Chapter Two: Paintaker

Even though the world looked different through Tuya’s new eyes, it was the same world it had always been.

On this dreary day where the lightmaker was trapped behind the raingivers, Tuya’s eyes saw the world as though it were the brightest day that had ever been. Her new vision did not just disregard darkness, but enhanced every little detail, far, far beyond that of the great bird she freed earlier this morn. Lying in the same mud, in the same pain, in this unchanged place, Tuya could make out each splinter of wood on the outermost hollow, could detect each muddy spot on the blood-hued bug flying on the far side of the meadow between the trees, and see the dread upon the faces of tiny khorota lurking in the darkened hollows. Far or near, it mattered not, Tuya saw each thing, big or little, with more clarity than she ever had before.

What was already exposed became more apparent but what was once hidden revealed itself too. Countless streams of mist floated high above her, extending toward the colossal Spire where the tamers consolidated their power under Tugal ezen Celegan. She knew the vaporous entities for what they were, consciousnesses spreading far and wide, linking the minds of the tamers to the bodies of the tamed they controlled throughout the Hollows and the lands beyond. The trees themselves were coated in a translucent glow at their roots that nearly blended in with the dirt. Tuya knew not what this meant, but seeing this lustrous glimmer made her lips arch up with wonder.

For all her silver eyes shone and saw, little good it did for her lying upon the ground, crunched into the mud, her upper body wracked with immobilizing pain. This was still the Hollows, no matter that it seemed a new world to Tuya’s eyes. Worse, Zaya was not here to make her pain smaller.

All that remained of Zaya were memories and promises. Those would have to be enough, even if they often felt like they were not. I will be strong, Zaya. Just like you showed me I can be.

Once, during the season of blooming flowers, a tamer sent Tuya to the flowing water to fill a weird rock for him. The weird rock he gave her cracked when she dipped it into the water and even with her hand covering the crack, most of the good water leaked through by the time she found the tamer. The tamer shattered the weird rock on her belly and its jagged points embedded deep. She crawled back to her hollow, certain that she would die from the pain and the bleeding. Zaya brought her a flower with sky petals and a lightmaker center and set it down beside Tuya’s nostrils. The pain receded while Zaya removed the fragments of the weird rock and rubbed mud on them. Clutching at her chest, Tuya used her new vision to seek sky petals and lightmaker center.

Alas, Tuya knew the season was wrong for the paintaker. The flower bloomed during the season of regrowth and died by the end of the season of heat. By now, Celegana’s earth was into the heart of the season of slow death where the leaves turned to their dying colors and fell from the hollows. The sky petals would be withered and fallen just like the leaves while the lightmaker center would have long lost all luster.

Hopeless. The flower could not survive where it was not meant to be. Tuya would be trapped with this pain, carrying it with her until her chest healed. If it ever got better, or if she lived long enough for it to heal, unable to do her tasks for the tamers because of the pain. This would be the time she finally died. Then again, Tuya had thought that many times before and was still here. Somehow.

Tuya buried the thought. She could not abandon her promise to do her best, to grow, to fly away, to set Zaya free. If the khorota could survive in the Hollows, perhaps Celegana could spare just one of those flowers. Tuya hoped, a dangerous thing to do in the Hollows.

Even her enhanced eyes saw no sign of the sky petals and lightmaker center. Defeat tugged at her again, but she fought it away. Just like all the hidden things now seen, just because she could not see it did not mean it was not there. If she hid great strength within her, this flower could hide itself, even in the season of the slow death. Tuya grasped for hope, seeking it from the source, even if Zaya was gone from her life. Remember, Tuya, you are strong. You can do anything. Promise me you will do your best.

Tuya closed her eyes and searched the wilds with her mind. Sky petals. Lightmaker center. Sky petals. Lightmaker center. Paintaker. She imagined the flower, transmitting that thought out as if shouting through the region with her consciousness. Her mind opened, letting everything else in. The voices of the tamed, uncountable minds like the great bird from earlier, pleaded for freedom.

I will do my best, she assured them all, trying to be strong like Zaya wanted her to be, but now I must find a paintaker.

Somehow, the voices went silent for the first time. Her mind was still, even the despair and hatred that permeated the Hollows went quiet. Tuya noted this wonderful freedom, but she was far from free of her pain.

Breathing, just like Zaya taught her, she focused on her memory of the paintaker. I need you, paintaker. Where are you?

