Triberias: Mark of the Called

The First Virtue

II.

The First Virtue.

THE EASTERN SCAFFOLD.

420 AA, After the Great Ascension.

20 years later,

In the land above the clouds, in a supposedly legendary land that was called a paradise, a figure watched as two young women, both natives of the land sat on a huge, puffy cloud.

It was all white around it and around them much unlike the dark thunder clouds that were swiftly shifting beneath the three of them.

All around, the colours of the rainbow were flickering on and off in the air, shimmering as the light of the Hope was refracted a million times over through the droplets that were present in the air.

As was expected of the city, avian life flourished here and the occasional flock in an array of colours buzzed past their busy heads singing the happy songs of what was assumed to be the morning.

One of the women on the cloud had red hair. A lovely shade that was as warm as the sun at sunrise even as it began to peek through the eastern horizon, charging up for the day that was meant to be ahead.

Her eyes were the same as that of the all other natives. Eyes so huge and striking; big round orbs that glittered like Sapphires and yet were a much much deeper blue than any sky that the figure had ever seen at midday.

The other person with the woman was actually a girl and so, her stature was much smaller.

Instead of a head full of red hair, hers was a big mop of yellow locks. Yellow curly and very unruly locks. Her blond hair was quite lush and it crowned her head like a golden fleece, before coming to a stop on a wide forehead, just a few centimetres above a set of startling green eyes.

Her eyes which were like emeralds, also glimmered with so much light much like the woman's. Glittering even as she skimmed through a cloud's surface in order to better view the rolling landscapes that were shuffling beneath them.

"Moriella, why do you think she is taking so long?" the young girl asked the woman. She pulled out her small hands from within the wide berth of the sleeves that belonged to a long green and gold embroidered cowl and wringed them even as she did so.

"I do not know Cjaira, but I guess it must have something to do with her mentor, you know, Elder Lionel." Moriella answered her as she cleared away the rest of the cloud with just a flick of her hand.

Cjaira stared back at Moriella who was dressed up in her own red and gold garbs that were much like the ones worn by her cohort and Moriella laughed at the jealous expression that was now present on her face. Cjaira however, did not look pleased by this act and she shook her head in frustration even as she turned her emerald gaze back to the ocean view that had now settled beneath them.

"Why does the elder hate her so much?" she suddenly cried out of exasperation and without warning, Moriella reached out a hand and capped the girl's small pink lips, preventing her from speaking more words that could be considered a sacrilege.

"Ssh...Quietly Cjaira!" she scolded as she frantically looked around with gingerly eyes for other eyes and ears that may have noticed them. Satisfied that no one was listening, having not noticed the figure, she, Moriella removed her hands from Cjaira's mouth and addressed her in a much softer tenor. "Now, I do not think that the man hates her per se, but very few Great actually have a tolerance for Havillah's kind of questions and I am afraid the good elder is just not one of them."

"What is wrong with asking questions? Is that not how we get to learn?" Cjaira countered fiercely, but in a much softer tenor having learnt her lesson from her previous encounter with Moriella's hands.

"When they are questions about humans then, I am afraid, it is considered as wrong."

"Really, yet you sit here all day long, watching them as they go about their activities." a voice said from behind them and the two females jumped up in surprise, proving that Moriella's fears were not that unfounded.

"Havillah!" Cjaira finally gasped as she launched herself at the new girl.

"There are no rules against watching." Moriella scoffed, standing up as well to give her dear friend a tight hug after the younger girl had finally released her. "Where have you been?" she whispered into her hair.

Unlike the other two girls, this new girl had long black hair and brown skin which was actually a lighter shade of caramel. She spotted a pair of silver eyes that shone brightly beneath the cover of dark long lashes the same colour as her hair. Hair that was much longer than that of Cjaira or Moriella and that cascaded down her back in waves, before coming to an end above her knees, right below where her hips now swayed.

Heightwise, Moriella was much taller than Havillah, whereas Cjaira was shorter than the both of them being much younger than the two who also happened to be in the same cohort.

"With your past experience, one would think that you would have learnt by now." Moriella added as she stepped back to take a look at the haggard looking Havillah.

