DENEVIEUH,
The Forest of Erydria,
2420AA.
"Give her to me." for a moment, Jharey hesitated. "Please." Havillah begged and Mima piped in as well.
"Please Jharey."
He shook his head.
"If you hurt her anymore... "
"Jharey!" Mima scolded.
The man looked at the bundle in his hands and sighed. Fresh tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Why did he have to be so helpless? He was supposed to be the mayor. The one with all the answers.
"Please Jharey." she told him and he turned to look at her silver eyes.
"Fine. " he sighed as he hang his head in defeat. "Please help her."
"I will try my best." Havillah reassured him with a sad smile. She sat on the bed and took the girl from his arms. She had begged him to let her help them, but what was she to do now? She thought as she closed her eyes and began pumping crystals into the girl's system. She had tried before, but she still tried again. There must have been something that she had missed. She thought as her hands started to glow and the little body as well.
She could see her lymphatic system, her nervous system and the most obvious was her circulatory system. She had checked everything, but there was nothing. No physical abnormalities or signs of illness. So why was she not waking up?
"Come on little girl." She coerced, whisperingas her eyes watered with tears. What was she missing? She grew desperate. The girl's skin under her arms was cold and leathery. Her heartbeat was still there but her breathing was barely there. It was obvious that her condition was getting worse and in her present state, Havillah's was also useless.
"Help me. " she whispered to her Guide and hoped that he would guide her. If not for her, for the sake of the little girl that was slowly dying out in her hands. No, not dying. She remembered what Jharey had told her. She was slowly turning into one of them, and Havillah's heart broke as she imagined that girl as one of the Sleepers.
"What do you see? " her Guide answered.
"Physically, she seems okay and there are no blockages. " she replied but even as she said this, Havillah doubted herself. Physically okay? She almost laughed at that as she considered the child's very frail physical form. "There must be something I am missing." She added as she thought back to the dimness of the girl's body that was akin to Selene's but different at the same time. Yet, there were no blockages in her conduit system.
"There is more to a person than the physical body, you must be aware." Her Guide replied.
"There is the mind, the body and the spirit."
"Exactly, and what did you learn about your encounter with this terror? "
She tried to remember.
"You mean that attack from the other day? I was asleep. I thought I was dreaming, but when I came to, there were those wounds on my hands."
They were healed now but she could still remember the stinging pain from the grazed skin of her hands.
"What can you infer from that? "
He was turning this into a lesson. Havillah grimaced as her mind began to work overtime, but with the girl in her arms and the urgency of the situation it was nearly impossible. She found that she was too conscious of the time and of her condition to come up with anything substantial.
"Please, can we not turn this into a lesson? " she begged. Like always, the voice did not answer her. He was always stubborn like that, but what did she expect from a being that had hurt a person just to prove a point to her?
Finally, she breathed out a defeated sigh as she forced her mind to go back in time. "The mind is a bridge that allows the Other to manifest in this physical plane. For the Great, this bridge is usually open but in humans it is somewhat clogged? But they attacked me in my dream? " she spoke out loudly as she tried to connect the two incidences. "Night terrors are dreams. Terrible dreams. Therefore, this terror is a terror of dreams?" she questioned as her mind turned over all the she information that she had gathered up to that point. "And those tendrils are connected to those voices...Voices that induce sleep and terrible dreams?" But when it came to how the dreams were connected to the Other. There she became stuck.
"Try to remember how you dispersed them at that time. " the voice finally decided to help her.
"I can only remember shouting something." Both times she recalled. She had also been feeling something and quite strongly at that. When she had spoken, a light had broken out and engulfed the darkness. "Therefore, there is feeling and there is thought. The heart and the mind and the mind is therefore the bridge!" She exclaimed as she transferred her free hand from the girl's chest to her head. If she needed to see into the Other, then the body would never be the key. It being a vessel of this plane it would always limit her. So she focused on the one place that she knew was housing both the conscious and the unconscious thought.
At first, she could see nothing beyond a network of a misfiring nervous system and it frustrated her to no end as time was also running out. Try as she may the patterns remained as they had been before and she could almost hear the voice sigh in her mind.
"Dreams." it gave in the way of a hint.
"What am I supposed to do with that? " she almost growled out with frustration. Was there really a way to tap into another person's dreams?
"Open your eyes Havillah."
"Open my eyes?" she was now incensed. "You-" she began to snap back and then, it finally hit her. She did not need physical eyes in order to have dreams.That was what it meant.
