Ey and eir work was not useless, and no one else or their work was useless. Krezagon knelt before the falangezka. "When you're happy about your uncertainty again, tell me what you think would be the best and achievable way that could end the alliance and I'll help you do it. Then you can go home and tell your children what you accomplished."

Availon was flabbergasted. Krezagon smiled and walked away.