Diamonds in the Rough

[Therin]

The Kahar. Bare. Desolate. Empty, but for sand and heat, scorched by Chitara, the merciless runner of the Sun, under the watch of her husband, Father Sky.

From his perch atop the home of his ancestors, he looked over her vastness, stretching out below him like the flat abdomen of a strong woman.

It was said that Father Sky had looked down from his vast watchings of the world one day, and had seen a woman more beautiful than any he had ever encountered before; her skin was dark like the light before dawn, and her eyes were sultry like summer shadows. It was said that Father Sky, just this once, came down from the heavens, long ago, and took this magnificent woman for his mistress. They had many exploits, from the highest mountains to the lowest plains, and Father Sky discovered that, in strength, she was his match and more.

Chitara, however, was ever watchful. It was her job to oversee the runnings of the land while Father Sky was away, and she took it very seriously. She did not take kindly to Kahar's intrusion upon her territory, for she was a jealous mistress indeed. When she found out, she stopped her runners to watch, and the sun stayed in the sky for twenty-three days, until it grew so dim that the world was shrouded in perpetual twilight. On the twenty-third day, she made a plan.

One night, while Kahar and Father Sky were lying together, Chitara snuck silently up from under the sea, where she housed her runners during the night, with a golden, molten knife in her hand. Her plan was to kill Kahar while she slept, and have all of Father Sky to herself again. The light from the glowing dagger awoke Father Sky at the last moment, however, and, in desperation, he did the only thing he could think of. He turned Kahar into a land, a continent all her own. Chitara thought she had succeeded in her objective after all, and was content for many days, until she spied Father Sky lying in ecstacy on the ground, and recognised the land under him for what it was.

In rage, she turned the eyes of all her runners on the land, and burnt from it all life, in one fell sweep. But Kahar was a strong woman, and she survived even the worst of Chitara's fiery glare.

Some days later, the first of us sprang out of the sand, fully grown. Her name was Kana, and her skin was tough, and leathery, and her eyes were dark like coals. When Chitara saw this new life upon the desolate Kahar, she flew into a rage again, and again swept the burning glare of her runners across the parched body of Kahar, hoping to extinguish all life once again. But Kana was strong like her mother, and she stood bare and stared right back at Chitara and where others would have been blinded and burnt to ash, Kana remained untouched. Her dark eyes were clouded, and her dark skin was smoking, but she stood defiantly before the onslaught of Chitara like a boulder will endure forever the blowing of the sand around it.

That night, Kina stepped out of the womb of Kahar, followed by Jait, and Seil. Two brothers and two sisters, given new life on the wasted body of Kahar. However, even withstanding the fiery glare of Chitara, and the freezing of the Winds every night, the four soon grew hungry. Unable to help her dying children, Kahar pleaded with Father Sky to provide food and water for her children. In his last act of mercy toward his fallen beloved, Father Sky created vessels by which his children might live: Sun-toughened animals and plants, which drew water from the very air around them and stored it in order to live. The huge, lumbering naru, which camoflauges itself as a boulder during the day, the prickly tunara plant, the tiny ginna rats, and the vigilant ring-vultures.

But Chitara saw this, and devised her own creatures to torment the children of her enemy. She sent a plague of bone-singer mosquitoes, with long, sharp beaks to penetrate the thick skin of the Kaharkin. She sent the lithe, writhing sun serpent, to jump out of the sand bite their feet, and inject its poison into their blood. And she sent the horrible Dirges, to dig their three pits on the outskirts of the land, and to lure in any who would try to leave the blasted Kahar.

So here we remain, under the soul-searching gaze of our mother, the Kahar. She is a harsh mistress, left alone by her beloved, and tormented every day by the blasting gaze of Chitara's runners. She is harsh indeed, but she shelters her own. We are her children, and she protects shelters us from the worst threats to our land: The unpredictable minds of those outside the arms of the desert, who would take us, and mold us into something not of our own choosing.