“Elawynn, Goddess of Mercy, grant me your grace. Elawynn, I beseech you. Anaerin, Great Goddess, hear my prayer. If I am worthy of your protection, cast your shadow over me. Nornala, Goddess of Unity . . .”
A sweet voice. So delicate and young. Strange that I should discover a concept for youth after so many eons of expanded being. I focus my threaded perceptions, smaller, smaller, until I find myself gazing down from a star-strewn sky to a field dotted with tents, alight with campfires. I care nothing for any of this, however. Only that voice, which I swiftly pinpoint as coming from one of the indistinguishable rough dwellings. Small as a mote of dust, I flit down, down, down, through the rough cloth that is as insubstantial to me as air, and into a space of huddled darkness and fear.
She sits in a corner of the small chamber. A young woman, little more than a girl—and I have capacity for such constructs as womanhood and childhood once more. Strange that I had forgotten them. She kneels in an attitude of prayer, hands clasped, head bowed beneath a white, beaded veil. A prayer veil, worn by those who would petition the gods.
I move closer to her, a dancing beam of moonlight, a glint of stars.
“Tanatar, God of War,” she whispers, her voice scarcely audiblein that thick, mortal air.“I beg your mighty defense. Lamruil, God of Darkness . . .”
Her voice trails away. Her gentle features, drawn with terror, tighten suddenly. She lifts her chin a little, and I see her face more clearly. Soft oval cheeks, pale and drawn, a little pointed chin, and long-lashed, pale eyes.
Aurae.
Her name. I know her name. And in the naming of her, I take some of her essence into my insubstantial self and become, if only briefly, more solid than I was mere moments before. Not quite a being of this time-bound realm, but . . . not quite outside of it either.
Aurae.
My . . . my something. Something important.
Someone I care for.
Aurae.
“Ilsie?”
A jolt of pure light shoots through me. What is that? What is that word she spoke? Why does it feel like a hook burrowing into my essence, dragging me deeper into her reality?
She sits up a little straighter, putting back her prayer veil. Her wide eyes, ringed white with fear, search the dark room, passing over me where I coil in the empty void. “Ilsie, is that you?”
Why does it feel as though she’s speaking to me? As though I am a thing to be spoken to, a dust creature like herself? Why does this word she utters pull my strands of selfhood tighter, tighter,thickening them, binding them, making me feel . . .
“Ilsevel?” She gets to her feet. “Are you there?”
I try to speak her name. I have no throat, no lips, no means of utterance, and yet it breathes through my strands, a vibration infused with power.
Aurae.
A glaring red light bursts across my awareness. The girl screams, and the explosion of her redoubled terror sends me hurtling, tumbling, flying right out of her world, out of that time-space, back into the safety and distance of nothing. This is better. This is surely better, to be away from those . . . those feelings. Away from that word, that name, that anchor. I want to spread myself out again, lengthening my reach across galaxies, nevermore to be bound.
Only . . . those two ideas linger with me. Those small collections of sound, resonating through my threads.Ilsevel . . . Aurae . . .Another idea forms, whirling with color and energy through my knotted self. I don’t understand it, but feel it with a strange, yawning sense of depth.
Sister.
No sooner does the idea form than another reality opens before me, cracks of matter and existence opening through the ether. Though put on my guard by that last encounter, I coil myself closer, drawn by curiosity—yet another sensation I didn’t know I knew. Slipping through the cracks, I enter a world of stone which resounds with song. So much song, vibrating with pulsing lifethrough rock and crystal. It’s beautiful and overwhelming, even to my scarcely-formed senses.
Someone is there. A living spirit housed in flesh form. Another woman. Young, but older than the last one. She sits on the edge of a large stone platform that is much too big for her. A bed? I’m not sure where that idea came from, but it seems to make sense to my disseminated perceptions. Gleaming crystal light shines down on her, revealing long hair beneath a gauzy veil. She is clad all in white.Bridalwhite . . . yet another new concept I recognize without knowing how.
I coil my essence through the atmosphere, drawing nearer to her curiously. Her eyes are fixed on a closed door, as though she expects any moment for someone to open it. Her breath is tight and quick and nervous. She is clad in scanty garments—not that such things should matter to one like myself, unformed as I am. More interesting is the throb of her pulse, the frightened song-resonance coursing in her veins.
Why does she seem familiar? Those odd-colored eyes of hers: one blue, one gold. Why does that idea—sister—seem to pull me closer to her? We feel connected in some profound way I do not fully understand.
Suddenly the young woman raises a hand and swiftly wipes tears from her cheek beneath the long veil. “Ilsevel!” she breathes, and the sound of her voice startles me. I coil back, pulling my stardust essence into a defensive knot. “Ilsevel, I’m so sorry. Sorryfor what happened to you. Sorry for what they’ve made me do . . .”
That remorse of hers sings through her blood, her bones, rippling out to strike my being. I find my threaded parts snared and drawn more densely together once more in response to that mortal way of feeling. I don’t understand it, but neither can I resist it. My separated particles begin to reform, vibrating in harmony with her song.
And her name springs to my awareness:Faraine.
As though in response, she looks up. Her eyes sharpen as she peers into that dark corner of the chamber where I am beginning to gather. “Ilsevel?” she breathes. “Is that . . . you?”
