The first thing she notices when she woke up was the warmth. But that had been brief like the haste of a passing breeze on a summer's noon day.
She registered the warmth when she found beams of light casting through her body— after realizing she was water-rushing-flowing-into-rivers, a rushing stream in the middle of vegetation and trees. A forest.
Rocks tumbling slightly and she could feel every slight move within and around herself— tadpoles being rushed away by the small tides, crabs crawling underneath rocks, pebbles and loose dirt tugged and pushed by her waters, leaves falling as insects danced on her surfaces, and the silent and hushed rushing as she moved and snaked around the land. Even if so small.
Her own name is lost to her, registering this she felt wary as the small stones in her body tumbled from her silent sigh. But somehow at the same time she knows that this is not her— not a stream but something else that is so far away from the tip of her tongue but stilled at her mouth—
Remnants of ash from ire and crackling wood, the cold air amongst mossy stone in old homes, lost seeds and grains that's left behind, a deep sigh and an exhale. An air of finality—
But no matter how she ended up becoming what she realized now, she found herself uncertain and advertent. She feels as if she should be content, by and large even after a few years, though she found no reason why even as she let herself flow around boulders and rocks and fallen tress; she was not at peace, for there were faults she found in herself and why she was in this position, but there is tranquility that lingered as she listened to the rush and hush of her own.
Rings of distant mirth, hands digging through mud and silt, washing away blackland from small smooth rocks with calloused hands, children splashing away at her waters—
Then there comes abandon, and she remembers it well; spoil and rot casted onto her, through her, loose sticks and branches that would not move so she could continue, trapping and immobilizes her for years and years. She is like that until storms comes, moving the boulders and logs that chained her into what she had been. Blacky, dirty, waters. Clouds grow gray and gazes at her with somber air, the forests bristle and shiver from the canopies and under bushes, whilst there is distant laughter and cries. Though they have nothing to do with the previous mirth she found when she was still free.
But there is change. And she is let loose.
She writhes, worrisome, and so with concealed apprehensiveness she forced herself up, calling upon lost murmurs and a grace to the land, her watery body rippling as currents curled around sunken rocks and logs whilst black strands fall into her vision. Fingers, no, t a l o n s, curled and sunk under the sediment that had been her watery pathway around this forest. Old, ancient. Forgotten.
Black engulfed her vision then, and so as she stood from her watery body she felt no real physical attachment to anything around her.
She gagged, black silt covered her entire body even with this form, or whatever this form was— though looking humanoid the water spirit, god, or what-have-you, agrees to herself silently that even with the serenity that accompanied her; there were so much at fault when she noted the plastic that sat under her tides. Carried from somewhere to nowhere at all, but her hidden face caught sight of the pollution nonetheless.
Let go let go let go let go let go—
Something inside of her boiled and burned, but she washed away the feeling with surprising cold and stilling flows of silent musings. Wash them away, wash them away like the filth that flows in your waters, boil them to non-existence like impurities, take away the trash and plastic and forgotten things. Take them with her, away from this body, even if she felt the blistering ire that sat under her cold depths under dirt and stone and debri. Even if it is not much.
She hears a rush down further from her body, and learns that there is much greater that awaits at this body's end, continuing as another and forming into different currents— ripples of new beginnings towards an unpredictable end tied to the earth and the rocks put around it.
A river, so she follows her own waters and drags the filth with her— this form was of muck and old oil and blacky sediment, but at least she held an almost human appearance despite the dirt that hid her true form, whatever it may be, though trapped her in a cold loose shell. She drags deadwood and debri behind her and they become one with the muck that held her form.
She feels agony and the waters b o i l and ripple angrily under her guised pain, but tries to ignore it even if she became completely black by the time she reached the beginning of the end of her previous body, reminiscent of oil and tar. Looking back from her growing muck of a body she found the stream that she once inhabited were much cleaner, though still polluted and impure, but it was still better than it was before.
