Oricima
Chapter 1
Departing
The Clocks weren’t working. The air was too cool for them to be: cold as the hand of the night you had awoken into: a usual hour for you to rise. The beat of their rhythm was still there as you approached but you knew they didn’t tick as they should.
You moved with motions to check on them as the thoughts of pace raced in your head, quickly and with poise and fluidity as nothing material had but alike the fresh air of the night, a few hours before waking sun. And with them not working, there would be no water, and of course no way to beat the midday heat which lay across this world every time the sun rose over the sky. A day in the desert. Oricima was a cruel mistress, your father thought to tell your mother once and now you would experience it if you didn’t take the proper action. You checked on the System-Clock and as suspected there were faults in its operation: it would need to be repaired for you to stand the heat of midday in this world.
So you hurried around the quiet like the night hut, everything was neatly placed and organised but it seemed slightly scattered in your quick mood. You took all your things of some value: coin, herbs, wares, Hides and Mini-Clocks, those especially would net you cash. Taking them to your Riding-Bird, you placed them in her sack: earth coloured like some dusty soil and portioned onto her back ends. You had no dear things to take except your trusty rifle, one which had served you well over your years and had given you great pride in some of the kills you had scored with it. You remembered your first kill which you had shared with your mother as well as the first one with your father and the first one you finally had alone without them it all seemed just in the back of your mind looking at it. You were also taking your dear Riding-Bird, one named after your mother’s. The term now archaic in your own speech or even the older language of her homeworld, a place you did not know where it lay amongst the stars only that it was a Moon like Alendria but mostly covered in great fields of green as well as some forests and hilly terrain, orbiting around some bright sun and now lost forever to a darker power. You did not even know if your father came from the same world. It was likely however as the descriptions seemed to match, many plains and verdant springs.
There was one last thing to do, you felt it in your bones and stirring in your heart. Just a short trek and you were at a stone marker, grey unlike the desert but not so sharply that it contrasted too much with the subtle sand colour: the dusty sweep which served as the ground of this world. It only read “May Starmaker guide them into the Next Stars” followed by an obituary “Look to the Sky to find them”: your parent’s grave. You felt unburdened as your feelings welled. It was a moment of unspoken words and uncalled thoughts: The memory only hanging in the back. Silent was the desert as only the breeze of near twilight sounded: faint like the Light of your own System-Clock and much dimmer than the stars which spun and brought their light into the sky. After that you spoke farewell, to part. Now only thinking of your journey ahead across a stretch of the desert: many dunes, but crossable. So the memory was put away onto a shelf to be unbrought and unseen as you passed through the dunes, it was much to always dwell on the past. Sometimes you doubted why your parents had come to this world but they had never given a reason why they came here. You wondered.
You had lived here since you were young, a youth spent alone and without siblings. Sometimes you wondered what it would be like to have them or how your parents would feel about having another, you only knew you were theirs. The desert hut: big enough and spacious enough only for three had been your home when you were on the brink of coming to maturity: your parents had taken you there as they feared you would be persecuted by this Satellite’s people for you being a Psychic. The place which birthed you: the city which lay just ahead became a place you would not visit again for Lamps, until you got your powers under control. Your parents never mentioned it to anyone of what you were, at least not anyone who you knew. Sometimes in this desert it had been hard nights with no sleep and visions of Daemons and Shadows hunting you, a world unknown and one you did not want to know. You felt the cloth of shaking motions and fear in those moments and you did not like to dwell on them, but it still hanged. So you trekked on.
Your kind lived different lives due to your mental energies: your powers, your parents told you that and you sometimes felt it. Still it had been the spin of many Lamps since you had used your abilities: the unfolding of many events. Nights were calmer, the haunt of Shadows unpresent, no terror in dreams. It was better to get on with just your rifle and instincts than to rely on headspace. It had served you well, although you still remember the times when you told your parents how you could move objects with your mind. Now you didn’t feel like you could do it again. But maybe someday if needed. Something in the back of your mind told you that someday, was guaranteed, probably logic or maybe emotion or even a destiny unfamiliar.
