Chapter 179.5 - Prelude of Storm

Her wings held overhead and her beady brown eyes closed, Melly—Meltys of Arviandor—bathed her sparkling pink feathers with a splash of hot water. She basked in the sensation, humming happily as the liquid washed down her frame and filled her very core with warmth.

It took an immense effort to haul the bathwater to the summit that was her home. The only spring’s source laid halfway down the slope and its fresh water only flowed downwards, towards the city built around the sacred garden. It was not she that contributed the labour of transport. That duty fell instead upon the shrine maidens that lived at the base of the mountain. Every day, after lunch, the devout would stray from their looms, draw from the spring, and deliver to the mountain dweller enough water to fill a bath.

At a glance, the midday soak appeared as would an activity of leisure, but it too was one of Melly’s many responsibilities. It was only her divine grace, her sacred blessing, that allowed the arviads to drink from the contaminated water. The holy energy that radiated off her body cleansed the impurities and blessed the liquid with the holy power it required. There was no other way to ward off the thick miasma that clung to the air. Without a divine protector, the city was doomed. The old and weak would see grievous symptoms within days, and the healthy would collapse in the following weeks.

As her father’s heir, it fell to her to take his responsibility. And one day, with her retirement, the duty would be passed again onto her brother. He would be raised to follow in her tailwind and serve as the patron of the arviad people.

Looking towards the chick, who bounced around the fountain with cheer, Melly allowed a fond light to reflect in her eyes. The youngling had hatched only three months prior; he was barely old enough to walk, but he already developed an understanding of most simple concepts. Before long, he would be mature enough to speak words, and perhaps even give himself a name.

“You have to scrub your bill carefully, young one.”

Quacking softly, Meltys rose from the fountain and reached into the bucket inside it, but found it empty. All the peas had already been consumed by the gluttonous child frolicking in the bath.

While certainly disappointed, the divine did not find herself particularly resentful. She had known that her little brother would cause her trouble. But even then, it was she that suggested he accompany her. He was still at the age where he could easily be lost, and her mother, their mother, needed a break from his continued caretaking.

Melly allowed him to play for another few minutes before ushering him outside. She was getting hungry, and she had already spent the better part of an hour soaking herself through.

“I know you’re disappointed, but you’re just going to have to put up with it.” She responded to his frustrated chirps with a light push. Using one of her wings, she carted him away from the bathhouse, sealed the door behind them for good measure, and walked with him across the property.

The shrine that was their mountaintop home was not particularly large or spacious. Still, walking across the grounds was tough work for a child, and it took them several minutes to make their way to the kitchen, where the family’s matriarch was slowly working away.

“Is lunch ready yet?”

“It will be in a bit, sweetie.”

The response was followed by the sizzling of a pan. There was a tantalizing smell drifting through the home; a beautiful array of scents that could only come when insects and battered vegetables were cooked perfectly in tandem. Melly was so pleased that she quacked into song, twirling and dancing through the kitchen excitedly as she awaited the meal’s completion.

The pea-gorged chick did not appear quite as eager. He certainly did sniff at the smells and point his beak in their direction, but it appeared more for curiosity than it did out of hunger. He was already full, after eating half his body weight in greens.

Right as Melly’s excitement peaked, however, there happened to be a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it.” Frowning, the arviad reluctantly tore her eyes off the meal and waddled to the building’s foyer. The guest, one of the people from the city, had already let himself in. He was pacing back and forth, his wings on his balding head and his feathers completely disheveled.

“Meltys!” He ran to her as soon as she turned the corner. “You have to help us! There’s an emergency. The sacred well has been corrupted and dozens are sick!” He spoke not in Marish, but rather their native tongue of abravdt. For their kind, it was much easier to squawk and sing than it was to weave the words of men.

She opened her eyes wide, but soon calmed with a ruffle of the feathers. Her father had dealt with similar problems countless times in his career. She could quickly resolve it, so long as she kept her head level.

