Sheevawn Lockheart's Trials
Contents
The Station of Fear
“You thought you were going to get away with it, didn't you?” The guardswoman scowled at Sheevawn.
“Let me go! This whole place is run by criminals! They tell you that you can win, then when you do they throw you out! You should be arresting them!” Sheevawn struggled against her arresting authority.
“You aren't winning. You're cheating this casino out of its money.” Said the guard.
“This whole place is a cheat!” Sheevawn stammered.
“Yeah, well, tell it to the judge.”
She was arrested, and then at her trial, Sheevawn did, in fact, tell it to the judge. Unfortunately for her, the judge just wasn't on her side, and she was sentenced to two seasons in prison. Growling and generally being uncooperative every step of the way, she found herself rotting in a cell shortly thereafter all by herself. She quickly lost track of the time, and figured that she would be out of prison before she knew it. She came to pass the time in her cell, performing the iconic prison activity of flipping a coin into the air and keeping tally scratch marks on the wall of the results. Soon enough, two more guardswomen came to fetch her out of cell. Unlocking the gate, Sheevawn stepped out of it and looked at the guard curiously, who said. “It's time.”
“It's time already?” Said Sheevawn. “What day is it?”
“It's Descending Water the twenty first.”
“Huh?” Sheevawn looked confused. “But my sentence isn't over for another two months.”
“We know.” Said the guards, who quickly grabbed her by the arms and started to drag her down the hallway out of the prison.
Sheevawn started screaming immediately as soon as she knew what was going on. “No! You can't do this to me! I only have two months left on my sentence! Aren't there murderers and rapists around?!” She struggled and fought against the guards, and once it looked like she was winning, they hit her on the back of her head with a mace and everything just went black for her. When she woke up, she was in a cage, on a wagon being pulled by two horses up the hill of Mount Hamoji. Familiar priestesses were walking along beside and in front of the small caravan, accompanied by yet more guards. She buried her face onto her knees and cried in terror for part of the journey, and when she was done with that, she simply felt ill for another part of the journey. By the time she had reached the top of Mount Hamoji, she had come to grips with her fate, and rationalized it as the best course of action, and she cooperated with the priestesses as they fetched her out of the cage and brought her to the rim of the caldera. The priestesses began their prayers to Hamoji, but before they could toss Sheevawn into the caldera, the gathering was interrupted by an appearance of Hamoji himself, appearing in the smoke of the caldera, who spoke, with the volcano rumbling as his voice.
“Stop! Not this one. I can not accept her.”
Sheevawn's eyes went wide, but she was speechless. The priestesses, worried that they had offended Hamoji in some way, immediately tried to placate him. “We are most sorry for bringing you an unsuitable sacrifice. Could you tell us what about this one displeases you?”
Hamoji rumbled a response to the priestesses, “She does not displease me as a sacrifice, but she is the daughter of Plentimon. It would be unwise of me to demand her as a sacrifice.”
This was brand new news to Sheevawn, who was still speechless. The lead priestess spoke up again. “We shall bring you another then. Our most humblest apologies.”
Hamoji rumbled one last time, “Make it quick, I grow impatient.” Before he faded into the smoke of the caldera again.
The lead priestess looked back to Sheevawn and said, “Well, looks like today is your lucky day.”
Without much of anything to say to anyone, Sheevawn turned and began to wander back down the hill, a little dizzy from the experience.
The Station of Journey
Lost in the vast blue ocean of the west, a small vessel, beginning to run low on food was tossed around in the large waves that only got worse the more west they sailed. “'ow far is this stinkin' islan' anyway? An' what the 'ell was the captain thinkin' when 'e let this woman on boar' anyway? She's goin' get us all killed.” The general muttering of the crew served only to aggravate Sheevawn further, but she couldn't help but feel that she was partially at fault for their current predicament anyway.
“Um... guys?” She piped up weakly. “I'm pretty sure we've sailed too far west.”
“You idiot. We've been followin' yer directions! When were you plannin' on lettin' us know we went to far? For all we know we're prolly in the Wyl' by now! 'Ey captain! Turn this thin' aroun'! This girl is crazy an' yer crazy fer takin' her on deck.” The crewman sounded confident and justified in his suspicions that Sheevawn was just nothing but bad news from the start.
