It was more of a home to me than any I've known, but now my perceptions are so muddled that I barely recognize it. As a goddess I saw it's beautiful, bittersweet aura and now it's like looking through stained glass.

I do everything right to call upon my winds but they're deaf to my summons. It's as though the elements are ethereal or abstract. The very wind is beyond my reach.

I am of no use as leader of the X-men without my powers. Scott cannot lead with wife and child and there is no willing or ready member of the team.

I've returned to my village to stake claim to the other facet of my heritage. My family tree branches back dozens of centuries and while my forefathers were monarchs my mothers were high priestesses and magicians. My lineage affords me latent arcane abilities and a capacity towards much more. However, I never thought that I would need to develop them.

There isn't a temple in the village, only the home of the crooked old wise woman who serves as cleric. During my tenure as goddess this same woman came to me on behalf of her people in supplication. The irony doesn't escape me; now I come to her to be taught.

I was much younger when my foster mother, Ainet, taught me the spiritual canons that afforded me oneness with the planet and the ability to enter a trance that allows me to hold court with the bright lady. While these practices do not qualify as magic the techniques parallel.

She's sitting in front of her hut on a wooden crate, leaning forward. Her hair is as white as my own and while in this village her clothes are fine, by western standards she's beyond impoverished.

"Mother Shanti," I say, looking at her weary, voided body.

She raises her head slowly and I wonder if she's sedated. She moves as though she's aged thirty years since I've last seen her.

"Ah, hello Windrider," her smile is forced.

What has bore the life from you, woman? I wonder, kneeling to look into her eyes. There are clumps of thick pus-like matter in the corners of her eyes and her face is caked in mud.

"Why are you out here like this Mother Shanti?"

"I am waiting for you Ororo; I knew you were coming to claim your birthright; the final piece of who you are."

"Are you ill, Shanti?" I ask, reaching for her small, calloused hand.

"I'm not ill," she says, moving her hand away evasively. "We haven't much time child."

She stands, turning to her hut. Her coat is actually a faded green robe with faint red stripes running down the back.

What has happened to you Shanti, when I left you last you were regal and the life just hummed around you. Before, age suited you and gave to your beauty, now you're merely a shell of the woman I remember.

Her hut is exactly as I remember it; on the inside it's the size of a small American ranch. There isn't much by the way of décor other than a small shrine to the Goddess Oya. Oya was a storm goddess, and the people of this village believe me to be her reincarnated as the Maiden.

The village still sees me as a goddess and I feel embarrassed; returning as plain folk, with none of the grandeur that I am known for.

No livestock will be butchered in my name to wet the lands.

"I remember when you left us Windrider, when you told me that you were no idol and that this Xavier would teach you about the real world. You trusted him so much and knew that his path would be a part of your own journey," Shanti tells me, searching through her large crate that serves as a chest for her tools in magic.

"Now you've returned to me, war torn, seeking the fruition of your lineage," She turns to look into my eyes. "Ororo, I'll be leaving the village and I've waited for you for months; knowing that I'm the only one that can grant your hearts desire, and I'm scared girl, because the ceremony required is dangerous."

"How so?"

"You're link to your lineage has been severed and I must align you with your mothers; if you don't know them then your powers are anchorless. You're potential in the black arts is limitless, and without the strength that you're foremothers would afford you," She hesitates, not looking at me at all, "You'll go mad and become one of the most destructive beings this world has ever known."

I remember a beautiful redhead, the most gentle and pure creature I've ever known and I remember what she became. I loved her more than any sister that I could conceive of and I couldn't save her from herself. I watched with my friends as she destroyed a whole solar system and a world of five billion innocents.

"How dangerous is the ceremony?"

"Deadly."

"I haven't any other choice."