"Who art thou, to have clipped my wings?" Part II

Mawu's stern gaze was unavoidable - she had recently been secluding herself in the deep den of their coven and Lisa had attempted everything he could do lead her out. Several of their Children had attempted to coax their Mother and shed her light on the world once again, but ever since he had tried offering up the dove to her she had shut herself away. Surely she had not decided to atone for her sins, which they were fated to commit until time unending. Written within the Halls of Time was their undeniable loyalty to the earth which held them on their two feet, and a part of that loyalty required them to feed - it was as simple as that.

Within the darkened and woods hidden in the mist under their keep - a natural phenomena in Africa which reminded Lisa of an ant hill - relaxed the woman he loved. Usually patrician fingertips now frail and skeletal, Mawu's hair reminded him of the ravens his tribe were named after - hollow crevices in her face were her eyes and thin mouth, once full blood-red lips now fading as their mistress was. Ever since her fasting began the once pertinent smell of rotting carcasses and fresh decaying matter began to leave their den and as his eyes quickly adjusted to the candle-less darkness, Lisa recognized the cold, void smell as something he had gazed upon since time immemorial. The cold mist echoed his realization as the mists condensed on the ceiling of their natural abode and proceeded to drip back to the ground where the cycle of evaporation would begin once more.

"You are dying Wife." the words were not a question, a concrete statement that Lisa had for some reason been able to express. Deep within him the sun that they had been forbidden to see, their millennia of detritivoric suffering on this planet, all lead to this moment. He felt his soul, the sun, flicker like a candle being played with by small children. His rage he put aside, he had to be with her the last few minutes the Earth pray she had a little bit longer to hold on and maybe survive through her loss of appetite - yet seething within was the white hot sun, the sun that could make an ocean into a desert in seconds. Wearily Mawu beckoned to him, a gnarled tree branch lacking the deep russet of a healthy tree - how ever far the moon and sun might be neither are too distant in spirit.

"We are a tribe to be feared. Our kind will never reach that final goal in these forms, my love. According to our predestined laws, we are all meant to die. However, every physical death is not something to fear - rather a metamorphosing from a cocoon to a more advanced butterfly. Yet not even that butterfly is what our souls require for repose." As weak as she was, Mawu's voice was unbroken - an enlightened sage, Lisa supposed, despite her allowing her body to decompose before his eyes. In fact, Lisa felt as weak as he had ever - no physical prowess or skill with the Eye was sufficient to fight this mental and spiritual battle happening within his love. More, he had to deal with the fact that the light that he once served as to his Wife was now nothing more than an extinguished and long-abandoned lighthouse to the sea. When the waves rose, his Wife did as well, but within a valley of tall waves not even his darkened lighthouse would be of any notice or concern.

"Within this turning of my soul, my dear Lisa, I feel as though the earth has shown me what my soul has been seeking after. And I step closer beyond the butterfly - the gentle wind that assists in its preflight. All were meant to fly, but it is well known that those who fly must return to the earth once more - you clipped my wings but I am still soaring high, my Lisa. Whatever you may do, do not clip the wings of one who is not ready - she may steal your heart in her suffering and you too will grow the wings as I have." Lisa stood in front of Mawa holding her petrifying cold tree branch of a limb seeking for the warmth that it once provided. Entranced, hypnotized by her mantric final words he uttered what he had held back watching as she punished her soul with her gnostic transformation.

"Although you fly, will you remember the earth which held you as it shrinks the higher you go? Or have you already forgotten me? The earth which sustained and was inspired by your growth will become fallow once his love had grown wings."

Within the Asian woman's hands, was a liquid light shining with crimson furor. Her nerves, veins, arteries a complex web of multicolored sparks and glows - she was not bathing in the Red Moon she was the Red Moon. Wild hair awry in an array of raven black hair with red ends and white highlights, a bird in this ever evolving jungle one moment and a human hybrid the next. Lisa could sense the danger this woman was in, despite her refusal to become aware of it. It did not matter to her, yet the abnormal deformations she was undergoing could not be called an evolution to him.

Wild animals on all levels of the rainforest seemed to be calling, not in anger or madness as the post-Chaos world had become but in a hymn - praying to their wild goddess. Even he, Lisa of the Ravens, wild as the wind that bellowed by the shore, was in unmistakable awe in this human woman. Eyes as wide as she could open them, they reflected the pools of blood that had been required to maintain his people's survival - now boiling with white fervor in their madness. He could sense great amounts of the Eye surrounding the woman, but could not make possible sense of what she was attempting to do with it. Realizing that she was feeding of the life of other creatures to increase her capacity he desperately attempted to fend of her control of him but could not withstand her berserk dance under the light of the Red Moon.

As her movements became more torrential, more distraught he noticed a wane light that was trying to break free. What had been going on in her mind as she went through that volunteered transformation, he had no idea. But, wherever her ego lay in that broken mind of hers it wanted to escape - desired shelter from this upside-down world.

