"So you're saying that bird isn't just some mindless animal?"

They had been marching for a few hours by now, with Timae hauling Demadara´s newfound wealth as well as their rations, Parsae still toying with her blood crystals, and Demadara leading the way forward.

"Quite right, girl." Parsae threw her hair back over her shoulder with a smug grin on her face. "The rocs are another one of those unfortunate creatures whose creator has either abandoned them or died. Much like your furball friend over there."

Her comment earned Parase a loud hiss from Timae. Nonetheless she continued.

"They can't speak, mind you, at least not sophisticated enough to be understood. But they are fluent in the universal languages: Power and violence."

Demadara ignored Parsae´s laughter at her own joke and kept her eyes focused on the horizon in front of them. At the edge was a great white hill, the only form of elevation that they had come across so far.

"So I just beat it into the ground until it becomes tame? That sounds a bit too easy."

When her foot hit the ground, it produced a loud cracking sound. She stopped and looked down, and clenched her teeth.

Beneath the grass laid brittle, bleached bones. Looking around, she saw more and more of them all around her, getting denser the further they approached the white hill.

"Well, you'll need to beat a minor titan that could crash a medium sized Sky Ship." Parasae flung a crystal into the air and caught it with her right hand, crushing the stone in her hand.

Around them a dark red barrier flickered to life, and not a moment too soon.

The clouds above them had darkened, and the screech of the roc filled the air as it appeared from the other side of the great hill.

Following it´s call, the skies cracked and a bolt of lightning struck down on them, hitting the barrier. It quivered, but held off the attack before dissolving.

"And it can do something like that. I've no idea who or what it may have eaten, but I'd rather not join it, yes?"

Parsae stepped back and hinted at a bow.

Demadara sighed and reached down for the heart. "Fine, Timae, stay back."

The fox woman opened her mouth to protest, but after a quick glance her ears lowered and she followed Parsae´s lead to disengage.

Alone Demadara now approached the roc. The hill, it´s nest, was a massive pile of bone, a display of it´s prowess.

The roc spread it´s wings and screeched out once more. This time Demadara was ready.

She lept forward as the lightning struck, creating a hole in the ground where she had been mere seconds ago.

Demadara cursed the loss of her books, all the spells lost to damn fire. They would be of great use here.

As she reached the foot of the hill of bones the roc beat it´s wings, and the wind it burst forward was enough to send her flying into the air.

She flailed her arms, staring down as she saw the roc take to the skies as well, straight towards her.

The air may have been the roc´s domain, but it was not entirely foreign to Demadara. She kicked the air and sent herself further upward, narrowly avoiding it´s sharp beak.

The bird passed her, and Demadara pushed her hands up against the sky to create another burst of gale. The force sent her downward, slamming down on the roc´s back.

It began to screech loudly and flail it´s wings. Demadara clung to whatever feathers she could grasp, she was a mere spec on the bird´s massive back.

As it bucked and shook, she climbed forward towards it´s head, her right hand already glowing with silver.

Finally she reached the rocs head and stared down into it´s great eye, her right arm raised.

"Now if you don't want me to crack your stupid head like an egg, you're going to take me down and ah!"

The bird spun around it´s axis, and Demadara almost lost her grip, now she hung down on the side of the rocs head, holding on for dear life.

Then she felt her belts slip. Her heart sank as the feeling overpowered her senses. She could not hear, or see, taste or smell. She could only feel as the belts slid down her legs and fell, taking the heart with it.

The sense of power left her, the certainty, the warmth. It was as if the door to her cage had been shut before her once more.

She would rather die.

Demadara let go, falling headfirst through the darkened skies. The winds tore at her clothes, but she did not care. She could see the great, flawless orb fall, slower than herself. She reached out, her fingers clawing at the air.

Even if she could not stop her fall in time, even if her body was going to break, all of it she could endure if only she could feel it´s warmth once more.

The ground had taken on a sharper, clearer view as she raced towards it. She was so close, her fingertips nearly touched that beautiful surface.

She could already see the bones laying in the grass, just a few more moments and it was all over. But it did not matter.

