» Visions from a Past World

NOITCERRU The rain was torrential. Up above there was no respite from the rage of the sea, the winds, the maelstrom that sought to destroy everything in its clutches. The gusts howled around him, snapping at his withered legs like hounds and whipping up a wild froth of spray. Noitcerru grimaced at the splash of freezing water - and the reek of stinking fish. It washed over him with the salty tang of the sea, a biting, overpowering stench flaring into his nostrils. His feathers were slickly pressed into his body by the wind and rain, water dappling his feathers dark. He cleaved through the winds, forging a path through the deluge as if carving through something solid and tangible - not the invisible forces working against him. He shook the droplets out of his eyes, forcing his powerful wings to thrash the gales into carrying him. There was no current to glide upon here, no breezes to coax and win over; he could only batter the cyclone, work through the winds with nothing but the utter strength of his wings. Each beat propelled him further through the torrent. This was not his element. The birdman could not help but eye the seas below, tossing and turning as wave broke into wave. The water was in uproar, like one single beast dashing itself against the rocks. Clouds of red blood mixed with the seafoam, tinging the waters an ominous ruby - and then swept by the current down into the deep, the surface never remaining still for long. The churning of the sea beasts groaned beneath him, the rising behemoth lit in its own eerie glow soon dashed against the rocks - it was brutal, and dangerous, and full of wild untempered power that was not the stallion's to call home. His very bones wrenched against the sight, lips curled back in disgust at the carnage. But the call called him onward, onward, onward - and he had no choice but to obey the summons, and if not that, the summons of his own curiosity towards yet something else shifting in his native land. He had to know. The stallion's eyes are fixed on the central point of light, on that homing beacon sending horses like him directly into the eye of the storm. Others were answering the call beneath him; the birdman's keen eyes spotted the rise and fall of endless coats, sagging with sea spray and washed as sleek as seal coats. Dark fur, white fur, brown and in-between - they disappeared under one wave and then appeared again, fighting the shifting tides. He did not envy them, in the roll and pitch of the currents. But it was hard enough for those who flew - the dim forms of other pegasi, unknown to him, passed him by. All heading to the same place, to where a pulse was growing stronger and stronger... The sea had gone quiet but the light pierced his eyelids, making the male snort in discomfort and squeeze his eyes shut. But still the light gave him no mercy and the physical pain was almost too much to bear. What was light like this? How was it so bright? He was used to the dark murk of the Rift, not this. As he adapted to the great light he opened them again - only to see the form of a three-eyed tigress. His eyes widened. Vjanta. Noitcerru came to a stop, hovering in the air to watch the goddess at work. Both sea giants were restored, knitted together, patched up as though no collision had happened. He couldn't tear his eyes away - not as a hippocamp from the ocean was given a pendant, not as the light magic spread. And then it was all over too soon, and he could only stare at the place where the goddess had once been. The stallion was frozen, the reality of what he had just seen sinking in. The birdman looked up to the sky for more lightning bolts and, for the first time, deliberately lowered himself to the waves. Not even those in the air were safe, or so it seemed. But he was silent. He knew no one here, and after a moment's look he worked out why. Helovians. Were they behind this? Did they - ? He stayed silent. What words could he utter, after seeing the death of a goddess - and amongst these strangers? His eyes followed especially the hippocamp, the one with the tiger's eye pendant. "Talk." run boy run this world is not made for you

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