Up and Down

Scales and Feathers

"Just so."

She steels her resolve as she feels the familiar wave of exhaustion roll over her. Pasashet nods, watching her condense the primordial silver liquid out of thin dry air and reshape it into another form... just as she taught her.

There was once a boundless ocean of nothing. The way the world was before the waters parted to release the first god into the world. See the surface ripple, feel the silvery waters thick with life and death and potential.

Reach for it.

Cup the liquid in your hand and lift it out of the empty nothing and into reality.

Then, shape it as you see fit. Make and bend and create. See it realised.

A section of a wall coalesces from the blobs of ancient waters.

"Very good... you are beginning to understand."

"Pasashet... what... what am I trying to achieve?..." she gasps for air, tired and worn out, her head throbbing with pain.

"Only what you want more than anything else."

"I don't... know what it is."

"In your heart of hearts, you do. You just need to remember."

"But what if I can't?"

"You can, and you will."

The quiet confidence in Pasashet's voice seems maternal, and yet so familiar.

You are so much stronger than you know-

The surge of something gives her second wind as she stands back up onto her feet and extends her hand holding the white feather, and moments later the reeds split apart into the drops of the primal waters and she shapes them into yet another wall.

Pasashet smiles, nodding.

"You see it now... everything was waters from which life had sprung, and water it can become again. You can reach to the source, or you can take what is already in the world and give it a new purpose. Very good."

She falls down on her hands and knees to the floor, shaking. The surge of strength is gone, used up now in a moment.

The shaking orb is cracking, threatening to break, the violent thrashing of emotions inside clawing at its confines-

Her hands give out and she rolls over to the floor, completely wiped out.

Pasashet kneels beside her and rests a hand on her breastbone. Then, she pulls.

She gasps, something being lifted from her, from her very soul. She feels colder. Numb... and yet strangely light and calm.

Pasashet inspects the glowing strand in her hand, and then gently breathes on it. It glows brighter as she does so.

Then, the woman puts her hand back on her chest, and she feels like she was doused in a refreshing rush of cool water, her body becoming more solid, stronger somehow, her fatigue dissipating.

Anna gasps and sits up, bewildered. She never felt better.

Then, she blinks.

"Anna. That's my name."

Pasashet nods, smiling.

"So it is."

The sun's rays aren't beating down nearly as bad as they used to. The shadows it casts have moved, and the indigo sky begins to tint with pink at the edges.

"Here we are! The latest discovery in the Sorcerer's Necropolis. Careful, the steps are quite steep. Lumos!"