I read this and it stayed with me. You might feel the same.
#warofshallows
Reposted
#warofshallows
## War of Shallows 008: Ranga Becomes Vantack
Radiv had seen warriors wounded. He had watched a bull split a rider's leg and seen the rider laugh until the blood made him sleep. Pain among Pilas was rarely quiet.
Ranga made no sound.
That frightened Radiv more.
The brightness between his chest and the infant's body lengthened into threads. They trembled in the air like strands of water pulled upward from a river. No Indev hand guided them. No old song steadied them. They twisted, broke and formed again.
Every time they broke, Ranga darkened.
At first it was nothing. A shadow under the cheek. A loss of warmth in the hands. Then the colour went from his face as if something behind the skin were drinking it. His tunic became difficult to separate from his body. His hair, his mouth, the lines beside his eyes, all sank into the same deepening black.
"Stop him," Tor whispered.
Nobody moved.
The elder Pila stood with both hands clenched. Later, Radiv would hate her for bringing the basin. Later still, he would understand that she had not wanted cruelty. She had wanted the world to remain a shape she recognised.
Ranga reached beyond it with his bare hands.
The threads found the infant.
Her body jerked once.
Radiv stepped forward.
"Father."
Ranga's eyes opened.
For a moment Radiv could still see them. Not clearly. Only two darker places inside the dark that had taken his face. But they were there, and they looked afraid.
Not afraid of pain.
Afraid the child would not live.
The knot tightened.
The court changed.
Radiv could not explain it then and disliked trying now. It was not light, although everyone saw it. It was not sound, although several Pilas covered their ears. Something passed from Ranga into the infant and became a line neither body could fully own.
The infant's chest lifted.
Then she cried.
The sound was small, furious and wonderfully inconvenient.
Ranga fell forward on one hand.
The attendants dropped the basin. Stone cracked against stone. The white knife slid across the floor and stopped at Radiv's feet.
He did not pick it up.
The infant cried again.
Ranga lifted her.
He had become almost featureless. In the high light of Sky Roof, where every face should have been clear, his body held the blackness of a closed mine. Clothes, mouth and hair had vanished into it. Only his outline remained, impossibly present.
"What have you done?" Tor said.
The dark figure turned toward him.
When Ranga spoke, the voice came from farther away than his body. It entered the floor, the pillars and the bones of everyone who heard it.
"I have brought home my daughter."
No one answered.
Radiv stared at the infant. Her eyes were open now. They did not search the room like ordinary newborn eyes. They looked straight at the black shape that held her, as if she knew the life wrapped around her and had already decided to keep it.
The elder Pila lowered herself to one knee.
Others followed. Not all at once. Not easily. But one by one the court bent before the blackest Pila anyone had ever seen.
Someone whispered the name first.
Vantack.
Radiv never learned who. Whenever he asked, each witness swore the word had begun elsewhere. It passed through the court until the name Ranga no longer seemed large enough for what stood before them.
Ranga held the infant against his chest.
Inside his darkness, Juva lived.