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Ek leimasailu nelu arame depuan keluu Depur. Em leimasail naoker me nalikeh.
Once, long ago, in the times before even Ekkreth had tales told about her, there was a planet who had all its water stolen. The seas had vanished- stolen away by Depur. And all that remained were Depur, a people chained, a deep endless desert, and a woman who was crying out in that desert.
The woman walked and cried and walked, her tears trying to refill the seas that had been stolen. She watched as her people forgot that she stood in the desert, arms open and waiting for them, and her piercing cries were dragged away by the sands- the sound twisted into a terrible spirit Depur claimed to save from being stolen away. Her people closed the windows, and locked the doors, huddling close to each other when her wailing was heard in the desert outside their homes.
She walked and walked, and as the years passed, her tears dried up. She did not give up her calling. She had no wind to travel beside, and her beating heart followed her footsteps, shaking the earth.
No one called back. Her people forgot her name, and as the years passed without her name being called, so did she. Her heart lost its weeping, and began to fill with rage.
She continued to call out and call out, and cry for her people.
“Ek malei, Ek malei. Ek vikka, ek malei! Peha, Sesiel vikkan! Ekate pehaker! Jiak daiar ek-ji?”
She called for so long that one day, no words left her throat. Her people were stolen, her name was stolen, her tears were stolen, and now her voice was stolen too.
She had nothing.
Was she to become nothing?
It was on that day when the sands swallowed her words, that a woman came, riding the tail of a comet, following the people who were pulled to this sandy planet of forgotten water. She landed in the desert, and upon hearing the very last of the woman’s words, she came searching. This wanderer found the woman just as the horizon swallowed the suns, and the sky became painted with purple and blue. Just as the stars began to blanket the sky.
“Hello. I am Nittu. I have heard your crying stop. What is wrong?”
The woman only looks at Nittu, confused. She opens her mouth and no words leave it. She turns back to the sand and settles in for the night.
“Can you not speak? Are you unable to hear?” Nittu asks. “Or can you not understand me?”
The woman only continues to stare, steady, stern and sad.
Nittu sighs. “That is an answer, I would guess. I shall have to find a way to communicate with her.”
And so Nittu sat with the woman, and walked with the woman, and watched her as she wandered the world that treated her as a ghost.
Nittu gets an idea, seeing the woman’s walking. ‘She walks with a purpose, one that she does not know’ Nittu thinks to herself. ‘She has something that she must learn, and something that she must do.’
So Nittu begins to teach the woman movements like a dance. They swirl the air, and carry messages across the sands.
A people who had forgotten the women, and forgotten themselves, heard the whisper of the promise of a wind, and upon that promise of a wind, a hint of a story.
The story held no words, however, and so most of the people continued to work.
Most of the people- except one. They would slave away during the day, and then at night they would rest, or they would make something useful for the next day’s work.
This one however… This slave began to dream. She would dance and sing- quiet and with no words, but in her home, she found joy. She found hope. She found… something she could not name.
In the desert, however, Nittu continues to teach the forgotten woman how dances carry words. And how to use those words to pass on messages.
Finally, many nights later, the woman dances with her.
“I am a Wanderer. I help the traveller, and the magician, the storyteller, and the witch. What help do you need, Woman of the Sands?” Nittu asked, speaking to the woman.
“I am a person worth nothing. My people are taken, and I have been taken from them. They know nothing about me, or my stories. I am forgotten. I need help reaching my people who were chained.”
Nittu was surprised. “Name?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you represent?”
“Nothing.”
“Who are you?”
“I am a mother without children. I am nothing.”
Nittu stops. She looks at the woman with gentle eyes and says “A mother who has had children is always a mother. Whether those children remember her or not. What took your children from you, Amuchi?”
The woman, now called Amuchi- told this story.
Long ago, my planet was covered with water. Water that provided for everything that lived on or around it. We had many beautiful places, and many beautiful creatures. But one day, a man came. He saw my bounty, and my beauty, and the joy that my children embraced. And he wanted it all, Nittu. He wanted every piece of me.
