FourtyTwo
LadyAmber
GubGar
Ersa93
Kuro
MrSkimobile
udonoodles
Noctis
Damycles
Neiya
She had been adrift for longer than she could remember. The two moons and the sun spun endlessly over the vast blue expanse as she drifted just over the ocean in the air, aimless and lost in thought. Ever so often, a particularly aggressive wave would crash high enough to clutch at the sky during stormier weather, grazing her naked toes with cold saltwater. That too became a constant. Each touch of the water became a brief lull from the pull of reality – out of the prison of her own mind, and the onslaught of emotion. Even out here where life barely existed above the surface, the flood of affection, the pang of guilt, the warmth and chill of bonds forged and broken, they were overwhelming. On occasion she had heard her name – that had been enough to drift back into the present, but eventually the lull of waves lured her back into her isolated existence carrying the raging torrent of mortal emotion.
The enmity of a jilted lover, the deep and blissful warmth from complete trust, the agonizing pain of grief, the fleeting but intense need to protect another. They toiled within her in violent turmoil, voices and whispers refusing to sort themselves, blending seamlessly with an endless tangle of raging emotions. It was inescapable – unmanageable. She hated it. Hated them for forcing her to feel this way. All she had wanted was to open herself to the world, and now the world had revealed its true cruelty. The experiences were vivid, but random. Chaotic, unordered. Barely had she focused an emotion and allowed herself to feel as the mortals did, before it was replaced by the pressing intensity of another – bitter, sweet, pining, painful. They did not wait.
In her mind Neiya tried her best to focus on the one focal point of emotion she had experienced. Mortal emotion beyond what was sent to assault her. The memories returned of the grieving tribe, the envious man. She understood him, she felt it too. His desire was blinding, his deluded devotion complete. It was beautiful – it could have been great. But he was fated to hate, kill, and suffer for his emotions. And the girl he loved; she understood her too. The singular, insidious emptiness gnawing at her thoughts. A despairing refusal to accept that what she once had was gone. The anguish and rage borne out of suspicions confirmed. It was sickening. There was no happy end. Not for any of them. Not the man, nor the girl, nor the lost love. The three of them were doomed to suffer the moment they met one another. Or perhaps…?
What if there was another way? Were they still there? What if she had acted differently? She commanded all their virtues and vices – why had she ruined his chances to comfort her? It would have been hollow. It would have been false hope; but it could have eased her pain. Not knowing could have let her set it aside. Dull the pain, appreciate the closeness of another. At least one of them would have been happy, then. The thought burrowed deep into her mind, slowly dominating her waking dreams until the roil of emotions was a dull thud in the back of her head, and the need to know what could have been screamed at her. Snapped out of her aimless drift, spellbound by new purpose, Neiya turned back towards the coast beyond the horizon.
Following the river mouth up along the rapids, Neiya drifted with some speed to retrace the original path she had taken to escape towards the ocean. Back to the place of her birth. Back to them. She would think of something. Ease their pain. Set what she could right, even if the torrent remained. The Highlands returned in ever greater measure around her as she travelled upstream, soundlessly drifting just above roaring waterfalls and quick streams to follow the massive river back to the site of her first experience. Beyond the occasional curious look from an animal, nothing stood in the way on her journey. The distance had been considerable, and she had covered it in what felt like a split second, unable to let her new drive go. The trees began to look familiar, the twist in the river signaling the end of her path. The riverbank clearing was not far now. She’d find them – she’d set it right.
Only no one was there. The sight of the riverbank sparked brighter recollection of her birth, of the trauma she felt in each of them. It was as if they were still there. But they weren’t. Beyond the rush of water, it was quiet. Beyond the rustle of tree, it was unmoving. By the edge of the river sat a lone stack of stones as a silent memorial, adorned with a simple effigy of sticks and straw that had now begun to fade and wilt with time’s passing. The grass had grown, new plants had sprouted around the area. How long had she been gone? If only she’d been quicker. The thought turned bitter, impossible. Of course. It had been a fool’s errand from the start. She knew that it was supposed to be this way. She had seen it in their hearts and then put them on that path.
