Jorvanultumn found his diare sitting on the edge of a rocky tor in the foothills between Chithishtheny and the docks. It was the spot Davorultumn had used when he wanted to be alone for as long as Jorvanultumn could remember. It was also a spot that he did not appreciate Jorvanultumn following him to. For that reason, Jorvanultumn had let him be alone for some time. However, on the walk to see Meleng and Sinitïa, Fevionawishtensen had pointed out that he could not let Davorultumn hide from him out here and avoid having the discussion they needed to have. Jorvanultumn had to come here whether his diare liked it or not.
Unfortunately, he had not expected to find two people here. Sitting beside Davorultumn was Hilkorultumn. Both of them were silent, staring out to sea. Jorvanultumn had seen this pose from Davorultumn many times. He could sit that way for hours.
Jorvanultumn could not remember ever seeing Hilkorultumn out here before though. Davorultumn and Hilkorultumn had other places where they usually met with one another. This was where Davorultumn went to be away from everyone, including his own diare.
Jorvanultumn glided down and landed several feet behind them and folded his wings. Dull pain throbbed through the injured one, though it passed after a couple seconds. There had been no choice but to fly out here, as there was no other way to reach this location—not without some extremely difficult climbing Jorvanultumn was reasonably certain he did not have the skill for.
Neither of the two older Isyar acknowledged him. It was unlikely they had not noticed him, so they had to be purposely ignoring him.
He took a deep breath and waited. Several minutes passed.
“What are you doing here, Jorvanultumn?” his diare said at last, without looking up. “This is my place. You know better than to come here without invitation.”
Jorvanultumn took a step forward. “We need to talk.”
“We already talked.”
“We need to talk again.”
Davorultumn continued to look out to sea. “I am meditating.”
“You are staring at the sea. If you were meditating, you’d be looking at the sky.”
“Does the difference matter? I was doing what I was doing.”
“I did not interrupt you.”
“Your presence is interruption enough. If you wanted to talk, you should have waited until I returned home.”
“I waited many hours. You—”
Davorultumn’s wings shuddered. “Enough, Jorvanultumn! Go home. We will talk later.”
Jorvanultumn sighed and backed off a bit, but stopped. He had to do this. “No.”
Davorultumn looked back at him. “No?”
“No.”
Davorultumn’s wings shuddered again, and he climbed off the edge to his feet. “I told you—”
“Diare, we need to talk and you know it. That is why you have been avoiding me.”
Hilkorultumn rose to his feet as well.
“Avoiding you?” Davorultumn said. “I told you we would speak later.”
Hilkorultumn placed a hand on his siare’s shoulder. “You have been avoiding him, Davorultumn, and he’s right. You do need to talk.”
Davorultumn grunted and glared at Hilkorultumn. The older Isyar stared back at him and they locked gazes, staring into each other’s eyes, unblinking. Jorvanultumn took a deep breath and tried to wait patiently. When they did this, it could go on for a while.
However, it only took a few seconds this time before Davorultumn broke contact, lowered his head, and closed his eyes. “Very well, we will talk. But I will start.” He opened his eyes again and pointed to the edge. “Sit.”
Hilkorultumn moved aside, and Jorvanultumn approached the edge. “Thank you, Diare.” He carefully lowered himself into a seated position, dangling his legs over the edge.
Hilkorultumn backed farther away from the edge, while Davorultumn sat close to Jorvanultumn, their wings overlapping a little so as to be reasonably close together. They sat in silence for a few moments before Davorultumn spoke.
“I’m not happy with your behaviour yesterday, Jorvanultumn.”
Jorvanultumn opened his mouth to speak, but his diare held up a hand.
“Let me speak.”
Jorvanultumn closed his mouth and nodded.
“Bursting into that meeting uninvited was inappropriate regardless of whether you had the legal right. The Lamdritta would have called you in eventually.”
“I wanted you and Mikranasta to be there at the same time.”
Davorultumn glared at him.
“Sorry,” Jorvanultumn said.
“There are ways things are done, Jorvanultumn, and ways things should not be done. I thought I taught you better.”
Once again, Jorvanultumn wanted to interject, but he held himself back this time.
“Custom and tradition is important. You’re still young. You don’t yet understand, but you will one day. Yes, I know there are some traditions that should change, and they will. But it is a slow process. It takes time. You must be patient. The elispt, however, is one tradition I support in its fullest. It should not be mocked.”
Davorultumn paused and Jorvanultumn wondered if he should say something.
“No interjection?” Davorultumn smirked. “Perhaps you’ve learned a few things in the past two years. You may speak.”
“Diare, I don’t mean to mock the elispt. I dislike mine, but I know its importance. But there are things going on. I don’t know the extent of them, but they are more important than tradition. Even the elispt. You say you thought you taught me better. You did. You taught me to believe in myself. You taught me to stand up for what is right, to do what is right, and what I’m doing is right, even if it looks wrong. With due respect, Diare, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. You haven’t seen Corvinian’s powers. He has them despite no magical talent whatsoever. You haven’t met Felitïa. There is something about her, and I believe in my heart she is...special. I’m certain Mikranasta would be able to confirm it. There is power in Felitïa beyond anything we’ve ever known.”
Davorultumn scoffed.
“You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Jorvanultumn. It’s that I don’t trust your judgement on this.”
“Would you trust Mikranasta’s?”
Davorultumn took a moment before responding, but then nodded slowly. “I would trust her judgement to the end of the world. However, it’s a moot point. We will never know her judgement.”
