This time, in 0 a. Rift in Calandhor Tindrall, close to the rift separating Lumiar from Korstone, Leara has a vision that we are seeing through her head.
She was surprised by a Corrupted Soul, a creature she had never seen before. She acted without thinking, throwing a wall of heat on the ugly creature, which screams in pain and delusion. Only for a short moment, Leara looked into the eyes of the creature, she saw the panic, the small rest of humanity in its eyes that are mirroring the flames that devoured all of its body.
It wanted help from her, but she couldn't do anything, just watch it burn. Suddenly, there was fire everywhere around her, more creatures crying about their end that was reaching them. There was her foster mother, falling down to the ground. She sunk into the earth, directly before a gravestone that had the name "Gwenn" written onto it. Leara knew that grave for a few years know, but even the grave started burning as she looked at it.
The fires grew bigger and bigger, and suddenly, a giant creature formed out of the dead burning bodies, a hound like the ones Leara knew from tales about the dark realm of Cathak. The hound began to roar and Leara tumbled back a few steps from the wind that flew into her direction.
Without hesitation, the creature ran towards Leara, and she just wanted to run away, evade all of this, but instead she cried at the Hound: "LEAVE ME!", and a shield of white light emerged out of her hands that she held protective in front of the rest of her body.
The Hound crashed into the shield, and everything turned white until shades of red light overdrew the blinding light.
The hound was gone, but so was the Rift and everything Leara knew. There was a field, as big as the smaller ones in Mountaingrass, Leara could not identify what plants where growing on it. A small farmhouse was near the field, and Leara could see more of the farmhouses a bit further away. A man stood on the field, his black hair and beard seemed to be maintained and combed. He was clothed in worn-out working clothes and his arms were pretty muscular even for a seasoned farmer.
He held a plough with both of his hands and rammed it into the ground every half a second. At first, it looked like he was doing his work, but as Leara looked closer, he just beat the plough into the earth at the same place over and over again.
While Leara asked herself if he might be angry about something, the man looked up to her and Leara could not turn away from what she saw: His eyes were glowing red, and sweat run down all over his face and half of his body, as if he had beaten the ground with his plough for hours without a pause.
The man looked familiar, but she was pretty sure she had never seen him before. The red light of his eyes seemed to make the heaven and the sun red, too. As she looked deeper behind the red glow into his eyes, driven by a peculiar curiosity, she saw rigid, but somehow calm eyes watching her and looking deep into hers, too.
As they stood there and watched each other, Leara wasn't disturbed anymore. Something inside of this farmer was allright, something was safe and confortable.
"Who are you?", Leara asked. She didn't hear her own voice, like in the dreams where the dreamer tries to say something but it doesn't work. But the man seemed to understand her.
"I am the one you are trying to understand, young lady. But you...", and while he paused he layed down his plough and came a few steps closer to Leara, "...you are brave. People will later think that you were lucky, but I know you were brave. You... dared to look the chaos into the eye without hesitation."
The red glow in his eyes began to disappear, as well as the farm, the small field, the plough and everything except him and Leara. They both seemed to float in the middle of nowhere, one could imagine the surroundings like between a few clouds, with a few shades of grey, but everything covered by a warm white light.
As Leara looked back to the man, he was way older than before, his hair was white and his skin was a bit more pale than on the field. His eyes now had a normal, but still remarkable color of blue, and they still seemed to see directly into her soul. A couple of scars wandered from his face under his blue robe and showed again at his arms and hands.
Leara wasn't sure if he was smiling, but his corners of mouth went slightly up when he said:
"I'm glad you're here. What an enlightment to feel proud again! But you must have questions. Go ahead, maybe I can answer them."
Leara had a ton of questions, but after a few moments of accepting the new situation and sorting her thoughts, she just asked the first thing that came into her mind:
"The field, the plough... what did you do there?"
"Oh", he replied and his smile was accompanied by a bit of bitterness, "I did none of this. At least, not like you've seen it. It just played with your mind, making things look weirder than they were. That's what chaos always does."
"But you were farming there once?"
"Yes, that's true. In fact, you saw one of my most precious memories, but they got corrupted."
"Who corrupted them?"
"It's no entity like you and me. The question you are asking is much more complicated than you think, I will not be able to explain it to you. But you have seen it, you felt it as you looked into the eye of the poor corrupted soul that tried to kill you, haven't you?"
Leara thought about this for a few seconds. She did feel something in this moment, but not only in the creature, but also in herself. She felt somehow connected to the corrupted soul, but she wasn't sure how she should say this to the man.
"Yes I have. It was all horrible.", she said even if she wasn't completely sure if this was the whole truth.
"If you need a name for the thing causing this feelings, you can call him the Insane. I always called him like this. He is no ghost or god or something like that, one can't describe him any further. But...", the man looked on the ground to hide his face before Leara, "...one can hate and fight him for what he does."
"And that's what you are doing?", Leara asked without knowing where this whole talk would lead.
"I fought the Insane since I knew him. But that's nothing I want to bother you with now. You just experienced a bunch of visions that would most other humans mad."
"Meaning I could have become a corrupted soul?", Leara asked horrified.
"You could have. But as I've said earlier, you were brave. Come, let's take a walk!"
