Kingdoms Fall

Chapter 14: Inner Strength

                                                                    

Chapter 14: "Inner Strength"

When Zokoso became a god, it wasn't a super extravagant event, like I'm pretty sure some of us thought, myself being one of those people who thought that.

After Zokoso jogs off, carrying the boulder like it was as heavy as a single apple, with his all-black chareeb hanging onto his back. I was the first one after him to step up to one of the stones, and when I grabbed the stone with two hands, my chareeb flame crawled onto my back right below the back of my neck, and he held on tight as if he knew what I was about to do, and I'm pretty sure he did know. I begin to try to lift the stone, and surprisingly I lift it without almost any struggle. Then I look at the others and say, "I'm not a God yet, so if I can pick this stone up, I know y'all can." After I said that, Benji and Beda step up to a stone and pick it up with ease. Then I start a stride and break straight into running with the boulder instead of starting with jogging with it like Zokoso did it when he first started carrying the boulder. "I'm doing it, flame, I'm really doing it... When will the gods let me finally become a god and take my place among the beautiful goddesses who I know would love me? I wonder if they'd treat me like a sister or a friend flame; I guess we'll find out soon, right?" I say, really more to myself than to Flame, who probably could care less; he was already immortal, not to mention extremely cute. When I hit a thousand steps, about ten or fifteen minutes had passed. I made my way back to sensei and found Zokoso already there. He was talking to sensei about the different powers he'd received when he made the choice to become a god, and it seemed to be quite a few that he had gained; Danguzo wouldn't have stood a chance; Zokoso may have even killed him by accident... Even if Danguzo won, I wouldn't have let him assume leadership any way. I would've taken a big bite out of him in my wolf form; maybe I would've taken a leg so he'd always remember his defeat. I'm sure the gods would've restored the leg, but the pain of him losing it would've lasted. He wouldn't make a good leader anyway; as far as I've seen, he's way too serious to be a leader. We'd need someone who can lighten the mood at any given time and still be honest about the real circumstances of whatever situation we might've gotten ourselves into. I drop the boulder, and sensei says, "Not as hard as it looks, huh?" "Piece of cake, sensei." I tell him, and next thing I know, everything slows down around me, and I hear a female voice say, "Become immortal and take your place among the gods, or stay mortal among the humans?" The time had come... "I will take my place among the Gods." I say, and as soon as I do, I feel my forehead get warm, and I feel the wind pick up around me, and the flame holds on a bit tighter, then finally the voice says, "Speak your name, and all shall be final, Air'rima, Goddess of Wind." "Air'rima, Goddess of Wind,"  I say with a gigantic smile on my face. I feel the wind die back down and my forehead isn't warm any more, but I bring my hand up to feel it, and I can feel what must be markings or a tattoo on my forehead, the same thing that happened to Zokoso. "Well, well, well, I didn't hear you clearly; what is your true name?" sensei asks me, but before I can say anything, Zokoso says, "I bet it's a beautiful name fit for a beautiful woman." and I instantly have no control over how red my face gets when he says that, "Air'rima Goddess of Wind."  I say, sensei nods his head in approval, and Zokoso just says, "Beautiful." I thank him, and shortly after all of that, the others start appearing: Beda, then Benji, Jdon, and then Kazumo was right behind them. Beda comes up to ask me, "Sooo, how does it feel?" and I say, "Powerful, maybe unstoppable; I feel like my mind is more clear too; it's a lot of different feelings all at one time." "Sounds like something I'll really be looking forward to once I turn eighteen," she says, then she goes to talk to sensei like all the others. "Next test!" sensei says.

