The Departure
It was an early morning in the small pilgrim settlement high up on the top of Mt. Aravo. The healers and the botanists were getting ready for their journey to the mainland, loading their tiny pestle and mortars, boiler assemblies and a million saplings along with their rations. This would be Kiara’s first foray to the lands beyond the Tiatian islands.
Her mother was very apprehensive and does not wish her only family to depart her. But this is their sacred duty, their sacred ritual - the Tiatian healers leaving the high mountain to treat the needy and sick. They live a life of discipline and celibacy well until their adulthood and then spend their entire lives healing and spreading the word of peace.
Moira stood quietly on the boulder near her cottage watching over her daughter - Kiara, haul rations and blankets into her cart. Palomi, Kiara's friend and a healer was squatting inside the cart carefully placing all the tiny glass bottles filled with different ingredients on the shelves on one wall of the cart. Some were filled with dark concoctions, some yellowish and some transparent ones. Some had dried leaves, twigs, roots and some even had berries and fruits. The other wall of the cart had small saplings lined up in shelves as on the other wall.
Moira stood beside the boulder bordering her tiny cottage, looking down at the hustle and bustle of the caravans preparing for the long journey ahead, unable to articulate the storm of feelings revving up inside her.
“She needs to know.” said on old feathery voice from beside Moira.
“Why?" Moira replies fleetingly glancing sideways towards her companion who had joined her. “Why must she go? We were happy here. Away from them. Away from everything.”
Moira took a deep breath, holding it there, like the pain she was trying to restrain. She continues to silently watch her daughter. Kiara looked so happy, preparing for the journey ahead. Moira knew that Kiara thought this was her calling, that this was the moment her mother had prepared her and disciplined her all her waking life for, but only if she knew the truth. If only Moira had the heart to tell her what she would be up against one day, Kiara would have probably become as cold and unfeeling like her mother. She steadied herself as tears started to threaten.
“Were you happy? Did you ever allow yourself to be loved as a mother and to love her as your child? I never doubted your affection towards her even though she wasn't your own. But did you ever express that love? I knew the day I handed you Kiara wrapped in a bundle that Kiara had found a mother and my beloved Moira, a daughter. I knew you would rear her as your own, just as you would have raised Vaibhav." said Mohanto, watching over Kiara, just as he had watched over her growing up, just as he had watched over Moira when she grew up in the lap of Aravo. Mohanto was one of the oldest residents of the Aravo and one of the wisest and skilled sages of the Sacred Circle in Tiatia. And once upon a time, closest and most trusted advisor to King Upsara, the then King of Tiatia.
Moira stood still, impenetrable by guilt of the time gone or at least she maintained the facade very well.
"It was not your fault what happened to Upsara and Suraiya. They both would have happily given you their daughter to raise even if they were still with us. But you remained closed off, guarded, unrelenting, so worried of the future, you never truly lived the present passing by. It could have been so joyful to watch Kiara grow, learn and become the women she is today, but you only focused on what she wasn't and trained her harder than ever. You were busy preparing her for the worst. Training her, disciplining her, punishing her. You feared too much, you never loved her and so you never told her. She should know.” continued Mohanto, in the hope that Moira will finally yield and bid her daughter with love and blessings, that she never showered her with, all her life.
Hoping that Kiara would part with her mother knowing that Moira had loved and cared very much about her, all her life and would never cease to, instead of leaving with the mountain of unsaid, unexpressed feelings both had kept buried within them.
“Forbid her. Forbid her from going.”
“I could.”
Moira looked at Mahanto, in determination, trying not to flinch and give away – everything, not that it was a secret. Mahanto smiled kindly and placed a much wrinkled but firm hand over Moira’s head.
“I can-not lose another child to them. Please !!!”
“Sooner or later, someone will come for her. Too many promises made and too many were broken. And even if they don’t come for her, these islands are no more safe since the Prori treaties dissolved. All others know these islands are the only safest way to get over the dreaded trenches without being killed the most horrible deaths into the Vulcarian kingdom. And when they come, they won’t come bearing good for us either. Who do you think will be traded as a peace offering to the southerners, Moira?”
Moira’s determined eyes now slightly widening with terrors from past.
“They will know where to find her.” Her lips now trembling. A film of tears very slowly sliding down her lower lid. Moira was now losing focus on her daughter through the pain and realized that the time to depart had come.
“The exile ends in four months and if he has survived, he shall be judged. Who knows what has surpassed these many years? Who knows what our mistakes have bred us?”
“He didn’t.” Moira’s tears no more a threat. Her voice suddenly dry and dead. “Neither of them did.”
Mohanto looks over at Moira and with much regret, he saw how tormented Moira really was. And it was not just the departure of her daughter that made her so, it was the decades that had passed by. Love that once bloomed in her heart, love that once conquered a beast, the love so strong that had moved the King of the Dark, the love that was conceived and most...most painfully lost...! Mohanto shook his head to clear his thoughts. He wanted the urgent matter of Kiara's departure dealt with. And as much as his heart broke to keep asking Moira to make one sacrifice after another, in the name of...by this point...Mohanto was no more sure if it was truly for the greater good, he pushed Moira to make yet another one.
“Come, Moira lets bid her farewell.” Mohanto held her hand in his and led her towards her daughter, down the small hillock. Moira now like wooden puppet, moved behind her companion. Just above the first stone step she hesitated for a second making Mohanto stop, who quietly let go of her hand. Moira ran back to her cottage and returned with something looking like long tools wrapped in a sheet. Mohanto starts to climb down the stone steps towards Kiara.
