The Tears of Time

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“This is foolishness, Gabriel.”

“No, no, I still hold hope.”

“After everything that has happened, you still believe she will bend the End to our wishes? She is merely a channel for the destruction to come.”

“She is still mortal!”

“We are all mortal, but some survive to see the end and deceive themselves into thinking that they are not,” a third voice joined the conversation, softer, sadder, the taint of remorse seeping through his words.

“Sir,” Gabriel’s voice acknowledged.

“It’s time,” the older voice commanded.

Ella tried to hang on to the voices, but they slid and slipped through her mind, the words she could hear so clearly making no more sense than gibberish. Her eyes were sealed shut, her limbs no longer hers to command. Someone lifted her up, strong arms cradling her body to their chest, carrying her away. The movement tipped the fragile balance of her consciousness, and she drifted away again.

Holding her fragile mortal body in his arms, Raphael’s heart cried out at the deception they had been spun, that the last Seer would join a side and spin the destruction of Earth for one or the other. That the end would be only for the losing side.

His gaze never left her as they travelled away from the realm of the immortal, towards Time and the void. Her pale grey face, her painfully thin figure, the cuts and bruises which lay scattered carelessly across her skin, and the newly-created white wings which sprung from her back were all that filled his vision. He flew only by instinctively following Gabriel ahead of him.

In Ella’s unconscious state, she dreamed once more of darkness, pain seeping through her limps until they tensed under Raphael’s hold, startling him from his reverie.

“Gabriel!” he called, frightened.

“What is it?”

“Ella,” Raphael said, struggling to explain.

“She’ll be dreaming,” Gabriel answered, watching the girl’s face.

“Should I wake her?”

“No.”

“But-”

“Leave her. If she is tense, it is because she is Seeing.”

Raphael nodded slowly, though still unsure. Elanor’s eyelids twitched, signalling the fact that she saw something under them. Raphael sighed, wishing he could do something as he hovered above the dark void. Time’s window was inset in the cliff ahead of them, Gabriel already flying towards it once more. The void unsettled him, and he realised that it could be affecting Ella. He flew on quickly.

The blackness that was holding Ella slipped away slowly, revealing bright light bathing her surroundings in white splendour. She lay quietly, her open eyes taking in the endless white which stretched above her head, bordered by a strand of winding oak trees.

“Elanor?” a quiet voice called, its lilting tone gently weaving with the soft breeze which rustled through the trees. Ella sat up, resting her weight on her hands in the dusty earth. Ahead of her, a woman was walking through the trees, a soft blue cloak floating out behind her. She was slim, of medium height though dwarfed by the huge oak trunks. Her eyes were black, as if the iris had spread through the pupil as well. Her stance was straight, her demeanour that of a queen. Ella stood up as the woman approached, struck by her sad beauty.

“Who are you?” she asked, as the woman stopped a few paces from her.

“Your mother,” Time smiled, reaching out to take Elanor’s hand in her own.

“Oh,” Elanor breathed, the statement resonating through her person with warmth that flooded right to her toes.

“You probably already knew,” Time whispered, sitting down on the grass. Elanor sat too, keeping the tiny, smooth hand in her own. Ella nodded, acknowledging the sense of familiarity which accompanied the touch.

“Who am I?” Ella asked.

“My daughter.”

“But… what am I?” Ella persisted.

“You are a Seer, a Sibylla if you like…” Time smiled as she thought about her daughters brief scavenges into the world of mythology, “You’re the one who will bring an end to this world.”

“But why must there be an end?”

“Because there was a beginning.”

Ella scowled, and Time laughed at the familiar expression; the raised eyebrow, tense mouth and tight jaw which were so often mirrored in her own face.

“Why did you abandon me?”

“You had to be hidden.”

“Why?”

“Danger follows those with power, especially those with the power to destroy.”

“Did you want to let me go?”

“No.”

“Then why didn’t you visit me?”

“Because you couldn’t know who you were.”

“Then they would have found me…” Ella whispered her thoughts, “But they did!”

“I told them where you were,” Time sighed, the difficulty of the next answer weighing upon her. Though she knew the questions her daughter would ask, she longed not to have to answer.

“Why?”

“Because they asked.”

“And you tell everyone everything they ask you?”

“Yes. I was not created to lie or remain silent.”

“But-”

“What happens, happens for a reason. Are you the same as you were before Lucifer and Gabriel found you?”

“No…”

“Exactly. You have almost realised your full potential.”

“Why me?”

“You may just as well ask, why any of us?”

“I understand.”

“Not yet you don’t,” Time sighed, standing up.

“I knew there was something else,” Ella sighed sardonically.

“There is always something else,” Time whispered, looking upwards at the white sky, “Now. You have discovered what the Angels call Form Dispersion?”

“Yes.”

“You have felt the pain in Lucifer’s soul?”

“Yes.”

“I would ask you to feel mine,” Time offered a hand to pull Elanor to her feet.

“Why?”

“Because then you will understand.”

Elanor paused, surveying her mother with a sense of anxiety. This was the woman who had abandoned her so many years ago. And yet she felt an undeniable urge to trust her.

“Ok, what do I do?”

“What you did before.”

Ella nodded, swallowing the fear which had risen unbidden in her throat. Time placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, making Ella pause to look at her for a moment. Then she closed her eyes, shivering in the breeze. Once again, her thoughts concentrated inwardly, taking in the days-old pain that had gathered in her tired limbs, the ache of old and new muscle, the whirring thoughts which whirl pooled in her head. Beside all this, there was the odd sense of calm which had followed her throughout, the feeling that everything was right. That this was what was meant to happen.

She allowed that inner peace to travel throughout her body, relaxing her limbs and sitting down again, in order that she wouldn’t fall over. It slowly resonated from each limb in turn, until her entire being was a thrumming string, vibrating faster and faster in a chord which echoed her surroundings. Ella could sense a pull this time, a force acting on every atom of her being, trying desperately to pull her apart. It built and built, until-

Nothing.

Ella opened her eyes, to see her form gone, replaced by the familiar shadowy mist, its ethereal form drifting from shape to shape. Her hands danced in front of her, still maintaining the four fingers and thumb, but the shape warping slightly from side to side, as if swayed by unseen tension.