So, I did not realize that I had missed an upload last month. For some reason I was certain I had done one, but checking has revealed that I had done one at the end of July, not the beginning of August like I was thinking. So to make up for this, there will be two chapters uploaded this month. Here is the first one, the penultimate chapter for Soft Heart, I hope you enjoy.
This place was familiar, a place he saw often in his meditation. It was the Path he had walked, off in the distance, the end of his Path, where Cetanu sat in wait to judge him. To either side, black water, the frost from which crept up the sides of the banks towards his path. But his path was warm, and the ice could not reach him there.
He gaze focused on the black spot ahead of him. Slowly, he shifted, getting down on his knees and resting on his heels.
The pain in his chest was the mark of failure, one of the greatest dishonors. But more, much more, weighed on his soul than that one mistake.
Going forward was impossible. No, not impossible, but foolish. He knew what would await him at the end of the Path, he knew how he would be judged, and his soul sent to cho't to freeze in agony for the rest of eternity. Running was equally foolish, B'jai-pe-j'pi would hunt his soul down just as the arbiters in life would pursue him, and he would be dragged to cho't regardless.
He could also not stay here on the Path, immobile, and there was not a living thing in all the universe that could go back.
Jitar closed his eyes and plunged his inner world into darkness. Breathing steadily. The pain in his chest his focus. He felt weightless, and without body. His mind and soul expanding and reaching out to the farthest reaches for answers.
A light.
The human sain'ja. Her methods in the ways of the Path were forbidden. Gentleness, kindness, mercy, an unwillingness to kill, hesitation to fight, all in excess, towards the bad bloods of her kind as well as to the innocent and the honorable. She would be slain among his people for her weakness.
Yet she had rescued him twice at great cost, faced kainde amedha, even a baiun, and pressed on. Erroneous Path that she was on, she had the conviction of the greatest of warriors to walk it, no matter how broken, or uneven or cold.
He wondered, as his eyes slowly opened and beheld the black palace before him on the horizon, where did her Path lead? One that saw death only when direly necessary, whose gentle hand healed the dishonored. It certainly did not lead to Cetanu.
He was distracted from his thought when he heard a splash in the water. To his side, the black glass rippled and moved against the bank of the path. He concentrated on the ripple, his hands on his legs curling into fists. A heat appeared above the surface of the blackness, a crest, a face.
Ciujim.
The goddess continued to stand slowly, stepping up and onto the surface of the water. She was beautiful, strong, warm, all things one considered inviting, all to tempt men into straying from their Path.
She laughed at him, and danced on the water with grace and power. Long tendrils spiraling around her, sweeping gestures beckoning him to join.
He stared. Every lesson he had as a child told him to dismiss her, to press on, to not give in to her temptations, she was there to test him, and rejecting her was to pass the test.
Jitar stood from where he knelt, still staring at the goddess as she moved across the water's surface, unaffected by its chill. He stepped up to the water's edge, and stopped.
"Afraid?" she cooed at him, trying to push him to irrational thought by insulting him.
"No," it was a simple, honest answer.
Cuijim stopped dancing.
He knew fear, he had felt it twice, sullied his honor twofold at the thought of a fate worse than death. What he felt now was not fear. His claws touched his chest where it hurt, where the the embodiment of his dishonor coiled against his heart, waiting to birth, and live on as an abomination.
"Your regret?" the goddess' voice said to him and he looked to her again as she stood still on the water.
"I failed," he answered, "I failed my honor, I fell into the hands of the lesser species and allowed them to cause me pain, they made me feel fear. I abandoned the Path and performed dishonorably in the hunt. I let go with reckless abandoned and killed indiscriminately using forbidden methods. I sought vengeance, and was rescued by a pyode amedha. Even now, she works to save my life, again."
The goddess tilted her head, her long decorated tresses dipping into the water, "you feel forbidden things for the pyode amedha."
Jitar closed his eyes and inhaled deeply past his teeth, "I respect her greatly, I worry for her, I don't want her to die. I am... attached to her. I wish no harm to come to her ever, I fight for her because she will not fight for herself."
