Part 7
When she sensed herself once more, there was only darkness. It wasn’t the darkness of a cave or the darkness that came from an overgrown forest. It was pure darkness—no light set within it to guide her way.
Left, right, forward or back, even up or down—nothing changed the infinite void around her. It was as if every other thing that had once existed had ceased to do so save for herself and this darkness.
“Hello?” Her query left no echo, and the sound seemed to be swallowed less than a foot away from her, as if she had never spoken.
She waited for a short while before giving up with a resigned sigh.
This was what it must be like to live an eternity in the Void—no one else, only her own voice, her own thoughts. There was no journey, nothing to explore. Nothing to see. Nothing to do apart from existing. If she chose to remain, madness would slowly consume her—or so she suspected. And if she gave up, there would be no more Ystas—no more Seer of the Kodohorn tribe. No more burdens to bear or troubles to worry over. But if she did that, the Void would win—her existence devoured like that of so many others before her.
“YOU ARE WRONG.” The sudden discordant tones oozed through the nothing around her, making her frown and hunch her shoulders at the wrongness of it. She didn’t want this, whatever it was, conversing with her. It was like the words were somehow more than that—penetrating into her very being and seeking to replace her with that discord.
“WE ARE ALL THINGS.”
“EVERY POSSIBILITY. EVERY PATH.”
“WE HAVE/WILL HAVE CONSUUUUMED THEM.”
As if to prove its point, a seemingly infinite number of Ystases appeared before her. There was a Ystas that stood over a destroyed Kodohorn Tribe, blood dripping from a long, curved blade; a Ystas wreathed in dark flames that tore through the universe, burning everything in their path; there was a Ystas that lay dead alongside her parents as Grimtotem warriors streamed past down the mesa path toward Thunder Bluff. There were Ysas with powers, and Ysas with weapons, and even Ysas enslaved. The number and variety of herselves was crushing—more than her mind could bear.
She tried to close her eyes, but that only made the weight of them somehow more pressing. “Take them away! They are not me!”
A discordant sound of discontent echoed all around her, but the infinite realms of Ystas disappeared.
“YOU ARE WRONG.”
“THEY ARE ALL YOU.”
Ystas shuddered, curling in on herself as she slipped to a ground beneath her that she wasn’t even sure was actually there. Still, she believed it would be, and so with her knees curled up against her stomach, she pressed her face down against her knees, shoulders still hunched as her arms encircled her legs. It wasn’t that the voice was wrong; what scared her, and what she was trying to hide and preserve herself from was the truth that, all of those Ystases had, in fact, been her.
“YOU POSSESS ALL OF THESE FUTURES.”
Curling in more tightly upon herself, she mumbled, “I do not want them.”
“IRRELEVANT. THEY ARE ALL YOURS.”
The voice began to change and morph, the discord flowing away to melt under another’s voice. It was a familiar one, and one that almost made her flinch as she detected the subtle nuances of the void’s own tones within it.
“Whether you choose them or not, you have the power to become whatever you desire. And I can help you to embrace those possibilities.”
Molo’ak’s voice held all the same warmth and caring that she remembered, yet somehow those same characteristics that she admired in him were warped. As she lifted up her head, she saw him kneeling before her, his manner and his mien confusing. The tenderness of his caring eyes was tempered with desire, and the closeness of his presence was oppressive rather than warm.
“No. Not him,” she almost growled, her head shaking slightly. “Anyone else, but not him.” The tone of her voice carried the weight of force, enough so that whatever this thing of the void was, it was compelled to obey her wishes.
As Molo’ak melted into the nothing, a series of other visages and forms took shape in the void until they finally settled on one in particular. A large, tawny-furred, sun-maned, female tauren she’d never met before stood before her.
Clad in bright plate armor and bearing the mark of An’she proudly, she exuded a vengeful presence. This was a woman who was self-assured, her power an extension of her will. And at the moment, her will seemed to be twisted with hatred for Ystas.
“Pathetic,” the woman said, her words touched with disdain. “You are offered a wealth of power, but you would rather settle for me.” The last was spoken with a smiling sneer. As the Sun Walker regarded the curled up mess at her feet, the her eyes blazed with disgust.
Ystas was caught by surprise when her plated leg lashed out toward her, her hoof crashing into the side of her face and sending her sprawling against the nothing ground.
“I will obliterate you until you are nothing but a puppet of my desires.”
The Sun Walker advanced toward her as Ystas scrambled to her feet. Something kept nagging at her thoughts as she dodged and sought to block the ceaseless series of attacks that were levied against her. More than a few times she ended up thrown to the ground or knocked back a short distance. She’d considered calling on the power of An’she and Mu’sha, but she remembered that the Earth Mother had told her the Void was seeking them, too. And so she fought as best she could without them, though her strength lay in those things which she was unwilling to use.
“Is that all you can do? Cower and run away? What use are you to anyone, much less the Kodohorn tribe?” The Sun Walker taunted her as their fight continued. “If you refuse to fight me, you are going to lose.”
Still that nagging thought persisted at the back of her mind. What was it? What wasn’t she seeing?
“No. Not him. Anyone else, but not him.”
She remembered the moment that she had forced the Void to change its visage. Again and again she replayed that moment over in her mind, and then it hit her (as did the Sun Walker’s fist). Still, realizing what she had done in that moment, she finally knew what she needed to do.
This time as the other woman approached her, Ystas stood her ground, waiting for the moment when the Sun Walker would attack. Just as she saw her fist drawing back to strike, Ystas spoke with all the force of her will.
“STOP!”
The woman before her seemed frozen though her eyes reflected first frustration, then confusion–and then anger. The Sun Walker was unable to speak or even move.
Ystas marveled at the power she had created with a mere word and her own will. Circling about her immobilized adversary, she considered what she had just done.
“You have no power over me,” she said to that stilled form, and as she spoke those words, the other’s eyes were caught with the first fraying edges of fear. “You are a part of me, but I can control you.”
“-That’s- why you want to destroy me…so you can control my power.”
“My will.”
As the darkness around her faded, she heard an infinite stream of screams—rage, frustration, fear, anger, anguish, pain, despair…. And she found herself standing on the shore of an island, the wind ruffling the fur of her hair and mane. The screams faded as the sounds and smells of the ocean rose to replace them, and Ystas felt a profound sense of accomplishment. Some part of her had learned to recognize the Void within herself. It was part of the Seer’s gift that she had been given, but no longer would she allow it to control her. And while she wasn’t keen on delving into the depths of that power just yet, she knew given enough time she might one day be able to master it.
Exhilarated and exhausted, she made herself a bed behind a sun-warmed sand dune, covering it with bits of sea grass for softness. And as she lay down, she stared up at the many stars overhead, wishing she could hear their songs as she had once before. And watching over her from above, Mu’sha and Lo’sho drew down the ocean tides while the Sky Father sent the Earth Mother’s breath to swell the waves—a welcome lullaby impossible to ignore, as Ystas finally found sleep.
~~~~~<@ @>~~~~~