The day star rise was slowly crawling over the hills ahead as the solemn procession marched on. There were about 500 hundred of them, all in the various mourning colors of their respective tribes from different regions all across the Twin continents of AWA.

From a bird’s eye view, one couldn’t be faulted for thinking this was a funeral ceremony, fit for a ruler. Perhaps this is what Aquina Wotar, marching at the very tip of the crowd’s arrow, was after when she hastily ordered a huge ordeal be organized to commemorate the passing of a truly great woman and warrior.

It was a difficult week for the inhabitants of Syfis and perhaps most of all for the Ruling over sea who had spent every moment planning for the memorials for all the Wardens who had perished during the alleged Fire tribe attack on the capital. Many great warriors had perished that day, but only one of them hailed from the Wind twin and it was incumbent upon Wotar to pay special attention to her passing, regardless of the fact that for all the public was concerned, Aeris Tan was Giftless. Protecting the unity between the Twin Continents was highest priority in this time of peril.

Fanning out behind the Ruling over sea marched the shamans with their flowing white ceremonial robes. Their eyes shone bright blue with the help of the Herb potions they had ingested in preparation, as they marched and sang a beautiful, yet seldom heard in these parts wind storm burial song. They cleaned up nicely, those shamans, you had to look hard and long at them to see the barest hints of exhaustion in the dark circles around their eyes, sole testaments to the sleepless week they’d had tending to the wounded and dying after the attack on Syfis as well as dancing and singing for the memorial held for all the Water ladies who had perished.

They marched as one, neither shrinking nor enlarging the circle they kept around the old woman at the center of the arrow’s tip.

The Gift of Wind and Storm was in decline, that much was true. For years now, an ever growing proportion of women were being born with limited or no access to the great winds. Tradition dictated that a wind storm of a great power level should send off her sister into the Final Light of Alaiah’s grace, whether that sister still was a Gift wielder or not.

The requirements for the send off were simple, yet harder and harder to accomplish - the wind storm to send off should be one from the deceased’s tribe and if possible - a direct descendant.

Aeris Tan hailed from the Kaz - tatari (or Windbuilders) tribe, a nation of wind storms, inhabiting the East cost of the Storm twin. At one point in AWA’s not too distant past, the Windbuilders were the birth tribe of most ara or super-ara power level wind storms. Scientists theorized that the proximity to the bay area where most hurricane level winds originated from, had allowed the Windbuilder women to practice their Gift with both urgency and care, as these types of storms could be truly devastating if not reigned in properly by a Gifted one.

From these magnificent women but a handful were left in recent years. This had made the requirement to find a descendant, however close or distant, to perform the ritual send off, quite the task.

For this reason, the woman marching at the heart of the funeral procession’s arrow, was a respectable eighty rotations of age and more an ancestor of Tan’s, as she was her great-aunt on her mother’s side - Aeris Wang.

As they approached the chosen funeral site, the formation fanned out and Wotar slowed her pace to walk side by side with the old woman.

The elder shaman swung his ornate wooden staff around and started a new song. The rest of his kind took to the new tune in two voices - a lower and higher register, as they circled the prepared final resting place.

The air felt electrified with their voices. As if on queue, a violent wind swept over the high hill they had just climbed, rustling blades of grass and powerful trees with the same ease. They sang of pain, they sang of loss, they sang of a man, crying in pain for his lover to return safely from war.

The man in the song would sell his everything to ensure her safe return. He would sit on the hill and cry out to her spirit, praying for the Goddess to protect her life. He knows, as he hands her the sword he bought, that he may end up on that same hill again, crying in vain, hoping in vain, for his heart to return again.

Their song ended and silence fell upon the grave site.

The old woman shifted towards the gaping wound that was the hole in the ground before them. Her movements were quiet yet energetic, so unlike what one would expect from an elderly woman. She stopped a few feet from the burial site and removed her robes.

The Goddess brings us into her world naked and naked we depart from it, so naturally, the send off has to be completed accordingly. Alaian women do not fear their bodies, unlike their earthling sisters. They are proud of them, they build them up tirelessly and treasure each muscle, each sinew. Perhaps this is why an eighty year old woman on Alaiah would be able to put even a male Earth athlete half her age to shame.

Wang’s dance began slowly, almost lazily, as she spread her arms and began her wide circling motions. The wind started up again, following her every movement, heeding even the slight rustle of her white hair. A few of the shamans were handed flutes and started an accompanying tune. The crowd stood in awe, halting their breath to match the movements of the wind storm, as if their own lungs were under the command of her Gift.

Air is everywhere - it is the ever moving, ever changing force inside all things. It seeks to unify with its caress or through infiltration, if resisted. It mobilizes the unmoving and slows those who move too quickly. It is Balance.

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Wang jumped and it felt as if the gusts of wind keeping her afloat were coming from the ground itself. Wang swerved on one foot and the wind kept up her rolling motion, never letting her slip in either direction. The darkened clouds that had gathered above her roared with the promise of thunder and lightning. They would fulfill their purpose of sanctifying her great-niece’s final resting place soon.

The old woman planted both her feet firmly on the ground for what seemed like the first time since she had started her dance. She lowered herself suddenly, almost like a puppet whose strings were abruptly cut, but the force emanating from her reassured her audience.

The hundreds in the crowd released a gasp as one, as they realized what they were about to witness. That was really all Wang needed to direct her Flight.

