Symmeran Wastes 3 (Patreon)

Part 1 

Part 2 

Okay so I wanted to do something a little different so I picked up this story again. Previous parts linked above: in case you don't remember, this is the story with Falix and Ayrsir, the ringel university student and the mysa nomad who she wants to study. This part should help line up to the more interesting bits that I want to get to, but in the meantime I hope this is interesting, too. Comments always appreciated!

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The wind picked up, and they had to hide in the shadow of their lizard for a long while, his and Rohomes’s arms wrapped around each other and their cloaks over their faces, until the sandstorm passed. Ayrsir was, to put it lightly, having a difficult time wrapping his head around the experience of meeting the ringel.

It was as though, for a moment, that he stepped into another world. But was it good, or bad, he had to ponder? The problem was, up until this moment in his life, for all he had sinned against the Edicts and the times he pushed back against the Elders, he still thought that the Edicts, at the very least, described the world in an accurate way. That Domour had created all, and the people remaining in the Symmeran Wastes were saved from the destruction of the world by him, and that outside the grace of Domour, demons stalked the land, seeking their way to destroy Domour’s faithful.

But even then, there had always been questions. If the world was already destroyed, why then did they meet up with other mysa traders on the outskirts every other moon? If Domour was all-powerful, why was he so powerless to stop the demons? And now there was a new one: if demons were only out there to destroy the world… why did the first one he met seem so nice?

It seemed as though the Edicts were, at the very least, incomplete of their description of the world—which, fair, they did not actually claim to describe even everything the people knew to be true down to its last detail. But if this was the case… why then did the Elders constantly act as though it did?

Ayrsir wanted, more than anything in that moment, to go back to the strange caravan. He wanted to talk to Falix more about things he didn’t understand, to see if there were, perhaps, some reasonings and answers to the problems of the Edicts. And he was going to find a way to go back to her.

Somehow.

By the time the wind receded, Ayrsir had a few questions on his mind that he resolved to have answered by nightfall. He and Rohomes mounted the lizard again and made the last league back to the Cleft of the Rock with more than enough time to spare.

A narrow passage between the winding rocks took them to the settlement. They only lived there during the wet season—at least, for as wet as it ever got in Symmera. When the dry season rolled around, they would move back to River Enet in the east, which was more in the open but had ample farming space. Not that they had managed much in the way of tilling for as long as Ayrsir had been alive; every year, it seemed, they spent more and more time going hungry inside the Cleft of the Rock.

The stable hands offloaded the jars of water the moment that Ayrsir pulled the lizard through.

“You are late,” said a voice behind him. Ayrsir turned—Elder Cariphan stood there in his exquisitely clean white mantle, his fingers steepled as one of the stable hands dragged to him a jar for him to inspect.

“We were held up, Brother” Ayrsir said. “We made it back before nightfall, didn’t we?”

Cariphan opened up the large jar and, dipping his paw inside, tasted it out of his palm. “You were held up and still had time to filter the water at the source?” he asked. “What did you filter it with?”

Ayrsir blinked. He had drank some water at Falix’s place, but he hadn’t expected it all to be so clean! Maybe it would have been better if they dumped a pawful of sand in each of the jars, at least.

Rohomes just stared at Ayrsir. Ayrsir immediately felt a stab of guilt in his chest, and thinking he’d just have to abandon his questions, he admitted to the truth.

Sort of.

“There was a… caravan, of some kind up by the well,” Ayrsir said. “The inhabitant had already drawn the water and filtered it. Seeing we were the children of Domour, they offered to give us the water back.”

Rohomes still stared intently in Ayrsir’s direction, obviously waiting for the half-truth to come back around and bite down on his friend’s tail.

Cariphan, however, seemed merely curious. “Traders, down by the Point Well?”

“I believe they were looking for us,” Ayrsir said. “So far as I could tell, they were unarmed. They even offered to let us draw their blood as a show of their intentions of peace.”

