Passage to Nyika |
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Chapter 1 |
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| Before climbing up to the hay loft, I quickly look around me to make sure no one saw me going up. I feel emotionally stretched out from the burden of others and need time to myself. As I lay down in a patch of hay drenched in sunlight from a window, I allow my mind to fray. I lose my self-awareness as I get washed up by the sunlight. I feel the rays penetrating to my soul as I am cultivated in the earth. Hours pass as I allow the wind to scatter me. I feel the scampering of friendly feet and feel the brush of a friendly probe searching for me. I let out a sigh as I reel my mind back to itself. I am me in this container, and safe inside this container, that is my mind. I never enjoyed safety. As the outlines of my mind click and squish back in it’s prison, Olwyn wraps her mind around mine, further constraining my mind. As I allow her tiny mouse figure crawl along my arm to her pocket, I feel a reprimanding prod for running away to the barn rafters. “Kaylub! Many equine need guidance/interpretation. Some have never worked like this with you funaga and resist/don’t understand your ways. This harvest will be great/plentiful – but only if cooperation is attainedâ€. I give Olwyn a mental shrug for her efforts of bettering me. “just because you are fire/bright mane, does not mean you can take advantage of/use all.†“My bright hair is more of a burden then a gift. The princess is lucky to have inherited her tresses of black. She can disguise herself by simply going without the royal garb. When I walk the same streets, I feel many stares of expectationâ€. “With many talents/gifts comes greater expectation/responsibility. Losing your identity to the earth is dishonourable/irresponsible waste of your talents/gifts!†I try to act as if her words have no effect, but she can feel my twinge of regret. As we walk over to the fields, I do a quick probe to find the most urgent situations. My senses are over loaded as several that are searching for assistance respond to my probe at the same time. There are many horses that have come over tainted land from a place they call Nyika. For the past twenty years or so the tainted land dividing Nyika and the red queen’s land has become more and more safe. Many animals from Nyika have escaped to the free running barud. Though it is a free running barud, there is an understanding that the horses will help us during the harvest. They are in return paid in grain for their work. The new horses do not understand how we can be working so cooperatively with them. How can any one but help understand why the horses have left their native home to join our free running barud. Especially after running into many mind pictures from these horses, I completely understand. Their home Nyika is surrounded by tainted land. They couldn’t even see the ocean. Their only source of water came from a river they call the mighty Rukova. Even though the water came from the river, it had to be placed in metal containers, then in fire for hours before it was safe to drink. The Nyikains treated the horses as dumb slaves. The horses were worked mercilessly with savage tools like bits and whips. As the Nyikains viewed themselves as superior, the creatures were given barely enough cleaned water and grains to survive. And talented people were viewed as having evil spirits. When a talented was found, they were labled as a Nzwa, ostracized and forced to roam the tainted land. The safe passage to our Red Land was found by the Nzwa. I met many of the Nyikain animals when they came to my school. My school is where animals and humans come to learn finger speech. As I have traces of the royal blood, and I am a particularly talented Beastspeaker, I became the school’s head master and main teacher. Olwyn and I met when she came learn, but as Olwyn’s mind brushed mine, something clicked in both of us. We were immediately comfortable with each other and knew that this was something more then friend ship. More that we are two bodies but one mind. She became my assistant at the school, and the non-humans find it easier to approach her then myself. I guess my being human is still too large a hurdle for some creatures to over come. Olwyn and I have not been separated for more then a week since “Yes, yes I know we are connected/one. Focus/think only on the translations. Much work needs done†By supper time I was again worn thin by the various training I needed to give. The new horses feel ill at ease working independently. I usually find comfort in my little room at the back of the school by allowing my mind to become frayed with the objects there. But I had important things to think about. I had a strong feeling that I could be helping the Nyikains. I needed to talk to one of the Nyikains. I wanted to find out more their culture, and what could be done. I searched Olwyn’s and my memory to see if I could find anyone that had come to the school that was from Nyika. Olwyn showed me many animals’ memories while I searched for any human pupils. The memories of the animals that Olwyn showed me painted a very black picture of even the Nzwa. But none of the animals saw what I needed, the politics of Nyikains. But as for my human memories, I only faintly saw that of one Nyikain. It was of a girl named Yetu. “Why do you think a funaga-li girl will be able to help us/shed light in this. You and I both will speak to animals easier/freer". "The animals were not treated equally Nyika - didn't you gather that from the thoughts". "Indeed I did. Isn’t this even more reason to speak to an animal" Olwyn moodily says. “No, as I said before I need to speak to a human because animals were not included in any of the politics of Nyika†She crawls off my body and scurries into the school house. "you can go there on your own - if the think so little/nothing of us animals". I let out a sigh and head for the district I remember Yetu lived in. |
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