As soon as the evening blaze of the moon gleam over the mountains— brightening up the azure sky.
The brightness joined billions of glistering stars— twinkling like a fiery orb.
It was an opportunity for her to pitch her idea to the public at the first convention of Coimana regions.
Bustle of life filled the environment, and the whole crannies with wonderous noises.
This was a long way from home, and had been many years: before the siege saga.
Within the depths of restless crowds, without alluring attention to herself.
A tall dark figure loomed over and revealed the full form of an attractive young woman standing among the thick crowds of people under shades of canopies.
With curious mincing steps, she crawled out like a ghost in her loom, and stepped over the roof shadowy lines of the canopies— fallen beneath her feet.
She stood alone primly— ahead of the crowds seated behind her by two steps away, and dozen other steps ahead of those seated facing her: in rows.
It was almost as if she was standing in the middle of the field of the crowd.
Darkness was growing thicker, and then the solemn ray of light energy shimmering her direction, illuminated her dark profile.
She paused moment, lost in reminiscence.
This woman was perceived by many to be proud and attractive.
Though her presence seemed to had initially been disregarded by guests all seated around: calmly.
Nothing had been seen to echo from within the depth of a woman's heart even in her looks.
Her charms radiance through her eyes, with such an intoxicated maligned ambition so powerful like a goddess hypnotized the crowd.
It spoke volume of her personality.
As the weird woman stood still alone... disenchanted like a melancholy.
She'd maintained a queit spot for some time to suppress her grim focus projected to the sky.
There'd been a long deep breath processing the imagery of the constellations in her mind, which she'd gradually retrieved and simmered through her engram.
Aha! This is the ancient stories I've heard about! I'll draw lessons upon their myth tonight. She thought.
Out of habit, in her standing position— sturdily astride.
Her feet were firmly knitted to the ground intransigently; and she looked cruel.
Then she took a step forward in observations, looked and dropped it in the ground slowly— making an awkward adjustments, fairly enough, on the green shallow dikes— in just one single fluid of impressive steps.
Her eyes were stern and superb: very bold. She narrowed them straight up at a glance: curiously to a particular star patterns in the sky.
Her eyes gazed over them circumspectly. She studied the phenomenal star systems and their patterns for a while before looking else where.
When she tilted her neck to the other side, left to be precise. The glistening eyes, held grim were peered into the lucid sky ambitiously.
Yet, no one seemed to have observed the transcribed Omen— that she was staring at. And no one at that moment followed her fixed gaze.
Then came a voice aloof; it was the voice of an old man— heard under the breath of a whisper to his young friends.
"After straining our relationships with hate speech in the south and in the west and in the middle of the land, and all other provinces.
These people want to use us to converse for votes.
There's no boundary for anyone that's rich in this State. He's free to move and make network with his fellow rich friends.
The boundaries that exists amongst us, we're the ones that the poor have created for themselves.
We saw many stepping down with ease for another. One would decamp to the next opposing force in anger.
And the other eventually becoming the winner...," said the old man, and rested his opinion to get back a response from his friends.
"Yeah! And after that, they still gather at dinner parties to celebrate and take mockery pictures of plundering the state and our ignorance.
They're our oppressors, the citizens are only ignorant and fooled to be leashed by their lies. We fight each other, and we kill to defend them, while they feed on our blood and our struggles to expand their own prosperity."
The crowd at this moment, had all it attention focused upon the group of band entertainers playing drums.
Metal percussion amidst— clicked on metal and clanged along with strings of sweet vibrations. It echoed drums beats down the glim of the forest.
People of many tribes were dancing at this rhythm and rendition of the drums beat, as the ground shook in jubilations.
They were wild celebrations going on with different foods you could think of.
The noise echoed a single sound and then found it way down the valleys towards the ancestral caves; where structures of pylons passed down— holding up the electrical cables, and then finally disappeared from sight.
While randomly half of the smeared crowds of people around the plains, simultaneously held their breath in amazement and then continue to stare at the other section of elders and dignitaries— partaking in a profound group discussions... behind a short stage set at the extreme corner of the field.
Ursa minor constellation lean right on the night sky— pausing upside down— with the bear tail facing the north-pole.
