Chapter 36: The Griot's Magic

36

“I am JoAnquis Melliofor, called Jo-Mel of the Wilds. I will tell you of what I am and how I came to sit here by your side...”

And thus begins the chronicle of Jo-Mel's life as she sat with Monique underneath the protection of The Breaker, its warding concealing them, silencing the world around them.

Through their words, they began to construct a working, a binding created through the traditions of the griot. Shared stories, shared experiences, formed an enchantment, a magical Telling that wove together the empathetic emotional patterns of the reciter and the receiver, forming a bridge, a bonding, between them.

“I do not remember my journey's beginnings. Not many can, it's true, but my recollections do not start until after I had been left alone, a child of eight years or so, to fend for myself in the Border Realms on the far side of the Great Forest.

These are the uncharted lands adjacent to the Long Plains Kingdom, known for their chaotic magics. These are the Wilds.

“There are those who say that such as I were born from these chaotic energies. That we are simply an expressive side effect arisen from, and with no mother or father, born and orphaned of these magics.

“It is commonly believed that the Peoples of the Wilds, clouded in mystery, originate from beyond and once lived within the soft places, the undefined realms where reality thins and stretches out beyond the physical boundaries that give way beneath the plains of Eternity.

“Whether or not this is true is for those greater than me to determine. What I know of myself is that I was left there, in the Wilds, to wander alone as a child with no memory.

“Can you see it, Monique Felani?” Jo-Mel asks.

“Yes,” Monique replies. And she can. She is lost to the tale, pulled in through Jo-Mel's subtle magics. Her dreamy eyes look, but she doesn't see Jo-Mel. She see's Jo-Mel's story. She sees the history, the memory, unfold before her. “I can see it...”

Continuing on, Jo-Mel nods her head, pleased by their strengthening connection.

“Afterwards, I can only recall being constantly harassed and hunted. Beaten, raped and tortured once captured.

“Ruthless men, both from within the Incata and some even from Earth, would often make incursion into the Wilds, searching for such as I, wanting to harness our essence. But this was a fool's quest. Nothing from within this place is controllable for long.

“No thing can be, because, just like the magics of the Wilds, the living things which quicken there are also chaotic, unrefined, dangerous. Its peoples embody this chaotic energy. It runs through our very blood. This grants great favor, unifying us all, binding our nature to the life systems of the world around us.

“This, though, can also tempt some into succumbing to their descendant natures, causing them to become great threats to the cyclic unity of the Incata. Many of the Incata's most dangerous creatures, in fact, its most fearful demons and myths, women and men, have emerged from or crossed over from the soft lands through here.

“But, though these lands are most wild and unpredictable, the very flora and fauna having taken root in the magically creative soil and grown to be something more, we, the Children of the Wilds, have learned to speak and listen and live and learn from the ancient wisdoms embodied within it. We consume its bounties and slake our thirst with its living flesh. It then flows through our blood, transforming us, inviting us to know of its song.

“I am JoAnquis Melliofor, orphaned daughter of the Wilds. I set out to seek the larger world, the larger worlds, as a mere child. I wandered alone, moving further and further away from the places I had always known, the comforts I had been able to hew out from the heart of danger and was immediately captured as a young girl.

“I was near feral. My life's blood had just begun to flow. My captors thought me a harmless flower to be abused for their amusements. They hobbled me, kept me confined within their expedition camps as little more than a pet and plaything. Soon come, they thought me broken, completely compliant.

“I took the eyes of the first of them two years into my captivity. After the beating, the punishment for his maiming, I was left for dead amongst the wild tangle of growth as the expeditionary party moved on.

“But the Wilds, the very Incata, itself, opened up and swallowed me into its body. There I stayed. I healed and grew strong and learned much of the ways of the magical nature of the Source. I was rejuvenated.

“Once reborn, I sought out the remainder of my captors and slaughtered them, every one. I destroyed their sorcerous machinery and set fire to their camps.

“It was here, sent finally to investigate the incursions by those responsible for my capture, that Askauri found me, standing amid the flames.

“My rage broke against the comforts of his sorrowful, sympathetic arms as he fought against my resistance. He offered me his protection.

“A strange thing, I thought then, the unadulterated kindness of a man.

“I burned with the creative energies that grew from the very ground beneath our feet. I was as much an instrument of the Living Chain of Infinite Existence as the trees, the grass, stones and air. The very elements themselves spoke to me. I had exacted revenge upon my tormentors, upon those who'd desecrate the sanctity of the Wilds and would have been content to stay, to live out my life amongst that which was familiar.

“But instead, I was delivered into the strange comforts of Askauri's world. He brought me back to the Capital city, Chikiti Enzi, where he treated me as no less than his 'little sister' and placed me under his mentorship.

“I was provided with my own suite of rooms within the Royal Houses and entered into the Academies run by the Moor's, high up in the mountains, and the Ethiope, across the Seas of Sand. I attended and excelled in the Military Academies afterwards and soon joined Askauri's Royal Units.

“I quickly rose in rank and now sit as his Second.

“This is who I am, Monique Felani Kokua-Binti. This is who you will always know me to be.

“And by this you have my word. You have my story. I give it to you freely so that you may choose, if you so desire, to make it a part of your own. It would be my honor to accept the same.”