I S R A
“It is good to have an end to journey toward;
but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”Something was wrong, terribly wrong.
Even casting her sharp senses over the unknown forest, understanding still eluded her. Isra had travelled a long way, she was meant to find this place. Right before she crossed the doorway her diadh-anam had throbbed wildly making Isra dizzy and breathless with possibility. Could she be so close to fulfilling her fate? Then she could go home soon. It took many moments for her to pinpoint the strangeness that currently troubled her and when realization dawned on her, Isra gave a gasp of dismay.
The voices of the forest were closed off to her.
They had been there since birth, bubbling warmly against her conscience for her to tune into whenever there was a need. But now, she couldn’t feel the slow pulse of the earth beneath her feet, couldn’t hear the slow dreams of the trees that surrounded her, wouldn’t be able to wake them and access years upon years of memories stored in their roots. Isra had spent the better part of a year travelling, never staying anywhere long enough to develop relationships but she had never felt more alone and scared than right now.
Maybe in these foreign lands – there was no way to be sure they were even in the same time and space as hers – nature wasn’t alive in quite the same way.
A blasphemous thought but Isra found herself testing the theory anyway. Turning to the other small magic left to her mother’s people, the ability to shroud themselves and their places in twilight. A simple enough concealment trick she had been doing since she was only a couple weeks old. Closing her eyes she thought of the time right between night and day, breathed in deep all available shade, held it within for a moment than breathed out to let it settle about her like a cloak.
Nothing happened.
The world did not darken and take on a silvery appearance, not even a twinkle in the air. Only the hearty sunlight remained, forcing an unsuspecting Isra to squint. Her throat tightened and she felt panicky. No one told her she could still lose her abilities once she passed the rites of adulthood. She had been touched by the goddess and still carried the diadh-anam in her chest, the spirit-spark. Didn’t she?
“Have you forsaken me too Great Mother?” She whispered out loud, waiting for the strong pulse of her diadh-anam to soothe her fears. Again there was nothing and her vision swam with unshed tears. “But why? I have only done as you directed” She pleaded to the sky, showing how young and naïve she really was for goddess never answered outright. When her knees began to shake from standing stock-still for so long, waiting for something to happen, or praying this was all some sort of mistake, she sighed and began to explore. She wondered what she might find.
The better question was what might find her.
|
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