“Which well is it?”

“The south one,” he said. “Please hurry! My son, my son is dying!”

Nodding, she spread her wings wide and first basked him in her divine grace. He had also drunk the envenomed water, and she could feel the miasma seeping deep into his core.

The purification ritual lasted for only five seconds, but required a hundred points of divinity. Several generations ago, it would have been a draining amount, but Melly was the seventeenth protector. Every point she spent had returned by the time she closed her wings.

Throughout the ages, the divine protector had become so well worshipped that their divinity blossomed, skyrocketed beyond all minimum requirements, and qualified them for a place among the pantheon. And yet, they went largely unknown. Only within their territory were their names ever spoken, their titles and concepts ever worshipped. It was not as if she was tied to the land, but her people were, and she was honourbound to see her duty through.

With obligation in mind, she stepped out of her home, passed through the shrine’s holy gates, and soared across the mountain, at the land that had been known as the largest range east of the Ryllian, before the mountain god’s latest tantrum.

The sky parted to make way for her advent and formed a chasm in the clouds. Her speed was so great that she needed a holy barrier to keep her body from coming to harm; to stop the winds from tearing her to bits. In less than half a minute, she landed next to the well, cushioning her fall with the softest of heavenly pillars.

Many approached to offer her their instructions, but she required no such orders. Her eyes saw all.

Standing up on her bright orange feet, she spread her wings as far as they would go and summoned forth a sacred barrier, a holy shield that stretched as far and wide as the city itself. Maintaining a purifying silverlight on such a scale strained even the great protector. The feathers on the tips of her wings began to fray and shrivel. Her skin wrinkled, her eyes sank into her sockets, and her feet dried, turning from beautiful paddles to sad dried-out husks.

Her very life force was being consumed, converted to the divine power required to execute her commands, but she cared little. The citizens began thanking her before the purification was even complete. They got down to the ground and bowed their heads, singing hymns of worship and acknowledgement, bestowing upon her the power that she was missing, the power she needed. Her body began to restore itself, and the miasma grew weaker. By the time she was whole again, the noxious gas had been purged from the city in all places but one.

Flapping her wings, she rose into the air, blew the covering off the well, and dove in headfirst. Light spread from where she entered, slowly radiating through the water and cleansing it of its curse. Everywhere she went, dived, the colour changed from purple to silver, corrupt to divine. When she eventually arrived at the spring’s source, she found that the trail of pollution stemmed from a foreign object in the water, a sort of strange thing with an appearance resembling that of a child’s toy. The top half of its body was round, shaped almost like the top half of an eggshell. Long slimy feathers grew from beneath its bell. The plumes bore a greater resemblance to seaweed than they did any sort of coat, but she minded them not. Whatever the creature was, it had been killed prior to its birth. Its translucent skin and underdeveloped organs reminded her of a chick ripped from the safety of its shell.

Worse, it had been mauled following its premature escape. Tiny claw marks ran along the side of its head, a sign that it had been attacked by the venomous jungle cats roosting in the miasmatic mountain range. There were also hints of blunt trauma, large swaths of its body with its flesh violently tenderised.

Embracing the poor chick, Melly closed her eyes and channeled her power. She could not quite heal the deceased child’s body, but her holy aura cleansed it of its impurities as it melted away in her wings.

It was during that moment of pity that she was struck with a premonition, a vision of a group of misshapen, four-legged birds, storming the city with spells and weapons. In the vision, she was helpless. The sacred relic that was her weapon lay at her feet while a demon stood in front of her, holding her brother with a dagger at his throat.

A shudder ran down her spine, accompanied by a sense of understanding and responsibility.

She would have to grow into an even greater god if she wished to avoid the fate that had befallen the unhatched child.

She would need to make a pilgrimage to the sacred mountain, where she would gain even greater power. But first, as signaled by her rumbling stomach, she would need to find something to eat.