[i]Sarid-Ren, Diit-Wautre (Great-Temple, residence of the Great Spirit)[/i]

[i]Lo... ha... ib...[/i] With slow and careful brush strokes, the chosen successor to the Great Spirit Khivas, Qauris je'Feonish Lohaibre wrote the characters for her last name while sounding them out in her mind, just like her mentor had instructed. [i]ri-[/i] "-Ah, hold right there, child." Qauris hunched with annoyance, it was the third time that Great Spirit Khivas had interrupted her while writing her name. "What's wrong with it this time, Mentor?" Qauris asked, her patience nearing its end. "Right there," Khivas extended his hand and gestured to the last symbol that Qauris had written. "That letter there, what does it sound like?" Khivas' voice was authoritative, but somewhat soothing. He was always very patient with Qauris, even if she was not patient with him. She would exercise the privilege of insolence towards the Great Spirit as long as she was the chosen successor of Khivas as Great Spirit, everyone thought.

Qauris looked around the study they were seated in. She was practicing writing on a parchment page with a fine sable fur brush and black ink on a low table while student and mentor sat on cushions. Qauris was dressed in a long, plain Maroon khalat-like smock with a similarly coloured sash, white foot wrappings and sandals, as is the attire of children in the Uraka Order before they take up a career discipline. Khivas was dressed in the formal garments of the Great Spirit, made up of a bright yellow baggy robe with many ornate patterns embroidered upon it, trimmed with a grassy green to reflect the symbol of the golden rose, a fabric hood of similar green tightly covered his head from his brow to the back of his neck, holes where his ears were allowed them to stand free. Finally, a silver circlet fashioned into the shape of a vine, with small antlers protruding from either side were present. The reason for his opulent dress today was for a council meeting coming up shortly. The room they sat in had much natural light in the form of shuttered windows in the smooth earthen walls. The floorboards were pleasant to touch with the heating fires that burned below. Literacy lessons always seemed to take a long time, especially when trying to spell names, which were done with an entirely different alphabet to the Uraka alphabet used for everything else. 

"It's a 'ri', I was going to put a 'er' next to it to finish my name." Qauris pouted, looking at the page as if she wanted to burn it.

Khivas smiled, "But that is not how you spell your family name, child. Remember what your family name sounds like? Lohaibre, come, say it with me again."

"Lo-ha-ib-re" Qauris and Khivas said slowly in unison. "Now, that last sound. 're', not 'ri', you remember where that is in the names alphabet? Point it out to me on the chart, sing the rhyme if you need to." Khivas unrolled a linen scroll by his side that had all letters of the Uraka naming alphabet written across it. Qauris looked over the page, mouthing out a song often used by children to memorize the symbols in order.

"There!" Qauris triumphantly pointed out the symbol for 're' on the page.

"Good." Khivas remarked with sincere praise in his voice, "Now, finish your name and then we'll head to the meeting."

Qauris had already started brushing in the final character, putting a large line through the previous 'ri' character, by the time she was directed to finish up. Upon being reminded about the council meeting, she let out an exaggerated sigh. "Come now, the council meetings are important for your learning," Khivas leaned forward to see Qauris' eyes.

"But it's so boring..." Qauris complained.

"I will hear no more protest." Khivas said in his voice that always indicated the final word of any conversation. Qauris huffed to herself and completed the last brush stroke, internally expressing her own accomplishment but trying to look annoyed at the prospect of the meeting. The page read: Qar[s]ish[/s]is Dersti [s]ji'[/s]je'Feonish Lohaib[s]ri[/s]re. "You're improving, little one." Khivas straightened his back and brushed back the fur on the top of Qauris' head endearingly as he spoke, "Tomorrow, we will try other names. Now, let us head to the council." Qauris put down the brush and took Khivas' hand, they both rose and walked out of the roomy study where most of Qauris' lessons took place. As they walked outside, the heavily armoured and wordless honour guard marched behind them, vigilant as they were with their hands on their sword handles.

Outside, as they stepped down the stone platform on which the building was situated, was a large garden, grassy and mossy, with trees and flower bushes in every direction. The garden, if one looked sharply enough, was enclosed by a cloister wall that boxed in the study building. Qauris took in every detail, as she was wont to do in places like these. She took in the perfume of the flowers, the sounds of the tiny birds that resided within the trees. She savoured every step until they approached the garden wall; a smooth, grey, nearly sheer slope of perfectly masoned blocks, capped with slate shingles, as was common among Uraka fortified buildings.

Through the gate was a large hallway that proceeded to the council chambers. The hallway could fit ten kharis shoulder to shoulder across, had rafters twice as high off the ground as Khivas, and had the length of about two hundred metres. Doors lead in various directions to different parts of the high-temple, such as smithy, where Qauris always smelled soot and heard clanging, the kitchen, where mouth-watering smells wafted forth, and many other rooms. Some open, some closed. The cool floor was a great mosaic recounting the history of Great Spirit Dirfvas, the first of the Uraka Order. There were battles, councils, treaties, and more, all told in images of speckled detail. The walls here were a white plaster spread over stone, occasionally showing traces of old flaking murals depicting the Horned One and the Fluid One. They had been constantly restored until their maintenance was discontinued by a previous great spirit in lieu of new tapestries to replace them. Inspired by foreign nations' use of thread in tapestries, the temple craftspeople began work in earnest, but had only completed about two-thirds of the great hallway before Qauris and Khivas strode through. In the middle of the hallway was a circle of soil covered in moss and low flowers, watered by a gutter that you could trip up on if you didn't see it. Above the circle was an octagonal pyramid made from wood and had hinged surfaces that could be opened and closed to let in the daylight by a sure-handed khari with a long pole with a hook on the end.

