ORIGIN

Ashtoreth's body slammed into stone, and claws scrabbled uselessly at it, nearly tearing nails from her paws with desperation. Okay, okay, okay, just don't fall, she pleaded to herself, wincing as every inch of her trembled with... fear. She realized how terrified she was in that moment, flapping with her body pressed up against one of the sides of a stone pillar, staring down at the endless void bellow.

Aure had warned her that it was dangerous. What if I fail? The thought filled her brain, nearly blotting out all conscious thought, but as she tore her eyes away from the darkness, she spotted a glimmer in the distance. Something was clicking, she could hear it, and as she pushed off to glide to another platform, she could see it.

A door!

One of the mechanisms had already been opened... From when she had hit the gong, perhaps? Were there more gongs? Feathers ruffling, she scrambled down to a lower position among the rocky outcroppings, and began to flap her wings, stirring up the air.

They looked like metal. Metal conducted electricity. The easiest way to figure out where the other brass mechanisms (gongs or not), she decided, would be to light them up. Literally. The already turbulent winds stormed around her, roaring in her ears, and her small frame slipped on the stone. She tried to hold steady as she whipped up the storm, but her magic-- or was it Emuh's?-- was growing too strong.

She was knocked off of the ledge and sent tumbling again, falling further down into the darkness, but even through that she didn't scream or cry out for help. She couldn't, after all.

She was falling, falling, falling. She crashed against stone, claws scrambling, but now she had too much momentum, and the world was falling away. She rebelled against it in the only way she knew how: by drawing on the air, by throwing wind underneath herself, by trying against all odds to throw everything she had wildly at a wall and... uh, pray?

Above her, dim red lights faded like stars. Maybe the last thing she would ever see.

By some miracle, she managed to-- while falling-- get enough of a wind storm to sweep up around her. She was swept upward by a sudden gush of wind, and twisted to reorient herself as the mini tornado threw her back up out of the void. Head spinning, eyes bleary with tears, she forced herself upward, wings pounding, desperately, toward the closest one.

She was lucky she hadn't broken a wing. She would be lucky to survive this test. Maybe she hadn't been ready, but if there was one thing she was, it was tenacious. Emuh shouldn't count her out just yet. She was going to open that door. As long as she didn't look down again.

Ashtoreth's head was pounding with every thump of her little heart, paws tucked tight to her chest as she forced herself upward. She hadn't got a great look, but she at least thought she had the so-called clever puzzle sorted out. She just had to hit the targets with a strong enough force.

She caught her breath as best she could on her way up, the updrafts carrying her further now that she had escaped the endless pit below. She would need that breath, too, if she wanted to vent out every fear that had hit her in the last few moments.

After something like that, her anxieties mounting to a point, all she wanted to do was scream.

Jaws parted, beady eyes locking on to the glinting bronze overhead, she let loose a magically-charged screech with a snap of her teeth, the air crashing forward from her in a supersonic BANG. The air rushed around her, and she dove, rushing for the last goal. She had no way of knowing if the Door was the end or not, but it meant an exit, and a way out from the endless void. She couldn't fly for long periods of time as it was-- too lopsided-- and she wanted out. As soon as possible.

Ashtoreth caught a glimpse of the gong above, and as the wing began to sting her eyes, slowly she closed them as she drove herself upward. She flitted past the gong she just hit, its sound deafening to her small, sensitive noodle ears. Her teeth gnashed together as she pushed onward toward her target.

Higher, and higher, until her eyes were forced shut, until it seemed like she was rising on faith of the wind alone. Her wings ached, her body strained to remain rigid, to keep aerodynamic and not get caught on any stray jetstreams and sent spinning. She had to reach the top.

The sensation, almost melancholy, made her feel like she was becoming a star. The world was falling away below her, and she did not dare look down. Or look at all.

When it felt like she could no longer continue upward, she peeled her eyes open. Was the gong close enough? Could she hit it? She summoned the last vestiges of her strength, and focused her energy, twisting herself upside down to slam her wings in the direction of the gong, sending one last clap of sonic magic toward the target... still, so very far away.

She saw the black void underneath her, like a gaping maw, like a sky she would never see, and began to plummet again. The exit-- the gong sounded behind her, a shockwave-- she needed to reach the exit.

Not even DIED? Ashtoreth's feathers ruffled as she caught her breath, settling slowly on to the stone before Emuh. In the next moment, the life was sucked out of her, enough to make her throat close up, and she shrunk down with a wince.

Is this what... Aure had to go through? She suddenly felt light-headed, and chilled to the bone, but she had... she had succeeded. She had really thought she was going to fail, but she actually...

Holy shit.

She had to tell someone. Eyes widening, she spread her wings and turned. Thank you, Emuh, she thought, giving him a salute with one of her flight feathers, willing the wind to rise up under her.

The wind suddenly kicked up stronger than it ever had under her command, and she was nearly whisked away at the sheer force of it-- she immediately cut off her magic before it slammed her into the ceiling or the floor, and instead rode the gust she had summoned out.

Her lips parted, and she laughed too, a silent huffing and puffing as she spun through the air and began the long journey home. They wouldn't believe her!