Cheyenne Pagan Finem (End)

I quivered and shook. There was blood drenched in various pools across the cloths that my mother had presented me with when I became of age. This was also the same day my skills had reached their prime and I became the special woman of my village. Unlike most, my power to control the sacred talismans, had developed unusually fast. Along with the three princesses, our world’s moons, the talisman allowed the ability to travel in and out of the present. The gift to control the talisman was a gift that was within only worthy women, the few of them that remained. Although, the other women were forced to wait for the alignment of the moons to begin their journeys through time, I did not. My natural born power allowed me to travel at various cycles of the princesses. However, no matter how special my power was, it only allowed me to venture as far as a few years.

 My father was the only one who had forewarned me of the allurement to disobedience my gift would bring. The temptations urged me to abuse the gift other chosen women did not have. The priestesses, the most powerful of the women, were law and as law they forbade the travel to the past in fear that it would alter the future. The chosen women, such as what I once was, were limited to only the future and to explore what we did not know. As new women were born, the priestesses deemed worthy only few and bound the sacred talismans to them. The power to control them was something that you must posses at birth, it’s in your blood.

The place where my implanted talisman, the key to my venture home, located in the palm of my right hand, was beginning to fade and along with it the flesh that surrounded it to bind it to me. I had disobeyed and I was paying the price. The price that had been only rumored about among the chosen, for no one had ever tempted to do what I had done. I then understood that even the curious ones that may have tried and strayed from altering the future had no key home. Even with all the power flowing through us chosen ones, we are subjected to time like all others without the precious talismans.

Although clear in color, I could see the stone burn with crisps of red and black. It was dying and my chance to return along with it. The pain of the burns made me scream with agony and beg for the princesses to just take the hand in whole. Soon, there was nothing left but a hole, a permanent reminder of just what I scarified.  

“Priestesses of Uriel, please, save my fate and grant me the power to return to my origin!” I begged to nobodies.

I pleaded for another alignment but alas the three princesses of our world had not yet been created and for all that I knew they would never be created due to my presence. I had tampered with the balance and was destined to be here, in the past, for, what appeared to be, the rest of my life force. I was stuck in an ancient world; one much like my own but was surrounded not by moons but instead plasma and stars. One detail in particular made me especially curious if not fearful of this world; it had a star brighter than any star that had lived in my world. The star was burning, ending its life, I imagined, but not even the death of any of our large stars could compare to the light that radiated from this time’s star.

I redirected my attention from the emptiness in my palm to the streaks of pure heating energy, skewed once more to a haze in the far distance of the sands. The desert that I had landed into when I made my venture was visibly dense containing grains and tiny unscathed pebbles and met the sky at every border. The haze, foggy and mysterious, crept out from behind a sand dune and almost hovered in my direction. With the sand’s unique abundance of purple quartz, I began to recognize this desert as the desert of Aliquam, a desert infamous in my time for it’s luxurious treasures and stones. In my time, however, there was not such an extraordinary source of the stones.

I wrapped my hand, now numb with constant heat, in a patterned sash that my father weaved for me when I was still a youngling. I screeched in utter agony as I pulled it tighter to prevent further bleeding. The blur, once so far in the distance, had made its way to only but a short distance from me. I saw what could be none other than a man, strong and balanced, that walked with such grace that it was as if he were walking on stone instead of caving sand. His wisps of hair slapped around through the fog of air and sand particles.

As he approached me I observed his hands, they appeared as if molded by clay, his entire body had this resemblance. His face, a beautiful mix of lone and wild, only implied other speculations of who he really was. His strange presence tickled my imagination the way not even this forsaken time had once done. I knew not a name but a legend of this creature that was rumored to be born of the sands it self.

“ Why do you travel in this desert? This is the desert of Aliquam and I forbid those who seek petty jewels for mere appearance. Speak your title or my hand shall be forced to steal your life force from your body and spill blood on these already drenched sands.”

  He spoke gently but I could note the piercing fierceness in his tone. He underestimated my persistence and sheer impatience at that point. Disappointingly, I was all but ignorant to this type of being, despite the legends.

“ Peasant,” my voice crackling still rattled with subdued pain, “ you are unknowing of my abilities and my uniqueness among women. I am not who you believe I am to be. I am not an enemy to this time, I am a victim.”

            He stood like stone only but a few steps in front of me, in clear view of my steady drip of blood and yet was not phased, affected, or concerned in the least bit. Although, I didn’t expect much of a reaction to my self inflicted misfortune. He responded contrary to how I believed a warrior would act.

“ Leave.”                                                                                                                                                                                           

With that he turned and walked with such grace it made me stare in awe, never had I seen a man with such pose.

“Wait!”

 I swiftly moved to grab for him and surprisingly for his lack of distance from my reach he managed to evade me and had disappeared from sight.

“ My vision must be deceiving me he must not have been…”

He was gripping the wrist that acted as a passage of blood flow to the empty palm. In that instance I felt nothing but anguish and the instinct to reach for my dagger concealed under my cloths beside my hip. I struck, and missed. The air but only made a hissing sound as the blade sliced through the spot where he was standing only a moment ago.

“ How do you manage to move so swiftly?”, I questioned.

He replied but left himself cloaked or hidden, unsure but surely he was not visible to my eyes.

“ I am not. I am here with you. I wish not to hurt you. Injured as you are you pose no threat to me and any battle will end with haste”

“ Present yourself. Only the sly cower and disappear.”

I threateningly said but the confidence was a mere façade.

Making himself known, he came forth.

“ My name is Abeo. I am a child of these sands and firstly protector of its existence. If have come to posses their crystals for your greed you shall be vanquished at my hand.”

“I wish you and your giver no harm. I am from a foreign world, a different time and place. By my own doing I am now apart of this world and wish only to coexist if no other option of returning home presents itself. My name is Adalia.”

“Adalia, why have you traveled to this world if residing was not a desire?”

I stood my position although I was visibly swayed by the question. It was a question I had never once thought to ask myself. Suddenly, without warning, Abeo drew his blade and stood on guard, his eyes were peering at something in the distance behind me. I turned to face the place of his focus and I began to see what he saw. There was thousands, an army of men. When I turned to face him with questioning eyes I saw another strip of men lining the horizon where the sky met the desert.

“Abeo, what is this? What knowledge have you had of this?”

“Nothing of the sort of treachery your tone accuses me of. These are greedy men having war for power. Leave, now.”

“If you are not my enemy and here we are both victims, I shall stay and fight. I do not cower like most women.”

He grabbed at the sand beside his feet and although there was nothing but grains that initially slipped through his fingers he picked something of solid matter. He tossed me the blade and regaining my composer, I stood with him and waited for the catalyst that inevitably changed what I knew about the world forever.