And at first, he did not take much. He took water to provide for his people- or so he claimed- and food to eat. Then he began to take more. He took ALL the water. All the food. Then he started to steal away my people, promising to care for them if they just wore this jewelry that showed that they worked for him.
That jewelry was a chain. The chain bound them to him, and they could not come back to me. I could not go to them, as the man- he is called Depur- he began to take my name from me even then, whispering to my people how the one they heard calling just wanted to steal their water and their food, and their comfort.
He chained them with promises and dripped lies like earwax into their ears. They do not know my name, and I have called them for so long that they no longer can hear my voice. I cannot cry tears for them to drink. They must rely on him.
Nittu is moved by this story, weeping as she swears an oath. “Amuchi, Dimasarjimarai, your battles will be my battles, and your struggles are my struggles. I would call you my family, and invite you to mix our soul’s water. Allow me to gift you some of my soul, and my voice, so that your people can know you once more.”
The one called Amuchi agrees, and offers Nittu her bowl, and her water jar. Her last few drops are spilled into the bowl, and Nittu’s tears cause the bowl to overflow. The pair of women drink deeply, and Amuchi embraces Nittu, whispering “Sister” in her ear.
The pair of women then walked the sands for many moons, finding all of the palaces where Depur dwelled, and chains held strong. They walked the wild lands, and found that not all of the water had been stolen. That beneath the sands, there were places where water still dwelled, waiting for people to drink it.
As they walk, the one called Amuchi then teaches Nittu her people’s tongue. Nittu gives her the name Ar-Amu, for only a mother would be willing to become nothing to try and save her children.
Upon the sands, as night begins to fall, Nittu feels her time upon Terramitta is drawing short. She faces Ar-Amu, and asks to teach her one last thing. Ar-Amu’s agreement pushes the women to dance- not to communicate, but to release their emotions and anger. Ar-Amu knows her people, and they must be able to defend themselves without Depur’s knowledge. Nittu’s dance gives her people that power.
Ar-Amu learns the dance- the steps called nimdara . After she has learned all she can, when Nittu’s time is up, she offers one final dance. Ar-Amu begins by whirling into a dance full of anger and power that Nittu’s steps mirror. The pair danced and spun, never touching, but relieving their hearts of rage, and wrath, the steps full of power. As they danced, the winds began to blow. For seven days, Ar-Amu, leading from dawn to dusk, and Nittu leading from dusk to dawn, they danced. It is in the new dawn that each new wind springs forth.
The winds burst into motion, whipping up the sand and rushing across the wild lands towards Depur’s palaces. Nittu walks back into the sky, catching the tail of a comet onCe more.
Ar-Amu sits in the sands as she spins moonlight into water, watching the events within Depur’s many palaces. Images flicker quickly across the surface of the water, and Ar-Amu watches them. She focuses upon one- very different from the many snapshots of her people working.
The image shows a woman laughing as she tricks Depur.
Ar-Amu looks deeper withIN that snapshot, peering at what had occurred before her joy began.
Depur had hidden his keys to the chains which bound the laughing woman. The woman was known for causing him trouble, and leaving her place each night. Depur had grown angry at her, swearing he would never unlock her chains unless she was obedient. The woman, sharp eyed, and dressed in red, refused to behave, for she would rather cause trouble for Depur than lose her chains. Depur, however, had forgotten that the woman was not the only slave he held. While her people had forgotten Ar-Amu, they still remembered helping each other- for there was no one else who would. So a man whispered to a dancer who whispered to a little girl who told her mother who told her brother who told the woman where Depur hid his keys.
“Depur hides his keys within the sky. You have to chain a falling star to reach it.”
So the woman stood, and, knowing she would never chain anyone, much less a falling star, instead, slips the chains that tie her to her room, and walks into the desert. She then begins to climb a ladder made of stars. She takes sure steps, and pulls herself up with strong arms.
She wanders over the moon- Ulalev. She follows a figure cloaked in stars for many days before, finally, she catches up to Nittu.
“How is it that you walk upon this moon? I had to climb the stars, but I see no shaking in your arms. Is there another way here?”
Nittu laughs. “I needed to climb nothing. I am Nittu. I hold all secrets, stories, stars- and moons within me. You made your own way here- tell me why?”
