A thick, sticky smoke clung to my skin and forced itself into my lungs despite my best efforts to fight it off. My hands clung to my chest, lungs burning, while I gasped for air drowning in a hellscape without water. I wanted to scream and cry out from the searing pain shooting through my body but I knew that would only waste the last bits of oxygen I had left. I gritted my teeth, holding on to my final shreds of sanity..
“Deleria,” a low, grumbling voice hissed inches from my ear. “You have always been a poison. A curse to life.” The voice spat at me with such cruelty. This voice… it was so familiar and yet so terrifying that my muscles shivered and trembled at the mere sound. It seemed to freeze time with its chilling whispers. I could not see more than a foot in front of me, yet I could hear an orchestra of blood curdling shrieks and screams in between each sentence of this darkness that consumed every part of me. “You don’t even know who you really are, all the wicked, terrible things you could do.” It sneered in my opposite ear, sending my head flailing towards it only to find nothing but that sticky, all consuming smoke.
Flames erupted to my right, sending my body soaring through the smoke filled air and smashing into the ground at least 10 feet away. Any oxygen I had left was knocked right out of me as I gasped for any relief left in the toxic swarm around me. Shit. This was it, wasn’t it? I tried to relax my body as much as I could to make the process less painful. Who was I kidding, dying was painful and there was nothing I could do to help that. Not here, not now.
“Deleria!” Another voice roared in the distance but in a desperate tone this time? I could have sworn the grumble of this voice shook the very ground I laid upon. A different voice from before, smoother, angrier, darker… “Deleria!” It rumbled again, closer now, closing the distance between us. My consciousness was fading fast, my eyes fluttering open and closed as the heaviness tried to drag me under.
“Deleria!” I shot up from my bed desperately gasping for air, clawing at my chest. My mother grasping my shoulders, terror painted across her face. I scanned the room for a moment taking in my surroundings, grounding myself. Based on the light that peaked in from behind the ill fitting curtains, the sun was due to rise any minute now. Breathe. I told myself, feeling my lungs expanding deeply with life giving oxygen. Again. I took another deep inhalation into my lungs, my heart steadily dropping its pace. I noticed the other bed shoved up into the corner on the other side of the room from me, the blankets thrashed and thrown about.
“Another nightmare,” I sighed in exasperation, tears welling up in my eyes. I whimpered slightly, trying to catch the emotion before it all came spilling out of me. They have become more frequent, nearly every night now. Once, they were more mild, more infrequent. As I started to grow older, the nightmares became darker and more real. I could practically feel myself and everyone I had ever loved dying all around me each night. It was growing to be too much for me, even with the tonics healers from every stretch of the realm had provided me.
My mother hugged me close to her, rubbing her silky hands up and down my back in reassuring strokes. I sobbed into her shoulder as she held me, letting the emotions flow out of me hearing those awful whispers ringing in my ears. “You have always been a poison,” it sneered in my head. It wasn’t wrong. I had always been nothing more than a leech, sucking everyone around me dry and leaving them out to die. I looked up into my mothers face, the dark circles under her eyes nearly black from the consistent, sleepless nights.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered slowly, gently wiping the tears from my cheeks. She looked at me with such love and concern. She had spent months working with various healers to find something, anything, to take the nightmares away. She spent any free time she had foraging and mixing a tonic, or a poultice or a tincture to help me sleep. I had taken so much from her. As I looked into her face, I knew I could never deserve the love she always wrapped me in. I wasn’t even her biological child. My own parents didn’t want me and left me discarded in the cold, on a pile of hay, left for the wolves. I could never fathom why she took me in that day, why she hadn’t just left me for the elements. I didn’t understand why she didn’t do that now, why she cared for me to the depths and the lengths she did. Not after everything I had done. Everything I had caused.
My mother stroked my hair, “What was it this time?” She kept her voice low, calm, and grounded, guiding me out of the dream realm and solidifying my presence in this one.
“I…I saw death all around me. I could feel it consuming me, consuming everyone around me.” I took in a shaky breath, “It spoke to me, calling me a poison. Calling me a curse. The smoke, it was everywhere, I couldn’t see or breathe or -”
“It was just a dream child,” my mother continued stroking my hair. “It was nothing more than the dark rememberings of your sleeping mind.” She was right. The nightmares began after my father died tragically at the hands of the Draeg, the cruel and unforgiving army of the dark angels. I was only 15 at the time of his death and I carried the guilt with me every single day after. Why had I survived? Why did he have to die? Why did Hadeon have to die? Why not me?
