VISION ✔️ || The Keepers of Astraela #1

33.0 || Of History and Creation

EVA

EVA WASN'T SURE HOW LONG she'd been running. Time flowed through her brain in waves murkier than the surrounding forest, bathed in darkness so thick that navigating should have been impossible, but Thana's insistent control propelled her through the woods with astounding grace. Her thoughts muddled as she slipped in and out of consciousness, though her feet never stopped moving.

Visions flashed before her eyes in uncontrollable bursts. Were they foretellings? Memories? It didn't matter. Wherever her eyes fell across the dim landscape, the surrounding world triggered a new scene. They grew increasingly vivid, consuming her until she was powerless to watch.

This time, it was a boulder that caught her eye, looming tall to cast ominous shadows across the forest floor.

The world erupted into the light of a different day—a different time. Sunlit beams rained through the leafy canopy overhead, washing the world in amber. Calls of local wildlife bounced off the trees in harmony, and faint rustling leaves signaled their playful jaunt through the woods.

Amaya sat atop a large boulder. The delicate morning breeze ruffled the white waves that cascaded down her back, loose from the constraints of her typical updo. Once she turned, however, her face was more youthful than Eva recalled, as if her features had been cleansed from years of anguish.

"Why do you love them?" she spoke, her icy stare chilling Eva to the bone. "The Others?"

Grass rustled beneath Eva's feet as her body moved forward. She held out her hand, fingertips brushing gingerly against the prickly leaves of a nearby bush, peppered with fresh, golden berries. Thana's voice emerged from her throat.

"There's something so quaint about them. Annoyingly simple, yet remarkably resilient creatures." Thana paused to roll a cluster of berries through her fingers. "But, of course, you don't feel the same."

"They've been the thorns in our asses since the dawn of time."

"In your ass, perhaps. I find them quite... beautiful."

"Them," Amaya asked, "or him?"

Thana's body went rigid. She pressed the fruit together until a milky syrup dribbled down her palm. Under her touch, the plant withered; the berries rotted to mush and splattered amongst its mother's decaying leaves.

"The Others are parasites in a human shell." Amaya swung her legs around the side of the rock to face Thana with an unrelenting glare. "You give them an inch and they destroy miles. Did you not see how they decimated the village of Quinbrier? Or the siege they attempted against Luxanima?"

"Not all of them are destroyers."

"Do not make your judgment based on one man. His kind are brutal. Poisonous." Amaya's eyes brightened with every hiss. "Humans without magic fear what they lack. The Blessed will not be safe until the Others are exiled."

"There has to be another way."

The slight twitch of Amaya's fingers caught Thana's eye, and she dodged in time for a thin bolt of lightning to whiz past her shoulder—one aimed straight for her heart.

Thana's hands clenched into fists. "I can cure them. Give them magic beyond their wildest dreams. Then, they can understand—"

"Our magic? Or yours?"

Silence.

"Your magic," said Amaya, "is as destructive as the creatures you wish to save. They cannot be cured. Others belong in a world where they can release their destructive nature upon themselves."