[centre][img]https://i.imgur.com/p2mnJ9x.png[/img]

[hider=Summary]Fikra, Patriarch of the Bato-Elyds, sits with his kinsmen of the Bato-Elyd creed.
After a prayer, Fikra asks those gathered about love and what it is.
They discuss it for a while, and there appears to be something more between the Garid chieftess, Ruya, and the Fikra.[/hider][/centre]

Gathered in the home of the Patriarch, the chiefs and elders of the Bato-Elyd Eskandars sat before the young Fikra. The austere Patriarch observed his gathered kinsmen and followers even as they looked to him. The great majority of them had seen him for the very first time when they had come to take the pledge of allegiance and so now they observed him uncertainly, no doubt wondering whether he was like his father or a different breed of Patriarch. Fikra looked heavenwaard, away from their staring eyes, and raised his hands to heaven to speak words of blessing and prayer as an opening to the monumental meeting. It was not every day, after all, that so many loyal Bato-Elyds in whose veins ran the blood of the Prophet-Patriarch gathered together in one place. But then again, it was not every day that a Patriarch died and a new Patriarch arose.

'Oh You, the marvels of whose might can never wane; honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and prevent us from deviating from Your path.
Oh You, the term of whose rule will never end; honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and release us from Your just vengeance.
Oh You, the coffers of whose mercy are inexhaustible; honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and appoint for us a portion of Your mercy.

Oh You, whom eyes fall short of truly seeing though You light up the darkness of our nights; honour Eskandar and the progeny of Eskandar and make us the closest of creation to You.

Oh You, before whose magnificence all great things wither; honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and give us blessings in You.

Oh You, who possesses the knowledge of all things and from whom no secret can be hidden; honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and expose us not before You and before Your creation.

Oh Mother, remove our need for all gifts through Your gift, and spare us the loneliness engendered by those who desert us through Your support; that we may ask none along with You to give us anything, and that we may not feel loss at anyone's desertion when You are present.

Oh Mother, so honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar, and make it so that fate is with us, not against us, that it is to our benefit and not to our loss, that it gives the turn to prevail to us and not to others.

Oh Mother, so honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and protect us from Yourself, lead us through Yourself, guide us to Yourself, and do not cast us far from Yourself.
For safety is to him whom You protect, and knowledge goes only to whomsoever You guide, and to he whom You keep near go all the spoils.

Oh Mother, honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and spare us the treacherous twists and turns of future days, the evil of Your enemies' snares, and the aggression of those who wield power and authority over us.

Oh Mother, they are spared only whom You, in Your overflowing strength and might, choose to spare; so honour Eskandar and the progeny of Eskandar and spare us.

Oh Mother, honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and cure the illness in our hearts by causing us to the remember and exalt  Your might, and cure the the idleness of our bodies by causing us to give thanks for Your favour, and cure the sleep of our tongues by causing us to glorify Your kindness.

Oh Mother, honour Eskandar and the faithful progeny of Eskandar and make us of those who call all of creation to You; make us the guides who direct all towards You, and Your chosen elect whom you have elevated and blessed above all others. 
Oh You, oh most merciful of those who show mercy, oh Mother, oh light of the world. In Your name do we begin all prayers, and with Your name do we bring them to an end - though Your name and Your glory and You Yourself know no beginnings and no ends.' And with the prayer complete, Fikra lowered his hands and all those present looked to the ground and were silent for many minutes, each enjoying a small moment of closeness with the Moon-Mother. 

'Unahra,' the Patriarch at last said, breaking the silence. Unahra looked up in response, 'you are well-learned in many things, I am told, and I am interested in knowing your view on a certain topic.' The old Unahra smiled and nodded respectfully.

'I am but a babe before you, Patriarch. You are a river flowing from the well-spring of all knowledge, and I a thirsting child who can only hope to quench his thirst if you see fit to honour me so.' Fikra did not respond to the man's words and pressed on with his question.

'My question concerns love. What is it?' The old man chuckled and looked around himself at the gathered chiefs and other elders. 

'Love is a series of thoughts, my Patriarch. Thoughts that are so incessant that one's heart becomes occupied with them, and one's soul is consequently affected - maybe even changed - by them.' Fikra considered the old man's words for a few moments but said nothing. A voice then rose up.

'It had been better, Unahra, if you shrugged and said, "I don't know" - it is yours to answer if the question concerns divorce or, for instance, a pilgrim who went hunting or - I don't know - killed an ant or some such thing. As for a question like this, it is for people like us to answer.' It was sharp-eyed Ruya who spoke. Fikra had recognised the Garid chieftess' voice even before he looked her way.

'Speak then, Ruya. What is love?' Ruya's pale honey eyes met the yellow of the Patriarch's and, without breaking her gaze from his, spoke.

'Love,' she said, 'is a pleasant sitting partner, a beloved companion, and a possessor of a kingdom whose actions are gentle, and whose ways are mysterious, and whose rulings on matters are permissible to follow, it has possessed the bodies and their spirits, the hearts and their passing passions, the eyes and their gazes, and the minds and their opinions. And it is known that they who have suffered love and maintained their silence through it, refraining from sealing that love by illegitimate means and maintaining patience until the Moon-Mother grants them their heart's desire, then the Moon-Mother will forgive them and grant them the station of martyrdom in death.' Fikra nodded slightly at her words, their eyes still hanging one to the other.

