» Visions from a Past World

Zahra & Ilham

It was pride that turned angels into devils

As the seas writhed and twisted with unmerciful, uncontainable rage, Zahra fled their tempest still ahead of her father - like a coward, with little care for the creatures that struggled on against the waves. 

Vision of blood, a soup of death, stained her mind and forced long buried empathy to flare its forlorn face beneath the tides of her hatred, and she turned at its desperate beckon - or was she pulled back by the temptation of the fallen Goddess’s final stand. 

Though the Tigress, the last legacy she had brought before them, vanished, there lingered a tiny glow in the sea between those bending, spinning funnels of black sea. Golden eyes fell upon it inadvertently, as though drawn with magnetic force that she could hardly avoid. With her mind numb to the roar of the furious ocean, she turned back towards those lashing through the current and angled sharply between each ravenous pillar. 

There, yielding light to drive away the ravenous Pistris and keep at bay the sky bound water, a tiny orb lay in waiting, as though pushed into the present by the very Goddess who had been standing in the same place, mere moments before. Zahra, in a bid of courage and clarity, swept upon the tiny sphere with a heavy, careful wing stroke and hovered there above it for a moment longer. 

While the others still struggled abroad, fighting the torrent for air and traction, teeth unsheathed to pluck the tiny light source - but as she did so, it vanished and was gone. A calming warmth leaked through her mouth, easing along the taut ligaments in her jaw and face and spreading with mild fingers through her veins until every inch of her being felt renewed (even if only in a cognitive sense), and Zahra, after the last of her kind had been returned to safety, found her father again on the beach.

"Aye," she reassured, drawing in a long breath, "that was different."

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