Sisters of the Storm

When she went to the Sisters of the Storm, they told her they could not teach her. They said she could never enter the Sisterhood because she had not been born a woman. But she had power and desire greater than they knew.
So when the storm began to brew over the initiation grounds, she saw her chance. The rain pounded against her and wind blew her for side to side. Lightning flashes blinded her while thunder set her ears ringing. Still she pressed onward.

At the initiation circle, she stood her unflinching in the pounding rain, lightning striking around her, thunder shaking her bones. The woman called out to the storm, “Here I am!” with both arms raised to the sky. The storm stared into her heart and found her worthy. She felt the earth reach up through her to the storm. And the storm reached back.

White fire burned across her skin from her hands down to her heels. She gasped for air that had been forced from her lungs. The lightning reached for and caressed her heart; it convulsed and then was still. The world dimmed, her knees buckled.

“No!” she screamed with her mind, “I’m not done!” The storm heard and lightning speared her once more. Her heart jumped and began pounding. She drew a breath and the world went black.

The Sisters of the Storm found her the next day. They tended to her body, as she recovered. From the lightning branches burned onto her skin, they divined her future. When she awoke, her first teacher was waiting by her bed.

Sister Maria taught her to draw power. Lightning is raw power, unpredictable and dangerous if not checked. She learned to control and channel it safely through her body.

Her second teacher, Sister Jamie, taught her how to ground her power into the earth. To anchor herself physically and mentally to one spot. The earth is eternal, unmovable and solid but also complacent and lazy.

She learned adaptability from Sister Teressa. To move with the wind and adapt its flow to her needs. Wind is just air, always moving, slipping through the smallest of cracks but unfocused and scattered.

From the Mother of Storms she learned patience. A thousand raindrops is only a pitcher of water. A million is a bath tub. These are nothing compared to the multitude a storm drops but the earth is not moved by just one storm.

When she had learned all they would teach her, she returned to her initiation site. From from the sandy earth she pulled a staff of glass formed by the strike that restarted her heart. With lightning she smoothed it and reformed it to suit her. She followed the wind and set out into the world.

And so she began her journeywoman days as a Sister of the Storm.