Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
- The Tempest, 3.2
Once on this island lived the goddess Lio. Here she wandered the lush forests and spoke to tides and called the sun, her lover, to her when she missed him. But the goddess could not remain in one place for too long, and longed to return to her home in the sea. So she gave the island to her children, and told them to call it Avantal, because it was the home of her heart...
"Avantal means home, my love," Bvisa's mother Hopi'iana had told her. "It means to be the people. Come back, and you will be home. You will be Tal."
This mantra was at first general wisdom, passed down by the clan mothers to their children, from one generation to the next. For the neighboring clans of the island – Eleia and Bvisa's own Liana – it was not so much lore as a way of life. Avantal was home, the be-all and end-all. The Tal people were blessed in their sacred lineage, and only Tal women had the ability to be at one with the divine. Avantal was holy ground, a safe haven to return to when that divinity was forgotten. It was the place to achieve oneness again.
"But I am Tal, Mama," little Bvisa would say, not understanding how this could ever change.
"Yes," Hopi'iana would reply. "You are Tal. As am I, and my mother before me. As is your father and as are your brothers. We are the land, the tongue, the people, all united as one. We are Avantal. But it is easy to forget, to lose the way. Return to this island and you will be home. You will be Tal."
The mantra became a gentle reminder as the years passed, a calm reassurance to slow down her restless daughter. Aptly named, the word itself meant one who roams, for she was always exploring, always wandering. But this was the touch of the sea goddess herself, so it was not discouraged. It was, in fact, because of this that Bvisa took on her clan name early. Well before her fifteenth year she became Bvisa'ana, the roaming daughter of Lio.
Bvisa'ana rejected the underwater tunnel network that connected the inummerable islands of Melidaan, except under the most urgent of circumstances. She instead mapped the waterways of the ocean from island to island on her electroskiff, first making the jump between Avantal and Dalikei until, by her seventeenth year, she ventured into Undab for the very first time.
The desert islands were quite unlike anything she had seen. They seemed to Bvisa'ana the exact inverse of the Tal tropics, with vast stretches of sand interrupted by mere momentary patches of paradise.
The Undab had no identity, not like the Tal. They were nomads, living in small communities and eternally fending off invaders from the Banda wetlands. They had technology, but no society. They had innovation, but no fulfillment. They were not at one, and Bvisa'ana understood for the first time what it was not to be Tal. There was only one reason that she continued to return.
His name was Nindari.
His hair was a deep brown, his skin turned nearly the same color by the constant sun god Kaia, but his eyes were as blue as the desert sky. Bvisa'ana admired him for his skill in crafting weapons, rudimentary as Undab technology was, and for his calm and pleasant demeanor. Nindari was infatuated with her in turn for her ability in navigating and operating her electroskiff, for being so brave as to venture on adventures of her own. It shocked him to find so brash a thinker in a woman, but he found he rather liked it.
The true test came when he asked for her hand in marriage. As the eldest daughter, Bvisa'ana had a duty to the Tal above all else. But while Nindari was still coming to terms with the very idea of a matriarchy, he was willing to go to any lengths to be with her. As a demonstration of her devotion to him and gratitude towards his understanding, Bvisa'ana changed her name a final time.
Undab and Tal were neighboring regions, and so they shared many of the same words, if not the meaning. The Undab translation of Bvisa'ari was one who wanders between possibilities. In Tal, it meant one who walks the sky.
Hopi'iana welcomed Nindari into the family with open arms, but privately warned her daughter once more before her wedding, "You are this island, my daughter, and as am I. As is Nindari now. We are all Avantal."
She donned the blue-green robes of Lio and let loose her bright hair. Nindari appeared only slightly alien in the golden robes of Kaia, but his vibrant smile was set in its natural place. They were married on one of the ancient boardwalks that ran between Avantal and Moami, in the direction of Undab.
That night she understood – truly understood – why it was that Tal women were so revered. It was only through her that her husband could achieve the true oneness that was inherent within her womanhood. From then on, Bvisa'ari and Nindari were never far apart. Some called it the ardor of young love, and, to a certain extent, they were right. The truth was, there was nowhere Bvisa'ari felt safer, more at peace, than in Nindari's arms.
Had she known the significance of her final year on Melidaan, perhaps she would have spent her time differently. Perhaps not. It was a natural state of being for Bvisa'ari to wander among the lush forests, to mark the tides and motions of the sea, and to call her desert husband to her when they were apart for too long.
But however she might have spent that year, had she known the significance of it, doesn't matter. What does matter is that she passed her days much as her ancestor, the ocean goddess Lio, had passed her own final days on that island.
Bvisa'ari was nineteen years old, one year married, and seven months pregnant when she left Avantal forever.