197 - The hardships asakraiyaseyel commonly face

The maesa asa kraiya has a book, in which each asakraiyaseye has a page on which to write, or draw, as he or she pleases. Obligations are few, when you live there; there are chores, but only if you are capable. They do want something in the book from everyone, though, for their records. Eventually I filled mine by scrawling, as best I could remember it, for all I was worth, the speech I’d made in Terera about my going asa kraiya.

I am telling out of order. It is hard to remember in order. Knowing that I would likely stay at the maesa asa kraiya for a time afterwards—a month is not unusual, Azaila had told me—I had expected it would be a break, a time of peace, an indulgence; that I would put up my feet, except for chores, and spend easy, carefree days with my new peers.

It wasn’t like that at all. You do not go to the maesa asa kraiya to laze. You go there because you need to be there, just like the residents of the House of Integrity, because there is nowhere else you can be, and bear what you go through.

†

“How does my aura look?” Same day, I think.

“As you’d expect. In turmoil; confused.”

“But changed.”

“Of course.”

“So.... when the sword is gone... does the rest of the aura try to... fit something in the hole, like scar tissue?”

“Yes. The aura is as fluid, or more so, than water. It filled in the space the moment the sword was gone. The mark is still there, though, of course; like all trauma, it has left a scar.”

“What does that mean? I mean... what will it mean... to me?”

“It means that like all of us, you will carry the mark of having been a warrior.”

†

Iyinisa gave me a notepad and an Arkan pen—incongruous in this Second Nainginin place—and recommend that I write. “I write already,” I told her. “I was writing a memoir until I gave it up back in Arko. Well… I thought I had written the ending, to be honest. Then I got out of the habit.”

“Try. See if you get back into it. Write about going asa kraiya. It will help. Especially if you have been in the habit. There is a reason.”

I took up the pen, thinking about how I had left off. “I remember: I wrote ‘this paragraph, it seems, is farewell’,” I said. “It wasn’t farewell, after all.”

“A good start,” she said, flicking her eyes meaningfully to the notepad.

That was the beginning of this book.

†

Skorsas, I thought as I opened the trunk, and found all my things lovingly packed. I am sorry. I am sorry I made you suffer so and worry so. “All the insane kyash they’ve all had to put up with from me.”

“They love you,” Iyinisa said.

“I don’t know why, still. All-Spirit, I wonder if he included a copy of the Committee’s report?” He hadn’t. “No matter. I know what’s in it anyway.”

It should give you an idea of how mussed up my mind was that I didn’t work out until a few days into it—or longer?—that Iyinisa had been chosen as my mentor because, of all the asakraiyaseyel there, her warriorhood, and thus her going asa kraiya, had been most similar to mine.

“Did you have people all over you for it?” I asked her.

“Oh, yes. I was called a traitor to Yeoli, a deserter, an ingrate, a vile, evil person. My wife left me.”

That stopped me cold, of course. “Your wife left you?” I said, when I could.

“She couldn’t understand me as asa kraiya. And she never was going to go the same way.”

“So that was it... she never came back… never tried to understand?”

“No. She turned on me completely. She thought I was a traitor and that asa kraiya was an excuse for me turning coward.”

I stared at her stunned. “But… she’d been your wife. How could she just turn around and think you were a traitor? Or a coward? After all you had done?”

“She was a warrior’s warrior.”

“But you were a champion. Elite of elite. If she had been as good as you, I’d know her name too.”

“Sometimes even Yeolis don’t have words of justice or sense.” I thought of Sharaina, and of the Yeoli hawks. “She was a good warrior, though.”

“Those weren’t just things she flung at you in a fight?” She wouldn’t be the first person to make such words into pillars of reality in her mind.

“I’m sure. She would have been fearfully unhappily with me now.”

“That might be the case for me.”

“You’re worried you’ll lose one of them. Or more.”

“Or more. Or we’ll stay together, unhappy. Well, Niku already left me once this year, but came back. She… sometimes does that. But we settled the main bone of contention between us.”

“That sounds hopeful.”

“She says she doesn’t care if I go asa kraiya, she won’t stop loving me. Did your wife say that? Or was she trying to talk you out of it right away?”

“Right away. She was confused by it, like most of the country, and started arguing with me. She never said she’d love me nonetheless.” I felt a touch of relief. “She tried to talk me out of it when it was, in effect, already done. She couldn’t see it, much less consider following me, for all I desperately wished she would.”

“None of mine tried to talk me out of it. They were startled, but none of them had anything less than respect for my choice. But, it was different… and a kind of coercion on my part, really. It was asa kraiya or, you know. Shininao. At least that’s what we all thought.”

“That’s what Surya had to tell you.”

“Yes… I guess he told you.”

“No. But I know how it goes.” You do. More than I can imagine. I have to remember that.

“So… there was no way they were going to try to talk me out of it, and get my blood on their hands. But that doesn’t mean they truly want, at heart, to stay with me now I have so changed.”

“Virani-e… that may be. And it may be you find it intolerable to stay with them when they remain warriors. It happens, fairly often—”

“It didn’t with my parents,” I said hastily, wanting to reassure myself. “Of course my mother… is extraordinary. And my step-father came in afterwards. I… I can’t imagine finding it intolerable that Niku and Kallijas are warriors… they are so much warriors, and I’ve always know them as such… of course… they always knew me as such.”

“Well, you may not. Or you may not have come to that stage yet. You have a way to go.” Joy of joys.

“I have one parent who’s a warrior’s warrior... you know, Esora-e. But in the end he—” I choked up faster than I could master it, remembering what he had done. “Well… you saw.”

“He came through for you in the end.” She just patted my shoulder. “People will, Virani-e.”

†

There is a well-thumbed book, first written many centuries ago, revised and recopied many times, about asa kraiya that new asakraiyaseyel may read, if they wish. It saves old asakraiyaseyel the trouble of explaining the same things over and over. The longer I stayed there, the more parts I could read without them blurring in my mind.

The philosophy of asa kraiya broke into parts and turned sideways and scattered, at first. Anger… natural… violence… life… I had to turn pages until I found something that stayed on the paper.

“The hardships asakraiyaseyel commonly face” seized my eyes, and held them.

Guilt: for ceasing to be a protector of Yeola-e or those they love, for betraying the warrior ideals

Remorse: For the lives they have taken and the suffering they have caused, as they see it increasingly clearly

Shame: For becoming one of those who need to be protected, rather than protector

Fear: That they will be helpless if attacked

Confusion and internal strife: Over whether they have done the right thing, over who they are, if not warriors

Sadness: For leaving the camaraderie of the army and the joys of battle and the warrior life

Aloneness: For the loss of those from whom they have had to distance themselves

“Mark me down for every single one of them,” I told Iyinisa, next I spoke to her. (She stayed close to me, especially the first days.)

“It’s not just you,” she said. “It’s pretty much everyone.”

“If there’s anything that this whole journey has taught me,” I said, “it’s that any idea I have that I am extraordinary in all things—or even many—or even the ones that count—is a delusion.”

She smiled her been-there smile, which was becoming very familiar.

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