A phenomenon of an hypothesis—star systems understood only by few stargazers— to represent the cardinal figures of the heroes gone to the land of the great beyond.
An opening spasm of signs and times for an imminent faze of life— was set to begin as she'd reasoned within herself at this moment... And the sequence of events to follow the proclamation for major social transformations.
Though blurry were the signs, like as of warnings signature not fully comprehended; though foretold in the past— the doom of events ahead of time.
Akalia had experienced the illusion of being in another world and at a different time and space.
It was her later fate of visions, in form of a propitious augury— that was been viewed conspicuously.
A conscious magnificent mind of a gifted soothsayer— in her best state of mind...was expanded in split second by the cosmic powers, as it all appeared smouldering on her conscience.
She confirmed it in her heart— in agreements, that it has become her portion; her obligation to nurture it to fulfilment.
"The dreams! Oh yes!" She mouthed, tapping her right toe to the ground weirdly; as she spoke few words in an oddly manner, while gaining more cognitive knowledge of the tales that had immediately permitted a bemused smile— as she remembered something within these weird experiences.
Bits of it have been triggered by the constellations.
The ground was beginning to swell to a crescendo— as the drums beat rolled and reached the climax. More guests were still arriving.
"Now i remember, grandfather had once spoken to me concerning this kinds of augury.
Hear! Hear!" Akalia exclaimed with weird kind of ascent; an oratorian intonation that would permeate her sensorium to alertness.
Her face was held placid this time in active thoughts.
The entertaining sound of the local drums beats died at once, and draw an intimate line of expectations— to usher in the last speaker standing.
This was a woman, who'd long been validated from afar off— by the rumours of her stories that had been told everywhere.
She was right there, but only few knew of her— standing in the shallow dikes— yet was unfamiliar to thousands of people around the ambiance of light.
This was Akalia in flesh and spirit; standing in her precise manners, with some fray of boldness... like one that would never had taken a no for an answer.
The theater of crowd was huge, and cut squarely around the green field of grass.
Guests composed themselves around the plains in proper manners, and were seated under a lucid charming atmosphere as the protocol roll out instructions to guests.
People of all sorts who had cradled unruffled at this end of Kalia's valley— stretched in their large numbers and extended contigiously into the greener terrains.
The terrain was sitting on about hundred acres of fertile land, with channels of rivers gushing from the West, and many creeks that surrounded the environs.
It was an oppulent beginning of a new social political era that had began from a proper village setting in time.
The selected terrain was deliberate. It was meant to toy with the crooked minds of their foes who will want by nature and would rant, to disrupt the event.
But they halted those who bitterly hated them.
If the faction's plan goes in the right direction, no one will ever remember the existence of their enemies.
The result will dispose off the intending plans of the opposition... looking for easy means of prey— in an old fashion way, even to the smallest minute details of mistakes to use against them.
And the plan, who may or may not necessarily be a cheap blackmail, but will likely to initiate crisis and disorient the interest of the CRPs.
They'd isolated the faction into the Valleys to prevent the occurrence of that disaster, by tricking the press into believing something else that was not: even so small.
The impression that nothing was special about them, nor the event tonight.
But the Lopadans got it all wrong: it was a cross fire of many allies.
There was something hidden beneath that roar of talking drums... even much bigger than a flower— to fascinate the birds.
This land was inhabited mostly by people giving to cultivations of crops.
People who had held tradition very close to their hearts, like a cherished infant. It was the heritage of their forefathers...who had served only their gods and the land, despite the rise of modernism even across the state.
They'd despised the new religions, that had sailed across the vast oceans, and spread the gospel throughout their land.
It didn't felt quite interesting around here...at least, not in a fully justify sense.
And even after staging the venue of the inaugural speech at this remote terrains— with so crude of people...who lacked the cross cultural connections to absorb other people's ideas.
This were problems of men...tinkering an ugly phase beyond human.
The abodes of the natives...large play grounds and broad pathways— all appeared naked without cover.
Patches of narrowed red tracks, and muddy wet sand, were the only safe places where children could play.
Population distribution was sparsed around the land.
