The Calming Storm
Time is a concept, growth is the measurement.
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you make.” Roxas cradles a small red flower. “You don't go through life, you grow through it.”
A young Sora is attempting to master her Thorn Whip, but she can't get the timing right. Her mother, before leaving her with her uncle, told her, “We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” She understands she must move forward, and that she must grow to master her powers. Her mother kisses her on the forehead and she leaves. Her father had never been in her life, Roxas was the closest thing to a father she ever had, and soon, he would be the only parental figure at all.
Roxas didn't sugar coat it when the news reached them, delivered by a small gnome with a large mail bag, Roxas learned of his sisters death. Lost at sea. He told Sora plainly, “A storm came, the ship didn't see some rocks, lost with all hands.” Roxas was a large dragonborn, big and strong and wise, and yet here, he was broken. A sadness welled in his eyes like the sea in the harbor before a hurricane. “It's just us now.” A family grows, even after pruning.
Their druid home sat deep in to the woods, north of the old Leonin Empire, where only druids, or nomadic rangers made their homes. Far from any city, far from any sea, it was the home to those who did not want to be found, and who could take care of themselves. Roxas teaches the young Sora how to hunt, and how to be grateful for what nature gives her. To use what she takes. To skin, and to tan, and to make leather armor, or stitch it together to expand their home. When Sora is thirteen they spend a summer building her her own room. He teaches her to make needles from bone, thread and wax from sinew. He teaches her how to use the blood, and the bile, and the various aspects of any creature, so they could die meaningfully. Roxas taught her to watch the stars, and to listen to the wind, to speak to trees and feel the ripples of the water. To understand the lives of man, and of mer, of animal, and of plants. He taught her to draft potions, and to ferment beer. To grow and to garden. To distill wine, and whisky. To cook meat, and plants. Vegetables, and fruits, herbs and spices. Roxas taught Sora to be a druid.
Roxas also taught her to be a person. To grow socially. He would force her to with interact every humanoid that they would cross paths with, which was only a few a year. She remembers them all. Killian Ocktor, a young gnomish druid, looking to learn from the wise Dragonborn of the forest. Julietta Luna, a monk on a path of understanding. Sofia Timora, a centaur on an adventure. So many lives cross their paths, in just that moment, a single snapshot of time.
Every night they dream of storms. Of thunder, and lightning. Of rain, and of wind. It grows across the sea. The storm speaks their names. Sora thinks this is the storm that killed her mother. Roxas knows better.
One day Sora wakes to see Roxas packing a bag. He has not done so in over a decade, they never go more than a few days from home. She rubs her eyes and lets her third eyelid moisten them. “Is everything okay?”
Roxas nods and puts the bag down, he steps over to the teenager in his charge and places a hand of her shoulder. “I need to do something, and.... I can't take you with me.” He spoke with the same sadness of that day a decade ago. “I need to go speak to someone.”
Sora shakes her head, not wanting to be left alone her heart rate rises, “Go where? Talk to who?”
Roxas swallows hard, “His name is Oberyn, and I will get to him by going to Karagidia, its a small island, but they have a portal to the feywilde. That's where Oberyn is.” He caresses her face with the back of his hand. “You've grown up so good. It's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay in the end, because -”
“-if it's not, then its not the end.” Sora finishes the old adage and Roxas smiles. He has said it often over the years., and even now, it has not grown on her.
He departs that evening, disappearing into the foliage and aimed at the sea. The first night was the hardest, her panic made her unable to understand the world around her, and that made her panic worse. It was not until a storm rolled in, that her panic subsided. She has slept with the sounds of the storm her whole life. Rain beats down on the leather tent. It dances through the leaves of the trees above. The wind whistles and sings. The thunder beats like a drum. She listens to the storm, and she feels at home. Like maybe that storm that took her mother would one day come for her, and they would be together again.
The first day alone was long. She tended her plants. The peas and the tomatoes, dug up the potatoes and the yams. Picked the berries and the herbs. She grew all this, this, Roxas said, is everyones legacy. What they grow and how they grow it, what they take, and what they give back. Cosmos may not be a god of nature, but Lorea is a god of balance.
Sora stays for seven lunar cycles, but as the winter returns and the nature shifts, plants grow slower, the leaves turn, and the days shorten. The winds come colder, and the storms come more often. Moments of peace between the monotony of work. She heads out after the biggest storm of the season, she watched the purple lightning cross the sky, and listened to the thunder that seemed to call her name.
The journey was long, but the plants kept her company. The winds sang her songs. The stars showed her lullabies.
It was her sixth day on her trek, she would enter the populated zones tomorrow, but tonight, she dreamt of storms.
Of dry deserts, and of wet seas. Of friends she knows she never had. A man who she knew, as a child, as an adult, and at the end of his life. Of a mountain who cried. Of a mother, and her child, and a desire to change the world. Of two lovers, and the family they built. Of a man who decided to change the world with a bottle of water. Of an old women she watched die.
Soon, Sora entered the city, and it felt like it should be loud, but it wasn't. People make noise, but not like plants, not like the wind, not like nature. Sora felt disconnected and soon she met a man, a herengon, “You know, you look awfully familiar.” And so did he. “Can I guess where you are going?”
Sora nods and the heregon cleric cocked his head and twitched his right ear. “Karagidia?” He takes a deep bow and offers his hand, “You can call me Christos, I believe we are going to the same funeral.”
Sora was impressed with his charm, but lost him at the last sentence. “I'm looking for my uncle?”
Christos furrows his brow, “His name is Roxas?”
Sora peps up into a small almost hop, getting onto her tippy toes for a moment before remembering how to act with others. “Yes, do you know him?”
His face changes and a tear wells in his eye, like the tide before a storm. “I have seen where he is buried.”
Lightning.
Thunder.
They are to set sail and a storm rolls in, and with it, this news. Roxas was the last family she had. Families are supposed to grow, even if pruned, but Sora was the last flower on a dieing vine. No longer growing, no longer thriving, barely even surviving. He tears roll down her copper scales, and with the magical power of love and of loss, her tear sprouts a plant, which briefly glows purple, and it grows quicker than should be possible, and then is flowers, a red flower with white spots.
“Don't worry about the storm.” Christos says as he steps to lead her to the docks, “It calls my name.”
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