Kora: Mata Nui
Chapter Twenty One:
A spirit that sees a... past?
"What are you grinning about Hanu of Ice?" Tala arched and eye ridge at the full sized Toa that was kneeling beside her.
Taru who was smiling softly looked down at the currently grown Kora beside him on the snow covered tundra, "I'm glad to see you again my Singer."
Tala tilted her head glancing at the currently clear night sky, noting something seemed off, "You always see me brother."
"True, but you grow different each time." Taru said as he reached out with a flat hand at first. His clawed fingers curling slightly before a swirl of snow lifted off the ground. Glittering in the green-ish light of the moon while the Toa moved his other hand to start forming a shape with the snow, and slightly larger ice crystals he formed, "You have no memory of past lives, living normally only a few human lives before being reborn."
"But?" Tala asked sensing that world being unspoken. Frowning around as she realized there was a more green tint to night time light, looking up for a moon she couldn't seen but should to show this much light. Tala lifted a hand to touch her Kanohi mask, she paused at seeing there were claws were on her fingers, smaller then the Toa's but still defined for her scale- but she didn't have claws.
"But I've lived long enough to see some dominate aspects of you Kora, those dominate personalities of a living core." Taru seemed to be more talking to himself now then Tala. "I've seen you, this you only once, long ago. The very start of your life." The Toa sighed, like the Kora there was barely a cloud from his breath.
"Taru, ya're confusing me Ko-tu." Tala said using the bionicle words for ice brother, and blinked at the ascent that became dominate again in her voice, and realized she was speaking an older Bionicle dialect, not English or any of the human languages she knew.
The Toa stood up slowly, leaving what he had made in the snow as he smiled down at Tala, "Talra, sister, little Toa. I hope when the time comes, I will see you again. You look good in a Rau as well, I don't think you've ever had a none-combatant Kanohi."
Sensing this was, perhaps not a reality, as some memories filtered back into place that she had dosed off in Ga-Koro, Tala stepped after the Toa Hanu, "Brother?"
"Just remember there is always other ways to do things Talra," The ice Toa said as he walked away in the snow, some tundra visible in his foot prints. Small specks and lines of the hardy grass normally hidden until spring were showing before the snow started to collapse back into print.
Tala started after, startled as she went from standing on the snow to sinking into it. She cursed softly, looking up again and finding the massive Toa was gone, without the same height she was almost out of her depth. Looking around, confused at what was happening, the Kora tilted her head again before stopping moving. Taking slow deep breaths, looking at the faint stream, Tala thought over what the Toa had said, not fully sure if it had been her mentor and guardian up until recently.
Was this a dream?
A vision?
Tala new the name Talra was an old one for her, but... what was that about her Kanohi? The Kora touched it again, feeling over the smooth ridges as she looked up, only focusing on the star-scape above. Relaxing a bit more as she tried to get a feel of the world around her, there was snow, it looked like a few areas of Alaska, or Canada. Like and unlike where she had been working with the search and rescue job-
It wasn't cold.
Tala closed her eyes, the blue and red glow vanishing under her lids. It wasn't warm but... she shifted her feet and felt the crunch underfoot. More like gravel crunch rather then the more muffled crunch of snow, or cracks of ice layers. There was no longer any restriting feeling around her legs, and Tala opened her eyes to see two moons glittering above. The missing green Bota Magna, and the blue-silver water moon of Aqua Magna stood out large and real in the sky.
The Kora looked around, finding herself in a very different place, cool of the desert night air, and a brown ground, with a slightly red tint to the earth and rocks. The only thing left from what she had thought was tundra before, was the pale icy Bionicle emblem on the ground. Tala knelt down to touch a smooth curve, mulling over the meanings of the emblem she had to relearn in this life. She noted the claws were gone, looking more like she had before going asleep.
Tala sat up right, looking around, then up again, "Is this Bara?" she asked, and spotted a form walking in the distance, tall like a Toa, maybe a little bigger but had a crest of some sort on a helmet instead of Kanohi. The Kora sat down, pressing her feet together and closed her eyes again, relaxing as she decided to go with the flow of this dream or vision or what ever it was.
"Are well young one?" a male voice, with a darker edge of amusement ask from across the Kora.
Tala opened her eyes once more, and jerked back from the hulking form sitting across from her. She had only time to take in the image of a corrupted Kanohi, rust flaking protodurmus armor and glowing red-orange and white eyes looked as the Nuva like form leaned forwards.
"Do you fear the Shadows little Toa?"