Bant'ola

Desert rains...
(©SunBlind - January 2006)

The mare flew as swiftly as her wings would allow her. Her large, beautiful eyes were filled with concern as she raced against time.

Oh what had she done?! It had been in the heat of the moment, she'd never intended for this to get out of hand, but it did and now she had to set it right. First, she knew, she needed time more than anything else, and for that, she needed Seol'valista. But he was small and at times very difficult to track down.

Relief spread through her as luck was on her side. The Tunai stallion watched quizzically as the much larger Nitheli swept gracefully through the clouds towards him. He could see the look on her face and knew something was wrong.

"Bant'ola..." the stallion spoke her name as she paused to regain her breath. No, there wasn't time for that now.

"You must help me!"

The story that followed made no sense to the poor Tunai, and as his confusion grew, so did her nervousness, making the tale she told him that much more incomprehensible. Seeing that she wasn't getting anywhere she pleaded, "Oh please just stop everything, all time, except for the two of us. Then I'll fix the problem and you can let time move again."

The Seol'valista shook his head. "I don't have that kind of power, I can only create bubbles of time, and I haven't quite figured out how to do that reliably either. Sometimes I force time to go backwards..." He never got to finish as the mare interrupted him. "You must do that, to me. Send me back to stop what I started."

Started? Oh, that darkness thing she'd gone on about. The spreading darkness. Well it sounded bad and she looked desperate. It must be important. "You have to keep in mind that I'm not very good at this, that something could go wrong. I don't want to hurt you."

"It's already gone wrong, nothing you do can make it worse."

The stallion sighed but saw that there was to be no argument. Concentrating, he drew upon his newfound, but not yet understood, powers and tried to push the mare back through time. He watched as the mare flew backwards through the sky, then suddenly forwards again. Forcing another surge of magic towards her, Bant'ola reversed direction again. He followed her back to where the darkness was and stopped.

Bant'ola looked about confused. "What? Oh! No! You must go further back, before the darkness starts!" Her eyes widly rolled back in her head as the darkness approached them, spreading from something deep in its center. Seol'valista shuddered at the sight, having some grasp of the danger and urgency.

Again he threw his magic against her, and together they watched the darkness recede. As it did the pair of them followed it inwards, just as Bant'ola had retreated before. At last the form in the middle could be made out, an unknown pegasus with a horrified look upon his face. Bant'ola turned to Seol'valista, "Don't stop, not just yet."

At last the darkness faded, and the stranger went from looking frightened to looking smug. "He'd insulted my heritage. He thought my stripes looked silly, and that my mind must be a little messed up because my father brought the rains and my mother the dry season. I got mad...but I won't let him get to me this time."

When Seol'valista stopped his flow of magic, the mare walked right up to the pegasus stallion, looked him right in the eye and just stared him down. At first he was up to the challenge, but after a bit his eyes began to glance around, and getting uncomfortable in the close quarters, took a step back. It was enough. With that little victory Bant'ola knew he wouldn't be teasing her anymore, he was just a bully. Push back a bit and they run.

As the pegasus flew away, Seol'valista demanded an explanation. "I didn't stand up to him before, instead, I just hated him. I stared as if I could see right into his very core and then threw magic at him, the way you reversed the time for me. Only it didn't cause time to change, instead that darkness began to grow from inside him, spreading outwards, consuming everything around..." She had to stop of the terror of what she was capable of overwhelmed her.

Seol'valista had his own theory. "I don't think the darkness was yours, but rather his. All you did was unleash it." As Bant'ola shook her head he continued, "I'm not saying he was evil, he probably wasn't, he just had a bit of a nastier side, like we all do. I think because you threw your magic at him from your own darker side, it unleashed his. I'm sure you could do the reverse if you try."

With that he left the mare to ponder these powers. Though she was determined to never use them again, she wondered what potential that other half that is inside us all might contain. True duality and balance between opposites.

Statistics:
Name: Bant'ola (Desert Flood)
ID: 92z
Gender: Mare
Parents: Ohunsa x Keteina'iava
Class: Nitheli
Glory: Cora Finien
Charity: None
January 2006