The Sensation of Flight - donated by Mareth Ravenlocke
The memory begins with a spell, as most things involving Mareth tend to do. The viewer would find herself standing at the top of a slender tower of black stone, part of a cliffside castle which overlooks a lush verdant forest below. The sky is bright and blue, and the sunlight warms the viewer's face. A stray lock of raven hair is brushed away by a slender hand with purple fingernails, and the viewer would hear herself begin a light airy sort of incantation.
As the chanting builds, so too does the wind, from a pleasant breeze brought forth by slow dance-like undulations of the viewer's wrists, to a heavy wind, and finally with a downward motion of both arms, the viewer would find herself lifted. . . .propelled into the sky in a rush of wind, whipping against her face, through her hair. . .even the hem of her dress flaps like a flag about her ankles, the whipping cloth stings a little.
But that's not enough to distract the viewer from the spectacle of nature stretched out before her as she shoots forward! Far below, the forest canopy passes beneath at an alarming rate, and the viewer can see every clearing, full of tiny dots that can only be assumed to be the creatures of the woods. As the viewer turns her face toward the horizon, the forest abruptly gives way to ocean, and an island in the distance bears a bustling city of tiny dot-sized people.
Through the rush of wind, the blaring sound of a foghorn barely reaches the viewer's ears from the opposite coast of the island -- and its then that a roiling grey mass of stormclouds drifts over the horizon, the speed of the viewer's flight bringing it ever closer!
The viewer's heart thumps in her chest with the sheer exhilaration-- not fear -- of flying headfirst through the brewing thunderstorm! Another chant lifts into the air, almost drowned out by the rushing sound of air as it forms a slipstream around the viewer. This new chant brings forth a tingling sensation from the viewer's head to her toes, electric in nature, and brings with it the scent and taste of ozone, acrid and telling -- a spell of immunity aspected to the lightning into which the viewer flies.
Moments later the viewer's vision becomes clouded in grey as she passes through the first stormcloud! Lightning flashes and crackles around her, building up amidst the angry weather, preparing to lash out at the world below, threatening to strike the viewer down for her trespass -- after all, the immunity spell isn't perfect! The viewer sets her jaw, tasting the ozone laden misty raindrops as she passes through the mass of them, as the first bolt of energy comes lashing directly in front of her path with a deafening thunderclap! The viewer angles her body, arms outstretched, the flowing sleeves of her dress acting as the wings of an eagle and carry her safely aside.
But the storm is a vengeful spirit, and the viewer finds her new path harried as well, with a flash of light and thunder! She banks to the left, and what follows can only be described as a dance among the lightning bolts, frantic and spontaneous!
Even the slightest misstep in her flight could send the viewer face-first into an immeasurable voltage of nature's wrath, but her arms are steady, her control of her airborne momentum precise to a pinpoint!
Once the storm manages to get the better of her, and a stray arc courses through the shell of primed air around her, reduced to static which makes her hair stand on end and tugs at her dress, putting her briefly off course and sending her careening out of control, out of the cloud, and into the night sky! She's outlasted the day, but not the storm. Not this time -- the weather had won. The viewer feels a sense of disappointment, tempered by a drive to improve herself, as she drifts at a leisurely pace toward home, the tower where the memory began. The landscape beneath her looks different in the dark, a whole new animal. The island city is bright with lamplight, and the bustling dogs seem to clash against each other more angrily. The ocean is dotted with ships, from which the viewer can feel the frantic preparations their sailors make against the coming storm -- sails being furled, courses being plotted toward the nearest, safest harbor. A few of them will visit the manor tonight, seeking refuge under the wards of the viewer's potent sorcery.
From the forest wafts a veritable cacophony of nocturnal birds, now that the viewer's pace is a leisurely hover, and no longer the rushing slipstream gale that it was when she came through the other way either. The hooting of owls, the crooning of nightingales, and the soft rustling hiss of billions of leaves displaced by the winds of the coming storm on the coast from a constant harmony upon which the howling of wolves ring out in defiance of the moon. Eventually, the viewer's feet connect with the stone at the top of that slender black tower, heels clacking lightly with the contact, before being shrouded once more by the slowly falling, billowing skirts of a dress no longer displaced by the magic of flight. The viewer brushes her windswept hair behind a pair of pointed ears, beginning her descend along a spiraling staircase, as the memory fades and shimmers back into reality.
Mareth's Initiation Sensory Stone
