[sub]KhoZee Productions present:[/sub][centre][img]https://i.imgur.com/ApJH3g8.png[/img]
[h1][sub]ROSALIND[/sub][/h1]
[b][sub]RAGING ROSA | THE DANCE-DEMON | FEVERFOOT | LEAPING LINDA[/sub][/b]

[img]https://www2.gvsu.edu/vangm/backgroundsandotherpictures/pinkrosevine.gif[/img][/centre]
There was a certain childan prayer that was often heard in the earliest days - before the flame, before Lansa, before the great divide. It was remembered by the very old, the very first to be awakened by the Guiding Spirit - and even among them, it was only remembered by those who had, in those first bewildering moments, been alert and listening to the Guiding and Mother Spirits.

Talako the Dreamer had not been of those who listened - not because he was bewildered, mind you, but because he had awakened straight into a daydream. He had often been mocked and jeered at for it, but he had never really quite noticed - the world was full of such wondrous things that he found his mind simply drifting away all the time. He would pause, for instance, by a fallen leaf and stare for endless minutes into the lines that ran across its form, then the smaller lines between those lines, then the colours - so many greens, greens within greens layered on greens perched on greens. Then he got to wondering how long, if he wished to create such a thing, it would take him. Then he got to wondering [i]how[/i] he would create such a thing - what knowledge would he need; the purpose of all those lines, for one; the reason for all those greens, for another. And much else that he - for he was nothing but a daydreaming childan! - could never hope to know.

So he had not listened in those first moments and had not learned the prayer. In later times, however, he heard it from the women - for it was the women who remembered it, the women who had listened; not a single one among the men had listened to that prayer. In those later times, however, when their Father had left them those three days (before the knowledge of the flame came to them) Talako sat silently by the women - shivering, for he had never been able to endure the cold like the others - and he listened with wide-eyed wonder to the prayer. And it had been carved in his heart, that prayer, had caused a single tear to fall from his eye, that prayer.

[indent]So says the Father Spirit:
[indent]I will walk with you in the days that will come
And by my mercy you will come to know of many things.

Love the land, for you thrive in it.
Know this now; know kindness,
Know this now; know fear,
Know this now; know courage;
In your selves know them; strive that you may know.

Your Mother has birthed these mores of honour,
And I teach them now to you that you may know to preserve life;
Learn honour; know honour; strive ever for honour,
This is the highest tenet, the greatest knowledge, the way of living;
In your hearts know it, with your minds know it; know it above all.

Do not roam like mere beasts; do not roam in mindless war,
Do not roam like mere beasts; do not slay the tree, the fawn,
Do not dwell in starvation - feed yourselves and all who hunger,
Do not abide in the shade of violence and death,
Do not tread the path of despair,
Do not go the way of greed;
These things are the stuff of sorrow and bring the [abbr=gods]Spirits[/abbr] to frown.

Do not launch the gaze of scorn on others; all stand equal before the Spirits,
Protect all life - none stand above others and none stand below,
For all mortals come to the Spirits side by side and row on row.

Do not feed the cycle of cruelty; its one face hatred, the other strife,
By doing so you only fall away from the love and grace of the Spirits;
And by falling in this way, you forget all sacred things and fall prey to carnal sin,
By falling in this way, you forget all hallowed things and fall into dark profanity -
Does such life please you; to be forsaken and forgotten as you forgot and forsook the way?

Do not fall into the ways of sameness - uniformity breeds stagnation.
Do not curse fortune and life's struggle, but search for meaning, purpose;
The tools are given to you by the Spirits; your hands alone can move them.
Never declare that you have created paradise; paradise is not of this life.

