Mayven stood up with a grimace. The dry, sand of the desert coated her face. Brushing off her clothes as she stood, she turned and faced her father. He was a tall man and he stood there calmly. Mayven barely stood as tall as his abdomen, but she was determined.
She glared at him and dropped into the stance he had shown her, with her hands up and ready to fight. Her father nodded and she attacked, trying to remember and use the moves he had taught her.
She was lasting longer this time. She began to think she would actually be able to land a blow when she suddenly flipped through the air, hitting the ground hard...again.
"That's enough, shade."
Mayven pulled herself up again slowly, dissappointed that she had failed again. Her father walked over to her and placed his hand on her back.
"You are still young. You will get better."
Mayven scowled deeply before replying, "I thought I had you that time."
Her father grinned, "You are doing better, shade. But you cannot hope to hunt capar until you first learn to catch gara."
He led her away from their training ground and back to the hold.
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Mayven was skinning and butchering the capar that she and her father had killed earlier that day. The meat needed salted and dried, and the skin was going to need cured. She had learned well from her father and was soon going to approach the Maidens and ask to wed the spears.
She had grown into a young woman and was ready to take responsibility in the hold and cast off her childhood. She smiled to herself.
It was then it began. Screams from the other tents. She rushed out to see what was going on, pulling the veil over her face so that only her eyes were visible.
What she saw outside, she was not ready for. Warriors lay dead around a man in metal clothing. She could only stand and watch as the man moved in the dance with the warriors, transfixed. She had heard tales of the wetland warriors that the societies sometimes ran into in the north.
Slowly her senses came back to her and she realized things were worse than she thought. The bodies at this man's feet were not just warriors, but children and even her hold's Wise One!
Disgust at the man's actions filled her head but there was more. She wanted to get away from this man. And so she did. She ran as far and as fast as she could away from the man that was slaughtering her people.
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She awoke in a sweat. The yellow-haired Wise One she had come to live with frowned at her. "You were having that dream again."
Mayven nodded.
"You must learn to conrol these things if you hope to survive your journey to Rhuidean." the Wise One spoke.
Mayven trembled but nodded. "Yes, Wise One."
The memories of that day had troubled her ever since, filling her dreams with nightmares like the one she had just woke from. It had been around that time that she was found by the next hold over and their Wise One had sensed her potential. She was one of the very rare women who could read dreams, and as a Wise One she would be taught how.
She was given a set of basic instructions and now camped on the slopes of Rhuidean. Soon to make her first trip into the place where only women who were to become Wise Ones and men who were allowed to attempt to become clan chiefs ever went.
She slowed her breathing, concentrating on the task to come. She looked up at the Wise One with her icy, blue eyes and spoke more resolutely, "Yes, Wise One. I must learn to control them."
"Or they will control me..." she thought to herself.
Mayven of the Reyn Aiel
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