Flowing Through….

We all flow through each other. Every living thing and every thing that once lived. Each note of our lives comprises our song and the song that we are plays to those around us, to ensnare, to diversify, to save, to worship, to despise. The monumental happens and the flow of enormous groups of people alters, Hiroshima, Sept. 11, Hitler……the reverberations carry long through generations. The small happens and the universe of just one changes and his changes flow to another. A car wreck, a fender bender, tied up in traffic, arrives twenty minutes to late of the day of his presentation, is downsized out of his job and lays in cold grave, ending his life in desperation. A child grows up forever changed by the loss and no once can explain that the crunch of metal on metal and a few smears of paint would cause such a ripple. Or that lying under the limbs of autumn trees the same young boy would see the face of God in the falling leaves and find peace. Finding that peace he smiles and waves at a young girl sitting by herself and blows a golden leaf her way and the flow twists directions and the tight pain of loneliness eases in her chest and his gentle beauty touches her. And stays the sad sluice of emotions in her that would end her life. The only lesson in life I can pass to anyone is to never underestimate how your love will affect another or that of our careless use of hate, petty anger, or our irrational belief that no one can understand what we are going through.

Everyone has a chance in life to touch someone with beauty, to not add to the burdens of others…..We all flow through one another.

A long time ago…….centuries long since turned into myth, there was a woman of ambition, of great passion and desire. She was born into a time when women were pawns of others and her beauty was the greatest asset she owned, but she craved more, she craved real power and set her mind to finding it. She would stare into the distance, into the mists of the mountain tops her soul searching for a way. On one of the mountains a strange being dwelt, a deity to her area, his magnificent countenance more lovely then a girls', his eyes a deep sweltering purple burning in flawless white skin. He bore no name that was uttered and his footsteps left no prints when he passed through but all bowed to him, burning their finest incense and offering the best of their wares. With their heads touched low to the ground no one saw the incredible loneliness in his eyes save her as she met his gaze head on and saw the burden of his age behind the mask of youth he wore. Inside her a terrible plan began to develop, one that would not be stayed, would not be forgotten.

One night, when the winds were high and dark clouds scuttled across the moon she left her father's home and ascended the kami's mountain. The storm screamed through her village spilling wares into the streets, ripping thatch from roofs, and drenching homes in inches of rain. She bore out the storm stoic in her mission and let the weather erase her tracks, let her family believe she had been lost, forever, in the storms grasp; her face set resolutely upwards as she climbed. He greeted her from the entrance of his altar his eyes searching her face, a quiet desperation about him.

"You have come to me with your passionate human eyes. You will be my end, child. Come we have much to talk about." He told her in a low solemn voice and ushered her into his temple. The storm beat down relentlessly outside but all was dry and silent within. Many creatures occupied the corners and dark spaces of the temple, some of divine nature and unknown to her. She stared with wide glassy eyes at all she did not know of him but still it did not stay her. She knelt beside him by the fire and listened as he talked and told her of many, many things. Secrets that must not be forgotten and secrets best never brought to light, he told her of the universe the external one and the one inside each of us and she drank of him deeply. Weeks came and went…..the storms cleared the land, the sun dried up there wake and it all began again and still she sat at his feet absorbing all that he was until one day there was no more he could share.

She waited several more nights before dripping the poison into the leaves of his tea. He knew she did so even as he lay sleeping being far too unhuman not to have been aware. He smiled at her the next day as he raised the warm green liquid to his burgundy lips and emptied his cup. He chose not to fight the effects as his conscious swam and strange desires, unnatural to him, filled his body. He let himself flow with the poison and drifted away inside himself as she claimed his body, straddling his hips giving his flesh release and taking his seed.

The next morning he had begun to fade, his eyes almost black his skin more pasty then pristine. She watched in grotesque fascination as the being that was once a god melted into himself sliding back into the earth from which he had come. In the very end only a puddle of silk was left, not even a body to properly bury or burn. She felt no guilt, he had wanted to die, she had seen it in his eyes…he chose to let her kill him. She took the small plant that sprouted where he had fallen and planted it further up the mountain, in a grove of trees, and walked away.

