"Advice from Her Acarya"

Log Date:
	8/9/00

Log Cast:
	Faanshi, FallingStar

Log Intro:
	"The Amir-al is lost to us..."
	Words that Faanshi had never expected to hear in her entire life.
	Summoned to provide an accounting of what if anything she knows about 
the Sylvans who disrupted the ritual of Invoking the Flame, the young shudra
healer was on hand in the Maharani's chambers when the wounded messenger
arrived from the front with the dire news that Khalid Atar had been crushed
beneath a mountain of splintered rock. Faanshi's world has accordingly 
turned on its head, for never before has she ever conceived of the notion
that the almighty Son of the Dawn might be somehow vulnerable.
	Especially to death.
	But even this black news is not enough to avert a command given to
the maiden, almost as terrifying as the prospect of the Hawk of Heaven's
death. Thalia Tritonides Khalida, stoutly denying any possibility that the
God-King may be lost, has ordered her shudra healer to work with Amipal
Chandrima, the captain of her guards, to locate the Sylvans who violated
the holy ritual and to find out whatever she can about the mind-altering
dust they used upon the participants... lest the other half of her kin be
"bathed in blood".
	The young halfbreed healer has not been so terrified since her time
in the hands of the Warlord Hashim, and in the aftermath of her audience
with Thalia and the Kaimakam, Faanshi flees to the first person she thinks
of for help in this dark hour: her teacher, the Sylvan FallingStar....
	
*===========================< In Character Time >===========================*
             Time of day:  Late Morning
          Date on Aether:  Wednesday, November 27, 3906.
           Year on Earth:  1506 A.D. 
       Phase of the Moon:  Waxing Crescent
                  Season:  Fall
                 Weather:  Rain
             Temperature:  Cool
*==========================================================================*

A Moment in Thyme - Haven
     A multitude of smells mingle in the air of the small shop, combining from 
  plants hanging from the ceiling or sitting on the shelves, or concoctions 
  simmering over the hearth set into the side wall, or any of a number of 
  sources. The wall opposite the hearth appears to be a work area of some 
  sort, with a scarred table covered with tools, containers, and partially 
  finished projects. The back of the shop is where all the finished goods are 
  kept, it seems, judging from the full shelves - all organized with careful 
  precision, despite how full they are. In fact, the entire shop is kept 
  clean, the wooden floor well-scrubbed to an almost glossy shine. A set of 
  chimes hangs near the door, jangling softly whenever the door is opened.
Contents:
Kosha
FallingStar
Obvious exits:
Private Quarters <PQ>  Out <O>

It seems as if a day doesn't go by now without Faanshi running on the edge of 
  exhaustion -- but in the last couple of days in particular, the young shudra 
  has been practically ready to drop. There has been no sign of her at the 
  herb-shop, until late this morning when the door opens upon her slim figure 
  and the inevitable dog who bounds in at her heels. Faanshi is not normally 
  particularly pale, but today what little bit of her skin is visible above 
  her veil is doing a very close approximation of white, rendering her big 
  green eyes startlingly dark by comparison as she flashes her attention 
  around the front room. "Imphada FallingStar? A-are you here, acarya...?"

"Yeeeess...just a...oops." FallingStar's voice calls out from behind the 
  curtain, followed by a rather loud thump of something falling to the floor. 
  "Um. Well, then." She flicks the curtain aside and steps back into the shop, 
  cheeks flushed with a hint of pink. "Er, hello, Faanshi," she observes, 
  smoothing the front of her dress with one hand as with the other she pulls 
  the curtain closed again. "Something wrong?"

Kosha yarfs amiably at FallingStar, wandering over to his favorite corner to 
  sniff it thoroughly, though he's keeping more than a little attention upon 
  his young mistress. And his young mistress sucks in a breath as she comes 
  forward several steps into the room, her hands clasped tightly at her 
  breast. Though her veil hides it, her mouth opens and shuts several times 
  without working, and finally the only answer she's able to give is a 
  desperate bobbing of her sari-covered head.

FallingStar tilts her head to one side a little, then moves the rest of the 
  way forward, approaching the obviously distressed girl. "What is it, child? 
  What's wrong?" The somewhat embarassed blush fades under a flood of concern 
  as the Sylvan regards her student, now quite worried.

