The Aksha and the leader of the druids travelled through the forest silently, neither of them spoke to the other on the journey. Manusya's mind was somewhere else, he was still remembering vividly what just happened to him, that otherworldly vision and the undead demon that was Esteban. At some point in their journey, Mata stopped in her tracks.
"What's wrong?" Manusya said, noticing her stopping.
Mata turned to him and smiled. "I think it's better if we reach our destination quicker." She said.
"Huh?" Manusya uttered in confusion.
Both of Mata's hands started to shine in the brilliant white that Manusya saw before when she pulled him out of his nightmare. She weaved magic and performed some sort of traditional dance. The wind around her moved, and the leaves on the trees shifted. The entire forest reacted to the calling of the Druid. Within a minute, various creatures and animals started to approach Mata. Strange mutations of creatures that Manusya had seen from historical records, such as the Flame Deer which he felled. Birds with four wings and a vortex of wind surrounding them, large rodents with no eyes but rather odd tendrils on their face, insects far larger than anything on record; they all gathered around Mata as if greeting their master. She gently petted each of them, and they responded kindly and with compassion.
Manusya stared at her in awe at her majestic figure surrounded by magical creatures. There was something about her which belonged in a storybook, she was like a mythical figure that Manusya would see in a fantasy film. Mata's long hair swayed with the wind. Her intricate druid clothing flowed with her dance. She was surely an attractive woman, despite Manusya's obliviousness towards such a subject, he knew from the film and art that he consumed from humanity's past what the beauty standards of each era were. She was not such a person that belonged to the beauty of a particular era, there was rather a feeling of timelessness in her allure.
So this is a druid's ability...Manusya thought.
Manusya touched the side of his head and focused his eye, a camera shutter sound could be heard in his head. The universal chip inside his body and the AR interface could take pictures with one's eye. Manusya wanted to remember this moment, it was an ethereal sight. Suddenly, the ground shook slightly. The feeling of footsteps could be felt, something large was approaching them. And whatever it was, it was fast.
Manusya took out a handgun from his holster and aimed towards the approaching creature. He did not know if this was another summoned creature or a predator, but he was not going to wait to find out. From his side, Mata touched his gun and lowered it herself. Manusya looked at her for a second before nodding, he knew this animal was another one of hers.
A large grounded avian creature approached, Manusya could only describe it as a large ostrich with black feathers around its body. It was quite a terrifying sight, the creature's beak was long, its neck stretching high. The beast's talons were sharp, and Manusya counted more toes on its legs than a normal bird.
"This is an Ontau, one of the fastest creatures in this forest," Mata said as she approached the creature. The Ontau lowered its neck willingly and Mata rubbed it lovingly.
"So a druid could always do this? I hadn't seen you people in action before." Manusya muttered as he approached the creature.
Mata turned to him and nodded. "Have you noticed that the forest is full of dangerous beasts, and yet none of the villages are ever attacked?" She asked him.
Manusya pondered for a while before answering, "So the druids have some sort of relationship with the animals of the forest?"
She nodded again, "Yes, well, it's more that we can feel what they feel and we can transmit our own feelings to them. We have established a sort of...contract with them. Of course, you know we hunt animals in the forest, and indeed they could defend themselves or even hunt us if they are hungry. It's more of a contract between us and them to co-exist peacefully. And for us the druids, we have an even stronger bond with them, and I could ask them for assistance like this. This is one of our several abilities as druids." she explained.
Controlling animals is really something out of a fantasy story. And yet, I have indeed seen a lot of things during my time here. He thought in his head.
"Can I...touch it?" Manusya said he was curious about the creature.
"Of course." Mata made way for him.
Manusya looked up at the tall Ontau, it looked down at him curiously. Slowly, Manusya reached out a hand towards its neck and gently rubbed it. The creature let out a call but it was not perturbed by his caressing.
"So, we are going to ride this thing?" Manusya said as he turned to Mata again.
Mata nodded, "Yes, come." With the wind that flowed with her, she jumped to the top of the Ontau gracefully without any struggle.
Manusya stared at her. "Well, I hope this is not going to be embarrassing." Manusya took steps back and performed a running jump. With the help of his light exosuit, he jumped high enough to reach the Ontau's back. Manusya sat behind Mata.
"Are you ready?" Mata said to him while turning her face slightly behind.
"Yes." Manusya nodded.
She sat still for a little while before grabbing both of Manusya's hands and putting them on her hips. Manusya was stunned by her action and swallowed his tongue, not knowing how to react. Such physical contact was not something he was familiar with in the Ark's sexless society.
"Hold on to me. Try not to fall off," Mata said and chuckled.