Humans are predictable to a fault and they continued to bring gifts and offerings unaware that the deity had passed on. She cared for the animals as he had taught her and waited as her belly swelled with his child. She thought herself rather clever to have the worship of a god and to be the bearer of his kin. She wore the beautiful jewels and clothes left at the altar, content in her false power. Then the child came and being half divinity its birth tore her body asunder as it pushed its way into the world. The child, a girl, not a boy as the woman hoped for cried in its first breath feeling cold and alone. The mother died unknown and forgotten; she lay unburied save the leaves that covered her on the mountainside. Her name lost in time.

The kami's animals cared for the small one with eyes as gold as the human woman's but power as great there master's. It was with great sadness that they watched as she was carried away by the villagers who had heard her cries when they came to the temple.

She was raised with a false name and a pretense created by the elders of the village who, like her mother, saw power they thought they could take. Beautiful, she was stunningly beautiful and obviously the child of a god…..their eyes turned to the emperor and plans were made to put her in his bed. They were sure good fortune and prosperity would follow in the wake of such a union. Her first sixteen years were spent in grooming and preparation, her ability to speak with the animals ignored and punished if used. She grew up sad and forlorn until fate passed her way in the form of a stranger.

This stranger was a woman, an odd unusual woman with dark gold hair and water colored eyes, who traveled alone and unafraid. She was robust and large, not fat with age or food but rather muscular and strong. She kept clear of the village but would watch from the trees when the young girl came to bath. The young girl would watch from down turned lashes as the woman came near and bent low to the ground her staff in hand. The stranger caused yearnings in her she could not describe and made her tremble with excitement at the thought of seeing her again.

Looks were exchanged, body language was used and one day the stranger joined her in the pool and touched her in ways she did not know a woman could touch another woman. Breathless sighs, and moans as she experienced pleasure and desire rolling through her. The strange woman stumbled with her language but still they talked and talked of exciting places she had been, of places she was going and what they meant. The girl felt love in her breast but knew she was promised to another, to the descendant of the Sun and she regretfully pulled away. Young and naïve she was unaware of her true nature and followed the path laid before her. The path took her to the palace and misery as the emperor would visit her as was his choosing and she was even lonelier then before. Her beauty and strangeness ostracized her from the others.

Eventually the sporadic visitations from her master left her with child. She had a hard time understanding why his clammy, selfish touch could not arouse her as just the mere tips of the woman's fingers had. Still she was excited to bear a child and hopeful to have one she could love as her own, even more so then the rats and birds she spoke with when no one else was around. When the child was ready to be born strange men crowded the room, chanting and burning sweet sickly incense and she became afraid. Her hearing much sharper then they realized heard the conversation in the hall as the emperor's advisors whispered to him that the child would be demonic and it's blood must be spilt on the altar as soon as it was born. It would ensure prosperity and a good rice harvest. It would bring fortune to them all. She became frantic and tried to flee but was held fast by their chanting and the incense, she became wild throwing furniture much larger then herself trying to escape, to save her child but could not escape their hexes. In her desperation she called to her lover, to the strange woman, she screamed shrilly for her able to feel her, knowing she was near.

"ELLANDHRA!!!!!!!!!"

The walls of the building shook and swayed. People ran fleeing as one wall rent from the ceiling to the floor leaving a wide gap. Ellandra stepped through, her tan cloak swirling around her and anger branded on her face. Her staff in hand she challenged the men proving what the young woman had suspected for quite some time, that she was more then what she seemed. Lightening arced from her staff and brewed in her eyes. The men stumbled over their words the chanting breaking apart as she advanced and they unsteadily retreated. The young woman was in too much pain and agony to pay mind to the miracles before her as the child inside her breached the passage way and made its way into the world, crying thinly with its first weak breath.

She could feel the child's life slipping away, tainted by the curses of the supposed wise men. Her own life felt like it was fluttering inside of her, a flimsy thing easily ushered away. She lay stricken on the floor in a puddle of blood turned cold and cried softly to her lover. A lover that turned anger filled eyes to her and seemed to fill in the room in her terribleness.

"Pet, you allow to much in your ignorance." Ellandhra hissed in her rage. She bent and picked the baby up placing it in her arms before lifting them both against her chest; fleeing with them the way she had come in. Her great cloak swirled around them holding her close and the young woman knew a dark serene peace within its folds. She slept through the desperate pounds of hoof beats as Ellandhra galloped out of town on her horse. A great monstrous warhorse that smashed through the walls that blocked her way.