The natives lived in isolations like as of farm settlements— and accommodated varieties of old simple corrugated bricks and mud houses, which their walls looked almost as though they'd never been plastered nor cared for, for years.
Yet tonight, there was no single atom of boredom— smelling the open air of this green grass settlements, which resembled that of a simple ranch for nomads.
A number of other happy ethnic groups lived peaceably amongst them.
Only their surviving cultural norms had managed to keep and sustain a healthy social lifestyle and the heritage that'd kept the people's state of mind and happiness intact. ...And no matter the chocking influence of a world of new religion built around them; the adaptive culture and over isolation from the modern life— had encouraged this tribes to maintain and survive modernism, despite the immense encroaching threat of the western culture that had spread to many parts of many urban settings.
It was always dark without glint at night in this village, despite the project of electrical pylons going round the communities of Chakia.
Most of the native houses here, had never been illuminated by the bright glows of electrical bulbs; nor has the inhabitants seen such an intense bright glows of a shining light, self emanating from within objects— just like the ones they were seeing now— projecting white and black images, captured by big fat lenses of primitive cameras around the field.
The reason had been the slow pace, and the sparingly developmental projects— reaching far into the walls of this region.
But the present delegates here tonight had promised that they will continue to enjoy all of these transformations, if they'll be willing to join their race.
Aina Johnson Rakajapi was not yet a senator at this point.
He was a native of this land— who has leaved in the city half of his life. He left the comfort of the shades of the canopies daunted.
For all these years, Johnson have been a controversial figure, in the eyes of his people.
The big man gallops down the isle, journeying to the back end of the stage, to connect with the elders that were reaching for a consensus.
He was not a man of much words, although his ignoble wealth was largely coveted by many.
A man well known with a profound elements of occultism, yet to some he was a shining beacon.
And to those who were impressively fascinated by his influencial lifestyle, 'The get rich quick syndrome.' loved him despite all of these controversies surrounding his life.
It was through his influence, the elders have agreed to move the inaugural meeting far into the serenity of the valleys to attract more eyes...even to his home town— a remote village to make the opposition wonder at them.
His skin like the devil was taned hypothetically— which the people often thought he mirrored.
Broad face and constant folded horizontal lines appeared on his forehead: but well ordered along the plains and facets.
A cynical smile along the lips that often appears too downturn to concealed his aquiline nose.
Johnson had a unique parmanent bushy mustache that filled his nostrils.
It had been groomed barely half of his lifetime, or since the day he'd vouched to join politics— to tap into the full potential of its power and the resources it offered to the men of affluence— and who were considered to be nobles.
"What do you predict will occur at the end of tonight's inaugural speech? Look at my forefinger, straight at where I am pointing at... yes, over there. Can't you see the woman standing? That woman..." asked an old rustic anonymous man trivially.
He lowered his right hand that was stretched— pointing to the rear figure of the same woman.
She was wearing a black–black attires, still standing in an astride position, at the opposite end of about thirty rows of seats on her right— neatly organized and occupied under the canopies by the natives.
Her cute shape had attracted the eyes of many men around the field. This time she had siezed staring at the sky.
She was now standing carefree and relaxed; but her figure was doggedly erected like a straight wooden pole.
"Do you notice how bold and optimistic she's standing? Doesn't her posture appears to be both brave and broken? Those eyes of a villainy... i do not trust!" He shook his head in slow motions and continued.
"If you could see them at dawn; they clearly are the organs of sight, that announces her ambition to control the whole corners of this provinces.
The shape of her face i tried to imagine and evaluate in my head earlier: was only theoretical... totally abstract.
But what i saw as i linger; the devil was clearly in the details."
"Really grandfather... You of all people that I know? You speak emotionally, even over things you aren't sure about sometimes."
The young man shook his head off in disagreements. He brushed off the old mans' shoulder sideways with one single stride, and then rolling up the sleeves of his jacket and continued.
"Wow! Brains are weird sometimes! You're really old— grandfather and annoying too. Besides that, don't you think Akalia is far more than that, huh? I mean, i can't comprehend anymore of these your unfounded statements, and they're beginning to piss me off.
They're totally bullshits.
These words won't just fuse in my head.
That is the problem.