"Learnt what? All the information that is to be contained within the ancient scrolls in the sanctuary archives?" she retorted and then laughed at the disgusted face that Cjaira was now making. "To tell you the truth, I do not mind the reading. It is the insults and the leers that I find that I am growing tired of." she added as she crossed her legs and dropped down to sit at the very end of the cloud's edge. "It doesn't help that I am terrible with the first Virtue." she added. "it just gives him more reason to torment me and I am afraid I can't take it any longer."

"Havillah..." Moriella placed a comforting arm around her and the girl found herself leaning in to the comfort of her friend's touch.

Why was she always this kind? A single tear escaped her eyes and trailed down her brown and haggard cheeks at this rare show of kindness.

"I am afraid that they will soon throw me out." she found herself whispering even as she choked back more tears that were threatening to overflow her silver eyes.

"No... They can't do that, can they?" Cjaira whispered as she took a seat on the vacant cloud that was right beside them. "But you're so good with the second Virtue?"

"It doesn't matter Cjaira. If she loses the first Virtue, she's as good as gone."Moriella explained and Cjaira whimpered as she too wrapped her arms around their friend.

Silence then reigned among the three friends. A comforting silence as each of them got lost in their own thoughts. Some reminiscing the peace while the others mourned the dark days that were sure to come on ahead.

"What about the third Virtue?" Cjaira suddenly spoke out as she pulled away from the group hug to face the two older girls. Moriella and Havillah stared back at her blankly, before shaking their heads at what they considered a very outrageous statement. "What?" the younger girl articulated angrily.

"Cjaira, even you know that that is utterly impossible. You've seen the scales. No one has been able to wield the third Virtue since the time of the ancients." Moriella replied and Havillah nodded in amity.

"But we can't just sit down and do nothing! They are going to kick you out. Where will you go after that Havillah? What will happen to you?"

"I do not know Cjaira." she admitted in defeat. "Though I guess, I will cross that bridge when I finally get there." was all she could manage to tell them. Deep inside Havillah was truly in anguish. She was a let down not just to her mentor but to her family as well. Possibly, they would all be happy to see her gone, right?

What would I really do if-no, when I finally get kicked out? Havillah thought as she sat down with her two friends on the cloud, watching the scene that was unfolding through the viewpoint. Will they send me down there? What kind of life would she live? she thought as she watched the ocean lapping the sandy beaches that marked its boundaries. She pondered hard and eventually her thoughts grew tiresome and she abandoned them as well. Embracing the peace and the calm that spending time with her two dear friends normally brought to her.

After several hours of doing nothing else, Moriella and Cjaira excused themselves in order to get back to their training and for what purpose they did all that training, Havillah could not tell. In her own reasoning, there seemed to be no purpose in what everyone was doing. Slaving away in training with no vision whatsoever. All they ever did was sleep and wake up and train but nothing ever changed in their meagre lives, in that boring life that what was also meant to be some sort of a paradise.

Havillah continued to ponder on this. To ponder on the vanity of their lives long after her friends had gone and she was left out there staring out at the scene. that she refused to change.

The view of the ocean and a rocky island that had jutted out from within the depths of the same sea. The sun was no longer shining in this scene as it had already sunk beyond the horizon and now, a cold ocean breeze was picking up, blowing wildly across the otherwise barren landscape. Slowly, the clouds beneath her feet began to stir, changing form and growing ever darker and thicker with every passing minute. Lightening flashed from within the darkened clouds even as the sound of thunder roared.

The strong winds stirred up the waves and the great walls of water broke even as they clashed against the massive jutting rocks that were looming like dark silhouettes right beneath her.

The view became hazy as the first drops of rain fell down like a curtain to the waters in the ocean below.

There was nothing more to see.

She stood up on her feet and stretched out her limbs in preparedness to head back home. As she turned to walk back into the Great city, more flashes of light continued to burst out and then, a particularly loud peal of thunder rocked the skies, shaking up the very puffy floors that she was now standing on.

In shock, Havillah swiveled back and quickly turned to stare out from the viewpoint. Curiosity was now gnawing at her belly even as she stared out into the darkeness, shocked by the sound that she had just heard.

That was no thunder and she knew it. Every fibre in her body was screaming it even as she moved closer to the edge and remained patient to verify it.

She watched with much anticipation and finally her patience was rewarded as a huge ball of fire razed through skies, lighting it up and the clouds above it with an eerily orange glow.

