Acceptance

Acceptance

“Do you accept Asylum?”

Yes or no. One word. Everything she had been or might become hinged on the word she spoke next.

Eliyah was neither the first nor last Outcast to stand before the King of Val. The Asylum Ceremony was a feature of every annual, international festival. Some stayed. Some returned home to the lands they knew from birth.

If she accepted Asylum, this nation became her home. A cool breeze curled around her. It wasn’t cold enough to make her shiver. The chills came from contemplating changing everything she had ever known.

King Roeral waited patiently for the girl’s reply. It was certainly not an easy choice. Despite the impatient shuffling behind him, he refused to insist on haste. None of those shufflers had to go back to a land that made them feel they didn’t belong. Or remain in a land in which they knew no one. Roeral believed his duty toward the Outcasts began now by giving them room to decide.

“Yes.”

Eliyah and King Roeral both turned their eyes to the speaker.

He was a Mornian Outcast. Unlike his countrymen, Luzan’s hair was blonde - so blonde it was almost white. It looked entirely out of place with his traditional Mornian garb. He stood with his spine so straight that it seemed as if it might not be capable of bending.

“No!” The shriek came from the crowd of observers. There was no allowance to nullify the choice of an Outcast. The laws of all three lands insisted that the right of asylum lay only with the Outcast.

King Roeral stood up. “Asylum is granted.”

“No, no!” Gaiash shoved past the guards into the sandy half-circle before the Valin dais. She clutched Luzan’s arm. “You can’t!” Luzan had never said he was thinking of accepting Val’s asylum. How could he have not told her if he planned to remain in this foreign land?

“It’s my decision to make. I’ve made it,” he firmly told her.

“You didn’t tell me you were staying. Why would you stay?” Gaiash begged, tears coursing from her deep brown eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Luzan told her, sincerely. “I know you wanted me to stay. But, I can’t.”

King Roeral hesitated. He had no desire to give the order to bodily remove a mother from her son. But, it was his responsibility to see that no one interfered with the Outcast’s choice. Not even a mother. Rather than address that, he turned to face Eliyah. “And, you? Do you accept Asylum?”

Tears had welled up in her eyes. Maybe it was the courage of her fellow Outcast. Maybe it was the kind warmth of the Valin King’s expression. “Yes,” she heard herself say.

No shriek of protest arose from any of the Kehlans present. They were glad to be rid of her. It hurt more than it should have.

“Asylum is granted,” King Roeral assured her. Raising his voice to address all present, he welcomed the two new residents, “Val accepts the Outcasts of Mornia and Kehl’ai.” He smiled warmly. It was important for them to feel like they belonged here now.

So ended the 480th Valin Asylum Ceremony. Luzan became the 943rd Mornian Outcast to accept the asylum offered by Val. Eliyah was the 658th Kehlan Outcast to do so.

The Kehlan faction, all dressed in their undecorated, rough, burlap robes, filed away from the ceremony.

As Eliyah watched them leave, she realized that she was no longer a Kehlan Outcast. She was now a Valin citizen. Oddly, as her former people moved away from her, she gained confidence. She ripped the itchy robe over her head and threw it onto the ground. For the first time in her life, she felt free. Inside the confining walls of Kehl’ai, she had taken to hiding her obsidian hair under a scarf to at least postpone the looks of puzzlement and discomfort that her dark locks always caused the Kehlans that saw her.

Her fingers shook, as they always did, when she reached for the knot on the scarf that hid her hair. Calling up a resolve she never knew she possessed, she loosed the tie and pulled the silken amber from her head.

Her dark hair tumbled down around her shoulders. The rising wind snatched a few strands and they pelted her face. She wasn’t sure why, but she turned with a triumphant grin to the Mornian Outcast beside her.

He was in close conversation with the woman who had left the crowd to try to dissuade him. “I have to do this,” he tried to explain.

“What have you lacked? What do you think you find here that you didn’t have at home?”

His stake-straight spine sagged. “It’s not…” He started again, “I need…”

But those deep, rich eyes searched his and stole every reason from his lips.

Eliyah looked up, hoping the Valin King would intervene. But, she found the dais empty. For a shaken moment, she wondered what asylum meant. Protection. Belonging. Help. That’s what it should mean. But, at this moment, for the Outcast she saw before her, it meant nothing.

She wanted to scream that he needed to feel like he had a home. That he didn’t want to be ‘less’ because he didn’t look as he was expected to look. That every moment of his existence shouldn’t feel unfair.

Instead, she put her hand softly on his mother’s arm. “Asylum has been granted,” she gently reminded Gaiash.

Those deep eyes turned to her. Dark eyes. So like Eliyah’s own. Gaiash could more easily have been her mother than Luzan’s. But, Eliyah’s mother’s eyes, like most Kehlans, were light blue.

The hardness and hatred in Gaiash’s eyes were identical to the light blue eyes that Eliyah had known all of her life. Gaiash wrenched her arm away from Eliyah’s touch. “Get away from us,” she hissed.

Luzan’s icy blue eyes were full of sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he told Eliyah, as he pulled his mother closer, protectively.

Eliyah blinked, shocked. She was trying to help him. He deserved to live without the scorn and fear and exclusion. Instead, she watched him walk away, back to the Mornians he had never really understood, his arm over his mother’s shoulders.

And then, the grounds were empty. No Kehlans. No Mornians. Only Eliyah, citizen of Val.