Only the fool flings his face on to the pyres of death
So do not slay your self for foolish things;
Sacrifice is noble only when done in pursuit of honour's way;
This is your oath, this is your way, this is the inheritance given to you,
After this, only those who go blindly will ever stray,
While those who see reason will always turn back to the way.[/indent][/indent]
He whispered it now as he wandered through the forests, whispered it gently to the birds. He had not quite understood why most of the women had left all of a sudden and why he had been left with the men. They had never liked him, so much he knew even through the veil of dreams that cushioned him against the world. He had always known, in a distant sort of way, that Wapeka and Enola, and some of the others, had always kept the worst of the other men’s jibes and jeers at bay. But he had awoken one day to find the fire out and the great majority of the women gone, and the men milling about or going their separate ways.

He had waited by the cinders when none but those last women remained, and had shivered alone in the darkness and bitterest cold of night - when neither his dreams could carry him off nor could his clothes keep the cold out. He had never understood how fire worked, never understood how it was made, and so had wandered over to the small group of women and their fire. Their glances had been nervous, sad, and so he had paused a short distance away.

“Dreamer? Why are you still here? Why have you not gone away with the other men?” A striking woman asked him, her hair as black as night.

“I d-” he began, but was swiftly cut off by one of the other women - Alona, for he knew her name.

“He wants us, wants our flame.” She sneered, standing up with anger.

“No, Alona. Now sit down before you embarrass the Mother Spirit. Dreamer has never wanted for anything but his dreams. Isn’t that right?” she gave a small smile, tossing her back.

Talako smiled back in his sheepish way - for he knew that, in one way or another, he was doing something wrong (or, at least, not [i]quite[/i] right) - and mumbled an apology. “I- I don’t know where everyone went. W-Wapeka and Enola… uh, aren’t there. And the fire-” he pointed back to where the fire had once been, “it went out. And, well, I- I don’t know about fires.” He rubbed his shivering hands together and stood where he was in the cold, in all ways a pitiful sight. “If- if it wouldn’t be trouble to you, can I sit with you till they come back?”

“Chilali, he jests” Alona sighed, and sat back down, turning away from Talako. 

Chilali stood up and beckoned him close. “They will not be coming back. Wapeka and her band headed for the far north, where none have gone yet. Come warm yourself by the fire, Dreamer. Then you must leave, or the other men might try the same.” The young man approached, and his supple form and tender face was lit up by the flames. He sat close by Chilali and brought his lanky legs to his chest, and every now and then he cast his fair brown eyes towards Alona, then back to his feet, then to Chilali.

“Chilali,” he spoke hesitantly, “why is Wapeka not coming back? Where’s everyone gone? Why do I have to leave?”

She stared into the flame. “You do not know, do you?”

“He was too busy dreaming.” Alona muttered.

“Alona… leave him be.” Chilali chastised, feeding another large stick to the flame. “Dreamer, there was a crime… A terrible deed that befell a woman- Lansa was her name. Some of the men…” Her voice caught in her throat. “She died, murdered by our fellow man. So, the women came together and it was decided we would leave the men forevermore. I am sorry Dreamer, but Wapeka is not coming back.”

Talako stared at Chilali for longer than was comfortable, then glanced at everyone else sat around the fire. “But… but that’s not allowed.” He said simply, as though that alone would undo what was said and done. “It’s against the way. Protect all life, that’s the way. Preserve life, that’s honour. That’s us.”

“Our honour was stained the moment we let Lansa die. We can only move on and ensure it never happens again. Look in the flame, Dreamer. What does it tell you?” Chilali never took her eyes off the flames. The pale lad did as she told him, and he was lost - all at once - in the dance of the fire’s licking tongues. He beheld it with wonder, its dark oranges, bright yellows, its flickering white - and the shadows it cast; light casting shadows! The crackling of the wood - why did wood crackle like that? He did not know for how long he looked into the flame, but when he drew himself out of it the night felt deeper and cold greater. 