They call it the Flight, but in reality it is more like a prolonged, controlled jump. Nevertheless, it was impressive enough to see the old woman hang in the air, motionless, with only the strain of the wind holding her up, as she continued her dance above the heads of those in attendance.

It felt like an eternity had passed before Wang finally drew her limbs close to her body and with gentle undulations began her descent back to the earth. Without a word, she accepted Wotar’s help in getting her robes back on an retreated to the Ruling over sea’s side, a grim expression across her wrinkled face and eyes still white from the use of her Gift.

Wotar drew in a deep, shaky breath and took a step forward.

“Citizens of Syfis, I thank you for joining Us today as we send off a magnificent warrior who gave her life, protecting our capital.” She pursed her lips to stop her mouth from trembling. “While it is true that Aeris Tan held no power over the storms toward the end of her life, she is still our sole sister from the Wind twin who fell victim to this heinous act of terrorism, so We have decided with the Senate to send her off in the proper Way of her people. We stand in solidarity with all victims of the Incident and have worked tirelessly to send off and compensate the families of all brave Wardens who perished for this whole past week. We will never treat any life of any Warden or citizen as larger or smaller than the rest - a life lost is a pain We must bear together with you all. However, We need to look towards enhancing our security not only in Syfis, where the power of the Tide is still with Us, but also towards strengthening Typhone’s forces. Please accept this traditional funeral send off for our Wind sister as a token of Our commitment to protect Our citizens in the North.”

The tidal wave of applause and exclamations of approval from the crowd swept over Wotar but left her feeling cold and breathless as if she had just been tossed around by the merciless Ocean after a powerful storm. It took all she had to reign in her internal idealist who insisted that she should publicly own up to her mother’s mistake and hunger for power by admitting the true identity of the deceased and the actual reason behind her royal send off. For better or worse, AWA was now stuck for a while longer with an illegitimate Ruling over sea and it would do her people no good for her to export her guilt and shame to their ears thus further destabilizing her state and giving cause for the Wind twin to seek reparations at best or cessation from the union at worst.

As she prepared to pay final respects to the deceased, before closing the ceremony, she felt her satcomm buzz in her pocket. It was an emotigram message with a symbol for fire, a young boy, an 'X' and a crown. Wotar allowed herself the smallest of smiles, as she deciphered the meaning. So Wint had found the Magmalian Prince. Finally, some good news amidst all this Kriyan hell...

**********************************

“Your assessments, soldiers - Shankh barked over her shoulder as they had descended back to the foot of the hill, a safe distance away from the procession above. “Starting with you, Lieutenant Hab’rullah. “

Zeb caught up with her general and took a few deep breaths while making a show of frowning as if considering all she had just witnessed. Once her brain regained enough oxy, she wondered for a split second if what she was about to say was pure folly or if there was something there… She chose to risk it:

“It is bizarre, ma’am. The Ruling had a split tongue, it seemed.” Meaning, of course, that Zeb thought the Ruling had one intention and thought process in organizing the funeral but an entirely different set of words had come out of her mouth when she spoke atop the hill just then.

“Elaborate.”

Zeb drew in another shaky breath, this time out of anxiety more than exhaustion.

“If the General will allow me to narrate”, she waited for the customary nod from Shankh before proceeding.”This much we know thus far - we were attacked during Scarecrow by one of great power over the Storms. Our great General then mortally wounded said windstorm. The Ruling over sea just said that the deceased being buried today with such splendor is the sole victim of Wind twin origin. She also said however that the deceased was Giftless. Hence my interpretations are as follows, in ascending priority order - either the one we just saw buried today was not the one who attacked us and that one is somehow still living and hidden by the Ruling or the water snake was truthful in part, which means that she is concealing deliberately the part about the dead wind storm being still of Gifted status.”

Shankh fell silent for a full minute, studying the faces of her subordinates. The other women seemed to be slightly nodding in approval to what the Lieutenant had just said. Of course, what Zeb had said was the truth - it was a fact that they were attacked by an incredibly powerful windstorm. It is true that Shankh had wounded the storm serpent with a knife slash which was pretty much guaranteed to bring a lethal outcome.

So two things cannot be true at once - either it was true that the one they buried today was the same person who attacked them and thus the Ruling over sea was deliberately concealing the fact that that woman was a proper Gifted windstorm still, or their assailant lie somewhere in a military hospital, fighting for her life.

Something kept nagging at the back of her head though and looking at her subordinates, she saw it was gnawing at their insides too. In both scenarios, it seemed the water snake was willing to go to great lengths to conceal something about this wind storm, this Aeris Tan. They had to learn who she was.

“What if she truly is dead, Lieutenant?”

“Then there is a reason for the Ruling to conceal the fact that she was a True windstorm. We must investigate, with permission, ma’am. If Aeris Tan truly is the one who attacked us and the one who was buried today, there surely is a reason why Aquina Wotar wants to pour sand over that truth.”

“We shall investigate” , Shankh nodded in approval. “For if there truly was a power so great still within a daughter of the Wind, perhaps the ladies of Typhone should like to know. And perhaps, our prophet willing, they would not be too happy with their Ruling over sea if that were proven to be the case.”

Zeb mirrored the wolf grin from her superior. Yes, perhaps the ladies of the North should know if a potential Ruling over storms was lost in the paperwork so that another water snake could usurp power for fourteen more precious years.