He walked towards her, the intensity of life burning within her as the apex in the flame. Suddenly aware of danger, the id side of her mind reacted in violence using the Eye to slam him against the side of a nearby tree. Luckily, the renewed peacefulness in the forest protected him the tree forsaking some of its leaves to cover him as the Eye forced him into the tree. Standing up slowly and carefully, the moon-maddened maiden apparently paying him no respect by returning to her meditation as if nothing had interrupted her prior. Although she could absorb his Eye and use it as she pleased she lacked the access to his Soul, and he used that to his advantage as he forced her to the bottom of the nest and summoned all of his power to seal away her power.

She looked up at him shocked and he pulled her out of the insane light that he had unfortunately began to bathe himself in. Eyes marred in that maddening deep red glow and breathing intensely as if she had run her limit, the Asian woman began to come to - that was when he sealed her senses as well.

Of all the humans he had found on the Old Moon, this woman had more strength than all of them combined - even with the Shared Eye. She could supplant them all, one day, if he had not had the Soul to seal all of their memories away and make them his Tribe's servants. Not only for his Tribe's safety but also for their own safety and survival did he tie of all connection with the Eye. Their senses, too, could the sun seal, but as far as their memories went he would have to make use of one of his Children's Souls. It was all he could do, the Eye back on Earth who had been foolish enough to Awaken the Eye within the slumbering humans had brought all existence to their knees - and he would obtain the power one day to see them atone for what they had done to the equilibrium. Chaos had followed, but order could be made from the ramshackle remnants. And despite his Tribe and all of the other Tribes being the detritivores that they had originally been, order would have to come from somewhere - and he was willing to take that responsibility.

Before that, he would have to think on how to deal with this Asian woman and her power. He could easily keep her sealed, even unconsciously he could . However, he remembered his dying Wife's last words echoing in the somber recesses of his mind.

"Who art thou, to have clipped my wings?" mumbled the Asian woman carried over his shoulder. Lisa did all within his power to keep from dropping her where he stood, and a single tear fell from his eyes as he gazed upon the Blue Moon. He whispered Mawu on his lips and heard a pre-Chaos wolf howl lonely without his pack in the distance.

"Who art thou, to have clipped my wings?" Part I

What great changes had altered the landscape of the homeworld? Gentle earthlight dabbed through the Old Moon's new canopy as Lisa dodged between vine and tree. His heightened senses proved useful in this new landscape if only to be able to maneuver amongst the natural barricades offered by this spiritual wood. His people had roamed underneath the lime-colored moonlight and filtered starlight for ages - he remembered the savanna where gentle and golden grass touched his thigh. A whisper from the creator.

Yet down there on earth, things fought amongst each other for survival - of the fittest some scholar had once said - but here, on the Old Moon the creatures evolved even when they remained stationary. An effect of the Blue Moon and Red Moon light he was sure, but Lisa could not risk letting his skin be touched, poisoned, by the foreign glows. He had witnessed rapid evolution on several animals caught under the unforgiving crimson moonlight - one moment a continuity the next something else entirely baptized by the ethereal shine.

On the other hand, he had witnessed too the deep navy blue light slow down or even reverse the effects of the evolution - seemingly unused structures or now inconvenient strappings immediately falling off of any said creature. What was made could be unmade the Scholars had once said oh, so long ago. Lisa recognized his once insatiable hunger had now itself become dormant - only attachment had left him in desire for that taste. His people were the Raven Children. He had never witnessed or been the patron of any child birth yet his Children were many. In the daytime, back on the homeworld, they had flown distances and taken into their sites wonders that most normal humans or even the elite Eye could ever have dreamed of. In their minds was driven the Lessons of the earth, and where the earth felt pain they felt it tenfold. As flies to a rotting carcass were they to the earth - cleaning away what no one else desired acting as detritivores for the planet which depicted them as nothing less than monsters.

That is not to say that some of his kind were not monsters. The Children of the Tree were well known for their interplay with humankind and the Eye of the Dark Temple alike. Blending well with humans and flaying from their former nymph-like fortitude the Children of the Tree brought into the fray the likes of Vlad III, and others with sadistic natures. Lisa, of a more ancient blood than any of the other Children had raised his own to be as pacifistic as possible. Only adding to their number when necessary for survival. Yet that had been the Old World, now the were on the Old Moon which for some reason was made inhabitable by the changes brought on by whatever the Eye had released or opened. Formerly humans who lacked access to the Eye obtained seemingly unlimited levels of it and ripped the world to shreds and were slowly beginning to witness their sin.

