[hider= Summary]
Oh hey, look, it only took me almost one whole year to put that Elementist idea into action >_>

This is a small little post, meant originally to accompany the final Makeda story, but I have been more interested in working on my mesathalassa post recently and it felt bad keeping this at the post fridge.

--It follows a young woman, first name Kadja Topami (its a double name, like Kate Lee, Divinus ain't ready yet for a full dusklander name)
--She was always a sickly child, not strong, not smart, kids mocked her and bullied her.
--One day, her papa struck gold and got hold of a gem mine, people started to try to gain her favor, beat up the bullies.
--Kadja takes that talk of "If you fight back the bully, you are proving him right" in a bit of a twisted manner.
--Just when she thought her life was getting good, boom, she gets the elemental plage, starts coughing sand.
--As it is typical in the duskland, her answer to that is to isolate herself from the village and wait for her gruesome death.
--One day, some teens decide to raid her tent, she wouldn't care, but they took the one thing she doesn't want to lose.
--She follows the teens, gets in a fight, she is thin, sickly and has no idea of how to fight, she flails her arm around and hit one of the teens. Splish-splash goes the kid's inner organs.
[/hider]

[h3]Irikiri[/h3]

There were few human things that were truly old in the face of Galbar. Outside of those who tamed the horses and deserts that the others races had neglected, most humans still clung to the flotsam of antediluvian and arconian culture or to some blessed tyrant. In the seashores of the Metatic, you can barely find a village with a native elder population, instead, grandsons and granddaughters hear from their grandparents tales of how they escaped the advancing seas, the chaotic hordes, the fires from the sky, among so many other catastrophes.

As such, there was little that truly connected the people across arbitrary regions, provided the absence of the divine. Sometimes, these few connections were logical, sometimes they were peculiar, the isolation habit that happened in the marshes under the dusk was the later.

Life was hard in the shadowy land, yet, a good many of the tribes that survived in it were not harsh to its people, having no issues with the old, the orphaned, the sick. Even so, at the sight of sickness, wounds, depression, a great many took the choice to move to the outskirts of the tribes and villages, avoiding contact with others and hiding their situation. The logic of it ranged from avoiding the shame of showing personal weakness in a society that valued excellence, to a more unhealthy selflessness of not wanting to consume the tribe's resources and time if they could not provide something back.

In the north, past the Dzanyar river, on the shores of the Dzamiri, a young woman by the name of Kadja Topami followed this odd ancestral habit. She had sand in her hand, it was bright beige with a hint of red, unlike the greyish sand under her feet.

Nyarmunru, she could remember the priest and travelers saying, their tales had scared her as a child, she could still remember the details of each one vividly. People burning to ashes even when under the water. Eyes and tongues turning into stone. Limbs swelling with water. Flesh evaporating into a scarlet mist. It was truly the greatest plague.

And now she had it, and hers seemed to be the cruelest one in the face of Gjalle-, because the sickness did not spread through her body and deliver a fatal blow like it typically would, instead, it provided her with a whole year worth of suffering. Every day she felt like she had a thousand blades in her throat and every week she had to manually remove sharp rocks that formed randomly on her skin, it had been months since she last ate any food as it made her ill and caused her to vomit.

She just wished for it all to be over already, so she would stop worrying her family and the pain would be gone. That is a feeling she had for a long while, even before the plague, she was always sickly, and always showcased a lack of cleverness and vigor. Weak child, chuchirikiri, the elders said. The fellow children would delight in calling her Chuche, that is, until her family found new wealth as miners and the people trying to gain her favor outnumbered and outpowered the bullies.

Those memories brought a soft smile to her face, there was such a delicious irony in the people who were mean to her because they saw themselves as physically superior being beaten by those stronger than them. None ever dared to speak of the logic of might after that, some even said sorry, but Kadja thought they were wrong, they were right.

It was too bad, that despite her change from a weak child to a more confident woman, she would never get to enjoy the life as one of the elites of her clan. One year ago, she counted the days until she would get married and enjoy a lifestyle of silk, honey, and servants, now, Kadja counted each day she stayed alive.

The light of the day turned silver as the sun had set, in the dusklands, that was one of the most meaningful change from day to night. As Julkofyr's darkness was not natural, it reacted oddly to the world around it, days had dark grey skies and light similar to an overcast day, but during the night, the light of the ring, two particular stars, Lluna- and Hufangje-, and of all the moons, Mepodzanyi, Edzudzanyi, Rutoidzanyi, Dyalludzanyi, Jofumidzanyi and even the black moon, the redundantly named Dzanyadzanyi, could be seen clearly.

The change in time caught the sick woman by surprise, she had barely noticed the day going by, in a sense, that was good, the long days she spent alone were the worse. Sometimes, when she felt well, she visited her family and pretended all was fine, she knew her father would try to help her if he knew of her situation, it did not matter if she was his third daughter, he always spoiled every single child. Though it had already been two months since her last visit, at this point there was no way she would find a good excuse.

With these thoughts in mind, Kadja Topami walked back to the small tent she had built, thankfully sleep did not elude her, in fact, she had started to sleep far more since the sickness started, sometimes for almost entire days. When she entered it, however, she found a surprising scene, two teenagers were rummaging through her belongings. She would be past the point of caring, if they had not been too greedy, if they had limited themselves only to the shiniest of jewelry and had not picked up a small amber amulet too.

For a moment, their faces met. Seeing the thin woman, who was too pale even for the duskland standard, they smirked and started to run away without a worry of being caught.

Kadja Topami followed right behind, she felt heavy and sluggish, her feet sank down in the mud of the bog and it was hard to free it again. In frustration, she threw a rock at the duo that had robbed her, and the shot was true, somehow, knocking one of the kids face first into the bog. The other kid stopped and went to help his friend. The woman was slowly catching up.

She tried to reach for her amulet, but the teen swung his hand towards her, hitting her face. It did not hurt, but it provoked her, she knew she was no match to fight the two kids, but she was past the point of caring. She rose her hand and tried to hit one of the boys, the result was far from what she expected, it was like hitting the surface of water, a little bit of resistance and a splash, except this one was of a dark scarlet color.