Drops of Faith (Colombina)

[Zaira]

Unbidden the small smile came to gentle lips. The comforting words of the god were a strange thing to behold, prompting lithe fingers to brush away the trails tears that had once fell left in their wake. Her head lowered eyes parting from the sight of the god before her at the mention of her devotion, her love not needing to be equal to that of the one before her. It was a comfort on one hand, and a shame that so little could be expected, but was eagerly accepted by her lord. Her eyes scanned over the sands, stealing back towards where there once laid ashes, Ashes of a tent, of a man, of so much more. Something else had been lost in those flames, or something was born from them the dancer, was uncertain now.

Yet as she gazed upon the sands, once where there had been ashes, scattered and grey there were feathers of a familiar radiance, of all things, ascending, climbing up into the sky and disappearing betwixt the stars above.

Her head turned at the words of Yahal to find the eyes upon her and felt the air within her, the breath upon her lips still. It was beautiful it was something that vibrated your very core.

The woman felt her skin prickle in goose flesh as her name echoed upon the wind and the eyes left her kneeling form. It took only a second for her to raise, the light form she carried felt as though composed of air and nothing more as light steps brought the dancer back to the deity’s side. Indeed she knew those who needed encouragement, who needed to be reminded of the goodness of others, and to trust in others again. Indeed she could call to mind people such as them easily when she herself could have been within those numbers.

Blue eyes gazed upon Yahal as the god paused once more, before trailing to the path the pair once walked, his words swirling through her mind, confirmed as the winged figure spoke again. “To be your voice, your hand, and touch of hope and kindness. To show the harmony that can be gifted through your grace and the fidelity to goodness can bring. To be your messenger and proof, this is what you ask of me, Yahal?”

[Colombina]

"Yes, this is what I ask of you." He was pleased by her show of understanding. He would ask both less and more of her than what she described, but he would wait until those days came.

"Some hearts will be harder than others, unrelenting under the weight of the message and other will be hungry for such encouragement. I will guide you in each. Like I said, I will never force a heart, but I will endeavor to woo it."

He took her hand again, clasping it between both of his own. Opalescent names and letters were still glowing and twisting over his skin. Their time was ending, so he repeated the consolation he felt she would need most.

"Sometimes I speak, and others I stay silent. Do not mistake my silence for apathy."

There was so much more he could tell her: pains and longings Zaira had yet to feel, peace and joy she had not tasted, plans that would whisk her away from what she thought certain. But Yahal did not betray these contorting futures with his mouth, only his eyes.

"You live under Tanroa. Time obscures your view more than it does mine. Trust me, though you cannot perceive beyond the cloud of the moment."

One hand still supported hers but the other passed over her eyes. The words on Yahal's skin were flaring into a blinding emerald light, overcoming her vision.

"Abide in faith, Zaira, abide."

~*~

Her head was cold and damp where it touched the ground. Stiffness and tingling numbness wrapped around the hinges of her legs. A bearded man on a nearby step looked at her briefly then turned away. She was where she had begun, but in a tangled pile. Evidently her body had given up despite the spirit's will to dance and in such stand-offs, the body usually won.

Here it was, the city of men, crudely shaped, grayly lit and veined through with black filth. And she was just another shape in the mass.