Being born again was...
curious.
Before she had always felt off balance like something was wrong, like something was missing. But now, now she felt whole. As she took her first screaming breath of the rich air of her new home she finally felt like that piece of her that was missing was there, the air was thick and rich with something she couldn't name, and the warm hands that cradled her were gentle. The voices above her were soft and filled with joy.
The world was bright and new and she was where she was meant to be.
She was whole.
A comforting fullness and the feeling of a warm voice welcoming her home. Lulled her to sleep, the serenity of being right where you were meant to be soothing her soul.
Aonani was a bright child both metaphorically and literally. her intelligence was a good sign for her future role as the next vuur vodiet but was also exhausting for her parents and mentor, always asking questions and wandering off. As soon as she could talk it was all 'why?' 'how?' and 'what?'.
She was absolutely fascinated by the world around her as soon as she could crawl she would find and coo at the glowing fern or stare in awe at the massive black wood trees that surrounded and made up the village which seemed to touch the stars with their reaching branches.
Luckily enough for dayashree and Aonani's parents she was easily entertained even without toys, tracing the patterns of blessings and well wishes on her blanket, or giggling at the millions of glowing star flys that flitted around the village, sometimes she would even entertain herself with a gleeful study of her own glowing limbs or tail. Looking back and forth from her own brightly glowing golden form to her dark as night father, dove grey mother, or the only lightly glowing blue dayashree.
She was an odd child, but she was happy and mostly well behaved so her parents and mentor were content.
This new world was amazing! Aonani thought as she wonderingly swished the long tail behind her and played with her glowing (GLOWING!) blanket.
The passage of time was confusing; it seemed months would go by in the darkness of night and the dim light of twilight. The months of sunlight were equally confusing for her, but she didn't mind. She was never truly in the dark anymore.
The world around her was brilliantly luminescent, with billions of stars in the unpolluted sky, thousands of what seemed to be fireflies, and glowing plants that grew all around her new home.
Those weren't the only things that glowed either! Lovely iridescent fabrics that give faint starshine glow were a staple of her new people; they were draped across the walls on the inside of homes and used to make the warm pretty clothing her people wore along with various furs, and tightly woven soft greys blacks and whites. Even in the darkness of the nearly perpetual twilight her home was warm and bright with the light of happiness, community, love, and various bioluminescent creatures that made their home on her new planet, and it was a new planet. Earth did not spend half the year in darkness and half in light. Even in the arctic there would be a day night cycle before their long dark winters and the bright midnight summer sun of the summer.
The days and nights here were marked by the setting and rising of the moon as it made its endless journey across the sky. Regardless of how bright the sun shone in the sky when the moon rose her people took it as a sign for good little children to head to bed. A day was measured from the setting of the moon to the next setting of the moon, a month was marked by the regular falling of giant pine needles from the huge black wood trees. (the pine needles alone were as long as an adult's entire wing span!). A year was marked from sunrise to sunrise.
She could barely wrap her head around the odd system. It was decidedly divorced from everything she had known before.
That wasn't the only thing that was radically different from the life she had lived before.
Aonani and her new family were decidedly inhuman. while they had the general size and shape of humans their ears were large and mobile like a bats, they had long prehensile tails with little puffs of soft hair on the tips, their skin tended to vary from light grey to black with a few notable exceptions of which Aonani was one of.
there was no other way to put it.
Aonani shone.
Like a lightbulb in a dark room Aonani shone with a brilliant glorious golden light that illuminated her surroundings.
and she wasn't the only one to glow either, there was one other who also glowed in the dark like she did. like water reflecting moonlight Dayashree gave of a gentle soothing blue light, casting light independent of any other source. it was honestly quite curios how they were the only two people in the village who gave of light when the rest of her people seemed to easily melt into the shadows.
luckily enough it didn't seem like they were discriminated against for their differences, people treated dayashree with respect kindness and an odd sort of reverence, and no one treated Aonani unkindly from what she had seen so far. The oddity of the mysteriously glowing skin was different but happily enough didn't seem like it was going to effect her all that much so for now she was going to ignore it.
she had far more fun things to focus on.
