*Fun Fact: On the day I completed this essay, the Dutch team soundly beat Spain in the 2014 World Cup tournament. I don't really watch soccer, but in your face Spain! Dutch Power!!
A Night In Kayros
The night was warm in the final days before the rainy season. The city in the trees, surrounding the lake, was alight, for the evening had just begun. Many Tarkin were inside, eating or talking, spending time with each other, while many more were out among the branches, walking and taking, socializing in groups. There was a buzz in the air, a buzz felt by the young and remembered by the old. Nights such as these are remembered of all ones days.
Dalak raced along the way, back to his family tree. He had been studying at his school, a thirty-minute trip away. The tubes holding his school things bounced on his back as he jumped from one parallel branch to another, making his way to a main trunk and a bridge that would span the distance between a short gulf. As he walked the suspended bridge, he looked down at the darkness below him. Faintly, he could see a pillar of rock, one hundred feet below. It was covered in moss and prevented any of the massive trees from growing in this particular area. Remembering his hurry, the young Tarkin resumed his pace.
Tellan was your average Tarkin girl. She was medium height and had white hair. She hated her hair, mainly for the reason it was easy to pick out in the forest, not that pure white hair was uncommon among Tarkin. She sat on a young branch, back against the trunk of someone’s home-tree, overlooking a particular room in a nearby tree. Above the door was the carved face of a past resident, a face with a long nose, which was good for her.
She waited for her quarry to arrive, unable to tune out the nighttime activity of the largest Tarkin city on Yazos. Drums marked a beat far off in the distance as drifting tones from a woodwind penetrated the thick populated forest. There would be a play tonight in the theater and afterwards the fountains would be flow. Tonight was a special night; the eve before the final two central days of the cycle. Soon it would rain for one hundred days and moods would slumber. And before that slumber, Tellan would play a game that started with the boy who lived under the face carving across the way. She imagined she could see the nearly invisible thread hanging from the nose, but of course, in the low light of the bright night, her mind painted it in place.
She sat and watched as Dalak came home.
Across a lower branch and up the ladder to the platform to his room, Dalak went. He was devising a plan to give himself an excuse to run into a particular friend when something hit him in the face. Instinct kicked in and he dropped to a squat and rotated away from the entrance to his room, back to the side of the doorway. His eyes shot around from the inside of his stationary head as he looked for the culprit. A rolled note hung in the air at face level, right in front of his door. The sector of forest he could see from his spot was free of any suspicious people, and Dalak felt unobserved. But then again, he had heard that guardians were always practicing holding themselves dim...
With one hand, he snatched the paper and returned to his position. Though he was a scholar and not a disciplined Tarkin, he knew his races' way. He centered his own mind, going dim as he crouched and read the note.
Boy, play with me tonight. You can find me at all my favorite spots. -T
It was a short note, but it said a lot to Dalak. He had seen the white haired guardian girl many times: training in the treetops near his school, guarding the council tree, and out at the theater. It was there he first, and last, spoke to her. She had always caught his eye, but despite the fact that he was a few years older, she felt a branch or two above his grasp. They spoke and walked after he saw her at the empty theater on her free time. They talked for two hours, both forgetting the time, though at the present, Dalak could not remember exactly what the drifting conversation had been about. And now, many days later, on the night he had planned to go out and find her again, he came home to find she had developed the same idea first.
Movement caught his eye.
In the darkness, a faint spot of white retreated from a nearby tree. Retreating into the darkness, avoiding the lamps on the lower common walkways, was the girl who had left him the unconventional message. Should he go after her? No. She wanted to play and she was already moving too fast for him to catch up. He smiled in the darkness of his rooms' platform. She left a note for me.
He would stow his school supplies and put on a different shirt. He would also strap on his pair of hon-ras, which would not look out of place on the hips of a young man on a night such as this. His admirer had taken off in the direction of the Theater, and it was likely that was the place to where her note had alluded.
The Great Lake was not perfectly round and it would take a day and a half to walk around the whole city in the trees. The Theater was in the same city quarter as Dalak's home, but overlooking the edge of the lake. Dalak went over the main paths, crossing ways with other individuals and small groups, but no glimpses of Tellan were seen. The Tarkin boy wondered at the time as the distant drums picked up ferocity. A low rumble of voices could be heard from the Theater area ahead, and then came the chanting. The performance had begun.
Dalak climbed a main trunk of an outlying audience tree, bringing himself to the bright level where he could now see the main stage. The theater consisted of a grand tree that had been topped at half its height. The large round surface area stood at the point of a diamond, the audience in the field looking onward with the lake in the background. Two small satellite stages sat not far away, connected by ramps for use in some productions, but not tonight. The two drummers on stage stopped their rhythmic pounding and a speaker walked out to his mark.
