In the Mists end
Neaves sat perched high up on the rock face that served as the walls to the Valley. Watching as the grass kowtowed to the endless mistress of the wind as the thunderheads began to form on the southside of the Mountains. She shivered at the thought of the rain touching her, the fire that glowed softly in her wings flinching at the imagined sensation.
The clan was hiding under the great boughs of the pine forests, as the Tears of the tree fell in the valley proper. From even before she was born the clan had a fear of the rain, their people having a special reverence for living on the edge of fire and water. Though the mists were their charge to maintain, when the Great Butterfly Azu touched the earth with her incandescent hand, the geysers rejoiced at her ministrations. During this time the family honored their Deified Mother, keeping the sacred flame safe, unwilling to let it go out even for a moment.
Despite this, here Naevys sat as the light drizzle graced her wings. Steaming off them, off herself in gossamer wisps in a pantomime of the fog in the vale. She shuddered but she still wished to experience it. Curious, this feeling. It felt wrong, but she still relished the opportunity. She had been shelled away in the valley her entire life, having snuck off from the family to see the thunderheads form. To feel their power rise like a slow god reaching to the skies.
The rain began to fall harder now, soaking her hair. Slick, stuck to her neck and shoulders, her dress clinging to her in the warm rain. The feeling began to fade as she felt her wings cool, breathing in deep. Accepting the strange sensation, thinking back to the words of Mother Aafje. "One must avoid the rains, lest we remember what it was to be before our Great Mother graced us with the world before us. To see the flames dampened would only see us dismayed."
She didn't really understand it now, focusing on her breathing. Feeling the sensation of the hot rain gracing her skin, to hear the lightning crack in the distance, she began to feel a sense of peace. Humming a soft song she had heard the ship builders sing for that hulking monstrosity of a vessel they were building for some foreign country. The jaunty shanty made her smile, while she didn't understand all the words, she liked how it sounded.
Breathing slow, she thought back to her family huddled in the safety of the trees. Unconsciously playing with the monarch wing necklace she wore, and the goddess they honored. She closed her eyes, seeing in her mind's eye the village and the countless fires and candles that would no doubt be waning in the rain. Much like a turning wheel, this cycle marched endlessly one season after season. She wondered if the family would ever overcome their fear of the rain.
She was told she had an ability for magic and fire not seen in the last few generations, she wondered what that meant. Is that why she could sit here in the rain and not quite enjoy it, but endure it? She was still unsure if it meant anything at all. Aafje had wanted her to follow her footsteps and help lead the clan in the faith, but did she want that? What was it she really wanted to sit here and test what the Mother had told her all her life, was the rain going to really kill her?
She doubted it as her wings still steamed in the deluge, great sheets falling in rhythm to her humming. Her wings felt hotter now, though not unpleasantly so. She only sat and wondered why they all had to stay in the vale, was this all there was? To slavishly maintain a path for the humans and Gnomes to traverse their ancestral roads? To toil away maintaining the heat of the valley, or the ever present mists?
She opened her eyes, seeing the storm roil overhead. The clouds snaking about like a fitful specter, to the clan the storm would be an malevolent omen to come. To her eyes, it seemed peaceful, something to understand and experience rather than something to hide from. As arcs of lightning trailed from thunderhead to monolithic cloud, the gods' fingers tracing paths of energy in brilliant blue light. She didn't even flinch as a bolt came crashing down not far from her perch.
Rocky shrapnel flying about in a dozen different directions. Though the few that tried to encroach upon her, she batted away with an intense heat vaporizing them long before they reached her. She stared down at her hands, wondering how she did that. Is this what Mother had meant? Was she really graced by the goddess herself to possess such a potent affinity to fire?
She landed back at her original question, lost in the maze of her cyclical thoughts. What did it mean? She lost track of how long she sat there, long enough for the light to fade, long enough for the only light to be the arching energy to illuminate the earth in a staccato array. She only watched as the storm unleashed its fury upon its supplicant world. Powerless to do anything but wait it out in rapturous awe.
As the wind picked up, the storm died down. An ebb and flow like the endless tides against the sea, the skies opened like a gateway to the heavens. The clouds gone to dazzle her eyes in the splendor of countless stars, as the multicolored nebulas swayed between constellations. She only stared as she suddenly felt small beneath the open night sky. A reverence reserved only for the divine, placing her hands in her lap neck craned to witness the movement of the earth under her.
Only when her hair had dried, only when her dress had dried and flowed like a curtain in the breeze did the sun begin to rise in the east behind her. She jumped as the woman next to her spoke. "Beautiful isn't it? To see what the Great Mother had made for us to see?"
Neaves whipped her head over as she stumbled to the ground in shock. The woman who sat next to her had wings of pure fire, small antlers on her head, and the same fiery red hair as her people. Though her eyes were the same as hers, glowing softly in the dim light. "Who, who are you?" She asked nervously, still shaken at the sudden appearance of this woman.
"In days of old, before the mountains had names, before the streams were drank from, we were. I was. I would wait another thousand years to see one of my Children again. I would sit beneath the sun and stars my Dear. You just let me know that you're coming home." She spoke, though Neaves felt an immense comfort at the sound of her voice, something felt off.
"That's an old prayer Mother Aafje used to tell us before putting us children to bed. How do you know it?" Neaves, asked, getting tentatively to her feet.
"They are prayers offered to me, I hear all my Children's prayers. You may call me, Syn, or Azu. Whichever you prefer." Neaves' mouth fell open as it all clicked into place. Azu the Great Butterfly. "Tell me about your worries, sweetheart. Sit and tell me about what bothers you."
The little things by Thereasonwhy
Comments