Welcome to Gaia! ::

She trotted along, every step delicate and oddly precise. Scherazade had a bad habit of spending her time in a dream, so it was very good that there was plenty of moonlight for her to see. She loved the night. It both thrilled and terrified her, and she spent her nights wandering, listening to the stories the stars had to share. Stories, stories... no matter what Mozenrath had said, they were her passion. Everything else was secondary. She needed them with an all-consuming desire. When she was telling a story, she could sometimes imagine someone listening, quiet and stern. And she could feel the stories fall from her lips easily at night, almost desperately, like the more she told, the longer the stars would be there, watching.

She noticed the form in the field, first by the wisps of breath. Oh, someone else? Her curiosity was piqued, and she stepped out onto the chill snow, the crystals crunching beneath her hooves. The jangles of her metal bracelets rang out like bells in the night, and she shivered. Even her veil wasn't keeping her warm tonight.

She smiled, dipping her head in response to his bow. "Hello." she greeted him softly, pulling to a halt before him. Her voice was husky, soft and low. The stallion before her was black and white, mottled. Mane and tail were as black as her own, and his decorations were a steel blue-grey. She shifted, bracelets chiming softly in the air. She looked him over carefully, paying close attention to all the details. "You are out late, aren't you?"

She smiled. "A pleasure to meet you, Damascus. Call me Scherazade." she shifted, blue-violet gaze moving up to the sky. "They are lovely things, aren't they?" she smiled. "So very, very old." the glance she sent back the stallion's way was curious. "So, do you hear the stories they tell?" she asked, curious. Random and off the wall, true. But for her, it was very serious, and the question was delivered with the gravest of tones. If people couldn't hear the stories the stars told, they had no business being out at night. Even being able to dream you could was enough. Then again, she'd been told before that she was crazy for her belief that stars could tell stories, so she didn't have much faith that he did. It wouldn't color her opinion of the stallion, only her opinion of how late at night he should be out. A disbeliever could disrupt the stars tales.

She shifted her weight, thinking. "What kind of stories do you like to hear?" she queried. "You hear all sorts of things." her head tilted. "It really is okay if you don't hear them, not everyone does." Not everyone was as.... special.... as Scherazade. After all, if everyone was like her, it would be a very boring world, wouldn't it?

She smiled. "Here is a tale for you." she agreed softly. "It is a story of the Lakota, and their soquili. But this is a human tale, from before they had us to hunt with them...

In the days before we would help the two-leggers hunt, food was often scarce. One summer when the Lakota nation had camped together, there was very little to eat. Two young men of the Itazipcho band – the ‘Without-Bows’ – decided they would rise early and look for game. They left the camp while the dogs were still yawning, and set out across the plain, accompanied only by the song of the yellow meadowlark. After a while the day began to grow warm. Crickets chirruped in the waving grass, prairie dogs darted into their holes as the braves approached, but still there was no real game. So the young men made towards a little hill from which they would see further across the vast expanse of level prairie. Reaching it, they shielded their eyes and scanned the distance, but what they saw coming out of the growing heat haze was something bright, that seemed to go on two legs, not four. In a while they could see that it was a very beautiful woman in shining white buckskin.

As the woman came closer, they could see that her buckskin was wonderfully decorated with sacred designs in rainbow-coloured porcupine quills. She carried a bundle on her back, and a fan of fragrant sage leaves in her hand. Her jet-black hair was loose, except for a single strand tied with buffalo fur. Her eyes were full of light and power, and the young men were transfixed. Now one of the men was filled with a burning desire. ‘What a woman!’ he said sideways to his friend. ‘And all alone on the prairie. I’m going to make the most of this!’

‘You fool,’ said the other. ‘This woman is holy.’

But the foolish one had made up his mind, and when the woman beckoned him towards her, he needed no second invitation. As he reached out for her, they were both enveloped in a great cloud. When it lifted, the woman stood there, while at her feet was nothing but a pile of bones with terrible snakes writhing among them. ‘Behold,’ said the woman to the good brave. ‘I am coming to your people with a message from Tatanka Oyate, the buffalo nation. Return to Chief Standing Hollow Horn and tell him what you have seen. Tell him to prepare a tipi large enough for all his people, and to get ready for my coming.’

The young man ran back across the prairie and was gasping for breath as he reached his camp. With a small crowd of people already following him, he found Standing Hollow Horn and told him what had happened, and that the woman was coming. The chief ordered several tipis to be combined into one big enough for his band. The people waited excitedly for the woman to arrive. After four days the scouts posted to watch for the holy woman saw something coming towards them in a beautiful manner from across the prairie. Then suddenly the woman was in the great lodge, walking round it in a sunwise direction. She stopped before Standing Hollow Horn in the west of the lodge, and held her bundle before him in both hands. ‘Look on this,’ she said, ‘and always love and respect it. No one who is impure should ever touch this bundle, for it contains the sacred pipe.’

She unrolled the skin bundle and took out a pipe, and a small round stone which she put down on the ground. ‘With this pipe you will walk on the earth, which is your grandmother and your mother. The earth is sacred, and so is every step that you take on her. The bowl of the pipe is of red stone; it is the earth. Carved into it and facing the centre is the buffalo calf, who stands for all the four-leggeds. The stem is of wood, which stands for all that grows on the earth. These twelve hanging feathers from the Spotted Eagle stand for all the winged creatures. All these living things of the universe are the children of Mother Earth. You are all joined as one family, and you will be reminded of this when you smoke the pipe. Treat this pipe and the earth with respect, and your people will increase and prosper.’ The woman told them that seven circles carved on the stone represented the seven rites in which the people would learn to use the sacred pipe. The first was for the rite of ‘keeping the soul’, which she now taught them. The remaining rites they would learn in due course.

The woman made as if to leave the lodge, but then she turned and spoke to Standing Hollow Horn again. ‘This pipe will carry you to the end. Remember that in me there are four ages. I am going now, but I will look on your people in every age, and at the end I will return.’ She now walked slowly around the lodge in a sunwise direction. The people were silent and filled with awe. Even the hungry young children watched her, their eyes alive with wonder. Then she left. But after she had walked a short distance, she faced the people again and sat down on the prairie. The people gazing after her were amazed to see that when she stood up she had become a young red and brown buffalo calf. The calf walked further into the prairie, and then lay down and rolled over, looking back at the people. When she stood up she was a white buffalo. The white buffalo walked on until she was a bright speck in the distant prairie, and then rolled over again, and became a black buffalo. This buffalo walked away, stopped, bowed to the four directions of the earth, and finally disappeared over the hill."

She drew in a breath, and smiled up at Damascus. "And so, that is how the Lakota recieved their sacred pipe." She had heard this story from Citlalli late one night, while the stars above had whispered their agreement to her. Citlalli was from the Lakota, and her mother had been a white woman. Citlalli remembered little of the stories her mother had told, but the stories of her father, and the old women who cared for her, lived on.