Growth Prompt
Karayan, happy and outgoing, has been confronted with someone who despises him. A young Orderite who has a deep and abiding hatred for Dovaa. His parents recently died due to the actions of a Dovaa and Obliviontie raid. Not all Dovaa are neutral in the conflict, some take sides. And this young boy's parents were in a caravan that was raided by Oblivinite's and their Dovaa supporters.
The boy blames all Dovaa and all Oblivionites for his loss, and as the first Dovaa he's seen, Karayan is the focus of his grief and rage.
How does Karayan deal with this? What are his thoughts?
Karayan came out of deep sleep with a jolt, sitting upright, his hair falling into his face as he tried to figure out exactly where he as at the moment. After it came back to him he lifted a hand to push his hair out of the way before he rubbed it against his forehead, giving a bit of a groan as he did. He'd been dreaming, a bad dream at that, but it was a nightmare that wasn't just a dream but instead a recollection of something that happened recently that he had hoped he might be able to forget.
It had been when he was in a port town in Eowyn, he had been waiting for the ship that was going to take him home, something that he was quite excited and eager about, he had gotten some Mara heads and he was eager to see what the bounty was on them. Not to mention he was always just eager to get home to meet with his family, to see how they were doing, and this time around he also had Yrre waiting as well. Alright, not exactly waiting, he was sure the little Fekarat could probably live without him, but still, he liked the other Dovaa well enough and he looked forward to meeting with him again. It was when he was waiting that he suddenly found himself being accosted by someone about Yrre's size but of another race, the Orderite race in fact. It was something that actually stunned him a bit, mostly because of the look on the kids face. It was something beyond anger, instead border on hatred instead, something that he'd never seen before.
Sure, in the past he had driven others crazy, Madryn Col being one of them, there were times he had been certain that the Orderite boy meant to climb him like a tree and strangle him but that anger was different from this anger. There was a vast difference between someone being annoyed by Kara's antics like Madryn and the kid that had been beating on him with his fists, hard enough that it had left bruises behind on the normally tough Gaili's skin.
After the kid seemed to get exhausted, needing a break perhaps from swinging, he started to yell, accusing Karayan of all manner of awful things, calling him a murderer and a monster, talking about how much he hated him, wanted him to die. It was a strange thing to hear, especially given that he didn't even know the kid let alone what it was that had gotten him so riled up. At first maybe he thought it was a case of mistaken identity, maybe someone who looked like him had done the kid wrong in some way? He'd tried to defend himself then, saying that he wasn't sure what he meant and that they had never met. He was met with more words of anger then, ones that including the phrase 'All Dovaa' which made him realize that it wasn't Karayan himself that had done the boy wrong, but other Dovaa, and it would appear that he was the target for the kid's anger. Whoever it was that had hurt the boy was probably out of reach to him, perhaps back in the Dovaa's homeland where an Orderite couldn't go. Karayan was the only Dovaa present at the moment and as such a good target.
It wasn't something that sat well with, not the part about the boy needing a punching bag but more the part that the Dovaa, his people, had done something so awful that it would turn a child so completely against an entire race. it worried him too, hatred begot hatred, it was stuff like this that kept the war between the other races going... but as much as he'd like to feel that he was removed from such things maybe it wasn't as cut and dry as he'd first assumed? His people fought, of course, he fought, though for him it was just the dragons and now the Mara, but it was all together possible that the Dovaa might join with the Oblivionites or the Orderites if they felt that one cause or the other was the one they wanted to back. It was a difficult idea for him to wrap his head around though since he had friends on both sides. On one side was Madryn Col and his sister Sueno, on the otherside was that nice girl Rowan who had gifted him with the egg that had hatched into Ember. The idea of picking a side and having to fight the other, it was an idea he didn't care for.
The fact of the matter was that he didn't want to fight against others, not for real at least there had been that match with Kadryn, which had just been for fun but actually going out and killing others of the other races. It made his stomach turn a little. It was why he'd stood there and let the kid yell at him, and when the yelling was done he started to swing again, something else that he'd allowed. If it made the kid feel even a little bit better then maybe it would be worth all the bruises, at least that was the idea.