"I..." Faanshi is often prone to tears when she feels too greatly to express 
  it easily in words, and now is no exception. Her eyes are hot and wet, even 
  as she tries to croak out as levelly as she possibly can, "I have news... 
  and I-I need your help, acarya, I-I-I beg of you, the Maharani is furious 
  especially with the news that has come, and... oh, it is horrible--!" So 
  much for croaking levelly; these syllables burst forth from Faanshi in a 
  frantic rush. Her entire frame quivers with the sentiment behind them, as 
  well.

"Child, Faanshi...child, it's all right, I'd be glad to help." Much distressed 
  now, as though in echo of Faanshi, FallingStar reaches out to pull the 
  halfbreed girl into an embrace. The girl needs to calm down a little before 
  she can impart her news, it seems.

Immediately, awkwardly, the maiden hugs her smaller teacher, trying to bury 
  her face against the older woman's shoulder and never mind the height 
  difference between them; as it happens, Faanshi mostly winds up leaning her 
  face against the Sylvan's silvered hair. Trembling violently, the girl gasps 
  out, "It w-was bad enough that some Sylvans v-violated the ritual... the 
  Maharani is so _angry_... b-but now the messenger h-h-h-has come from 
  Masada, and he said that the Amir-al was lost, but the Maharani said he 
  couldn't be but I do not know what is going to h-h-h-h-happen--"

"Sssshhh. Take a deep breath, child," FallingStar murmurs, soothingly. "Life 
  is confusing if you look at it all at once - and frightening when it looks 
  like it does now. Ssshhh. Take it a little piece by a little piece. 
  Now...which piece can you, personally do something about? We'll deal with 
  that one, first."

Something like a sniffle sounds behind Faanshi's veil as she tries to wrestle 
  her composure back into place. "Th-the ritual," she rasps tearily. "I am... 
  I-I am commanded to help the Kaimakam find the ones who v-violated the 
  ritual, and to ask you... i-if you can help... they used a dust, and it 
  blurred the mind, you see... I-I have to find out what it was...!"

"A dust that blurs the mind?" Thoughtful now, mentally cataloguing what she 
  knows could fit that description. Still a fairly long list, though. 
  FallingStar gives a thoughtful 'mm' before asking, "How exactly does it 
  work? Does it cause hallucinations? Just a mental kind of 'fog'? Is it a 
  feeling like being drunk?"

The questions seem to begin to steady Faanshi somewhat, for after months of 
  learning of herbs in this shop, she has managed to grow confident with 
  practically every substance to which FallingStar has seen fit to introduce 
  her. Pulling back a bit, the halfbreed girl scrubs her fingers across her 
  eyes in an ongoing effort to get hold of herself. "I-I breathed some of it," 
  she blurts, but this time a bit more steadily. "My veil was in the way... 
  but I breathed some of it when someone blew it at me... and I... saw..." Her 
  head hangs in profound embarrassment then, and in doleful tones she goes on, 
  "I... thought I saw Lyre...!"

"So, hallucinations, then?" FallingStar nods, patting the girl's shoulder 
  encouragingly. "Good, that narrows it down some. What else did it cause?" 
  She glances over toward the shelves as she speaks, pursing her lips 
  thoughtfully.

"It..." Again Faanshi sniffles -- and since she is in the relative safety of 
  this shop, no male eyes upon her, she tugs her veil down and awkwardly 
  scrubs her entire hand across her wet face this time, along with a bit of 
  her sari. "I remember it made my head feel very heavy, and the rest of me 
  light..." The maiden's hand comes down, then, and a deeply bemused and 
  troubled expression can be seen upon her haggard features. "It made m-me... 
  want to feel... happy."

FallingStar nods, stepping back and then toward the shelves. She brushes her 
  fingertips across a couple of jars, pauses on one for a moment, then shakes 
  her head and continues. "That sounds...mm. That narrows it down 
  considerably. I can still think of a couple, though." She 'happens' to find 
  a couple bits of jerky in a container on the worktable, and tosses them in 
  Kosha's direction.

