Kaho

Connected to Kaho and Strom


“You must never trust the pearlcatchers.”

“Yes, but---”

There was never any room for ‘but.’ Kaho wasn’t much different than all the other imperials out there, not really. He was born with the same knowledge that Lightweaver was his creator, back and back and back before his parents and theirs and theirs. He was born knowing that there was a second group out there, and his first encounter with one ignited the same primitive response of…envy? Jealousy? Both. And anger, too. But his first encounter wasn’t like most imperials out there, or even most water imperials.

Kaho was born – blessed? cursed? -- by his hatching ground deity, Tidelord, but not in the form of prophecy. No, his was in the form of elemental strength and control – not just the waters, but up into the winds too. Hurricanes of a sort. It was like, with Kaho, the waters wanted to swirl up and up and up to the light source his ancestors believed so strongly Lightweaver controlled.
His one vision changed in the details, but never in the meaning. It was a pearlcatcher that would save him from Tidelord’s powers. None of the other oracles ever seemed to see that vision, they only saw destruction in him, and turned him away before he could fully approach their territories.
Eventually he found a place that didn’t seem to be anywhere. The hatchlings were undoubtedly blessed by the Shadowbinder, but Kaho never left The Sea of a Thousand Currents. Some of the dragons there claimed to have never been there. It seemed a place where only doubly blessed dragons came to, and it held strange, unnatural laws.

It was there he met Strom – a similarly blessed water pearlcatcher who greeted him in the way gossipy pearlcatchers would – with a wrinkled nose, snooty look, and sigh, “Oh, it’s you. I’ve heard tale of you.” Then, unbelievably, he followed it up with a half-sneer and half-challenge, “Well, I guess it’s my turn to take care of your…ah…tendencies.”

Pearlcatchers were the greatest of cowards, yet here this one cracked his joints and sauntered over like a bully ready to fight someone impeding on his territory.

Kaho had been told his whole life he was some sort of destroyer. Every time another oracle swore they saw destruction in his wake, he’d become more frightened. Enough so that the advancement of a pearlcatcher five times smaller than himself and the clear disadvantage of his pearl being precariously balanced on his back struck a chord of fear so strong in him that he fled. Pearlcatchers were, after all, magically stronger than imperials. If Kaho couldn’t control his own ‘blessing,’ he didn’t want to know what this one could do.

It turned out that Kaho and Strom’s powers had a way of cancelling one another out – slamming into one another in great swirls of water, Kaho’s flying high and causing beating winds and Strom’s sinking low causing great whirlpools – and where those powers met, sudden and utterly complete stillness appeared. It was the peace of any eye of a storm, the only movement after a time being bubbles which surfaced upwards, containing prophecies neither had the experience to understand.

It made Kaho furious. How dare this SECOND pearlcatcher, not the one of his visions, tame and calm HIS powers he’d was barely able to contain? Every born fear of every imperial hatched on Sorneith rose to the surface like those prophetic bubbles. What if it was right that the imperials were replaced? His magic was majestic and grand, sure, but what if it was cruelness barely hidden, like the emperors were to the imperials? What if the pearlcatchers really did fully replace them, and here this one proved all the reasons why? As their meeting ignited his prophetic gifts – though fleeting ones like wisps of dreams the woken dragon could only remember for mere moments – he began using the information to sneak after Strom, and to cause trouble where he was at.

Like Tom and Jerry – though which was which was never clear – Kaho and Strom constantly came at one another in over-the-top and cartoonish displays of unexplained furor and determination to cause the other’s end…or maybe just try to get them to move along….or just their discomfort….come on, he remembers I’m here, doesn’t he? It’s been DAYS since he’s tried catching me in a trap! Boy, that other dragon’s causing him so much trouble, I’m not…uniting with him, no…just…no one messes with him but ME….

It was during one of these great rages of power against power that a prophetic bubble came up that…didn’t contain a bubble….but a dragon. A tiny little pearlcatcher. The pearlcatcher.

Like Kaho’s visions, something about---was it the pearlcatcher? This particularly strong raging wind and storm against Strom? Just the timing of it all?---Something about the event made the ability to control his own gifts far easier, though it would always have to be a conscious choice. He knew it immediately.

“But…but…”

There was never any room for ‘but.’ Kaho was too different from other dragons to dwell on what always-had-been. His primitive sense of care and responsibility to the child that was---saved from a curse? Brought by a blessing? – immediately paternal in nature. He at once saw imperial and pearlcatcher, light and water, child and adult in this strange youth. Whether vision or understanding or fanciful dreams, it didn’t matter. He was going to make sure this one didn’t get turned away by his oddness before he could even fully into a territory. Monsoon would have a home with him…..oh, and apparently that dumb other, joint-cracking pearlcatcher wanted a say in it too. Well, he’d have to catch them both first!