To begin with, I want to share where I grew up and what my parents were like then. Sadura is a large body of land in the tropics of the Western Sea. It is home to more than three million people and has the world's largest sea port. In the Midlands, there are three places of specific import, two of which existed when I was a child and the other was built under my planning and direction. The two are Yiatheril, where I was born, and the village called Yiamethargat which is usually simply called the village.
Yiamethargat, which means Village of the Light, is home to roughly two hundred people but can house over eight hundred more. It was designed by my mother when she and my father began to have guests who came with objects of lore and written accounts, letters, and other things of importance to Arzou's past. It was decided that there needed to be someplace for visitors to stay as there was only so much room for them in Yiatheril so my mother created places for them to guest. She got some people from the town just a days walk from Yiatheril to live in the village and run the two inns which also had public houses as part of their structure. It grew from being able to house fifty visitors to more than eight hundred in a little over two hundred years.
Yiatheril is another story. When my mother and father first arrived on Sadura, it was the beginning of the Fourth Age. There were a few scattered fishing villages from the continent of Min-Te to the west and a primitive people who called themselves Kaeli. They spent some time living amongst the fishers and learning their language, seven years according to my mother, then seven more years with the Kaeli learning who they were and so forth. After that, God called them to the western rim of the Grand Plateau and told my mother to cause there to be a tower there that was seventy feet across the inside and one hundred twenty feet high.
For a few days, she talked with my father and developed a floor plan then thought about how they would place lamps so that they could see clearly inside. My father laughed and said that it would take a lot of lamps and where were they to get such things. My mother thought some more about it then asked God, whom we call the One most of the time, how she was to illuminate the interior of the tower when it was night. God told her to use existing crystal structures in the rock and cause them to go to the core of Arzou where the heated rock would cause there to be natural power. So, that's what she did. It took her four days to create the tower from the rock of the plateau, using the displaced areas beneath the tower as storage. When it was done, she slept for half a day then spent the rest of the week until Seventh Day causing the formation of decorative work throughout the tower.
For many thousands of years, there were few people who knew of them or Yiatheril, which means Sanctuary of Light. The fishers from Min-Te were happier living their lives away from the corrupt empire they came from and the Kaeli had no one else to talk to about it. Over those thousands of years, the Kaeli grew as a people and developed all the same ways as other people had. They looked to my mother and father for guidance and learning so they were taught. It wasn't until the beginning of the Seventh Age that peoples from the continents of Arimethaea and Averia arrived.
When I was born, there was a great celebration throughout Sadura. Everyone knew of my birth and that I would be called Princess of Sadura. It was said by my mother who was told by God that I would rule over Sadura, ensuring its lasting peace and prosperity between all peoples living there. That is quite a bit for any ruler to do with so many different cultures as there are on Sadura but, through faith in God, we all live harmoniously, for the most part. I am pleased to say that there has never been war on Saduran soil since my parents arrived there.
My parents are unusual people. They are both immortal and were back in the time when my mother was first Empress of Y'Aver. From her and my father, my people, the Ta'Yiashi, were reborn. Yes, there was a fair amount of mixing of blood but those they mixed blood with were of our brother people, the Kalderi. My mother was born at the end of the Second Age, my father born long before that in Ka'alad Avayiadi, our most sacred place on the continent of Arimethaea. Though we are a long lived people, there are none who ever lived as long as my father. Neither of my parents have aged sine they were about thirty years of age which is true with most of the Faithful. We do not grow old but we do come to the end of our time and leave Arzou forever.
My mother is and has always been special to God. She was born in fulfillment of a prophesy written and shared long before the first Empire of Peace, Y'Avan, was more than a scattering of villages across the savanna. I have undertaken to rewrite, in story form, the story of my mother as it's written in our sacred book, Yia'arakh. My mother is a holy person, always in communion with God because she is God's Servant on Arzou. Because of her actions and direction, the Faithful, that is all the peoples who are faithful to God, have universities, preserved writings and objects from our past, and global unification through the faith that we share. Even today, there are more people being freed from the Darkness because of her initial actions as Empress of Y'Aver.
