Echoes of Forgotten Wings

Chapter 23: The Feather Falls

It was still breezy or rather accommodating with wind as if nature were complacent after the anger of the skies. Ivo was at the jungle's brim, studying a plume that he had in his hand. It had once been a view binding all with skies in its shiny mythic elegance of yore, power which was Lost among the Skyborn. All that was left now was the color blue, with its delicate contours jagged, turning gray from the original white degenerated.

His fingers relaxed and when the feather dropped from his hand, it slipped and drifted down for a long time before settling down at his feet. For one brief instant, he remained still, staring at the soft object on the floor. It seemed so banal now, like it is, any other garden-variety forest bird's wing covering. The enchantment that gave it life, and the legendary magic that once tied him to the Skyborn and their heritage was irretrievable.

'No, Ivo,' He released a long, slow breath that gained volume as it appeared to come from the deep bowels of the being. He had imagined that when the magic was lost in him, sadness over will be present, or, even worse, fear for the power which was no longer in him. But accompanied this inner perception was not sadness nor elation, but rather some rather deep and strange tranquility, as if the psycho-evidence came only after the great and long-lasting duel. The menace of that feathery thing, both in a literal and a deeper sense, was no more, and hence the weariness that came from the responsibility of a Skyborn lineage.

Bending over, he reached for the feather and his fingertips skimmed the wearied object ever so gently. There had been no fire, no buzz of power. It was as if the spirit of the Skyborn had died with Kael, leaving nothing but shadows and traces of a history no more present.

The aspiration of flight— the torment that filled his nights and made him restless— was over. He remembered it vividly: gliding anywhere away from the grips of gravity, and most especially, away from the dull bondage of the village. And now standing at the end of it all, Ivo understood that it had never been Andrei's dream. It was Kael's, the Skyborn's, and their time was long gone. He had carried their hope, their burden, but they did not make him one of them.

He was a man, or still a man. And man, with all his imperfections and weaknesses, was always earthbound.

Ivo stood up, and scanned the distance. The turmoil had cleared the haze and dirt, rendering the place new and fresh, almost as though the entire universe had reset. People had gone back to hiding in their houses, repairing the destruction and looking for the remaining pieces of their lives. The doubts and insistent whispers that had once constrict him where all but quiet acceptance; There were no longer terror in their eyes.

He was feeling more buoyant, as though the very atmosphere had altered to one of rejuvenation. After what seemed like a long long while, the burden of being an heir to all his ancestor's mistakes was no longer there. The spell was lifted - not in the sense he had been accustomed to - not with the boastful return of the Skyborn to the firmament - but in a way that gave solace not only to him but also to the whole universe.

Ivo couldn't help but think of Kael, the very last of the Skyborn who had watched while his majestic wings turned to ashes in the very air he reigned supreme. There was no pomp and jubilation in Kael's last days, not a heroic ascent into the clouds. It was a slow-motion, sad kind of death, which reminded everyone that some histories do have an expiry and that not all heritages can or ought to be preserved. The Skyborn had been people of a different age, of a different planet and while they had wished to aspire once more to their past glory, the sad reality was that the age had evolved and so had its occupants.

The pinion at his feet represented the final fragment of that old tale, a reminder of a hope too many carried deep inside for too many years, yet could never realize. And with the understanding that these trials must be accepted, Ivo felt that abandoning such a dream was the last stage in completing that process.

For the last time, he bent down, picking up the feather carefully. He raised his hand and flung it out widely. The wind caught it, taking it aloft and over the expanse of the land for a brief time it floated before being lost into the subsequent trees.

Ivo was overwhelmed by the feeling as the object turned out of sight. There was no more magic, no more curse, no more burden of what was or rather had been the Skyborn – just him; rooted rather firmly, somewhere on this planet, at this point in time. Past was no longer his prison, nor was he shackled to the future that was not meant for him.

And yet, in the tranquil minutes he could not find himself feeling hollow. There was something that may not have been magic but more humanistic in nature. It was the realization of liberation — of being free, free the way it is meant to be, 'completely and absolutely,' he thought to himself. Free not as he once imagined, with wings, soaring and flying in an infinity of blue sky but deeper, more profound.

He was now in a position to craft his way forward, liberated from the guilt of his forefathers or the forgotten history caste upon him. The mysteries were still many and the terrain still uncharted and Ivo was not anxious about it – this time not as a Skyborn but as Ivo himself.

The first rays of the sun warmed up the stretched out fields and for the first time after ages, Ivo felt like smiling.

The ornamental plume was no longer present, but he could still be seen deposited in the prone view within the fog he had always recognized, suffering the loss of a layer as if it had been a dark shadow hidden from him. It was as if the thing had departed and thus annihilated something abstract about him that then left only a void. However, he discovered that within the silence, he was neither feeble nor enfeebled. No, he was stronger now, with an inner calm where the plume's glow used to be.

He reached out to the section of air it occupied and tried to grasp it, mirroring a man who has lost something warm. After the loss, also visions, sounds- and that weighted presence was out of reach, yet that did not leave him inept. It was deeper than a sensation, he recalled, that when some clarity having penetrated the veil of the external reality after the removal of excess stir.

While in the process of standing in that hush, he thought the experience was not only about downtown or its explained ancient powers; it was more of a challenge laid upon himself concerning how much he understood himself outside the assigned functions. The plume was gone, but he still stood there, in his heart, he possessed the courage and the power that had previously been a mere ember deep inside him.

irection, the purpose, the end, the clear point to which all his efforts were directed was turning more and more into an interior aspect, a process that he would realize in his motion rather than to be at the end of the motion.

The plume had reoriented him, illuminating the way, yet such a light had also acted as a binding force, to a character that he did not entirely own. Now, with that binding force destroyed, an unaccustomed sense of ease settled in his heart. What had previously felt like an oppressive weight with no end in sight now felt like the prospect that one could go somewhere but not just anywhere rather where one wants with apprehension and bravery born from the heart.

He inhaled the refreshing wind, which filled his lungs with the chilly atmosphere scented with the moist soil and the creatures that were hidden in the darkness. It did feel like he was sucking in all the content from the entire environment, the silence which was intermittently broken by the shadows, the dormant vibration of life that was still present but hiding. It was an inhale that brought a different sense of life into him, a more profound sense that stemmed from the enigma and the determination that was growing within him.

He advanced with his foot for the first time, not towards a known destination but in the doorway of the abyss, the open space beyond. The plane of existence that he entered was lightless, a formless void like a night sky dotted with no stars, squeezed in all directions and yet, he felt no fear. There was even transience in that abruptness – in the capacity to illuminate that vast expanse with his very own radiance – his very own decisions.