Mirror of the Past

Sala 6- Forgive me

After saying goodbye to Daliana who had to work that evening in their family shop, Sala had taken the shortest journey home, moving quickly through the crowds and the park to her quarters in the University. Fear and regret at how careless she had been driving her faster and faster, knowing what she had to do, to seek forgiveness. Her white dress just a bit damp with her sweat and the back of her calf muscles burning and tingling, her feet slightly blistered too from the cobbled paths and her flat shoes providing not much protection from the jagged stones between the cobbles.

Getting into her apartment she flung her bag on her couch and moved swiftly into her bedroom, kicking off her shoes and pulling her dress up over her head and throwing it on to her floor, ignoring it landing in a crumpled heap and focusing on the problem at hand. I've disobeyed him. Was the thought running through her mind, and it left her feeling terrified. She pulled out the box under her bed quickly and opened up the pouch of incense. Please, god. She threw the powder up around her and it ignited almost instantly as the air shimmered around her. Forgive this. She didn't set the relaxing candles out but instead used the smoke produced to focus her senses to a razor sharpness. The colours of the world bending and shifting as the smoke made its way through her lungs, through her blood.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed she felt a wave of nausea hit her, almost making her sag over and lie down, but she kept her back straight and focused on the air around her. Within her room it was clean, her scent and her presence thick and heavy, reassuring. Breathing in through her nose, nice and deep, and exhaling through her mouth she focused on the darkness beneath her eyelids. Please forgive me. She chanted over and over again in her mind, thinking back to the casual display of her gifts a mere few sun's hands ago, and how she should never have done that. Please.

She thought back to the lesson an old disappointment had taught her years ago. "Breath slowly and let the air around you take you in, let the darkness you see but never see hold you in its embrace. Here you will find peace. Here you will find him. He will always listen but he may never act, he can't always do so." The voice of the memory almost as clear as the day it was said to her. She let herself fall into the darkness, just above the stage of sleep, her body tense and rigid, her mind relaxing slowly sitting on the darkness like a boat above a gentle sea, bobbing and resting as the storm of her worry passed over for the time being.

She let the air around her shimmer, her blood singing as she asked the darkness to come to her. It came slowly, almost tentative. Then as it recognised who she was it came quicker, wrapping itself around her in an almost loving embrace. She poured her fear and her regret at her use of her powers so casually, expecting the darkness to punish her, as it had done before, one long scar down her back, hidden with a powder that never came off.

The darkness moved back, and Sala braced her mind for the punishment to come. Being blessed by a god carried a weight of responsibility, to make the world better she couldn't manipulate the lives of another without just cause. The darkness shifted, becoming sharper, almost like a blade. It came forward, from everywhere, towards her back. Sala's mind tensed again, waiting, always waiting for what would happen next. Yet nothing did. The darkness surrounded her again gently, one word seen but unseen, heard but unheard. Relax. It poured through her mind and through her body, her blood screaming with delight as more power flooded into her. She had been forgiven, and no punishment was forthcoming. The shadows in the darkness turned to look at her, she saw her past. She saw the man who had taught her to commune with the darkness, with her god, her fa-

A sudden shift in the darkness left her disorientated, not knowing how to escape, to pull back into her mind, she fell downwards, plunging into it. AHHH! Her mind screamed to no avail. She was sinking, she had no anchor to the real world above, falling into the depths of madness as many priests had done so, searching for more power than they could ever handle. Her mind screamed out to any that would hear her. Nothing could, nothing wanted to. Please! Images of three men came to her, one incredibly old, incredibly powerful but lost in the darkness forever, she could never let that happen to her. The next older than her, pain written on his back, in his eyes and a voice seeking redemption. A younger, untainted, naïve and still just a young boy with wide eyes as he cried without knowing what was happening to him.

The darkness pushed her up, its effort causing tears through its very being, sending her back to reality at the expense of itself. Stop! She screamed. Don't be destroyed for me! She saw it shimmer, break apart, a world of fire behind it, shadows shifting with the flames that were calling to her to burn. To feed it. To let it burn through the darkness and engulf another world in flames. Fear coursed through her, turning her blood to ice and her essence a pale shadow of itself. Please! She screamed once again, images of Daliana coming to her, things unsaid, times together wasted, the future wasted. The incense was leaving her body, her last vestige of hope fleeing from her.

The darkness heaved its strength once again, pushing her forward. Something coiled around her body, a green light, a healing tendril of life itself. It pulled her back to her reality, pulled her from the darkness that collapsed upon itself to once more smother the flames that tried to break out. The tendril pulled and pulled her, she left the darkness and once more sat upon it. A green light in front of her, a mirror of herself, shattered and pieced together with hundreds of cracks. It disappeared as quickly as it came before her, leaving her alone once again. Relief flooded her body and a voice came into her head again, disapproving and stern. "When you fall, nothing you can do can save you. He can't take care of two worlds at once. That's your job. To keep the past from coming back. Let the mirror reflect the flames. Let the past be hidden. Fail and you'll burn." He had taught her the dangers and the benefits of her gift. "Never fall Sala." He had taught her pain and caused her to receive the scar, after making her use her gifts for no justifiable benefit. He had endured more than what she did, yet he cared little for her. He betrayed her to travel North, where he was taken prisoner and executed for his crimes against the High King. He hadn't even said goodbye. The innocent boy had cried as he had left her too, his duty worth more to him than she was. She had cried for years, but Daliana had cured her of grief.

Coming back into the world of reality, she glimpsed something in the darkness, another stirring. This time more violent, a lot more violent. Fear swept through the darkness itself, yet a sense of helplessness came with it. Coming back to her bed, she wiped the droplets of sweat from her brow, her arms and her legs. She stood up wobbling and weak, and made her way to her cabinet. Pulling out a bottle of wine, she popped the cork and took a long swallow. Another lesson the disappointment had taught her. The fear fading as the contents of the bottle faded. She had been forgiven, that was all that mattered to her now. She would pray to her god again tonight, and treasure the gifts she had even more. She didn't want to be in that horrible situation again.