My father is different. Though he is special to God, he doesn't have the same purpose my mother does. In all truth, his real purpose is to remain my mother's husband until such time as God determines they are done with their purposes and it's time to enter Perfection. When they were in Y'Aver, he was the first High Priest of Y'Aver, the second Empire of Peace. It was him who decided the name of the Empire. Where Y'Avan means Unity of Light, Y'Aver means Reunion of Light. Y'Aver is the continuation of what Y'Avan was. He has always been a teacher of priests and priestesses that I know of though he says he was a farmer and hunter before that. He had lived alone in Ka'alad Avayiadi from the time he was one thousand years old until God called him to travel to the land he would be shown to marry the woman God would show to him.
My parents are people who live by their faith in God. They always have. I, myself, was raised that way and in an environment of love. It has always been critically important to my parents that I learn everything I can from them and learn to do the same things. I did my best but I, unlike them, have always tended to interpret first and ask for clarification later. I have had the greatest examples of how I should be living my life and yet it's because I didn't that I'm in the position I'm in now. If only I had listened to my parents!
Now, the first part of my life was the same as any child: learning to walk, learning to run, learning not to act immediately upon my curiosity lest I harm myself, irritate my parents, or irritate those who lived and worked there.. Those who lived at Yiatheril with us, the cook, the servants, the groundskeeper and the animal tender also served as elders, teachers, and mentors as I grew. Despite the general normalcy of my early childhood, there were certain events and occurrences which were rather memorable.
When I was about four years of age, the two dogs we had at the time had brought forth puppies. I delighted greatly in them and they seemed to delight greatly in me once they were able to move about on their own. On several occasions, I would curl up on the floor with them, often in their midst, and catch a nap. My father found this very amusing and began calling me his little puppy. The name of fondness continued and, even years later, my friends and family would often call me Kabba. Though it sounds as if it should be short for Kabryia, it wasn't given that way. Ironically, I favor cats more than dogs but continue to have a delight in canines as well.
When I was seven years of age, my mother and father began educating me as other children were educated elsewhere in the world. My childhood was somewhat unique in that I was the only child born in Yiatheril and the only child who would be raised there and call it her home. There were five other children who lived in a nearby village of the same age but they were schooled there amongst other children. Had I been any other child, I would also have been schooled with the others but I was one to whom much had been given and it would not have been enough to address my needs. As my mother and father were also very gifted people, they were able to provide me with the educational guidance I required. This was occasionally mixed with education of others, children from the village who were perhaps ten years older than I was at the most who would walk the mile to Yiatheril. One incident during the first year of my education was rather memorable.
There was a girl named Sherabret who had a certain fondness for me. She would often sit with me and brush my hair while we listened to things one of my parents was teaching or explaining. One day, she was brushing my hair and a spider wasp- those wasps that were formed to hunt and kill certain spiders- had landed in my hair and became entangled in it. Sherabret didn't notice it at first and her brushing caused it to become even more entangled. I felt it writhing to break free of it's entrapment so I asked my father, who was teaching us that day, if he would mind pausing a moment while we freed the insect.
Sherabret, as I learned then, was not well disposed to wasps and, when she saw the writhing in my hair, screamed and reacted by slapping my head to kill the insect. The result was my being stung in the scalp by a soon after dead wasp. It also became that much harder to remove from my hair as it had been dismembered and crushed by a frightened and flailing Sherabret. I cried, not because the sting hurt, which it did, but because I didn't want the creature destroyed, merely freed to live out it's very short life as it had been created to do. Thereafter, those who had been there that day other than my father referred to me as the Princess of the Wasps. So I became Eika Kabba Ebrathani.