I find them repulsive because they lackcritical thinking.
But how different people's minds work on a fundamental level?" The young man still grumbled. He may have been, or not his biological grandson— still rolling up the second sleeves of his thick black jacket to his elbows.
He switched his position to the right side, and went further to criticize the old man's disposition toward Akalia— still gazing at him in a solemn specter surprised.
"I'm so curious about the experiences folks have, if they aren't seeing images in their heads— especially when a story is been told, even with vivid imagination.
I don't like old people with such a disposition toward others."
"Keep talking!" the old man said, blinking at his young friends face puked over his unguided tongue. He rubbed his baldheaded skull, as he stared quizzically at him blinking.
He looked just like a child that had been verbally chastised by his abusive guardian.
His feet withdrew back swiftly. He started to rub his baldhead, in a condescending manners as though he'd agreed with what the young man had said.
He gently puts his face down... and then in a long thought as his eyes gripped firmly on his friends foot in contact.
He bowed as though in submission, and then grinned— steadying his forehead: shame faced in silence.
"Wow! I don't blame you; you're just a child who not too long had sucked the breast milk of his mother! How barren is your mind kid.
Think I'll give up?" the old man reacted, as though an understanding had stroke his brains.
"Snap out of it son!" he was vocal this time, as he reasoned psychologically, raising his voice and face at the same time with confidence now.
His ears prickling without even realizing it.
"I understand i am not a seer," he repeated frankly, making an impressively eye contact that were still laid upon his young friends face.
"I only speak of what i actually saw with my own eyes beneath her sad eyes, when i read them at that moment I saw her standing."
The young man winked, and smiled back at him mockingly. But he was adamant, and will not give up... not yet convinced about the young man's utterances.
And not until he was clear; he'll stick to his opinion, what he knew was true and evident to his own justifiable sense.
On the other hand, the quiet and reserved young man— on his left showed quite an impressive disposition, in his attitudes to their arguments.
And even in his long oversized outfits...that reached to his feet and sweeps off the sand on the ground as he moves about slowly.
The outfits ballooned each time he releases his hands from his waist and paused to listen to both of them. He could sense wisdom in the words of the old man, but he'd refused to speak for some times.
"Frantically... I don't seem to understand the abstract mind of a thing i attached to fit her physical description. But that... That woman's Freudian ego, portrayed out there outrageously, can't be mistaken for anything good to us!"
The old man was weirdly composed in many ways about his opinions now, and strongly argued about it.
"Yes! Including every hint that she stands for... every hint about her philosophy and beliefs; is all that i can see glaringly uncanny.
And so far as I've witnessed among my people...it is this mystery wrongly portrayed by many as legendary.
Many people do not understand, even here in the valleys of Kalia city; and that is poison— capable of killing us both.
Though i can't forget too soon in totality, what Akalia had done and what have benefited her people in many ways; so i stand with her.
The culture of Kalian left by Jadahkina her grandfather is fantastic, and the legacy cannot be completed without her horoic deeds years past."
The old man reminded himself, only in retorts— nodding his head, almost in an unsettling gestures.
"I can perceive the tone of her slogan.
No doubt i agree— without an iota: son.
Though I know— sometimes, it's an irony of life, but I know... still many things could change a man.
My spirit cannot so much be wrong my child; i am an elderly man— whose eyes and mind have been pruned to spot heresy in men."
The one friend, who was the youngest and calm, sighed in a simple relief smiling and then said solemnly.
"I myself doubt her morality, I think they're all made up stories." said the introverted youth, with a stern look. He bent over his cheek on the old man's shoulder in such a friendly manner.
As he quieted his chin and his entire throat— squeezing it down playfully on the old man's shoulder, his head was completely buried in his neck.
He cuddled the old man's body with his hands wrapped around him.
Hands burried inside his clothes again as they moved clumsily along his waist— and muttered something like Papa, as though he was his father.
The old man winked instead at him. He then in a witty reply whispered something softly and said.
"Ah, hah! You think the same way too grandfather...i knew it.
That someday— someone will definitely accept the challenge to teach the Lopadans a lesson that they will never forget in their life too quick!
