The Verse:
He will not break taboo, no matter how much it costs him.
He breaks it for her fancy.
The Vision:
Daniel is shopping. He buys china, curtains, bedclothes, flatware, wine, cheeses and chocolates. He also buys a piece of jewelry that costs him two months’ salary. Then he sees a stand selling redberris, and hesitates to buy them. In the end, he does.
Commentary by Archbishop Co’oal Venesti:
This would seem to be a rather minor vision, useful only as an example of n’aashet n’aaverti.
Commentary by Elma, High Prophetess of Skarsia:
It’s here because Tara is more sentimental than she admits. Ho hum.
Commentary by Archbishop Seth:
With the greatest deference to my esteemed colleagues, one who understands this vision understands why the Mover has become God.
Commentary by Her Eminence Tara del D’myn, 6th Matriarch of Skarsia:
It is sometimes forgotten that the time-perception of the nau’gsh extends into the past as well as the future. Although visions of the past were less frequent, I did sometimes have them. I do not count the many times I seemed to relive incidents in my own past – despite their vividness, they are not prophecy, but nostalgia. And yet chasing these glimpses was one of my goals at the time. I longed to return to a period of happiness in my life, to be again at the side of a man I believed I had lost forever. These dreams were bittersweet; the joy they held was equaled by the pain of awakening from them.
This one particular scene I count as prophecy, however, since I was not there to witness it, and it was later verified by its subject. It took place when I was seventeen years old. I had suggested to my Daniel that we meet at his flat in Merenis Port-of-Call. He had been shy about asking me there, perhaps because he feared to seem too bold, perhaps because he was ashamed to bring a girl of the aristocratic class to such humble surroundings. I had my own agenda: the disposal of my virginity prior to my arranged marriage. And I certainly could not bring Daniel to Court Emmere, for this reason or any other.
In the vision he is buying almost everything to decorate his apartment. Apparently, he had lived for months on a simple mattress and rough blankets, eating from the same wooden plate every evening. I remember commenting upon the occasion of my visit that he had made a very pleasant little home for himself – what I had failed to notice is that everything, from the colors to the styles to the fabrics, had been selected to suit my tastes. The wine and foodstuffs were not the most expensive, but all of excellent quality. The necklace – the locket I wear to this day – he had especially designed for me and crafted by a local jeweler. Again, at the time, I was delighted with the gift, but spoiled child that I was, I did not realize how much it must have cost him.
At the time of the vision, and for years thereafter, I was haunted by his hesitation at the fruit stand, and the decision apparently to spend his last cent on something to please me.
And I had it all wrong. Years later, when he finally came back to me, I realized that the money was insignificant to him. He had earned and kept it, with no real personal use for it. As a tree, he could spend his entire life in the forest. As a Cu’enashti, and a powerful, talented one at that, he could have easily created everything he bought that day through alchemy. The reason he did not was the taboo imposed by the Cantor, practiced by all Cu’endhari before the Great Reveal, not to give away their existence by flaunting their ability to create wealth.
For all that he did for me that day, the real demonstration of his n’aashet n’aaverti was the purchase of the redberris. Redberris possess tiny seeds that are generally eaten with the fruit, and as such are forbidden to those practicing a strict Dolparessan diet. Daniel had certainly never eaten them before, but he knew I loved them. In order to indulge me, he defied tradition and did something most Cu’endhari would consider entirely immoral.