Scales and talons rushing pass, nets and heavy settlings casted, an image of a far away figure, blurry and strange. There were the sounds of footsteps, haste and a hand reaching out—
Her body had become larger when she reached the river shore, as tall as almost four men stacked up, and as wide as two men laying down.
But still her appearance stilll looked vaguely human, and she found herself curious as to why she preferred looking as human as possible even with the silt that covered her, even though she knows that the humans were the reasons why she felt as if she was being stabbed at a thousand times. Even if they were the ones polluting and drying up her waters.
She wonders if she had been human, once. But those thoughts are lost to her.
Gods are often born from two things— necessity and sacrifice.
Nonetheless, she looks down on the murky waters of this river. And felt as if someone had grabbed her hands and pulled her closer to the surface, albeit her head did not grace the river water just yet.
"Abe. " a voice says, detached and unknown. She looks at her reflection on muddy waters, this river was almost dry and there was more gravel than sand.
There's a brief feeling of recourse, a rush of recognition but it washes away as quickly as the tides pull back.
Long, black locks being let loose and tied again and again, aching hands and uneven fingernails, bitten, and there was a moment of impertinence in between the warring wind and the angry frigid depths of sunken rocks and drowned compulsiveness that writhed and snaked around necks and unsuspecting victims—
She becomes impatient and almost hopeless, but buries it down together with the muck.
"Abe. " she repeats, and let herself sink down into the new waters of the river which her stream grew and ended up in.
She reforms and feels a harsh sting throughout her body. Rejoin, she thinks and she felt the debri she dragged from her late stream flow through her once again, but did not leave even as she let herself be washed away by the currents of this new watery body.
It is strange, she muses with what she found were black painted talons as she flows into sections and sections— rushing away but otherwise did not let go of the fact that this was not her's.
But it was empty, the now river-flowing-into-sea realizes— with newly seen black strands of hair, or feathers, she thinks, for they were different from what she had seen— for there had been no other presence other than the fish that swam with the rushing waters, sensation of scales and bubbles getting caught in between gills, the cold that settled onto the murky depths, sharp rocks shifting; depths deeper than the stream she found herself awaking in, and the slime and the weed that caught themselves in her curious talons.
"Abe."
She nods and takes the name, although knowing that it was not her's and never will be. But the waters rushing and singing in her ears insisted— take it, they sang with blistering cold upon her temples, Abe-kawa, for there is no master to rule us and the tides will only dry up without you—
The now-river takes the name, but did not take what she could have ruled as this was not her's, it is desolate but there had been another that made home in this river, only leaving behind a name that anyone would have taken but was left behind for a reason she does not know. But she is here, now, she takes it and joins herself with the rippling tides that came hastily like hands brushing through weeds and vegetation—
She flows and rushes for a long time, and for that time she feels content.
There is tranquility. There is change.
But she was not at peace.
So she is Abe the River, and flows and rushes between the rocks and boulders for a long time. And for that time that she stayed the waters gave her knowledge whilst the cold that grows and joins her provided a sense of silence to accompany the hush of this watery body. She had accepted this new form surprisingly easily.
Was she not the stream that grew and took contribution to make this river? Did she not snake around the forest, dragging herself and her tides to the beginning, and rejoins her waters with this draft? Did she not provide for this river-flowing-and-rushing-into-sea to make do with it's existence?
But there is still pollution, of course, and was far worse than what she awoken to when her surface become covered with plastic and metal and other spoils of humanity. Whilst the stream she had inhabited wasn't even as bad as the muck she carries now. She curls around cities and villages, but her waters diminish and becomes dry. But this is better, she decides with bated breath, for her stream had dried up weeks after her leave.
Ancient, she realizes, but she knew she was not too old, or even young when she registered the contents that resides deeper in the silt at the bottom of her sapience. There was gold glinting under heavy blackland and silver licking at what little light that is able to cast through her, warming her up in hot months.