She slept as her baby struggled for life, its weak human half withering. Ellandhra finally stopped her head long rush into the wilds. Leaving her beloved, confused lover covered in the safe confines of her cloak, she knelt down to mother earth clutching the child close to her. Ellandhra sang low and steady to the babe singing the song of her kind who powers surged and ebbed with sea, with the moon. Her song called for life and begged forgiveness for the price of such life. Slitting her own wrist she held the little one close watching each black drop fall into the upturned mouth. Her song eased to a hushed whisper as he drank and became remade in her arms. The child was part of each woman now the strength of her boiling over the weak human blood within him.

It was with great sadness that Ellandhra left the woman and her babe in her ancestors' deserted temple. She turned the great warhorse away as they lay sleeping and descended the mountain, heading for a new world as yet untamed, she rode down through the mists.

The woman awoke to the warm stirrings of a fire and wept. The animals all drew near each one bowing low and it was to them she turned shutting herself and her child away from the humanity that had betrayed her. In time she was drawn further up the mountain to the great tree that now towered over a grove it had once been a sapling in and sat beneath it's out stretched limbs. She heard within the rustling of its leaves a voice so like her own and knew her father. Time passed as she learned all she was and could be within his gentle embrace, it was with his urging that she sought out the blind wise woman who traveled his mountains. It was from her that she learned of human magic, of hexes, and chants, and blood bonds.

Her son grew with her, his eyes as golden as hers, his countenance as fair but his heart much harder. Early on his cloak had begun to form around him as black as night and with no one to show him the way he fumbled with powers his mother did not have. His memory extended back to the moment of his conception and he resented the humans for there actions and he hated the woman who had breathed life into him for hers. He clung stubbornly to only the part of him he truly understood defying all within him and out that was not kami.

One day the son heard a tinkle of laughter on the mountainside, a pure shimmering note that made his heart hurt. He followed the sound moving quickly through the trees until he found its maker. A young man stood in a clearing laughing up at the antics of the birds above him. Sun drenched his warm skin and drew purple tints from his glossy black hair, in his out stretched hand he held rice wafers up to the circling fowl. The kami stilled in the cover of trees and watched him fascinated with the lines of his body and the curve of his upturned lips. It became a rather fascinating game of sorts..the boy would come, he would watch..the boy would leave..then they would start it all again.

On a hot day, one of the last before the cold came, he lay in the trees watching the boy when the boy did the most fabulous thing. He laid down on the ground and stretched as much as he could, then he undid the knots of his shirt and let it fall open to either side exposing the skin beneath to the sun's touch. Already the kami's eyes had grown quite large and his breathing a bit unsteady at the display, this was something he knew of but had not dealt with himself yet; after all two hundred years secluded on a mountain didn't bring such things his way. The boy closed his eyes and tilted his head back running his hand down the ridges of his stomach, softly caressing himself in smooth strokes to the edge of his pants. The kami carefully crept closer watching with lust in his eyes, urging him silently to go lower.

The boy did go lower, slowly, twisting the knot binding his pants in his fingers, unhurried enjoying the day, enjoying being alone. He dragged it out as long as he could before freeing himself, drips of fluid falling onto his belly from his arousal. The kami simply ceased breathing his whole body tightening at the visual beauty of the boy. He desired to place his own hand over the boy's and pump the smooth flesh trapped within their fingers. The boy arched and moaned at his own touch, his bottom lip caught invitingly between his teeth. It was more then a young male kami coming into his own could stand. It moved him to move and he did….down from his trees and into the opening.

There was a moment of stunned shock as his body covered the boy's and the mortal's eyes flew open. Quickly, before thought could catch either of them the kami thrust his tongue deep into the other's mouth and wrapped a firm hand around the base of his sex stroking upward. What struggle he may have given subsided into the pleasure of being touched and the boy melted back into the ground crying out when he came. In the lull after they stared at each one human and quivering, having been touched by the divine and permanently burned by it, one celestial and captivated by the earthly beauty in his hands.

The boy was the first to be bonded, although he knew not what it meant and was naively unafraid. He never knew it could be hardship being a simple boy in simpler times. He knelt to his master, he cared for the animals as instructed and was kept fed and warm; in a time that neither food nor lodging were always a guarantee. He felt blessed and when his master took his blood to create a child as he lay dieing of old age, he smiled much as he had that first day with the same touch of wonder he held as a youth.