With amazing speed, the Ontau dashed through the forest. It skillfully avoided rocks and jutted out tree roots and any obstacle it encountered. When the Ontau neared the great river that flowed through the middle of the Osma reaches, it crossed a bridge made out of wood and vines that the Osmanians have created and continued its journey. Manusya could tell that they were heading southwest towards somewhere he had never visited but knew what was there because of his previous drone surveillance of the Osma reaches. An ancient ruin of a pyramid of sorts buried underneath soil and grass. To the untrained eye, it almost looked like a small hill which hid ancient secrets underneath. Manusya and Mata approached the buried pyramid and stopped. As this journey ended, the day was nearly ending and the sunset could be seen. A golden hue swept over the forest and to the two's faces. The Aksha and the druid disembarked the Ontau, it did not set off but was rather waiting for them to ride it again.
"This is..." Manusya said as he looked at the 'hill' in front of him.
"I knew you would have known about this place already," Mata said. "The ruin of an ancient civilization from a time before us. Our ancestors, most likely."
Manusya looked at her but did not say anything, he approached the buried pyramid and began climbing it until he reached the top of the hill. The forest vistas were presented to him with the gorgeous filter that the sunset brought, it was a fantastic sight. Mata followed him by jumping with the power of the wind that she harnessed. The two of them sat at the top and watched the sunset together.
"I assume this is the spot you wanted," Manusya said, looking at her.
"Yes," Mata replied.
"Now," His face turned serious. "No more games, no more avoiding. I have asked you about the prophecy for months now. Tell me the truth." he said sternly.
Mata sighed and closed her eyes. It was around ten seconds before she opened it again and started speaking. "The druid leader's ability to portend the future is real, I play no tricks on you about this. We can see...glimpses of the future's possibilities. Sometimes it's clear, but oftentimes it's a fever dream. Our aetheric sensitivity and connection to nature, I theorize, has caused us to be able to attune to primal aether and touch the flow of time itself." she explained.
Manusya's eyes bulged wide. "Mayhap you can see through space and time? But how?" he said.
Mata shook her head. "I do not know. What you need to know is that aether is an all too mysterious power beyond our arrogant assumption that we are manipulating it, when in truth, we are being puppet by the forces of nature. I personally believe it has something to do with desire and the human thirst to be gods, but I will need to research deeper about this. As the Seat of Aether that you have given me, I will make an aetherial research facility that we have discussed in previous meetings." She replied.
"But..."Mata continued. "My ability as a soothsayer was not the reason why I knew you were coming."
Manusya tilted his head in confusion. "What do you mean? I was about to accept your reasoning and now you tell me this."\
She sighed. She took a deep breath before facing Manusya with a determined face. "Let me begin by explaining your other question, about Suwepi'en, our goddess of life, or you would know her as Sapien."
Manusya stood up from his sitting position and glared at her. "What!?"
If she knows! Manusya thought in panic. He already had his hands full by pretending to be this religious figure. It would be a shock if this woman knew of Sapien or even who he truly was.
Mata grabbed his hand and forced him to sit down again. "Calm down. Let me explain it to you slowly."
Manusya complied with her request and sat down again, this time completely facing her and not the sunset. "Speak," he said firmly.
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"This is knowledge only known to the druid leaders, no one else. I can guarantee the validity of this fact because it was part of our swear when we were chosen to lead the druid circle. This is also something that has been passed down for thousands of years through generations of leaders. " Mata said.
The sun had now completely set. Darkness was taking over, and the sea of stars above slowly revealed itself.
"The world as we know it has existed thirty thousand years, but even before that, our ancestors came from the stars." Mata looked up towards the night sky with a face full of wonder. "And please, listen first to the entire thing before you say anything," she added.
Manusya gulped down his saliva. She knows!
Mata began her story. "Let me tell you the story of the Three Ages, with humanity restarting its progress each time an age had come to an end."
"The First Age saw the first humans waking up on the cradle of this very mountain, Mount Hoop, to a world ready for them to explore, with dangerous beasts lurking and a vast rich land full of resources to be used by them to create civilization. These first humans were not much better than beasts, they only knew how to hunt and live in caves, while they spoke to each other in simple languages. Eventually, some of them discovered ways to utilize their environment and created weapons and tools, which eventually led to settlements, farming, and so on. They explored the world and migrated to other lands beyond this forest. The first humans reached the point where they created nations and kingdoms like the Hydarians who invaded us. Until one day, a great plague swept the continent. The great plague spread like wildfire and could not be stopped, a cure was never found. Humans were helpless. With that, the first age had come to an end with only the few who were mysteriously immune surviving." Mata told the story.
