INITIATION ULTIMATE, Chapter 16.2: Narrated by Saphara

Saphara is beginning to find herself in the Initiations - it starts with a trip down a memory cave.

It's my second week in the Initiations.  Sweat pours down my face as I scrub my clothes in a dingy metal basin, and the blanket covering my body only adds to the heat of the hot sun.  The red rock that the plateau is made of doesn't make things any cooler, either... Agh, I'm not made for this!  With frustration, I collapse onto my back, a whine escaping through my lips.  Tears blur my vision, and I savor the feeling of their liquid running down the sides of my face, into the dust.  I rake my wet hands through my hair, trying to cool myself down as I lie there, miserable because of the heat.

"Get yourself off of the ground," a sharp voice orders, startling me.  I pull myself back to my knees, clutching the blanket tighter around my chest.  Rede stands not too far ahead of me, head tilted and eyes looking down at me, a disapproving frown on her lips.  I wipe my tears and go back to cleaning my clothes.  "If all Initiates acted like this, do you think we'd have a society that runs the way it does?"  Her condescending look makes me feel like a scolded child, and my dignity makes me stand and face her.

"I still don't feel like an Initiate yet," I complain.  "I'm homesick and the temperature is really hot... I''m on my knees in the dust washing the only pair of clothes I have..."  I observe the Messenger.  Her hard glare hasn't faltered, leaving me feeling like I am behaving too weakly.  "Do you even miss your family anymore, Rede, after all this time?  Have you adjusted to this warm weather so much that you don't even feel it on your skin?"

Rede finally speaks, and when she does, her voice is defensive.  "I miss my parents and my grandmother.  I miss the freedoms of of a machine that does all our laundry in a single wink, I miss air conditioning, and I miss having limitless food of whatever I want.  I miss ice.  Do you miss ice, Saphara?  Well, here's a fact about me, I love ice.  I used to ice skate and ski competitively when I was eleven to thirteen.  Competitions for preteens and young teens - 'Junior Competitions,' the people in my area called them, were my favorite type of past time.  Being the representative of my village, the ice was practically my life.  Now tell me, Saphara, do you see any ice around here?"  Her dark eyes pierce my soul.

"I don't see any ice," I say.

Rede gives a nod, which emphasizes her point.  "I didn't think so.  Where I come from, it's cold year round and absolutely beautiful.  You see these shoes I wear right now?"  She points down at a pair of worn out running shoes.  "They used to be boots all the time.  Snowboots, ski boots, and ice skating boots.  When I first came to the Initiations, do you think I first felt prepared for this sunny, hot weather?"

"N - no..." Shame sends additional warmth to my cheeks, and I can no longer hold Rede's gaze.

"Of course not!  They were two opposite extremes!  I didn't even have the right type of shoes when I came here.  I came here wearing a coat and boots."  A dreamy look softens her features.  "Some nights I fall asleep and dream I am skiing down the highest slope in my homeland, but there's one difference.  Instead of feeling the intensely cold air rush past my face, giving me thrills and chills, I feel this damned heat."  Suddenly, she lets out an unhappy chuckle, and her face returns to being as cold as the ice she so dearly loves.  "So no matter what, don't think you're alone in this.  Think about all the people that have had it worse than poor little you.  So put this on,"  she presents me a set of new clothes from behind her back, "and we're going to go for a little walk.  I have a little surprise for you at our destination.  When you're ready, meet me at the bottom of the plateau."

I give a little cheer when I see the new clothes, and I hang my current ones to dry on a clothing line between Rede's tent and mine.  "Where did you get these?" I exclaim from the inside of my tent.

"There's these things called "Sustenance Days," Rede explains seriously, her form casting a shadow onto my tent, "but you'll learn about those later.  That pair of clothes and another looked like they'd fit you, so I grabbed them both.  Well, meet me at the bottom of the plateau."  

The sound of running lets me know that she's no longer waiting.  I hurry to dress myself so that I can follow, glad to be rid of my heat-conserving blanket, and then hurry down the plateau.  If the surprise waiting for me is a drink of water, I'd be happy with it!

***

The dark forest is much cooler than the heat-radiating top of the plateau.  "Why do we live on a plateau again?" I ask.

"Now don't go all Attenti on me," Rede warns, "but the plateau is sort of like a symbol to the Initiations.  That's where the very first New Initiation Shores Clan leader had lived, a girl by the name of Antakai.  The rest of the New Initiation Shores Clan leaders are supposed to make their homes there ever since."

