They stayed for the remainder of the day. Saketa paid visits, aided with everyday tasks, and attended the gathering in the evening. Since there was nothing special about the date, and the vorasondu situation was already well-known, it was an informal affair with only about a fifth of the village in attendance.
People socialised, discussed everyday issues and news, and played games. Boisterous youngsters competed in more physical ways, while a few older people did the same in a more relaxed way, out of nostalgia. There was talk of accepting fifteen new people into the tribe; people left adrift by the invasion, in need of a home. Saketa cast her own vote on the issue, said a few words when it was her turn, and then spent the night with Bucca’s family.
Then the walk continued.
“You know, I think I noticed something back there,” Ayna said as the village was vanishing behind them.
“Oh?”
“The way everyone treated you. Sort of a mixture of respect, for your status as a Warden, and a deliberate effort to treat you just like everyone else.”
“Wardens are important, and respected,” Saketa said. “But as an individual, to the tribeI am still simply the daughter of my parents. One of the tribe. Wardens are guardians, not overlords.”
“It’s an interesting dichotomy,” Ayna said. “Culture is a funny thing.”
“It certainly is.”
The area around the training ground didn’t have firm physical boundaries, but after two days Saketa felt comfortable thinking of herself as in the border area, at least.
Their path led upwards, into more highlands. The Red Peaks loomed consistently in their field of vision, obscured only by the occasional cover of foliage, or shift in the landscape. Saketa recalled her first walk along this route, on shorter legs, operated by a very different mind. One completely and utterly open to wonder, and awe. And as she repeated her steps, the memories stirred something within her she had no words for. That walk had been the start of the greatest honour she could possibly imagine, a path that would define her entire being for the rest of her days.
Ayna, yet again to her credit, sensed when to be quiet, and allowed Saketa to bask in it all in peace.
Of course, from a high vantage point one didn’t only see good things, and Saketa knew perfectly well what she could see from the rise they reached just after noon. But shrinking away would have meant granting it power over her, so she made the ascent and looked to the south.
In the sea of the green, blue and pink that was the forest, there was now a huge black spot. A warship had come crashing down during the invasion, presumably too damaged for any of the emergency features to slow it down. It had exploded into a massive fireball that left the ground itself deeply scorched, too thoroughly dead for anything to take root. It was simply a scar now. An ugly reminder of everything that had happened.
“Ayna?” Saketa spoke softly.
“Yes?” the girl said from a couple of arm-lengths away.
“I got you again with that.”
“Oh, damn you.”
“But moving on to my point… I would like to ask you something.”
“Ask away.”
“How do your people feel about scars?”
“Hmm.”
Saketa kept her eyes on the view, and couldn’t tell where the girl was looking. But she was silent for a few seconds.
“I wouldn’t say they have deep significance, the way they do in some cultures I’ve come across,” Ayna then said. “But beast scars, specifically… they are rare. If stealth and a hunter’s first strike both fail in the darkness of Dwyyk, then you are almost always going to die. No second chances. Scars mean you defied that. They mean you got hit and survived. That’s… uh… that’s it. I don’t know how else to put it. Since you don’t speak Dwyyk.”
“Fair enough,” Saketa said.
She turned away from those particular scars.
They continued on, up towards the Red Peaks. The walk might have held a very special wonder when she was a child, on her way to start the training, but while her imagination couldn’t do the work anymore, now she had knowledge and memories to warm her spirit.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“I’m curious,” Ayna said at one point. “Which came first for you people: That mountain, or your love for the colour red?”
“The mountain didn’t dye our hair,” Saketa pointed out, and stroked her own locks.
“So the colour came first?”
“The mountain is actually a practical choice. Its colour is a coincidence, although it may have had a hand in shaping our appreciation. It is the colour of life, after all.”
“Usually green is considered the colour of life.”
“Plant life, sure. But blood is red.”
“Good point.”
Ayna pointed to the centre of her own chest.
“So, the suits… is that why the red star, right in the middle?”
“Yes. Life, the good things… they still glow, surrounded by darkness. They shine, and they are worth fighting for.”
Ayna grinned and shook her head.
