152 Tranquility II (1/2)
Li had casted [Tranquility]. A flutter of green leaves materialized and swirled around Ivo's form, and each time they circled around him, the old man's skin grew healthier, tauter, less wrinkled. His back became less and less hunched. The milky blindness in his eyes faded more and more. Even his teeth began to grow back. His atrophied limbs filled out, growing to the limits of what his once loose and dirty robes would allow.
All this, because Li restored the immense amount of life force he must have sacrificed to protect his way of life. No, not restored, returned. Li had merely paid back the debt that the man had paid to nature.
Ivo stood up tall, almost reaching Li's height.
Where before it would have been easy to pin down Ivo's age as nearing ninety or more, his real age was now unmistakable: he was a man in his early sixties, but he appeared even younger for he was a man who had spent a lifetime communed with life and the land. A man who should have had a body as hearty and hale as the soil he must have once toiled with, strong and sturdy, muscular and unyielding.
Li had given that body back to him, and with it, the first thing Ivo did was to kneel, his jaw setting as tears welled from his eyes.
”Great One,” said Ivo oncemore, but this time, his voice flowed with the smoothness of a clear spring stream. It was a voice that had spoken loud and proud once, leading men to blessed harvests and hellscape battlefields alike, and that voice now fully and proudly proclaimed Li as great.
Li touched Ivo's shoulder and smiled. He felt power flowing from himself as he felt Ivo's immense faith gather around him. Power that brought words out from himself that did not sound like his own, and yet, they embodied his intentions perfectly.
”Stand, Ivo. The earth is no place for you to be right now – you will have much time to tend to it later. For now, your role is to stand upon your own two feet, feet that I have restored through the blessing of the forest, and lead your people as living proof that the old ways have yet to fall.”
”Your word is my will, Great One,” said Ivo as he stood to face his people.
The farmers took more steps back, the older ones growing pale like they had seen a ghost. Their knees trembled like they were too weak to hold up their bodies, their wills that had witnessed a miracle of life that they had not been witness to ever since their entire way of life had been uprooted.
”The blessing of the Goddess,” said Theo in awe as he too dropped to his knees. ”How many years has it been since I have felt it? This warmth, this life, this hope?”
Seeing Theo fall in reverence, all the other aged farmers followed in unison. From them, faith bloomed like wildflowers in springtime, spreading out and radiating in waves of invisible force that funneled directly into Li. He could feel for once what it meant to be worshipped so strongly, and
As he looked upon the farmers staring up expectantly at him, Li had a vision of the past. Of a war torn, smog-choked, barren world that could have been saved with faith like this.
”No, I am not Morrigan, and I cannot bring her back, but what I can bring unto you is the chance to uphold the legacy she left behind. A place where your faith is not persecuted, hidden under shadow and fear, but laid bare to set as shining example to all others.
I come from a land where the old ways have been forgotten, but I have never forgotten.
For years, I sought to bring them back, but to no avail. In consequence, the lands crumbled, and the skies choked. I come to these lands to find those of kindred spirit to mine, and in you, I have found such kinship and more. I know the boundless faith you all once held and still hold, no matter how much the years may have tried to dampen it.