When did I start calling you home?

Home has always been Jaru
That place where we fish from the sea
and grow rice in our fields, and wheat.
Where the Arqeshi girls wouldn't let me play because I was too small,
afraid that the Human girl might break.

I wanted to climb trees too.

Home was the edge of Pash Valley where you could chase butterflies
and be chased by cheetahs who were too tame to bite.
I never asked when they stopped being wild.
When we stopped being food. Too much danger?
Perhaps too domesticated by the children,
who laughed in the Valley and tossed them old scraps of meat.

Home was the sound of temple bells that are far closer now.
Once upon a time I could hear them toll in the distance;
now I hear them only several yards away.
The marching of zealous soldiers in step with one another.
One of them smiles at me
She has pretty lips
My face warms.

This feeling again, like my heart had grown wings.

Now I walk your streets and smile
as Mhun children run past with their chalks.
One boy is upset, his mother has washed behind his ears.
He smells of sunshine and lavender as he stomps about.
His sister runs past covered in paint.

Home was the smell of the ocean and still is,
as Hokna sends me to the wreckage abroad
to fight back the slavers who once took me.
It isn't revenge. I have forgiven them.
But now others need me the way I needed her,
graceful upon wings of bronze and brown,
tearing at the unjust who chained me.
She has pretty lips too.

What is this feeling?

Only a quick shopping trip, I promised her.
Just some soap, and some perfume,
then I'll return home.
But I didn't think of Jaru-
of the house of my parents where I had grown.
I thought of your Grand Flame
And then I came home to you, Enorian;
no longer Beacon of Light, but Hammer of Dawn.

When did I start calling you home?

Penned by my hand on Closday, the 6th of Severin, in the year 20 AC.