“If I could convince her to go with me, would you object?”
“No. It is her decision to make, but she has already given you her decision, and I do not believe you can change it.”
“I believe I can.”
“I will admit, you spoke very persuasively to the Lamdritta, and Mikranasta has always had too much of a soft spot for you. If she were to do it for anyone, it would be you, even more so than Hedromornasta, her own siare.” Davorultumn shuddered and shook his head. “But I still believe she will do the right thing and not go with you.”
“She has to. Felitïa needs her help.”
Davorultumn chuckled.
“What?”
His diare actually smiled. “Jorvanultumn, you have clearly learned a few things in your time away. That’s good. That’s part of the point of the elispt. But there are things will need to unlearn.”
Jorvanultumn stared at him.
“The Will-Breaker’s name. You’ve shortened it several times already.”
Jorvanultumn groaned and looked away. He did need to unlearn that.
Davorultumn laughed and patted his shoulder. “I had to unlearn it too. Humans are a strange species.”
Jorvanultumn nodded. “They are.” But he liked them a lot. Some of them, at any rate. There were some terrible humans, but there were great ones too.
“But whether Mikranasta will go with you when you leave is not important to our discussion at the moment,” Davorultumn said. “It is the breaking of the elispt that we need to discuss.”
Jorvanultumn nodded without looking up at him. “You’ve heard my reasons.”
“I have, and I know you did what you think you had to do.”
Davorultumn paused and so Jorvanultumn looked up at him. He was looking up into the sky, muttering softly, too softly for Jorvanultumn to make out, but he did not really need to know. Prayers were private.
Davorultumn lowered his head again after a moment. “I consider your actions a breach of the elispt, but overall a minor one. Before you barged in on the meeting, my diare pointed out that the exact requirements of the elispt are open to some interpretation. Visiting everywhere could include visiting home. I don’t fully accept that, but if the Lamdritta do, I will accept their judgement. Regardless of their decision, I…” He took a deep breath and looked Jorvanultumn in the eyes. “I will forgive you.”
Jorvanultumn smiled, and a tear formed in his eye.
“On one condition. After you leave here, whether with Mikranasta or not, you will complete the remainder of your elispt before returning home again.”
“That was always my intention, Diare.”
Davorultumn smiled. “I know.”
They leaned towards each other, awkwardly shifting their wings out of the way to touch foreheads. They clasped hands and closed their eyes. It had been over two years since they had last held each other like this. Jorvanultumn had not realised how much he had desired his diare’s touch. Light sobbing came from Davorultumn, and Jorvanultumn joined him.
A couple minutes later, they let go of each other and wiped their eyes.
“Thank you, Diare,” Jorvanultumn said.
Davorultumn just smiled and nodded.
Jorvanultumn stood up. “If you don’t mind, I need to go talk to Mikranasta now.”
Davorultumn stood up and shook his head. “Not yet.”
Hilkorultumn approached them. “I’m glad you two have made up, but there is more to discuss.”
“What?” Jorvanultumn asked.
Hilkorultumn motioned to the edge. “Sit.”
With a sigh, Jorvanultumn turned back to the edge and sat down again. Davorultumn sat on the same side as before, and Hilkorultumn on the other side. The older Isyar leaned over and put his hand on Jorvanultumn’s shoulder. “There are things about our family you don’t know yet. What we are about to tell you is normally revealed after the completion of the elispt, but it seems you’ve become involved in some of it without even realising.”
Jorvanultumn was not sure how to respond, so looked to his diare, who placed a hand on his other shoulder. “Darkness Worshippers and Volgs.”
Jorvanultumn gaped. What did their family have to do with Darkness Worshippers?”
“We wish to talk about the Pundritta,” Hilkorultumn said.
Pundritta? Jorvanultumn looked back at his diare’s diare. “I have not heard that word.” The structure of the word indicated a group, a council like the Lamdritta. Pun- referred to the night. A night council? “Darkness Worshippers?”
He pulled away from their touch and scrambled to his feet, backing away from both of them. “Are you saying our...our family are Darkness Worshippers? Isyar Darkness Worshippers?” The thought was almost inconceivable. No Isyar would ever worship Night. Would they?
His diare shook his head vigorously and got to his feet as well. “No! You misunderstand.” He glared at Hilkorultumn. “I told you I should be the one to bring this up.”
Hilkorultumn was slower to get to his feet, his weaker legs shaking as he stood up. “My apologies, Jorvanultumn. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea. We are not the Pundritta. We are not Darkness Worshippers. Far from it. We stand guard against them. We hunt them. It’s our job to watch for their activity and put a stop to it whenever possible.”
Jorvanultumn stumbled over his words. “And the Pundritta are…”
“Isyar, yes,” Hilkorultumn said. “They serve the Lord of Darkness and do his will. We are not the perfectly noble beings we pretend to be.”
Davorultumn approached and touched his forehead to Jorvanultumn’s. “I know this is hard to learn. It was for me too.”
Jorvanultumn stood there in silence, staring into his diare’s eyes.
“Nothing to say?” Davorultumn said.
“I...uh...I invited my friends to dinner.” It was a completely irrelevant thing to say in the moment, but he could not think of anything else.
Davorultumn chuckled. “We will deal with that in due course. First, we have a lot to tell you.”
“Of course. Tell me everything.”
The discussion was both enlightening and terrifying at the same time.
