[AW] bone to rune; skull to dust [AW]

[Turhan]

“ bone to rune ”

Tempus had come down on Veneror Peak like a beach bully smashing an unsuspecting five-year old's sand castle.  What once was, was now no more, and the prayers prayed for-and-by both the needy and the eager would not be answered that day (when were they ever?).  For hundreds of years that monolith of a mountain stood.  It had been the Elder's sanctity - his peoples' sanctity - they inviolably believed that Vespera could feel their spirit if they could stand so close to the sky.  Then all that wonder and magic was suddenly .. nothing.


Turhan theorized that he must have been an hour away in distance from Veneror when it happened.  That, and being blind, there was little else he could say to describe what he saw, just what he felt.


He felt darkness, though perhaps it was foresight without thinking.  No broken bones - just skin.  The terrifying, near-deafening roar of Might wasn't nearly as traumatizing as it should have been. Everybody back home knew that the old man heard voices and saw things that weren't there and had come to expect it from his tales.  However, in less spectacular ways, what he always said often turned out to be true.


Now, the age of innocence was over and he should warn the others of this (if they didn't already know) and --- after a nap by the fire first.


Long-removed from from the scene now, everything was a hazy blur.  His old memory could not remember the past few hours where the Witch Doctor guided the old man home and urged him to rest.  Naturally he wandered the moment she had gone, some better decision-making skills had been forfeited for a ticket into the towering age of sixteen.  It was easy to focus on the crackling rasp of the fire than the hole in his memory.


He was comfortable here knowing the fire was started by an Ilati. The cinnamon bark and cedar wood was a trademark flavor of smoke all too familiar to Turhan.  His hair had been perfumed by it while resting by the fireside many years ago.  A breeze brought another texture into the air, efforvescent echinacea and the woody musk of burdock, the firestarter must have been returning to camp afterall.  



-- then Atreus spoke and Turhan couldn't help grunting outloud to block out being called old or blind.  If he didn't hear it it wasn't true -- or so he stubbornly thought.


"Vespera guides me. I am blind but I am not .. " Turhan struggled to find the Mlendo word, 'stupid', he ate it when it failed to surface in his memory and Turhan hoped Atreus would think it was intentional.  "Vespera guides me, always."  He kvelled.  Progressing forward, he stirred the coals until he could feel more heat his way.  Greedily he scooted his sore bones closer to the source shamelessly hogging the warmth despite it being Summer.


"You busy? -- Now you not.  Sit and have words with me.  Big problems in the mountains, you hear about it? Say to me what you know."


Turhan reached out to pitch more cedar into the dying fire trying to encourage the medicine man to stay longer to hopefully pick his bones on what dawn healer might know of.  Meanwhile, careful footsteps from far away became near now.  The old bear was known for his long periods of silence, "Atatu needs more blue blooms, from the highlands.  You will bring to Tinea, no?  Atatu, she will not go," unless it was to issue a simple-but-complicated request.  


There were many kinds of blue flowers.  Dozens.
The highlands of where?
Who was Atatu?


By now girl was moving towards the invitation of fire - something about the way the unnamed one spoke invoked a sense of nostalgia within Turhan.  Although he did not yet understand why, he trusted her implicitly. 


Grandfather,  the child greeted.  Turhan rattled his bells at her in fair response.  The child then acknowledged Atreus.  Uncle, she said softly.  Then to them both, she asked of Nahane.  The subject was sacred, Turhan being old and self-righteous at times, expected his question to be answered first before she got one for hers.


"You speak like the old ones -- why?"  


*Mlendo, Nyanja for 'Outsider'
*Atatu, a Chewewah name for @Batty that he has chosen

T U R H A N
skull to dust

@Atreus , @Indra 
Ooc:  This is way beefier than the intro.  I don't usually make it a habit to throw so much into posts but I was struggling with direction and I'll edit the link to the thread pertaining to where he was before he was here.  Dingo, I was kicking around the idea that, in their younger years they've shared a few fires and passed secrets or traded tools of the trade.  Feel free to add, I figure it's a good way to establish their previous encounters.