As your Riding-Bird moved across the roll of the desert ,guided only by the light of the stars shining bright, your mind wandered over them, imagining what lay beyond in their embrace, more dunes perhaps but other worlds like Alendria or even Rhenia and some unlike either. The lay of pale sand made calmness on your mind as your dear Bird moved across them. She was a fine young bird, your parents had gotten you her when you had turned appropriate age, not hatched from the egg, but in her bright youth, you wondered if your parents had a youth alike to that of your bird, surely someone like them had one, moving amongst the trees of childhood like a marten. You remembered to stroke her head and she paused for but a moment, as you did, before she continued on the familiar path. One she knew to take and one which you subtly guided her on.
Less than three Passes over the sands not far for the small Satellite was when you arrived at the Cool Zones extending off from the city, where the foreigners dwelled, as well as some of the natives: or much of them, you were not sure and the relevancey had never been put to mind. You suddenly remembered you had forgotten to take your System-Clock, it sprung to your mind then, like a sharp jab. So there would be nothing to repair, only to sell. A casual mistake but also a great one and your bird could hold more, she could definitely hold it. You would never return to the hut where you were raised and you felt like something had become empty. You of course would never return to the marker of your parent’s memory again, as you remembered the fur on your mother’s face, blonde cream unlike your father’s brown, the same colour you bore, instead you had inherited her indigo eyes. You had gone never to return. A slip of the mind or perhaps something else, something which you could not think of being relevant to your life, Starmaker did not guide every moment.
Now you thought it would do you well to set out from this world, one so inhospitable to your kin: great heat and smoldering sun. And one that had little to offer. You would continue your life as a Hidehunter somewhere else now. Alendria probably. The Moon which this satellite spun around was waiting, a fertile world abound with forests which homed creatures more valuable than most of the ones on this world: the bounty of a rich Moon so close yet so far and with no memories except the ones you would make on it. Perhaps new friends, you never had any besides your parents. The hunting was always good there every one here commented on and someone as skilled as you could make quite a living there. Or so it could be set in the stars, if only.
“Chicken you did good” you said to your bird
You did not know what that word meant, only that it was a word from long ago. Hopping off you found that you were staring into the face of a native, their lizard face staring back into you with the cold expression of their kind while they enjoyed the coolness of the Zones. Even they did not like the heat graven of this Satellite and you often caught them just basking and taking in the air of the cities: just in mirth and relaxment in moments without any burdens. You asked them if they had ever been to the Moon this world orbited and they said no, you didn’t think they would have been. Maybe in a few days or a week you would be there and this desert long behind you and hopefully not to be missed as a theater, only the acts and histrios mattered. You then asked if they had anything to sell or wanted to buy anything but they declined your offer. Back to the city and even deeper into the Cool Zones where the faint blue to white glow of the Light would be even stronger, you had already picked up on the near-Ultraviolet glim. Your parents had regularly come to the city to barter items for coin. And now you found yourself a prostitute to its whims, a market which you did not know how to spin in your favour and one which you found you needed its cash as well as the Pass for a trip of this world. The Moon awaited its lush forests on the cusp in your thoughts, and an easy, in fact the easiest trip away,. A world perfect. Now that of course your System-Clock was slowly beginning its motions into frying in the desert heat. It felt slightly satisfying knowing you would be gone from here soon, you wondered why you hadn’t thought to do it earlier.
