Ascension

She pirouetted eloquently amongst the stones, her hands moving in the directions that the stones were thrown from the middle of the air. First, they would spin around her in a delicate paso doble, hoping to connect with their target. When they didn’t, she spun them ahead, the rocks, curved like the beaks of toucans, ready to pierce their target and shatter against the bones of her enemies. Taliyah was sixteen, yes. She looked as if she were to splinter into a million pieces at any given point in time, yes. Still, she was strong. Still, her feet clattered against the rocky ground, the gravels, and she would not flinch.

“Go! Back where you came from, hawk,” she barked at the man with the golden beak and piercing blue eyes that she could see from his resonant, unique helmet. He was, in every sense of the word, some sort of zombie; it was all that she could muster under her breath. The Great Weaver had a path for each and every person; ascension was not one of them. Once a person has felt the spiritual presence of Death, they were not supposed to return to this life. This thing—this hawk—was an exception, it seemed, for he had returned. The rivers, now, flowed backwards, highlighting the natural disorder of the world around the two. The desert sands didn’t stop her steady hand. She callously threw rock upon rock at the bird, trying to stone it to death. Figuratively and literally, it was if she were throwing rocks upon sand.

“I am not your enemy!” He bellowed, his boisterous voice calling out the young woman as she continued to throw rocks at him. In return, he would summon up a cold soldier of sand to stand in his place, the rocks burying, quietly, into them before they disappeared.

“Liar!”

She cast out a flurry of stones from the ground, trying to pierce his feet. He dashed, quickly, to a nearby mound of sand that he’d risen, away from the stones.

“This is foolish!” the bird yelled before quieting his voice into a calm murmur, raising his gold-plated and pointing it at the stone weaver, “Stop this instance, or I will stop you myself.” The bird casted his staff amongst the sands, rising them up and watching each strain swirl around him. For a moment, the stone weaver stopped in her tracks. She’d grabbed another stone in her hand and was readying it, but the bird seemed all too calm.

“Fight me! Fight me now! I will kill you!” She shouted, her age visible in her voice and her intentions, though pure in heart, shone through. She could not see through the supposed threat that this creature had caused to her family, her tribe, and the very morals of the Great Weaver herself.

“Alright.”

Immediately, the hawk rushed forward, a shining light casting from his staff and burning the exposed flesh on the young girl’s right arm. Quickly, he cast up another soldier of sand. With its magical prowess, it pierced towards the girl; Taliyah, however, quickly casted her body to the side, barely avoiding being stabbed by the falsity. The soldier quickly collapsed back into the ground and, again, a flurry of rocks fell to Taliyah’s wayside and sputtered towards the bird at a dissolute speed. First, a stone hit him in the beak, cracking, what looked to be, his helmet. A second stone followed suit, striking him in the leg and pinning him on the ground. Taliyah, quickly, pelted the downed beast with stones until she could no longer see him. Though alive, he was buried. He was no longer a threat to her tribe. She quietly whispered a prayer to the Great Weaver under her breath, casted a wall of stone, and rode away on the rock.

A familiar golden staff rose through the rock, sand sputtering from it with a voice following, “I am risen.”