Manusya was intently listening to her explanation. With Sapien gone and records lost, this was all new to him.
"The Second Age was built on the remnants of the immune humans. But their immunity was caused by their affinity to the aether, and they discovered that they could utilize that strange force of nature. With this, the age of magic had begun. The humans of the second age now realised that the mysterious element which they could not control before was now in their hands. They had previously only seen it wielded by beasts and plants, but now they could see fit to mould the world to their desire. An age of prosperity had begun. The kingdoms focused and developing magic and cooperated with other nations. It was a peaceful age where aetherial knowledge and study were prioritized over wars and conflict. But one day, with research on aether developing, one aether scholar had a question, how was the world created? what created the universe? so they began researching the aether itself and life's origins. During one of their experiments, a catastrophe occurred. The aether of the world had gone unstable because of their experiment, and throughout all the lands, the land retaliated. Great waves decimated islands, volcanoes, and earthquakes, and everything was triggered simultaneously and destroyed everything. The surviving humans lived in a lawless, ruined land before they recovered."
Manusya's mind was in disarray. The revelation that several great extinction events almost occurred to the humans of this planet was mind-blowing for him. But before he could process it any further, Mata continued her story.
"Finally, the age that is closest to our present time, The Third Age. At the beginning of the third age, a mysterious woman that would set in motion the wheels of both The Third Age and our current one appeared. Sapien, she referred to herself as. This woman was a saint, quite literally. The people acknowledged her divinity, as she never aged and lived for an unfathomably long time. She would go around the continent and aid the weak, offer help to the poor and work with kingdoms to improve situations. She taught humanity many great things, knowledge which never previously existed was imparted to humans. Over time, humans grew and developed to the point where their cities stood tall and sprawled, where they created moving vehicles that transported their own through the land, ocean and skies. These new humans enjoyed a brief period of prosperity and progress, where their quality of life continuously improved. They utilized aether to power all the machinery and tools they possessed. Humanity became so advanced that in one of their great aether vehicles, they landed on the moon."
Mata pointed above, where the moon was. The moon of this planet was eerily similar to the one on Earth in appearance with its distinctive white features. But it was much larger than its Earth counterpart, and the night sky was consumed by the almighty presence of the moon. Manusya stared at the moon, his mind was racing at a million kilometres per hour hearing Mata's story.
Mata continued, "But the greed of humans knew no bounds. As they exploited the resources of all the lands, as they absorbed all the aether that they could, they turned to other nations. Wars were waged, a great war that would end all wars. In one of mankind's endless progress, they created an aetherial weapon of mass destruction. Sapien tried to stop the world leaders, but they refused to hear reason. Eventually, she led a coalition of anti-war nations and was forced to wage war herself. After some time, those aetherial weapons of mass destruction were used by one of the superpowers, which led to other nations retaliating in defence and every nation was decimated in the process. Before the end of that age, Sapien and her followers disappeared."
Mata briefly stopped, the story was taking a toll on her as well as she teared up. In her compassion, she could only imagine the suffering that all those humans experienced. She turned to Manusya and held his hand. Manusya stared back at her, he could not even begin to choose which question to ask her, as he had perhaps billions of them. But he collected himself and chose the simplest question from hearing that story.
"Is that the end?" Manusya asked. "That still doesn't explain your knowledge of me."
Mata shook her head. "It does, and no, it's not the end." She stood up and put a hand on her chest.
"Sapien did not disappear, but rather she and her followers came here to the Osma reaches and entered the cradle of Mount Hoop. They waited for the decimation that occurred in the outside world to end and lived inside the mountain, where you emerged out from, my Aksha." Mata stared at Manusya as she continued the story. "Those people were the direct ancestors of our Osma people. The world took thousands of years more to recover before it was finally ready for our ancestors to re-emerge out into the world, having recovered enough to absorb all of the aetherial radiation. In those early days of Osma, Sapien and our people lived a simple life as hunters and gatherers. The people initially separated into different tribes and went to war with one another, that was the age when we were most divided. But after some struggle, Sapien stopped all conflict and united the people. Over time, The people noticed that she never aged nor grow old, and she told them that she was their goddess of creation. She began telling tales of you, my Aksha, a man named Manusya who would be our saviour that would come one day and emerge from the mountain."
Mata looked down at Manusya who was sitting. Manusya's eyes started to well up, his emotions were slowly being overwhelmed.
"Tell me the rest, now," Manusya said to her.