After half an hour of walking the sun was rising, spilling over the earth in a dawn you had seen before and maybe would see again, if only. You spotted the outer parts of the city, the familiar market which your parents had sometimes taken you too, especially as you got older. The hang of its coloured oh so many canopies and the bustle of a few people, as dawn turned into afterdawn, as the sun began its trek into the day. You bartered for things like food and for much coin with the few people here but gradually as it filled up you gave more and more away and were rewarded with more and more coin. You needed nothing but food and certain keepsakes of use. The people were friendly but uninterested in helping you as you seemed independent enough and were headed on to what they and you described as better things. You passed them, so many of them with their worldly chatter and give and take, buy and sell, countless exchanges of coin, Fiction, as the poets of the Sea of Stars called it and countless Passes spent talking with many new and many familiar but all distant faces. After the lay of hours passed you were left with but your rifle, a Communicator. Some food. Dutiful Chicken and a token of your parent’s appreciation which helped calm your Psychic outbursts. You glazed over the simple circle of copper, carrying the weight of a power unknown and unwanted. The sun hanged at that moment. It was westering into later afternoon, few clouds in the sky. It was a perfect time for what you were about to do. So you headed into the city, snacking on a Longfruit, the entertainment district in your mind. So you passed the white dropped with a subtle yellow mix coloured sandstone walls to where these places were. Your parents had avoided going there with you so you went into the first lounge you spotted. Nearly dusk, the perfect hour for it even. You booked your tickets for an overnight stay before tying up Chicken in the provided coop, bidding her goodbye.
You headed into the door making out the sign “Tonight: The Prince performing”. You were not sure why someone would take the name of royalty yet do something so humble, perhaps humility was not the trait of entertainers. The Shine of this building glowed a blue just unlike the city itself, which was awash with the ambient Light of its Cooling Clocks. You headed in just as the entertainer was announced. He hopped on stage, completely shirtless with his charming face. One covered by yellow fur, with magnanimous orange markings forming a mask around his eyes: pink and set alluringly as if to compel you into staring into them, shining with some sort of curious spark, you did not know what: entertaining. When music began to enter the stage he began to hum his melodics sweet and entertaining. Meanwhile you went to the bar to order a drink. You would get what your father and mother got: The Buzz, a mix of Sweetcitrus and Sour Substances. As you went to get your drink you wafted in some Smoke from another patron. After that you taste you thought you would like to get some too.
You ordered your Buzz and heard his song, charmingly voiced yet operatic: theaterlike.
“Oh the desert world belongs to the brave, the vast ocean bare”
“The Moons of Aria the Lamp are all barren except for the peoples”
“You like the cities, the Cool Zones and the natives like them too”
“Come and enjoy the Moons of Aria, the Lamp is to close for good”
“Confined to a small sunspin, you can’t beat the heat”
“Oh the deserts of dear Aria she is my Devi my Devi”
“My Devi she is bright with light and the Clocks are the only thing that keeps us safe”
“My Devi, Oh my Devi”
“She shines with glare and the glow of the Clocks”
For the spin of hours this continued, while you gradually took in more and more drinks and smoke: intoxicating: drifting into a Haze that your father oh so favoured and one which you finally knew. Drink and Smoke dulled your senses, sensations and feelings as you were enchanted by the skilled call of your singer as he danced, his hair pretty and blond almost bright and his face still of boyish youth as young or younger, although he stood a head taller. You gazed mesmer into his pink eyes. Like roses: coloured as the ones your mother used to tend with her mother and sister on her homeworld and which you had only seen in photos. She told you her native city was named after flowers, as your father’s was for the sky overhead. His hair was fresh like wheatfields, locks of it shaped rough into a shaggy cut like carpet, with good shape to his body: athletic musculature under his fur. He moved with almost careless abandon. Although you could tell it was probably planned. Your mother would probably woo in excitement over him and you noticed several women admiring him even ones you had never seen imbibe a Drink. He was accompanied by no one which slightly disappointed you as you would have liked to see a girl play with him. After a while you stopped drinking and started Smoking more heavily even taking in some Shimmer-Substances a young girl offered you: dancing lights and the spin of distorted time was resulted. She asked you to come to her room with a shrill voice but you declined as you were too Hazed to do anything. The music and the substances gradually lulled you into a sleep: covered mind. So not knowing the time you passed into its clutches.
“Mistress, oh you guide me” were the last words that you heard.
You dreamt of the music melding into the deserts and lush jungles described as you felt even more vexed by your entertainer. He was backed by a chorus of female voices this time but the clarity of his voice was still in your ears. He began to move to icy tundra and each poetics he sang moved your mind and his words meshed with your dreams and you could have sworn you had spent that night always hearing his voice.