“Will you let me braid your hair, flower?” My mother cooed, knowing that the easiest way to calm me down was to have my hair played with. She had done this ever since my hair was long enough to braid as a child. I rose from the splintering bed frame beneath me and moved to a chair closer to the kitchen that sat in front of an old, scratched mirror. My mother followed, acknowledging the silent agreement. She ran a brush through my dark hair. It was unusual for Plainfolk to be born with such crisp and dark features like my own. I had always had a hard time feeling like I belonged in any facet of this world.
My skin had grown even more pale over the last few years as we struggled to keep our food stores stocked enough for the harsh winters. My long fingers were cracked and calloused from the dehydration, my cheeks gaunt and hollow. Yet my blue eyes seemed to pierce through the darkness, staring back at me with such crisp intensity that I barely recognized myself. The black ring around my iris seemed to smolder as I continued to hold my own gaze in the mirror. Who was this person? Who had I become over these last few years? I was no longer the happy, free spirited child I once was.
“May the Gods and the Mother Moon bless you with a veil of protection,” my mother whispered as she folded a section of my hair over another. She often prayed over me as she braided my hair. I was never sure if it actually helped anything, but it always made me feel more calm. “May they breathe a kiss of life back into your soul everlasting,” she twisted another section into the braid. “May they gift you peace in your purpose and love in your veins.” She whispered the same prayer over and over as she continued twisting the strands into each other. The same prayer I had heard a thousand times throughout my life, sending a sense of peace rippling through my body, the anxiety of the nightmares slowly fading out as she finished the final binding of the braid. “And so it has been, and so it is, and so it will be,” I whispered back to her.
I kissed my mother on the cheek, “Thank you mama, I would be lost without you.” I rose from the rickety chair, desperately needing some fresh air after that sort of nightmare. I hated that my mother had to see me in this way. I struggled to wipe the remnants of the tears from my cheeks and pull it together. For the gods’ sake, why could I just not pull it together. My mother didn’t deserve to live like this. I slung my ripped and tattered jacket over my shoulder and stuffed my feet into my two-sizes-too-small boots.
“Thank you for everything you do,” I turned and whispered back into the twilight room. “I don’t know what I did in this life to deserve a mother like you.” My eyes sparkled with the utter respect and admiration I held for my mother. She was the strongest person I knew.
I stepped out of our dug out home and into the fresh air, breathing slowly and deep like I would never taste such a delicious and necessary part of life again. The healers had trained me to focus on my breathing when the nightmares arose. It calmed my body even further and illustrated to my nervous system that we were not, in fact, in any danger. Not anymore. The nightmares of my father’s death didn’t only extend to the dream world, but they plagued my waking life nearly just as much. I started down a well worn trail from our home to the edge of the forest line. I found peace in the solitude there, with the trees and the nature that glimmered around me.
The air was filled with the smell of fresh dew soon to evaporate off the wildflowers that grew around the forest’s edge. I spotted my tree. My sitting tree, my father’s tree, where I went to clear my head and contemplate my life. It was the only place I could still feel connected to him, and as I grew older, that was all I craved. As I approached the tree, I saw the weathered carvings that were etched into the bark. A star for my father, a sun for my mother, a flame for my brother, and a flower for me. I touched the carvings gingerly before sliding down the tree and holding my face in my hands. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered to the carvings. “It should have been me.”
My father was a humble man that came from humble beginnings. He worked tirelessly in the fields ensuring that we had food, and ensuring that there was extra for those in the village that could not work in the fields as he did. He always gave back to those around him, just as my mother had done in her own way. I suppose that is why they complimented each other so well. He always called my mother ‘his morning sun,’ and looked to her, and her intuition, for guidance throughout his life. They loved each other so deeply. They took care of each other more than any example I had ever witnessed. He practically worshiped her and the ground she walked upon. I could recall many moments in my younger years where he would return from the fields and immediately take a few minutes to dance with my mother in our living room. He wasn’t the best dancer by any means, but he knew that was what she loved the most outside of our family. That was her freedom, and he always did whatever he could to ensure that she felt those moments of aliveness every single day breath entered her lungs.
My father etched these carvings into our tree years ago before the untimely deaths of both him and my brother, Hadeon. He had no idea at the time how these simple, silly carvings would become my rock, my tether, my anchor to keep going. He had always taught me I could do anything in this world if only I made up my mind and applied myself. He believed in me even in moments where I didn’t believe in myself. He rooted for me and he taught me well. Prior to his passing, my mother and I held an entirely different type of relationship. I was an ignorant teenager completely blind to the way the real world worked. I lived in my own world, followed my own rules and challenged every obligation that was thrown at me. Flower on the wind, my father used to call me. I grew and became this bright, expansive version of myself despite all the darkness that was thrown at me before my life truly began. I was opinionated and headstrong and cared little for pleasantries. I danced to the beat of my own drum, literally and figuratively. When my brother and father died, that all ended.