The council chamber was an understated room nearest to the central circle. It was a relatively small stone room with a low table, high-backed legless cushioned chairs, a fireplace and only lanterns for any other light. From the outside, Qauris looked inside the open double-doors to the chamber and spied the council as they chatted amongst themselves. Two guards flanked the doorway and put their left fist to their chest as Great Spirit Khivas approached, the salute of the order. Khivas' two honour guard did not follow him into the chamber as Qauris did, but closed the doors behind them both to secure the secrecy of the meeting. Qauris wrinkled her nose, they didn't air out the room enough, and it was stuffy already.

Khivas sat at the head of the low table, Qauris sat herself down in her usual chair at his side. "Let us begin," Khivas' words silenced the other members of the council and they all looked to him in attention. Qauris rolled her eyes, it was going to be another long meeting. She would much rather be playing with her friends, like most cubs of eight winters, but she would always have to sit in these meetings. She did not understand most of what they all spoke, most of the time she would fall asleep in the meetings and get a hard thwack on the side of the head from Khivas. She rubbed the side of her head, at least the bruises from last time had healed. Not only was she not allowed to sleep, but Khivas was always so much more serious in these meetings, and she wasn't even allowed to speak herself. Each word from her mouth in that room only earned her another smack on the head.

"Kedgi, if you please." Khivas motioned to the second council member on his right, the Honoured Spirit of Druidism, to bless the procession with the approval of their deities. Kedgi closed her eyes and bowed deeply, before raising her nose upwards, [i]"We ask ye the aspect of the Fluid one, to grant us the patience and insight to better all of the Uraka Order and the nature it protects. We ask ye, the aspect of the Horned One to give us the strength and courage required to commit all that is necessary."[/i] The rest of the council raised their gaze as Kedgi did, and Kedgi began to speak completely alien words that were said to speak to the spirits among all of nature. Qauris raised her head as was required, but never knew exactly what Kedgi was trying to tell nature beyond that the old khari woman had a frog in her throat.

When the incantation was finished, they began to run through the agenda. There were many items that were inconsequential, or simply confounding, to Qauris, causing her to tune out completely. Trade balances, progress reports, applications for resources at the federal level, news from the human kingdoms. She didn't even realise that she was nodding off before a harsh pain came to the side of her head from the back of Khivas' hand.

Qauris rubbed her head, but immediately perked up at the next item, one that she had been hoping to hear about for a long time. "Winleo, I believe you have an update on Posknat ji'Posdet Seorin-Ret-Khari and his expedition," Khivas addressed the strong looking khari in military garb at the far left of the table from him, Winleo was the Honoured Spirit of the Standing Army in the federation, a scar across the left of his face had grotesquely contracted the skin around the left his snout to give him an almost constant snarl, but Qauris was never given an answer when she asked him how he got it.

The reason that the agenda item excited Qauris so, was that it was the first expedition planned to explore the outer reaches of the world by the federation since its establishment. Until a few decades before Qauris was born, the Uraka Federation had been afraid to step out of its own borders. Even now, the only maps that depicted lands beyond neighbouring regions were bought from other kingdoms. Posknat was the khari that had insisted on the expedition, and the risk-taking Great Spirit Khivas was especially receptive. The debate in the council chamber about whether to commit to such an action was polarising, but ended with the conclusion that the possible benefits outweighed the risks. To Qauris, the notion of finding exotic societies and lands was only an exciting reality in stories, until now.

Winleo spoke with a gravelly voice that indicated many years of ordering men in battle. Despite his snarl, his tone was as patient yet confident, albeit with a pronunciation impediment. "Posknat-Ret-Khari has been granted all the resources he says he needs: Five other scholars from his jurisdiction, six soldiers and a healer, all fully provisioned. He will also be allocated four pack mules, and a number of galleys that will take him south down the Tilgt-Nyrous. If the river should yield to a Salt-Nyric, then the galleys will explore the coast."

"And I understand he acknowledged our forbidding of taking a druid from the Federation borders?" Khivas asked. His stony veneer hiding his own anticipation, as Qauris could tell. He was always so serious in meetings.

Winleo nodded, "He was disappointed, but understanding." There was a deep apprehension with taking a druid from the lands of the Federation. A large part of a khari druid's own duty was to maintain the nature of the land through conservative and ritualistic means. To take a druid away from the land they helped to maintain was a bad omen.

In a rare sight, Khivas thinly smiled to the council. "Excellent. Having maps of our own will prove useful in the future," Khivas remarked, casually not mentioning other, more important motives of such and expedition.