The last real adventure she had was when she was the twins' age, between eight and nine, and that was on the Noblas Veiros. In the traveler's tongue, spread to all from the first vagarī travelers, it was known as the Noble Voyage.
A journey passing all royal lands with its own tongues, customs, cultures, faiths, and stories. The history of Khī laid spread thick amongst these road's roots.
No voyage was the same and neither were the routes, yet they all passed each land in the long curve of a coiled shell. Long ago, this golden spiral slept in the silvered sands, under the ocean. Yet Khī had long risen from there, molded like a nautilus creature shaped by its infamous shell.
Each traveler had their own tale of how long the voyage is, and some would claim to know best as they know the vagarī translations better than any other. It was all a boast to her comely mother, the Queen of Salazā, yet she chuckled kindly and thanked them all the same for sharing their tales.
Salīa once asked, "Which is it? One says it's a year, the other says three, and others say between those. And some claim five while one even daresay he made it under a year…which unless he knew of a dragon couldn't be true. Could it?"
"Sweet Salīa, it is all. The one was honest about it taking a year as much as the other who took three. The one who claims five might be as honest as the one who claims less than one. It's a journey, and each journey you'll find is unlike the other."
"How long will our journey be?"
She smiled and combed through Salīa's mighty roam of gilded curls.
"Isn't it most blessed that we will find out?"
Yet Salīa could not wait. She loved her land and all its villages, yet she was entranced by the travelers' stories.
There were so many peculiar people and creatures who had come there on their way, all with an abundance of glorious gifts of anything from dyed fabrics, ornamented ceramics, ribbon-wrapped glossy papyrus scrolls with rich anecdotes, preserved strains of enticing nectars, wafting herbs, shaped jewels, timber toys and sacred stones.
Many faraway travelers found their way through a mountain of waters, volatile and turbulent, smacking its way down to Salazā.
It was a merciless adventure for those traveling across its seas, yet by the time you touched the mouth of Salazā, it streamed in gently, swaying you to its shores.
Many of those from other lands would sometimes travel all the way to this land, no matter the distance from theirs, just to start here. Though those who didn't start with Salazā usually ended with it.
Salīa thought this land to be beautiful, but not as much as what she'd heard of other places or what she'd seen from paintings.
Word had it that the last of the sacred lands, Amari, was the most magical of all. It was the lushest of lands and homed the most faithful of people, holding a secret only those who took the true voyage would know.
For Amari to be a land so precious, Salīa always feared that the travelers might call Salazā dull, yet many seemed pleased and sated to have come. T
here were some travelers that weren't too kind of Salazā, mocking it while they drank and spilled bales of the ale they traveled with. Her mother still fed them and let them rest, despite them thieving on more food and stealing the linen off the beds. She wished them well on their journey and still gifted them a bale of water, yet they laughed at how unfitting it was if it wouldn't leave them drunk.
They poked an axe at it and only then her mother had them escorted out by zazi, the chosen guardians. She asked that no harm to come to the drunk travelers, only to shield themselves if the travelers dare touch them. None did.
Zazi often did little talking. They just gripped you with snatching eyes and towered you with bodies of tall, carved stone, disguised under warm, bronzed skin that held brooches of pattering scars.
Once a man dared to punch a zazi, and in a twist as elegant as shaving kale off its spine, that man is now known as the traveler with one hand that'll never lift or bend again.
Before she had known them, she thought Salazā was as grand as she thought it was. Yet after that, she thought they were just as that man called them…sxvages. Uncultured barbarians living in cursed lands for their traitorous sins to the world of Khī. The Noblas Veiros started in Salazā to show the lowest of the lands first, the land to never return to.
"What are sxvages, ma?"
Queen Saoa sighed.
"Are we sxvages?"
"Yes," she said, raising her head tall. "It doesn't mean what they mean it to mean."
"I don't want to be it."
"You will always be it. We are proud of our culture, Salīa. A sxvage is an honor. To them, it means we're beasts. To us, it means we understand. We are connected. We love the world, and we love our people."
"Then why are our lands cursed?"
"Do you believe that?"
"Why would they say it if it weren't true?"
"Our lands are different. No land is the same."
"Are our lands lesser?"
"No."
