The wisp felt diminutive at the edge of the stairs, peering down into the veiled depths below. Nera spoke of slaying gods and overcoming challenges and saving worlds. What power did it possess to do any of these things? Below those stairs, it was certain, only waited a miserable end. It tore the void from its sight, looking instead to the goddess that eyed the small throng. There wasn’t an ounce of deceit in her voice, just a sincerity that she was well and truly expecting the impossible of them.
“…I wish to know the names of my beloved chosen. So that I may treasure it forever...”
The deity reached a hand towards the wisp, who again felt a pang of terror. It found itself unable to move, despite its predicament, could only watch a black talon ascend and fall at the center of its mass. Rather than a shot of pain, it felt a coolness radiate from the touch that seemed to permeate throughout its being. Nera retracted her hand, and the wisp looked down to see an inky sigil where it had been touched.
It began to lapse back into a calmer state, still at ease, but assured that Nera had not just consigned it to a very short and painful demise. But the next moment it felt a great jolt from within, an immense pressure trying to wretch itself free. The wisp writhed in the air, tendrils of light flailing. There was one, two, three, and then a forth extension dancing outward from the center of its mass.
While the wisp convulsed, new sensations began to fill what passed for its mind. Visions, sounds and other senses fired off one after another: memories it realized. Scenes played out like a dream: the shouting of men, the roar of waves, the sting of a fist to the face. It felt immense fatigue and pain wracking its nerves, hunger welling in the pit of its stomach. It saw bolts of lighting and heard the crash of thunder. It’s wrists and ankles were heavy with the weight of manacles and the flesh was red and raw where they bit into it.
No, it thought. Not again! You can’t take me again! No, no, no, no!
And then, the memories subsided. They were still there, but the wisp was no longer forced to watch them play out. It heaved, and felt the rush of air in its lungs, and could feel its fingers flex and its toes planted on the ground. It blinked, remembering what it was like to see with real eyes. It looked down at itself, and gasped.
It was acutely aware of its form. A tangible body and all the parts that it had once possessed. But there was a faint translucency to it. It could see the blurred form of Nera through its palm, the grey of the stones through its feet. It didn’t feel heavy, either. Bending its arms and turning its head had a weightlessness to it, almost like being underwater. As it moved its hand, left a soft glow through the air, like an afterimage.
The wisp was about to open its mouth to speak, but one final revelation unfurled in its mind, one that tied all the rest together and gave it a sense of purpose.
“Ezain,” it said aloud. “That’s my name.”
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