like the MASSIVE FUCK OFF FIREFLY THINGS!!!
roaming around the village seemingly unimpeded were the giant lovechild of a dragonfly firefly and a dragon. they veried in size from tiny reasonably bug sized that seemed to be every where, the unnervingly large mouse and gerbil sized bugs that skittered around like common pests, the far too big cat and dog sized ones that adults let their children play with unhindered, and to the absolutely mind boggling giant ones the sizes of moouses and bears that she had seen adults riding around like they were horses.
unnervingly they all seemed to be the same species simply at differently stages of growth.
she wasn't sure if she was terrified or thrilled by the mega fauna that she casually tromping around the village.
in all honesty, they were kinda creepily cute, with their huge eyes small little, heads curly little antenna, large multicoloured wings. and glowing butts.
"Aonani! come over here baby! its time for your lessons with dayashree!" Aonani wipped my head up from where she was gently, (GENTLY she wasn't a monster) poking a discontented starfly the size of a large gerbil with a stick under the shelter of her blanket. "I'm coming mama!" dropping the stick and ignoring as her prey flew away she stumbled and ran over to where her mother was grinding a chunk of something into a powder while idily chatting with Dayashree.
Aonanis life so far had been relatively boring outside of exploring her new world. so far she had really only been learning basic colours, counting, the story of her culture, how to read and write the basics in her new native language and another that she hadn't really heard outside of her lessons. advanced stuff for a toddler but nothing all that interesting.
"hello little one are you ready for your lessons?" "yes daya!" Aonani beamed estatic. Dayashree was absolutely her favourite person so far in her new life. besides the fact that she was the only other person to be part of the biolumenecints club she was also a calm reassuring presence in Aonani's life, while she always had a good feel for what everyone around her was feeling, Dayashree was startlingly clear in her intentions and emotions which seemed to fluctuate in time to her gentle glow. she was almost always calm composed and kind no matter what the situation. Aonani knew in that nebulous way all children did that Dayashree loved her, adored her even and her soothing calm competent wisdom was a relaxing counter balance to Aonani's new ignorance and boundless energy.
Dayashree laughed as she scooped Aonani up. "i have a very special lesson for you today!"
Aonani's grin grew wider dayashree never lied to her about things like this. "OH! OH! What are we learning today! are you going to tell me more stories about the Allan-Coo!?"
Aonani loved hearing stories about her peoples god, Allan-coo or just Allan. There name literally just meant all connecting or just all. the stories of a god that was both immaterial and omnipotent were fascinating from a story standpoint, and the way the myths line up coincidence and seemingly small actions from their charicters and the supernally gifted vuur vodiet, allan's priests into a domino effect resulting in fulfilling the wishes of allan, righting a wrong or balancing an imbalance were awe inspiring simply in how masterfully the stories were spun to make each and every detail matter and had the listener hanging on each and every word for a clue on how all the lose ends were going to tie themselves up.
Dayashree's small smile turned mishevious as she started to walk toward her home in the centre of the village crossing bridges swinging between branches and walking down stairs carved into massive trees. "in a way," she tugged lightly on one of my large ears. "today your going to learn one of your most important lessons about allan." Aonanis brow furrowed, what did she mean by that? she wondered as dayashree navigated the multiple levels of the village, traveling from aonani's home cradled high in the branches to her own firmly on the ground.
"what are we learning?" aonani asked teasingly tugging a lose strand of her strait black hair in retaliation for her earlier actions before dayashree ploped her down in the middle of dayashrees garden walled in by the roots of the largest black wood tree in the village.
now all black woods are enormse with ten people barely being able to hold hands around the smallest of them, but the great tree in the middle of the village that served as a village hub and whose roots cradled dayashrees home was stupidly big. like the size of a football field big.
dayashree joined aonani on the ground gracefully folding herself into a meditation position.
"today your going to learn how to commune with allan-coo." aonani raised her eyebrow dubiously. praying? she was going to be learning how to pray?
and she was about to say something of that nature too when dayashree floated off the ground.
praying suddenly got a whole lot more interesting
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Thanks to changing-myth for betaing this chapter! I'd be lost without you!