Ona of Ozmora — Ash Gray

Ona is elven, a member of the ancient race whose homeland of Ozmora came to ruin eons ago. Now she travels the world, aiding the younger races of Allaca and shapeshifting to survive their malice. She is one of the last of her kind and one of few sorceresses still living. Many seek her services and her power – sometimes in a very literal sense. --Ona's face darkened as she demanded, Why do you care so much about protecting the humans? And yet, you let Ozmora fall! She was pleased by the guilty silence that followed, and if there had been a door to dramatically exit, she would have. But she knew she was in a room with no doors and no windows, but for the circular skylight above. And according to Mizra, she wasn't even on the planet anymore. Perhaps they were floating in space. Ona was trapped, held there by magick, by a power so immense, it was beyond her reckoning. She was a fly railing in anger at the giant whose fist she squirmed within. She must have seemed small and pitiful to the goddesses. The audacity! hissed Mizra in quiet astonishment and disdain. Do you understand that we formed the stars that eventually farted out the stardust from which your pathetic life took form? I understand, said Ona quietly. I just don't care. --Who are you? the woman demanded in return, almost childlike in her impudence. Your worst nightmare if you don't answer my question, said Ona calmly. It wasn't a threat or a boast: it was stated fact. Sensing this, the woman went still.  --Time. Too much time had gone by. There never seemed to be enough of it for mortals. They were like flowers, coming and going endlessly, so beautiful and so frail, sometimes thriving on their own, sometimes crushed by her neglect. --But what is it? the princess wondered in amazement. Ona watched her, silently amused to see someone so baffled by something as simple as an apple. It's an apple, she said. Awwwwwpple, tried the princess. And the big thing it grew from? A tree. Treeeees. What are they? Plants. Do they speak? Sometimes. --You provide a great deal of . . . amusement, said Death, still looking out the window. We creatures of the Beyond, we are charged with governing the people of Allaca until the planet returns to stardust. It can get a little tedious. Most of the Allacans are boring. They eat. They crap. They have bad sex. So few of them sleep with mermaids and wrestle dragons and slay giants − Okay, the giant was an accident, Ona protested at once, but sleeping with mermaids and wrestling dragons? I haven't done those things. Not yet, you haven't, said Death, smiling again.