“What's going on here?” Said the captain as he came out of his cabin on deck.
Sheevawn said to him, “I think we're in the Wyld, we need to head back east.”
The captain looked around carefully, and then back to Sheevawn and the crew member before replying, “I don't see any signs of Wyld, are you sure?”
“The math just isn't adding up,” Sheevawn replied and continued, “or else we should have been there by now. The fact that we're not means that a current probably pushed us south as we sailed west, and we just blew past the islands I'm looking for.”
The crew member injected himself into the conversation again, looking for more reasons to cast shadows over Sheevawn. “I been a sailor fer thirty years, girl, an' I'm tellin' you these islan's of yers don't even exist! Someone woul' 'ave foun' them by now!”
“Captain!” The lookout on the crow's nest called down to the ship. “There's a storm 'eaded right fer us... an' it don't look like any storm I ever seen before!” The lookout pointed, to the front of the ship. The storm wasn't just headed toward the ship, but the ship had been sailing toward it. It's nature became evident by now. It was a rolling torrent of chaos. Bolts of lightning were shooting out of it in every direction. The rain within was falling horizontally. The very color of the storm itself changed from the dark gray, to black, to blue, to green, back to gray again, and like it had a consciousness, when the crew on the ship noticed it was there, it sped up along its path, headed directly for the ship.
“You fool!” The crewman pointed at Sheevawn. “You doomed us all!”
As the prow of the ship entered the storm first, it simply dissolved like salt in water, fueling the storm even further. The crew and Sheevawn began to run toward the back of the ship, and the storm continued to eat its way through the ship, devouring everything that entered into it. When the men were out of room to run, they began to dive overboard. Sheevawn could only stare on and look at the horror that was about to devour her as well when suddenly there was a massive thud behind her, and as the storm continued its path, it went around Sheevawn. Sheevawn pulled her hands away from her face and turned to look at what landed behind her, to find a rather large sea green gryphon with a fair folk lady riding atop. “Get on, hurry!” Shouted the fair folk as loud as she could to be overheard in the storm, and Sheevawn did so without question, and they took off, flying out of the storm, leaving the last remaining pieces of the ship to be devoured by it. The gryphon flew high above the storm to where there was a flying whale, flying a safe distance above the storm and they touched down atop it. Sheevawn was stunned for a moment, not really sure what to think, so she simply spoke what came to her mind first. “What about the crew?”
“If they stay underwater, they'll be fine. They'll have to hold their breath for a few minutes while the storm passes. We'll get any survivors then.” Said the fair folk.
“Who are you, anyway?” Sheevawn said as she got off the gryphon to look up at the face of the fair folk.
“I'm Siona. Lets just say you owe me one later.”
The Station of Tutelage
“Right, so what's the Old Realm word for Orichalcum again?”
“Tumbaga.” Said Sheevawn.
“You're picking up this language at an alarmingly fast rate, you'll be a sorceress in no time at all.” Said Sheevawn's tutor.
“Someone told me that the Eclipse Castes were naturally good with languages. That probably has something to do with it?” Sheevawn thumbed through the Old Realm book she was reading between the times she was looking up at her tutor.
“Actually, I'd say that has everything to do with it.”
“This seems awfully easy for a supposed unavoidable challenge.” Sheevawn poked the bottom of her chin.
“That's because there is actually a lot more to this station than just learning Old Realm.”
“I figured there was some catch. What else is there that I have to do?”
“You'll have to see the flow of essence through creation, and how the essence of creation shapes creation. Once you see the patterns, you'll be able to learn how to create your own.”
“I don't really even know how to see essence.” Sheevawn frowned a little.
“That's exactly right, you don't know how. You learn how, that's why this is called the station of tutelage. If you already knew, you wouldn't be doing this with me now.”
“Well, I don't even really know how to start.” Sheevawn looked around.
“I'd say you're already off to a good start. The flows of essence through the Celestial Bureaucracy are very strong. I'd say all you have to do is some paperwork long enough and you'll quickly realize it on your own.”
“I have to do paperwork? That's boring.” Sheevawn sighed.