"You can keep her as an eta-."
"No," Jitar snapped and the goddess' head righted instantly, "she is honored, blooded, she will not be an eta."
"You are very attached. It's not good to feel like this for things. They are so easily lost, broken or killed. Fondness for these things when they are lost leads to revenge and dishonor."
"I... know," Jitar sighed, his shoulders sinking slightly before straightening again, "but I have already strayed from the Path, anything else now seems, insignificant, to add to the list of my dishonors. I'm already lost."
"Not yet you're not."
Jitar's eyes hardened, looking at the goddess who laughed and pointed. He looked down at his feet, clawed toes at the edge of the black water.
He was still on his Path.
The goddess again began to dance, as he looked down the road at the black palace, the destination at the end of his life.
Could he find redemption?
But what about the human sain'ja? The pyode amedha that... Pyode Daund. There was no place on the Path for her to walk, and even if there was, she would not make that journey. She would refuse a single step on the life he had been raised to lead.
To redeem himself would be to abandon her to her fate.
Again.
The water was biting cold, its numbing talons moving up his legs and onto his abdomen, freezing deep in his belly. He did not cry out as the chill stabbed at his hands, he would not give the laughing goddess that pleasure. The cold crept painfully up his back, over his shoulders, bringing a numbing pain that was so freezing it burned. His core tried to resist, burning, as if the gomi'uk inside of him had set itself ablaze in a final effort to stay alive, he felt as if his entire being was being torn apart, his chest rent open, the infant abomination lashing as it bid to live. His fists clenched tightly, claws tore into the skin of his palms. He refused to cry out though his ears were ringing like the screams of the baiun herself.
Silence.
The cold soon quenched the fire. There was nothing now, but the cold and the pain. Shivering, breathing heavily, Jitar looked up at the goddess who beckoned him with a laugh, and began to dance away.
Looking down at the water, Jitar lifted his hand, a cold unfeeling color. But he felt quite the opposite.
Lowering his hand into the water again, he stepped forward, his feet dragging on the undertow, the cold lapping at his waist, slowing him as he trudged, but he followed, the laughing dancing goddess into the darkness.
And he did not stop.
He felt warmth. Darkness gave way to the motley of shades of heat. He was in a dwelling, there was a ceiling above him, softness below; this was not the place he had lost consciousness.
He felt heavy, it was difficult to breathe, trying to do so made his chest hurt, a pulling sensation like he was breathing for the very first time. His hand lifted, and his fingers touched his chest. There was a seam there, some puckered flesh, soft and healing.
He paused a moment, closing his eyes.
There was no movement within, no weight against his heart.
The abomination was gone.
A gentle touch caused his eyes to open again, and he looked down at the heat of a hand against his, following the arm, he found the face of Pyode Daund sitting in a chair beside him, grimacing in that way she usually did. Her shoulders were sagging, her eyes barely open, her wounded arm bound close to her chest.
She said something softly, a question, judging by her tone.
His mask was not on to help him judge the tones and sounds, still, he tightened his vocal cords, felt the pressure of forcing air through small bands and slowly mimicked what she had said. She grimaced again and gently stroked his hand, shifting to lay her head and shoulder back on a small part of the soft cushion he had beneath him. He watched until her breathing slowed. He then looked down at where her hand was still lightly clasped on his.
He laid his head back on the cushion and took a deep breath. He would be hunted, even now there was still a clan of yautja hovering over this world waiting for the hunt, perhaps they thought him dead, and now allowed to continue with their plans. They would soon find him alive, and he would have to kill them to protect himself and Pyode Daund. But he had made his choice, abandoning the harsh rigid and unforgiving life he had been raised and taught was righteous, was the only way to eternal glory. He would remain with this softhearted sain'ja, a bad blood in her own right, on this world of bad bloods, he himself, now a bad blood.
Somehow in his heart, on emotions he would have to learn to accept, he felt this to be the right decision.
