[Fiction] A Scheduled Divergence

[Timeslip]

The world twisted back into sharp focus, and I promptly vomited.

Months earlier, I had brought half a ton of griffin named Wakinyan to this world at his request, and agreed to be here on each and every solstice until he decided to return. Now, I was regretting that promise.

Not because of any particular desire to keep Wakinyan away from the temporal stream that I called my own, mind you. It was possible that my sentiment was in the minority on that particular point - the nova had made no shortage of enemies during his three years in the One Race, many of whom would be perfectly happy for him to never return - but I held no ill will toward the boy. His wife, Ptesan-Wi, would no doubt be pleased if he were to return today... and it was for that reason that I gave her only the most perfunctory of greetings before making my way to the mountain top; the odds of Wakinyan returning on this day were very slim indeed, and I felt no desire to fill the young nova with false hope.

No, my regret was due to a matter of my own making. Yokiko shifted again inside of me, reminding my queasy stomach of that reason yet again as what remained of my last meal splashed noisily across the stone of Inyan Kara.

[Ptesan-Wi]

The places were set. The savory stew – one of her first successful recipes, and one of his favorites – simmered over the cook fire, and fresh flatbread made the cave smell wonderful. The small oil lamps were lit, and the home was snug against the wind and snow outside.

And yet, Ptesan-Wi did not know if her husband would be there to enjoy the meal.

Three and a half months ago, Wakinyan had traveled to another world, one where he could try to come to terms with the remarkable changes that had affected his body and soul. The date of his return was to be on the solstice… but which one remained uncertain. He could return on this, the longest night of 2016, or on the longest day of 2017, or on corresponding dates in the years or decades to come… or never, the psiad reminded herself. He might never come home.

A motion from the front of the cave caught the corner of her eye, and her heart and breath both froze as she saw the heavy buffalo hide start to draw aside, a swirl of wind-blown snow whipping into a whirl in the entry.

[Wakinyan]

The wind whipped around the top of the bear lodge cold and stark. He wondered if she would really be there. Not that the woman was not good to her word but things can happen. As the griffin sailed across the rocky ground below toward the monolith of the 'devil's tower' his gut began to twist slightly. It was not curse to be left here he realized but it was not not see her again. He had friends and family that he wanted to see back their but the longing for his wife was total so when he first caught the scent of someone atop the volcanic plug his heart skipped a bit faster.

The scent of Timeslip and vomit perplexed him for only a moment before he realized that her pheremones explained her situation all to well. As the huge wings arched and mantled to slow him as he landed on the rocky top he could not help but to smile happily at the star field woman who awaited him. "Hau khola." The great beast rumbled happily as he settled down before the time and space manipulator. With a graceful dip of the raptor head Wakinyan eyed her happily. He began to speak again but stopped himself as it was still in the tongue of the Sioux and after a brief paused in slow english he said. "Thank you for coming back for me Timeslip and congratulations on your upcoming child."

[Timeslip]

"I wasn't sure that you would be here," Timeslip said in her eerily echoing voice. "That said, thank you for the congratulations."

She looked at the huge nova perched before her. Wakinyan looked healthy; three months away from his beloved Kool-Aid had not hurt him in the least. And there was a shift to his mindset as well; Timeslip was no mentalist, but she could tell that there were subtle changes from the boy she had brought here in the autumn.

"Well, in any event, a happy solstice to you. Now, what is your plan? Do you stay or return?"

[Wakinyan]

"Happy longest night to you as well. I would wonder where is your husband? I thought he would come along as well."

Wakinyan paused at her question and turned away from the cosmos in female form, gazing toward the last lingering flickers of sunlight in the western sky. "This is a good place. A place I could be happy and my mind at ease."

The griffin's lightning like eyes turned back toward the female and his deep and potent voice continued. "But there are those who rely on me. Have pinned all their hopes and dreams on me. And what kind of messenger would I be to flee from that. It's time for me to pick up that mantle, one that I had been to afraid to take up for over three years now."

A shiver ran down the bestial nova's spine like a ripple across a pond until it shuddered out through his tail. "That is not all though and I would lie I said it was. I miss my friends." He paused and shifted his weight before resolve crystalized in his voice. "I miss, her."

"I am ready to go home Timeslip."

[Ptesan-Wi]

The blowing snow slowed, then stopped, and Ptesan-Wi's heart fell. In place of the whirling snowflakes, a sea of stationary points of light filled the space where the door had been pulled aside.

Somehow, the Lakota woman summoned up the strength for a wan little smile. With the promise of impending tears in her trembling voice, she said, "Well, maybe on the S-summer Solstice then. W-would you care to join me for d-diner? There's p-p-plenty to go around..."

The desperate smile and false cheer fell as the starscape woman silently shook her head... then were overwhelmed with the real thing as Timeslip stepped back out of the doorway to reveal the reason that the snow had stopped.

