Nitavesha Cindersnake's page

At first glance, Nitavesha shares many of the same qualities that outsiders attribute to all Shoanti: she is a few inches over six feet tall, her skin is tanned from a life lived outside, her frame is muscular and fit, and her hair is a dirty brown in hue but while still short it is not shorn as short as most Shoanti warriors prefer. Her clothing is the normal hide and leathers of her people with the dust of the open road still thick upon them. The only oddity about Nitavesha is her left leg in comparsion to her right. It is thin and something just slightly off about it while she seems to favor it when walking.

Foreword

While I have little need for fleeting words bound to such fragile, temporary material as plant fibers, I am told these things matter a great deal to you tshamek so I bind my story to this 'book'. My scribe, a silly little tshamek with fingertips the color of pitch, tells me of great stone huts in tshamek cities where these ‘books’ reside with others of their kind. I am not clear upon the need to confine such things in tight tomb-like burrows but my ‘book’ will not find peace where it cannot feel the caress of the wind to carry the words woven on its pages to all that will hear. What follows is my story, a tale of a warrior of the Shoanti, a story from the lips of a spirit-walker. In reading this may the spirits forgive you for being a tshamek.

Chapter 1

I am called Cindersnake, born to the name Nitavesha of the Sklar-Quah, daughter of Crushes Skulls, one of the greatest warriors of the Shoanti, and Miska, a Varisian card reader whom my father won and wed in a bet against my mother’s father. I am told that the courtship and wedding was one of the grandest events of our quah’s history with over a dozen duels fought at the ceremony and thirty children conceived that night. Even to this day, young girls of the quah gossip and daydream of the fiery passion shared betwixt my father and mother. I confess of only remembering the roar of their hours-long fights, the crash of pottery shattering against the ground, and the terse looks given from across the camp.

You would not notice it as profoundly by looking at me at the time of this writing but I was born disfigured. Stories vary depending on the teller but I have heard that when I was born, my father gave such a great wail of suffering that the dogs around camp joined his cry for over an hour. The shamans say that it was some sin of my mother made manifest in the twisted length of my left leg. Regardless, I struggled in childhood to act like my peers but I found myself always lagging after the others or being left behind when they would climb cliffs.

I know many of you tshamek would make sounds of pity or fake some measure of empathy at the image of a young girl with a twisted leg fighting each day to be treated like any other child and I tell you now that such sentiment is unasked for and unaccepted. I am of the Shoanti. We do not bow before adversity, we persevere and conquer all challenges that life throws our way, we thrive were others would give up or die.

While many of the quah saw me with disgust for that which was weak, including my own father, I toiled and sweated with each day to make myself stronger, to turn my weakness into my strength. I might not be able to run as fast as even the slowest of our tribe but few my age, even the boys, would match my strength which was built up each day of my struggle. I worked to show my father, my quah, that though I might be made flawed that I was still Shoanti in my heart and in my bones.

It was in my early days when I was outpaced by the other children and struggling to catch my breath much less catch up to them that I first heard the spirits talk to me. I know that tshamek know little of the spirits that share the land with us but they live all around in every bush, under every rock, in the swirl of the air or the heat of the sun. The spirits told me stories and gave me encouragement, keeping me company in those times when it felt as if I was the only one fighting to survive on the whole of the Stroval Plateau. I took strength from these little friends which I built into a foundation of the person I am today.

The greatest point of my youth, really that of any Shoanti youth, is the time of the Rite of Passage. Each warrior of the quah must meet this challenge with bravery and strength. Our quah’s rite is the Burn Run. It entails a race across the plateau while trying to outrun a raging wildfire. Those that are not ready or favored by the spirits risk severe burns or even in some cases, death. When first I proposed to take the rite, my father and mother forbid it. Claims that my lame leg would lead only to my death were tossed about but I demanded my right to the challenge as a member of the quah and a Shoanti. Bound by the laws of our people, my parents were forced to let me try the Burn Run. I could see in their eyes that they were already planning for my funeral pyre.

The day of the Burn Run, my leg throbbed with thoughts of what it would have to endure that day. I gritted my teeth and prepared for my moment of glory, ignoring the constant nagging pain that morning. I could say that the rite was a simple thing for me to complete but that would be false words leaving my mouth to imprint upon this page, it was the most brutal undertaking I have ever been a part. The heat of the mile long fire raging at my back, the agony winding like a constrictor around my leg, the endless running to remain unbaked and thickening smoke that choked my lungs. Several times, I was forced to slow the fire rolling up behind me by felling the dry husks of still standing trees, creating fire breaks that gave me a few minutes to catch my breath and put scant extra distance between myself and the wildfire.

My salvation came in the way of a dry creek bed with steep banks. Shorn of any fuel for the fire, the bed was a welcome refuge from the intense heat. I came down the side of the creek at a jog that sent me into a tumble when I misplaced my foot on a loose stone. I was battered and bruised by the end of my fall that had me crashing into the den of a cindersnake. The viper was less than pleased to have an uninvited guest over, I recall with some mirth. I was so happy to not be running and burning, that when the serpent struck I caught it in midair and had broken its neck and spine before its fangs were anywhere near to piercing my flesh. Its blood was cool and refreshing after my ordeal outside and I think I lied there for an hour before finding the energy to stand and make my way across scorching ash fields to my quah’s camp.

I find secret pleasure to this day in the looks of surprise on the faces of my people when they saw I was one of those that had survived the rite. Begrudgingly, the shamans proclaimed that I had passed the Rite of Passage into adulthood and were worthy of bearing the title of Sklar-Quah brave. When I relayed my story of how I survived and the cindersnake that tried to see that I did not at the end, I was bestowed with my new name that every Shoanti warrior is given.

I am sure from laughter hidden behind their eyes, they meant my new name as a joke about my one good leg and quick temper at those that try to belittle me but I give not a care for their ridicule for I am Shoanti. I am strong as the mountain whose roots run deep. I am brave as the fire pelt that stalks the mighty aurochs that outweighs it by many stones. I am eternal as the sun that shines down on all of Golarion.

I am Nitavesha, daughter of Crushes Skulls and Miska.

I am she who talks with spirits and warrior of the Sklar-Quah.

I am Cindersnake.