Upon Shadowed Wings [#1] [Pact with Âmul]

[DizzyGrey 1229]

 

 

So’Flaaowni was never one for emotions that weren’t that of confidence or assuredness. A naturally smug being, she met new concepts and ideas with a gusto that bordered upon the ferverous. After all, a wannabe god maker can hardly falter in front of some book, can she?

But this wasn’t a book. This was something altogether different.

 

As the smoke of that small hut she found herself in entered her senses, the Kharajyr’s mind floated away. Neither up nor down, but… sideways. Slipping away as she falls into the void, taken by her shamanic guide into a realm so beyond and yet so alike what she knew. 

 

That all consuming darkness would end with a lurch, a sudden stop. As if pulled back at the last moment, the pair- Student and Teacher- landed amidst a dense and dark jungle. So thick was the foliage that standing upon barely allowed So’Flaaowni to see around her, and so dark was the landscape that the only manner through which even her superior senses could discern the temple atop a nearby mountain was through the light of the moon above.

 

 

“Ne oca Khalenwyr.” The young Kharajyr murmurs in her native tongue, as she looks about the facsimile of her peoples’ ancient homeland. 

 

“A suppose this is the place.” Her teacher affirmed, glancing around

 

Excitement- excitement- Thrummed through So’Flaaowni’s chest as she looked across the homeland she had never seen before. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly Khalenwyr. Perhaps it was simply a spiritual reconstruction. But it still alleviated some of that pain in her chest. That wound she’d carried since she first understood how far her people had fallen.

 

“A take i’ we’ll ‘ave tae go tae tha’ temple o’er there.” Her teacher states, voice only partially drowned out by the sound of various avian calls in the foliage around them.

 

The prospect was something that So’Flaaowni desperately wanted to do as well. But despite that urge, that almost physical need, she paused. Not in hesitation, but in thought.

 

The spirit they had come to visit was no spirit of grandiose conquest, or enlightened leadership. No spirit of trials or heights or mountains or even of lights. So why was such a place so clearly shown to be there? Why make it all that could clearly be discerned, a target in sight. 

 

Simple: As a test.

 

“She does not thinking so.” So’Flaaowni murmurs as she looked up to that temple, shaking her head. “Chihuateteo am spirit of cunning, as well as the knowledge. Cunning spirit not in such obvious place, the right?” She queried, already certain in her own ability to be correct.

And yet she still continued towards the temple. A test, yes. But one she had hopes she just passed. And, if not, the only true clue she had as to her hopeful patron’s whereabouts was that temple.

 

It took only a few steps for her to be proven correct.

 

From on high, a creature the size of a horse descended. Avian in nature, it resembled a skeletal eagle, its bones corroded into a musty yellow and its only feathered aspects being its wings. It landed with a rush of air that aided So’Flaaowni in her suddenly panicked retreat, looming towards the pair as they stood there amidst that canopy.

 

“Lat mal thrak'tul?”

Its voice grated and croaked as the Old Blah rung out.

(Do you bring tribute?)

 

“Izg'izishu Chihuateteo traf.” Her teacher answers in kind, even as So’Flaaowni babbled towards the creature in Kharahatla.

(We’re meeting with Chihuateteo)

 

“Ukmash?”

Its aged voice seemed to carry a weight of its own, as hollow eyes pierced the duo.

(Both?)

 

“To, tug.” Her teacher replies, gesturing towards the lost So’Flaaowni, who in turn had been watching him with something even approaching nervousness.

(Only her.)

 

That earned the skeletal Eagle’s full attention, as it stared into So’Flaaowni. The moment seemed to last a lifetime. Silence amongst a disquiet jungle ringing so loudly she thought her ears would burst from it… Before the creature leaned around, turning its back to her, and crouches.

 

“Zark.”
(Fine.)

 

“This is yar ride, frem 'ere ya'll go and mee' the Spiri'.” Her teacher states.

