Dodge: Serial 119

Losha and Virel have a heart-to-heart conversation. Losha must come to terms with her purpose as well as the future of the Central Plains.

Serial 119: The Land of Aste

June 29th, 48 S.D.         07:49        Kalon, Central Plains

    Side-by-side, Losha and Virel rode slowly across the plains at a leisurely pace. Like so many places in the region, they were alone with nothing but fields around them. Overhead, the clouds were spread as light overcast. By now, only a few raindrops fell as last night’s storm had all but left them. Together, they made their way south, presumably to return to Talostol. Losha didn’t know what exactly they were doing. Virel didn’t talk much at all. They just kept heading down. Losha looked off to the side at the vast distances encompassing them as she digested all that had happened recently, everything she’d learned on this little excursion of hers. These thoughts were interrupted after some time when Virel finally spoke aloud.

    “Water?” she asked, offering a canteen. Losha turned but shook her head.

    “No.”

    Virel, however, rode closer, putting the bottle near her friend’s face. “You ought to drink something, and I know you are thirsty.”

    Losha grumbled but took the water anyway. Virel moved to the side again while the other drank deeply.

    “Why are you here?” Losha asked, wiping her mouth.

    “I came to find you.”

    “Why?” Losha persisted. Virel looked forward as she answered.

    “We need to talk. Just the two of us. I think right about now, you are in the mood for that open and honest discussion we never had before you took off.”

    Losha sighed as she looked at the empty canteen in her lap. “Sa.” Even though both were ready, they waited a few more moments before beginning.

    “I had a feeling I would find you all the way up here.”

    “Worried about me? I hope Denze did not force you come and locate me.”

    “I came here on my own.”

    “You should not have,” Losha said firmly. “You could have waited until my return. I said two weeks at the most, and I meant it. This was just... just a probe, to see how big the problem really is. But I was coming back. Following me here was reckless.”

    “And therein lies your problem.”

    “What are you talking about?” Losha asked.

    “Your whole approach to this situation, Losha. Am I not a competent serialist? Am I not a capable woman? Do you not trust me?”

    Losha’s features scrunched up, perplexed. “Of course, on all accounts.”

    “Do you believe I can handle myself?”

    “You have already proven that much by being here. But what precisely are you trying to say?”

    “The point I wish to make is that you do not want anyone else at Talostol getting involved.”

    “Sa, and rightly so. This is dangerous work.”

    “And somehow no one else but you is qualified for the task? Not Faima, nor Denze, nor Mesel, nor myself?”

    “Virel...” Losha said as she let out a long breath.

    “I know you want to say something along the lines that this is your duty as our leader, as the principal serialist of the Central Plains. You want to say that this is a burden only you should have to bear. But those would not be your realest feelings.”

    A pause developed in their conversation. Virel pulled her hood down, exposing her long, wavy hair to the morning breeze. Losha frowned while storing the canteen away. Eventually, she turned and waited for the Sofos to continue.

    “You fear something would happen to us. You fear something like Angali would happen again. The reason you want to do all of this yourself is so that you would not experience the pain of that night once more. Even now, 10 years later, your soul still burns having lost Jun.”

    Losha made a sound of discomfort as she averted her gaze.

    “If you do not want to speak of that, I understand, but I must yet tell you a few things you need to hear. There are no lone wolves in this world, Losha.”

    “I am not the Wolf anymore,” Losha said lowly. “I stopped being that person a long time ago.”

    “No,” Virel countered. “Not really. In everyone’s eyes, you never stopped being the Wolf. You can ask anyone in Talostol about that. You may have changed a bit, but your name has not. The fact remains that you and that identity are inextricably woven together for all time. Simply because you cast aside that old pelt of yours into the flames does not alter any of this. It is something that cannot merely leave you. And, just like a wolf, you cannot hunt alone.”

    “Do not tell me you and the others are planning on fighting the Zeroes as well. I do not approve of the idea one bit.”