I was shown first hand the horrors that plagued our realm, or at least some of them. I saw just how unforgiving and blood thirsty the Draeg army truly was. Despite the desperate pleading of my mother, and dozens of other healers in our village, they wiped us out with barely one thought. The Plainfolk villages were always easy targets. We had little to defend ourselves from those who were blessed with gifted abilities by the Mother Moon. I was still so angry at the Draeg army. Specifically the monster with two heads of a dragon that rained unrelenting fire upon our village from the skies.
I rose to my feet, tired of wallowing in my despair as I had done every day since that dreadful moment. I touched the carvings one last time, as I always did before heading back to the house. Although this time something was different? The tree and the carvings felt different?
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“Deleria,” an old and ancient orchestra of voices whispered. I flung around, searching for the source of the voice, yet no one was there. I shook my head, trying to empty my thoughts, chalking it up to the sleep deprivation I was currently experiencing. The voice whispered again, a bit louder this time, “We have been waiting a long time for you.” I turned and looked at my father’s tree where the voices reverberated from. I took a step closer, examining the tree completely filled with wonder, fear, surprise and every other imaginable emotion. This was not my father’s voice as I had once hoped, instead it was something much older. “The roots,” it said softly, “The roots will show you what you wish to know.”
I looked down at the root system of the tree and it almost seemed to glow? In all my years of spending my mornings with this tree, nothing even remotely close to this incident had transpired until now. I hesitated, dreaming of all the terrible things that could come from this moment, but the tree felt incredibly inviting. Its energy was soft and gentle and soothing. I slowly knelt before the tree once more as I placed my hands upon the root system and was transported somewhere else entirely. I couldn’t grasp everything that was being thrown at me. I was getting flashes of scenes that moved so quickly through my mind I could barely process what was happening.
At first there was a thick mist, white and breathable unlike the thick, black smoke from my dreams. It obscured my vision, but I could hear my mother screaming in fear and anger. My eyes immediately burned as the mist began to clear. There she was, Lyra, my beautiful mother whose only purpose in life was to help all those who she had crossed paths with, but she was much younger than how I knew her. My father stood across from her in the small meadow, also looking much younger than how I ever knew him, a stern look on his face.
“We cannot just leave her to be killed,” my mother seethed, glaring at my father.
“Lyra, you know the consequences of these actions. We’ve helped their kind enough, this is just asking too much of us.” My father broiled, looking down at the faded scars on his hands and arms. “What about Hadeon? What about everything else we have yet to experience in this life?”
“This isn’t just about us, or her, or them,” she whispered softly, yet sternly. “This is about everyone! The good of the realm and if we have the chance to make a change in the ripple that is time, why would we not take that?”
The scene suddenly changed, and I saw the two headed dragon creature I had seen many years ago. He flew over the village, blasting the incinerating flame across the crowds. People screamed, calling out for their mothers, falling to the ground as the monster soared overhead, blast after blast. It seemed as though it required minimal to no effort to destroy entire cities. There was no escape, he was going to make sure of that. The terror I saw on the faces that passed by me was excruciating, until I heard the voice of my father.
“Please,” I heard him plead as I began running through the streets of the market, shoving past anyone in my wake. I had to find him. What if I was just given an opportunity to turn back the clock and change things? Doubtful, but I had to give it a shot anyway.
“You know the cost Jerus,” a dark and evil voice hissed at him as I rounded the corner to see him on his knees in front of three fallen angels. I had never remembered seeing a fallen angel, outside of the horror that was the monster flying over the village. These angels were different. They were strikingly beautiful males with large wings that shifted and ruffled as they spoke. The one at the front had a raven tattooed across his throat that rippled as he laughed with giddy amusement. The angel to the right of him stood like a statue, not a flicker of emotion in his face. The one to the left ran his hands through his silver hair, the singular streak of black catching the light. His face was twisted into a different expression. I couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but it almost looked like a twinge of guilt?
“This was not their transgression!” He cried, gesturing to all those running past them through the scorching flames. The fallen angel at the front scoffed, his face twisting into wicked delight.
“Where is she, Jerus?” He snarled, his wings flapping making himself appear larger than he was. “Tell me where she is and I’ll spare your pathetic, little village.”