Ayrsir pulled from his bag his polishing cloth for his knife. Cariphan carefully examined the blood stain, and after a long moment, nodded.

“Rohomes?” Cariphan asked the other.

“Everything my Brother has said is true,” Rohomes said, adding nothing. “Caravan, inhabitant, the giving of water, the drawing of blood.”

“The council may wish to know more about this stranger,” Cariphan said, handing the stained cloth back to Ayrsir. “Especially if what they’re looking for is the Cleft. At least every decade, some young trader gets it into their heads to come looking for us, and they need to be taught that we will come to them. Ayrsir, can you come with me to witness before the council?”

“Certainly,” Ayrsir said, eying a wary Rohomes as he passed by, “if they will permit me to speak.”

—

The Elders’ Place—a large pavilion of many ornate curtains had likewise many passages—broke off into private hallways to each of the elders’ own tents so they did not have to unnecessarily expose their fine garments to the sun or sand., muffling sounds between rooms, which all surrounded the central auditorium—Ayrsir was made to stand in wait in the antechamber. Some young, naked mysa worked there, sweeping and scrubbing the bare rock of any tracked-in sand, including that on Ayrsir’s paws. So insistent were they, that Ayrsir was finally forced to take a seat as the kits washed him in opaque bathwater up to his knees. It was largely useless, though, as all it did was highlight just how much sand was embedded in the rest of his fur and his cowl, and he had to insist that they not go any further.

“Ow!” exclaimed the smaller one as Ayrsir pushed him away with his heel. It highlighted a streak of read along his cheek, a recent gash that’d just started to mend.

“Oh—my apologies,” Ayrsir insisted, gently petting the frightened young kit. “You shouldn’t be wasting your water on me.”

“But sir, if you track any sand into the central chamber, The Voice will blame us for it.”

The kits were in fact covered in faint welts and scars, as was fairly common for assistants to the Elders. The job required a high level of discipline, as the Elders had once informed Ayrsir when he was young, which was the main reason he decided to try and become a Learned instead.

“Just clean it up right after I’m gone,” Ayrsir said.

“Sir, we’re not allowed in there, even to clean.”

Ayrsir had never heard that before. Sure, the training for assistants was rather harsh, but it was much the same for any mysa that took disciplines outside the study of the Edicts. There were practicalities that needed to be accounted for, and one could hardly expect a cleaning kit to do his job when he wasn’t allowed to be in the place to do it in.

But, looking at the two frightened boys, Ayrsir felt his heart melt. “Okay, okay, stand aside,” he said, then stood up, stepped over into their basin of bathwater, and knelt all the way in under the water sloshed up to his shoulders. The kits giggled to themselves, immediately attacking Ayrsir with their scrub brushes, nearly beating the sand out of his head fur and cowl. Ayrsir barked at them, but laughed right after. He pulled his cowl off to get at his neck, and wrung the wet cloth over his head, then shaking it away, sprayed the two boys with a splash. The two retaliated, sloshing water all over him, and he sputtered to get the taste of the lye soap out of his mouth. Just as he was about to grab one of the giggling boys and pull them in with him, a sound came from the chamber doorway.

“Ahem,” Cariphan coughed into his fist.

A minute later, Ayrsir stood in the central stone, surrounded by the table of the Elders, all dressed in their finest robes. The Voice, the oldest of the group, buried his face in his paws so his headscarf flopped over it all. “Ayrsir… why are you naked?”

“Well, sir, I was taking a bath,” Ayrsir said. He dripped water all over the floor, creating a wide puddle at his paws. “And my cowl and all else I was carrying are currently soaking wet, and not at all suitable for presentation before the council.”

“And why were you taking a bath?”

“It seemed, sir, that I should make myself more presentable for the council, as I have been informed that tracking dirt or sand in here has, without my knowledge, become a grave infraction. I simply wished to save all of you the embarrassment.”

“If you wished to be presentable before the council, then why have you come here naked and soaking wet!?”

“The council summoned me! It would hardly be a decent excuse to tell you to wait indefinitely for me to finish my bath.”