Salīa wanted to believe, yet the wonder itched at her scalp to skin for many restless nights.
She'd fill tufts of questions into her mother's ears until her usually patient mother grew tired. And one day she accepted one of the many invitations dropped into her hands by birds, each different from the last.
Some were green and red with coned beaks; others were grey holding a swollen pocket of a beak. Some had few feathers if at all. Some had eyes, pink or brown, the size of apricots. Some came quite dark all over, usually travelling with darker letters. Some as light as parchment carried lighter greetings.
It was a little bird that Salīa had never seen before that carried the chosen invitation. This bird had a sleek black beak, sharpened and toughened. Its feathers were just as dark and gleaning when you look at them, but when he spread them out, the inside of his feathers was a silvery gold. More gold on some days and more silver on others.
Beyond the small blended white spot on the heart of his proud chest, he had had a pair each of three razoring claws and leathery feet, one bound with a silver-gold chain, carved with markings. The inscription was of an old Salazāhn tongue, but none knew what it meant to say.
The note mentioned that this little bird had his first long flight and if he made it to them, it was meant as a gift to the Queen's daughter.
Salīa wasn't sure she wanted a bird, yet this bird seemed to want her and would follow her around, always hawking. She'd sometimes play games where she'd hide from him, and he'd find her in one sweep. Somehow, he always did.
He never missed a thing, like that of the hawks she'd watch. He wasn't one though. She wasn't sure anyone knew what he was, so she called him Hawking and he never poked her eye out for it.
Even more exciting than having her own messenger bird or birdlike friend was knowing she'd travel to the Palosa Palaces, yet her mother told her they'd spend one moon at Salazā to start.
"But I know Salazā, ma," Salīa whined. "I want to see the other lands. When do we leave for Palosa?"
Queen Saoa was particularly amused by her daughter that day and hugged her close.
"Sweet Salīa, soon enough. Yet you might find yourself longing for Salazā once a year has passed."
Salīa couldn't wait to meet who she'd become a year from now, having soaked in such a delicious journey.
Once grounded in the Salazā Spirits, you'd travel through the winding roads to the Palosa Palaces, then ride through to the Crystali Castles.
Soon you'd find yourself climbing between the Shimbali Shrines, then sailing into the Priea Pagoda.
Brave, if you are, you'd brace yourself for the trek through the Bhuan Bridge and trail through the tall treasure of the Timbana Temple.
Once free, you'd fly into the Amari Alcazaz. And sated, you'd choose one of many ways to return to the Salazā Spirits. And so they did.
They touched each place of spirit except…the Amari Alcazas.
On their path forth they were stopped. Some murmurs said it became lost or forbidden. She wasn't quite sure which it was, yet she remembered fighting their words. It was the place she had most wanted to wander. Yet no words she said matched theirs.
They were to forget of Amari and to cast through some desert, before boarding for the sail home. She wanted to storm ahead yet never got the satisfaction.
It was here Hawking disappeared and she hadn't seen him for days, always turning her head back hoping he would appear.
When he arrived, it was sudden, just as they boarded the ship. No eye caught him before he swooped onto Salīa's shoulder, singing the gentlest tune.
"You went to Amari, didn't you?" she nestled gently into his feathery neck, and he rubbed his head on her fingers. "I know you did. I see it in your eyes."
His eyes were wide and dark with a ring of amber, and he stared for a while, then cawed. She offered a slice of apple, and he grasped it into his claw, taking little vicious bites, and chewed with a smirk.
"You're lucky. You can just fly, and no one can stop you. You probably would've traveled the Noblas Veiros in under year if we weren't for us slowing you. Over two years we traveled. I enjoyed it though and I know you did too."
She looked behind her, facing a tall wall of a sanddune and the dust of the desert with no trace of the lands they left behind.
"I'll be back for you," she swore and kissed her pendant.
Salīa returned home with toasted skin and a bushy mane like that of a lion, with eyes eager to roam more lands.
"Salīa's been bitten by the traveler's trickle, a slick poison that weds the body of the one scrying for other lands," said Magi Inio.
"Is there no cure?" asked Queen Saoa.
"Oh, there is. One with the traveler's trickle must travel. It's the only way to quench such a thirst. You of all people would know that."
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