I moved closer to my father, nobody even noticing I was there. My father’s gaze fixed intently on the angel with the raven tattoo as he spoke sternly. “She is not here Andras. They moved through our village decades ago. Why you seek her in this place is beyond me.” He gritted his teeth as Andras laughed and spat in his face.
I glanced up to the one named Andras in complete horror as he raised his sword above his head, my mothers distant shrieks piercing the air around me. She watched him die? Like this? “Papa!” I wailed hoping somebody, anybody, could hear me. “Please don’t do this,” I shrieked again, desperately trying to grasp the attention of the raven tattooed angel. He couldn’t see me or hear me as time seemed to slow, the sword moving through the air.
I scanned my eyes across the other two, the one to the right still stone cold and expressionless, his sandy hair already splattered with so much blood. The one to the left caught my gaze in his. His eyes were hard and cold, but I could have sworn there was a fleeting glimpse of remorse, before his eyes quickly hardened once more. He was looking at me, not through me like everyone else. He can see me? I thought, holding his gaze a moment longer, his black eyes sinking into my soul with the exception of a singular bright blue ring around his pupil.
“Yes,” a thought returned as I blinked in disbelief and the scene suddenly changed again.
This time, the scenery was much more choppy. The flashes came in at an even quicker speed, changing scenes in what felt like milliseconds. A group of elders standing around a circular table in a heated argument flashed across my vision before the scene rapidly changed again. I saw a grove of trees, ancient and strong, the sun beaming down on them from the sky, the light filtering through the canopy. I saw the dark smoke and the blood curdling screams that always came along with it. The flashes were getting faster, harder to keep up with and beginning to make my mind ache with exhaustion.
And then I was back at my fathers tree. I had not known with such detail how he died. I was always told that the flames took him along with many of the other villagers. That the burns were so severe that there was nothing they could do to save him, or my brother. Hadeon? I hadn’t even seen him in that vision. My mind began to cloud with a million questions. What had happened to my brother? Who were the fallen angels looking for? Why was my father willing to give his life to protect them? There was so much to this story alone that I did not know. What else did I not know?
“Come to the ancient grove,” the tree whispered again, soothing my already frantic soul. The storm in my mind quieted as I shifted my focus back to the tree once more. “We hold all the answers you seek.” A breeze floated past me as if the tree had said goodbye, touching my cheek softly in its quiet embrace. I knew whatever this was, it was over. For now.
I stayed at the tree for a moment longer, partially waiting for it to speak again and partially trying to gather my thoughts before going back to what was left of our village. I was caught in disbelief for a while after the visions ended. Were these nightmares bleeding into my waking life even more intensely now? I didn’t need to worry my mother with more of the same thing. She had enough on her plate at this point in time, I didn’t need to add anything else. I knew I was already her biggest burden in this life. The guilt ate at me every single day.
I began down the path that I had just come from, the sun rising higher in the sky now, the droplets of dew already evaporated from the meadows of wildflowers around me. It was warm enough now to allow me to remove the thin piece of cloth I considered a jacket. I tied it around my thin waist and continued walking. I could see the still barren grounds that were once the fields my father worked in less than half a mile away. The ground was still scorched from the flames despite the years of healing we had tried to grant the space.
A sharp scream echoed from our little dug out home just in front of me and I jolted into a sprint. Every terrible thing that could be happening flitting through my mind as my heart raced and adrenaline filled my body. Another scream echoed as I pushed my muscles to go faster, harder, but the lack of nutrition made it more difficult than I wished it to be. Time seemed to slow down, allowing my senses to take everything in as I got closer. An unfamiliar pair of boots laid in front of the door, the excruciating screams still escaping our home that had to be dug into the side of a hill to protect us from the flames that once rained down. The door was partially open, swinging slightly as I reached the small porch, my heartbeat roaring so loudly in my ears I could barely think. I stormed through the front door, unsure of what I was walking into and unsure of what I could do should it be the return of the Draeg. I knew my way around my father’s old scythe, but this was completely out of my reach at the moment.
“Mama!” I shouted as I pushed the door open, bouncing back and forth from the force that I had shoved it open with.
“In here!” She called from a separate room. A curtain slid over the opening of the room to grant any semblance of privacy we could create in such a small space. I pulled the curtain back to see a woman sitting in a worn and wooden birthing chair, my mother running those same reassuring strokes down her back in the way she had just done for me this morning.
