How
fragile
the
soul
is
~:~
Dea, kyrie
kyrie
~:~
She is the goddess of Life, the All-Mother, and Eve; the tree upon which the fruit grows and the flowers bloom.
She is the daughter of Arceus, the very first of the gods to be birthed from the vast emptiness of space. The Creator draws her from the brightest, most radiant of nebulae and wills her tiny form into existence. She is timeless, even older than the World-Maker's first sons: the Serpent, and the dragons that rule over Space and Time. She is so old, in fact, that not even she can recall her own age. Millennia, aeons pass like grains of sand in a dwindling hourglass, but she weathers the assault, impervious to the slow passing of the years and the forthcoming eventuality of Death.
Her role in the monarchy of the celestials is that of the Mother. She is the caretaker, the vessel from which all sentient Life springs forth. In her womb, she nurtures countless lives, each of them as precious and delicate to her as the others. When the time is ripe, she births her children and they fall, tumbling down onto the earth and leading lives of their own. But they all pay homage to her. They build her shrines, and tembles, and huge obelisks all in praise of her and her benevolence, and she is happy but would still love them even if they shunned her and ignored her completely. For that is the role of the Mother: to love unconditionally and to dispense that love onto each of her precious ones, and to comfort in times of sadness and to counsel in times of turmoil.
That is the role of the mother, and she fills it well. She pours out all of her love without hesitation, her affection for each child never diminishing, only growing as she regards her children fondly from above.
And then, with the sharp slash of the guillotine, they are all gone, crumbling into dust and disappearing into the wind.
Distraught, she mourns the tender loss of each one, tears pouring down her cheeks in a never-ending flood. She mourns their losses for days, only to be dealt another devastating blow when the others follow in their footsteps. Her children, whom she had raised with so much care, all fade away as dirt and dust and return to the earth from which they came.
She cries and cries but still, she gives birth to many more sons and daughters and for mere moments in Time, she can be happy once again. Then, they too are swallowed up, torn from her in what seems like seconds. She stares with lifeless, barren eyes at their graves, at the markers both grandiose and insignificant marking the places where they will rest for eternity (and then fade, too) and she weeps tears afresh.
With slow, inexorable progress, the wheel turns and she gives birth, her womb bursting with ideas that will soon flourish into Life which will spill out onto the Earth and then be whisked away by Death in the blink of an eye. The wheel spins, and spins, and spins, and with each dreaded rotation, it cycles in a new group and crushes the old one, leaving another gap in her heart and the looming horror that her newest children will soon be ground under the wheel as well, reduced to thin grains of sand that will blow far, far away. She will never see them again.
Every day, she wakes and sobs, for every day, her children die. She births more, and they will die as well. She is Life exemplified, yet she cannot stop the wheel from turning and trampling her children underfoot, smashing them into the soil as pulp. She feels that she can no longer stand the grief, the ever-growing pool of misery that she is drowning in. Sometimes, she wonders if she has already drowned and been submerged beneath the surface, and this cycle is merely a byproduct of twisted spiritual lingerings.
She does not know. She does not wish to know. She cares for nothing but to put an end to the wheel and its horrid, continuous cycling.
Manifesting on Earth, she makes herself known to the world and blesses her children, granting them the gift of immortality so that they may live forever. The power to do so is within her, but it is a strength she has never exercised or thought to exercise until now. With each touch, a swell of joy rises up in her chest along with the realization that she is defying the Creator's Laws: that no mortal being may ever be given the gift of Eternity, lest they endlessly multiply and destroy the world in their hunger.
She cares not for this, though. She is beyond caring about those sacred bindings by now, those Laws which were enacted millennia ago and which she does not care to remember.
Life. That is her gift to her children. That is the only lasting gift she can give, because all that she makes will eventually wither away and vanish. But not now. In a single, revolutionary decision, she has tipped the scales of the playing field, done something beyond comprehension. She has defied the Creator himself.
The thought gives her a sort of obscene joy, and she finds that she likes it; this feeling of power, of control. She is fighting against the wheel and the tide, tearing them to pieces, and it gives her pleasure and contentment in dismantling the system.