The kami grieved as he watched their child grow from a seedling into a pod and then into a little dark haired boy with great purple eyes recalling a previous generation. He irrationally blamed the humans for letting him die….how dare they be so weak. He passed his prejudice to his child even as his mother tried to stay him.

His son knew an era of great art and greater worship. The temple he chose to dwell in being large and held by ornate pillars, incense burning thick in the air. He walked in intricate gardens and was soothed by the soft laughter of fountains. His purple eyes taking in more then they should his soul bearing more then he was prepared for. He heard and felt too much from everything around him. Madness crept in as the era he loved ended the temples neglected or run over by thieves.

The family split, the mother, son and grandson, each going there own way into the world. The mother went further into the country searching knowledge in all its forms. The son headed out to the west crossing Asia and into other countries taking others to bond and becoming the Count in the process. The grandson wrapped himself tight into his own world and hid despising all that came near. Eventually books, then computers, allowed him to learn about the living world around without the weight of mysticism and he excelled but still the madness took deeper root and in his desperation he searched for a cure.

He too wanted a child but in his madness he saw a cure in the child. A cure that was not to be for the child turned eyes one purple and one gold to him completely devoid of the terrible weight of his gifts, other gifts burned in him just as terrible but not as devastating. Without a control there was nothing he could test to find a cure and in his prejudice he too blamed the human blood he had used to create his son with it. He denied the boy in his own anguish and when fate brought him the stories of a great and magnificent staff he craved it no matter what the cost. When the cost was his own child the screaming in his head had grown so loud that it mattered not to him as he swore his child to the dragon known as Wu Long for a staff that promised death to those who held it.

The grandmother and father came then and called upon the being known as Ellandhra to help them seal the kami's powers away. Heated words passed between the Count and Ellandhra as he blamed her blood for his son's insanity. He refused to let his mother and her find happiness with one another and drove her away, cursing his half blood and his son's as she went. He pretended not to see the sadness in his mother's eyes as once again she lost her lover. He took his grandson to raise and when the boy became old enough to fend on his own he took the form of Q-Chan to watch over him.

In another time, another place a mortal woman danced her blood filled with toxins as she waltzed to her death. Her name was not important and in life she was merely a traveler, her journey somewhat shorter then expected. She danced in her bare feet across an old worn linoleum floor her shirt dress twisting at her knees. Loneliness killed her as she could feel no love for a man but could not stay the yearning for a woman. She feared herself cursed and in her sadness drank a cocktail of vodka and barbiturates. As she twirled she dreamed an imaginary lover, of strong stature and dark blonde hair, came to dance within the confines of her arms.

"You leave this world so soon, you fear the wrong things. I can save you if you ask." Ellandhra told her as they danced. The woman laughed brittle and high.

"I'm mad. I dream of you and yet you are not real." The woman choked out as they swung round together.

"You will not be saved then? And what of your great niece, you would leave her to? You love her as your own." Ellandhra whispered close in her ear. The woman cried hysterically spinning even faster with the music.

"I can only damage her if I stay. I'm insane and wicked. I hear voices that aren't there, see people who don't exist. I'm dancing and talking with thin air and I swear you are here. Better to go now while it's my choice then die later punished for my sins." The woman replied bitterness ripe in her voice, her words just beginning to slur with the drugs. Ellandhra nodded then knowing time was slipping away and this one would not be turned from her path.

"Then may peace go with you." She told her before sealing her mouth to hers in a kiss that was everything tumbled into one, passion, desire, love and forgiveness. Ellandhra gathered the woman close to her pulling her feet from the floor, never breaking the kiss and spun so fast that only a blur was visible to the eye. Gradually as the life slipped from the woman they merged into one being and the swirling dance slowed to a halt. The woman stood as she had before but it was Ellandhra's eyes that shone out of her face.

Ellandhra smacked the radio to make it stop and exited the building. There were many creatures of power roaming the skies, the earth and the oceans; however there were very few beings that could actually filter power, refine it, make it usable. The woman's great niece…now her great niece, with her cornflower blue eyes and soft brown ringlets was one. And Ellandhra intended to be there to nudge her in the right direction, to find the man who would be her great grandchild's mate and in turn to find her grandson who had a great need of such a human as Jill.