“I can’t decide if you guys are bleak or not.”
“I can.”
“Of course you can.”
There were a fair amount of fields in the lower slopes, where nature or dedicated efforts had formed areas flat enough for cultivation. Fields meant farmers, and so the two of them passed by dwellings and domesticated animals. The first ‘layer’ that explicitly belonged to the Wardens was a plateau where trainees spent their first few years.
There were yet more fields, of course, as well as animals, and while the trainees and their guardians helped with the farming when they could, it still took a dedicated force to manage the place. Most of the families that lived here had been doing so for generations, and were allies to the Wardens as much as anyone was.
The houses numbered several dozen, but were spread much more widely than was typical on Kalero, giving the place a much greater size.
Here was where it started, if one discounted the effects of Kalero’s general culture and the lessons it imparted in a more informal way. Here the children first started to hone their bodies and learn the mental discipline necessary to tame power, and in the evenings they listened to the Shallelo, and the other lessons of Kalero’s history.
She saw them in the distance, a pack of energetic brats, their teachers, and the folks keeping a slight distance were probably parents. It was typical for at least one parent or other close relative to live with a new trainee for a while.
Yet more memories bloomed in her chest, of lessons and hardships and the people involved; valuable teachers, and friends, some dead, some now on other parts of the planet, and some out in the galaxy, walking the path.
They stopped for a light meal, and some chat in the main hall, then continued on their way.
Up higher still they went, up paths and stone stairs that had almost been worn completely down by dozens of generations. There were fewer farms, but herdsmen still looked after animals in the slopes, and gave greetings in passing. After a while they were following the river, up past several waterfalls, and she saw in the distance the empty spaces used for practising certain powers.
And finally, there was the second plateau. It was still not the top: There were still slopes on top of slopes, and the peaks themselves were still giants gazing down through volatile clouds.
Altitude made the trees here smaller, partially replaced by sturdy bushes. But there was plenty of rock to the had from cliff faces, and so that was what most of the buildings had been made out of. And stone being what it was, almost all of them were old enough that no one even knew their years.
Here was the ancient meditation temple, with its trickling pools. Here were the training areas where one’s body was honed to perfection, and the sparring grounds where fighting skills were given the same treatment. Here, in many different ways, was the painful, glorious process through which one became a Kalero Warden.
The younger of the older students were off, probably elsewhere in the mountains on some test or another. That left those who were just into adulthood, or just about, depending on how one defined it.
There were about three dozen of them; boys and girls close to earning their swords. They didn’t have their suits yet either, but they had surely been measured for them already. And the field they were gathered at was right on the way to the main hall.
“Ah, you are back,” said a grey-haired man, one of the teachers, as Saketa and Ayna got close to the gathering.
“We are,” Saketa said. “Is the Council present?”
“They will be, in a couple of hours. Several are off in the mountains for now.”
“I have been walking all day. Sitting down for a while is no problem at all.”
Saketa walked away from the teacher, and looked over the trainees. With no suits, they were at their strongest with as little as possible between their physical forms and the rest of the universe. So, with the weather being reasonably warm, there was a lot of toned flesh on display.
One of the Peaks’s less official traditions was that of a very active and adventurous sex life among the older students. And Ayna, charismatic and exotic as she was, had found quite the fertile ground. She walked a bit apart from Saketa now, not looking directly at anyone, just wearing a mischievous grin and putting a teasing bounce in her step. Several of her playmates had come out of the gathering to stand in a loose group to greet her. All of them good-looking boys with bare chests.
After the first quick greetings, one of them actually said something of substance, in one of those western dialects that were hard enough for Kalerans to understand, let alone an offworlder.
“Saketa?” Ayna said, and turned, somewhat dramatically, to face her.
“He asked what it takes to get you for the evening. This time.”
“Mm.”
The Dwyyk put her little travelling bag on the ground, then walked over to a set of standing stones.
“Whichever one catches me.”
Saketa did a quick translation, to some quirked eyebrows, as Ayna hopped up on the first stone, then the second. They were for providing a higher view of sparring students, and Ayna’s chosen spot put her at about the height of her own body. She turned to face away from the group, then let herself drop backwards.