Deep waters slay you gently.

On Moonsday, he stepped through the Veil of Dusk and Dawn. He was delighted on how the sunlight was dancing on his waves and so he remained on wathching them for some time.

On Warsday he crossed the old bridge that has been built over his waters long time ago; the builders long gone. He was slightly worried on how close the human colonizations had spread and on how far they had strayed from nature. He commited the worry in his memory to be properly examinated and to be thought over later as he would have time to do so.

On Middleweek he travelled far in the upstream of one of the rivers running to his arms, finding delight on the chatter of small foams of the rapids, tallying with each one of them, and gently petting their white curls before they ran forward, giggling and whispering during their race.

On Thundersday he rested for a while in the quiet waters of river bend.
Later that day he saw a human child playing in the forest, not far from the riverbank. He thought for a moment of interveneing this, but decided against it as the Forest wasn't his to guard nor rule, even tho he didn't approve the situation.

On the Madamsday he listened the worries of the young of his court.
He promised to escort them once their first joyrney down the river would come.

On the Bathingday he remembered it wasn't appropriate to walk on land without clothing and so he summoned foam of the river to be his dress and small waves to be his robes.
They giggled at their lord's forgetfulness as he smiled gently at them and pretend not to hear their jesting.

And on the Sunsday he had a dream.
And he laught.
And he cried.

When did I fall..?

I wonder when did it happen...

The first time I ever saw you I hated you; three years older than me; teen with pale grey eyes, like smoke in bars, rough, black hair like stray dog's furr. Thin and messy street boy the mother had picked up to take care of little errands.
Those old, stuttering people who know about these things (or at least pretend to) and like to pick other people's mind would probably say that I was jealouse of the attention mom gave to you.
I don't know about those kind of things, nor I like to think that I'd have used to care about that old hag, so I just say I hated you.

When I hate someone, I insult them.

And so I started to bark my mind for you, telling what exactly I thought there was wrong with you and calling you by names.
Childish of course, but really, I was nothing else than a child myself.
It was then that I learnt that you have no tolerance with loudmouths, nor did you care I was younger than you.
You put me down without mercy, using your superior height and weight without remorse.

I rather think I've never have a beat up like that.

The ease with what you won made me dislike you even more, and so I took it as my new habit to insult you when ever given the chance. It usually resulted in scuffle very soon and even more often in me getting beaten up.
I think it was during one of those times when you sat in my back, year or two later, keeping me down with only your body-weight that I realized I wanted to be like you.
I didn't want to be just a brat to you, but someone who you listened, maybe even respected as an equal.
I one word; I wanted to impress you.
It was of course a secret; one so well kept that even I myself didn't realize it but a years later when I was wasted and getting nostalgic.

What a funny world.

As I never really matched you in height or weight (curse that old hag for giving me her short genes),  I started to train in other respect, and slowly our brawls came less one-sided as I started to gain more skills in fighting. Back then I didn't realize it (or if I did, I shut it in the deepest part of my subconsciousness), but my insults became just a way to get you angry and to fight with me.
I still held up the mask of disliking you.

As I turned sixteen the Mother assigned us -us of the all people- to be partners in business and in the streets. An idea that rouse many questions and few of objections, not least from us ourselves, but was carried through as all Mothers decicions none the less.
We almost got ourselves killed on the first mission.
And on the one after that.
And after that.
The people we were pointed to work with turned out to be snitches for the patrol, or othervice traitors for their own good, or having an rancor against the Mother.
Suddenly we had no-one to trust to.

Someone who's titled as clever has once said (or so I have heard), that people who can't trust anyone have three opinions; one: became grazy, two: kill themselves or three: learn to trust someone.
We started to trust eachother.

It took me some time to figure it out, but I realized later that that was what the Mother had aimed at the whole time. We had been set up with known traitors and other threats to be brainwashed to trust eachother. You realized it too, as you weren't stupid, regardless what I have said for years.
Of course, realizing it doesn't make it go away.
So we continued to trust eachother and just add Mother to the list of people to be paranoid about.

That list seems to be too long these days.

We still tease and insult eachother, the fistfight is just the result more less these days; you take your anger out on other people now as you "need me alive" you say.
We still hurt eachother.
Maybe it's deep-rooted habit we'll never fully escape.
You're my damned best fucking friend.
I don't want to love you...

Part-humans: Gerians

Few generatios ago in the northern-east province of Gerian happened the greatest alchemic disaster so far in the history of Talais.
An alchemic laboratory that laid within the boundaries of the province caught fire and burned down, expoding huge amounts of alchemic waste all around.
This disaster killed hundreds of people and hamstrung thousands, but the real terrors of the cathastrophe were only revealed in following generatios of effected people and fauna.
The descendants had severe, monsterous mutations starting with several extra limbs and leading to hideous, unnatural changes in their mental and physical states.

In current generations the most drastic mutations seem to have tuned down, but mutations of whole new kind have also been born as the elder generation of these persons now being called as "Gerians" have married eachother.

Gerians have swifty started to develope their own subculture as the clans wandering around Talais have become more permanent.
Most human communities treat the Gerians with fearful suspicious or violent hate, but communities with more inhuman connect (like places with Kires culture around) have more tolerance towards them.
Kires themselves accept most Gerian without so much as the bat of eye, maybe becouse many Gerians have Kiresian ancestors.

At the moment it is under debate if Gerian should still be defined as part-humans, or as race of their entire own.