She took a step back, surprised by what she had just seen.

Lightening was not orange. No, It was supposed to be a dazzling white or blue and it formed bolts, not great balls of orange fire!

As she pondered on this, a dark shadow and then another passed swiftly beneath the cloud as yet another loud noise thundered through out the skies. It vibrated within the cloud and shook her up despite the fact that she was watching all these from another realm. Maybe the curtains here were thinner here or was the view point actually a veil? She did not get to ponder that much longer as all around her, more roars echoed the first one even as more orange lights filled up the night sky that was beneath her.

Afraid, she turned back from the view point in haste and quickly rushed through the gates into the safety of the city's walls.

As she went through gates, the warmth of the city's crystal embraced her, soothing her and washing away all her panic and the emotions that had previously been frayed by what her eyes had just witnessed.

Still, she walked on as her own people, Great of all ages, sizes and colour milled all around her. Some were walking and others hovering, but all were wearing the same colourful robes that swished and swashed in the wind of their movements.

To the tenant eye this view was extremely beautiful. The flash of different colours, a kaleidoscope of lights that resembled a rainbow. Yes, the place was beautiful and glisteningly so with graceful lights and rainbows and so much gold that spoke of the wealth of these people or so they had been told.

It was not normal to walk on crystal, and all the golden walls and ivory made up this place to be some sort of a paradise, but was it really? Probably, if the overall aesthetic effect was anything to go by and this included the huge white clouds that spotted many green plants, the occasional startling blue river that flowed down from one puffy cloud to another and at the centre of it all, an adamantine structure. A castle of epic proportions, made up of a single block diamond whose sparkly spires and turrets rose up higher, so much higher than any of the other buildings within the said city.

It was the sanctuary. The main building within this city. The pinnacle on which the Hope seemed to be resting. Everything else seemed to revolve around it and with good reason for it was the source of their livelihood, the anchor to this paradise in a heavenly realm.

Havillah took a couple more steps forwards and in the direction of her home. Like all others houses in the place, her home was a mansion.

A great golden mansion in the residential district that was east of the outer Sanctuary. The mansion was big even by the city's standards, being much bigger than most of the houses in the city and akin only to two others that were littered all around the Sanctuary in a quarter circle.

Like all the other buildings, the design of their mansion resembled that of a castle with upper glistening floors that resembled towers, complete with turrets and burnished adamantine conical roof tops. Where the surfaces were not crystal, gold in all shades of yellow, white and rose glistened in the crystal's light, making the mansion a real sight to behold even without the little cloud gardens that had been planted scattered around and in front the steps to the main doorway.

As Havillah neared it, she shook her head in order to clear her thoughts and the darkness that had once clouded them. She took a step forward and another all garnered towards approaching the glistening double doorways with the crest of her family emblazoned upon it. As expected, the crystal dove with an olive branch in its beak glimmered white, then a myriad of other colours before settling down on red even as it slid back open to admit her inside.

"Havillah." her mother's voice rang out as soon as she cleared the threshold.

"Yes, mother." she replied with a sigh and began the long walk to the kitchen hoping to lengthen the process as much as it was in her power to do so.

"You are late!" her mother stated without ceremony as soon as she entered the kitchen.

"I am sorry mother." she replied, for what more could she do but stare down and appear solemn in the presence of such great power? She knew that it would appease her and it was better than staring down into depths of those accusing eyes. Silver eyes that were the same as hers if not sharper and the same skin colour albeit a few shades darker. All in all they should have appeared the same apart from her mother's silver hair that differed from Havillah's obsidian that she had inherited from her carnelian eyed father. As powers went that was where their similarities ended and as if to proof just that, a golden fork wheezed right past het nearly impaling her as it left the room behind her to settle in her mother's open palm.

Havill slowly lifted her eyes an eyed her mother skeptically and yet in all that the woman remained seemingly complacent, unshaken by what had just transpired.

"You are in the way and had you been here earlier, I would not have needed to multitask. "

So essentially, it is all my fault. Havillah rolled her eyes at her reply for which she treated to an imperious look from the same. This is a losing battle, she slowly released a tired sigh and nodded. There was no point in arguing with her. Her mother would just be... her mother. A woman with too much power and more influence that she knew how to handle. Slowly the girl forced hrrself forward already dreading the tasks that she knew were waiting for her.

