Quest of The Soul - nanowrimo project

Stalina is challenged to relinquish the lost soul of Herum to continue her journey.

Stalina longs to be an angel, but in her quest she becomes a Demacri. She is challenged to relinquish the lost soul of Herum to rectify her status and continue on her journey.

Chapter One – The gathering

Looking out upon the wandering grounds Stalina could see further than her eye to the point at which intuition radiated in all directions and the force of radiant energy sprung from every crevice of the land. She was standing upon a mountaintop, looking down upon the fertile meadows and crisp orchards that followed a natural path to the edge of the great water. All was beauty, wrapped in the essence of Godliness. This was the land of souls, whose spirits could be felt as such a pure energy the auras themselves were vibrant to the eye. This purity made it impossible for Stalina to wander among the lands, such an act being forbidden to all except those who had reached an actualization of their own spirits and an outward reflection to angelic status.

These, the angels, had shed any self-serving nature, whether it should exist in thought or in deed, conscious or unconscious, and therefore they could become one with the spirit of the ‘land of souls’ and one with the spirits who wandered it. Stalina yearned for this reckoning of her self– and even in so doing, made it impossible to achieve. Borig had explained this so thoroughly, and so often, but Stalina was young and could not yet grasp the ideal.

In her musings, Stalina had failed to hear Ramidir walk up behind her. He placed a hand on her brow and pulled back the orange flame of hair revealing her perfectly formed chin line. He leaned forward and placed his lips upon her temple, and as she felt the warmth of his gesture, it vibrated through her like a newly heated star. She sighed, smiled, and turned to him.

“I should have known I would find you here, where else would you possibly wander to. Are you still dreaming?” He asked.

Stalina shrugged, and a weak smile fitted her composure. Ramidir did not believe she could ever become an angel,
“you have too much deviance within you!” he had once proclaimed, and at the time she could not counter the accusation. In fact, quite the opposite. Stalina had to admit that life without the jest of corruption would be quite boring and she told him so. They were to marry at the next moon arising, less than one month away. Stalina hoped to be blessed with her own child, but having a child meant giving up the dream that had driven her throughout her life, at least until her child was older.

“I can still do it you know” She pushed Ramidir cautiously, not wanting him to move too far from her as already the rising of her breasts in the warmth of their close proximity reflected the aura of cosmic energy that pulsated at the base of their mountain, in the land of souls.

“At what expense Stalina? At ours? At your child’s? You know the journey will take you away for many years, and what would become of me?” He asked, precariously balancing on a rock at the line of the cliff, mimicking a fall. “Will I fall from your graces and spend my life searching for redemption too?”

She laughed at this, and held out a hand offering to save Ramidir from himself. They had met as children, introduced soon after the writing of their future together, which occurred when they were two years of age. The union was decided long before their birth, and between the two, a child “destined to do great things” would be born. Stalina did not put a lot of emphasis on this writing, but preferred, as she said many times to Ramidir, to write her own destiny. She repeated this to him now.

“As I said before, you have too much deviance within you to allow you to ever become an angel.” He affirmed this with a firm humor that lightened his words but leaned credence to their seriousness. Stalina wondered if his ideas of this were just self-serving, and often tried to figure out ways in which they could have the best of both worlds.

“My parents did it” She said.

“Your parents were special, and their destiny was pre-written. You cannot change your destiny Stalina, you must know this?”

“No, I don’t know this. What force has predetermined all destiny. Maybe the elders have it wrong. It comes down to interpretation doesn’t it?”

“It is determined by God. You cannot deny that.”

“What God has determined for me, and what the elders have supposed God to have determined for me may be two completely different things! If, through my achievements I become and angel, then they would have to agree that this then would be my destiny, as determined by God, not the destiny that they have prescribed based on their own determination!” Her cheeks were hot and flushed as anger stretched through her veins, and the sea of air between herself, at the edge of her mountaintop, and the ‘land of souls’ below became humid, creating a barrier that dimmed her image of the auras. She blinked, as though trying to clear a fog.

“It’s happening to you again isn’t it?” Said Ramidir.

Stalina just stared at him, not wanting to admit the distance from her journey that she was creating through her selfish yearnings.
“What! What do you think is happening Ramidir?”

“I can see it in your eyes, the fog that appears when your mind has created a separation from spirit. This is why your dreams are unfounded in reality. Until you realize this, your life will never be filled with the peaceful serenity that it is meant to have.”

“And you have all the answers to that serenity?” She retorted.

“Of course not, but I am open to the teachings.”