Chapter One: A Flight Over Sea and Sky
This is a humanized fantasy version of my good friend, Trookay's Land Before Time Fanfiction Metempsychosis: It Whispers. This chapter is world-building heavy since every creature introduced at the beginning of their story is introduced here as a character. Developing and converting dinosaur (and non-dinosaur) genera to my fantasy races was fun.
You can see portraits of all the characters in this story on my DeviantART page (same username as I use here).
Year 582 of the 19th Era; 19e-582
Late Spring
The Blood of Waiměilì, Deity of Water
Briny water sloshed as a tawny-haired woman dove into the chilly ocean. Lavender bat-like wings pressed close to her bare back, she banked through the waters with the last of her momentum until she settled onto a marine current.
The winged woman, Hesa, gradually floated toward the surface, salty bubbles trailing after her. Hesa's head breached the water, and she gulped down air. Her dusky-periwinkle eyes, more blue than purple, fell close as she basked in the sun's light.
Eyes snapping open, Hesa stretched her lavender-and-liver-red wings and lifted herself out of the water. Dripping wet, she was heavier, but her wings were powerful enough to lift her from the waters and high into the sky — surely the magic of her deity helped, too. Carcharklimpig, Deity of Flesh, had given her wings enough strength to fly her out of the ocean currents, along with a few other blessings. Hesa felt rather blessed, having been born a Yȏterāhā Pyhäkotahi of the Deity of Flesh. Her entire family was.
Hesa was in mid-air, still dripping wet. It helped that she only wore a small pair of shorts, a thin halter top, and her tawny hair was cropped short for her common hunts in the water. If she hadn't been born chosen by Carcharklimpig, she may have selected Waiměilì, Deity of Water. Many of the winged, deity-worshiping Pyhäkotahi were found among seafaring folk. Either way, Hesa couldn't choose what she was born as and was more than happy with her blessings.
Some tens of feet into the clear blue sky, Hesa closed her wings and let herself fall backward. Plummeting toward the sea below, she stretched her body, fingertips pointed for the waters, toes pointed skywards, and wings pressed tight to her back. A spray of foam collected behind her as she sliced through the waters. With a kick and a push of her arms, she was swimming through the brine, looking for her next meal.
Hesa's dusky-periwinkle eyes locked on movement. With another kick of her legs and a flick of her fingers, something emerged from the depths of the waters. A clam jetted past her, its shell snapping like a starving predator's jaws. It jarringly and quickly swam past Hesa toward what she had seen.
Silver scales rushed past the clam. Its snapping shall missed the fish's tail by a margin.
Hesa cursed. Even her control over the clam's muscles didn't work. She had hoped the blessing to control flesh would have allowed the clam to move fast enough to catch the fish. No matter. She would have to catch it by hand, then.
The fish streaked past Hesa, and she jetted after it in hot pursuit. As the two streamed through the saltwater, another winged woman cut through a school of fish just in front of Hesa, startling her and her prize. The other woman, who possessed dragonfly-like wings of glittering silver and obsidian, snatched a sizable member of the school in her hands. Before she could resurface with her meal, Hesa collided with her, unable to stop her momentum in her pursuit of her own prey. The caught fish limply swam away, dazed by some magic. The other woman was winged, after all; nearly every winged human was a Pyhäkotahi, and every Pyhäkotahi was blessed by their deity.
Dazed, the two women floundered in the waters until they finally resurfaced, coughing and spluttering. They glared at each other, dusky-periwinkle to cinnabar. The dragonfly-winged woman had long charcoal-black hair and seemed a few years older than Hesa. Her skin was darker and duller than Hesa's own washed-caramel skin tone. Just as their glaring intensified, a stray fish snagged their attention.
The pair rushed after it.
They chased it through the surrounding rocky pillars that rose into sea stacks the further they swam. Each woman took her turn, peaking her head out of the surface to suck in a lungful of air before diving back down to chase their prey. The fish was quick, darting this way and that through rocky pillars and swaying kelp. But the Pyhäkotahi were slowly gaining on it. Hesa, with her powerful muscles, was blessed by the deity of flesh and the charcoal-haired woman, who seemed to be slowing the fish down with whatever blessing she possessed.
At last, the darker-haired woman rounded on the fish's path. Her fingers just brushed its silver scales, and it immediately fell limp in her grasp. Scaly prize clasped in her hands, she turned to the surface, only to feel a tug on her hands. The tawny-haired, bat-winged woman was pulling on the fish's tail. The two rivals glowered at one another before it turned into a tug-of-war over the fish.
As the two Pyhäkotahi struggled in the waters, they were unaware of what lurked behind them.
