[Fic] "Migration of Souls" -- original, Ekanu

[edenfalling]

Summary: Ekanu rides the wind, but not as a leaf. She is a bird, and will always return to her home. (300 words)

Note: Look, it's original fiction! \o/

So, okay, things I may not have mentioned about Ekanu. She does eventually end up in a stable relationship with Ain h'sut chung h'Ril of Pythas, but it's not a closed relationship. He stays in one place and raises their daughter, but Ekanu never stays put anywhere for more than a few years. And when they're apart from each other, it's understood that they can love as they will. (This is partly a Domaris cultural thing, and partly a personal negotiation.)

This freedom results in two "outside" sexual relationships on Ekanu's part: one with Joú Shaha Vagyu, a fisherwoman of Rudara, which is a mostly coastal saltwater marsh country on the Inner Sea of Nivenos, and one with Refan sin Alar, an Akhite mystic living in Talstrom in the rural lands around the holy city of Ikhalla. There's also her ongoing relationship with Kadeotak, her old best friend/lover from the Ice, but that predates everyone else in her life -- yes, even Denifar -- so it's not really the same category.

Anyway, Ekanu is in her early forties in this ficlet. Refan is about ten years younger.

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Migration of Souls
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The first thing Refan asked, when Ekanu invited him to bed, was when she would leave.

"You serve the Wind," he said in response to her confusion. "It shines from you -- the god-touch. You were chosen, and a portion of your god dwells within you. The Wind is motion and change. For you to stay fixed in one place would be to go against your own heart."

Ekanu traced her hand gently along Refan's shoulder, then across his collarbone and down the center of his chest. "Perhaps. What god dwells within your heart?"

Refan smiled. "None. No god chose me. My faith is my own choice. It's a different tie, but no less worthy than yours. But I ask again: when will you leave?"

"I don't know."

"It should be soon, or not until spring," Refan said, rolling onto his side to face her directly. The sheet on his narrow bed wrinkled underneath their bodies, and the straw of his mattress crackled with the change in pressure. "Winter in the East is no light thing."

Ekanu only smiled.

Refan sighed. "I used to wonder, sometimes, what it might be to feel the hand of a god push me along a path. But if that path involves midwinter snows, I suppose it's just as well that I can choose to stay home instead." He traced his fingers across Ekanu's cheek, cupped the curve of her jaw in his palm. "The god-touched often have difficult lives. Are you content, to blow as a leaf in the wind?"

Ekanu leaned forward and kissed him, slow and sweet. "Not a leaf," she said when their lips parted and she drew back enough to breathe. "A bird. I have a nest that waits for me to return from my journeys."

"I'm glad," Refan said, and drew her close again.

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Inspired by the 9/28/14 15_minute_ficlets word #205: content

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You know, I should really finish "Harvest" one of these days...