[751/750 Words]

Kiunyki found it hard to express how she felt about her new Elaria sisters. It was a complicated cocktail of emotions, and lingering shock was one of them.

Of all the things that she had been hoping to find on Yael, children hadn't been one of them. They were marvellous children, though, magnificent and beautiful oasis of beauty in a harsh and ugly wilderness. She liked their colors - grey and pink like the sun peeking through stormclouds, with their bright sky-blue eyes and their deep red hair. She liked how their antennae – multiple antennae - were whimsically curled, and she secretly basked in the wild energy that they had about them, an aura that commanded her to wake up and pay attention.

When learned what they were, she had been stunned and, moreover, very willing to be caught up in the general air of hope and joy. At the same time, though, Kiunyki had just about enough of feeling inferior. She had been too weak to protect her mother, barely able to reach the island without dying, and was now an outsider among the very people she thought would accept her. Nothing she did seemed good enough and, though she had some friends and allies amongst the banished Alkidikes, none of them were in a position to assuage the gnawing doubt that she was just a burden to everyone around her.

The fervor around the Elaria did not help at all. Some practically worshiped them as demigods, powerful scions of a goddess. They claimed that the Elaria were perfection, better and stronger than any Alkidike, flawless in every way. Kiki hated that. It hurt to be told that, no matter what she did, she would never be as good as the newborn Elaria. That no matter how hard she worked, it would never be enough.

So far as she could tell, they were strong and fast and smart, yes, but no more so than any other young Alkidike of her acquaintance. They were not better. And were not all Alkidike scions of a beautiful goddess? Was that not the whole point of all of this?

But, of course, Kiunyki kept her thoughts to herself. She was already unpopular on the island. If any of her odd ideas – about the ability of items to have power, or of respecting the enemy's ability to fight, or not generally screaming and hooting and shouting her undying support of the Matron, and her 'Sisters' might decide that she should die after all. Again, another thing she hadn't been expecting on Yael, but something she would just have to deal with.

One day, she would prove herself, and her exiled sisters – she didn't think of them as 'Extremists' - would accept her as one of them. In the meantime, though... Kiunyki looked at the Elaria and she saw what her mother could have been. Kaalnia's life and vitality and beauty, everything that Kiunyki had loved about her, seemed to have been condensed into something new and wonderful.

Again, another thought she would not mention. Her mother was often on her mind, but if she spoke of Kaalnia to anyone, she was afraid that they would grow tired of hearing about her. Or, worse, call her mother a traitor and say terrible things about her that felt like knives in Kiunyki's gut.

So she kept her thoughts to herself, and imagined – one day – an Elaria with her mother's vitality and love of life, with that mischievous, infectious grin that made you laugh in any situation. She imagined a child with nimble limbs and an easy joy that sprang from deep within them, brightening the world around them with inspiring joy.

Maybe that Elaria would be her child.

Kiunyki had decided... no... she knew... that it was her destiny to one day plead to Elzira for a child of her own. She would love this child, and teach them what her mother had taught her. That way, something of Kaalnia's light would live on in this new and beautiful tribe. Maybe that light would grow into something bright, something unforgettable.

She would teach it the lessons she had learned on her own, too, lessons of respect and distrust, of anger and wariness. Her child would live, and Kaalnia's spirit would dance on.

One day... hopefully, when she had a partner to offset her own, apparent, inherent weakness. And then, once the bright flame of Kaalnia's spirit was passed on, Kiunyki knew she would be strong enough to avenge her mother's death.