Abe stays like that for a very long time, and she found that being a river was much preferred than being a heavily polluted stream— tainted by sewerage and black muck, even though her current form was not much better. She feels oil run through her and chemicals rushing away from the shorelines making her choke on her own waters and tied up in her own body. Dust and sediment always was being poured into her.
Abe was beginning to grow wary and poorly, but it is for the better.
But there's not much she can do, not yet, and she feels remorseful when she started seeing dead fish floating up in her surfaces, her depths had become even murkier and she could no longer see the small blinking of silver and gold on the bottom of her body, being covered by trash as piles upon piles of rubbish are poured and thrown into her as if she didn't provide them their needs and cold relief upon summer. Gravel and stone and rocks shift every time, but they always land onto her depths as she finds herself feeling a boil under them.
Years pass, then decades and a century, and she finds humans on her riverbanks, farmers cleansing out their tools as fishermen decorated her waters with working machinery.
Company, and strangely she registers that quite liked them— having only the clouds and the birds to coincide with.
Mirth often clung to them like the muck and smudges on their body and clothes, they chattered as they worked around her, even bringing their children with them sometimes. Abe is torn between euphoria and remorse, for they pray to her for good harvest and rain, they ask for her and she tries what she can and brings forth cold water onto rice paddies, though far from her, and rain on dry days.
She feels ecstatic at this revelation as the humans go to her for help, for she realized she has not been needed for a very long time ever since she was but a little stream. And maybe even before that, but she does not dare dwell deeper.
Sounds of stones clashing mildly onto each other, grains being pulled and drawn back in bamboo baskets, there's children running on her banks as they play with her waters. Splashing and euphoria in the midst of work whilst the older humans warn them to be careful whilst elders laugh among their groups as they worked in the fields. Far away, but they were there—
So for a short time, she is placid and draws her waters with frigid talons. She is content, she is happy.
But not all lasts for long.
She was a wary but knowledgeable river god, Abe knows she is old but she was young, even if she had never truly seen her face in the past since she awoken as a lonely stream, black silt still flowed from her pores and head, and when she opens her mouth there is slime and black oil that slips in between sharp teeth. Her watery locks housed remains and odds and ends, her waters almost never clear unless she blesses her own rain.
There is fire and smoke erupting beside and around her, the forest that was her neighbor burned away and she heared screaming as blood pours in and through her once more, there were loud crashes and crackling— then a laugh that was devoid of any joy. And this enrages her, until she had enough.
The humans in this world were not powerless, the voice in her head had told her long ago when she first saw humans treading down her stream, and even an older presence within her that for the life of her does not recognize much but the same voice as her's and an air that she knows is herself. They have changed throughout the centuries, and she agreed with them in silent rushing and the cry of a gull, when one fateful day that even their own physical appearances seemed to be altered as more decades come by, though many still held their then-human forms.
They had power, but would never be as powerful as the beings from the otherworld, veiled from their eyes and hidden away by silent exchanges only uttered between devoted followers and the like.
She almost stops herself, when she felt her body curl and become scales and talon and baring teeth, her waters begin to ripple wildly as they rise and fall from her movements, until she retracted her talons from the depth and veils of gravel.
The skies turn dark with heavy incoming rain and thunder, their presence rumbling in the skies as they hide away the sun with their giant bodies. Meanwhile the gravels pull back and seem to grow heavier as she lifted herself from the blackening murky waters—
Gods are born out of necessity, as it has been said— and sacrifice—
And then, there came the flashflood.
Abe did not reveal herself, but willed with every force she is able to gather and stood high from the growing currents of her body— she willed the other bodies of severity, continuous but trapped, that she sensed, calling them back. Even from the ocean.
They came quickly and they seemed to roar, but Abe had felt pain course through every inch of her body when the waters she willed brought back their own exchange to her call; dragging and bringing with them piles upon piles of junk and muck— rusted metals, cars, bikes, and other drecks that made her feel heavy with realization and seething hatred.