It was eventually decided that Ayrsir was allowed to speak before the council on that technicality, so long as he went to the Plaza after to pray his indiscretion be forgiven. Ayrsir figured he was going to build up a lot of sins in this one meeting alone, so having another on top of it was hardly noteworthy. Cariphan eventually found and threw a towel over Ayrsir’s head, which he used to sop the water from his face and shoulders as well.

“Sirs,” Ayrsir addressed them, “As I told Brother Cariphan, the water we brought back was purified by one in a caravan down by Point Well, where Rohomes and I went today.”

“Did you speak to these people?” the Voice asked, his ears less red now.

“Only one person, sir,” Ayrsir said. “That I saw, anyway. And yes, I spoke to them.”

“I notice you are not inflecting with the gender of the one you spoke to,” The Voice said. “Was this one male or female?”

Ayrsir hoped not to reveal that information, but of course he pushed his luck too far. It was more important that he not say that she was non-mysa, and so he couldn’t exactly hesitate in his reply lest they think something was wrong. Besides… if they merely think her a female mysa, then there was a way for Ayrsir to go back to her…

“She was female,” he said with a resigned sigh.

The council murmured in foreseeable scandal. They were only allowed contact with male traders—females were only allowed if they were suitably separated from the males, as was their proper role. In any case, there should have been no reason for Ayrsir to come in contact with a female trader.

“And you went into the caravan with her?”

“I did not know at the time,” Ayrsir said. “I assumed the lone caravan must have belonged to a male, but once I realized my mistake, I made my way out.”

“…after drawing her blood to prove her peaceful intentions,” Cariphan added.

“Okay, there were several things that happened; the point is, it is a lone female operating the caravan, and she is harmless.”

“Hmm,” The Voice said. “You should not have been in the caravan alone with her. That is another transgression, and you will go to the plaza and beg forgiveness from Domour for your misdeeds.”

The presumption was that any time a male went into the tent of a female that Sinful Sexual Contact must have occurred, because it could not have been proved otherwise. Even if the female denied it. Especially if the female denied it, because females would definitely lie to protect their own chastity, as everyone knew.

“Sir, the Edicts require I pay restitution,” Ayrsir said. “I will have to return to her to do so.”

“Not with Traders,” Elder Ammoret said. “The sin you have committed is before Domour, but the Traders are not his children.”

A light lit up in Ayrsir’s head. It was, probably, an entire month’s worth of sins rolled into one. But once it entered his thoughts, he could not get rid of it, and moments later the words spilled from his lips.

“I don’t… think she was a Trader,” Ayrsir said.

The council burst into confusion. “What do you mean by that?” Cariphan asked. “You said as much yourself, it was a caravan.”

“But you know yourself that I do not speak the Trader’s tongue,” Ayrsir said. “She spoke to me in our tongue, the tongue of Domour.”

There was a moment of astonishment from the council. “One of our Sisters?” The Voice asked.

“She was indeed very interested in the Edicts,” Ayrsir said.

“What was her name?” The Voice asked, now leaning forward, having forgotten entirely his disappointment with having to address Ayrsir. “She may have been one of the exiled.”

“Oh, she called herself Falix.”

There was a moment as the council rumbled to each other.

“Falix? That isn’t the name of any of the Females Of Virtue.”

“I don’t know if anyone by that name or one like it was ever exiled.”

“We may have to find out who her parents are.”

“If she is without sin she may be welcomed back to Domour.”

And after consulting with the Speaker of Records, The Voice addressed Ayrsir again.

“Ayrsir. If what you speak can be verified—“

“Oh Rohomes will verify everything I have said,” Ayrsir told him. “He was witness to these events.”

“In that case, there is a clear course here. Especially since you have not yet found a mate, this is the price of your transgression: Assuming that ‘Falix’ is not herself mated or betrothed, you will pair bond with her as soon as possible, as is stated by the Edicts. If she is indeed as interested in the Edicts as you claim, she will agree to this, and you will have not fallen into transgression.”