[Wakinyan]

The darkness behind the enigmatic and pregnant nova seemed absolute and still. Then a stream of snow whispered into the room spiraled through the doorway followed by a stillness, the land seemed to hold it's breath as a large clawed paw came out of the deep night to be seen, then in the darkness two glowing indigo orbs ignited, illuminating in pale light the immense form of the Nova who had came home.

The thunderbird looked down at this wife and her forlorn face with a tender expression that seldom before had graced the harsh angles of his avian visage. As the reality of their reuniting began to grip them both Wakinyan spoke the deep soothing baritone of his voice thrummed throughout the cavernous home. "I am home my Tawicu." His mind spoke the words even as the air carried his voice.

It wasn't that he demanded her mental touch but it was like a loved one with arms outspread awaiting a warm embrace. So while the griffin took the initiative physically as he moved into his home and took his beautiful goddess of a wife into huge arms he hoped to feel the warm embrace of her mind static and all within his mind.

A notorious creature he was, capable of such primal unthinking acts but now that being seemed so far away. Like a man dying of thirst he seemed to drink and revel in his wife's presence nuzzling her cheek with the side of his huge feathered head. "I have missed you so beloved."

[z-Sean McCline]

Sean capped the infared binoculars and hung them back on his belt. His black eufiber made him a black dot in the sky, and he turned away from the mountain, staying downwind. That takes care of that, the red-headed nova sighed to himself, wondering how he would explain to Iharra that she couldn't return to the reservation anymore. She had really come to enjoy seeing Ptesan-Wi, and Sean knew that he was in for a fight when he forbade her from doing it again.

Sean had felt a bit stalkerish about this, but he knew that Ptesan-Wi would need someone around if Wakinyan had not returned. So he had come here, and waited to see if Wakinyan was back. And he was and Sean was sure that his friend was having the best Yule of her life right now. His own was suddenly darker. There goes the planet.

But the first duty of a parent was to protect their children, and that included keeping them away from dangerous novas. It was too bad that in this case, that was going to impact Iharra's training. Maybe Ptesan-Wi and I can work something out, he mused. But for now, he left his young friend to her reunion, and flew home to try to talk to his daughter.

[Ptesan-Wi]

"Mihinga-ki..."

There was no time, no room for other words; in a blur of arms and feathers and tears, Ptesan-Wi was engulfed in her mate's embrace. For a long, long moment, she simply plunged into the presence of Wakinyan.

But as she pulled away, the joy in her deep brown eyes was mixed with a different emotion. Even as she had run into the arms of her beloved, her mind raced out before her, encompassing that of Wakinyan even as the griffin's massive wings encompassed her. And while her body revelled in the familiar sensation, in the textures of the young godling of the Lakota, her mind found itself confused, shocked... and saddened.

Oh, to be certain, the memories they had shared were still there, and the nova's affection for his wife was perhaps even stronger than before... but beyond that, there were changes. The wildness, the purety that Ptesan-Wi had first seen when she was still Thoughtwave and in the care of Iron Rose on that fateful day in Montana was subdued, controlled. In part, she could see, it was that Wakinyan was finally at peace with his form. But in reaching that point, it seemed that he had surrendered a portion of the fury, the wild, the tempest that had been part and parcel with his spirit and his name.

Wakinyan had left to find himself, but it seemed that in doing so, he had lost part of himself as well... and to her horror, Ptesan-Wi realized that it was the very part with which she had fallen in love at first mental sight.

Who would have thought I would need to force a smile upon seeing mihinga-ki again, she thought to herself, but force a smile she did.

"Welcome home, my mate."

[Wakinyan]

Wakinyan felt the warm comfort of the familiar mind welcome. The slight static as enjoyable as her scent that permiated his home and his senses as he held her so closely. Her slight sorrow caught him off guard, he had not expected it and thought on it. She lost very little of what he was but gained the clarity of purpose that was now his. Now however was not the time to explore it, later when he was wrapped around her in their nest might be a better time to relieve her of her doubt and worry.

Brushing aside the lone seed of negativity Wakinyan lowered Ptesan-Wi back to the ground upon the tips of her toes nuzzling her close to him. For all his power he couldn't seem to draw his large eyes away from her. The back of a talon slowly traced down one of her long braids, brushing against one of his feathers that was woven into the braid. Her elegant neck seemed to demand a small lick across the nape to which caused her to shiver which seemed to delight him all the more.

However despite the object of his affection and desire being with her again he would not forget the mother to be behind him. His voice rumbled. "Timeslip, my wifes' offer of course still stands. Will you stay and eat with us? Surely you are hungry as you are now with child. I would feel terrible if you went through all the effort of bringing me home not to."

[Timeslip]

The enigmatic starscape woman shook her head. "No, I think this is neither the time nor place for me to stay. Your home is lovely, but it is also known, and almost certainly observed. Wakinyan, Ptesan-Wi, be careful in the coming days; things are likely to get much, much worse for the One Race before they get better."

The stars that made up her being flared... and then, there was nothing in the open doorway but swirling snow.