The voice of the older Forsaken traveled well in the open air of the great Kayros Theater. Tellan sat far in the back and up on a branch, listening to the evenings introduction. Most of the stories told on nights such as these began with the telling of a legend, which would later tie in with the theme of the tale. Tellan listened to the speaker while she kept an eye out for Dalak.
"Our speech is simple, some might say," the Speaker boomed across the forest to the quiet audience. "We do not communicate with frequent use of metaphors like the Dohit, or with heavy context such as the Nar. We Tarkin say what we mean! Is that not the great characterizations that follow each race? But this of course does not mean that we are not advanced in thought like the Dohit or feeling like the Nar! No, I argue, we are much like them, just in different ways. Let me show you:
"Take for example the way we name things. We call this world of ours Yazos. Yazos," he repeated again, holding his arms up to the canopy, "that word, when spoken, comes with certain feelings and descriptors attached. When I hear this word, I see in my mind's eye a polished orb; a magical thing that holds all life. I suspect that I am not the only one who has these traits come to mind with the mention of that word.
"So why is this? Do we have these types of attachments with other names? We do of course, you say! It is the first sound of the word 'Yazos' that we can find answers. The 'YA' brings to mind a polished gem, while the ending '-OS' is synonymous with magic. Think of other names and the prominent sounds that we attach intrinsic meaning.
"Should I say the word 'Taviar,' the mountain to our north, you think of cold. Other names that begin with 'T' also give you that feeling, as there is this attribute attached to the sound. Now think of other examples of this that you can find in naming.
"The sound 'V' has a vibration of strength to it!"
"The hum of the 'M' makes one feel the comforting simplicity of spirit."
"Think of the endurance extrued by the 'Ahh'..."
"A name ending with '-IN' makes you think of a secret!"
"The short crack of 'K' reminding us of beauty..."
"And who can deny the impression of intelligence conveyed by the 'D' sound. There is a reason we call them Dohit, I suppose!"
"And so, finally, think of our own great city. Search your feelings when I speak the name of the largest and most populated dwelling pl
ace of the Tarkin people. Kayros!
"We have already pointed out the building blocks of this word. Beauty and magic, I believe I earlier so defined. And is that not what jumps to mind at the summoning of that name? The city of trees. The beauty of our lake and the sacred island, which you can all see."
The speaker turned from the audience and extended an arm to the lake and island beyond. Tellan suddenly realized she had become caught up in the tale and focused back on looking out for her pursuer. In the audience, Tellan noticed a figure slowly moving in her direction, eyes searching for an individual. Dalak! She leapt from her spot, an obvious movement intended to be seen. Without looking back, she left in the direction of the hanging gardens, sure the boy would follow.
"And such is the point of my argument. We should not be defined by the apparent simplicity and straight forwardness of our speech, for when you look deep at the names we give to the places and objects that define us, you see color in the sounds. There are more to us Tarkin than being cold and secretive. There is also more to each individual than what you may think of them on the surface, as the story for this evening will show you..."
Dalak saw the movement ahead. He had gotten close and Tellan had taken off. It made him smile. Even though he was technically pursuing her, it gave Dalak a special sense of importance that she would go to all this trouble to get him to follow her. Calmly he made his way through the rest of the crowd, keeping his eye on the brief flashes of white hair and the direction of her travel.
Along he moved with swift resolve. Plans formed in his head of what he would do and say when he finally caught up with her. Dalak was not usually bold; he had never chased anyone through the city at night like this. The branches were covered in islands of light and shadow, both of which he swept through without thought. A flash of white below him made him drop from the large branch he was on, using a hand to slow his descent down the massive chain holding the hanging stone half-sphere in its place floating among the high branches.
Dalak landed to the ground and felt the reaction of the suspended platforms response to his landing. The Great Hanging Gardens of Kayros spread out before him. Various levels of independent gardens hung like oversized pots in the open area of the forest, suspended by massive chains anchored on three sides of the gardens rim. There were nineteen islands held hundreds of feet up in the massive trees, each containing exotic plants brought in specifically for decoration from around the planet. Overall, the placement of the vegetation was made in specific design to create a soothing labyrinth for Tarkin to travel through in relaxing contemplation.
But in the dark, the open path took on the qualities of a maze, a maze that Dalak crept slowly through, on the lookout for Tellan, who could be hiding just around the next corner. From island to island he hopped, exploring the circular platforms not in the exact route that was laid out by the designers. From further on he suddenly heard the white haired girls laughter and he sprinted forward, sure he was heading in the right direction. Dalak made a long leap to a lower island and was forced to roll off the hard landing. Coming up from his knees, he moved his head around to listen for more laughter. It came from his right and upward. Scanning for movement in that direction, his leading foot came out from under him and he fell to the grass surface of the garden.