    “It really is not up to you. What could you do to stop us at any rate? If we are so determined to help, we will find a way.”

    “And what happens when Talostol itself becomes a target?” Losha retorted. “The deeper you all go after the Zeroes, the likelier our school becomes locked in their cross-hairs. If it is just me, they will only focus on dealing with a single serialist.”

    “And what if they came after Talostol anyway, whether or not you or all of us together are against them? Once you are revealed to them, what would stop them from going after the ones you care about? In either case, we would be drawn in. There is only one course then; we will defend ourselves,” Virel said as if it were a matter of fact.

    “Easily said, but actually standing against these mercenaries...” Losha shook her head yet again.

    “As I said earlier, I understand your apprehensions. You think that any suffering should be put solely on yourself, however, you need to let go of that feeling, Losha. You need to stop imagining that you have to be the only one to make sacrifices. You need to accept that sometimes you lose the people you love... It just happens in life. In some regards, your intentions are very noble, but in many ways they are childish.”

    “Ksh...” Losha said as she looked up at the sky. For a few moments, they spoke of nothing as their horses trotted along. Virel glanced at Losha for a while, then returned her gaze to the plains stretched wide before them.

    “Can I ask you something, Losha?” Virel decided to change the subject. “Is this the world you envisioned when you returned to the Central Plains as a serialist? I mean to say, is this the land you thought you would help shape?”

    Losha groaned as she rubbed the back of her neck. “No. This is nothing like I thought it would be. Sventa and Henron have their peace, but everything else is so... ugly. I always pictured serialization as bringing about more changes, better changes. But still, the Central Plains are dominated by endless rivalries.”

    “Shall we be honest? I know you had some grand ideas that you wanted to fulfill.”

    “Heh,” Losha laughed shortly. “Sa, before my exile, I suppose I was dreaming big. I wanted... I wanted to see something like Palostrol, here in the Central Plains. Back on Mount Anhel, no one cared about clans. It was irrelevant. Obviously, we all knew we had different origins, but over there, we were just Astens... There were no distinctions, no fuss over surnames, bloodlines, or heritage. I did not know how bitter those things could make people until I cam back down here. Somehow, I wanted to bring that way of living to this place.”

    “But... you wanted to do more, sa?” Virel pressed.

    “What?”

    Suddenly, the Sofos ran a bit ahead of Losha and turned her horse perpendicularly, blocking the path and causing both to still themselves.

    “I know exactly what you had hoped to achieve, Losha. It was something greater than peace between Sventa and Henron, something greater than the tranquility of Palostrol. You wanted to unite the Central Plains across clans, to make the clans themselves obsolete even. Your desire, all those years ago, was it not to erase all the anger and hate by making us one people?”

    Losha raised her eyebrows shortly, somewhat taken aback by Virel. She had never discussed any of these subjects to another before.

    “After I fought in the war, sa, I... I had notions of the sort,” Losha admitted. “But, even with my powers, reality is a difficult thing to overcome. The changes I wanted to make, sa, they never proved feasible.”

    “Losha, I need not remind you that I can read your soul. It is my unique gift. I can tell when your heart and your words contradict. I can allow a lie directed at myself, but for you sake, I wish you would not lie to yourself.” Virel rode close to Losha before continuing.

    “You always saw a different kind of future for the Central Plains, one without Sventa, without Henron, without Kalon or Mepav or Prevati or Besnol. In your Central Plains, we are simply a single nation, a union of many types but all under one banner. We would not be clans. We would be Aste, a country all its own, free from the shackles of war and violence that has bled us for so long. You never stopped believing in it. You only ever stopped trying to make it real. That was your decade of pain, the time you lost to darkness. But that period of your life is over, Losha. Gone.”

    Virel swept her arm broadly against the horizon.

