Tempest Rages:First Sightings:Part III - Myre "...the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storms." - Charles Caleb Colton ========================================================== Across the plains of Coulo came a storm born of heavenly strife. A rift in the sky caused by a rift in the minds of the beings we, mankind, had elevated unto godhood. The storm sought souls to swallow, to take unto itself, to create more power for its creators. The storm spelled the slow, inevitable destruction of the human race if not in some way stopped. Somewhere, We turned to face that unvoiced cry that tore at our souls, even if We could not see it. In Couloton, Keraida saw what I could not. In Invaeda, Trena felt the pull as well, and prepared to welcome us. It was my job to study what had come before, to study the how and the why of it, to learn from the past to protect the future. Locked away in libraries and studies, this was my life. The quiet, the dust, the smell of old books...I didn't mind them, don't get me wrong. I actually came to enjoy the smell of libraries; it felt inviting. But the quiet, the loneliness, that was what I could never get around. When I wasn't involved in some deep reading, the loneliness ate at me. Books became the only escape I had, without my friends. The twins and I had this much in common: the want of others. Keraida wanted one specific person, and Trena wanted the group of Us. I was like both of them: Us, together again, this alone would be wonderful. Seeing Berrett again however... Thinking of Berrett made it hard to think, period. It set letters akilter, distorted words' meanings. It turned my brain upside down and my heart inside out. But this was nothing like Keraida and Velan, who were in love with each other, and knew it, and heroically postponed their burgeoning relationship for the sake of humanity. They were both like that, oh-so-ready to be martyrs for the cause. Berrett and I...well, there just was no "Berrett and I". He was the good ol' life-lovin', lusty hero of fairy tale ballads, the kind sung by happy drunks in cheerful pubs. He was a well-known flirt and a damn good drinker, the kind of guy who often gets into bar brawls. He annoyed the piss out of me at first. And then something happened. Something changed in me. I couldn't track it, didn't notice it - it crept upon me like fog in the night until one morning I awoke and couldn't see for all the love I was buried in. Perhaps it might have worked out, perhaps we could have written our own romantic fairy tale, if only I were, well, female. As it was, being born on the other side of the gender spectrum, the best I could do was to continue to act annoyed when he'd sit next to me and blather about his latest lovely conquest (not a hard act to pull off), or be comforting when he'd confide in me about his secret fears of Our future. Berrett trusted me and confessed to me because of my bookwormish nature, my driving need to discover knowledge and uncover secrets and then keep all of these treasures to myself. He knew I wouldn't tell unless it was absolutely necessary; exactly because I obviously couldn't stand him, I would keep his secrets for my own possible use. He couldn't know it was tearing me apart listening to him, being so close to him, being his bestest buddy as well as his closest enemy when all I really wanted was to be his lover. I'd have to see Berrett again. The pull of the storm might as well have been a shot through my heart. As much as I wanted to see him, wanted to see all the rest of Us, I'd have to go back to wearing a mask I'd not needed for years now, and a distraction to my research. Granted, the research was pretty thorough, but I never could think of it as completed. Even the basic facts still begged questions, still denied me answers. We were the children of the Covenant. Long ago, the ancestors of mankind created the gods. They were ideas, originally, nothing more, until the worship of them grew to the point that they could become immortally divine. Their first act upon ascending unto true godhood was to appoint, each of them, a human Champion, and to grant them powers. They swore to serve the gods' true will, which was, in turn, to serve and protect mankind. They were the gods' enforcers, after a fashion. That was the Covenant, and those were the first of Us. The gods gained power from worship and death: the particular god you worshipped in life would receive your soul after death, and while your life's worship kept the god alive, your soul is what truly gave it power. If you worshipped all the gods, then your soul's power was split among them. Eventually, one of the gods went power mad, and the first storm was unleashed. It ate souls voraciously, finding children's souls especially powerful. Each soul swallowed by the storm gave that god more and more power; it also made the children and adults who were its victims the first storm-claimed: without a soul, they became demons, destroying whatever and whoever they came across. Some souls, it was soon discovered, had too much hold on this plain; for whatever reason, their souls could not be entirely swallowed. Instead, they were fear-stricken, which was recognized as the first stage of