“Ellari is just about to have her first,” she smiled softly at the woman sitting in the chair. “But the baby is breech,” my eyes fell over Ellari’s face twisted with pain and fear. She didn’t look much older than I was. I knew her face from the many trips to the market I had gone on in recent years. Ellari had just married one of the village bachelors the summer before. His name was Aegus and I knew him well. I once thought I loved him, but in my wiser years I understood that it was just the fleeting infatuation that comes with teen love.
I realized my face had tightened itself into a knot that matched my stomach as I looked at Ellari in her vulnerable state. I quickly slapped a soft smile on my face to match my mothers as I had done a thousand times before. My mother was one of the most gifted midwives in our village and assisted with many of the difficult labors that occurred. She was skilled in turning breech babies and equally skilled in delivering them. I knew if anyone could save both Ellari and her baby, it was her.
I grabbed a washcloth that sat on a small nightstand to the right of the birthing chair. I submerged the cloth in the cool water that rippled in a glass bowl atop the nightstand. “You’re in incredible hands,” I said in a light, low tone to help keep her calm as what appeared to be another contraction rocked her body. “You and Aegus are going to be amazing parents.” I laid the cloth over her forehead, and ran small strokes down her back as my mother had been doing. I saw the muscles in her jaw relax just the slightest bit as I tried to provide any ounce of comfort I could. These types of births were always messy, painful and uncertain.
Another shriek released from her throat as my mother crouched near the birthing chair. “They’re so close, sweet girl!” My mother said excitedly and proudly, “Only two more pushes and they’ll be right in your arms.” Ellari inhaled sharply and screamed again, pushing as hard as she could. I kept my focus on Ellari as my mother prevented the infant’s jaw from getting hooked on Ellari’s pelvis. I had watched her do the maneuver dozens of times but everytime still made me incredibly squeamish. I always joked with her over her iron stomach, nothing in this world could make her squeamish the way it did me.
“Get this damned baby out of me!” Another inhale, another push, her face turning red from the force as she exhaled loudly.
A soft cry filled the room as my mother pulled the child from the birth canal, hands completely drenched in blood and other bodily fluids, a wide grin spreading across her face as she looked up at Ellari, “It’s a boy.” Her eyes glimmered as she wrapped the new babe in a swaddle and handed the boy to his mother.
“He’s beautiful,” Ellari cried out, tears welling up in her eyes at the sight of her first born child. I found myself wondering if that’s how my mother felt when Hadeon was born. I found myself wondering if my own birth mother had felt that way, or if she couldn’t stand the sight of me the moment I was born. The thoughts bombarded me as I forced myself to keep a soft and gentle expression on my face. These were not new thoughts, but thoughts that crept in every time I assisted my mother with a birth.
I quickly excused myself from the room to allow my mother to finish her work and Ellari to bond with her new son. Emotions usually ran really high within me. My parents always said I was born to swim in the depths. They meant it in an endearing way but often it felt like a curse to feel emotions as deeply as I have always been able to. Mostly my own, but sometimes when those I loved felt intense emotions around me, I could pick up on those too. It’s the reason why I mostly keep to myself nowadays. Managing my own emotions and the emotions of others was too much for me, especially when our village continued to live in constant fear and trauma from The Draeg.
When I was a child, I remember it being a vibrant and magical place. Many passed through here on the way to the bigger cities in the west. We saw performers of all kinds, merchants with anything you could think of, and people with all sorts of stories to tell. Hadeon and I used to run through the streets amazed over everything that existed there. We would tell our parents the stories of the treasures we saw that caught our eyes. We would tell them the amazing adventures the merchants had been on to retrieve the different treasures they brought back and sold.
We were always amazed by the ones Mother Moon had blessed that came through our town. There were witches that passed through here frequently that offered healing services to those in need. We watched many of them heal broken bones and severe wounds from hunting accidents or drunken brawls. There were Land Nymphs that came through and blessed our lands and our crops, and Potamoi that blessed our streams and wells. Our people were always generous to those who passed through.
When I was even younger, I questioned my parents constantly on why Mother Moon blessed some people with gifts and not others. I thought it was because we weren't good enough to be given something so special. I was an incredibly clumsy child and I figured that the higher spirits just thought I would break too many things with a gift like others had. My father always responded with the same thing.
“The Great Mother blessed us with the gift of kindness, my flower.” He would smile and brush his thumb across my cheek. “This is the greatest gift of them all. Every other gift comes with a price to wield it and it is always your peace. Kindness and compassion for all is what brings you the greatest fortune in life.”
When I needed to fill myself up with the good, these were the memories I always thought of.