'I have heard it said that love is a madness, and that just as madness has many colours and forms, so too does love have many colours and forms.' 

'I once visited Darofid,' a man suddenly spoke up. With some reluctance, Fikra looked away from the chieftess to the one who now spoke, 'nearly ten years back now, and I was hosted there by a man of the people of Darofid who one day said to me, "shall I not show you a youth in love?" And I said of course, for I had long heard people speak of love and the madness which comes with it, and I had in all truth longed to see it with my own eyes. So he gave me a day on which he would take me, and it was a thing agreed. 

And as we were on our way, my companion set about describing to me the piety of this man and his incresaingly ascetic life and the great pains he went to in his worship. And so I asked with whom this man was smitten, and my companion told me: "With a slave-girl belonging to a family distanly related to him. And he used to visit them often for matters of business, so that it came to be that she eventually found a way into his heart while he was unaware. So he asked to buy her from them, but they refused. So he offered to them all that he owned in exchange for her - and it was something like nine-hundred Orif-Figs - but they refused out of a vile and deep-rooted hatred, and jealousy that one such as her should be his. 

And so after they had refused him again and again, the slave-girl sent to him a written letter - and she loved him with equal passion and strength as he did her. And the long and short of the letter was: "Command me whatever you will, for by the Moon-Mother I shall obey you and shall incline myself towards your command in whatever you say." So he sent to her saying, "Take ye with obedience to none but the Moon-Mother, and obey also those who are your rightful owners - for that is part of obeying the Moon-Mother -, and leave off thinking of me, for it may be so that the Moon-Mother, glorified is She, will deign to make for you and I a reprieve and deliverance. For, by Her who lights up the heavens in the night, I am not one whose soul is at ease in taking something beloved to me, after She has denied me it, in a manner that is illicit and shameful and sinful. Nay, but I seek aid from Her in this our matter; so let this be the last of our communications one to the other, for it is loathsome to me that the Moon-Mother should see me engaged in a matter She has denied me while I am between Her hands. So I beseech you fear Her, for that fear is a protection for those who obey Her, and in it is a ward against disobeying Her." 

And my companion told me that this young lover turned to intense effort in worship, and he took up poetry and isolated himself from creation, and he barely ever left the confines of his home, busying himself with worship and thought of her. By Her who banishes the darkness of the night, he remained in this state until it utterly broke him, and was now barely sane.

We then arrived at the door of this man's home, and we requested permission to enter and permission was given. So I entered, and discovered this to be a most spacious home, and we came upon a man lain on the ground on some coarse bedding. So we greeted him, but there came from him  no response. We sat by his side and I was able to look at him more closely, and it was the case that his visage was of the most beautiful I had ever seen. And he was beating the ground - as though in pain - and breathing heavily and with difficulty, and more than once I became certain that his spirit had fled his body from the intensity of the pain and hurt that he was in.

Then he turned, and I suddenly saw that by his side was a flower of intense redness, so I said to my companion, "what is this? For by the Moon-Mother I have not seen this year a flower before this!" So he said, "I belive so-and-so (and he spoke the slave-girl's name) sent with it to him." So when he named her the love-struck youth suddenly raised his head and looked to us, and he said:

[centre]I made my very flesh the soil to plant her flower
To breathe in her love's fragrance should my despair glower
Who has seen like me a man dressed in tears and sadness?
Love caused my ailment, I'm now a friend to madness,
For life is manic moments in a sea of constant sorrow:
Unforgotten yesterdays and no brightness on the morrow.[/centre]

There was more, but I cannot quite remember it right now. Having spoken thus, his head fell back and he was once again in his near-comatose state. I turned to my companion, shocked, and declared: "This very hour, by Her who welds night into day, he dies." And I saw of the man's state what I could not bear to see much longer, so I arose pulling my cloak, and by the Moon-Mother I had not reached the door before I heard screams and shouts. "What is it?" I asked, and they told me, "By the Moon-Mother, he is dead." So I said, "By Her to whom all souls ascend, I shall not depart until I witness his burial." 

And the people came to know of what had come about, and they came forth with a physician who told us, "Your friend has departed towards that which all shall depart, so see to the matter of his burial." So we washed him and dressed him and buried him, and the people then left.

My companion then said to me, "Come, let us be gone." So I said to him, "You go, for I wish to remain her a while more." And so he went. I sat beside the grave, weeping bitterly and contemplating and taking lessons from this man, and remembering the people graced with the Moon-Mother's love. 

So while I was in this manner, I saw coming towards me a slave-girl, hesitant and looking here and there as though she were a gazelle. So she said: "Oh you - where did they bury this youth?" And, by Her who holds up the heavens, hers was a face radiating with a  beauty such as I had never seen before or since. So I rose up and pointed silently to his grave. So she approached it and fell to her knees before it, whereupon - by the living, breathing heavens - she did not leave upon his grave an unturned spot, taking the earth and pouring it upon her head, and she took to burrowing her face into the earth as though to reach the man within and weeping and crying, till I thought she was going to die. 