Essentially dreams were how her mind communed with her heart. But there was something else. She suspected. However, the was no time for the researcher in her to sift through everything. For now she knew what was expected of her. What the voice had been trying to tell her. For largely, her dreams were connected to her feelings and empathy was one other way that one could see into anothers heart or in this case, their feelings.
This changed her perspective of the whole thing and she calmed down as she focused on feeling. There was something there, she realised as she felt the tag on her heart. Slowly, she separated her own feelings and focused on what she felt was foreign. Suddenly, the feelings overwhelmed her even as dark images flooded her senses.
It was all dark and grey and there was so much cold and fear and anxiety. Havillah detested it. She did not want any of it. No, she began to reject it, but she did not know how to escape it.
"Focus! Do not allow yourself to be swallowed up." A voice called out and Havillah stilled in her confusion.
"Focus." she repeated the words. What did she want? "Light." she thought out loudly as she remembered everything she had been told and had found out through her own revelations. The purpose of the voices was to create mental suggestions and in doing so, they directed thought. After thought came the spoken word that was necessary in almost all Modi. The emotions and the convictions of the heart acting as a fuel that propelled these seeds from the Other to the physical plane.
She had succeeded to some extent in finding the bridge to Sophir's heart, even without her speaking her mind or expressing her thoughts and dreams to her. But what was she to do next?
"This kind of terror preys on the mind. Therefore, in humans, the little connection that is there between the Other and the physical plane is also gradually lost."
"How am I supposed to help then? "
"By being the Bridge yourself. However, I must warn you that you will bear the full brunt of all the attacks made on her. You attempted to do so before when you entered her atmosphere."
"That was her atmosphere? " Not that she knew what that was.
"You felt what some may call Aura and were able to see or feel through the lens of her eyes. In short, for a moment you were in her shoes and you felt what she was going through."
"Empathy." Havillah thought back. She now had an idea as she had read of the trait that was now lost with the Ancients. But wasn't it a part of the Modi from the third virtue or in this case the true First Virtue? Apparently, Modi from that Virtue were not something that one could learn. Otherwise, the virtue would not have been lost. "Then how do I help her without being swallowed up?" she finally asked.
"You need to be aware of yourself to be able to separate your own emotions from hers, and you also need to understand what exactly it is you need to do for her before you begin to achieve anything."
"Right." Havillah could still feel the cold and the darkness. It had overwhelmed her and thinking back, she now knew what she wanted to do for her. Therefore, she delved in once again as she projected those thoughts and feelings. What Sophir now needed was Light and warmth. A never ending Light like the Hope of Triberias. She thought as she infused her Second Virtue. She did not know who had created the Hope but as a Great, she could still create Hope Crystals. Smaller than the Hope though, but effective nonetheless.
Would it work? Was she doing it the right way? She wondered if it was okay to bring something physical into Other plane. What was she even thinking? Hope crystals were originally of the Other plane and the crystal form was just one of the physical manifestations of the second Virtue.
Havillah could mostly understand what she now had to do, but a small part of it still eluded her. How was she supposed to become a bridge for another person? Did it mean that she needed to lie down there and act like some kind of pathway? And how did one even insert themselves into the Other? No wonder she had problems with the First Virtue. For what she could not understand, she could not see and what she could not see in her mind therefore she could not create.
It did not matter anyway, she thought deciding to throw caution to the wind. What was the worst that could happen? If she did nothing, Sophir would be lost anyway but at least, if she tried something, there was still a chance that it would somehow work.
"Bridge." she spoke out loudly. Sometimes she needed to hear her own voice in order to gain new inspiration. "Become a Bridge." and the bridge was the mind. In essence, she needed to think for Sophir? No, she finally decided. What was needed was to make the important decisions for her. The decisions that right now, she couldn't make. "Like a stand in!" she finally got it. And Like stand in she would take responsibility for her actions as that obnoxious voice had once implied.
"Fine." Havillah thought as she envisioned light in the form of a hope crystal.
"Light! " she found herself saying with much conviction even as the darkness resisted her. "Light! " she insisted, growing irate and desperate and suddenly, a light shot out in the darkness of Sophir's heart? Mind? She could not tell which and right now, it did not matter. That was food for thought for another day. For like a shooting star, the small light travelled through the darkness that Havillah could now see was actually foglike. It struggled within the dark clouds and Havillah feared that it would become extinguished. As she thought this, it became dimmer and at one point, it almost died out.
" Grow!" She suddenly cried out as the rules of the Modi of both the First and the Second Virtue came to mind. Doubt and despair. She could not afford such feelings and Fear was a poison. She had to let go and hold on to her confidence. Therefore, she willed it to grow. To become bigger and to her delight it responded to her command. The dying embers sparked back to life and spread warmth in that very cold place. Now, Havillah could see and her old nemesis reared up its head or heads again as it tried to fight her.