[Ptesan-Wi]

A chill ran through the cave; how much of it was the Dakota winter, how much her misgivings regarding the changes in her mate, and how much Timeslip's ominous words, Ptesan-Wi could not say.

"Well," she finally said with a bit of an awkward tone, "that was... well, I'm sure she'll be fine. It's her way. You should probably eat before things get cold."

With that, she set herself to filling Wakinyan's large bowl - for the first time in months - and trying to lose herself in the routine.

[Ptesan-Wi]

Time passed slowly. Dinner was eaten with relatively little conversation, brief snippets of "catching up" by both husband and wife that were noticably - almost painfully - devoid of real substance. Even the link felt awkward this night, the familiarity somehow adding to rather than alieviating the strangeness of it all.

By the time that the meal was over, communication had died out entirely.

Ptesan-Wi set about clearing the table, but the flutter in the pit of her stomach only increase. Finally, she lost concentration, and half a dozen earthenware dishes fell from the air, shattering on the stone floor. She could feel the tears begin to flow, but forced them back.

As Wakinyan moved to try to help his wife, she turned to face him and said, "Mihinga ki, we need to talk. You aren't the only one who has gone through changes. I killed a man."

[Wakinyan]

Despite his fearsome reptutation and how dangerous he could be Wakinyan not became accustomed to the idea of killing. Not that he had never done so, he had. It was simply that the times it had happened where either for the sake of defending something or he was so lost within his rage and beastial self that he had little or no choice than to avert the course of his actions. The guilt of the family that he had consumed still haunted him and when she spoke of killing it was the first thing that had trickled through his conscious mind. Having her now have to deal with her own guilt was something that twisted his heart.

The griffin shifted his weight and his wings flicked slightly. He could jump to a thousand conclusions on the events that lead to her doing what she did but instead and against his past actions he remained calm though the concern for his wife still showed plainly across his face.

"Tell me what happened?" Could this event be what has turned her so much. Wakinyan began to regret his trip his leaving. No self discovery was worth letting your loved one but first he would hear her story and help her if he could, it was the least he could do for all the times she had helped him.

[Ptesan-Wi]

And so, Ptesan-Wi told her tale for the first time. About how a lovely day in the garden had been shattered by the waves of trauma from young Rebecca Whitetail; how her run to help the girl turned into a wave of rage; how she had grabbed the townie Kevin Allen with her mind and lashed him against the trees and rocks, over and over, until long after he had stopped moving; how in the end, she had called Bear to cover her murder of a boy.

There were no tears. Ptesan-Wi had long since run out of tears for this incident. There was only her quiet voice, telling her husband that his wife was no longer an innocent in this last and most final way.

[Wakinyan]

Wakinyan listened his ears alive followed and tracked the sound of her voice carefully. As the tale unwound by voice it did so in mind as well.

After absorbing not only the words but the emotion behind that Wakinyan took a long breath comforted in the scent of home again as he did so. "If you were confronted with the situation again would you have done any less? Could you have?"

Rolling muscles flowed beneath the fur and feathers of the winter coat the griffin now wore. "Being what we are means we have to accept that there are things we do that even we may not like to do. Yet we do them. I am a messenger and there is no promise of if the message is always going to be good or bad it just is. Ptesan-Wi is much the same. You have heard the old stories Ptesan-Wi destroyed those whose hearts were black. She was a teacher and even through killing she taught."

He did not dismiss his wifes pain and he did not know if he comforted her with his words so he added. "Whitetail would have likely died if you had not did what you did?"

[Ptesan-Wi]

From somewhere deep inside, Ptesan-Wi found that she apparently did still have some small capacity for tears, and the truth of the situation was enough to bring them forward.

"No," she said, even as her cheeks were lined with wet streaks. "The rape was pretty much done, and he wouldn't have killed her. He didn't have whatever it took to actually kill her." She wiped the back of her hand across her face, determined to clear the tears. "I killed him out of vengeance, Wakinyan. I killed him out of rage and anger for what he and his people - a people that I was once a part of - have brought upon our People."

Something happened then. Wakinyan could feel it over the link, his wife could feel it within her, but neither would have a name for it. Whatever it was, though, left the tears behind even as she stood straight and proud. Without effort or bidding, a white glow surrounded the red-skinned girl, and her eyes shown with the deep azure of the Dakota sky.

"I murdered a boy in an act of revenge for the Lakota. And by Wakan Tanka, I would do it again. My People can not - will not - continue to be abused as they have for over a hundred and fifty years. I am Ptesan-Wi, and I will not permit it."

[Wakinyan]

Wakinyan knew at that moment that she had grown in their time apart. Courage tenacity and a hard determination manifested in the glowing beauty.

"I think you are more the goddess of the people than you ever have been. You know what has to be done, what we have to do together." In the back of his mind he was certain their hearts were still as one but now he did not have a wife who was full of young infatuation but a woman with manifest destiny.