Amethyst

Chapter 3: We Are All Carbon.

Chapter 3: We Are All Carbon

Without a word of warning, a large hand ruffled my hair, the other hand slapped my back with a great thud. Accompanied with the familiar greeting which accompanied, "Ame!" no other person than my father. After years of persistence, he was finally promoted to, Assistant to the South Western Overseer less than just two weeks ago.  

  I sat in our family quarters. Our walls are etched with an eccentric but intrinsic pattern of triangles above and below other triangles. The dinner table is already set. In its center sat a spherical glow stone, omitting its natural light blue hue. As a child, I had always loved how the light of the glow stones deepened our families' carved designs with shadows. 

 Our dinner this evening was all thanks to Turq for saving it. He had been an enormous help today, especially with his new trader section perks. Beaming with pride, I motioned to the bowls steaming on the table for father to try. "Goldhorn Stew, dad. The way that mum used to make when I was little. The way that you like it cooked, seasoned lightly and not overcooked!" Just when I thought I didn't have enough herbs needed for the goldhorn stew, he pulled through in exchange for a few pieces of malachite mined during a morning shift. 

  Father chuckled and smiled at me softly, but in his eyes reaped genuine fear and woe, "Ame... you didn't have to do this. I could have easily made my own meal this evening." For a second, he paused to consider, after taking a spoonful to swallow, "You almost always hate cooking, and now I arrive home to find not only that you arrived back early from work, but also that you have cooked one of your mother's old recipes?" His voice grew more and more strained, "Tell me. Tell me that you are not treating this like it might be our last meal together?" 

  He had me there. Of course, he knew me well enough; he was my father. After my mother passed, he raised me single-handedly. Keeping us from falling in the social order. "You know I don't really want to go on my Passage, father, the surface world... from what so many say, it is horrid and cruel. Who knows what might happen to me up there!" My voice grew louder. "What chance is there that I might never come home to you? To Turq?" At some point, I had stood up at the table to make my point. Meeting my father's gaze, I quickly sat back down. Focusing on a small piece of the malachite I had used to pay Turq earlier for the herbs. 

 For a brief moment, while fighting with the piece of malachite. I couldn't help but wonder what other currencies are like in cities other than our own, the cities of the surface dwellers. 

   Not that I was curious enough to find out for myself, but interested enough to wonder... and no more. 

  Our currency is the very thing we mine daily. Something so intrinsic to the Medura way of life. The gems are incredibly abundant. The Old Sages of the Cathedrals would say that each of our cities was blessed. Blessed by the Earth Goddess herself, to have as many treasures within our lands. How much of that, I believed? I wasn't entirely sure myself. However aware I was that many countries and cities were not blessed with the same earthly fortunes. 

 "And what joys have you found for today in the mine, or were you at you finishing your last section carving before your Merging?" The awkward tension had clung to the air until father had changed the topic. "Any interesting gems today out? Ahaha," I was glad for the topic change. Filling him in on the aspects of today's design. We spent the rest of our meal exchanging conversations about work and the happenings of the day. 

 Despite his rebound to being jovial so quickly, a product of father's own Merging with his mined birthstone: Alexandrite, for which he was named. Yet despite his positivity returning, he somehow retaining that aura of authority. I vaguely remember grandfather having a similar ability, though I am too young to know if that was just because he was my elder. That trait combination was one my father always reminded others it is a trait this family possesses throughout the generations. Despite all the times, I was never fully convinced I inherited that quality.

  While he finished the stew, I labored over after a day's chiseling. I took the opportunity to look at my father. I mean, really, look. His fingers struggled with the spoon for the stew; today, the Gout was a terrible hindrance. As always, he never mentioned it or ever complained, though he would only go to a healer if I gave him a prompted concerned shove do to so. Each of his smiles my father had worn throughout all of his years had worn onto him. They had each carved their fine marks, the most accurate tolling of a happy life lived throughout all of his years. 

