2024-07-01 - 5.2- Of Golden Futures

To Diath the golds have always been a nebulous thing. She knows them as beings like Mother. She knows them from the noisy songs. They are as important as they feel, few but mighty, dappled fragments of sunlight raining down. It is only recently that she's come to some understanding of their proper role. The way Issodreth takes charge, the way Mother does in her absence, how Igith attempts to follow after.

All before has spoken of duty as fighting, as flight, focused more on the bronzes, the browns, the horde of blues and greens, but this is a different type of duty. To lead, to tend, not just a clutch but everyone.

No wonder Mother is upset. Diath doesn't have the temperament to lead, laid to be part of a crowd (and how it now sinks deeper into her that she cannot be a gold, she refuses to be a gold), and the very idea of what she faces terrifies as much as it befuddles.

Why would Issrodeth be made to stop being in charge? Who could stop she who even Mother holds as Greater? Is it the same nebulous people who disapprove of her fondness of Pertemarth? Who gave them power over such things?

These are questions with no easy answer for an egg. Better to listen to Mother's thoughts, to glean meanings where she could.

Time is relatively new. Diath can measure it by days now, she's fairly certain, but a turn is more than she can comprehend. Many, many days she assumes, but how many? And a 'decade', is that many turns? How did sevendays fit into that? What is a 'Pass'? However it fits together, Mother yearns for more. Yearns for turns before she must take charge, and more still before Igith must bow to duty. Was Mother once like Igith? She talks of more golds, future golds, of time and maturity...

Maturity is taking charge? But no, that can't be it, for Diath can't imagine Mother in the same tone as the immaturity of Igith has been spoken before, and Mother didn't take charge until now. So maturity is something else. Something to do with grief, and this confused Diath again. Mother speaks of grief, but a grief that feels different from that which still settled in Diath's heart with each Someone gone. Are there more griefs to feel? How can that be allowed, how can it be stood? Why must a Pass end if it brings grief with it?

So many questions have come from all the things that have happened, that are changing even as Diath tries to come to an understanding of them. With few answers for one so small, so young and restricted. (She can't understand the full weight of duty, the endless cycles of life, the balance of power, and fallibility of all around her. Those are the purview of those who've had a hatching day and more...)

All she can do is hope that Issrodeth is better soon. That she stays 'lucid', whatever that means. That Mother and Igith get many of these turns before they must take charge, and that this Pass thing lasts as long as possible. There will be less stress, less grief, less pain, and all will be there for as long as they can.

That's all she wants.