Yellow eyes glared back at her. Black maws dripping with venomous saliva surrounded her. It seemed that they did not like the light and her presence there. In fact, they were treating her like an intruder. Like a foreign entity in a place they were entitled to.
Suddenly, it all made sense. The purpose of those tendrils. With their suggestive whispers, they wore down their victims and when their guard was finally down, the terrors invaded and took over the mind for their territory. This was necessary since they had no physical body, she finally realised. It was the only way that they could do actual harm from the Other plane. She finally put two and two together as she thought on the next course of action.
She could finally see where she could not do so before, then what?
"You... " a voice hissed. "You... " It multiplied. It seemed that they recognized her. "You... " they growled as one, venom dripping and Havillah was surprised to see it fall and wear out the clean white room that she had just created. Where the venom touched the pristine white floor it disintegrated in a wisp of black smoke leaving an opening for the dark fog to once again seep in.
It seemed that creating Light was simply not enough. She also needed to cast them out. Like parasites, they had invaded Sophir's bridge and now, it was her responsibility to wipe them.
"You... Get out! " they hissed at her, circling her as they prepared to launch at her.
Could they really do harm to her? Havillah wondered even as they jumped as one to attack her. Reflexively, Havillah lifted an arm to defend herself. She closed her eyes and waited for the impact. For the pain that was sure to come, but there was nothing. She slowly opened her eyes and a familiar scene was laid out before her.
"The hedge, even here? " The wolves that were no longer shadow continued attacking. Until, they finally realised that their attacks were not working, courtesy of the barrier erected around her that destroyed any and every terror that came anywhere close to her. However, unlike with the locusts and the wall of blue death, there were no bodies to be found here. All that touched the barrier disippated into dark vapour never to be seen again.
Having seen the decimation of their brethren, the terrors now kept their distance. However, that didn't not stop the venom from dripping to the floors and admitting new fog that carried in fresh terrors. In fact, with every terror that was decimated another was admitted to their ranks such that they were now at a stalemate.
"What to do?" Havillah wondered. She was safe within the Hedge but Sophir's bridge was not. She had no weapons to fight with and it made her wonder what she was required to do at that point. Was there anything she could use? She looked around. Could she create a weapon? She shook her head no. All that came to her mind was a kitchen knife. However, considering the barrier the range of that weapon was quite short, unless she decided to throw it. There was also the kind of weapons that Killion and his team carried, but Havillah could not handle any of them.
"You can always banish them." the voice suddenly said just as she began to think how hard it would be to create something that she could not understand.
"How?" she asked even as a memory of her own banishment came to mind.
"After all this time you should have noticed that words carry power."
"Right." She responded feeling quite stupid. What was wrong with her today? Why could she not process these things fast enough? And a life was at stake here.
"So, I should just compel them to leave?" It sounded too simple. In fact, it sounded like some of the more annoying Modi in the First Virtue and having confidence in the ridiculous was not a thing she had really mastered.
"Do you want to save her life or not?"
"But? "
"Not everything you do has to be as complicated as the Second Virtue. You understand that because it rewards your effort, but there is a place where your own efforts will not matter and it will boil down to whether you accept things or not. In fact, there are many things you will not understand, but that does not mean that they do not or cannot exist."
"So you want me to just ask them to leave? Surely, after all that fighting you think they will just up and leave? "
For a moment there was no answer and then there was a sigh.
"What you think or what I think should not matter. Sometimes, the scope of your imagination can limit you and this is where help is accorded to you. It does not matter how it happens. Just believe with all your heart that it will work out and maybe it just will. There need not be any explanation. After all, you are not meant to understand everything."
"So I am just supposed to say it and mean it? "
There was no answer and even as she tried to figure out what to do next, she noticed that she was quickly running out of time.
"Fine! Just Leave!" She uttered, already tired of everything. It did not make sense, but what else could she do? For a moment the terrors hesitated and it annoyed her to think that they did not acknowledge her or did they not think her to be serious. "I said, leave! "
A wave of power suddenly burst out from her and expanded outside the range of the invisible shield that had been guarding her. It swept outwards and as it did so, the terrors screeched as they tried to free, but it was futile.
"Ophiria! Ophiria! " she heard the name spoken over and over again.
"Wait! Who is Ophiria?"
"Ophiria! Ophiria wttho sends us." and with that, the last of the fog and the shadow wolves finally disipated.