Ayrsir grinned inwardly. Well, it wasn’t the worst fate. He hardly expressed interests in females because, the way their society was set up, he barely ever saw them. Of course, he didn’t know if Falix would take offense to this or not. But if she really wanted information as badly as she said, maybe she would be okay with a little “scripturally ordained” ruse.

And it’d get the others off his back about finding a mate, already!

“Likewise, assuming she is indeed the daughter of two of our exiled, she is innocent and we will want to welcome her back into the arms of Domour. Now, Ayrsir, you are… half-Learned,” The Voice said with a bit of disdain in his words. “But you are male and you will be her mate, so that will do well enough in this instance; she can learn the whole of the Edicts after she has agreed to be integrated.”

“You understand, Ayrsir?” Cariphan asked him. “This will be your sacred duty for Domour knows how long.”

“Oh, I take it very seriously,” Ayrsir said. “Spreading the Edicts to the lost is something I have wanted for a long time. I accept the will and judgment of the council.”

—

“You told them what,” Rohomes said flatly.

“You heard me,” Ayrsir said, hanging his cowl up on one of the tent poles to dry “Starting tomorrow, I’m an evangelist. Bringing the Edicts to the lost. Specifically, the one lost who we met.”

“You didn’t tell the council she was a demon!”

“She’s a ringel. We agreed that she’s not a demon.”

“Close enough! She’s not mysa. The Edicts are only for mysa. If the council knew they’d have a fit.”

“And they’re not going to find out,” Ayrsir said, pulling aside the blankets covering the bed. It got very cold in the desert at night—so the beds were quite thick. Strong, taut roped held up the mattresses stuffed with down and scrap cloth. Three lizard hide blankets topped it. And mysa were encouraged to share beds and body heat on top of it all. Ayrsir didn’t have much in the way of luxury in this life, but he would be damned (and likely was, but that was beside the point) if he was denied his extremely lush and comfortable bed.

“They’re the council, they’ll find out,” Rohomes said, climbing in the other side as he blew out the lamplight.

“Look, it’s simple.” Ayrsir pressed up against Rohomes, wrapping his arms around his friend. “I will go out to her to become her ‘mate’, and satisfy my curiosity with her. When that is all done and she leaves, I will simply say that she has rejected Domour and her life is in her own paws, I return having been abandoned by my mate and, as a bonus, nobody bothers me again about finding a mate. Nobody else is going to make that trek just to deliberately enter a female’s house.”

Rohomes huffed. He squeezed Ayrsir tight, and kissed him. His lips were still wet, from the large swallows of water he had at supper. “Maybe I should go with you.”

“That wouldn’t look right,” Ayrsir said. “Besides, I’ll come back most nights, I promise. I’m not going to leave you. Roh.”

“You are such a mad fool. I love you dearly,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” Ayrsir said. “As one Brother does another.” He grinned.

Rohomes nipped his nose. “Stop speaking Edicts here,” Rohomes said. “We agreed they do not bind us here.”

Rohomes slid his paws up Ayrsir’s sides, and Ayrsir shuddered and wrapped his tail around his friend. Slowly, Rohomes ducked below the covers, his wet lips and tongue slowly sliding down Ayrsir’s belly.

It was a sin, and every time they’d been caught before, they had to perform significant penance at the Plaza, swear to Domour they would never do it again. But for all of that, nobody ever bothered to separate them. There just wasn’t anywhere to go other than exile, and exile was simply too harsh a punishment to deliver to anyone who had not drawn blood. Besides… Ayrsir suspected most of the males had similar sins and were trying not to have the eye focus on them too hard, lest all of Domour’s children be condemned to exile at once.

Ayrsir would feel guilt for this, but that could wait until next time he visited the Plaza to pray away his sins. At that moment, he just wanted to feel the eternal ecstasy of Domour’s gardens, with Rohomes in paw… even if he had to cheat their way in the back gate.