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Asha carefully unrolled a scroll in her father's library. The tent served as many things for the chief. War room, study, meeting place, and living quarters. She looked up from her reading to see him hunched over a table. Arms stretching out a battle map.
"Father..." She said "What do you know of the shadow crystals?" "They have great power, married with great peril." He said without looking up.
Enough time passed for Asha to finish reading. She rolled the scroll and crossed the room to the shelves, lightly tapping the scroll against her hand while she decided on what she would read next.
"If you found a shadow crystal, what would you do with it?" she asked. "I would travel to the nearest sea, and throw it in." He replied.
She was taken aback.
"But father, it could make you great! I've heard of a hunter who possesses one. He can wither a man to the strength of a child from great distances. Another minotaur uses one to kill in a single blow."
The chief looked up from his map. "As I said, great power... and yet great peril as well." He replied.
Asha was perplexed. "We worship the keeper of shadow energy, we manipulate the flow of it to bring our tribes victory, what peril have we faced?"
Her father grew perturbed. "Have you seen the apprentices, daughter?" He answered. "They magnify the flow, yet it has made them so meek, they can not even fight. The interceptors use it to stun the enemy, but are then exhausted beyond use. Even I must muster all I can to banish an enemy, then I must retreat or be killed." He realized he was raising his voice. Pausing he continued. "We respect the power. We worship the keeper of the power, so that when he comes, we are found favorable in his eyes. We do not seek it. We do not lavish in it. It is a tool, not an identity."
Asha now grew angry. Her curiosity and lust for understanding always got the better of her. "I wish to seek it. If it is capable of these things, what else is it capable of? What secrets does it hold?"
He slammed his fists into the table. The map bounced and rolled onto itself. "You will not! You are my only heir in this tribe! What do you wish to learn? Do you wish to learn what the ancients knew? Why the energy empowers the spirit, yet drains the body? Why it requires our slavery for it's own purposes? Some secrets are best left forgotten."
Asha placed the scroll on a shelf, and left the tent. Her curiosity and lust for understanding always did get the better of her.