Tuya’s mind tingled with a faint sensation like being pricked by a tiny tree needle. She reached her mind toward the sensation, grasping for the faint pulse of a dying lifeform, and found it. Her mind attuned to the flower, sensing its direction in relation to her. Better, Tuya opened her eyes, and saw the wispy trail of colorless consciousness linking her to the dying paintaker. Crawling through the mud on her side, trying to limit her pain, her eyes soon placed the flower near the old stones. Like she expected, the paintaker’s petals were withered, many fallen, and all of them decayed. The flower’s needs transmitted through her link with it. Too much water now, not enough light, too cold. The paintaker’s stem drooped toward the ground, like a khorota awaiting death.

Tuya pushed through the pain, crawling ever closer to the one who could take it away. This moment of struggle felt so large right now, but as Zaya used to say, looking back never felt as hard as living through when you were doing what you were meant to do. She was meant to survive, to grow, to set free, to, someday, be a paintaker herself.

Thus, Tuya dredged her body through the mud, through mist, and past the hollows of many khorota. She did not crawl a direct path, choosing to avoid the bigger trees where the tamers stayed dry from the torrential downpour. She calculated that the only large tamer hollow she would pass would be the massive blood-shaded tree with all the intertwined branches that used to belong to Zalmug before he took Zaya away.

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Alas, change happened often in the Celegan Hollows, and, in Tuya’s experience, it was never good. Tamer Khargoth sat inside Zalmug’s vacated hollow. The huge man ate Zalmug’s abandoned meat, sat on the furs Sarnai had made for Zalmug, and looked happier with his situation than he deserved.

The paintaker was nestled between the roots of another tree beside the old stones, easily in view of Khargoth’s new hollow on a clear day. This was no clear day, and Tuya’s eyes no longer saw the world as others did. She contemplated her options, as the paintaker emitted its needs again and again. Tuya chose to risk another kick if it meant she could take away her own pain and the flower’s pain.

Tuya slid through the mud, trying to avoid places where leaves and twigs might crunch, going as far out of range of Khargoth’s sight as she could. At the nearest point, she stopped to watch Khargoth’s movement. The big man kept chewing on the meat, sitting on the furs, showing no signs that he knew she was there. Tuya dared not to look into his eyes, lest it provoke more retribution than a kick. Pushing down her fear, she crept toward the paintaker.

She braved a look over her shoulder, finding Khargoth still inside Zalmug’s hollow, and then reached her bony hand out to the paintaker. She shielded the flower from the evil rain goddess’s wrath. It cast off no scent, and thus, her pain persisted.

Can you take my pain? Tuya asked.

The flower emitted a faint awareness, lacking the fullness of human or bestial thought, but it transmitted a sentience to Tuya through their link. I am not myself. I am not what I am meant to be.

Empathy blossomed within Tuya. She knew well that feeling. She spoke to the flower as though she would speak to anyone she loved and cared about. You wither and lose yourself. You who eases pain have had nobody care about or ease yours. I would change that, Paintaker. I would try to nurture you and make you yourself again. Tuya remembered the khorota who went to the cliffs and chose death. If you want me to.

My scent is gone, Paintaker transmitted. Tuya felt the plant’s sadness and anger as though they were her own. I never spread myself to distant soils through the hands of the carriers. I am dying.

Tuya caressed the flower’s stem. If I can help you recover your scent, I will carry you to new soils. I would help you find the place where you belong, where your seeds will prosper.

The flower returned a faint sensation of happiness, followed by a desolate sadness. I am scentless. The soils will not have me anymore.

Tuya knew what it was like to believe you had nothing to offer the world and no place where you belonged. She wanted Paintaker to know that, at least in her heart, it was not unwanted. Her care flowed through their link even as she took on Paintaker’s pain.

In their exchange, she felt the flower open to her, granting permission for her to do her best, even though Paintaker knew it was dying and scentless. Tuya lifted Paintaker’s limp stem and sheltered it with a canopy made of her other hand. The sky petals were smudged by dirt from far below its place in the world and the lightmaker center did not shine. This is not you, Tuya told the flower.

Tuya’s empathy summoned her own tears as she shared Paintaker’s pain. You will be yourself again. Your scent will return and make pain smaller. You will spread your seed to new soils.