Faanshi takes the time to pull in several breaths, while her arms wrap about 
  herself to ward off further trembling. "I was... dazed," she admits. "I 
  think my m-magic woke up, to try to cleanse me... the Warlord... of Messala, 
  I-I mean... he came and told me I was poisoned and he carried me back to 
  Atesh-Gah but I was very dazed all the way back. It made the Maharani talk, 
  too... a whole lot... and people were seeing things. Behaving..." A blush 
  sweeps over Faanshi's cheeks, turning them from too pale to too dark. 
  "Improperly...!"

"Ah. That sounds familiar." FallingStar frowns slightly and shakes her head. 
  "I have nothing like that on hand, however. Not the kind of thing that I 
  would deal in. That sounds...well, you might want to ask one of the 
  forest-dwelling tribes about it."

At last Faanshi looks up again, eyes still dampened, but now at least she 
  appears to have ceased her torrent of weeping. And with uncharacteristic 
  force she pleads, "Do you know who I can seek, to ask?" Unveiled, her 
  features are etched with palpable strain, as though she's having to walk 
  around with an arrow in her back or a knife in her heart. "The Maharani... 
  she is so _angry_, acarya... I _must_ find the ones who did this o-or the 
  Varati..." Oh dear. Here come tears again, leaking out around the corners of 
  her enormous liquid eyes, though she squeezes them shut to try to halt the 
  flow.

FallingStar turns back again, tilting her head to one side slightly. "Or the 
  Varati what, child? What did they tell you?" She folds her arms across her 
  chest, looking concerned.

"She said--" Once again, Faanshi's head hangs in utter misery. "She said... I 
  must w-work with the Kaimakam... to find the ones who violated the 
  ritual..." Her voice falls to a hollow whisper as she finishes, "O-or the 
  other h-half of my kin... will be bathed in blood."

"Gods." FallingStar blinks, turning pale beneath her freckles. She shakes her 
  head a little, looking stunned. "Find...find the sachem of the Ettowealona, 
  and the Apisachi. The Eyotajolon, as well." She sighs quietly, rubbing a 
  fingertip against her chin. "I myself am tribeless. I'm afraid I don't know 
  what the tribes are doing right now."

Sachem. That means 'chief', one of the small store of Sylvan words Faanshi has 
  managed to learn from her acarya over the last many months. Taking an 
  agitated step forward, wringing her hands as she does, the halfbreed girl 
  breathes, "Do you know their names, Imphada? A-and if they will talk to 
  a-a-a lowly one such as I?" All the while, Kosha gnaws away on the jerky the 
  Sylvan healer has given him, though the dog periodically looks up from his 
  snack -- each time he hears Faanshi's voice.

FallingStar shakes her head once. "I only know of the Ettowealona - that would 
  be Many Shadows. I haven't been out there to see them in a long time now, 
  though." Not the forest-dwelling type, is this Sylvan.

"Many Shadows," Faanshi repeats, beginning to pace back and forth a bit -- in 
  great agitation even for _her_. "Many Shadows. I w-will go and ask if I may 
  speak to Many Shadows then..." Then the maiden's gaze snaps back around, yet 
  again with a force unlike her usual gentle demeanor. "They live to the west? 
  How far? H-how great a walk?"

"Mmm. You're not familiar with the forest, are you?" FallingStar pauses for a 
  moment, wrinkling her nose slightly. "It would probably be best if you had a 
  guide out there. I...well, I've been there. It has been a while, but maybe I 
  could go with you."

"I have only been there a couple of times," Faanshi is forced to admit in 
  plaintive tones, though her expression lightens marginally at this 
  suggestion. "You would come, acarya? You would guide me?"

FallingStar clears her throat quietly, glancing toward Kosha. "Well, uh, I 
  could show you how to get to the forest. Once within the forest, I'm sure 
  one of the tribe members could guide us to the oak." She has a tendency to 
  get somewhat lost, after all. "I'd be glad to help."

Kosha looks up again at the strange noise from FallingStar -- and Faanshi, 
  too, glances at the dog before returning a fretful stare to her teacher. "Do 
  you... think I should leave Kosha?"

"Mmm. Perhaps. Although he might make good company on the walk out there. Is 
  he...well, would he want to run off into the woods after rabbits?" Is he a 
  well-trained big doggie? Not in so many words, though. FallingStar wrinkles 
  her nose just a little. "There are lots of them out there, after all."