    “This land is seething with tension and turmoil. It needs you. Your blackest days are done, but you are still living in that past. Even now, you stalk by night, a ghost of who you used to be. You have to step out of the shadows. The Zeroes know the Central Plains is trying to tear itself apart. If you want to fight them, if you really want to get them out of the equation, you have to eliminate all the hatred that has plagued the plains for centuries. But you cannot do that without getting rid of your doubts, your phantoms. It is time, Losha, to come out into the open, into today’s light.”

    For a second, like a whisper slipping into her ears, Losha heard a voice in her head. Though the words were old, they were ever familiar to her.

    “Through you we will be raised as our people, as our nation...”

    Her heart leaped a bit as she recalled Suvla’s prophecy. Though she had memorized everything thoroughly, Losha still wasn’t sure what it all meant. The seer had predicted the Treaty of Balawanda and the years after that, the restless state of the clans brought on by their new found system of alliances. Was the next piece really something that bold? Unifying all the clans into a single entity? And was that destiny truly hers? The Olta Fox hadn’t been wrong so far, and Losha had put her faith in the woman before...

    But did she believe in herself now? Losha looked up at the skies above briefly. After so many days of rain the past few weeks, the weather appeared to be clearing up at last. No more gray days ahead, she thought. Had she really somehow strayed from the ideals that once drove her? She moaned as she wiped her hand across her face, then held her palm up as she stared into it. At that moment, as her chest sank, it dawned on her that she hadn’t really recovered herself. She had rushed to fight the Zeroes, to keep serialization free from abuse, but she also had neglected some of her deepest convictions, the very reason she had ever fought in the Sventa-Henron war...

    “With serialization, we have power greater than anything before it, power to overcome our bloody history. We have the strength to decide our own future...” Losha said as she exhaled. “All this time, did I forget the words I myself once spoke?” She closed her fingers slowly upon themselves as she drew her fist towards her breast and shook her head.

    “The way we live our lives, it is not set in stone. Sa, I remember saying something like that, how important that idea was to me. It still is, just... the last 10 years managed to escape me. I did not just leave Sventa, I left my ambitions. It is like I have been frozen ever since. Look at me; I have not aged one bit, as if my clock had merely stopped. I thought when I woke up that morning, the day after Irvis showed up that I had finally come back, that I was not paralyzed anymore. I guess, however, I am still not there yet...”

    Losha turned her eyes back to Virel, but she quickly focused on the plains behind her. Slowly, she pushed Izel past Virel before halting in front of the expansive prairie.

    “I am not there yet, but I am going. I have always have been going this way, just got sidetracked... Sa. The Central Plains and the 14 major clans. It is no easy task. However, it may be serialists who are the only ones capable of doing it. Giving a land that has never known peace a chance for stability, this is no small feat. What with all these alliances and the Zeroes aggravating everything, it is a veritable mess. Yet, I think we could do it...”

    Though Losha had been trapped for so long, bound by anguish and regret, Virel could see that her determination was rekindling. The spark of purpose was once again alive in her. She turned around and rode over to Losha.

    “We? So all of us are in this together?” she asked with a smile.

    “As much as I am loathe to admit it, the matter may be beyond any of our hands. If I could, no one would get involved. I want to keep you safe... But, you can sense it too, sa? Today, there is no more rain. It will not rain again for quite a while. And yet a storm approaches. Not tomorrow, not soon, but eventually. It is going to sweep through the plains. We will not get to choose who braves the winds and who sits out. It is coming for all of us. Maybe... maybe it was easy to pretend we were protected, being out there in the Sieg Lowlands, however, I know that feeling is misguided. Even so, I will not let anything happen to us. My spirit cannot bear another loss, not like Jun...”

    “You are not going to lose anyone, Losha. Least of all me. We will be fine.”

    “Sa. Indeed.” Losha leaned forward in her seat a bit. “A single nation, sa? I suppose it has been a long time coming. I wish I had not spent the last chapter of my life in such isolation. We could have made history by now. Instead, I let anger and fear hold everything back. Ksh... I wonder what a younger me would think of my current self. I never imagined I would get this off-course.”