“The flame is beautiful, Chilali - and Lansa was too. But I think the flame is even more beautiful tonight. You know, she was always on her own, Lansa - just like that, her and the flame. Everyone always looked at her, but she only looked at the flame - and you know, when everyone was busy looking at her, I was looking at the flame too. And now you’re all looking at the flame, just like she did. Too late, but Lansa taught us before she went.” He sighed then and got to his feet. “I’ll go now. Thank you for letting me…” he paused and for a few seconds, his brows furrowed and eyes glistening, “and, I, uh, I’m sorry-” he cut himself off and turned into the darkness of night.

“Be well… Talako.” Chilali’s voice faded into the flame. 

[centre][img]https://g.fmanager.net/Image/gif_resimler/2ue4nro1.gif[/img][/centre]
But all that was in the past now. He did not mind that he had been abandoned by his fellow men - in truth, it was bound to happen eventually; he was so often off in his own mind that it was not going to be long before everyone moved on and simply forgot to prod him awake. He had found the corpse of a great deer and fashioned a blanket from its skin for himself. He had wandered the forest from berry bush to berry bush, eating and wondering and wandering.

One day - to his surprise, for he had thought his wandering had taken him away from where any childan roamed - he walked into a clearing and his eyes fell upon one of his kindred, a woman. He froze where he stood and started to retreat in fear - for he remembered Alona, remembered what Chilali had mentioned of the women going north and the men elsewhere. It was too late, however, for the woman in the clearing had already spotted him.

She dropped her foraging basket and brandished a spear with a wild look in her eye. “You stay away! I-I know how to use this! My sisters are not far!” she threatened. Talako gasped, spluttered in an attempt to defend himself as he stumbled backward, and tripped right over a log. He landed heavily on his back and found his lungs were quite abruptly empty. He attempted to groan, but only let out a long, low, barely audible screech, and then lay still while trying to gather his breath.

There was silence for many moments. “A- Are you alright?” the woman eventually said. Talako mewled an inaudible response, then breathed in deeply and raised his head ever so slightly, peering over the log that had felled him and at the spearwoman.

“I- yes. I’m alright. Just- a little fall. Th- thank you. Uh, are you? Alright, I mean. S- sorry about- well, that.”

“You startled me. I thought… You are alone right? No companions? No tricks?” she asked, still pointing the spear at him. Her eyes glanced nervously around him. 

“Yeah, all alone. I mean, I’m hardly a reliably companion for myself, let alone others!” He said self-deprecatingly, and then chuckled. “I... I’ll be getting up now, if it’s okay.” He glanced at her for approval, and she nodded.

“Slow. Show your hands.” She commanded. He raised his hands high, as she bid him, then struggled, rolled this way and that, then finally used his hands to push himself to his feet before swiftly raising them again.

He stood there, arms diligently raised, and took her in. Her clothes were torn and shredded, her dark brown  hair unkempt and messy. She had an oval face with wide, doe-like eyes and the grip upon her spear was bone white. “Why have you come here?” She inquired. 

Talako cleared his throat and spoke. “I don’t actually- well, I’m not sure where here is. I was just walking and thinking, you know. And it was cold so I found this dead deer and-” he paused, “uh, well, so I made this. It smells bad though so I wouldn’t get too close. But it’s warm, so, you know. Uh. Anyway. So I was just following the berries and eating and wandering, so I didn’t really mean to come [i]here[/i] exactly, it just sort of- well, uh, it just happened.” He looked at her with a sheepish grimace. “Uh, sorry.” He paused and glanced around the clearing. “I- uh. I’m Talako, by the way. Everyone calls me Dreamer though. What’s your name?”

Her shoulders relaxed but only slightly. “I’m Dy-”

“Dyani! Where are you?” Another voice shouted out from somewhere behind her. 

She looked at him, then behind her. “I-” she began to shout but stopped, turning back to Talako. “Leave. Go, Talako the Dreamer. It is not safe for man within these sister woods.” Her eyes were full of sadness, perhaps regret. With a brief nod and a fearful glance towards the rising voices further off, the pale young man turned and rushed into the undergrowth. As he went, he could hear Dyani shouting behind him, and soon the voices were indistinguishable over the growing distance and wall of trees and wildlife.

