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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DMO" data-source="post: 2494765" data-attributes="member: 16324">NajaMisja, who learned medicine* from Valya, who learned medicine from Deyja, who learned medicine from Nagian, who learned medicine from Maia, who tricked medicine from Vizsascha the Wyrm, watched Naja slowly shrink into the horizon -- the first of many horizons on the journey that lay ahead.Misja was an old man.  He was old and weary, and there was but one horizon before him now.  Soon, when he too diminished across that boundary, he would rest with all the suns that had labored across the sky, and he would make at cleverness with the many serpents who had shed their last skins beneath those blazing orbs.**  Misja was a revered elder of the Sn ah'Han.  He had protected his people from each lurking menace of the world.  He had imparted words of hope when they were fearful, had healed their maladies when they were sickened, had tended to their bodies when their spirits wandered beyond his care.  He had done these things for more seasons than he could well recall.  He was old, he was tired, and soon he would rest.But not yet.Old and tired, Misja worried still for his people.  Throughout his many years of ministering to their needs, he had found them a good people who made a good life in a hard land.  Their industry centered them.  Their pride buoyed them.  Their respect for tradition knit them together as a family.  But of late there was discord, a growing unease within the family of the Han.  Misja could not identify its root, yet the weed of division was plain to him: jealousy where there had been sharing, suspicion where there had been trust, scorn where there had been regard.  Not in every glance or in every word, no, but in too many to ignore and in more every day.  He perceived a sickness beginning to fester in the heart of his clan.  It was unlike any malady he had yet beguiled, and all his medicine was fruitless against it.So it was that Misja sent Naja forth, his most promising pupil, on a very different horizon quest*** than the young medicine man might have expected.  This would be no mere journey to retrieve the feather of an eagle, or the tooth of a snake, or the claw of a bear."Naja, take this," Misja had said, handing him an old bow whose significance Naja knew only too well.  "It was fashioned by Maia the Clever when she hunted Old Wyrm Vizsascha, in the dark days when our people were dying under the heels of the powers that roamed the land."Naja had taken the bow with reverence.  Only the elders of the Sn ah'Han had ever drawn its string."It is Longfang.  In the hands of one who has learned its ways, it can strike across the breadth of the sky or pin a beast to its shadow.  These are dark days for our people once more, Naja.  You must draw Maia's bow and follow the arrow where it lands.  You must do this again.  And so again.  You must follow the track of the arrow wherever it leads, until it leads you to the medicine that will save your people.  You must be clever like Maia and learn the medicine and come back to the Sn ah'Han.  Then you will be their revered elder, Naja, and old Misja will rest at last." ------------------------------ * The usage here is akin to that in Native American traditions.  Frequently misused, "medicine" is best understood as "mystery".  Misja and Naja are, thus, mystery men; they are men of wisdom.  In point of fact, they both are capable of bringing herbal knowledge to bear in doctoring the ill/injured, but that's not the important sense of 'medicine' in this context. ** The Sn ah'Han, or Serpent Clan, wisdom tradition holds serpents as sacred -- the embodiment of numinous entities as they journey across the material frame.  In the view of the Han, the serpents' (and the Han's) power owes to their guile as much as their sting (clerics take both the Trickery and War domains).  Their myths describe cosmic forces at war, great winged serpents and scaled angels clashing.  These forces the Sn ah'Han both fear and respect.  But in their myths, it is the "low bellies" (a term of endearment for snakes) that directly involve themselves in the affairs of the Serpent Clan and intercede with the powers of the warring cosmos.  Snakes are therefore considered harbingers, sometimes offering guidance, sometimes bringing judgment. *** Similar to a Native American vision quest, this is a rite of passage that ordinarily involves a journey alone into the wilderness, time spent seeking personal growth and spiritual guidance from clever serpents.  Some representative item is typically retrieved to serve as a reminder of the insight gained.  (It's also a good excuse for young Han to go out and meet up with adventuring parties!)</blockquote>

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