Chapter 1
Ta'al: Daughter
Tatko: Father
Aether: The essence of creation
Likanen verta: mixed blood, dirty blood
It's Delena. I swear on holy Styx.
Heaven is a barren wasteland.
Contrary to the popular belief, heaven isn't a place of absolute beauty with ornate palaces and pristine columns, of vines snaking atop bejeweled statues and gaily minor gods. Well, at least not all of it.
Heaven is a forgotten photograph of white skies and dark brown earth. And the gods, gods too reside in the same shades of black and white.
So, it comes as a huge shock to little Elena when she spies a goddess walking by the banks of the holy lake, resplendent in her deep red robes. She is what Elena thinks goddess' are supposed to look like unlike the white clothed, submissive women with lowered gaze who always walk behind the high and mighty gods.
Her skin is the color of rich earth that little Elena likes to walk barefoot on. On her cheeks shine stars that Elena often sees in the night skies. Her lips are deep red and her eyes, entire cosmos resides in her eyes. Her ashen white hair flows down her back, every tendril swaying madly as if it has a life of its own.
It's eerie to spy on this goddess, for Elena has never seen a goddess holding a sword.
The blade is long and sharp, the hilt, a carved, curved beauty in a shade of off-white that little Elena instinctively knows is bone. The goddess walks on, humming an unfamiliar song and dragging her sword that makes clanking noises when it encounters pebbles.
She has seen her father polishing the bones to make reeds and lyres that heavenly musicians play with somber dignity in annual godly gatherings. Now, to think of it, Elena has never seen this goddess in any godly function.
Who is she?
At that precise moment, a butterfly flies in her vision and she is distracted enough to takes her eyes off the goddess who disappears without a trace when she turns to look at the shores of the lake again...
~TX~
She asks her father about the goddess that night.
He stops carving swirls and curves on a polished piece of wood. 'Who?' He asks carefully.
She begins her explanation anew, carefully detailing everything she remembers.
'What were you doing near the lake?' her father questions instead of giving her an answer. He looks worried and there are lines at the corner of his eyes that Elena doesn't like.
The lines mean that he is getting old. He is still young by the godly standards, but he ages every day in absence of the ambrosia that is only reserved for more important gods than minor deity of musical instruments.
'Who is she?' she asks again, stubbornly ignoring her father's frowning face.
'Ta'al,' he says affectionately, 'do you want to draw vines of moonflower?'
'I want to know who she is, Tatko,' she whines, making her eyes all big and watery and pushing her lower lip out.
Unlike other godly spawns, Elena is of likanen verta descent.
Her mother was a barbarian minor deity of a distant land and Elena is the result of her father's weakness.
She is the proof of his shame, they whisper when they watch her running around without supervision, eschewing the stuffy rules and decorum for the sake of curiosity and childish enjoyment.
Unlike other fathers of heaven, hers is too soft-hearted, too loving to ignore the tell-tale sign of tears in her eyes.
'Now, now, Ta'al. It is not something to cry about,' he says as he moves his instruments aside and pulls her in his lap; warm, rough fingers wipe away the moisture.
'Now, what I am about to tell you is just a story. A long time ago when the world was new and the gods young, there was a goddess with eyes so bright that they put young suns to shame. This goddess had not come to be like the other gods. It was said that she was personification of aether itself from whence everything had emerged in this young universe…'
She is immersed in his tale, tears forgotten, mind busy in imagining bright supernovas and dark skies.
'In the beginning, the universe wasn't as peaceful as it is today. New gods sprung from the womb of aether every day, ready to fight for newly formed terrains and budding planets, eager to hold stars and crush them to taste the dust. Soon, the universe was overflowing with gods who were too eager to tear a chunk of it to keep it for themselves. Balance was necessary for creation. The void birthed its first deity then…'
'What is void?' she asks curiously.
Her father is startled.
He takes a moment before answering.
'Void…is the end of everything. It's where life meets its end and only darkened silence remains. So, from void stepped out the first primordial,' her father whispers, 'a demon whose name was Vulcas. He was the godkiller, the perfect solution for a universe filled with beings created from aether…'
'So, he started killing gods?' her eyes are big and she is looking at him in confusion. Gods just keep getting old and old, they don't die!
'Y-Yes,' her father replies hesitantly.
'What happened then?'
'Well, she stood on the edge of void and looked into its heart; the void looked back into hers. Some say, she hollowed out her chest and let void fill the empty space. She reached down and picked up the fallen sword once wielded by God king Ithran and in a single blow, separated Vulcas' head from his torso. She bathed in his blood, and picked the bones from muscles to make a hilt for her blade…'
Her father looks at her then, his eyes roving her face to find the terror, the horror at what she has heard.
He finds none.
'Where did she go then? Why isn't she the queen of gods?' Young Elena asks instead.
'Well, I don't know, Ta'al,' he says. 'Some say she went insane from looking into the void, others say she became void herself. No one saw her after that day…'
Elena is stumped. Is she the only one who saw the Goddess after all that time?
She feels funny in her stomach.
'Ta'al, you shouldn't talk about her with anyone else,' her father advises sternly and she nods.
She wants to smile.
No one has seen the Goddess but her.
No high gods and goddesses, no priests, priestesses or deities.
Only Elena has seen the Goddess…
~TX~
She ventures close to the lake every day after that.
From early morning to the dusk when last rays of sun fade from the horizon, she keeps vigil from her post at the tall oak tree.
Elena is somewhat of an expert when it comes to climbing trees.
Months pass and still the Goddess has yet to make another appearance.
