Alba has never been much of a swimmer.
Odd, for someone training in the Marine Forces, but there was always something unnerving about being stuck in water.
It made your body, and even your mind, move slower.
That's exactly how it felt to be inside Her.
Nothing seemed to exist around him, everything became either fuzzy or translucent in some way.
Only around his body, a physical vessel he'd just let Ixchel take control of, could he see anything.
It lit up a patch of the world around it like an ethereal lantern.
He should be worried about what she would do, or about the prospect of never getting his body back, but how could he?
He saw the foolish Irshya warriors, and their leader…whatever her name was…charge at scaly friend, the muted sounds of their footsteps echoing in a pitter-patter around him.
Then he felt his body screaming, overflowing with corrosive mana as his vocal cords drew out the word: "Rapture!"
As the surrounding crowd became overwhelmed with emotions, barely able to stand on their feet, instead of sitting on the edge of his proverbial seat, Alba grew bored and looked away.
In that moment, he didn't even understand how the failed goddess could remain so ambitious, living in the calm waters of her pocket dimension.
He couldn't move far, only a few centimetres around him; his spirit (and therefore probably hers) must have been too weak for that.
In the stillness of the tide, he could see far beyond any man probably ever had.
Fuzzy or not, he could see past Aethercrust and into the lagoon where his dearest Dilmun peacefully lay.
His vision flew higher, closing in on the clouds and the skies.
How little he felt compared to the grandeur of the continent, Sorakh spanning over a distance so great it made Dilmun look like a strand of pasta lazily thrown and bundled south of the continent.
Inconsequent.
Insignificant.
He reached farther, past the clouds, and now felt as though he swam through a dark, thick gaseous abyss.
Even though he knew how grand and deep the seas were, he never expected Palena to look mostly blue on its surface.
He quickly realised he had gone away from the planet, and looked around only to be surprised once more, by another sea.
The sea of stars.
There was just too much to see.
His vision sped through the empty space between planes, and saw the stars grow into large luminous spheres or crushingly fast planets, bigger even than his home of Palena.
Then it all clicked.
How could Ixchel not grow hungry, voracious even, for freedom and control?
For power over others, power over things?
She stood stuck in the sheer enormity of their world, unable to move or influence anything.
Only the physical vessel she was stuck to provided any light in the deep waters of her vision.
In the blink of an eye, Alba was back from his projection.
He saw the tent again, burning as the frenzied warriors of the camp toppled the tent and plunged its canvas into the nearby pyres.
Even the tall Zenobia got on her knees after Ixchel's 'Rapture'.
Whatever she did worked wonder but… Why did his hands surround Cartha's throat?