Amethyst: Bow and Arrow

While I may not be the dark mage that causes kingdoms to tremble, I am his mate. My name is Aishe. Despite the odd spelling, it is pronounced “ash.” It is a name that means “one who sees.” My mother had a recurring dream while I grew inside her, a dream she insisted was sent by the Mother, our creator deity. I couldn’t say if she was right or wrong, but I’ve always had a subtle ability to “see” most creatures for who they really are. I get a sense of them; I can find my way through their words, which are often lies told to themselves and to others. I can see past their actions and know their true intentions. Some are harder to read than others. But I’ve noticed this ability has dimmed as I’ve grown older.

I am a dialen, and I was born into the Ravena tribe. For many years I celebrated its successes and mourned its losses with my family. But barely three months ago, all that changed forever. I was banished from my tribe for a short time after I refused a betrothal my parents arranged for me. I have always been a loyal and dutiful son, but that was the one thing I could not accept. Many years ago I gave my heart to someone else, and I would not be bound to another.

And so I was banished. That was both my salvation and my doom. After the allotted banishment time ended, I returned to my tribe to find they’d been massacred. It had happened only hours before. In that moment, my entire life had been destroyed, and all because of one evil stone of power—a ruby named Rambujek, a ruby my tribe had sworn to hide, to protect, and to never use.

Alone, I performed the rituals to make sure the souls of my kin traveled into the Mother’s arms. Only after that did I set forth on my hakum—my mission of vengeance. I put on the painted mask of the hakum, took the bow my father once held, and started on my long journey. I tracked, questioned, and labored to find the one who’d taken my life from me. Vengeance burned like a river of fire in my blood, and I could feel it darken my mind, darken the world around me. The joys of life burned away by the raw loathing that filled my heart. The thirst for blood grew stronger as the days past, as I felt myself drawing closer to my prey.

It was only during that time of darkness I started to understand the intricate way my destiny and Morgorth’s were interlaced. We were meant to be together. His words to me when I was a child took on a new meaning, a new depth. It was only when I met him again in the village of Happy Valley I felt light enter my heart once more.

You see, it was he who’d stolen my heart all those years ago. In my past. In his future. I was now only one of two alive to know this secret. My mother’s sister was another, but she lived with another tribe, many kirons away. It was not yet time for Morgorth to know about us, about his role in my past, to know he had changed my life irrevocably. That he was the reason for my training—training that turned me into a warrior, one that had earned the respect and pride of my parents, my tribe. Without him, I wouldn’t be who I was today. I’d made a promise not to tell him about my memories of him as a child. But that one dark spot was small compared to the shining light I felt inside me. The light he had brought.

And now he is mine, and I am his. My mage. My Morgorth.