Echoes of Forgotten Wings

Chapter 24: The Echoes of Wings

Despite the passage of time, the village, which had once been battered by the storm and subsequent occurrences, started residing once more. What had been lost was not buried in the sands of time, but the wounds of the bygone period had scarred over both in the land and in the people. The houses, reinforced and tougher than before, spoke of survival, of the village's will to stand up once more against the destruction. Lands that had been desolate and burnt were green again, with the glorious colors of their rich harvest waving gently in the breeze.

And it was Ivo who occupied central position in all this.

He had, as all people do, succumbed to the ravages of time but not merely in the sense of changing with the seasons. The boyish countenance which had once been his had over the years gone through a gradual transformation into that of a man, manning up to the challenges of age. The Skyborn tattoo on his skin had long been outgrown, however, it's residue remained deep within him, a silent and unseen burden that he offered almost reverently. A leader he had become, but not from any ambition he had driven himself to. The people who were once afraid of him and even regarded him as a madman, began to look up to him as a leader, for in him they found the strength that was born from hardship. The bravado of youth where decisions were made on the spur of a moment was no longer his as careful consideration based on fundamental lessons learned from the worst times took precedence.

The village thrived under his guidance. There was tranquility now, an easy sense that wrapped itself around the region like a gentle quilt. The village children who were too small to remember the storm and the feared flood at all, roamed safely within the fields full of laughter while conceiving of who was most successful at running across the slips of grass. They only knew the history through the most basic of accounts – heard from their grandparents about the witches that had once boarded the villages over turning the whole world inside out. In as much as Ivo was an effective leader, he was also a caretaker.

Though he had always strolled about when the day's responsibilities came to an end, and the sun was now a little low in the sky; Ivo would sometimes catch himself lingering lonely near the woods at the farthest point where Kael had been held captive. The cave in its location remained, even if the MD could not quite wear the nearest labeled chains since the last of them shattered decades earlier. Time put a thicker coat courtesy of the wild, as stones where plants were creeping in and a thick layer of soft grass splayed on the ground that once had Kael's feet. It was serene at the moment, a meditative center rather than a cell.

Ivo would lean there, burdened by the years that had amassed over him, and stay silent.

In such laborous moments, where the trees timidly swayed in the gentle breeze as if the entire universe was caught in a state of suspension, there was always the sound that reached out to him - the sound of wings. It was a sound that felt rather elusive, somewhere at the back of one's consciousness, yet it was enough to awaken something that lay buried deep in him. It was not the rustle of Kael's wings, or the magic of an enchanting presence that had once permeated the atmosphere. This sound was less loud, even tender – it was the sound of something that continued to exist beyond the blurring lines of consciousness.

The remnants gave way to thoughts of the Skyborn. Of the kind which craved the skies but were forever chained on the ground instead. To Kael, the warrior who fought for so much, only to obtain a freedom he had felt was already lost. But mostly they were about the cost of the existence that he, Ivo so painstakingly, cherished – the cost of life, incorporating everything that has been for the sake of the hope that is yet to come.

In those days, when Ivo had done well to rebuild his life after the storm, he sometimes wondered if he made the right decision. The yearning for wing still burned inside. Deep within, he had still wanted to rise above the thick layers of cloud, feel the wind below him, and be an unfettered being that no man was ever meant to be. But that aspiration had been extinguished the very day when Kael's wings turned to dust, along with the painful understanding that some liberties are not worth the price.

It had taken time for him reconciled with that. His Kurta was here, on the earth, where the people whose lives he committed himself to safeguard dwell. The Skyborn did run deep with him, of course. However, they had left together with the history they once knew.

Stories among the villagers circled around Ivo's insight and how he managed to help them through the storms that followed, especially the last one. They did not witness the episodes, however, where he would stand at the edge of the wood, listening to the silence filled with echoes of wings long gone. Not once did they find out about the quiet sadness that occasionally occupied his mind- that of a desire for something which was lost to him like grains of sand swaying in the wind.

But even in such pain of desire, there was tranquility.

The villagers were safe. In a sense, he had saved the world by making sure that no forces, which should not be in existence ever again, ever returned. And in that way, the affliction of the Skyborn- the affliction he inherited from his fathers- was lifted. It was a burden alleviated for himself and for those who were to come. For the children running in the meadows, that burden of history would not be passed down. They would grow up untouched by the darkness that had long lay over their people.

Ivo, of course, was aware that this would suffice.

Over the course of several years, what had once been loud and clear, became quieter, and quieter, and eventually, it became merely part of the background, the real world's ongoing pulse. Spells of the wind still brought remnants of silvery sound, resembling wings, yet something in Ivo had lost its compulsion to ascend - the ground held him hostage, and his past-touched heart had found its rightful orientation - among the living.

In the background, the sun was already bidding farewell, disappearing behind the mountains and painting the village with a pleasing golden hue. Ivo's focus shifted from the trees, and he shuffled back, slow but consonant, towards the town. Dusk painted the valleys in front of him as the sound of playful children rang through the air with joy, as images of green fields with paddy crops and tender dark soil.... looking in the evening sky.

The normal sounds of wings would always be with him, an echo of the flight that had once been possible, and the one who had saved them all. But now, as he advanced towards his volk – towards his very own home – he comprehended something which he had not previously grasped.

There is no such thing as soaring into the air and being free. There is only freedom in the extent of choices, in the quality of life enjoyed by such and the peace that is there for those that come after.

In this, Ivo found herself a freedom that went beyond any wild dreams of taking to the sky. It was not the painless cadence of gliding through the air, neither was it the intoxicating feeling of power but there was something more profound— a freedom that came from acceptance, from the courage of just being. All this while, he had pictured freedom as a means of escape, as wings that would take him above the ground, evening out the struggles, evading the oppressive weight of the scars within. But here, he stood motionless under a cloud-studded sky reminiscent of recent rains and came to understand this variant of liberation as a matter of the mind, which is kept composed rather than seeking anything above.

This liberation did not shine with the splendor he had once desired; it was a dying coal, a comforting heat, gentle and everlasting. It was the freedom of taking a pilgrimage, not to achieve the unreachable zenith, nor for an excursion but for the sake-off walking, because only he has the right to do so, to find his own errors, and his own reality. It appeared to him however, that liberation was not a place one goes to, but rather a liberation that happened within oneself, a dissolution of all the apprehensions and uncertainties that previously blurred the outlook.

The freedom he was experiencing was muted yet effective, a quiet determination that helped him look out into the world with new, unclouded eyes. He did not need to reach for the heavens or face challenges just to show how capable he was. Instead, he could opt to go ahead simply for the fulfillment of going ahead, to look for something, not for destiny's calling, but because one was free to be so if they wished.

And for the first time in his life, he felt exceedingly lightweight in that moment, not because he could take the skies, but because he was not expected to. All forms of expectation — his and that of others — had vanished leaving with him an unshakeable sense of stillness and inner power. He felt renewed and more secure than when he had been up in the clouds because the ground was solid and unyielding.