When Talako reflected on the course his journey had taken, there was no doubt in his mind that the meeting with Dyani - however brief - and the consequent change in the direction he was taking was a pivotal point. It was some weeks later - or it felt like weeks, he was so often lost in thought that he had lost touch with all sense of time - that he [i]felt[/i] a strange movement not at all far from where he wandered. While he was easily awed by the wonders of the world, Talako was not the impetuously or foolishly curious sort - after all, ‘Only the fool flings his face on to the pyres of death / So do not slay your self for foolish things.’ And yet there was something about this motion that drew him, inextricably, closer and closer to its source.

As he crept through the trees, the first thing he noticed was the soil’s wetness. With furrowed brows he bent down and felt it, and he was surprised to find his fingers came away stained with a thick red and gold substance. He had seen water turn brownish red in the soil before, but this was like no water he knew. The frown deepening on his face, and all his instincts telling him to turn tail and run, he continued towards the movement, his feet squelching in the pooling red-gold stuff. And soon he was not merely squelching his way through it, but veritably wading through the stuff. It was easily ankle deep.

When at last the trees broke, he beheld one of the strangest sights of his short existence. There, in the clearing, by the dimming light of day, the strange liquid swirled everywhere in great circles. It circled and circled, swirled and swirled, gyred and gyred; great arcs rose heavenward, then descended, twisted all about the grove, again and again, rising and falling. They moved in endless circles, and those endless circles moved.

As he looked past the great red-gold mist, however, he thought he could see something at the epicentre of the great whirling, though whenever his eyes thought they had caught on to it, it seemed to shift - no, it [i]was[/i] the shift - and escape his gaze again. He tried countless times to see it, and countless times he failed until his head began to hurt and so he simply gave up.

He had no sooner surrendered, however, then he found that he could see right past the odd motion, see all the way across the strange red-gold lake, to a small figure huddled against a tree. It was very small, far smaller than any person he had ever seen, but his eyes were strong despite his dreaming and his sight was keen. He could see, for instance, that it was a black-haired woman. He could see, immediately, that she was missing an arm, was mauled across the shoulder, and was seeping that very red-gold substance from her neck - from every wound, in fact! He shivered in disgust and horror, and looked into the blood pooled at his feet and for uncountable feet behind. He knew, then, that he had to run away.

So it was with no small degree of shock that he found himself running across the clearing, through the curving arcs of blood, towards the woman crumpled against the tree. “Protect all life,” he was thinking to himself, “preserve life,” he thought. And as he reached the epicentre of the whirling blood, any power over his limbs was lost and he found that now he was whirling, twisting, arching, gyring, tip-tap-topping across the surface of the blood lake, spinning and swirling, hurling himself with abandon into a dance not of his making. And as he wheeled and flitted and pranced with the circling of the blood arcs, his eyes widened as he came to see the thing - not thing, but yes, [i]thing[/i] and [i]not-thing[/i], movement-thing; the dance and movement of everything in that grove, and his very own movement too.

It was the movement of air all around, the rustling of the trees, the flow of the woman’s lifestuff, the exhalation and inhalation of air, the running of his blood and pumping of his heart, the delirious rolling of his eyes as he tried to keep up with it all. And then, quite abruptly, he stopped trying to keep up with it all and surrendered himself into the safety of his waking dreams.

Into that darkness drifted a swirl of red with great flowing twilight hair, black eyes, long dark lashes, skin of sunset and the Spring. She hovered there, in tense stillness - like a spring coiled, pure stored motion. And in that same darkness about her, something moved - another figure, lithe, swift, smooth. The tapping of the other’s feet set her feet a-tapping too - tip-tap-top tip-tap-top tip-tap-top - the clicking of fingers joined the tapping, the breathing of the great red skirt, a shout, a clap, a stomp. She vibrated power, her eyes flashed, and behind her the darkness moved, clapped, shouted unknown words of praise - ‘aye that’s how it’s done, now,’ ‘yes, and there she goes, oh,’ ‘now that’s a dance there,’ ‘see how the tap’s done!’

