Welcome to Gaia! ::

Waves rolled in over the beach in a hush, as though awash in whispers between the sand and sea. Ataya stood several hundred paces down the beach from his uncle’s home, bare toes curled over wet rock and hand to the cliffside. It was sunset — or nearing it, judging from still warm and white day but dwindling angle of the brightest spots — but with still a healthy hour or two left in the day. Ataya found it interesting that, for all their uselessness, his eyes still hurt if he ‘stared’ directly at the sun, and their vague capacity for distinguishing light and dark allowed him to locate at least the general location of it throughout the day.

A year, at least, had passed since his sister had first fallen in beside his bed, spouting on about how her friend was a hybrid and they ‘loved’ each other. He had thought little of it at the time — other than to feel that it was a distinctly poor arrangement all around, begging for trouble — but despite private hopes that things might resolve themselves simply, with Nesrinn and Akara going their own separate ways, that did not seem to be the case. Quite the opposite, after their admittances to each other, the depth and extent of their ‘friendship’ expanded exponentially. Furtive trips out to see him turned into ‘Don’t tell father…’ this and ‘Oh, but Nesrinn…’ that.

At some point it became fairly blatantly obvious to Ataya that his sister had indeed managed to do away with her virginity with the boy, and he was torn between an innate defensiveness of her as his sister, and a private frustration that he was far behind her in that regard. Personal frustration won out. After all, in the end, what she did with herself on that field was about as far and away from his business as things could get and he didn’t particularly care so long as she was happy with the proceedings.

It left him to wonder, though, what precisely he was doing with Edmun and what the ysali might think in that regard. He certainly had no intention of turning it into — well, whatever it was his sister and Nesrinn had — but on the other hand, he wasn’t particularly interested in staying where he was, either. He felt…stuck.

Up to the mountains, down to Taliuma and back. Eighteen years of circling and he hadn’t budged in the grand scheme of things.

He wanted out.

Frowning, he reached and pushed a hand through his hair, giving a withered exhale before stepping out from the rocks, ice forming beneath his footsteps into a solid, growing platform despite the desert heat, until he was ‘walking on water’ several feet out from the shoreline. Soon, perhaps, he thought, he would tell his mother. Tell Edmun, tell…someone, maybe. Or no one. And then leave.

Anywhere had to be more interesting than here eternally.

Ataya stilled.

Akara’s voice was easy enough to identify. Effortless, really. But there was well more to it than that, and even he could pick up on it. Not having been doing much of anything anyway, he shifted, retracing his steps back to the sandy shore — not that he had travelled far — and releasing his magical grip on the ice so that it would, at its own pace, thaw back into the ocean.

“Sister,” he greeted, voice neutral, though his curiosity was getting the better of him already. She couldn’t be physically hurt, so that kept his own nerves at bay, and it sounded like an upset of a different sort of variety anyway. Less urgent. More emotional. Something to do with Nesrinn, Ataya decided was most likely, and his mind began flitting over ways to threaten the young man if he’d hurt his sister. Aloud, however, all he said was: “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

Immediately, Ataya’s guard went up.

His mind skimmed over possibilities. Had he hit her? Hurt her? Forced her? Asked something of her that she was uncomfortable with, perhaps. Maybe she had stolen something. Or killed someone. That would likely upset his sister. Though it struck him as a bit of a stretch, since he didn’t consider her much the killing ‘type’. Perhaps he had needed something, taken it from them. Or broken something…? That hardly seemed like cause for crying, however.

“I cannot promise anything until I know what it is I am promising. Sister, if you have killed someone, you know you could have left it to me, but I am happy to help…”

Pregnant.

Ataya blinked, staring blankly in his sister’s general direction for several moments. “Ah.” He frowned. “Well, I suppose that’s a good deal simpler to deal with. Were you not wanting to ask uncle for something to terminate it? I am sure, if you’d rather not tell him, there are several locations along the market where you could find suitable remedies to induce such a, er…purging, of sorts. If you were looking for company on that venture…”

“…that…” Ataya admitted when he found the breath to speak, “…does complicate things.”

A great many things came to mind. Mostly reprimands. Foolish, foolish, foolish. How foolish did she have to be to think she could keep the thing, born of an orderite, with the father they had? But simultaneously, he knew — however infinitely frustrating the truth was — that she was not likely to budge on the matter and she had come before him in trust, wanting help, not scolding for things she had likely already thought of.

“You should inform uncle, then,” Ataya said. “Assuming it is Nesrinn’s, do you intend to leave?” Ataya frowned, mind skipping forward to how such a task could possible work. Their father was a hunter. Had been a mercenary as a living for some substantial part of his life before he and his sister had come along. It seemed unlikely that, should she try to flee or hide, their father would simply give up the chase. He would cross oceans to find her and see to her safety. “What have you planned? Is Nesrinn aware?”

“I was not intending to imply that you did, only to leave open the possibility without judgement. What you do in that area is your business, sister, and I intend to try not to make hasty assumptions. But…yes, we should speak with uncle. This…”

Ataya frowned. No matter how he saw the events playing out, they did not end well, each worse than the next. When he considered what their father would say, do with the knowledge…

Jaw tightening a fraction, he shook his head, and when he spoke, his words were quiet, and cool. “I realize my words are unlikely to sway you, but I feel the need to re-emphasize that ending the pregnancy, however…distasteful, if that is how you see it, is a perfectly viable, and perhaps the only simple option I see before us. Father…” Ataya’s breath left him in a curt exhale. “I do not…trust…what he will do when he learns…and if you stay… ”

‘And even if you do not stay…’

Detraeus would have to learn, eventually.

“I wish I were as sure of that as you…” Ataya murmured beneath his breath. And he meant it.

He knew his father loved them in his way, fiercely and protectively. But the man’s hate — blind and furious as it was — ran deep in currents Ataya could not begin to trace or understand. Detraeus had never explained his passions, his bitterness, his wariness, and while as a child, those things had seemed innate and intrinsic to his father’s nature, as a young man Ataya wondered, and suspected that there was more to it than that. But what? He thought it better not to ask.

Still, in answer to his sister’s second question, he could only nod. “Yes. Of course.”

‘Perhaps,’ he mused privately, ‘he will pray for us.’