    “Hey!” Virel said, waving her hand at Losha. “This is a talk to get you inspired. Misgivings need not apply here, understand? For what it is worth, we all fell short ever since we left Sventa. The rest of us never tried to bring you back from your rut. In our own ways, we too were defeated. Denze still questions his leadership as a master of the art. Faima finds it difficult to give up on her own bitterness towards Sventa, even though she vowed to leave such thoughts behind her for good. Mesel still harbors guilt over not being part of WOLFGANG and struggles defining courage to himself. We are all stunted in some way, but we have to end that.”

    Losha raised an eyebrow. “Huh, I never figured they felt like that.”

    “Ah, well, they do not really speak of those things out loud.”

    “So, you read into their souls?” Losha asked with a grin. “Peered into their innermost emotions.”

    “I-I do not intend any intrusion. My ability is just sensitive, especially around those I have known for so long.”

    “Heh, you look flustered all of a sudden. Well, tell me, what do you think holds you back?”

    “Me?”

    “Sa, you. You mentioned everyone but yourself.”

    “Correct...” Virel said slowly. “You know I was to be the head of the Sofos clan one day.”

    “Remind me again, why? Your sister Savi is older.”

    “Birth order matters not. In fact, becoming the matriarch is not something one can inherit. We have to... Hmm... How best to say this? I would actually have to show you back in Sventa... It is a sort of trial the women in our clan must pass; the ones that want to assume the mantle of matriarch must complete it.”

    “A trial? I have never heard anything like that about the Sofos.”

    “It is not widely known in Sventa, and even some Sofos are unaware of the process. Out of respect for my traditions, I am afraid I must keep silent about the finer details of the trial. Besides, it is something that really must be witnessed. One day, perhaps, I would like you to see it. My mother passed this test. Savi did not. I did. Being the current matriarch’s daughter, and having passed, I was to take mother’s places. But, as both of us can see, I left those duties behind me. Sofos will have to find another, or keep Marila as long as they can.”

    “What I have done was... unprecedented to say the least. Completing the trial is an uncommon event, so finding another successor will prove difficult. It may take years, a generation in fact. The Sofos have never been without a clear line of leadership, but I know my actions have caused a great deal of confusion in the clan. Just who will come after mother? I still grapple with uncertainty. I followed you because my principles were set; I would live my life as a serialist. Yet, I remain conflicted. Were my choices selfish, or did I really believe I could make things better with the knowledge I would gain?”

    Losha looked at Virel for a while before speaking herself. “I see,” she sighed. “So that is your dilemma. If only the world required simple answers, half of our problems would not exist.”

    “Half? Where are you getting the rest of your problems?” Virel asked, turning her head.

    “Wet cigarettes...” Losha laughed, pulling out a pack that had been drenched during her operation the other night, flicking it to the ground. “Anyway, things are more complicated than that. I can say this though, we are going to make a difference. I am sick of being mad. I am sick of dealing with despair, sick of watching things from afar, sick of feeling motionless, sick of living as we are instead of living as we could be. I am done with it. Today is the real day I wake up. Today is the day we reclaim ourselves, Virel. 10 years... It has been a long enough; you were right. We will take back what we lost inside. We will find a way to bring down the Zeroes. We will find a way to bring peace to the Central Plains.”

    “From where you and I stand, at the beginning of it all, our goal seems so far away,” Virel said. “One wonders where to start. If I may suggest, however, I believe I know the first step we should take.”

    Losha tilted her head curiously. “What might that be?”

    Virel opened her mouth, but her glance shifted in a moment of hesitation. “I know this is going to sound weird...”

    “I cannot know until I hear it,” Losha said with a shrug.

    “Sa. I do not really see the future, but I can connect with people well enough to know how they will act. I can predict things about them. However...” She paused for a brief instant as she drew in a long breath. “No, that seems outlandish,” Virel frowned.

    “I do not know what you are trying to get across, but do not make it so troubling for yourself.”

