Chapter XI

There can be beauty in tradition it seems. That mural of Tamar is beautiful. Just like the carvings and pictures in the monastery. Or the vaulted ceilings that reverberate every whisper into song, the colorful windows that transform sunlight into playgrounds for the eyes, and the ancestor’s graves dug into the mountainsides like the seeds in sunflower blooms. Shorena talks of dreams and plans and her mother. Daredschan nods as she does and tries to keep her eyes from darting towards that mural, but there is something about that smile that not only tucks unpleasantly at her heart but also angers her. An expression of endless hunger hidden beneath a sense of entitlement that conjures that smile. Something hidden. Like a child encased in walls without a gate. Daredschan would have never asked for it herself but during her journey here she was looking forward to scratching an itch that had been bothering her since they stopped fighting the annexation of the mountain regions. Nobody could offer her any consolation when she had to return to the monastery after the old Raven died. Nor did it seem like anybody wanted to. In the care of friends and a mentor, she had almost forgotten how as a child she had screamed and cried through nights that turned into years before anyone ever explained to her how the passage of time worked. But when she felt the walls of her chambers close in on her again, she remembered. She could hear herself scream but could not utter a sound then. But the rest of the memories were closed off to her. She couldn’t remember when she realized that she was lonely. She could not remember to be trained to be on her own. She just was. And she grew while growing her own food because she was hungry. She learned to wash herself and her clothes because she didn’t like the smell and when she built a little house for a baby bird that had fallen on her stoop she realized that the walls that were the edges of her world could not have been a natural occurrence. It was not a tree, living and growing. It was stones. Piled on top of each other. Moved there to contain her. And if moved by mortals or gods that didn’t matter for she knew she must overcome them. To defy them and draw their anger was better than to stare at what they had built. When Daredschan returns to the surface of her consciousness she finds herself in between Tamar and Shorena. 
“My Mother was so keen on the thought that it is duty and the ambition to uphold tradition, to hear the thoughts of our ancestors, that keeps us together. That gives us incentive, not only to work the fields and mines but to fight and die for what is right.” Daredschan nods again. Yes, she has heard these kinds of words from the old Lady Raven. They fought because of these words once.