Relaxation

"Good luck."

Those are his parting words, after a strong supportive hug, and a goodbye follows afterwards, the only thing that can come out of my lips. For some reason, I've grown close to him, probably seeing in him the support I have yet to have...

The support that was denied to me 10 years ago...

Now don't get me wrong, I am pretty sure Anais is still alive, and as such, I hold hope to meet her again, someday. But loneliness wears down the soul, and support is such a lovely respite to what my life has been so far...

But expecting Anais to just fall back in my lap is a bit too much to hope.

I leave Sayn's workshop and head out, looking for a place to hide until nightfall, when it'll be easier to wander around undisturbed. I decide to take the rooftops, since most people can't see there, so I begin to walk towards the highest building I can see.

Getting up there is simple, first by wrapping the air about me to make me invisible, and then by willing the wind to bear me alost, allowing me to jump much higher than what I normally would be able to.

Landing on the rooftop, I lay down to hide, and rest a bit. And this gives me an interesting view, not for it's visuals, but for the reflection it invokes in me.

The soft wind caressing my skin, the sun shining in my face, makes me think of all the things that have been taught to me in my childhood, about the Anathema, and how they were evil. That's not what I see in front of me. Since my leaving from the Blessed Isle, I have met 3 different Solars, all of them very different people.

One of them wants to rid Creation of the Realm's opressive rule. Another wants to be the ultimate combatant. The third does not seem to care much for the gift of Exaltation, using it for personal gain.

They each have their own views on life and Creation, but none of them are evil. Finian is the only one who seems to be too materialistic for his own good, but even he cannot be put in the same sentence as those monsters that they told us of in our past. I begin to question the basis of my knowledge. Just how much of it is true and how much of it is just a fabrication to self-justify their behavior?

I close my eyes, and concentrate on my skin. The wind, brushing my face, brings me much pleasure. I have not had a chance to relax like this in a while. I feel a strong affinity for air, being my element, and I have not concentrated on it in a long time. How the most minute eddies in the wind tell me where things are, how things move.

And how someone is trying to sneak up on me.

I roll to my side and get to my feet, chakram in hand, before she can react to the motion. Then I recognize her. Her name is Lenneth, and she is one of the people who saved me back in Sijan. One of these so-called Sidereal Exalted.

This is another of those things that further hammers down that not all is as it was taught to me. According to Lenneth, we were all originally Exalted, with us the Dragon-Bloods being the Terrestrial Exalted, for being chosen by the Elemental Dragons. What we call Anathema is what once were the caretakers of Creation, all the other types of Exalted.

Lenneth before me is a Sidereal Exalted, a group who has hidden from everyone while subtly manipulating from the shadows. She says that another group of Sidereals has been manipulating the Realm and it's religion to further ensure the rulership of the Dragon-Blooded, and their own goals in the process.

She thinks they may be the ones behind the Scavenger Lands' degeneration. She says all things have a spirit, something I have known as a fact, playing with wind spirits as a child, and she says that someone is directly attacking the spirit that represents the Scavenger Lands as a whole, thus causing harm to the whole area.

She also says these attacks would be coordinated on 2 planes; on Creation here as harm to the landscape, and by attacking the spirit directly.

But she's not here to speak of these things. She came for me for some qualities she says could be improved in me, to prepare me for the coming struggles.

At first I had difficulty trusting her, until I realized that her face looked familiar. She was one of the advisors my family kept around the grounds. I never knew what they discussed all those years ago, but I plan to ask her, when the time is right. Still, knowing her from my past does bring me a sense of comfort, or familiarity in this chaotic times.

"It is time", she says. Always so cryptic. If they've been around for half the time they claim, it helps to understand many things.