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Let me tell you about Ain Taylak, or, more properly, Ain h'sut chung h'Ril.
His grandmother, Noshay h'lat chung Churintu, was what the outside world calls a grass-witch, but what the Sheng call a night-woman or a daughter of Vengashay, the dark goddess: a woman who was recognized as having magic and therefore trained as a priestess and mistress of rituals, a member of the honorary shtel h'Larat chung h'Vor, the daughters of the night. As such, she never married; night-women never do. But it's an honor if they choose to sleep with you, so she had a daughter, Eshtanga h'lat chung Noshay, who is half-sister to one of the more notable families in Narang h'Ato, the shtel with which Noshay settled as an adult.
Eshtanga was initiated and trained as a night-woman herself (which is not automatic, even for the daughters of night-women -- you have to show signs of power), and took her new freedom as a way to get out. She was never happy with anyone, anything, or anywhere, always restless and looking for something new and more. A lot of night-women go on... sort of personal quests, I guess you'd call them, when they're young. They're among the only people who can be completely alone without already being outcast, and that's a double-edged sword, since being placeless -- without family ties and a position in a community -- is a horror for the Sheng. So to spend a month or a year or a hand of years living alone distances a woman from the community, gives her a touch of the Other, which is both dangerous and powerful.
Anyway. Narang h'Ato shtel is named after the running river in their traditional territory: the Ilorhenain, which forms the southeastern border of Andark, marking the forest off from the plains of Kengush. It's not much of a border, really -- the river is easy for the Sheng to ford in many places, and often narrow enough (either running deep or split into fingers by islands) for the Andarkin to build bridges if they wished. They don't build, and the Sheng don't ford. Very few people cross willingly into Andark. Even fewer Andarkin leave.
The people of Yanomy don't like to talk about Andark, though they'll say more about the Andarkin than about the great stretch of unmapped and, so far as anyone from other continents knows, uninhabited land north of the Chamwan Mountains, east of of Teigan Pao, and west of the northern Pakarrin Hills (also called the Hills of Halle). And Andark is isolated enough, by the Sheng and by the reluctance of the Sirinese to let travelers approach their western border, that few non-Yanomese explorers have ever reached that far.
Eshtanga went to Andark during her quest. What she found there, and what she did there, no one knows; she never had time or wish to tell anyone. But she returned to her mother's camp as she was giving birth, and died in the process.
She had time to name her child, and she was quite particular about the name: Ain h'sut chung h'Ril. It's not a Sheng name, despite the form. Ain is a Darkish word. And h'ril is a noun instead of a father's name, though it's also dangerously close to Ril, the familiar name of Achrintashu, the fanged god. Ain's name means Wolf, son of the wolf.
His father was Andarkin, a skin-shifter. Ain inherited his father's magic.
He is also placeless among his mother's people. The Sheng call themselves Sheng h'Avrik, meaning the true/first/only people. They don't take kindly to what they see as purity violations.
Noshay changed her life by claiming Ain (whom she often calls Ayinte, a Sheng twist on his true name) instead of letting him be left exposed to die. Even for a night-woman, who lived a step outside the social strictures of the Sheng, that was too big a transgression. She had to leave.
She didn't go to Andark. Instead, she went south and east, to the opposite corner of Kengush, and settled in the ethnic Sheng district of Pythas. She is known as Noshay Taylak, which is a title given to unaligned night-women, the ones who still live outside proper shtels -- either singly or in small camps of under a dozen women. For Ain to claim that as a surname is both presumptuous, since it's a claim of power and wisdom, and something of a self-directed insult, since it feminizes him (the Sheng see gender roles as part of their purity codes) and reinforces his outcast status. Because even among the settled Sheng, mixed marriages are frowned on, and, of course, nobody in Yanomy will speak much about the Andarkin. And it's pretty obvious to anyone from Yanomy that Ain has Andarkin blood.
This is why Ain pledged himself to the University. As he says to Ekanu, where else do people caught between worlds find a home?
...
I like writing these things out, because it helps me fix the vague ideas in the back of my head into something more concrete and useful. For similar reasons, I need to write up Sheng social organization one of these days.
