A smile kept crept across Bebin's lips. There beneath the black curl of his proud whiskers. His head bowed as he listened on to her words.

His niece, like so many eager youth, had a penchant for being right. Something he shared with her, but remembered all those hard lessons he had learned in his days, long past and nearer still, in the drive to be proven right.

How it was so oft the patience, and well placed words of those who were his mentors which had set him right. Set him on his path to pursue his own meaning. Find his own answers.
Let go of being right.

"I would love to go there, Mama. To see what you spoke of with my own eyes, rather than with books." Sitra Said.

His smile widened as she shared her interest with him. Used that word of their language. Such a small thing. But how it bloomed in a heart that was so used to the cold of deep water and rigid stone.

"Such we pursue, bhatiji," he said with a bow of his head. The old phrase his mentors had shared with him, when he was new to this place.

How birds sang from the nearby branches. Some flitted from the shrubbery, Rose with the strong beat of their little wings. Rapid, with a fury that seemed so practiced as their little shapes bobbed up and up before they darted away.

Come the question.

His eyes met hers, and his smile fade, for a breath. Distance grew far in his eyes. "I would," he said plainly. Turned his eyes away from her once more, and to the grounds around them. To the paths that wound about the trees, and lead to those structures that housed them. "If only to viist, and see how the land has fared, after so many years,"

There was a wistfulness to his smile then. A depth to his gaze, before he shut his eyes once more, and bowed his head.

"Mehedhra," he said plainly. "That was the name of our village," a warmth was there in the rumble of his voice. Like sun baked earth come loose. "Where your mother was born and raised, not but a road away from my own home," he smiled. "Did she ever tell you the story of the Sages?" he asked, with the slightest bit of mischief.

Three Chir Pines. Taller and older than any thing laid down and built up by mortal hands.
 
Sitra's expression had softened after Bebin's admission of wanting to return to the Sheraz Mountains.

It wasn't lost on her that the question she had asked of her cousin touched on something a little more personal. And she could not tell if that wistful gaze upon the horizon was one of melancholy, or simply a half-remembered memory that her asking had suddenly brought to the forefront of his mind. Nor could she see where his eyes went, they seemed to slip away to a place that she had never been, and so could not share with him.

Perhaps one day she might, but that day was not today.

When the name of her mother's village was spoken aloud, the moment Bebin shared with nobody other than himself was gone. To be replaced with the more familiar, instructive tone that she'd quickly grown to associate with him. The one that made her eager to hear what was said; to lean forward a little further in order to catch every precious piece of knowledge he possessed, as he recounted stories about their home in Sheraz. About her mother. About this Mehedhra and these sages he now spoke of.

After pausing to contemplate his words, she hummed softly. "One day then, perhaps? If only to visit." She echoed his earlier words with an intonation that was undoubtedly hopeful as much as it was in amused encouragement for whatever excuse he needed to make to do just that. Presumably with the hope that a journey would see that she joined her cousin in such a visit.

But she wouldn't so openly give voice to that desire, just yet.

Still, all of it was fuel for her eager mind; yet another piece to add to the puzzle of a potential past she'd missed out on in the childhood she had instead spent in the city-state of Saknne and its humid, coastal climate. A place far removed from the natural beauty of the mountainous Astenvale Monastery, or of the great valleys of her mother's homeland.

At least she assumed so - again, she'd not seen it with her own eyes.

She had wanted to tuck in her legs like a child listening to a particularly thrilling tale, but decided against it at the last second given that they were both adults, and her pleated skirts were hardly a suitable garment to lounge about in such a fashion. So she resisted the urge and instead leaned forward upon where her forearms were propped upon her knees, and offered a polite smile in initial reply.

"No Mama, she did not. But I would be happy to hear it, of course."

The way she regarded Bebin with the attentiveness of someone who very clearly wanted to hear it was probably unmistakable, since she didn't try to hide it in the slightest. On the contrary, she was waiting in obvious anticipation from her place upon the bench - the flat of her palm brushing against her chin while she settled herself a little more comfortably to listen.
 
"Well," Bebin began with a happy huff of breath. "Then I would be glad to tell it," he nod, and shift his hips and sitting bones beneath him as he straightened himself up. He cleared his throat, and looked to his cousin-niece. Filled his lungs with breath, and felt the cool wind blow across them.

The blades of grass stirred as the clovers and their petals danced a little dance, and the leaves upon the trees whispered their secrets. The whole small world about them shift. As if to let out the smallest breath of air.

"It is said that in times long past, in a land beyond the reach of the great rivers, where the earth was salt kissed, and not a grain of rice grew, there were a peoples, in desperate need.

They had tended to the land, prayed to their gods, tilled, and toiled, and worked themselves to the bone. But nothing came of it.

The sun too harsh. The rains, too quick. The air, too thin. Their earth, their land, that once gave them grain and crop, grass and water, could give them nothing more than clay and dust. Red as iron rust, and old blood. They would die there, and they knew this in their bones.

Veda.

It was the son of a herder who had come upon them. Out one day ranging wide, so that some of his starving goats might find some green to eat. The clangor of iron bells, and the braying of his beasts, accompanied each of his weary steps.

But in his eyes was not but the twist of the heat. In his throat, not but the dry rasp of each breath. He fell to the ground in a heap. A cloud of dust there to steal him away into a fevered dream.

Veda.

When next he woke, he was beneath the shade of three great trees. His goats, nibbling on the sprouts that popped up from the cool soil beneath them, and three elders, adorned in jeweled needles of emerald and jade, crowned in golden scales, and the brilliant wings of seeds.

Veda

Who are you, the herder's son asked the three, that saved me?

The shortest of the three smiled, and nod to the young man. Siblings three, they said to the youth.

Who are you, who would feed our children to your goats? The tallest of the three asked.

Shocked, the young man looked to his goats, who but ate happily and greedily, as goats so often do. Horror struck him, that he might offend those who his life was now owed to.

Veda

The third, the widest of the three, whose face was full of a beard so thick and black it looked a forest unto itself, laughed. Let them eat, so that their hooves might tear up the hard earth, and our children's roots might grow the easier. "


Veda: To Wade. A word often used to signify a moment to pause and reflect.
 
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