 Returning to finish the remains of the tender and supple stewed goldhorn, I could not quite fully make out his expression father looked at me within my peripheral vision alone. Usually sat lightly tenderly apparent emerging dimples around his dark eyes. Tonight the same light produced shadows that etched far deeper than I remembered. The same dark eyes watched me collect our finished dishes and wash them at the sink. I could feel him as he trailed me. He used to do this when I was younger and newer to carving section of the wall, or when he taught me what I was looking for, in any newly revealed veins or outcroppings.

  That jovial expression I thought I glimpsed earlier? It was not there. It was gone.

  Instead, it was a strange and stoic face that looked. An expression that seemed very other and alien on my father… "Is… everything alright?" I hesitated, now lowering the dishes. Meeting my gaze, he proceeded to stand and shuffle to a leaning position onto the edge of the dinner table. "Father?"

  Cutting me off before I finished, he raised his hand before he responded. There was another long pause before he spoke, "Can't I just look at my lovely grown child? You know how proud I am of you, Ame?" Again, he turned to smile at me briefly. "You've always been an artist in your designs." Yet, now his smile was off. It never quite seemed to touch his eyes. 

  "Well, you could." With a smirk back at him, I lightly challenged, "but... we both know if I paid you a visit, you're wondering who I've gotten into a fight with to cause me to be near your office." 

  "This is true...!" Fathers chuckle was low and genuine, but his sad face returned quickly. "On a separate point, you should remember everything you do IS special to me, Ame. Every day. Every week. Every month. Every year. Every gem we find is so unique and special as a child is special. As... as are you." This turning into father, daughter heart-to-heart time? "I remember the day you were born… your mother and I wanted to stick closely to Medura tradition, and so you were named after the very first gem mined - mined by me, by my hands - straight after you were born as your mother held you."

  Okay... Now, I was weirded out and worried about my father. Yes, he was usually jovial, but this? This conversation felt very off and very different.

  "Your mother, my beautiful Hyalite, so wanted the earth goddess to bestow us an Opal of any kind...of any kind. As you know yourself, she was named after the opal herself. As had your grandfather. My Hyalite was born after her parents moved to help at what was then just the beginnings of our section's doorway. As is how the Sages and Queen granted your grandfather the house name of Dorus. Instead, our earth goddess delivered us a beautiful, rare, and precious Amethyst to our mines. Our beautiful... er, handsome...little Amethyst." Father still was unsure which gender I felt true to yet. It was a conversation we had before. Though I didn't mind him using She/ Her as well as They/ Them pronouns. This was the way of our culture and religion viewed gender, and it was beautiful. As each gem is as unique as any person, with nothing defined until absolute certainty by the individual: the only exception were such things as receiving half of the original rough version - called our rough stone - birthstones (our signal to begin preparing for merging and passage), once presented to us before we turn 16. In fact... father was due to give mine to me any day now. Is that what this was?

 Father, Alexandrite, finally returned his gaze to me. Lingering and holding my eyes a little longer than usual, "Hold out you're hand, my child." His voice was caught, and I could swear there were tears in his eyes.

 Curiously, I followed as he instructed. This was so wildly unlike my father. From his hands, swollen far more than my own, with proud with callouses on top of rampant Gout from years of laboring on this section, his own father, my grandfather, began. He dropped what could only have been my half, of my rough birthstone, into my palm. I flipped it over to view the cut of the interior of the amethyst by the soft light of the glow stone. It really was a beautiful birthstone to receive. Nestled in the interior of the stone was Amethyst of a very dark and pure quality. "Is this… this is my b-."

  "Yes, Ame." He cut me off quickly, cupping his hands own lumpy hands around my stone. "... Gout in my hands has worsened from the callouses… you know as well as I do, it is not our work that swells my hands. Future years will tell, after your passage, if you have fallen to our family cursed illness." Trying to cut in to say something, but he placed his hand up to silence me, allowing him to continue, "You have known for some time that our healers tell me, I may never be able to return to working at the walls. They have convened with the Sages, who advise I resign to the surface as a home for the rest of my days. For vitamin D, from daylight, they say. Once I leave, you know the rules - I will not be permitted a permanent return." 