As I grew, I learned many things as other children do: literature, lore, cooking, sewing, wood crafting, expressive writing, academic writing, mathematics, two other languages, hunting, tracking, sailing, swimming, and weaponless fighting. I also learned sword, spear, dagger, bludgeon, mace and axe fighting but that all came after I was in secondary school academia. I remember watching my mother practice with her swords and told her one day when I was nine years old that I wanted to learn to do that, too.
“Well, my dear,” she said. “First, you need to learn to defend and attack without a weapon. I will teach you those things. Would you like to learn?”
“Yes!” I said, very excited that I got to learn to be more like my mother.
“Very well then,” my mother chuckled. “Let's get you made something to wear for this kind of activity.”
She spent a few hours making my first training outfit that day then told me I would have to wait until the next day to start learning to defend without weapons. I was upset and went to my room and cried because I felt that I was being denied something I really wanted. After awhile, my mother came to my room and sat with me. At first I wouldn't talk to her because she didn't do what she said she was going to do. Then, after about fifteen minutes, I rolled over and looked at her.
“You said you'd teach me,” I said, my eyes red rimmed from crying.
“I did and I will, Kabba,” she said. “It just isn't going to be active yet. We can do that tomorrow when you're done with your studies. For now, you need to learn two things that are very important for every warrior to know and do.”
“What are they?” I asked.
“First and foremost, you need to learn to clear your mind of everything but what you're doing right now,” she said. “Forget about being upset or being hungry, forget about what else you did today or what you want to do later. Just focus on right now. It will take practice but I know you can do it because you're a very gifted girl.”
“What's the other thing?” I asked.
“Breathing,” Mother said. “Clear your mind of everything else and focus on breathing right now. Not just regular breathing but controlled breathing. Take a deep breath in through your nose until your lungs are full then hold it for a count of three then exhale slowly through your mouth. Try it with me. Inhale... hold... release slow-ly. Good. Now I want you to do that for the next hour. Just sit here in your bedchamber and do what I told you. Alright?”
“Yes, Mommy,” I said as I worked furiously to clear my mind again and breathe.
“Very good, sweetheart,” she said, leaning over to kiss my forehead. “I'm going to go downstairs now and I will let you know when an hour has passed.”
I nodded that I understood then closed my eyes. I let everything go as best I could and kept breathing, doing my best to focus on just my breathing. It was difficult for me at nine because there were always so many things I was thinking about. I had to force myself to forget about everything except my breathing. After a few minutes, I managed to clear my mind of everything except my breathing. I paid attention to every aspect of it. The sound and smell of the air as it entered my nose, the feel of it coming in and going into my lungs, my chest expanding to accommodate the breath, the feel of the pressure on my upper body and the sound, feel and taste of the air as I slowly exhaled.
It was a lesson I didn't forget for a long time. At one point I did forget and it made all the difference in the world. As a child, though, it was something I knew I could master. The longer I practiced my breathing, the more in control of it I became. By the time my mother came to get me, I was in a rhythm and was aware of more than just the act of breathing. I was aware of how it made me feel physically, confidence it gave me and the sense of control I felt. It was something I had learned that made me feel truly empowered and I languished in it.
“You have done very well, Kabryia,” Mother said to me. “I am very proud of you for this accomplishment. I'm just as proud of you as my mother was proud of me when I had achieved the same thing. Maybe more. You have done excellently. Now, let us wash before we eat the midday meal.”
I will never forget that day. It wasn't that I didn't know I was very gifted. I did know. What I learned gave me something even praise for using my intellect and eluyia well at my age didn't give me. Freedom. I felt so free I thought I could fly if I wanted to. It was the most powerful thing to me and yet, such a simple exercise. My considerations later were that one, breathing is essential to life- no breathing means you're dead- and two, being able to so closely control breathing while clearing your mind allows to become aware of so much more than you could otherwise. It was something I would learn to master in a short period of time.