His grandmother, Noshay h'lat chung Churintu, was what the outside world calls a grass-witch, but what the Sheng call a night-woman or a daughter of Vengashay, the dark goddess: a woman who was recognized as having magic and therefore trained as a priestess and mistress of rituals, a member of the honorary shtel h'Larat chung h'Vor, the daughters of the night. As such, she never married; night-women never do. But it's an honor if they choose to sleep with you, so she had a daughter, Eshtanga h'lat chung Noshay, who is half-sister to one of the more notable families in Narang h'Ato, the shtel with which Noshay settled as an adult.
Eshtanga was initiated and trained as a night-woman herself (which is not automatic, even for the daughters of night-women -- you have to show signs of power), and took her new freedom as a way to get out. She was never happy with anyone, anything, or anywhere, always restless and looking for something new and more. A lot of night-women go on... sort of personal quests, I guess you'd call them, when they're young. They're among the only people who can be completely alone without already being outcast, and that's a double-edged sword, since being placeless -- without family ties and a position in a community -- is a horror for the Sheng. So to spend a month or a year or a hand of years living alone distances a woman from the community, gives her a touch of the Other, which is both dangerous and powerful.
Anyway. Narang h'Ato shtel is named after the running river in their traditional territory: the Ilorhenain, which forms the southeastern border of Andark, marking the forest off from the plains of Kengush. It's not much of a border, really -- the river is easy for the Sheng to ford in many places, and often narrow enough (either running deep or split into fingers by islands) for the Andarkin to build bridges if they wished. They don't build, and the Sheng don't ford. Very few people cross willingly into Andark. Even fewer Andarkin leave.
The people of Yanomy don't like to talk about Andark, though they'll say more about the Andarkin than about the great stretch of unmapped and, so far as anyone from other continents knows, uninhabited land north of the Chamwan Mountains, east of of Teigan Pao, and west of the northern Pakarrin Hills (also called the Hills of Halle). And Andark is isolated enough, by the Sheng and by the reluctance of the Sirinese to let travelers approach their western border, that few non-Yanomese explorers have ever reached that far.
Eshtanga went to Andark during her quest. What she found there, and what she did there, no one knows; she never had time or wish to tell anyone. But she returned to her mother's camp as she was giving birth, and died in the process.
She had time to name her child, and she was quite particular about the name: Ain h'sut chung h'Ril. It's not a Sheng name, despite the form. Ain is a Darkish word. And h'ril is a noun instead of a father's name, though it's also dangerously close to Ril, the familiar name of Achrintashu, the fanged god. Ain's name means Wolf, son of the wolf.
His father was Andarkin, a skin-shifter. Ain inherited his father's magic.
He is also placeless among his mother's people. The Sheng call themselves Sheng h'Avrik, meaning the true/first/only people. They don't take kindly to what they see as purity violations.
Noshay changed her life by claiming Ain (whom she often calls Ayinte, a Sheng twist on his true name) instead of letting him be left exposed to die. Even for a night-woman, who lived a step outside the social strictures of the Sheng, that was too big a transgression. She had to leave.
She didn't go to Andark. Instead, she went south and east, to the opposite corner of Kengush, and settled in the ethnic Sheng district of Pythas. She is known as Noshay Taylak, which is a title given to unaligned night-women, the ones who still live outside proper shtels -- either singly or in small camps of under a dozen women. For Ain to claim that as a surname is both presumptuous, since it's a claim of power and wisdom, and something of a self-directed insult, since it feminizes him (the Sheng see gender roles as part of their purity codes) and reinforces his outcast status. Because even among the settled Sheng, mixed marriages are frowned on, and, of course, nobody in Yanomy will speak much about the Andarkin. And it's pretty obvious to anyone from Yanomy that Ain has Andarkin blood.
This is why Ain pledged himself to the University. As he says to Ekanu, where else do people caught between worlds find a home?
...
I like writing these things out, because it helps me fix the vague ideas in the back of my head into something more concrete and useful. For similar reasons, I need to write up Sheng social organization one of these days.