But i didn't know that the destiny— rested upon the shoulder of a female gender: and not a man.
I believe she's the one our ancestors had predicted as, 'The One With Altered History.' and a vehement force to come with such a disarray of malevolent influence over the region to disprove in totality— the ideas of the 'White Man's Burden,' which our people have taken seriously to heart."
The old rustic affirmed nodding his head in a complete melodramatic effect, and then said softly.
"Fantastic son, your thoughts are deep— like you'd long been in my mind.
A malevolent spirit, with which she could use to challenge any bigger threat standing her way.
Be it the Lopadans! To deliver the liberty to her people and the value commensurate— with which to orient themselves. I am definitely not this vivid son, i can't make picture in my head this detail. You'll surely be good at it one day, as a futurist: son!"
"Not so fast grandfather, I embraced these ideas and tradition; not as religion.
It was during my dissertation on the anthropological research; it's not my kind of faith.
Grandfather!"
A persistent silence stretched within the half circle, while both men tried to buttress their metaphors.
The old man's thoughts moved in ferment like a silly defiant boy as he remembered, but hesitated to speak for sometimes.
"Her grandfather; Jadahkina prophesied on his death-bed: that the kingdom in which he had founded would last but for a century and few years." He said, allowing the electrical impulses— generated by the words of the story, to cascade down his thinking faculties.
"And it has indeed run it's course." The young man concord, nodding his head in affirmations.
The young man was now figuring out ways he could catch a clear glimpse on the object of veneration— which the crowds all yearned to listen to her voice; and to see her come all out on the stage— plainly on the spot... from the vantage in which they all stood expectantly dead watching.
Their mouths gapped wide, now studying in perspective her slow movements— as the air smugged around them.
"Well... this is my first opportunity live, and maybe the last to see the highly revered woman, that people talk about with respect.
I won't waste it today, except right now I am dead or dreaming." said the old man looking at Akalia's silhouette shape.
He took three paces forward languidly with a deciphering steps, but decided to turn back abruptly.
His friends didn't know why he'd done that, but the old man was clearly anxious of seeing Akalia's face.
"Someone should please ask her to leap quickly over the spotlight.
I need to see her face clearer this night— before i retire for bed!" The old rustic man smacked while the young friend grumbled with his eyes wide opened.
"Oh, no!... something isn't just right. Look...but why's she plodding back? And to where, if I may ask?"
The old man paused, his face and body stiffin as he turned on his neck, toward the other side slowly— and behold finally the figure of the woman plodding out of sight.
It enraged him, and made him to frown, as Akalia finally disappeared far down the stage. The young men shrugged— feeling disappointed too.
It took the old man a groggy minute, even to a grinding halt; before regaining a gesture of balance... surprise, still with the other foot turned in a reverse direction.
He'd just lost the enthusiasm, as well the ease of an inquisitiveness in him.
He watched with nimble comportment, as Johnson turned right, and then moved directly toward the group of dignitaries among many elders that stood in a half circle, immersed in serious probable discussions.
Weighing interwoven clinical issues— in a crucibles of time, to confront higher matters of the intellect— one after the other.
About four feet tall, stood on the heap a square constructed wooden platform. It hid the figures of the elder— slightly behind the stage.
"What?" asked one of the young fellows— very curious.
Noticing the obvious uneasiness and the shivers on the old man's face.
The quaking of his lips in anxiety— had continued to boil his anger in such a short moment.
The rest glanced over him as his eyes popped out in silence, the size of a gulf ball— as he widen his brow and released himself from anxiety.
They'd consistently thrown a perplexed glimpses on the old man's face, but had done so little to pay a close attention and see what the elders and the dignitaries discussions could pan out at the end of the day.
"Don't you all see the pattern of regrouping? Huh! Doesn't it means something enough to arouse your curiosity? In as much as they mean to do well for the commoners, the secret spot of meeting in isolation, does not inadvertently guarantee a total resolution tonight.
It is a deviation from the main course" the old man said.
The young men nodded calmly, but not everyone had agreed with him: deep down.
"Look carefully well now...," he continued.
"Why is she gathering the elders around her now before she delivers her speech? Instead of addressing us as a congregation...why? Especially that man standing in their midst, Aina J. Rakajapi over there...you see him?