Tellan stuck out an arm from her crouched location and grabbed Dalaks ankle. It was much thicker than she imagined it would be and the weight it carried was real. She heaved, unsure if she would be able to bring down the boy, but came away pleased with the results. She let out another laugh and leapt away before he had a chance to recover.
"You never learned how to throw the direction of your voice?" she shouted back mockingly. She let out another series of laughter as she sprung along through the hanging garden platforms, throwing the sound to either side of her direction of travel to demonstrate her prowess with the trick. She climbed one of the chains from an edge island and pulled herself up to the mighty branch above. She looked back, confirming she had maintained the enticement of her persuer, and continued in the direction of the edge of the city.
Her white hair fluttered out from behind her as she slowly descended down branch pathways, a wild girl streaking past calm moving pedestrians out in the warm night. The area in front of her became dark; no more lights marking main paths or residences hung in the void. She had reached the edge of the lake and found the way to a tree that had a ladder stapled into the trunk. She maneuvered down the rungs, stopping at a branch that extended out over the water. She scampered out on the path, nothing between her and the calm lake below but fifty feet of air. Once she had nearly reached the terminal point of the path, Dalak appeared at the trunk.
"I finally caught up with you," he said to the girl he had chased through the night.
"Not quite," She replied, and fell sideways, casually arcing into a diving position. She broke the water with barely a sound and the gentle splashes of her surfacing and treading water echoed back up into the lower levels of the dense trees.
Dalak shook his head and wondered to himself if this crazy girl was worth all the work. The image of the way her hair bounced as she ran away came to him. Then, a flash of a time he saw her training. The slight shadow created by the definition of her collarbone was all that he noticed as he walked past her training class. No one else had caught his eye in such a way...
Dalak found himself running in full sprint down the path above the water. He reached the end and launched himself with one foot, throwing his head backwards and starting the forward-moving-backward-rotating launch into space. Dalak threw his hands outward as he rotated, knees bent, and his hands involuntarily lit up in a deep purple-blue.
The partial luminous light reflected over the ripples of water as the falling Tarkin sailed past the spot Tellan occupied and splashed down feet first, arms held up, into the deep water of the lake. The girl wiped her face from the explosion of aerated water and waited for Dalak to surface. Several moments passed, moments beyond the reasonable amount of time it would take for one to surface. Tellan began to look around in panic when Dalak broke the surface right behind her and pushed her shoulders down into the water.
The two played back and forth for a moment before Tellan sunk under the surface, changed directions and swam toward a small island near the edge of the lake.
Dalak called after her, "Enough with the chase!"
"I know," she said rolling over and continuing to swim but speaking back to him. "No more chasing, let's go sit!"
The two swam to the dark spot of land poking up through the flat surface and climbed over the rocky surface. They sat shoulder to shoulder on the far side, facing the dominating island in the middle of the lake. Tellan put her toes in the water while Dalak pulled his knees to his chest. He felt an anxiousness sitting alone with her, a plan in mind waiting for the perfect timing to be inacted. It was a great plan, a bold plan, and the patience required to use it at just the right time was unmatched by anything he had felt before.
"Have you ever been there before?" she asked, staring off at the big island.
"No," he answered. "I've only ever looked out at it from the high treetops."
"Do you believe the legend that that was the true spot where God created the three races?"
"I really do," Dalak answered. There was an uncomfortable silence and Dalak filled it with reproduced thoughts from school. "But what does it say for us Tarkin? This whole world, the wild backside continent, and we venture no further than line of sight from the place we emerged from." An overwhelming feeling of moving away from the opportunity for the perfectly timed plan struck him. Panic!
"Possibly that we are romantic," Tellan said, redirecting the conversation in a way that quelled Dalak's concern. "The island is sacred to us. The place we came from the force that imagined us. I think it's beautiful..."
"I'd like to make the long swim out there one day," Dalak said, feeling the timing was nearly upon him.
"Oh, really?" She said turning toward
him. "Well then, tonight is the..."
The green hue of the moonlight on her face struck a cord in Dalaks mind. Every fiber of his body screamed in unison for his mind to take the leap. He felt he positioned himself on a thin branch and had forced himself to walk until it could support him no longer. The choice was out of his hands as gravity took over and his deeply considered plan commenced.
He kissed her mid-sentence, swift in the initial strike, but soft in the action. The entirety of the great plan had been exhausted; Dalak had had nothing considered after that point.
The two sat on the tiny rock island in the water, under a green hued moon, looking out at the spot their ancestors had originated, as the night drew deeper around the beautiful and magical city of Kayros.
Waking The Robot
~Returning to operation. Situation: three children; two males and one female. A male is assaulting the hardware~
"Hey! Hey, robot! Anyone in there!?" The boy said, clunking the silver robot on its head with a airlock tool.