Mata nodded. "Sapien entrusted the full story and knowledge to the most talented aether weaver in all the villages, the first druid leader. Their relationship was...mysterious to our ancestors, but as the direct successor, I know the full truth. They were in love, the first druid leader and the goddess of life. It was a painful love, she could not grow old nor die, and he was destined to perish and pass on to beyond the veil. After a while, she could not bare with the pain and decided to leave the Osma reaches, vowing to spread her wisdom and hopefully help more of humanity. She and her most talented and trusted six aides, they who would become our other six of the Seven Gods we worship, all left with her on her journey. The first druid leader and the goddess shared one more beautiful moment, where she revealed everything to him and made him promise that should the Aksha ever arrive, the Osma people accept him and help him achieve his goal. After she left, the first druid leader never stopped loving her, even as he withered away with age, he never loved another nor did he bear any offspring. He waited for her just in case she would come back, she did not. Millenias more past. Thus, we have arrived here." She finished explaining.
Manusya tried to filter every piece of information into his brain, it was an incredible amount of things he needed to take in and process. He needed to focus on the most important thing because he knew he was going to emotionally break down any second now.
"Five years ago," Manusya stood up and faced Mata. "When the Hydarians invaded, you said you were foretold that I would arrive. How?" He asked.
Mata sighed once more. "I received a message in my head. A call. This was not a simple vision of the future. I believe it was Sapien's voice who told me that she was watching over us from up above, that we should keep the faith, stay strong and endure the incoming subjugation of the Hydarians, and that the arrival of the Aksha would happen. That is why...the druid circle chose to not retaliate fiercely against the Hydarians. We chose to wait for you, our Aksha. And in the morning of the day you drove away the Hydarians, I received a future vision of you arriving in Prana." She approached Manusya, grabbed his hands and looked directly into the window of his soul.
Manusya could not endure it anymore. Everything was overwhelming, he felt tears welling up and they burst uncontrollably.
"I..I..." Manusya struggled to say anything with his ceaseless crying. Mata embraced him and patted his back. He buried his face in her shoulder sobbing.
"I know now. Your struggle, your pain. Sapien told us about how you lost all the previous humans in that war in the stars. About the previous humans that conquered multiple worlds, of civilizations lost. I am here now. I know your secret. You can share your pain with me. I will help you." Mata whispered to Manusya's ears as he cried on her shoulder.
They stayed like that for a long time. Mata kept him company as he suffered through his feelings. After the nightmare vision that he experienced, Manusya just heard something that caused him even more pain.
I failed. Manusya thought. He was struggling to come to terms with the fact that civilization was restarted multiple times in his absence. In his desire for humans to gain their own identity and history free of the previous humans, the humans of this world repeated all the mistakes that all humans have ever made. Billions have perished once more. All of that history happened before Manusya's arrival. He had thought that he re-emerged in a world that just started, only to find out he appeared after multiple extinction events. His guilt was enormous, and he did not know how to process such a burden alone.
"You are not alone," Mata said to him. "As promised by our ancestors to the goddess, we are here for you. I am here for you. I can imagine your guilt, your pain. But keep the faith, you must stand tall. Or everything that was set up in anticipation of your arrival would have been in vain. You must stay strong and finish your purpose."
Those words struck Manusya's heart. She was right. It was not enough to absolve everything, but the very least he could do is to prepare these humans for the war with Despair one day when they find humanity again. His mind was still in disarray, he knew he would still suffer after this, but he needed to calm down gradually and accepted Mata's help in this.
Manusya separated himself from Mata and stared at her. "Thank you."
Mata wiped away the tears on his face with her hand. "Good," she said simply.
"I will need to process everything, so I cannot respond fully right now." Manusya looked down. "But I have one more question, the organ we all have that allowed humans to utilize magic, what do you know about it?"
Mata responded, "As far as I know, the earliest humans from the First Age already have the aether heart as we call them, it was not until the Second Age that the humans knew how to use it, however."
Manusya's eyes snapped open again. Wait, I thought it was because of a mutation and evolution? How did the first humans already have it?
Mata looked at him, she knew he was thinking of something complex. "If you are wondering about yours, I feel that your aether heart is incomplete somehow. I do not know why, but that is why you can't weave aether at the present moment."
"That's...I see." Manusya said. He was too tired to even think anymore. Everything was overwhelming.
Manusya took a deep breath and grabbed Mata's hands. "Can we go home? I am...exhausted and need to process everything."
She smiled and began to drag his hand with her as she walked. Manusya did not budge from where he stood. Mata turned around to see what was wrong.
"One more thing," Manusya gazed at the window of her soul. "From now on, call me Manusya."
The two journeyed back to Prana on the back of the Ontau. It was as clear as the river's water that this pair had gotten closer together.
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ART
The Ontau
[https://i.imgur.com/pfajgiG.png]