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A Recall to Arms
   A warm glow breached closed eyelids, while unseen rays warmed the seated woman and the barren ground beneath her. Aya had never liked Thanalan; gritty wind bit her skin, while the heat of the sun threatened to burn all it touched. "Searing", "inhospitable", "hostile", were the words she would choose for it. Seated in this land of tormenting distraction she struggled to clear her mind. She furrowed her brow, feeling the wind ripping at her pony tail, and tearing at the braids that strained to keep her long hair in order.Â
   The Hungry Wolf taught how to clear one's mind, and push distractions away. That in the moment one's focus must be centered fully upon only what mattered, without distraction, without care. The way of war required a manner of thinking so apart from herself. One could almost call it unnatural, but it came far more naturally than she would ever care to admit. Born to a line of warriors, and steeped in the blood of heroes, she stepped with discomforting ease into the echoes of the past. She recalled seeing the family's Crow Banner waving high upon the rampart: a last, fleeting glimpse of a child's proud homestead. In her mind she had seen visions of battles long passed, glorious dead and legendary feats of arms. "Ridiculous," "pointless", "wasteful", she would say, and yet all too comfortable.
Over hills and over meadows, see the crow fly, feel its shadow.
Over woods, and over mountains, searching for a war.
Her wings embrace each strife and battle,
Where swords they clash, and chariots rattle,
Seeking out the one whose time has come to take the blade.
   Opening her eyes, she rose slowly, lifting the long wooden pole from her lap, raising it with both hands. She recalled the premonition from the week before, a sudden intuition of dark things to come.  She had taken spear and shaft from deep storage. She had known the day would come when she felt the need, but she had always assumed she would know why.
   She moved slowly, a ritualized motion of the long staff simulating a full spear. Today it felt lighter in her grasp, her slender fingers wheeling it with a balance more fine than the week before. As she spun the shaft about her body, lifting it over head in a routine, constant motion that appeared more a dance than a drill, she remembered the worry, no the fear, in C'kayah's voice that night. Worse was yet to come. She was a daughter of Ala Mhigo, if far removed. She had struggled against everything she was meant to be, yet at times the pull of blood fell stronger than reason: could she bear to see another friend die, while she stood helpless?
   She brought the shaft to a violent halt, drawing the butt-end forward with barely checked force, exhaling a cry from her lungs to push the practice strike along. A second and third followed in rapid succession, carrying out the series just as she had been taught. The cries of her high voice carried into the desert valley around her. She had never been orthodox, but continued to carry out the core practice strikes just as she had been taught beneath the towering canopy of the shroud, during those days that now seemed an age ago.
   Her grace and strength lent an air of performance to the practice as she carried on beneath the early-afternoon sun. The minutes wore slow as she practiced technique, struggling to recover, and remember, what had been reflex not so long ago. She embraced the effort as she did dancing itself: her mind focusing upon the movement and form of her body, dispelling rogue thoughts and distractions far more effectively than meditation. Gritty wind tore at her skin. The sun burned all it touched. And for the moment, she cared not.[/align]
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