"What will you have me do?" she questioned even as she dragged her feet towards the crystal topped island and sat down on one of the four golden stools that were tacked beneath it. It was all she could do not to appear sullen.

"Cut up the vegetables, do the dishes and set the table." her mother replied off-handedly and with another sigh, Havillah set out to work on all those albeit,unwillingly. She knew fully well the disaster that was coming and as she closed her eyes in concentration, she felt the drawers begin to open, rattling as several kitchen knives flew out and scattered all over the room.

"CONCENTRATE !" her mother's voice boomed and she dropped all of them. Havillah opened her eyes as the sharp blades landed on the crystal top with a loud clang of glass against metal. "I do not think you will need all those." her mother scolded. "You are not yet proficient enough with the basic things to even try that. So return all of them and focus again on the one that you actually need."

Havillah rose up again to gather the knives, but her mother stopped her before she could so.

"No, use Virtue."

All Havillah could do was nod and here I had thought that my lateness had placed us behind schedule, she could only decry it in her thoughts and after several trial and errors, she finally manage to place the knives back and bring out a small slim kitchen knife that she rested uphazardly upon the counter.

"Now, imagine a vision of the vegetables. Align them on the counter and project the vision of the knife cutting up the vegetables. Whichever you chose to start with that will be your choice but I do need the onions in order to begin sauteing them ." het mother instructed and as was the norm she nodded ter again. Slowly, Havillah struggled to do so and with much difficulty and a lot of resistance, the kitchen knife floated up into the air and slowly began slicing up the onions.

The girl's forehead crinkled with frustration as one by one she sliced up the onions and diced up the carrots. She peeled up the potatoes and shredded up the capsicum and the eggplants. Next came the coriander shoots and before she knew it all the vegetables were done albeit in an up hazard manner that illicited a raised up eyebrow from her always meticulous mother.

"It is not perfect, but I guess it will do." she told her as Hsbilllooked away from her work in self-disgust. Why am I this way? She thought as she turned back to stare down at the mess that she had just created. Why am I so different? Why can't I just be like my mother? I have messed up everything and that is all she can say?

"Why are you not scolding me? They're awful!" Havillah suddenly exclaimed uncomfortable with the understanding that was out of place in her mother's eyes.

"Havillah..." het mother tried to comfort her even as the tears threatened to overwhelm her eyes.

"It is so hard. I keep trying and trying but I never get it right. Why can't I do it with my eyes open, just like you?"

"Havillah..." her mother was being unusually tender. "That is not the way of the first Virtue. First, you have to master the Modus of seeing the unseen before you can begin to do what I am able do. It is all about practice and practice and before you know it, you will be as good as everyone else is in this Vurtue."

Maybe but when was she supposed to practice. All her time was always occupied by that foul tongued, sour faced elder and her mother should have known better seeing as she was the one who had placed her under the care of that old geezer.

"I do not want to be like everyone!" she suddenly cried out. "I want to be like you!"

"And maybe that is where your problem lies in, right there." and just like that Havillah's mother was back to her old self. "You want to be like me instead of forging your own path! We are not the same Havillah, our purposes in this life are also quite different and unless you embrace your uniqueness, you will never know what it was that you were made for." her mother scolded.

"My uniqueness." the girl laughed humorlessly. " What is so special about me? Everyone looks at me and expects me to be just like you. To be as good as you, but I am not! And I have no purpose what so ever in this place . All I ever do is read scrolls and suck at the simplest things that even the twins can do!" she answered her while standing up.

"Havillah..." her mother tried again, but Havillah had already made up her mind. She shook her head in exasperation and rushed out of the kitchen not knowing where it was that she was headed.

Eventually, Havillah found herself in a private winter garden which they planted despite the lack of seasons in this country. It was forever summer in this place and that lack of variety was what had always inspired her to visit the viewpoint. The scrolls she had read always spoke of a time of seasons, variations in weather and other things that could only be seen in that world through the view point. So, what did that mean?

Were humans really as evil as she been taught if they had been blessed with something that even they the Great could not attain? Why then were they cursed with just a singular season? Why the long lifespan and no other purpose other than training? Was this then truly meant to be a paradise? The questions flooded her mind even as she turned over what she had learnt from the scrolls and had perceived with her own mind.