His Children had been vigilant in supplanting the newborn organizations that had been forming despite the prior uncontrollable chaos that they had experienced. He knew that the humans now forced into knowledge of the Eye were a weak and brittle branch to be broken - and knew the earth had desired for them to be within her grasp once again. Lisa was willing to act as the Savior to mankind no matter what his original vow had been. To keep the world clean for mankind and the Eye to flourish - no matter how frail she may look the Earth would always find someway to sustain her children is what he had been told.

He was now apart from that world, and he had no idea how the correlated with his pact. Was he free from it? He no longer felt the desire for blood for survival as he had once, now it was just a guilty memory he had of taking the precious life flow from an aware being. He had served the earth many years in an attempt to reach atonement for his sin, however uncontrollable and instinctual that it may be.

"Father," a gentle yet strong feminine voice hummed. Iansan had taken on the attributes of her spirit animal the hummingbird. Hair short but spirited and tinged at the tips reminded him of a hummingbird always on the go searching for its next flower. Her dark features reflected her similar origins in Africa. She had once been with only human features but the Old Moon had merged a hummingbird that had begun to perish in the Blue Moon light and she had taken pity on the creature allowing it to metamorphose with her soul. Within her seemingly fragile frame, she could summon the hurricane and winds with her Eye. She used to rage with it in her palms, but this new and peaceful moon had calmed her.

"Yes, Daughter?" He held no similar relative with Iansan, if they did it was so distant as to be of no import, yet their communal blood and collective consciousness with their environment was more than enough to make that connection.

"We have found another human. This one is oddly by herself, and the creatures react to her as if to a long lost aunt. Furthermore, she seems to have advancing control over the Three Moons. Change at her feet and the wind bends its head to her palms. She may be too powerful to control. How should we proceed, Father Lisa?" Iansan had always been to the point, but within her voice was desperation unnatural to her character. Had she grown comfortable over the last few days in this paradise? Had she not been the one on his side in the Meeting with his fourteen Children?Oh, but he missed Mawu's grace with politics and calming the souls of others. How his People had made it to the Old Moon and were surviving in the fast-changing environment had to be an echoing gift from Mawu - his Moon Wife. He remembered her vividly, despite her frail and silent death all those years ago.

"I shall go by myself to meet this lone woman. Iansan, return to the others and ensure the humans their safety - be careful not to tell them the nature of their captivity. I shall meet with you beneath the Raven's Nest." And he was off. Dancing between evolving elm and disintegrating ash. Trees and animals completely unknown to his far older knowledge were ignored, he was used to the change of the earth. At times helpful and at other times unforgiving.

He easily located the woman through the multi-layered covers of leaves and other flora. He found himself facing a young Asian woman who was bathing in the middle of an already abandoned nest large enough for three women of her size. She was short and had cropped hair. The Red Moon light pouring down through an opening in the top canopy and her fingers had become transparent. She, unlike most of the others who seemingly experienced pain at the light that dispensed evolutionary advance embraced the light and no matter her surreal changes, she was the beauty of the Three Moons. He could hardly breath as he gazed upon her revelry.

Staring at the moonlight, Mawu's dark skin reflected the sanguine and silver moon. Her tall and fallow curves reflected their own refracted light. Mawu required no food, in fact she had refused to the dismay of her Children and Husband. Food and sustenance had always required one living thing to sacrifice its precious life to another. She knew all to well the ways of the world and the heartbeat of nature, yet mankind and the Eye had grown too separate from the source of their Power and used the blessed earth for their own selfish desires. Not only the humanoid Children, but she had witnessed the terrible sport of the cheetah to chase down a gentle antelope and had been all but stunned to see its full belly leave the poor bleeding creature to suffer without feasting upon it. The sneer left its impression in Mawu's sight blurred by her tears of anger. Many of her Children's insatiable hunger had displeased her that day, but they were nothing in comparison with this terror of a feline - she had wanted to make it pay for its sins, but that would only result in the hypocrisy of taking a life for no valid purpose.

Lisa's tall figure approached as if to a summons, despite their mutual equality in the family. "I would wish you would feast upon something. Perhaps a dove's pure blood would be to your liking?"

Mawu's eyes were still watery, but they took in Lisa and his sharp edges. Within his hand struggled a young dove, it had begun to make its escape despite its precognition that it could not do so from one of the Children. Every living creature had to know its place in the hierarchy of life - and that was what had disgusted Mawu and left her with no appetite. No doubt a nuisance to Lisa, Mawu expressed uncharacteristic shock when he clipped the wings of the dove with his relative strength in the Eye. The bird became melancholy and no longer displayed its beautiful wings - cut away in a moment's satiation.

"Who art thou, to have clipped my wings?" Was how Mawu interpreted those solemn and prepared eyes and had reflected those words onto Lisa. Lisa's saddened eyes beat into the frozen heart of Mawi, who ignored them to return her mind to the pristine palace in the sky - shining so coldly to the rest of creation as it bloodied itself in others' remains.

To be continued...