Suddenly, there is a bright light and even Time and Space are suspended as the Creator descends, glowering and radiating divine wrath at her actions. The newly-made immortals gaze on, unblinking, for even they are in the thrall of the Creator's power.
Abruptly, she feels a strong surge of anger towards her maker, this being that has served as her father and to many more for aeons. A being she should feel attached to, but that she can no longer feel any love for.
Because He is the wheel.
The Creator yells at her, berates her for her rash decisions and the consequences this will produce. "Free will, Mew," He says, voice thrumming and reverberating throughout galaxies. "That is the pact we all made-myself included-when we decided to fill this planet with Life. These people never desired to live forever; no, they were content in their normal lives, short as they were. Yet, you deliberately ignored this and gave them the gift of Immortality." He glared at her. "What you gave them, however, was not a blessing but a curse. Can you understand, child, that living forever is more of a burden than a blessing? That it will only hurt these unassuming children more than you can imagine when their loved ones die and they are still remaining?"
"They are my children," she replies, voice resolute. "I shall do what I wish."
"They are my children too!" He roars. "Do you think it does not pain me just as much when they die, when they wither and dry up and shrink back into the ground? Do you, my selfish daughter?"
"You lie," she spits. "You do not love them, or else you would let them live. You would not have created Death to reap them so wickedly, so unjustly, before they have even had a chance to bloom. You are killing them before they have hatched from their shells, Father. You are an unfit ruler."
"You would dare challenge me, little Mew?" He asks. "So be it then, for this is your folly."
Without warning, He explodes into full godly form, the very radiance of it enough to scatter her into atoms and reduce her into nothingness. But she can sense that he is holding back, a very small part of Him, and she sneers.
"For creating a race of Immortals, you shall be cursed and thrown into the world in which there is only Death. Your misguided eyes shall not look upon the splendor of Life until the End of Days draws upon us. I strip you of your authority, of your Life-giving powers so that you may never be tempted to use them again for your own greed. I cast you out, daughter! Out of my house, and into the abyss from which you were born!"
"Murderer!" she shrieks, lashing out at him with bolts of purple light. "You never loved them, not any of them! They were but pets to you!"
He deflects her attacks with ease and assimilates them into his body. His eyes glow and she is thrown back by an invisible force. Staggering, she looks into his eyes and sees that they are filled with nothing but sadness. She is angry. She will not accept this.
"No, Mew," he murmurs, "I loved them. All of them. But, as there is a Beginning, so there must be an End to even the scales."
"Liar!"
"This is the truth."
She makes a last effort to strike back, to wrap formless hands around the wheel and tear it into golden pieces that rain from the sky, but before she does, a terrible darkness enfolds her and drags her in. She screams, she thrashes, and then-
-she is silent.
~:~
For ages, she wanders, drifting aimlessly in sea of blindness and misery. She sees nothing. Her once-bright eyes have been dulled, and all that she gazes upon decays and turns to dust. So different it was, back when she could rejuvenate the dying as she wished. Now, she only takes, and can never give.
So different it is.
She waits and waits and waits, painting her mind blood-red and wiping old tears from her eyes. There is nothing but salt and bitterness for her to weep, and each tear stings, drawing blood on the way down. She does not care. Pain has long since ceased to bother her.
She was once a goddess of Life. Now, she is the goddess of Death. She has seven names, and each one would be terribly binding if spoken in her presence. But she never lets anyone know what they are. She has no secrets she is afraid of sharing, but she has secrets she is unwilling to take in.
She is Lilith, the Mother of Demons. The Dark Queen. Lost in a landscape of perpetual night, she sits on a black throne next to her embittered brother and waits for eternity to come to a final, merciful end. In her womb, she nurtures an army of monstrosities, ready to unleash them but only when the time is right. For it will be right. Everything which has a beginning has an end, as her once-Father said to her so long ago.
Until then, she will wait for the wheel to run its course, crushing her children one by one, scattering their remains far and wide.
She only hopes that when it comes her turn, the wheel will crush her as well.
a/n: edited as of 6/7.