"Which brings us to here, doesn't it?" Ellandhra asked Jill. Jill could only stare at her in awe seeing all that had gone before in a brilliant flash. She looked at them all with large glassy eyes from the safety of Ning's arms. Each one's story flowing into the next and herself a part of the pattern that made up their combined story.

"You've been my aunt for as long as I can remember. Aunt Elly. You knew when you bought those pajamas who you were buying them for didn't you?" Jill knew it seemed like a ridiculously small thing to bring up but it was all that would come to mind.

"Oh, well, knew is a bit strong, rather I greatly hoped so." Ellandhra told her with a wink.

"And what of Aunt Elly, last time I saw you you were an old woman. You don't look like one now." Jill queried. Ellandhra affected a hurt sad look before answering in her best theatrical voice.

"You'll find my dear that I've passed on, that is too say bit the bullet, gone with the wind. And you've missed my funeral….it was a pleasant ceremony, flowers, dirt, the whole thing." Ellandhra grinned wickedly when she was done. Nana shook her head but there was the tiniest bit of smile curling her lips. It occurred to Jill then that perhaps D and Q-Chan both came by there love of brash individuals honestly because it apparently applied to Nana as well. Nana caught her watching and smiled at her, nodding her head in silent agreement.

Ning caught Ellandhra's eye clearing his throat to her get attention.

"Yes, boy?" She asked. Ning gave her a cool glance looking her up and down.

"Not to interrupt the history lesson but now what?" He asked bluntly. He wanted to set things right and he wanted to do it right now and be done with it. His mind for once was clear, he could feel his power humming through him able to use at his fingertips and Jill's warm body pressed against his was making him more aroused then he cared to admit. He wanted to fix it and be done so he could lay with her, shallow as that was it was the truth.

Ellandhra laughed at him because she knew what he wanted and thought it was a fabulous idea for not only him but everyone up to and including her beloved pet that would live as long as she did. It had been eons since she had been able to hold her and she was tired of living the life of a wander having seen all the world had to show her in her long life.

"Well, first, we start with our friend Eros and put him back right and then of course it's off to save our friends and family." Ellandhra told him perkily. However the perkiness in no way diminished the incredible force of power building around her. Eros rose from Tet-chan's arms into the air spiraling slowly turning with in the tide of her power. Cuts and bruises heeled under its flow and his long white hair grew down to his feet. The beginning of wings could be seen emerging from his back, long wet tendrils that glimmered translucent in the light, finally the wings finished forming and dried in the warmness of the air swirling around him. No sooner had they spanned open then he began to glow and shrink, the more he diminished the brighter the glow until all that could be seen was a fairy light no bigger then a thumb. The wind died away and the small speck of brightness that was Eros flew to Ellandhra coming to rest on her shoulder and chatting away excitedly in her ear.

"Okay, the pixie has been returned to health and his natural state, which is to say he's babbling excitedly about being able to see again and fly….and isn't this lovely…I'd forgotten how excited they could get. Now, here's what were going to do. Nana, Tet-chan, and D you three go after Leon and Q-Chan there going to need your help. Now, you Ning and me and Jill we're going to go back to Wu-Longs headquarters and get my damn staff. I swear you turn your back for a minute and people will steal anything. You'd think after the first hundred or so dropped dead they'd quit trying to bury it with that stupid king of theirs." Ellandhra said annoyingly deliberately ignoring the wide eyed glares she was receiving.

"It is your staff? I promised my son to that reptile for your staff?" Ning nearly hollered at her, disbelief in his voice. Ellandhra blinked at him innocently.

"Of course its my staff and had you asked me for it I would have been happy to give it to you, that is before those rotten imbeciles stole it and hid it from me. I would have bloody well imagined you'd been pissed off out right if you'd laid your hands on it and instead of draining your powers it magnified them, huh? Can we go now or you want to stand around forever digging up history?" Ellandhra stared him down blue grey eyes to his purple not the least put off by him.

Ning stood setting Jill on her feet and everyone else took his cue from him. Two portals opened one leading to head Webber off and one leading to Ellandhra's staff. Jill grasped Ning's hand in her own, she was in way over her head and excitement bubbled up in her. Whatever her Aunt Elly might actually be it was apparent that her power easily exceeded that of the kami's save perhaps Ning and Jill was very very glad that she was on their side. Jill closed her eyes tightly and held on as she stepped into the rift.