They had been walking for quite some time with no apparent end in sight and Dana had started to wonder if the older woman had finally decided to get rid of her somewhere far from civilization where no one will even take a whiff of her decaying flesh. She shook her head to rid herself of such thoughts before the older woman starts eavesdropping on her personal thoughts.
"How long do we need to keep this up for?" she asked, her patience growing thinner than straws of dried grass in winter.
She thought she will get an answer from the woman but then she received the usual. She had thought they had reached some sort of understanding but she was clearly mistaken. They were literally strangers after all... come to think of it:
"Who are you?"
She had paused her steps when asking the question and so did the older woman. The air around her suddenly became dense, almost suffocating. Why was she so secretive. She knew the sudden pressure was a result of her asking a question that she had wanted answered for as long as she had known this woman. Why did they choose her? Who are they. She needed answers to all these questions and the person who's supposed to be giving them had suddenly gone all monster on her but she was having none of that today. The older woman whose name she was still clueless about can go up in flames if she wants to but she was going to get her answers.
"Good question Princess but from the wrong person to the wrong individual. . . I think you should be asking yourself this very question and think about your answer in detail before you say it out loud. Do you know who you are?"
She wrinkled her nose in exasperation but knew that was everything she could do. The older woman always invented new ways to maneuver around giving her straight answers.
"At least give me a name" she made a last-ditch effort at getting the woman to give her a clue, an answer, a slip up. . . anything to give her an idea of who they are.
"You have to understand, most of the answers we spend a lifetime searching for are actually within ourselves. Search your soul Princess, for it is the only one with the truest answers, it seeks no benefit of its own as the next person might only help for their own agendas. I don't think you would even trust the answers I give you to your questions anyway"
Dana thought of the older woman's words for a second. . . did she even understand what any of it meant? Did she need to meditate or something like that? One thing was for sure though, Dana liked to question everything and they both knew it. Would she have been satisfied by the older woman's answers?
"Fine" she conceded
"You need to understand that we all have questions that we never get answers to until we die, or if you're lucky enough. . . get the answers in the battle field before you draw your last breath" she took a brief pause as if the words she had just uttered were somehow introspective, "are you ready?"
She suddenly sprung a question at her and she tried to recall if the older woman said something she may have missed or paid less attention to during their one-sided conversation. . . was it searching her soul again that she needed to do?
"We are going home Princess"
The words struck her hard, making her stagger a bit before she regained her composure.
Home. . .
When last was she in a place that felt welcoming and less hostile? A place that would never judge her harshly. . . a place that sought her protection from harm and all the ill of the universe. A warm feeling washed over her before a daunting feeling clouded her lightbulb moment. As far as she could hear and see, they were in the middle of nowhere with only sounds of birds chirping and running water from a distance. Nothing about the familiar shapes of houses and the smell of food and dust from gravelly roads. Was the old woman planning to transport them like the way she did when they met that monster? She had an almost fascinated smile on her face. . . she had a good feeling about this one and so she closed her eyes in anticipation and took a deep breath. She waited. . . and waited but still nothing like what she had experienced before actually happened. The only reason she opened her eyes was the sudden weird sensation she felt, making her skin crawl with shivers the same way it did before that monstrous energy had made contact with her body and yet this felt different all at the same time.
"You have outdone yourself this time Ariana!" a seething voice suddenly rang in the open room with high ceiling. Dana looked around to see herself in a strange place, it was dark with a hue of blue crystals illuminating the place. They were in a room that looked like a grand dining hall, yet it had this eerie feeling to it that contradicted the whole look. It gave off an omni aura like it's an actual entity more than just a room with chairs and a long table. She spun around full circle to notice that there was a total of five more women in the room seated as if randomly about the table but she knew there had to be some type of order around the place and nothing random at all. She knew this from the way they were dressed. They all had a mature air around them, all looking to be around the same age but she knew better than to guess anyone's age at just face value.
''I had no other choice but to bring her with me!" Ariana threw the words back at her sister in the same rage that she had welcomed her.
The battle of wills was lost to Dana as she was still trying to figure out her situation. She couldn't explain it, but the place was kind of drawing her in, calling to her. She couldn't put her finger on it but this did feel like. . .
Home!
The realization hit her like a sledgehammer. She didn't know why that was the word that came to her mind because she was sure she had never seen this place before, not even in her dreams.
"What do you mean you had no choice but to bring her here?" another voice fired at the Ariana.
She couldn't keep piling the questions in her head but she now knew that a huge part of her belonged here. . . maybe not with the bunch of screaming old woman but she definitely felt a sense of kinship to this place. Was this where she gets her answers? The day the mystery of Dana Charnelle Princess Simons finally got unraveled?
"We were attacked!"
It was funny. . . hilarious even! Her sisters were only interested in why she came with the girl when she was sure they were quite aware of the presence of that friggin demon that had attacked them. They didn't even care to find out how she had fared against it. They only cared about covering their own asses. Ariana knew what she was risking by bringing the girl to the Covenant but she really thought it was the only way. She knew asking for permission was already out of the question from their last conversation regarding matters involving the girl.
"You knew the girl hasn't completed her Rite of Passage to even break through and yet, here we are" Didier was trying to unmask Ariana's mask of fleeing to their secret Covenant under the disguise of being attacked. She knew what she did was a planned decision. She had always wanted them to take the girl under their full protection but she also feared for hers and her sister's lives when the girl finally breaks through.
"You are finally here Princess. . ."
Dana knew for a fact that she hadn't imagined that, she was sure it wasn't one of the older woman's voices that are with her in the room either. She had heard enough of their voices to recognize that this one was different.
"Come closer. . ."
The voice whispered in her head again.
"Do you have a better explanation for this Ariana? A reason better than the bowl of crap you are trying to feed us from?" Vermin question her sister
They had all missed the entranced look on the girl's face except for Rosetta. She had been carefully observing the girl from the moment Ariana teleported them both to their chambers. She looked to be grasping everything a bit too fast, she wasn't even paying attention to the bickering going on around her. She had been trying to figure everything she could lay her eyes on but her eyes seemed to be drawn to the chair which made Rosetta start moving towards the girl but she suddenly couldn't move and her worst fears came to life.
The loud bickering suddenly came to a halt. All eyes were glued to the girl as she had started moving towards the chair. Her eyes white with no sign of her irises, she was being pulled by the force that guides all Druids and everybody knew it but all of them were in denial except for Rosetta. She half knew something like this is not out of the realm of possibility. Their eyes followed the girl until she sat at the crown of the room and no one was ready for what came next. . .
"Genu coram electo. . ."
*Gasps*
How long have they waited to hear from that voice. . .
"Did the Oracle just say we must kneel to the human girl?" Celeste voiced out their collective shock but they all knew the entity that guides them didn't like being questioned and neither did it like repeating itself more than once so their knees all hit the floor in succession.
Dana had activated the Throne of the Druids!