Wind-Mother, Star Shaper [Private]

A breeze sweeps gently over the sands, softly sliding across the expanse to barely brush against Embryss’s cheek. A very slight pressure and then it darts away, spinning into the heavens as the winds rush the clouds across the sky. Replacing it was a heavier pressure, the weight of a kiss upon the Councilmember’s brow as the goddess fades into existence.

In a direct contrast to her earlier theatrics at this very stage, Alya does not come accompanied by any vortex of rushing winds, any frantic hurrying of the heavens. Instead, one moment she is not and the next she is. Even without her retinue of miracles, the goddess drapes herself in grandeur. Her four wings bleed away into the night sky as if her pinions span the firmament itself. A quiet, melodic whistle skips playfully on the muted winds that ruffle her mane and scarves and tug at Embryss’s braids. Alya lifts her head, gazing down maternally at her beloved devotee.



Alya calls, a command to open your eyes. See her. Hear her. The stars sprinkled across her brow flash brightly at the words. She stays suspended, preferring to stay surrounded by her element instead of grounding herself on the earth. Patiently, she waits.

She is different from before, a different shape, a different color, but Alya has always known her people will know her whatever shape she wears. The essence of her is unchanged by the trials she endured, as the essence of her people has stayed the same over the long years she has had to watch them from afar. She can recognize that spirit here in the woman that stands before her.

The stars above shine impassively. While the sky is her creation--the starscape painted with the sweep of her wings and the wheeling of Hireath on its axis is as known to her and as automatic of the breath of her wind in her lungs--she knows there are others in her stars. Others who have created things that interweave and support her own creation.

Ignacio, who had placed the light in the sky and had helped her kindle the stars.
Kaia, who had clothed the planet and coaxed the plants from the soil.
Cascade, who had poured her heart into the ocean to give water and life.
Argus, who had given the spark of sentience itself.

They had once all been inseparable.

As close as she had thought herself to her children, Alya had imagined herself ever closer to her kin themselves. In time, half of those closest to her had betrayed her, beaten her beyond sentience and abandoned her. In that time, she glimpsed the anguish she’d left behind in Sedo. Not merely the brief pain her followers had felt at losing the trickle of divine connection still permitted to the gods, but the devastation that must have rippled out from their first departure.

Alya remembers the wild, joyous races of the hunts with her Furies in centuries past. She remembers the gentle touch as Creators painted her skybound wings themselves as she gifted feathers to her favorites. She remembers the lush, verdant crops that once covered the tops of the mesas and the valleys that were choked with soft grass before she had to...before she had to bleed it dry to stop that very betrayal.

She misses her people sorely. She understands separation better now.

Alya gazes down upon her daughter, Embryss, and wishes she could walk with her now. She wishes she could fly them back to Osulas and stay as she once had, surrounded. She knows all too well why she cannot.



Sincerity and solemnity find a harmony in her words.