Premonitions

Montarius, last of the first Pilgrims, sits immersed in a black and purple smoke, the world around him nothing but a meandering haze of shapes swirling and twisting around each other, some gravitating toward each other while some pushed aggressively away, all creating new patterns. He was perfectly still, his form shades of browns and crimson, even the swirling colours around him conformed to his perfect calm when they touched him until they broke away once more.

Across from him, a new concentration of colours began to waft together creating a tall flowing shape like a hanging sheet. The colours seemed to collect more intensely into two orbs near the height of the sheet creating two glowing reddish oranges.

The once perfectly still form began to twist until managing to etch out a vague impression of a face, its mouth downturned.

A voice flowed from the tall sheet, a deep, though clearly feminine, resonation that seemed to sigh with each word, “you must have known that I would come,” she spoke then paused, inviting response. Nothing. She sighed in earnest this time. “We could all feel it. Like we’d suddenly regained a distantly silenced part of ourselves.” Another pause before the tall sheet drifted slightly slower toward the sitting calm before her. “Any reason I’m getting the hate treatment?”

“I do not hate you,” his voice low and grounded as his form.

“Good to hear..,” the sheet tilted her head. “You could have easily disappeared again – popped in, got whatever it is you needed, and sulked off again.” Her orange orbs drifted, looking around, “You’ve been at it for quite some time,” and then her eyes back to him, “and your connection is…impressive. Is there some kind of threat?”

He finally sighed, his form wavering slightly, and two orbs formed on his face, their colour much more amber than the rest of him. “I do not know. The Sprites are being…confusing. Hope, desire, fear, uncertainty – all formed around a singular subject, but they cannot seem to agree as to what the subject even is. A someone, I believe.”

“Or something. We never did manage to find her. There’s no telling what she became.”

He shook his head, “no. They recognize her differently. She is no ‘someone’ to them. Nor a something. We know this.”

“You, know.” She started to shift around again, slowly looking here and there. “They always spoke differently to you. A shame, really. To imagine any ‘someone’ could hide from you.” As she went on, Montarius’s eyes followed her closely, almost glaring. She continued, “and now that you’re back…”

“I’ve told you that I am not helping you with that.”

“It’s not like I’m asking you to train them, but there have been more and more appearing all the time. They do need training, you can’t deny that; if it’s even remotely connected to this degree of concern you are showing it only makes sense for you to at least help track them down. You can think what you want about me, but there is a problem snowballing out of control. Is The Path really to watch everything crumble around it?”

Montarius grumbled. Sighed. Mused. And sighed again.

“I’ll take that as a yes?” Her orbs froze on him.

“Isullah. Why did you take your title?”

Her orbs tilted again, “you know why. That…place changed us. All of us. It’s not a title, it is my name now. There is no Isullah. I become more. We are Magnus Grey.”

A long pause was shared between them. The swirling and twisting shapes seemed to have vaguely collected around them. Montarius’s orbs disappeared, and his form began to become still once more.

“I suppose I’ll be needing a new name too, then.”