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Wings Of A Butterfly

Updated: 6 days ago




By Devaumitra Vengavila


Ishana stared dead in the eye. Her silver, pristine sword coated in deep red piercing through the chest of her enemy who in an instant fell dead. This was war. Not the happy fairytale dream she yearned as a child. Her kingdom, her homeland under the mercy of her enemy. Those cyan coloured eyes, which once held innocence and dream were replaced with the gaze of unforgiving winter of thawed flames which once served as a pity in the cold but it was extinguished under the bloodshed and brutality of war. She clutched her sword weakly due to her frail structure. She loathed her body; the fact she had to be born in a family of knights is no thought of comfort currently. Ishana scoffed at the dead body almost pitifully. “I wish… I was stronger like my brothers…” She spoke to herself as some form of reassurance which wouldn’t receive from anyone in war. The echoing screaming of the innocents, the pleading for lives to be spared, the prayers of safety and comfort from the divine… her human ears heard them all even though it fell deaf inevitability. How come the god she served did not hear any of this?  The sheer anger and betrayal coursed her veins. 

She was already tied down to the goddess of love in hopes to live a long life despite her illness and soothe her unfair life by serving Maeve, the goddess of love only for the kingdom to be crumpled down to a merciless battlefield where no equity or justice is served. The strong crush the weak regardless of whose voice is right.  Ishana didn’t wish to kill anyone but the war forced her otherwise. She felt her rage ignite her heart to pump the adrenaline to survive for everything or die for  nothing. The blood raced into every miniscule aspect of her body, making her tense for anymore sudden attacks but she wasn’t in the enemy’s eyes just yet, they were too consumed to pick on the defenseless and establish their dominance over them rather than fight in honor and pride. How she felt so repulsed by herself and this war. The thought of her elder brothers didn’t strike her even though they were at war in the frontlines as they were in the frontlines. Ishana stared coldly at the blood pooling from multiple victims and soldiers staining the pure earth making it appear the Mother Earth herself is displeased and indifferent to the suffering brought upon humans themselves.

 Ishana’s faith in the  divine was never stable since her birth despite being born in a kingdom ruled by a goddess. She felt her pale skin grow more sickly at the sight of soldiers tearing each other apart while others tried to blow up each other’s parties through bombs, grenades, rifles, swords, any weapon possible they just craved violence. Her sight began to daze to a blur from the intense fighting her frail body suffered,  She didn’t remember how long the war had persisted, the aching, the bloody wounds which marred her both her heart and body was unbearable, she didn’t desire to live like this… The divine were supposed to protect the weak and defenseless weren’t they…how come Maeve never came to save her kingdom? That thought made Ishana downright enraged from this action from her goddess, all those years of blind faith services she had to perform from being a burden to her family to a blind servant to a goddess who now didn’t bother showing up. Is this the price to pay?  She can’t fight. She won’t fight this meaningless war. Ishana glanced at her bloody sword, which ached for more blood..but not from others. 


In an instant, it went through her own chest, that moment she truly defied her teachings from Maeve. She let out a strangled gasp and fell on her knees, the sharp sword pierced her heart, which was struggling to throb against the metal. Her blood began to cascade down from the stab wound as well as her mouth which already began to choke on her own blood but she didn’t fight to her death despite how painfully slow it was. Her eyes pricked out tears of some unknown emotions or too many emotions, she didn’t understand why she was crying. She doesn’t feel regret but at the same time she does. Her saying goodbye to her brothers like this… felt stomach-wrenching. Ishana knew they would be devastated, them losing their only little sister through suicide in middle of war. She felt her entire being giving up, her eyes slowly drooping, unable to witness more blood pour from her heart and she fell. The war still raged on as she took her last few breaths. Within those last moments, she felt…free. No more to be bound against a goddess, no more bound to fragility of mortality. Until..she felt a caress on her face… it felt motherly but Ishana already surrendered to the afterlife before she could even see who stroked her face so lovingly.  


“Be free as a Butterfly, Ishana, dear.” 

………


“I am sorry that life was unfair to you.”   


………


“Fly high.”


By Devaumitra Vengavila





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