The Eternal Summer

When the picture fell off the wall and clattered to the floor, Umbajin knew it was an omen. His father's face stared up at him but what was he trying to say? Was Eli'aija displeased? Is that why his picture fell off the wall? He was smiling in the picture, though.   Eli'aija had always been the jovial type, quick to smile and laugh, but he took his responsibilities seriously and Umbajin had always tried to do the same. He wanted his father to be proud of the man that he had become. What was Eli'aija thinking as he watched his son from the other side of the veil between the living and the dead?   Umbajin had started out on the path to follow in his father's footsteps, but try as he might, he kept getting side tracked. Had Umbajin missed his destiny altogether or was he fulfilling a destiny that he never could have imagined all those years ago when he first entered the temple as a young acolyte?   Umbajin held the picture in his hands and wondered what his father would say. Would Eli'aija be disappointed? No. His father loved him and he understood the twists and turns of life's journey. Eli'aija was a tribal elder, a keeper of songs. He was wise. Yes, he would understand.   All those years that Umbajin spent in the temple, all that training, would not be wasted. He would serve his people by staying right here to comfort those who would await the final joining. His was a different path than the one his father had traveled, but Eli'aija would understand.   Perhaps, Umbajin thought, his father's picture fell off the wall and smiled up at him to let him know that it was okay to be on a journey all his own like no other who came before.  

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Manifestation

  The period leading up to the collision of the binary stars that caused the destruction of the Bane'ile home world was known as the eternal summer. As the two stars moved closer in the sky, the climate of the world below grew hotter. It was a period of lush growth in some places, while other places became completely uninhabitable, until eventually, everything was destroyed in a fiery explosion. It is believed that there have been other eternal summers, before recorded history, occurring each time that the orbits of the two stars brought them into close proximity.