Beyond The River

ENDINGS & BEGINNINGS

Maiara's pov:-

I lie down beside Leala's body, centre myself and let my soul drift into the vastness of the universe until I feel it. She had died only a few minutes ago and that too in the sacred forest of Reveigh. A powerful death like this marks the place, stains it with it's injustice, and that was exactly what I was feeling, what I was channeling.

Leala's magick was angry, very angry. I could feel the burn of it, and I hold onto that feeling and follow it to the beyond. 

That's where I find her. She is sitting there, on her knees and crying. Away from the ocean of life and the river of afterlife. Stuck in darkness.

My conscience takes my form in this in between and I walk towards her.

She looks up at me as I get closer to her and I can feel her sadness here. It is so strong that it brings me down to my knees too. My throat starts to hurt and tears brim my eyes as my chest caves in with all this hurt that I'm feeling.

This is what she is going through? I think to myself, because this was too much, even for someone as strong as her. She was still just a child and yet this is what her death feels like. So much pain. So much hurt. So much misery. So much anguish.

I take a step towards her and she looks up.

"I- I know you." She says in a voice that sounds broken to the core.

"You're Maiara. You were my mother's sister." She says, her tears stop for the time being.

"Yes. I am Maiara, and I still am your mother's sister." I say, reeling my emotions back in and controlling my tears. I have to be strong. Only I can do this.

She stares off into the distance, and says "Are you here to take me beyond the river?"

"Ho- How do you know about it?" This legend was only passed in our people. I couldn't think of Achlys singing that sacred lullaby to Leala, she had always wanted to keep her daughter away from her people.

"My mother told me about it. She sang to me this lullaby. Where the soul travels to this river after death and is greeted by the one person whom they have loved with the entirety of their heart, and once they cross the river, they get to live happily with their loved ones. All of them. Forever." She says, turning sad yet hopeful eyes towards me.

"I want to go there." She says and her tears start flowing again.

It breaks me to hear this from this child. That she would want to go to the afterlife and that she doesn't even want to live anymore. But what breaks me even more is that I am here to take her away from the river, not to help her cross it.

"But why do you want to go there?" I ask as I sit down properly besides her, our shoulders and elbows brushing.

"My mother is there. And so is my father. I want to see them. I miss them so much." She says with shaking voice and all I can see is a child in front of me. Crying for her parents, wanting them even if it is only through death.

"But don't you have anyone else you would want to see?" I ask.

"There's Hensley, but he's still alive, I hope." She says the last words in a whisper.

"So don't you want to meet him?" I ask.

"I disappointed him." She says, casting her eyes downwards.

"How so?" I ask.

"I died." She speaks simply.

"How is that disappointing him?" I ask.

"He taught me all the ways in which to not die, to stay alive in even the most dangerous situation, and yet I died a meaningless death. I don't even know how I died. He was ready to lay down his life for me in the battlefield and here I was, wasting all the hard work he put into me." She says.