------------- College Days - Kami

The walk to the east wing was refreshing. It was not yet the first of Quatlue, scarcely two weeks into summer, yet summer came slowly to the high mountains. The morning air was still chilled, and lightly touched with the dampness of a mountain rain last night. Everything was clean and clear, and the day promised to be warm and pleasant and heady. The scents of pine and blue dragon lilies were heavy this morning, and off in the distance, she swore she saw fireflies dancing beneath the trees. Could be fireflies, could be faeries. Around here, it was hard to tell.

The Reverend Mother had moved the Temple of Isis into the new building two years ago. It had been mostly bare walls and leaky roof back then, but when it was done, it was a marvel to behold, even more grand than the ancient Temple of Ra at Hapshepsut. She had been there, one of the early acolytes to come to Syvasgaard from Xanthius, and she had known most of the girls there from that time. When Kar'Dhaer Academy opened its doors, she welcomed the opportunity to move back to her old haunts. She was sure the Reverend Mother had approved of her transfer for her own reasons,... something about an explosion in the potions rectory,... but it didn't really matter to her. Somehow, her first few days of classes back in Kar'Dhaer had felt like coming home. Not that she had much memory of home, or a home to go back to.

Kamilah Zahara Beni-K'Dar al'Durran was born the youngest daughter of a common shop keeper in the small town of Durran, sitting at the eastern edge of the Al-Setti river valley, where the palm trees and green give way to wiry desert grass and cactus. Her two older brothers and elder sister had all gone off on their own paths years before. An ancestor, a great-great aunt on her father's side, had been one of the Queen-Empress' Feyhd'ahki, the personal bodyguards of the Symballan royal court. All three of her older siblings had become warriors as soon as they were old enough to hold a sword. Her path was very, very different. Born the brightest and most talented with the art, she was soon noticed by a local priestess. Her magic was tested and her future was set. She would become one of the great Mystics of the Church of Isis. It was preordained. And though her parents wept tears of joy for her great fortune on their parting, it was the last memory she would ever have of them. Both were killed, along with one of her brothers, when the Atheaen army marched north through the Al-Setti river valley during the Three Wars. The other brother was lost in the Iron Hills when the Iron Hills themselves were destroyed. Only her sister survived, on assignment in the far east of the Empire, patrolling the Deep Desert, while most of the war had been fought in the west.

But now, Kami was something else, something she would never have suspected she'd be,... a student at university, a few days away from summer break. The shrines and halls of the east wing of Kar'Dhaer hadn't changed that much, but the great ankh and the statues of Isis and Osirus were gone. Still, it was a quiet place to stop and pray before heading off to her biochemistry final.

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