The transformation + Natura Humana Quest (ENG)

And in no time they had returned to where they had started. There were no more golden reflections, only dust and silence. And the walls with the hieroglyphics were still there, telling the same stories, only colourless. The garden was neglected and much overgrown, but the blue lotus flowers no longer adorned the river. Or so I thought. There was something shimmering in the middle of the lake, floating on the water. Sacred jumped into the water without waiting for the other esks, curious. When she reached its side, she swam around it gently, elegantly. It was a blue lotus flower, a replica of those of old, but made of pure crystal that reflected the sun's rays in the colors of the rainbow, as Sacred's scales did. She turned towards X, questioning him with her eyes. The esk did not flinch and continued to watch her, while the three little ones swayed on the edge trying to distinguish the beautiful object. Sacred looked back at the crystal flower, frozen in time... Is that what he wanted her to be? Clearly X was interested in learning more and more about the ancient civilization Sacred had been a part of, and in the conversation they had in the palace hundreds of years ago X made it clear that he intended to return in the future to ask her more about it. How many more esks like her were there? Who would have been human on such a level as close to the life in the royal palace as she was? Sacred had decided that she would want to tell anyone who asked her about the times of old, that she wanted to protect this place. But... she stared at the great palace. Had she chosen wrong? Should she have asked to travel forward in time? Did Sacred want to be a bridge between the past and the present? Without changing? Staying here protecting this place forever? In part yes, in part she felt it was her duty towards what had been her home. Besides, where else would she go but Egypt? The waters of the Nile were her home.

But...? Not to change in an eternity...? Like the sphinxes themselves...? Was that what she wanted?

Sacred was caught up in her thoughts, again staring at the beautiful crystal water lily and its twinkling games of light.

A long time passed, and when she looked back at the shore two of the three little ones had gone. Only X and the little pink one, Nure, remained. Each showing their wheat spikes and blue flowers, respectively. They belonged to the places filled with human energy. But Sacred... She tapped the surface of the water with her tail. She did not. She hit it a second time. Now she had ascended, and also anchored much deeper into the earth. Not just to the lake. Now she could go wherever she wanted. A third blow. What did X expect from her? Did he want her to wait like a loyal dog for him to come back while she watched over the house? What was left in this temple for her? She knew all the stories written on the high walls. There was nothing more that this place could teach her. Why not travel to other banks of the Nile? Visit other shores? Pass through other reeds? Her previous life had been dedicated to someone, she would not go through that again. She wanted to look to the future. The crystal lotus flower started to break. She wanted to feel the water brush against her body. Crash. She wanted to lift her head and look at the sun, not at the ceiling. Crash. Sacred began to laugh and looked into his eyes from the center of the lake. "Is this what you want?!" Her eyes glowed faintly for a second, as a rainbow reflection ran down the scales from the base of her tail to the end of it. The water around Sacred began to transform into... Ah! How often she had wished to bathe herself in donkey's milk. In the purest raw donkey's milk that could exist. And it continued to spread until it reached the base of the palace. That whole area of the Nile that was part of the palace garden had turned white. X moved one of his front legs, ready to bathe in the milk reserved for the queen of queens. "No." He heard the words in his head. He stopped and looked at the owner of the voice, who continued, "This time it's for me. This time this life is for me. You should have waited until I was out of the water to transform me." And as soon as she finished saying those words, the lotus flower broke into a thousand pieces that slowly sank to the bottom of the lake.

X tilted his head to the side. "Are you going to abandon them?"

"They abandoned me before. They weren't here when I woke up, and before that they took my life."

"You've made your own milk bath. Do you think you can proclaim yourself queen?"

"I just want to live for myself, is that too much to ask for...?" Sacred barely finished the sentence. Something had brushed against her leg and had risen to the surface with a chilling slowness. Plop, Plop. Plop plop. Nure hid in horror behind X. Thousands of little fish, little frogs, little lifeless animals were emerging to the surface after being denied water, their means of breathing. Sacred turned pale, if that was possible, as she listened to X's voice: "You cannot live for yourself, any of your actions will affect others. Having accepted my gift, you would have accepted that I would teach you, you would have learned what your queen knew, you would have been able to become, with training, your own queen with your milk baths. You humans think you know a lot, especially about yourselves. But you are so different, you learn so many different things, you live everything so differently from each other... Are these now your subjects, queen of the dead fishes? That's how you attract crocodiles..." Sacred could not return the milk to its former state; he had never learned how to turn milk into water. X sighed. The crystal fragments which had been the lotus flower shone dimly with the magic of time and returned the garden to its original state before disappearing. By then it was too late, and the life on that bank of the Nile had been almost all wiped out. Sacred was broken, she felt weak. X came to her, walking over the surface of the water. "When you are more esk than person, come find me. When enough time has passed, call me. Life on this shore may come back, but you... You'd better not forget that you're part of nature now. Humans often overlook this and it leads to many tragedies, like the one that happened today. For having broken my gift, and for you to always remember that every act has a consequence, I curse you... From now on, the different places you come across will reveal their past self at will. You will be able to visualize, to listen... Briefly, or perhaps as long as it takes to consume a branch of incense, a moment in the past of the place you have just stepped on, of the waters you have just entered... In this way you will learn that not even the queen had in her hands the reins of her own life, and you will remember on entering this lake how having your own reins for a few seconds caused so much death around you... Now farewell, Sacred. And I hope that, as you wanted, you will have grown up the next time we meet, and become a real queen after having understood what it really means. I hope that in the future you will present this palace to me as the legacy you have inherited, and that in your presence it will shine with its former glory..."