"He walked around in the bushes a lot when I went out with Starsong," the 
  halfbreed girl says sheepishly now, moving without conscious thought to 
  Kosha, needing to kneel beside him and comfort herself with scritching his 
  head. This is all to the satisfaction of the dog, who wags his tail at her 
  approach and turns his fuzzy muzzle towards her in anticipation of that very 
  scritching.

Nothing more comforting than scritching a big fuzzy dog. "Well, he came back, 
  at least. Just want to make sure that he doesn't try to chase any graisha or 
  scare off game. They don't appreciate that." FallingStar quirks a slight 
  grin.

As Kosha happily attempts to climb into her lap, Faanshi sighs and murmurs, 
  "Kosha does not like graisha very much, I am afraid...! He gets unhappy 
  every time he meets one, even though I tell him he is naughty to growl at 
  them because they are people...!" The hound, oblivious to his past 
  transgressions, wags his tail some more. Mmmmm. Scritching!

"Well, then...it might be a good idea to leave him behind. Just in case." 
  FallingStar chuckles quietly as she watches said big dog. "And if you manage 
  to get permission to visit the Apisachi, definitely leave him behind."

Clearly, Faanshi is disturbed by the prospect of having to take a journey 
  without her loyal hound; all at once she tugs him up a bit more into her 
  lap, wrapping her arms about his neck and hugging him as though she were a 
  very small child. "If you think it is wise," she replies, her voice very 
  small, "I-I shall do as you suggest, acarya... it... is needed." Then she 
  pulls in a breath and looks up, eyes haunted. "Do you think... we could 
  leave soon?"

"Oh, well...sure. This does need to get figured out quickly, right?" 
  FallingStar nods a little, if a bit uncertainly at first. "Yes, I'd be glad 
  to go soon...just need to make some arrangements here, and we can head out. 
  Tomorrow, or the day after, maybe?"

Faanshi considers this, her sungolden brow still heavily furrowed. And then, 
  with a subtle darkening of her gaze, the maiden reluctantly says, "I... must 
  report first to the Kaimakam... they... might not wish _me_ to go to speak 
  to a chief..."

FallingStar pauses to consider that, chewing absently on one fingernail. 
  "Well. I suppose...I suppose I could go myself, if they wouldn't let you go. 
  If you'd like. I should go out there anyway, they have some plants in their 
  part of the woods I could collect..."

"I am only a shudra," Faanshi murmurs unhappily. "It... is not my place to 
  speak to a chief... unless the Maharani or Kaimakam commands me to go..." 
  She rises then, though Kosha exhales a husky protest at her shift in 
  position. "I will go back... and say what you h-have advised, acarya...!"

"Of course, child. Just let me know what they have to say, I'm always happy to 
  help you out." FallingStar offers a reassuring smile and nods slightly. "I'm 
  sorry I don't know more about who did this - although I don't think the 
  Ettowealona would have done it, they tend to be more, er, polite than that."

Miserably, Faanshi bobs her head while Kosha nudges hopefully at her knee in 
  search of further scritchings. "P-Perhaps if the Maharani had not breathed 
  the dust... perhaps she would not be so angry...! I must go back to 
  Atesh-Gah, acarya--" And never mind that if the look haunting the maiden's 
  features is any indication, this ranks somewhere equivalent in her gentle 
  mind with cutting off one of her own arms, at the moment. "And go and ask 
  others... if they can help talk to the Sylvans in the city..." At last, 
  abruptly, she surges back to her little teacher and embraces her again. 
  "Namaste'...!"

"May Tupuran watch over and guide you, child. I wish you luck." FallingStar 
  returns the embrace warmly, trying to convey some reassurance to the girl. 
  "If you have need of anything, be sure to ask me and I will help."

"I will... I will." It is a precious thing to Faanshi, having this little 
  Sylvan who now stands as the closest thing to family she can claim, and her 
  embrace is strong and hard -- as though she hopes to stock up the feeling 
  against future troubles? But that is all she says, even as she finally pulls 
  away and bows deeply to her acarya. Then she turns to beckon to Kosha, and 
  with one murmured farewell she is out the door again as swiftly as she'd 
  come.

[End log.]