An amber eye peaked ajar from beneath the shadows of an alcove, followed by another. A cage of pointed teeth yawned open, swathing the two women in darkness. The fang-filled jaws nearly snapped down on the duo, but they evaded being crushed by a gnathic death. The obsidian creature stared blankly back at the two, clearly not happy from being disturbed from its rest. A man sporting amber eyes and obsidian-black skin, just like the creature beside him, hissed at the women. Sharp, needle-like teeth caught the water's light as something moved in the back of his throat.
A second pair of jaws — he was a race of Yari: a Jozuae of The Within.
The black-skinned man lunged, and the women dispersed, leaving their catch behind. He stared up at them from the waters below, the fish now latched in his secondary pair of jaws. As they took to the skies, he slowly ascended with them, sucking in a lungful of air and seemingly showing off their lost meal.
Prey lost; the two women were now aloft, lavender and grey, bat and dragonfly. Together, they soared along the crests and troughs of the ocean. Having shared a terrifying experience with one another and nowhere else to go, they stuck beside each other. Slowly, introductions were exchanged, and a warmth bloomed between the two women.
Hesa learned that the older, charcoal-haired woman was named Ranzii. She was a Yȏterāhā Pyhäkotahi of Iṟappefthería, Deity of Death. The pair lived in separate villages some ways away from each other but had similar cultures. They were both seafaring, having grown up living off what the ocean provided since they were little girls. In the end, they weren't too different after all. Even their deities fell into similar categories — both feared by those who did not understand them. It was there that they formed a deeper connection.
As the pair continued flying over the ocean, they spotted a person on a rocky outcrop jutting from shore. The pear-green-skinned person waved at them, a soft smile gracing their lips. They were an oddity to see out at sea. Including their green skin, they possessed a thin, fur-tipped tail, pointed furry ears on the side of their head, and a pair of straight, thick horns, one in the center of their forehead and one just above it, the same length.
The person was another Yari, specifically a Ulusan subrace called a Dancer of the Emerald Forest.
The couple continued drifting toward shore, wings beating to keep altitude. Another winged woman, larger and more muscular than the other two and sporting four massive bird-like wings, shot toward them. She drove the duo apart, sending them shouting and whizzing in polar directions. The four-winged woman paid them no heed as she careened into the waters. Her hair was beige and streaked with black, while her wings were the color of fire. Brine spritzed the air, and a long moment passed before the woman emerged from the waters, a steaming fish in hand. She glared at the two-winged women circling above her, dark-spruce eyes almost ablaze with repulsion.
Ignoring the four-winged woman, Hesa and Ranzii returned to each other's side. They continued their journey through the sky, along the shoreline.
The afternoon sun cut through the clear heavens, a sheen bathing the earth, sea, and life below. Toward the shoreline, Hesa and Ranzii freewheeled, lavender and grey wings contrasting against each other in grandeur. Below, a pair of Jozuae pursued each other. The pursuer was large, possessing little to no lips or cheeks, displaying his impressive sharp teeth. The other appeared more like a Meek — people without magical abilities or strange appearances — other than his topaz-colored skin until he flashed his pursuer with an impressive pair of upper and lower canines. At first, it seemed the lumbering bulk of thick, shadowed-citrine skin would not catch the leggier, streamline-form of the other Jozuae, but he was slowly gaining on the other.
The women moved on from the Jozuae of The Oblivion and Jozuae of The Primal, not wishing to see the possible gruesome outcome.
As the days passed, Hesa and Ranzii stuck together. They covered many miles in their flight but rarely strayed too far from their ocean home. Together, they swept toward the grasslands amongst coastline flora. There, they found a village of heavily armored, earthy-colored, wide-set people who did not possess a lower jaw. Only rings of multiple teeth lined their upper jaw.
Yet another race of Jozuae — The Annulet.
Some sauntered amongst cycads and palms, casually munching on fronds, fruits, and shoots from the grasses and weeds around them. However, a muscled frame sat among the shade of some palms not too far away. It was a young woman, barely eighteen years old. A crown of horns adorned her head, and she possessed no eyes. Thick, saber-like teeth jutted down from beneath her upper lips, like that of a saber-toothed cat. Her attention was set on a group of young Annulet Jozuae playing among a clump of reeds. Without any armor, unlike the adults, the children were far easier prey for the young woman.
Witnessing the near unhuman Yari stalking the nomadic children, the two winged women whizzed off. They wished to have no part of the fray nor witness the possible gruesome death of children. No matter how hard they could try, they could never fend off the beastly Yari. Even though the eyeless woman was younger than the two Pyhäkotahi, she was a completely different rank than them. She was an Āyiwajāh, one called They Who are of the Scorn.