       He then begins to jog in what I thought was a random direction in these dense woods, but after we'd all followed and jogged behind him for about five minutes, we come upon a really small shed and a chair. He briefly vanishes and comes back with six roses. He goes to the door of the small shed, which was a sliding door; it opened with ease as he pushed it open, revealing hundreds of snakes in the shed, but oddly none of them tried to attack sensei. Then he says, "A test or fear, and bravery, or maybe trust?" and "You must bring me one rose... Each of you, somehow, some way," and he begins to throw each of the roses into the shed, making sure not to throw them in the same area. After, he walks over to the chair and sits down, getting really comfortable as if this test would be the longest of them all, but see, this would be a cake walk for me; I could just turn into a snake and retrieve the rose easily. I then felt bad for Beda because she could get bit even if she floats over them, and I'm not sure if we can kill the snakes. But, before I could decide if I would use my shape-shifting ability or if I would try to figure out a different way of getting the rose, Jdon, the one with the gummy skin, steps into the shed first, obviously because he wasn't afraid of being bitten by a snake; with his ability, a snake would probably only tickle him. Quickly,  he comes back out of the shed with a rose, which he then gave to sensei, who seemed pleased to see one of his roses. I think about what sensei said this test was; it was a test of fear and bravery, and he said it could also be a test of trust. I decide to not shape shift, and I step to the door of the shed and hope this is a test that is only to see whether or not we would trust our sensei and that the snakes wouldn't actually attack me, or maybe all the snakes don't have fangs, but I step in and... Nothing happens; I take another step, then another, and before I know it, I was bringing sensei a rose. "Good job," he says with a wink, then he continues to watch the others. One after another, all four of them went into the snake-filled shed and retrieved the roses and gave them to sensei. Once the last rose was retrieved, he left in a blur only to come back a few seconds later with two big duffel bags that seemed reasonably heavy when they hit the ground, but they seemed light when sensei held them. "This will be the third and final test, a test of endurance, skill, and reflexes. I will start off a bit on the slower end, then I'm going to speed it up. I guess we'll call this test DodgeBlade, because that's what you'll be doing, dodging blades." He says as he unzips both of the duffel bags and begins to pull out various different throwing stars. Once he's gathered a few, he starts to throw them at us, aiming at our midsection mostly, but our arms and legs too every so often, and it was easy at the moment because he wasn't even using twenty percent of his speed and strength on us. Everyone except Benji was dodging whatever sensei was throwing at us; he was using his telekinesis to stop the swords, stars, and sai's. After about five minutes of this, sensei stops and says, "Good, any human, Vesh or Kishi soilder wouldn't be able to dodge all of those; now all of you sit down and look around at each other, and Danguzo teleported into our little crooked circle, and he sat down as well." Now, for the rest of the day we will be mediating, silencing your mind. If you want to control your emotions, you'll first have to control your thoughts; it is the only way that you will be able to begin mastering the lotus style, and maybe some of you are wondering why I want you to master this particular ancient style of fighting. Well, that's because all of you... or most of you anyway will fight many battles and many wars throughout many years and thousands of people, or beings you who will not be human." sensei says to us. I close my eyes and begin doing what sensei said we'd be doing for the rest of the day.

I've meditated before, but this time it was different; that voice didn't say I was the goddess of wind for no reason. I felt as though I could physically feel the air around me in a more sensitive way; I felt like I could pull it closer, push it away, or make it sit still, and I could feel the push and pull of everyone's breath. "Air'rima, Vel'mair, you two will feel a number of different things as you immerse deeper and deeper into a state of peace and silence." sensei says, and I wonder what Zokoso is feeling—did he feel like he would turn into an animal or beast? What exactly does it mean to be the God of Beasts? Can he transform into a different beast like me? Or can he create or conjure a beast to come forth and fight for him... "Alright warriors, I'll leave you all to it. Try not to fall asleep tonight, stay awake and aware in your meditation, and keep your mind as blank as possible, or think of one thing that can help you be still for a long time." That was the last thing sensei said to us before he left the room for us to sit and just... Be still for hours, which is really boring if you didn't know, but still for hours, regardless of it being boring or not, we all sat and meditated obediently. I guess we all wanted to respect the sensei or master that the God's, our real parents, assigned to us. Even though Loiko said to clear our minds, I found myself going back to memories that I had experienced when I was really young, and I was basically living and surviving with the wolves that found me and treated me like one of their own even when I was in my humanoid form. A specific memory was constantly jumping to the surface of my mind, which was the first time the wolf, who was the alpha female of the pack, took me hunting for the first time ever. I remember how I caught a little rabbit, and I was so happy, as if I'd caught a deer, but in reality both of the aplha's in the pack could catch a rabbit with their eyes closed and using only one paw to actually grab hold of it by the ears or tail.