Her enthusiasm deserted her in second week; her curiosity was next to go, and now it seems her desire to witness the Goddess once more is on verge of departure too.
The sun has set, and the sky is turning into that color which often is more black than blue.
She can see the northern supernova clusters. Soon, the sky will be a brilliantly painted canvass of colors with million stars twinkling.
She jumps down from the low hanging branch, and then proceeds to brush her robes of dry leaves and bits of grass. But the brown on the cream colored cloth refuses to come off.
She sighs at the prospect of another lecture she is set to receive from her father when he sees her in this state.
Well, she can point out that her robes just get dirty and not torn as they used to once upon a time.
She hears it then, the singing.
She hides behind the wide trunk and stares at the stretch of shore that is visible from here.
The Goddess is on a stroll tonight…
The song that she is singing is the same one, a beautiful haunting tune of misery and secrets, of hopes burned and dreams broken too easily. Elena's chest feels funny as she continues to listen the song she doesn't understand, a song in a tongue that she doesn't know.
Her eyes prickle and her lips tremble.
She doesn't like this feeling.
Hot tears fall down her cheeks on their own and she furiously wipes them away at the back of her hand.
The Goddess must be so sad, she thinks.
She moves out of her hiding spot and stealthily makes her way behind the red clad woman. The Goddess is lost in her own world.
She doesn't even notice the child following her…
~TX~
By the time Elena actually understands the true meaning of the Goddess' story, it's already too late.
This cold that she imprisons beneath her skin, this remnant that the goddess gifted her—this is loneliness that aches inside her.
The Goddess didn't look into the void, she looked into Vulcas' eyes and he looked back into hers.
Now, she understands the song that made her cry that one time when she forgot herself in the melody and followed the Goddess to her doom.
Now, Elena sings it too.
The Goddess fell in love with the godkiller.
And in the end she killed him for survival of her kind.
The thought makes her shiver.
She wraps the fur snugly around her and continues walking to the edge of the forest, the boundary of her so-called kingdom.
She leaves snow in her wake, glassy prison that traps the green grass that has managed to survive her earlier strolls.
Her life would have been so different had she not followed the Goddess that night, she thinks. She remembers being hungry in the garden of the Goddess.
Now, the feeling is foreign to her.
She remembers the taste of divine peaches. How foolish had she been to think that they had been the best thing she had ever eaten in her young life?
She abhors the taste of peaches now, smell of peach blossoms too, the mere thought of them.
Those peaches, they turned her into this. This lonely wraith that dwells at the edge of civilizations, not permitted to step a foot inside their warm, colorful existence.
She is a goddess, she thinks in disgust.
A goddess who took birth to undergo her punishment.
Sometimes when she falls asleep in her empty castle, the cold gives her dreams. Dreams that are memories of her bygone life.
In her dreams, she sees the Goddess waking her up, staring at her juice stained clothes, still wet mouth and sticky hands. She sees herself standing before the God King who is too eager to snuff out her existence. She sees her father kneeling, begging for mercy from the God King who turns his face away, from the Goddess who looks down with blank eyes. She sees the Goddess walk towards her, a sorrowful expression on her face.
In her dreams, she feels as if she is about to die.
But the Goddess does something even worse. She takes Elena's hands and pours in her small body, years of loneliness and grief. She sees herself screaming and twitching. She sees her hair changing from brunette to white. In her dream, she wants to scream and ask, "All this because I ate few peaches?"
Her dreams don't end there.
She sees herself being led by hand to the very edge of the universe where beyond the woods of Callente, in the frozen wasteland, the Goddess builds her palace. Her father is there too. Standing away from her, wrapped in layers and layers of fur, with tears in his eyes that freeze when they fall on his cheeks.
He has come to say goodbye. This is all he has been allowed.
Even in her dream, Elena feels numb.
The Goddess kisses her forehead before leaving, whispering words of blessing.
And when Elena wakes up from her dream, she rues the day she laid eyes on the mad Goddess.
Years and years have passed since she came here. Her father is dust in his mausoleum.
She was not permitted to attend even his last rites.
She doesn't get invited to the annual godly councils.
The gods have no need of ice goddess. They are happy to let her languish in her prison.
Years after her banishment here, a new god ascended as God King and as a gesture of goodwill, he extended the area of her prison to include parts of woodlands of Callente.
She should be grateful, she thinks. Trees are always a welcome change from ice.
She used to love climbing trees, but she doesn't try anymore. What use is finding small pleasures in life when your life is just a long continuity of nothingness?
It's time she returned to her palace.
The green makes her wish for things she can't have.
The soil feels nice beneath her feet and between her toes before it freezes. It will thaw in a couple of days if sun keeps on shining the way it was shinning today.
'Help me!'
She cocks her head to the side to listen properly. Did she really hear someone ask for help, or is she hallucinating now? Finally giving in to the madness after years of being alone and mostly silent?
'Please, somebody help me!'
She starts walking towards the general direction of the voice. Who is here in these parts of the woods at this time of the day? Not even animals venture in her cold kingdom.
Is he a trick? Her feet stop. Is he some test? Is she being observed right now? She looks around wildly, trying to identify if someone is indeed watching her every move.
'Please! Please, save me!'
The cries intensify. She finds herself walking again.
What if he is some apparition conjured by the Goddess? She comes to a standstill.
The mere thought of the Goddess makes her tremble in her skin. The memory of those mad eyes staring piteously at her makes her want to hide.
She turns away. She can't face the Goddess again. This curse is hard enough. She doesn't want to add to her miseries.
She is about to walk away when she hears it as clear as the bells chiming in her father's workshop.
'Goddess Elena! Save me…'
To be continued next week...