That man could be evil and dangerous!"
"How are you sure about that?" Asked the young man. "Johnson is bold because, timid actions are often met with strong opposition." snobbed the young man.
"Don't you all know his white fortress abode? The house with imposing facade— across the river with hidden secret chambers.
Where in this land did he made such amount of money within a short time to build the house?" The old man asked groaning, and with gustily short breathes.
Untill now, a young man who'd been listening to their conversations— behind their rows, had caught his attention.
Smile come off his eyes as they noticed he had been listening to their discussions.
He nodded in a repeated affirmations and then gestured within his cliques, in a secret capitulation: as he told them about the old man's argument with his young friends.
He could understand them quite clear— even though he was behind— sitting among his friends.
His pain with anguish was never appeased on hearing this. It crossed his facial expressions in remembrance— that J. Rakajapi had always been a corrupt person— drawing lessons on history, even from his early days as a youth.
J. Rakajapi was a cunning type, who had defrauded six foreign nationals, and ran with their fortunes for a fake business deal that had amounted millions of dollars, before having the opportunity to join politics later on in life.
For this reason, Johnson was the only possible son of the soil that owned such a magnificent edifice, gotten from the ill proceeds of his businesses; a vila appartment that almost everyone in the village admired, and was envied by others in the suburbs around Kalia City.
At the inner circle of dignitaries and elders, whose private meeting was taking too much time to end.
The crowd was beginning to despise that.
Some were heard complaining bitterly in native tongues among their friends.
Others spoken in few English language, but in a broken down manner.
More than fifty percent of the population of the state's ethnic groups had understanding of each other's local dialect— as a result of the simple vein of a cross cultural connection that flows around the tribes.
Except for some few distant native regions with little cross cultural ties.
All the elders present in the meeting, spoke their dialects mixed with pidgin English as ideas sprung from within.
And while the crowd still awaits patiently for the arrival of Akalia's speech: the groups interactions around the field, literarilly goes on uninterrupted.
Those who were close enough, and heard the sincere words of the elders: had begun to complain contritely, and gossiped, but all agitated in silent contributions.
"And why do we fight if we can at least understand each other at all levels most of the time. Can't we dialogue, despite our linguistic backgrounds: at least?"
"We fight because the state practice better politics."
A colleague had answered.
This stabbing question was raised by an anonymous voice from among the circle of crowds.
"I wonder! Why most of the regions still have ethnic clashes, even at this level of life." Another voice had stressed to quickly get it out fast.
Yet the peoples were struggling with the concept and flaws of disambiguities surrounding them.
"She believes the voice of the disenfranchised must be heard, that's the reason why she's sponsoring a revolutionary movement around the clock."
Whispered another teenager, behind them.
And presumably to have been part of an old clique— next to the old man's squad— seated on a long wooden bench.
Now, the crowd was in an apparent disarrayed: bruit and lost entirely in gossips.
And arguments filtered across several groups on trivial topics— had peaked to some certain level about Akalia's ongoing social restructuring.
Without much of a glance, using the device of a grandeur, the furry of Akalia's eyes laid intensely on each of the elders, simultaneously.
They could feel the pressure of her gaze, locked as if in combat.
The elders and dignitaries were all hypnotized in her awe.
Their eyes drifted apart in a subtle manner— retracting their gazes in fear.
Johnson's eyes were quickly lowered sideways to a shining spot of light, but did not leave Akalia's attention, still held fixed on the her crouched figure; paying attentions as she spoke with inspiring display of confidence.
"Poor justice have been mated on our people— far too long to be ignored comrades." Akalia groan in frustration without pausing.
Her throat curved in a fluid of actions that commanded an aura of respect around her.
She stole a quick glance— still rolling her eyes across the entire length of elders— that had stood in a semicircular path listening in rapt attention.
"Yet we've wished to no man evil. But if anyone says we have lived too long, let him go before us to see what it is like in the land of the dead. Now... here's the code."
"Eliminate and follow the course till the end.
And stamp out the embers of coal before it becomes blaze." the group all chorused in unison for the second time.
"Eliminate and follow the course till the end!"