And, with mild shock, there came black spikes suddenly sprouting from her depths and destroying anything that came within contact with them. Spreading and sprouting like innocent harvest if it weren't for the blood that came sliding down the pointed tips.
Citizens ran from the sudden tides that towered over homes, clashing and destroying the concrete that surrounded her river-body easily as the rain came down as heavily as the hails that accompanied it.
She has tranquility, there is stillness that replaced the livelihood of existence, but she will never know peace.
Not after this.
•
Abe is hundreds, almost millenia, years old, now, and her depths became deeper as the time passes— her waters elevate and is repopulated with migrating fish from the ocean to come back from their beginnings. Crawfish and crabs and other curious crustaceans that wants to live under her rocks and gravel and stone crawled under the stones. Her fluid body became greater and seemed to look more like a river than the last time she drew her currents in placid carapace, for she flows freely, now, but still her tides is as unrelenting as her storms.
Humans visits her often now, too, not only to fish and cleanse but there are others who come just to search for the black shards she unknowingly willed a hundred years ago. But she had make sure to herself to retract them to her depths, which the humans did not bother thanks to her strengthened currents.
A ghost of a hand hovering over papers, the sound of chittering crickets and the soft clatter of ceramics and silverware. Present in a place that was lost to her waters, tearing them apart like puzzles pieces bound to be left forgotten—
Abe opens her eyes, and sees a strange boy crouching down on her shorelines.
The river god looks at him as he stares back at her waters, staring at his own reflection. He seemed to look lost and almost sorrowful, she realizes.
A head of a raven, but otherwise everything else of him looked human, black feathers, and eyes of blood and ruby—
Suddenly her waters pushes harshly, startling the boy who looked no younger than 10, making her alarmed and pulls back her tides ultimately.
There is a shout and the raven boy was dragged by a woman dressed in what it looked like was formal to her, but she didn't know for she never separated herself from her fluid body to walk the earth. She never found the reason to.
"Tokoyami. " she hears, and Abe stares as he disappeared into the crowd of other children up on the road.
The river god does not forget the name, she sings and repeats it after herself. It sounded nice.
She closes her eyes and lets herself be washed away on her own waters, rippling the currents slightly as she sighed. There was a feeling of solemnity as her talons graced the silt and remains sunken down on her depths, and she stills, silent.
For the first time in a hundred years, there is the calm that washed over her surfaces, calming the torrent that she pulls and tugs with careful ink black talons for she had never seen herself in her own form of purity. For there was always pollution, no matter which time period it was.
Abe sometimes wonder what she had been before waking up as a small stream, surrounded by the forest and chill of the mountains close to her old placement. It was mostly silent and uneventful, but still sewage flowed through her from the villages that were built around her body. She had never known true purity.
Even now, the upper parts of her fluid body seems to be clear and almost safe— but as it travels down further the surfaces gets muckier and muckier from the cities that pours their waste into her. Throwing bags and bags of garbages at her depths as they rode through the bridges in vehicles, she gags on soot and ash from the burning rubbish on her shorelines, dumped by people in the night or even smug as to do it in broad daylight.
It angers her, but she calms herself, for Abe knows that this is not a time to reveal herself.
Abe sleeps for a long time, knowing that there is not much to do as her waters dry up again as the gravel that was once sunken deep into her fluid body peeked out and burned in the relentless sun. Fish no longer travel her waters but there was still life that crawled under her surfaces, making the trash their homes and a place to lay their hatching offsprings.
She was a god, but not immortal— but not mortal enough to be afraid; there is an end to everything. Even for rivers and mountains that had been around longer than civilizations and growing towns. They crumble and surrender under the command of time and loss and reminisce. Valleys form and rivers begin from what was left behind by ancient seas, only starting from overflow until it grows and grows—
Abe is a River God, but she feels as if she had been something else from what she is now.