Āyiwajāh were beastly, powerful creatures and horribly hard to kill. Even when they were torn limb from limb or seemingly fatally wounded, they still fought their battles. It wasn't until nearly all their blood was spilled from their body or their head was removed that an Āyiwajāh would stop breathing.
More days passed. Hesa and Ranzii were still together and had finally left the ocean.
Glissading over a desert, a person's body lay splayed. It was a man with carnelian skin. Starting between where the eyes would have been, increasingly longer horns ran down the middle of his skull and spine. A thin, colorful membrane ran between each spine. The dead man was another Āyiwajāh, one of They Who are of the Greed.
Another man, one with four feathered wings of black and grey, towered over the carcass. A small knife in hand, he carved away at the eyeless, horned body. The Zamarim Pyhäkotahi then dug his hands deep into the freshly dead Āyiwajāh's chest.
Hesa and Ranzii exchanged a look, sucked in a breath, and swooped low. They landed, ready to snag a few gold coins from the recently deceased, not questioning how such a creature, an Āyiwajāh, may have been killed. The largest of the winged people hissed, warning them to not disturb him in his collecting.
The duo stubbornly ignored his threat, gathering as many gold coins as they could fit in their pockets, for they would need money for their travels away from their ocean homeland. The four-winged man bristled, agitated at the two. He shouted at Hesa and Ranzii, brandishing his bloodied blade as a hellish aura surrounded him. The pair shrieked in fear. Pocketing the coins they had snatched off the cadaver, they took flight again.
As the two women scouted a murky river by a clearing, a thick forest peeled into view. Touching down onto the earth, the pair crouched beside the river's edge, sipping at the much-needed water. Yet again, they were interrupted as a body crashed into the ground. The Pyhäkotahi scattered to the air as the man dragged himself to his feet.
He was in his prime, sporting burnt-sepia hair streaked with a few locks of ashy-vermillion, and his long hair was pulled back in a bun. The man's skin was a warm caramel, and his eyes a pale-jasper. Along his throat were white, crystal-like markings.
Eyes narrowing on the two winged women, the young man stomped his foot to the ground. A reverberating rumble rattled the trees. The man bellowed, his voice carrying across the forest before massive pillars of quartz crystals burst from the ground. One nearly skewed Hesa, but Ranzii pulled her away just in time.
This man, while young, was a very powerful Quartz Iyarkai of the Quartzthroat Tribe. The Iyarkai were a race known for manipulating the elements but with a more Meek-like appearance than their Ravahana counterparts. The Ravahana could also manipulate the elements of nature, but at a far greater level than the Iyarkai, and were known for their colorful skin, strange hair, and other oddities. A Ravahana of fire may have flames for hair, or the earth itself may burn wherever their bare feet touched.
Raking the sky, Hesa and Ranzii sailed across the clearing. A large village of colorful, clothed people was bustling near the riverbank below. Possessing pointed ears, lithe bodies, and the ability to read a person's life — past, present, and future — through numerous objects, they were Soul-Shaker Hekka. The village was possibly a mix of different types of Soul-Shakers rather than the usual one type.
Across a vast floodplain, a massive group of Salamaoso gathered along a body of water, disturbing silt and algae. They were segregated by subrace. It appeared that Salamaoso, even when traveling together, did not intermingle on the subrace level.
A man with charcoal hair sporting a lighter grey streak glanced over his shoulder, noticing some stragglers in his village.
"Come on!" he shouted with a flick of his head, black and vermillion eyes flashing. Without even a movement of his hand, a swirl of black and vermillion magic shot into the air, rallying the rest of his village of Pulse Salamaoso to keep moving. He was the leader, after all, and had to show off his powerful magic, especially to those not of his village.
The man's second-in-command and wife, a beige-haired woman with amber and jade eyes, snapped to attention at his order. Circling back, she corralled the newest addition to the village, a cerise-haired woman with darker-tipped hair and sky-blue eyes. The cerise-haired woman had stopped to allow a young boy to piggyback her. He had sprained his ankle and could hardly walk after a long day's journey. He had lost his mother recently, so the maternal newcomer was a blessing.
Nonetheless, the second-in-command led the newcomer and boy back to their village as the sun began to set ahead on a lake. Around the lake were colonies and families of various people, mostly Jafte and Hekka. Some of the more similar races and subraces blended at their place of rest, while others kept to their own.
A lemon-yellow-haired man glanced up from where he had been drinking, glimpsing the approaching villages of Salamaoso. He sounded off a call, alerting others. One after another, the people fled from the arriving competition, not wishing to get in the way of the brash and headstrong Salamaoso.
Hesa and Ranzii continued their way through the skies. They would fly together for some time, keeping each other company and comfort as the land changed for the worse.