But it was not so long before a people emerged searching for her and they came upon her, so they pulled her away and took to beating her. So I stepped forth and said to them, "Be gentle with her, may the Moon-Mother show mercy on you!" So she said, "Let them, oh man, do as they will, for by the Moon-Mother they shall find no usefulness for them in me after him, so let them deign to do with me what they will." And it dawned on me then that she was the one whom he had loved. And so I departed and left her.'

'That is quite the tale, Hajjam' Ruya said once the man had grown silent and all those gathered sat reflecting on the tale, 'do you mean by it that love is indeed a madness?'

'I don't know, truth be told.' Hajjam said sheepishly, 'but perhaps what I do mean to say is that, perhaps, it would be easier to identify love by its signs rather than by an attempt at defining it.' Ruya nodded slightly and looked to the Patriarch who seemed deep in thought.

'And what are they, the signs of love?' Fikra at last asked.

'Surely they are more than can be counted!' one declared.

'They can't be infinite...' another countered.

'I mean, I could think of at least one,' Hajjam spoke up once more.

'Pray tell,' said Ruya. The old man looked from Ruya to the Patriarch and smiled knowingly.

'Love, may the Moon-Mother exalt and raise you in station, has certain signs that the intelligent one is quick to detect and the shrewd one immediately recognises. Of these signs the very first is the pining gaze. For you see, may the Moon-Mother bless you, the eye is the wide and open gateway of the soul through which all of its secrets may be scrutinised and which conveys even its most private thoughts to those well-versed in reading them. And unless both lovers be made of stone or steel, the eyes of one or the other will manifest in them their deepest­ and most well-hidden feelings. 

You will see, for instance, the lover gazing at the beloved unblinkingly; the lover's eyes follow the beloved one's every movement, withdrawing and inclining as the other withdraws and inclines. I have, may the Moon-Mother guide you, written a poem on this very topic, from which I shall quote to you but a small part:

[centre]My eye no other place of rest 
Uncovers, save with ye; 
'Tis said the lodestone is possessed 
Of a like property.
To right or left does it pursue 
Your movements up or down, 
As poor men seeking succour do
In each and every town.[/centre]

When speaking, the lover will direct speech to the beloved even when purporting - however earnestly - to address another: the affection is apparent to anyone who has eyes to see. When the beloved speaks, the lover listens attentively to every word, marvelling at everything the beloved says. This is so even when the speech and observations of the beloved are extraordinarily absurd. 
The lover seeks earnestly to be in the proximity of the beloved, endeavours to sit as near as possible when in gatherings, and lays aside all occupations obliging departure. I have put this into verse also:

[centre]With great regret do I arise
When our brief togetherness ends,
Like the sinner who weeps and cries
When the hangman for him sends.

But to our meeting do I rush
Bidding all worldly things goodbye
Swift as the moon as it does brush
Off the darkness of the sky.

But yet again the time must come
To go our ways and part anew
Like night and day who, weeping, dumb,
Part as the sun comes into view.[/centre]

Among love's other signs are the sudden confusion and excitement that come upon the lover when unexpectedly seeing the beloved or someone who resembles the beloved. Even hearing the name of the beloved can engender this intense response.

Another such sign - and this is the last I shall mention, for I do not wish to bore you -  is that the lover goes to great hardship, or acts differently from the norm, so as to show off good qualities and so become more desirable. When struck by love, how often has it been that the miser opened his purse and gave abundantly, the scowler relaxed his frown, the coward leapt heroically into the fray, the dullard became sharp-witted, the boor turned into the perfect gentleman, the scoundrel transformed himself into the model of morality, the ne'er-do-well smartened up, the decrepit recaptured lost youth, the godly went wild, the self-respecting gave up on dignity - and all due to love.' And here Hajjam stopped and bowed his head respectfully towards the Patriarch.

'By the Moon-Mother, Hajjam, have you made understanding love the mission of your life?'

'The goddess forbid!- the mission of my life is to serve Her and Her chosen elect!' Hajjam declared, and those gathered burst into laughter save Fikra who lowered his head and looked at the ground.

'But what causes you to ask about this matter, Patriarch? Could it be that you suspect you are caught by the madness?' It was Siknara, chieftess of the Radids, who spoke. She was sat beside Fikra and had both of her arms wrapped around the Patriarch's right arm, clinging to it like one who had no intention to let it go. Fikra shook his head firmly.

'Far from it, Chieftess. But perhaps you are the most capable of telling us about love - is it not passed down from one Radid chief to the next?'

'Oh yes! But I could never speak my heart before the people. No, not even before the beloved himself,' she said with a knowing smile, 'wise Hajjam may try and endeavour, but he will never be able to open the heart of a lover and search within it for all that love is. Above all things, it is what cannot be described that makes love what it is. Do you want to know what love is? Then love!' And she laid her head on the Patriarch's shoulder and closed her eyes for a few moments. When she opened them again, she was looking directly at Ruya who was staring at Siknara strangely. Before the Radid chieftess could smile, Ruya had already cast her gaze elsewhere.