storm-claiming. Somehow, they never moved beyond that stage, and with some of their soul gone but the rest firmly anchored to their body, they went mad, became permanently terrified. The Covenant used their powers to disperse the storm and destroy temporarily all of that god's power. The souls the storm had swallowed were gone forever, but at least no more could be devoured. The god, now devoid of power, lost its powermadness, and returned to sanity. The cycle continued however. One by one, every few generations or so, a god went mad. The Covenant changed. Those born of Covenant blood swore to protect humanity from the gods when the storms arose. That was the price of their powers, and also the source of their torment. The storms never hit the same place twice in a row. They could be anywhere across humanity's increasingly farflung domains. By the time a storm came around again, the nearby inhabitants had all but forgotten the horrors visited upon them so many generations ago. Covenant children, raised on nothing but these tales of battle with gods, were treated as paranoids and malcontents. Covenant children rarely worshipped gods at all, and so were especially ostracized by the religious authorities. All the children of the Covenant had was each other, and the blood within them called to one another, to bring them together, just as the storm called to each of Us now. We had met 8 years ago, pulled together by Our common destiny, by the fact that no one else wanted Us. We had trained and adventured together for 3 of those years, and spent the last 5 apart, going to where We were needed. Trena's gift of foresight, a power unknown for many generations, allowed Us an approximate guess of where the storm would hit. Her gift is uncertain, based on probabilities, as the future shifts often, but it is as true as it can be. Keraida went there. She was the Forerunner; for a reason none of Us truly understood, she was Our leader, the glue that held Us together. My theory is that it's because she was the first born of all of Us, if only by minutes, but I digress. She would collect Us again. She should be riding out soon, and with her own exceptional sight: through darkness, across leagues. She could see what was in front of her with her eyes closed. She, in some sense, saw better blindfolded than any of Us could see with our eyes wide open. Velan and Berrett were our muscle, most definitely. Velan's power shielded himself and Us from physical harm, and could shield the souls of a few mortals at a time as well. He could actively keep souls from being sucked into the storm; such power had never been seen before. I was looking forward to studying its effects up close; he had never needed to use it before when Our enemies were humans and monsters. Berrett can talk to the gods. There has always been a Talker in each Covenant group, just as there has always been a Forerunner. He hears the gods converse, with each other, with him, with other humans. I cannot imagine what the storm sounds like to him, what sort of things it whispers to his heart. And then, there's me, nerdy little Myre. My hunger for knowledge is a human affliction. My Covenant gift is flight and levitation, a gift I cannot often use. I am shunned enough without making the populace envious. Because, to be truthful, we envy the birds even a little, as they soar through the heavens. To see a human with such a gift only magnifies the envy into hatred. Honestly, there may be things We can do with these powers that We have yet to discover. There may be powers still left to Us that we have not yet unlocked. The Covenant histories are full of powers unknown until that fated battle. Most Covenant children have only one power, but some do not. This, of course, does not count the most important power of all, the power granted all Covenant: the soul-shielding that allows Us to do Our job. Without it, We would be demons, and useless. As for other powers, well, it is already known that, within a few leagues of each other, the twins can sense each others' presence, know what the other is thinking, feeling. This may be a gift simply because they are each others' othersouls, a common name for twins, or it may be Covenant related. It could be both - an othersoul gift that is Covenant enhanced. Further study would be most enlightening. Still, the Covenant histories are all different: sometimes, the entire group sacrifices itself to win. Sometimes, one or two die; othertimes, all survive. Once the Covenant failed, and in the struggle for mankind's survival, powers were granted other humans. Some humans still have powers to this day, despite not being Covenant. But they are not soul-shielded, and so are still vulnerable. Even if their power surpasses one of Our own, ultimately, We protect them. The storm's pull neither waxes nor wanes, and it became harder and harder to try to analyze data, to try to think of anything other than the others, than Berrett. I walked outside and looked to the skies as if I could see the storm. I toyed with the idea of lifting myself, but knew that it would be useless. There was nothing left to me but to walk home and try not to think, try to ignore the madcry of the storm and the ache in my heart.