Narel Pritaire
The night after I exalted, I fell into a feverish sleep, exhausted, my family were very worried, although that day, it soon became the least of their worries when the invaders caught them, while I became so enthralled in the dream, I absconded from Creation, and ended up physically in Malfeas, walking among it's rib-buildings and limb-continents.
It was a most unsettling experience., my body rebelling against the change, my soul stretched by the addition of the Exaltation, even as I walked into buildings so vast they had indoor rains, and cubicles so small, the demons within complained and yelled not so shove, just for breathing on them.
I walked into a beautiful concert hall, immense and resonant, unlike any I'd seen before. My parents, Thorn notables originally exiled from Lookshy, had gifted me with every chance to explore my musical talents, and even gifted me a flute with magical powers. I walked about unconcerned, not knowing my peril. I stepped into where the 'performers' would be, wanting to try my flute in this grand place. But I saw no seats. Indeed, when I passed the threshold, I was presented with the countenance of She who lives in her name, and she spoke to me: '''Narel Pritaire, I have chosen you. In exchange for surviving this day and allowing you to act, I beg of thee a small boon... Sing for me...''' I tried to protest, that I was just a flutist. But The Principle of Hierarchy was older than the world, and nothing I could say would sway her, so I sang. Better songs than I had known before, musics and rhythms I didn't know my voice box could make. The Principle said she had taught me the Charms of the Silver-Voiced Nightingale, and that it would hold me in good stead. Once I had mastered it properly, she would teach me further charms to enhance it. And so I speak little, and sing never, but instead play the flute, for I am terrified of what would happen if I unleashed the power of her song upon the world. She then let me go, saying she had unleashed her song upon the world, and the world should fear its beauty. Now understand me, I know without ego that I was beautiful before, but she had gifted me powers to enhance myself in many ways, first in beauty, but soon in combat, I soon outclassed all my sisters in martial arts.
Then, one of Malfeas' layers shifted, and saw a great windstorm that made no sound as it approached. When the locals saw that I carried a flute, they all urgently begged me to play, 'to save their souls', so I did. Unaware they were being literal, but not sure I wanted to test it, I played, I played for hours, I had no idea how long I played, my small body unused to such exertions, I dug deep into reserves granted by the exaltation, a small voice in my head gently pleading for me not to stop. The great silent storm receded, and they celebrated, saying i'd saved them all from Adorjan, whose hatred is cruel, but whose love is worse, and I sobbed, weirded by this experience.
Walking through Malfeas I soon exited the city, as the little voice in my head kept telling me to, kept saying: 'gotta get out of here'. And the great building was flattened by Malfeas' layers collapsing onto themselves, untold devastation following. But the voice would not let me stop, upon the desert it told me to tread, and for five days and five nights, I didn't stop, I just set one foot in front of another, my skin turning hairy, my body building up static charge, like a balloon rubbing on hair, and every second time the Tomescu roared their call of anger, the Malfean equivalent of 'dusk', my charge would leap upwards, reverse-lightning into the malfean sky. above the desert, except the last day, where it didn't leap upward, but formed into the portal that led me out, where 'Daddy' was waiting with Guildmistress Wandry.
"I am here, I am Narel, I am coming in search of knowledge, of understanding..."
"Narel Pritaire, I am your Unwoven Coadjutor, to you I say: Stelsor Knows."
"Can you not say something more useful? I know Stelsor, and consider him a friend, and someone experienced, I would expect him to know many things..."
"But that is not what I'm talking about... Stelsor knows much of Cecelyne's dogma, of her rules..."
"Oh hush you..." But I knew this voice, It'd been with me, since I changed... Stelsor was a friend, or trying to... but he wasn't telling me everything.
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