Fall

Dreams of the Future, Songs of the Night

At first, it was all billowing silk. Black, black silk. Moving like waves on the sea. The movements were so natural, it seemed to be a sea of black. But I knew that it was the beginning of a vision.

I've had them since I was 3 years old, every night. I guess it came with being a Chosen One. Some were fanciful, filled with magic and dresses. Others were filled with despair, and sadness. This one was beautiful.

The silk began to zoom out and I saw a girl. About 16, with waist-length curly fire red hair. Just like me. Except she carried herself with a confident air, unlike mine, and was much more beautiful. She had porcelain skin, and gold bracelets decorating her forearm. The image focused behind her, and you could see the faint outline of a fortress. No, a palace. A silver palace, with waterfalls and gardens on each balcony, and wonderful music playing. I wanted to feel it, to embrace it, so badly. But something was holding me back.

The woman turned around, and said: "Embrace the fall!"

The vision vanished, and I woke up.

It was always the same. Every time, it was so beautiful, so perfect, and I just wanted to touch it. But I couldn't. And I knew what was holding me back.

The Fall. It was the right of passage for every Chosen. The plunge off the Great Cliff where the Chosen shed their mortal skin, and developed rainbow wings with our divine bodies. The legendary moment when we learned our Divine Name and became a god. But that would never come. No.

I was too fragile, too weak, too stupid. Huh, story of my life. Since I could talk, people criticized me. Talk louder, eat quieter, walk slower, be more elegant!. Every day, over and over.

I. Was. Sick of it!

I just wished that they would leave me alone. But I knew that that was not possible. It was the job of the community to prepare me for the Fall, when I would become my predestined divine body. Personally, I thought it was all a publicity stunt for the priests. The last time the Great Cliff had been implicated in anything was 47 years ago when a teenage boy was pushed off the Cliff. Nobody ever saw him again.

I guess being a god would be cool. I definitely would be a Mystik god. You see, there are two types of gods in our Pantheon: Mystik gods who wield magic, like Zandria the goddess of death, and Weapons gods, like Arbor the god of combat. I was always good at Magic, while practicing with The Stone Witch.

Ah, The Stone Witch. She was my first mentor, before she was banished on charges of blasphemy. I never saw her again. Now my mentor was Krishana, the Chief Mistress of the Temple. She was the most stuck up snob as there was.

I was extremely tired and desperately wanted a good night's sleep, so I began humming a tune taught to me by the Stone Witch. It was a melodious piece of music, and was designed to calm and pacify. 

"The trick to singing," she often said. "Is to imbue a little magic in every note."

I had always followed that advice, even now, in the depths of the night. Carefully, almost un-noticeably,  I pushed a drop of my power into the lines, weaving strands of space and time together.

Over and over, I sang, "Labhair dom, codladh dhuit, oíche de thine, a bheith dorcha mianach, cré go n-ardóidh, lá a bás" quietly, until I started to feel its affects working.

I was hit by a sudden wave of drowsiness, not at all unwelcomed. It slowly consumed me, until I stuggled to keep up the tune. But I needed to, or else the arms of bliss would not take me in. 

Sleep is a funny thing. As a baby, sleep was your number one priority. When you're an eager, exuberant child, you hate it and want nothing to do with it. While going through adolescence you either stay up all night, or sleep in everyday. 

But now, sleep was a necessity. I had been having various premonitions of things to come over the last few days, and I deperately wanted to give my subconsious a chance of figuring them out. If my concious couldn't do it, I had to give in to my magic, and let it work it's course.

By now I was merely whispering the chant at intervals, chopped up, and slow. It slowly pushed out of the realm of reality, and into the land of infinite possibilities: my dreams.

It was a very sad day for me, when with all my magical powers, I had to abandon myself to a theoretical state of mind to solve my porblem.

When sleep came, I drrifted off into the hands of Nyx, and, sadly, dreamt no more.