Bridge.
"It is a long story, but it is also safe to assume that your experience and your success in handling that last challenge is the reason for this new glory."
"What challenge?" Havillah looked surprised. She had only gone to sleep and had woken up with this cuts. Had she sleep walked. No, nothing like that had ever happened in her life.
"How much do you know of Virtue Havillah? The workings of Virtue usually occur in a different plane and thus, only the results are manifested in this physical plane. This other plane is a realm in itself and every living being in this world has a connection to it. Of course there are doorways between these planes. Portals of some sort. In humans and Great alike, we call them Bridges.
"They act like a bridge between the physical plane and the other?
"Exactly and often these bridges act as a battlefield and is what you mortals refer to as the mind."
"So you are trying to tell me that the struggle that I went through occured in my mind? What of these scars?" She asked disturbed. As much as she tried she could not find a reasonable explanation for the wounds that were now staring at her.
"Yes,it occurred in the bridge. These wounds are therefore the physical manifestation of that same struggle. I hope you now realise that your battles will not always be physical or with mortal enemies but in all these struggles continue to keep a positive attitude. For like a precious jewel, Virtue requires refining and the price of enduring is– "
"New glory?"
"So to speak of."
"And what would have happened if I failed the test?"
"I am sorry. That's a story for another day."
"Fine! At least tell me this then? What was the challenge?"
"That too you will understand with time... But I can tell you this. It seems that your presence here has attracted and provoked some new foes."
"Foes?"
"Yes, it is very possible that you will soon come face to face with them. Therefore I advice you to brace yourself."
"Were they the ones that launched this attack? Are they responsible for the wounds?" She was greeted with silence as yet again her Guide decided to elude her a questions by fleeing her. After trying several times by phrasing the same question in other different ways with a similar result, Havillah gave up and decided to scout around the valley for a river and maybe some fruit trees and berry bushes that would replenish her dwindling supply of food. All the time her mind worked nonstop and try as she may she could not remember anything that would clue her to the occurrences that had led her to acquire these wounds. Eventually she gave up trying and after flying around the mountain for some time,Havillah came upon a ravine with a little stream flowing within it.
The stream headed westwards and the further it went down the valley, it grew wider and much slower even as the landscape grew less harsh and allowed for some flowers and swamp grass to grow around it. It was beautiful, peaceful even and the stream being as unpolluted as it was, Havillah could see right through it into the very depths and at the rocks and fishes that were swimming within it.
It was beautiful and had she developed her palette for sea food or in this case river food, Havillah would have enjoyed a nice meal of roast fish for breakfast. However, unfortunately, that was not the case here. Instead, she had to settle for berries and other fruits that she managed to forage from the bushes and trees that were all around the river bank. Lucky for her, she also spotted a grove of apple trees not very far below the little ravine and with a smile upon a lips, Havillah flew over to fill her bag and also her rumbling stomach that she was yet to feed breakfast.
What had her Guide meant by her mind being a battlefield? She mused even as she browsed in between the tree branches for ripe fruit to carry away. A bridge and a battlefield? So if the mind acted as a bridge...a bridge between two planes...she thought some more. Then that would mean that by taking out the bridge, Virtue would not flow?
No. That was not right.
Everyone had a mind, so how do you take out the bridge? She thought again. Maybe this bridge was indestructible and as an enemy if she knew this, the only way to stop Virtue from flowing would mean to clog it. Now that made sense. So the battle was essentially a means of diverting attention, diverting the flow of things, the flow of Virtue and its manifestation in the physical realm. Havillah did not fully understand the concept or how it came to be, but from the little she had read from the scrolls as an Appriser's apprentice, she could somehow deduce the reasons why most people could not wield any Virtue. It also seemed that, in their case the battle had moved from the battlefield and was now manifesting in the physical realm. The terrors! She stopped even as her eyes widened at this new revelation. "The terrors!"
"Who are you?" A small voice called out, effectively cut off Havillah's stream of thoughts. "Are you an angel?" It said again.