“I am bound in the chains of Depur, same as all my mothers before me. I was born in chains, and Depur has promised that I will die in chains too. My disobedience has brought that day closer, but I know he keeps the keys to my chains, and my people’s, upon this moon. Have you seen them?”
Nittu’s smile grows sharp. “You are saying that you do not wish to keep your chains? You have felt the need to be free?”
“I do not know what ‘free’ means, but I am very interested. What is ‘free’, Nittu?”
“Free is to make your own choices and to be owned by none. You need not fight or starve at the whim of a cruel Depur that holds you as property, you find your own way to solve problems and enjoy your life.”
“Free sounds like a dream, but a dream is what led me to disobedience, and eventually to you, so it is a dream I will hold in my heart.” The woman says.
Nittu smiles. “Freedom will suit you, little chaotic one. Once you have found ‘free’, seek out the mother in the sands. She will have an offer for you. Little chaotic one, the keys lie beneath your feet”.
With those words, Nittu was gone. Nothing but a memory.
The woman digs the keys from the ground, and unlocks her chains. She laughs, breathless with joy at the unnamable feeling that fills her. Then, she leaps back to the earth, embracing the rushing wind. The stars surround her and she lands back on Terramitta without harm.
In the distance, Ar-Amu smiles, setting aside her bowl of water. The woman just catches a glimpse of her figure standing and turning away, before the figure vanished into the sands.
The woman then returns to Depur’s Palace, and laughs as she unlocks all of the people’s chains. Depur comes into his grand throne room to find her laughing from atop a pile of chains.
“I have walked the skies, Depur! And you did not catch me! I have stolen your keys, and broken our chains, and now I am free!” The woman leaps past Depur, and with her people following, runs into the wild desert. The people find a small place with water, and sit down to rest, but the woman, calling herself Free, walks out into the sands to follow Nittu’s advice. She sought the Mother in the Sands.
Ar-Amu laughs, her joy weaving through the air like a banner flapping in the winds. A flock of birds- seven of the little tavekriti laugh with Ar-Amu, echoing her joyous cry- and those birds tug and wheel around Free. The woman follows the birds and the voice of Ar-Amu, as her laughter turns into dry weeping, tearless eyes watching her people who walk free in the desert.
“Mother of the Sands, why do you cry out? I have heard you laughing, and yet, now you weep?”
“You are one of my people who Depur has wrapped in chains. I have been calling and calling…” Ar Amu’s voice fails here.
The woman was prepared for her walk into the desert, and offers Ar-Amu milk and water, and sits with her under the night’s cloak of stars.
“Let me help you- you say I am one of your people, so that means there are many more. I would guess that even after I freed the people with me, the rest of our people are still chained by Depur.”
A whisper- “You are correct. But to help me, you would need to walk 1,000 skies and trick Depur 100,000 times- his chains have found legs and wings- now they walk between many worlds.”
“Then I will. I have walked the skies of Terramitta, and I would walk a thousand more to spite Depur. I will take this burden up, and I will carry your words to our people.”
“Then, woman who tricked Depur and laughed to his face, woman who named herself Free, I gift you the name Ekkreth. You shall carry these words to the rest of our people. Ar-Amu Swears she will not cry again- with tears or voice- until every last one of her people are free, and all of Depur’s chains lay shattered at the bottoms of the seas.”
And so the newly named Ekkreth did. She walked the skies and told all of Ar-Amu’s children what she had said. She wore a thousand faces, and claimed ten thousand names while they did as he was bid.
They carried a promise, he walked ekikerak skies, and she tricked Depur minilak times.
That promise came to be called Amakuuna, and Ekkreth, a woman who was the first to trick Depur in the name of Ar-Amu and her people, became the first person to carry the Mother’s Promise, She carved it into walls, and wood, and skin, and painted it in those same places.
She watches as her people rediscover their mother, and how that changes everything.
The people began once more to speak Amatakka, and tell of Amakuuna. They learn the stories of Ekkreth’s 100,000 tricks. They learn of the Rattukuuna, and how the Rattukunna helped them. They grow.
Ek ekik leimasailu naoto me nalikeh.
Wariker me ji?