Work Text:
A young woman dressed in red and white was standing atop the Mirador. The sunrise was soft against the sky, and the Sacred Geometry, once desecrated and demoted to primitive shapes, was at last blooming, fully restored and reawakened.
The maiden was named Kari, and her mother, with flute-trained fingers and wrinkles under her eyes, was Ro. With the glow of the Geometry on her fingertips, Ro could barely concentrate on it; her thoughts were all about her daughter.
With what pride she looked at Kari atop the mountain, rays of the sacred light around her! With what happiness she thought about how much her little girl had grown! And the spirits surrounding her, many of them mothers themselves, seconded her emotions and looked at Kari with pride.
Only one spirit, though, didn’t. In her gaze, detached yet kind, Ro could see mild surprise and even recognition, not pride. She supposed it made sense, but still - all mothers want everyone to feel proud of their children.
So she took a few steps from the pedestal, where the Geometry’s flowery shape ebbed and blossomed, and approached the spirit.
“She has done well,” the figure said before Ro could say anything, “and will continue to do well, if I know her.”
Ro smiled. So this spirit, too, felt that her daughter was great.
“Right now, Ro, I see myself in her.”
Ro’s eyebrows raised.
“Yourself? Explain.”
The spirit looked at Ro, and her transparent eyes were eyes of a young woman, almost a girl.
“As I was the one to save the seas of the Valley, its people, and the Geometry as you know it… so your child is the one to take on our mantle. You and her, we will never forget what you have done to our legacy.”
Ro has caught on to what the translucent figure said. To how it reminded her of a story her own mother told her once.
A story of the waves and the light.
“Noor the Lightbringer”, said Ro.
“Ro the Mother”, replied the spirit.
Ro knelt.
“No humility needed”, assured Noor, her eyes laughing. “Though I must admit - having myself recognized after so long feels validating.”
Ro stood up. Conversing with Noor, hero she may be, was easier than listening to the cryptic advice of the spirits she’d encountered on her journey. True to her word, Noor was not much different from Kari.
“I have heard stories of you from my mother”, Ro admitted, memories of her childhood flashing back to her. She didn’t even need to remember that far back - Mên-an-Tol earlier that day was sure to remind her exactly how she used to be. “Nothing but good, naturally. You are the one who discovered Nature’s Light, upon which some of our best monuments are built.”
At that, Noor actually laughed, her laughter as quiet as the waves against the marble.
“So our deception worked!”
“Pardon?”
“It was not me, but my good friend, who first brought us Nature’s Light. The townsfolk knew, but soon other people began asking who discovered it, and… let us say that my friend, she was a shy one. Wanted none of this fame.”
“So you had no hand in the Valley’s salvation back then?”
“No, I did have”, and Ro quite liked how nonchalant Noor was about being the Lightbringer, “I sailed the Valley’s seas and brought lost people to the Lighthouse, as my mentor before me.” At these words, the spirit’s youthful face darkened. “But it was not me who first lit the Lighthouse, nor who first mastered Nature’s Light. I was merely… their apprentice.”
“Oh”, Ro said, very eloquently. She was no longer a little girl, nor a young apprentice in need of guidance. She had long forgotten how it was to be either of these things, having enveloped herself in being an adult and a parent. It was only during their journey with Kari that she started to understand how her daughter viewed the world.
She glanced at Kari. The young woman had stepped back from the pedestal and was now speaking excitedly to the spirit of her grandmother. Seeing the smile on Kari’s face brought one to Ro’s, too.
“I suppose you are right, then. Kari and you… I see ways in which you are alike. But”, suddenly thought Ro, “she has me, and yet… I have not seen a single mention of your mother in the stories.”
Noor’s wispy silhouette became a little more blurry.
“There are reasons why I only had my mentor to look up to”, she said. “And why I thought I would be alone when my mentor was lost. Until the Nomad returned, that is.”
“Was that the friend you have mentioned?” Ro inquired, connecting the dots.
“Yes. I seem to have let it slip… did your stories include her?”
“Only as a friend of yours.”
“Hah! She would need no more.”
And at having remembered her friend, Noor smiled, so radiantly that Ro understood even more why she’d call herself similar to Kari. Kari, her darling little girl - and Kari, the young woman no less adult than Ro herself. Kari, the one who always with such cheerfulness studied the Geometry’s ways.
The Geometry, which was so fundamentally changed by the very girl Ro was speaking to.
“Still, even with help, you have achieved so much”, Ro’s eyes had admiration, but no jealousy. “Nature’s Light shines through the Valley. I think the Orchard was where I experienced it first, as a child. And is the Archipelago not supported by that light? Or the Lost Forest, which I have only heard about? Or—“
“The Lost Forest?” a young voice chimed in, and Ro realized a second too late that it was Kari. “That is where I wanted to set foot next! What monuments does it hide to be forgotten… please, mother, will you not let me there?”
With pleading eyes and a little nervous smile, Kari was just like she used to be in her childhood. “Mother, can we venture into the Valley already?” “You are still too young for its wonders, you know that? We will arrive there once the Geometry is ready.” “But I want to…!”
Ro looked at Noor, and then Kari noticed the spirit herself.
“Who are you? I have not seen you on my journey, I think…”
Ro couldn’t stop herself from grinning.
“My daughter, meet the one who brought the Valley together”, she said, gesturing at Noor. “Lightbringer.”
And as Kari registered what Ro said and her eyes slowly widened at having met the heroine of legend, and as the maiden learned the hard way that spirits cannot be hugged, Ro was able to laugh, like a young apprentice once again.
And so did the spirits around her, many of them having had been young apprentices themselves.
The sunrise was soft against the sky.