    “I know, thank you, it is just... Sa, perhaps I can explain it better later. I need you to trust me on this matter though, absolutely.”

    “Just say it already, and it will be so.”

    Virel nodded. “If we really are going to make the Central Plains whole, successfully confronting the Zeroes is only part of the plan. The rest is harmonizing the clans that have seemingly forever been at war. I... I cannot tell you exactly why, but it is important that we find a certain individual for this to work out. I realize that sounds completely vague and cryptic, but, well...”

    “You got a feeling, an inexplicable hunch or something?” Losha reached out and put a hand on Virel’s shoulder. “Does not make any sense, but my trust is in you, Virel. Sometimes, the answers that come to us are quite mysterious.” She recalled how Suvla’s apparition had lead her through several different obstacles. Maybe some vision or dream had befallen Virel. Or maybe her power to read the souls of others was deeper than either of them knew...

    “Do you know who this person is precisely?”

    “No,” Virel shook her head. “They... are in Besnol. I understand that much. I think we should get there soon too. I do not like whatever it is that is telling me all this.”

    “Besnol,” Losha repeated. “That should be on our way back home.”

    “I may begin to know more the closer we get there.”

    “Works for me,” Losha said, tossing her head to the side. “We should get going right away. We have waited far too long for this moment. We will subdue the unruly nature of this region, conquer all the animosity buried in our history. Remember this well, Virel. This is the day we serialists set off to make the Central Plains into one country, a land all shall simply call Aste.”

Author's Note

15 years ago, Losha Holvate Sventa fought to bring peace between Sventa and Henron. Though calm has been established between these two major clans, the larger situation has not been resolved. Time has passed, but the Central Plains are still a violent place, seething with anger and hatred. All it takes is a simple scratch, and everything will come rushing to the top. From the shadows, one underground group aims to do just that using the strength of serialization. Now an abandoned hero, Losha must once more rise to save these lands from the destructive power of the art. Yet as the actions of her past confront the Wolf, can she find the will to stand against the one behind it all, her very own son?

The next installment comes April 20, 2016. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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* If readers remember, the Sofos have a few particular "quirks" in their clan. Most (an overwhelming majority) are left-handed. Additionally, they never use the command form of verbs in their speech. This stems from a time when they were a relatively small and fragile minor clan, before Sventa had all but adopted them. In order to appease other larger minor clans and major clans, they dropped it from their grammar. Even so, people like Virel can still talk rather forcefully when the need arises.

* There are many parts of Suvla's prophecy (See Serial #41), but two sections have already come to pass. Specifically, when she said "With the likes of pens and paper, swords and shields shall fall, and our conflict will be nevermore. Yet do not count these years of peace," she was talking about the end of the Sventa-Henron war. The Treaty of Balawanda, pens and paper, put an end to the war, rather than a pivotal bloody battle. The war was formally put to rest by a document, a rarity for the Central Plains. However, with Sventa and Henron entering into a new partnership as neighbors, other clans rushed to make their own alliances, driving up tensions across the land. Though there is peace in Sventa and Henron, regionally, everything has only gotten worse over the years.

* Losha's ambitions for a unified Central Plains was hinted at strongly by how much she rejected the ways of the Central Plains during the Sventa-Henron war. She adamantly opposed the culture of violence present in the clans and even openly rebuked and detested it. As she says, Losha's upbringing in Palostrol had a large effect on her in this regard. Though she never spoke to anyone about making the plains into a single nation, Virel knows this by having read her soul on numerous occassions. Unfortunately, Losha went through a difficult period of her life after her exile. Even though she rose to take on the Zeroes, she still failed to recover the vision she once held until Virel reminds her.

* Virel's ability to read into other souls is indeed deeper than anyone imagines at this moment. It is likely also what's causing her to go to Besnol. Who exactly will they find in Besnol and how are they helpful to defeating the Zeroes and uniting the Central Plains?

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Any feedback is welcome. Just writing because I like it. Always wanted to make a weekly series, so I'm doing it.