The transformation + Natura Humana Quest (ENG)

Time...

Time were the tadpoles growing into frogs and giving birth to more tadpoles... Time were the birds migrating, the species disappearing, lotus flowers losing their petals...

Wait a moment...

Its petals...

" Wait a moment."

And so, time ceased.

The warm caresses of the morning sun froze over her skin, and for the first time in... since she fell asleep at the bottom of the lake, for the first time since then, she felt the warmth of these caresses.
The feeling that had sunk with her for thousands of years was still there, dragging her deeper and deeper into the dark waters under the Egyptian sun.
But it was this new feeling of distress and anger, of uncertainty and loneliness, that was slowly bringing her out.
"Egypt... is gone."
Every beat around her seemed like an eternity. Her flower, the blue water lily, the Egyptian lotus flower, the one that sprouts with light, the one that grows in all her splendor from stagnant waters, the one that gave birth to so many gods... Her flower, had become extinct. She was the only one left, Sacred. Only she was left by the Nile.
Neither did the gods walk over the earth. The lineages had been tainted. There weren't any new temples being built. No banquets were being held. No one was being worshiped, no one was anointed with perfume. Nothing.  Empty. Empty temples. Broken plates.

Sacred felt her color fade as she assimilated the decline of the world's most powerful empire. She shifted from the mauve of the palace gardens to the brown of the dry earth, and from the plum blue of its petals to the ancient turquoise, like her Egypt, which had been covered by a layer of sand, buried away under the Sahara desert.
Now she was also Egypt. She had changed, and even covered by sand she was still magnificent, in despite of the time she was still admired, and she would remain that way forever and ever.
But... it wasn't sand surrounding her. It was water.
A somewhat dry voice, but impatient to speak, echoed in her head: "You don't belong to this civilization."
Yet that voice felt like a warm light, different from the sun. It was more like a drop of molten gold, reminiscent of the ephemeral but brilliant presence of the human being, that which shines by day, but when night falls it solidifies, and its light fades away.
She did not know how long it had been since she had noticed that the outside world had changed, but she suspected that this voice had been listening to her feelings ever since. She felt frustration. Even though it was a voice much older and more powerful than she was, being on her own boundary gave her enough strength to answer: "Why don't I belong to it?"
"You belong to the water."
And just as that phrase resounded in his head, a cascade of cold water pierced her spirit, flooding her.
She knew that in life she had been one of the women who assisted the Pharaoh, but she had especially been in charge of preparing the donkey milk baths for her mistress. The queen was divine, and the empire had been prosperous during her reign. Sacred had left the earthly plane before her lady, poisoned or killed, she did not remember. And in death he continued to serve her queen. But when the queen's heart also stopped beating, Sacred had retired into a deep sleep.

But it had not been the empire that had given her life, nor did she owe them anything. It had been the lake that connected with the palace garden which had been drenched with his blood, and it had been the lotus flower who had merged with her essence. The esk that had connected her to nature also had a bond with water, but she only smiled for a moment before she disappeared from Sacred's sight.
It was the fresh water from the lake which gave her life, and as the flower that was the symbol of Egyptian civilization, she owed her strength to the rising sun and the banks of the Nile.

"Adapt and resonate with nature." It sounded like an order to Sacred that echoed, this time, through her soul.

And she felt it. She felt she was changing. She felt herself resonate with water, with the same source of life that runs through the desert and gives life to the papyrus and reeds that grow along the riverbank. Her coat shortened to imitate the impermeability of mammals that swim gracefully. Fins sprouted along its tail, along with scales that reflected sunlight in a thousand colors.
Now she knew better than ever where she belonged to, and she had a new purpose: she would no longer be a servant of Egypt, but she would be a part of it, and she would continue to grow. She would not cease to admire what were once her people, but time has advanced and all that is left is to follow the flow of it. The flow of water. The flow of time.

And just before her transformation was completed, the seed of an idea was laid deep within her: "What if I want to go against the tide...?"