  If it were not for my father's hands, my own would have dropped the rough stone from my shaking. Father... Father was saying goodbye. Despite my tremors, he continued. "On Thursday, you will be 16. The Sages will expect your visit for preparation and to begin your Merging - choose carefully. As you will already know, … at the next clear sky, you're going to have to begin you're passage beyond and back if you choose to return… to be tumbled or cut and polished. Carved or cabbed or faceted. This will help you become the person the earth goddess chose you to become and for all your fate to begin unfolding before you. With your birthstone to guide your way, especially should you feel lost."

At this point, my mind was blank. A pit had begun digging rapidly in my chest. Sinking lower and lower, as a sinkhole would, with each of father's words. "As one who did not follow the family gem… my father mining Alexandrite on the birth of my own morning… I know, more than you know now. With certainty I know, how the path before you will test you as it tested me. Different gems receive different fates... each and all unique as the gem and person. There is little advice I can give to aid you before you go… what can I say for certain? Trust in our ways and yourself. Trust in all of our teachings and ways. You're birthstone? It will always guide the way and provide you with what you need and what you seek - as long as you are willing to listen. Once it is merged with you in the fashion the goddess approves you and the Old Sages to envisage, it can never be undone and your fate sealed."

  Blank… my mind had went blank. My heart was numb. My own father could barely even look at me as he spoke. No matter how I tried, I could not clear my thoughts. They were as unset dust would be during a section collapse. "Father… I do not want to lea-." Was I pleading? Afraid? Pleading with my own father?

  With that, he stumbled swiftly back to his feet, "None of that!" This time, the change of a cold sharpness of his tone cut through. The dust in my mind. "You will do as we all have. As we all must." He paused, only catching my eyes briefly. To quick for me to make sense of what emotion ensnared him. "On Thursday, you are 16. The Old Sages will fashion your rough form of the birthstone and merge you with the fates you were born to. You know you must prepare to go to them, Ame…. If your mother were here…," turning towards the section's tunnel passage, father began to walk away at an aching, never stopping. 

  He ended the conversation in his usual way." She would have been permitted to join you for this and the beginning of your passage. You know, as well as all… I cannot. Sickness and bloodshed are strictly forbidden in the Glittering Cathedrals... as you go through what you will. Remember, Ame, my child, we are all just carbon. We all come in different forms and melds... some more durable than others." With this, he made a gesture of his gault-swollen hands. 

 My mind the after scene of a cataclysmic cave in. The years of perfectly carved sections of my mind had collapsed all around me. Had I ill-prepared myself, too be far too fragile? Was I indeed so, so mentally brittle? That I would tremor at the thought of my own Merging and passage?

   This is a sacred time and yet a bittersweet yet celebratory time for any Medurian. Why was my head whirling with nonsense and my heart a sinking pit? Surely I couldn't be as mentally weak as that. 

  Light from the glow stones glinted off my chisel tools lying in the corner of the room as it made the light hit in all directions. Yet, I did not let go of my rough stone. From that sunken pit that emerged in my stomach, it had begun engulfing my heart and gut with hollow, painful aches and chills. I just knew that there would be much more pain and suffering to come in how the earth goddess had fated me to be shaped: As is my rough stone. My birthstone, as it is by her design.

  Without seconds of hesitation, I was out of my as fast as my feet could take me. Out of our families quarter. Through the quietened residential South-West quarters. My shoes tapping lightly at the ground as I ran.

 Round the widening tunnels of the connecting South-West bends and taking the correct opening, forking in the South West sunken gardens - adjoined the Trading center in the South of the Opal City. My family had carved much of the south and southwestern tunnels. It was something I had always felt so much pride about and encouraged to as well... so if I had to, I could run these halls blind if ever needed.

  Now was that time that I really did need to. As my eyes welled with tears. They were damns that I dared would not burst. Instead, tears covered my vision so that everything was blurred.

  It was only with a disgruntled utter that I realized I hadn't just hit something ahead of me but run into someone, with quite the resounding thud.

  "Ame?" It sounded like... like Turq...? Why was he still in the trades section? For the moment, I pushed that thought aside and thought with slightly more clarity than my eyesight that maybe Turq was the only person I could and should talk to about this. After all... I had already been running in his direction.