At some point another Orderite, one he assumed to be related to the smaller one in one way or another had appeared, wrapping an arm around the boy, dragging him back away from Karayan. There were a lot of apologies on the part of the woman, as though she were quite sorry about the whole incident, and in turn Karayan had reassured her that it was alright and that he was sorry too. He couldn't say exactly for what, it was more as though he were just apologizing on the part of his people, feeling guilty for whatever it was that they had done. The woman had led the boy off, talking to him in a hushed tone that made it hard for him to hear what it was that was being said. He knew it wasn't exactly his business what was said but at the same time he'd been rather curious as to what it was that had happened to the boy. He hadn't said exactly but given the fact that he had called Karayan a 'murderer' it had to be something quite serious.
After that everything seemed a bit on the hazy side as far as his recollection went, mostly because all of it was just him fretting over everything that had just happened as well as him wishing he could just teleport himself home. Not a spell he was capable of, he wasn't that strong yet, but at that moment he wished that he was. Heck, he'd even begged Abronaxus to zap him home... but he the Dovaa God had likely been a bit busy with other things to listen to such a silly prayer. Probably a good thing given that the woman from earlier who had led the boy away had appeared a while after the two of them had vanished, coming to stand beside him, apologizing for Karayan's ordeal, even gave him some treats from a nearby stand that she'd bought in hopes of making it up to him. As Karayan accepted them, telling her that she didn't have to, the woman blurted out what had happened, why the boy hated him so much, and it had been a shock. Sort of what he'd suspected, that the Dovaa could take sides, she'd told him that some had in fact taken sides, with the Oblivionites in fact, and one of their attacks had ended with the death of the boy's parents. It made sense then why the boy had called him a murderer.
The question they became why? Why would they do that? Was it just because they had been Orderite or was it something else? Question that even the woman was unable to answer, she hadn't been there, all she knew was second and third hand information, nothing that would explain it, not that anything could explain it. One couldn't just explain away killing people after all. The woman had apologized again then, thanked him for not yelling at the boy or raising a hand to him, that maybe it would help in the long run for a Dovaa to remain neutral but who knew? She had left then and moments later the ship had arrived to take Karayan home.
It was something he had tried not to think about after that, not wanting to spend too much time mulling over something like that when he had neither all the information nor any of the answers. All he could do was pray that perhaps, one day, something might happen to make it so that the boy might see the Dovaa as more then something to be hated. It wasn't up to him to force the boy's opinion to change, only the boy could change it with time and experience. He just hoped that he was able to do so. Karayan on the other hand, he had learned that perhaps his people weren't all like his own family, but that was something he'd started to learn already from his dealings with Yrre. Not all of the Dovaa were neutral, nor were they all good, but he wanted to be, he wanted to be a good person, someone that fought to be strong for his people but didn't kill without reason. He'd fight against things like the Dragons or the Mara that were a threat to everyone, he'd protect those like Yrre and Madryn who still might get annoyed with him from time to time for his antics, and he'd continued to grow strong. He wouldn't be one to become like those Dovaa who were swayed to the side of one side or the other to fight in a war that wasn't theirs. He'd instead do what he could to be a shield for those who were at risk of being dragged into a conflict they didn't want to be a part of.
Flopping back on his bed he gave a bit of a sigh, closing his eyes. Before he could become a protector though he really needed to get more sleep. It was still the middle fairly early in the morning, the sun hadn't even come up yet, and nothing was going on in the house. As such it was best that he tried to sleep a little longer before he got up to meet the day and whatever challenges came with it. He would work hard, to prove that all Dovaa weren't as bad as that boy thought they were he told himself before he slipped back into sleep, this time dreaming of Yrre who for some reason had a Fekarat tail and ears. A better dream then the last so he wouldn't question it.
(( Word Count: 1820 ))