Then an invisible lute was strummed, a voice rang out - high and full of such pathos as left the Dreamer trembling where he sat and stood. And the woman in the dress of crimson and hair of twilight tapped across the darkness - she the singular light - twirled once, twice, thrice; her skirt opening, flying, fluttering, cutting the crying air as she tapped and turned and twisted and clapped and sent out a bellow, tapped forth, then again- and went tapping- flying across the unseen floor- then stomped- the world quaked - and she stood there glaring, nose flared, features snarling, daring, challenging. Her hands drifted down her electric form for breathless seconds… then she turned away and all was darkness and silence but for the final strumming of the unknown lute and its player hidden in the darkness.

Talako opened his eyes and shivered, felt himself spasming with uncontained emotion - did not know what to do with it, where to put it, what to do - even - with himself. And he realised, then, that he was staring into the ink-black eyes of the mauled woman. There was no discernible pupil, no iris, no sclera; it was utter darkness - though Talako thought he spied inside them a crimson streak and an unheard lute - and he knew that all that he was lay bared and open to her in that very moment.

“When the good-wise sleep, Dreaming Talako, the foul-fools stray and lead astray. Wake, and awaken the conscience of your nation - or else lie doomed to debasement’s station.” The voice was not of any woman Talako had known, but was that of man.

“I- I am not of the wakeful.” He stammered.

“I say wake, Talako, and awaken your nation!” The voice rumbled.

“Have mercy, great Spirit; I am not of the wakeful!”

“I say unto you, Talako, wake and awaken by the dance in your soul; by the beating in your chest; by the fire that consumes; by the fevers that hotten your feet; wake and awaken the soul of your nation!”

And Talako gave no response then except that his feet burst up beneath him and he found himself flying on the lake of blood, tapping, swirling, shaking; and he could not help the impassioned cry that ripped from his mouth. “I am awake! I am awake!” And without stopping he darted from the grove, darted across the ankle-deep blood, darted through the sludge - across the forests he darted - in the darkness darted, without stopping darted until he reached that very spot, that blessed spot even, where Dyani had changed the course of his life and sent him on the journey of awakening.

He collapsed there, in that clearing, in that darkness of the newborn night, and he did not move at all, but only shivered. “Oh wind, oh frost.” He trembled. “It’s cold; oh frost, oh wind.”

[centre][img]https://www2.gvsu.edu/vangm/backgroundsandotherpictures/pinkrosevine.gif[/img][/centre]
[list][*][hider=Summary]Talako daydreams all the bloody time, so he missed the whole stuff with the childans (those giants in the northlands) splitting up into tribes of men and women. He is also vulnerable to cold, unlike other childans. After things are explained to him by the firekeepers, he goes wandering on his own - failing to belong to any of the 6 tribes of the men. He stumbles across a woman named Dyani and she's not too friendly, although his innocent demeanour seems to win her over. He continues his journey and stumbles across Rosa in her grove - and bloody hell, the whole place has become a blood pond thing, what the actual fug. Anyway, he dances and then receives revelations and he goes running and dancing from the grove to tell his people. But he stops by that clearing where he met Dyani and the cold descends on him, and he just sits there shivering.[/hider]
[*][hider=Vigour]
Rosalind:
[indent]Starting: 5 Vigour
1 Vigour: Create Talako the Dreamer into a Champion. He is now inherently connected to the strange being that seems to have manifested in Rosa, and probably has some dance powers or something.

4 Vigour Remaining[/indent][/hider]
[*][hider=Spirit]+1 base
+1 main character
+1 collab
+1 10 paragraphs
+1 25 paragraphs
=5 Spirit[/hider][/list]