Her hands gripped tightly around the Heart, and she pulled it to her chest. Tears streamed down her face, the warmth filled her body.

"Thank you." Her voice was trembling.

The heart pulsed.

Demadara´s body hit the ground, and the impact shook the ground. It kicked off a tremendous cloud of dust, Parae ran towards it but she was overtaken in seconds by Timae.

"My lord, my lord!" She called out, her voice a high pitched shriek. "You cannot, no you cannot be gone, my lord!"

Her nails tore into her face, leaving deep bleeding wounds as she let out a cry neither human nor beastly.

The great bird landed on the other side of the cloud, it´s great wings pushing the dust away. It faded and revealed a crater, and in it´s centre, Demadara´s body. She had landed on her back, the heart was firmly in her hands.

And it continued to pulse. Midnight black flames formed around it´s core, spreading across her hands and engulfing her body. Her eyes fluttered open, and when they landed on Parsae and Timae, they were forced on their knees.

She got back up on her feet, and the earth itself moved, rising under her steps to form a staircase out of the crater, towards the roc.

The great bird was now silent, it moved backwards as Demadara´s flame-covered body approached.

The fires had by now consumed her very form, only her burning silver eyes shone through the shadowy flames..

"You would raise your claw against your king?"

Her voice was at once her own, and not. It thundered across the plains, the weight of her words pushed the roc´s head down onto the ground.

"You will not forget your place again. You will obey, or you will cease to be. That is my decree."

The thunder of her voice was echoed by the rumbling in the skies. Slowly the flames ebbed away, dying out around her and leaving Demadara. Her clothes and body were unharmed by the black flames, yet her body was shaking.

The spell around her companions was broken, both rushed to her side, but it was Timae who near pounced onto her, her hands clinging tightly onto Demadara for dear life.

"My lord, my lord, forgive me, I was so afraid, you, you."

Her words died down once she saw the void in Demadara´s face. How her hands were pale as a corpse as they clung onto the Heart that once more laid dormant.

"Parsae." She whispered, again with her own voice. "What, did I just do."

The pale mage was staring at her with a mixture of fear and awe. "You just told me most of what I needed to know about that damn thing."

Parsae stared from her to the roc, which had still not moved, it´s great eyes remained trained on Demadara. "So this is why Aeterna had all of Zana turned into a digsite. Decades of digging and breaking open ancient tombs, three waves of famine, for texts we burned or hid and trinkets to smelt and throw into the vault. All except this."

She slowly walked up to Demadara, her eyes now solely resting on the Heart.

"Heart of a god? No, it is not some organ in a jar, it is a prison."

Thunder rolled across the plains once more, as rains began to pour down on them. Timae cried out and did her best to cover her tails, while Timae and Demadara still stood motionless, looking at the Heart.

"I thought it was just an extraction, an ever-replenishing crystal, but no, there's no doubt the damn thing is still alive, and can at least tell in some way what's going on around it."

As her own realisation kicked in, Parsae took a few steps back. She slammed her foot down on one of the animal skeletons, cracking the ribcage underfoot.

"This is exactly, EXACTLY why humans are not meant to meddle with the inhuman! Did it speak to you? Ever before? What did it say?"

Parsae had already reached her hands out for the heart, but the look in Demadara´s eyes had her quiver and scurry back.

"It never spoke to me, even now it didn't. I just felt-" Demadara paused, staring down on the flawless surface of the Heart. "Powerful. Even more than I ever had before. The words just came to me, they felt right."

Parsae´s lips narrowed to become a single line. Finally she stuck her hands into the pockets of her dress and shook her head. "Well no matter, if it ever does, do not listen. Not until we reach the academies and I can find out what damn upstart idol they shoved in there. Though, that was you, the entire time?"

Demadara had walked over to the roc and sat down in front of the great beast. It did not move to attack when she laid her hands on it´s head.

"Yes, what's so special about that?"

She paused, and a shiver ran down her back as she saw Parsae´s expression.

"Because you weren't human when you were in those flames. You were something else, and there's not a mortal except Aeterna that I know who could bear a such a presence without becoming a vessel of the idol trapped in there."

Her pale lips turned to a smile as she shook her head.

"You're really something else, girl."