Leara had no idea how to walk since there was nothing she could set her foot on, but as he walked a few steps before her, a road began to shape before them. The old man grinned like a young boy who watched his younger sister doing something the first time what he already knew for years, as Leara slowly set one foot before the other, still not sure if she was even able to move on that ground. But a few steps later, she was at the side of the man, and together they looked like a young woman with her grandfather taking a walk together on a sunny afternoon. Indeed, sunlight now came from above, and to the sides of the way, which consisted of a stone that Leara would describe as <white stonename>, grass, trees and different kinds of wild flowers appeared.
"It's a miracle. The plants are still growing because they want to, they are not forced to grow.", the man said while following the looks of Leara.
"Why should they be forced? And by whom?", Leara asked without understanding why the man would say this.
The man smiled again: "They shouldn't be, so I'm leaving them. I'm not even sure if I could."
This reminded Leara of a question she wanted to know earlier on:
"You said, you are the one I am concerned with. But... are you my father?"
It sounded much more stupid than she expected, but the man answered with a bit of sadness in his voice:
"I wish I'd be. You know, Leara, we are not that different after all. You lost both your parents, and we lost our only child. But now, I want you to look to the right."
Leara followed his eyes to a beautiful well surrounded by trees and flowers. Leara saw squirrels walking from one tree over the well onto the branch of another one. There were also many birds sitting on the trees, and Leara listened to their singing until she saw one bird that was different than the other ones: It had no feathers or skin, but seemed to be mainly out of wood. Green leafs were growing around its wooden wings like feathers, and it seemed to have neither eyes nor ears. But still, the bird recognized Leara as it turned towards her and tapped with its wooden feet.
"May I introduce my little friend here, Velaya, Descendant of the Light and the first archbird this realm has ever known.", the man said very formal as he would expect Leara and the bird to shake hands.
The bird spreaded its wings and Leara could not help but admiring the flight of the archbird that was pleasant to her eyes, ears and somehow also to her soul. A sense of peace overcame Leara as Velaya landed on her hand.
"You may hug and pet her as you want", the man said with a little smile, "you don't know it yet but you are in need of its help."
As Leara looked to Velaya, it felt like she discovered a whole new sense in herself. She wasn't hearing or seeing any reaction from the bird, but she still felt a warm greeting from the little wooden being.
"I still don't understand...", Leara said quietly while moving her fingers over the leafs of the bird that feld surpsingly warm and welcoming, "did I die down there?"
"You're alive, but you're fighting against both Cath and the Insane, against death and corruption. And may I add", the man looked directly to her, so she also moved her gaze from Velaya to him, "you're fighting good."
"I worked as a blacksmith for a long time.", Leara tried to brag, encouraged by the energy she felt from Velaya, but she could read from his impressions that she must have said something very dumb.
"Indeed you were, I just fear that smithing work does not protect you from the corrupting visions you've had. But we both know you have more powers than this." The man got way more serious as he said the last words.
"I don't even know what I'm doing.", Leara said, because she somehow felt she had to defend herself for inflaming the corrupted soul.
"You have a powerful, dangerous gift. It will not be the last time you'll hear this, but you have to be careful with your magics. Weilding power comes with great responsibility."
Velaya danced around on her hand. It felt like the bird tried to challenge her, so she moved her other hand over the bird and suddenly, green sparks emitted from her hands. As the sparks hit the leafs of Velaya, these leafs began to glow in the same tone of green. The leafs produced drops of green water, that fell on the hand Velaya sat on.
It was like pure life was drawn into her skin, and from one moment to another, all things she had experienced seemed to be less terrifying than before.
"I feel like the time has come that we have to say goodbye to each other. Your place is not here right now, but down in Athor. However, I got a feeling that fate will bring us together again."
"No, please wait." Leara had the urge to stay here with Velaya on her hand, surrounded by a form of nature that looked perfect to her and talking to a man that seemed to understand her like no one did before, "you still haven't told me your name."
"Goodbye, Leara. I wish you all the best."
The bird flew away from her hands, the man, the path, the trees and flowers disappeared, and suddenly Leara felt like she was falling. She followed Velaya with her eyes, which took all fears of her. The archbird flew around in the air surrounded by nothing, fast and vivid, until he reached Leara again and flew directly into her face.
Already overwhelmed from watching the bird, Leara saw a giant tree with a bunch of archbirds sitting on it. Suddenly, she felt sadness coming from the tree, as if it was crying over something. Leara wanted to hug the tree and say that there is always hope, and surprisingly, she was indeed able to do that, because the tree was getting smaller and smaller, so she could move both her arms around the trunk.
She sensed the incredible pain emerging from the trunk, and she felt sorry for not being able to do more than comforting it. Some birds flew from the tree onto her shoulders and her head, invited her to remove her hands from the trunk and carried her away from the sad tree, far away...
Leara woke up. As she opened her eyes only a tiny bit and looked to her right, she screamed out loud, filled with horror, as she saw the face of the giant hound, lifeless, laying on the ground next to her. Quickly, she stood up to get away of it.
She noticed her nightdress, that she still wore from her escape, was covered in mud and traces of burning, but she had only eyes for the hound and the corpse of the corrupted soul lying a few meters ahead. Was all of this her doing? She wasn't sure about anything anymore, but she knew she had to get to Lumiar. Fast.
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