 

It takes less than a moment for So’Flaaowni’s fear to vanish, and before he’s even finished, she’s scampered up the large feathers of the bird and onto its skeletal back. It, in kind, does not hesitate. Soaring off and into the sky the pair punched through the canopy, into the twilight gloom over that seemingly endless see of mottled and shadowed green below them.

 

They soar up and around, in the direction of that temple they’d first seen when So’Flaaowni had arrived.

 

She wasn’t even surprised when they change course.Twisting at a sharp angle, her ride nose dives into the jungle once more, away from the temple. The air whips and howls through her ears and fur, tree and foliage rustle against her body, and yet they dive. Down, down, into a hidden tunnel. Into the bowels of the earth, winding and so fast she needed her claws to cling on.

 

Into the real temple. 

 

The eagled landed amidst a clear and empty square amongst the high vaulted underground walls, adorned with inscriptions and clearly for the purpose of allowing landings. Around her, the temple was filled wall to wall with scrolls and codeces, books and manuscripts, texts and parchments. Hundreds of candles illuminated the thousands of documents, filling the very air with whisps of smoke and incense.

 

The Kharajyr could not help giggling to herself, laughing with the adrenaline of the flight and the religious fervour that thrummed through her soul.

 

And as her giggle echoed throughout those walls, from the darkness of that temple emerged her. Chihuateteo. A shadowed eagle, far larger than that which had borne her to this temple. Towering and glorious, with black feathers that shined gold in the torchlight, skeletal legs larger alone than So’FLaaowni’s entire body.

 

“Mirz’izg traf’at?”

She asked, voice booming throughout that dark room, eviscerating the fading echoes of So’Flaaowni’s giggles.

(Who meets with me?)

 

The use of a tongue So’Flaaowni had only been introduced to that very day in the mortal realm elicits a thunderclap of fear within her chest. Fear that, when she was so close, she would stumble. Ill prepared. Stupid. But still she had to try. In the only tongue she knew how, she spoke in Kharahatla.

 

“Great Chihuateteo, I come to you as a supplicant, in the name of the great mother. Please, allow me to be your agent in the world of descendents.” She says, bowing her head before the mighty eagle. And it worked.

 

“A shaman I see, yet of Kha clay, how intriguing. And how did you learn of me, curious one?”

The Eagle replies in the perfect tongue of her people, and So’Flaaowni couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her back as those skeletal claws clung to the stone floor.

 

“Well- I was raised on tales of you! First of the Great Beasts of Metztli! The Waxing Gibbous! She who lies in the shadows! I always loved your tale of tricking the disloyal heretics.” The Kha babbles, a smile stretching across her face as she dared to look up towards that titanic being.

 

A scoff filled the room, and soon that shiver turns to one of dread.

 

“Using your charms eh? Clever, but that won’t work on me.”

The eagle turned towards the Kharajyr, and leaned in close to So’Flaaowni. Snout and beak mere inches away as a head larger than her whole body blotted out all other vision, those empty eyes filled with keen insight.

“And why should I provide? What are you willing to offer?”

 

The Kharajyr met those hollow sockets with her bravest face, yet not one of defiance. One of confident subservience, of understanding their roles, and that whilst she was in the gaze of a superior… she still had something to offer.

 

“Myself. My pride. My friends. All who wish to champion the true beast of knowledge. The one who understands that it's not enough to just be strong, you need to be smart. You can't just be deserving, you need to be worthy of what you want.”

 

“Well said.”

A dark feather shimmers gold, plucked from the spirit’s body by her titanic beak, and offered to the Kharajyr.

“Touch this feather of mine and the pact shall be formed.”

 

Once again So’Flaaowni wasted no time. Her claw extended, the tip of it pressing against that golden feather, and with FLASH- Her world was once more that tumbling void, leaving her with only a singular message to go by.

 

“Learn in the shadows.”

 

[A spiritual pact with Chihuateteo, lesser of Âmul]

Edited January 8, 2025 by DizzyGrey
The FONT was messed up