One word catches my attention, and it is Antakai - I remember Private Bradshaw talking about her!  "She favored Tal, didn't she?  She was close to you, Talaimai, and Bradshaw, right?"

Rede stops in her tracks.  "Brad - ah, Cruinneas.  That's how you know about this?"

"Cruinneas only talked about her for a bit.  I just recognized the name."  I give a small pull on Rede's arm, and she begins walking again.

"So he didn't tell you too much, right?"

"No, just that she acted like a mom to you three," I explain.  "He said that she passed away when he was comforting one of my friends - a girl who reminds me of a younger version of you."

"For the best you don't know about it, then," Rede says aloud, though I don't think she meant to.  She suddenly looks at me very curiously.  "So you have a friend that reminds you of me, you say?"

 "Yeah."  I can't help the spreading grin, and my words just tumble out of my mouth.  "You have a side to you that can make you dead serious and determined one moment, and then loose and fun the next, just like her."

Rede picks at her Messenger bag's pocket as we walk, smirking.  "And here I was thinking those were just normal human emotions," she replies.

I give her a hard look.  "You're not the emotional type, though... are you?"

"Not at all," Rede agrees.  "At least, not most of the time..."  She looks up and away from me, and I realize that we're treading very close to the wall.  The cobbled rocks fade into a cliff face, and the cliff face cuts away into a cave.  

"We've reached our destination," says Rede.  There's a strange excitement in her eyes.  She hands me a permanent marker and a flashlight.  "Take these, and go in.  You'll know what to do... call me once you've completed your task."

Handprints are traced all along the cave walls, names written inside with a year. My eyes linger on a single name, Berani Quaker, written in a girl's neat scrawl.  I hold my hand to the outline of her own; our hands are nearly the same size, mine being just a little bigger.  This girl was standing in the same spot I was, putting her hand in the same spot that I was, sixty years ago.  Time has passed since then, countless Initiates have passed and failed.  Perhaps Berani has been laid to rest herself, whether in the Initiations or in our homeland.  Yet this handprint still survives, and it will for years to come.  Regardless of time, this Initiate of the past, Berani, will always be remembered.

  A sacred, timeless vibe swiftly fills my heart, replenishing my will to survive.  I drive myself deeper into the depths of the cave, the only light illuminating the path in front of me being Rede's flashlight.  The further back I go, the more serene the dark atmosphere is.  The search to preserve my own name onto stone continues...

In the furthest reaches of the cave, I find a single name that is almost one hundred fifty years old.  Masa.  No last name.  Just Masa, written beside the word "time".  It's written in a neutral sort of writing, too, so it makes me ponder over the looks of the name's describer.  Who would name themselves after "time," and what kind of value is that?  But what kind of value is "journey," either?  I am still trying to decide.  I wonder if Masa was trying to decide, too, a faceless figure who walked into the depths of this cave a hundred fifty years ago searching for a spot to lay down their hand and name.  It's to the right of this ancient Masa that I trace my own name, one of the newest Initiates symbolically standing beside one of the oldest.   

Flashlight tied around my wrist, deja vu overcomes me as I read "Saphara" and "Masa" for the final time before turning away.  Why do I feel like I have been here before?  Why do I feel like I recognize this place in the caves so deeply?  Like a flash realization, it occurs to me that I have always had this cave-blood in my veins... Cave-blood given to me by my ancestors.  My parents were in the Initiations.  My grandparents were in the Initiations.  My great grandparents were in the Initiations, and so on!  And way back then, my ancient ancestors made their homes in caves, where they painted their stories on the wall.  It has always been this way, even when we were too busy with our money, air conditioning, and expensive food to notice it...  It has always been this way.  I finally understand.  Only now, at thirteen years old, has my story finally met its roots on the wall of a cave.

I feel like a different person when I step out of that cave and into the light of the forest that was once dark to me.  The heat from the sun suddenly energizes me instead of burning my skin.  The sweat on my skin doesn't irritate me, but instead comforts me, as I feel evaporation taking effect for the first time.  Rede looks at me curiously from the shade of a tree, and compliments me on how empowered I look.  "You must feel like an Initiate for sure now," she says.

That night, I sleep soundly, and in the morning I help scavenge berries with Rede.  There's a new purpose for me in this world, I can feel it in my bones.  After two weeks of having nobody but Rede, Talaimai, and Attenti as company, I have finally found a crucial character in the Initiations - Myself.  Now that I have formed an alliance with myself, the journey of my lifetime can finally begin.

Unfortunately, this new stage of life means that my old stage of life must come to an end, and this ending comes much quicker than expected.