“Well then you should also take the opportunity to learn how to enjoy it, since you'll be doing a lot of it in the future. You can probably finish learning the rest of Old Realm on your own from the paperwork that you'll read. For now, I suggest you go ask the Burnished Mantis for something to do.”
“Very well.” Sheevawn got up and exited the room and navigated the spire to the Burnished Mantis' office. She knocked on the door and was let in. “Good afternoon Burnished Mantis. It was suggested to me that I get some paperwork from you to do.”
“It's a good thing you did,” Said the Burnished Mantis, “as there is always a backlog of paperwork that needs to be done.” The Burnished Mantis opened up a drawer and withdrew three thick stacks of paperwork and placed them in a row on the desk, and pointed to each one in turn as he spoke, “In this stack are reports of prayers and sacrifices to the Storm Mothers around The Neck, you'll need to total the values and if any of them appear to be excessively high or low, you'll need to fill out an audit request form and send it to the office of investigations downstairs. Also pick one at random and fill out the random audit request form—not the regular audit request form—and deliver it to the same office, and I believe the blank forms themselves are also found in that office. This other stack of papers is a list of raise and promotion applications that were denied by Fakharu, and you'll need to write an application denied form letter for each one and file them in the outbox; file the applications themselves in the archives when you're done. This final stack here contains reports of grievances from elementals. Sort them according to element, and then direct each sorting to the inbox located in the appropriate elemental review office for examining by the celestial official.”
“Gee, is that all? That looks like about six hundred sheets of paper.” Sheevawn smirked a little and tilted her head.
“Well if this is not enough for you, I have a few more things you can do.” The Burnished Mantis opened up a different drawer and reached for more paper.
“No! No!” Sheevawn shook her open palms defensively in the air. “I don't want to have too many different tasks at once, it'll distract me.”
“Very well.” Said the Burnished Mantis. “I'll save these for you until you're finished dealing with these three stacks. Let me know when you're done.”
“What are you saving for me?”
“About a thousand pages of summoning reports, fine issuings, domain change applications, and court audits.” Said the Burnished Mantis as he closed the drawer.
“Great.” Said Sheevawn.
The Station of Humility
Sheevawn found herself at the top of the great spire, on a balcony overlooking the oceans. She had never been called up here before, but as she ascended the stairs, she recalled other times she'd been this way, in various lifetimes. Her escort guided her to the end of a long table, and she sat down at it, with the great dragon at the other end speaking to her. “So you're not going to sign it?” He said.
“No.” Said Sheevawn.
“Why not?” replied Fakharu.
She tilted her head, considering carefully before answering, “I really appreciate you coming to my defense the way you have, but that would defeat the whole purpose of this exercise. If we're ever going to make any progress at all, sometimes I just have to let someone else win. I certainly won't stop you if you get someone else to do it, however.”
“Are you sure? This will be the last chance you have to change your mind.” He continued his inquiry.
She sighed heavily and spoke out, “Of course I'm not sure. Of course I want to sign the documents. I just can't allow myself to.”
Fakharu gave her a knowing nod and said, “What are you going to do when he gets here?”
“I'll probably just look at him.” She replied.
“You aren't going to do anything to him at all?”
“It is my goal to make him not even notice I am here.”
“Well, that is admirable if you can pull it off. He will be here shortly.”
For the next few days, Sheevawn kept a watch over the open ocean, waiting for any sign of the boat to arrive. When the ship finally arrived she stepped into her dematerialized state and went out to the docks to watch them disembark. She followed them silently, studying the actions of the Solar Exalted carefully. She observed them as they conducted themselves within the manse, and then observed as they conducted themselves within the trial. Overcoming the urge to do many of the things she wanted to do was one of the hardest things for her to accomplish, but soon enough, she was observing them as they left the palace and returned to where they were from. She went back inside to go speak with Fakharu again.
“They're gone.” She said to him.
“Well? How do you feel now?” He replied.
“I don't know. The fact that he's just not going to suffer at all... it's quite demoralizing.”
“What do you feel the next step is?”
“If he's not going to suffer for this, I have to make sure it doesn't happen again.”
“So you're going to head back The Indigo Chain?”
“Yes, that would be my plan, once I make some preparations here.”
“Take all the time you need. I've got other business to attend to for now.”
She bowed to him, speaking softly. “Thank you.” Before she turned and walked off.