Tuya used her hidden strength, willing these thoughts to become true. Her eyes shined light upon Paintaker, the same earthen glow Tuya saw at the roots of the hollows flowed from her touch, infusing Paintaker. She held gently to the flower, giving it her strength and projecting, Be you, Paintaker. Sky petals and lightmaker center.

Color returned to the petals and the flower’s core. The stem gained strength, no longer needing her support to stand above the mud. Sweet scent filled the air, triumphing over the rain’s heavy, earthen aroma. Tuya inhaled Paintaker’s perfume. Her chest pain receded and her breaths came easier. The broken things inside her were not healed, but she would be able to live with them until they did. The flower continued to heal too, until it became a resplendent paragon of its kind. Several layers of sky petals formed a circle around the central petal that shined as if it were the big lightmaker itself. None of this brought Tuya as much happiness as Paintaker’s bliss.

I am me! I am me! I am me!

Tuya smiled, sharing in the happiness of making one more of themselves. She pressed her nose to the flower’s central petal, inhaling his blessed aroma. You are you and you are wonderful, Paintaker!

Carry me! the flower demanded.

Tuya pushed down her frustration at Paintaker’s sudden imperiousness. It was, after all, a flower, not a tamer. Paintaker wanted fulfillment, just like any other living thing, and Tuya had promised to carry him to new soils.

She grasped Paintaker’s stem and carefully freed him from the land.

Yes! Carry me! Take me to the new soils!

Tuya crept away from the old stones, away from Tamer Khargoth, concealing Paintaker in her hands. A pained cry came from the far side of the old stones. Tuya released her connection with Paintaker and was bombarded by the thoughts of countless tamed and the gloomy mood of the Hollows. The bliss she felt moments ago was buried beneath the despair of so much suffering. Tuya wished she could take it all away, the way she had for Paintaker, or at least make it smaller somehow.

The girl cried out again and Tuya carried her pain with her as it pressed against her mind. Such misery, such sorrow, such devastation of body, mind, and spirit, weighed upon Tuya like the Spire upon Celegana’s earth. She must do something, anything, to make Sarnai’s pain smaller.

Tuya skulked around the old stones, using the fog to cover her movement, watching with her weird eyes for the tamers. None of the tamers cared about Khargoth’s crying claimed out in the rain. They hoped she died before Khargoth’s seed took root but they would not challenge him again so soon. Khargoth himself emitted a euphoric self-satisfaction for having won her and taught her the proper place of one claimed by a tamer so mighty as he. Unguarded, Tuya could hear his mind, imagining how tough treatment of the claimed would strengthen his seed.

Tuya promised herself that she would do everything she could to help Sarnai from this monster’s cruelty, starting now. She knelt beside the battered girl, thinking to herself that Sarnai looked withered much like Paintaker had before she helped the flower. “I am here, Sarnai.”

Sarnai flinched at the sound of her voice, breaking Tuya’s little heart. The blooded girl lay belly down in the mud, cold rain pattering on her back, her eyes downcast.

“You are not alone,” Tuya said. “I will help you.” She set Paintaker in front of Sarnai, letting the aroma filter through the pained girl’s nostrils.

“Why?”

“Because I love you,” Tuya said.

Sarnai inhaled the flower’s scent. As she breathed, Tuya brushed her fingers through Sarnai’s hair just like Zaya had often done to her, being sure to avoid running her fingers through the tangled knots and hurting Sarnai. “Love? What is that?” Sarnai asked, her voice growing stronger as the aroma softened her pains.

Tuya pondered that question, seeking the words to explain that small feeling that kept her alive. She realized what it was that Zaya had given her all these seasons. “Love is when you care about someone so much that you will share their pain and you are willing to do whatever you can to make their pain smaller.”

“You love me?”

“I do.”

“Why? Why would anyone love me?”

Tuya looked into Sarnai’s eyes. “Because you deserve to be loved, Sarnai. No matter how much the tamers call us worthless, all of us deserve to be loved.”

Sarnai held Tuya’s eyes, tears still falling. She reached out, placing her hand in Tuya’s. “Then I will love you too, so that you have at least one person who will make your pain smaller, Tuya.”

Huddled on the ground with Sarnai, making each other’s pain smaller, Tuya felt found, at last. Seasons would change and so would she. She would grow. She would learn how to use her strength and her sight. She would care for the women of the Hollows, listen to them, provide them with food, with remedies, and with love. After all, that was what they all deserved.