Her frown grew as she closed her eyes and turned back to the river. She was as much part of their pain as they were hers. They were intrinsically linked. That was how it was, and always would be. Slowly, she drifted further upstream, away from her birthplace, and eternal shame.
Blocked from what kept her determined for so long, the thought passed back into obscurity, overwhelmed by the returning roil of emotion. She followed new waterfalls, new twists in the large river. Her interest had drained out her, stuck with a sour apathy swelling with the package of guilt building in her gut. When new mortals came running at the side of the riverbank far beyond where she had gone before, shouting and pointing her way, she glanced their way only long enough to assure herself they were not the same that she had met before. There was no immediate pull of emotion from them, nothing to catch her interest. She was a sight for them to ogle and gawk at. Why should she stoop to award them her attention? No, she pressed on, drifting above the water as she had found had become her routine.
She didn’t stop again until she found the river came to an end. A massive waterfall pouring down from the mountain pooled into a clear blue lake that split into a few river creeks and the large river she came from. Almost surrounded by dense foliage and trees, the stillness of the lake caught Neiya off-guard. Despite the waterfall, and the river turning into a rapid not far from here, this lake – this resting place for the water – was serene. Timeless. The forlorn goddess quietly drifted to the center of the lake, releasing a breath she did not realize she’d been holding. It was beautiful. It was peace. A sanctuary from the turmoil of the world. A moment of stillness and peace in a raging stream. Like that time with… him. Neiya released a quiet sigh, closing her eyes to relive her embrace with Cadien as she hovered over the timeless lake. She had been at peace, then. At cost of his own peace. She could see it in his eyes. That was the way it would always be. Her presence was toxic, tainting. But she had found peace in that moment.
She drew on her own emotions and those of the mortal world. She could not change her nature, her fate, or that of others, but she could work against it. Even if peace could only ever be as fleeting as happiness or mortal lives – it should be there – everyone deserved to feel what she felt in that moment, even if only for a moment. The result was always pain, but it did not need to be constant, it did not need to be impossible to live with. Again, the goddess drew on her time at peace, finding a moment to center herself in between the turmoil. It was time to see what she could do. She knew she should. She knew she could.
Silver strands released from her fingertips, and azure tears ran down her cheeks in sharp patterns along her markings. Slowly her essence drifted away from her in ever greater measure, coming to rest over the lake in a gentle shimmer. The roar of the waterfall, though ever present, quieted to a manageable background murmur. The silver and azure essence mixed into a mist, slowly lowering into the water and layering over it, creating a new ever shifting reflection of blues and silvers, like a shifting, translucent mirror. Neiya opened her eyes once more to regard her work. It was a start. A sanctuary. A timeless place where pain and sorrow would not reach. The goddess drew a long breath and closed her eyes once more. Perhaps she would just stay here forever.
The grief cut into her like a sharp blade tearing into paper, ripping Neiya from her serene rest hovering above her newly established sanctuary. How long had she remained in place? How long had she reflected over her own place in the world? Another hard pang of anguish roiled through her, like a flame calling to a moth. An itch in her bones drew her gaze to the tree line. Someone out there was in pain. Someone close. Hovering over towards the highland grass, the goddess left the serenity of her claimed lake and set out to investigate.
It wasn’t hard to find the source, the intensity with which this mortal experienced their anguish pulsed like a building migraine over Neiya’s eyes, and the closer she came, the more it grew until their pain was her own. She exited into a clearing as the final wave of emotion washed over her and came face to face with two battered humans – a man and a woman. They were embracing when she arrived but broke it off as the leaves rustled to give warning of the goddess’ approach.
“Who goes there?” The man queried, though his gaze lifted to regard Neiya, and by his widening eyes Neiya assumed he realized the answer.
Still, she deigned to answer as both their attentions drew her way. The man was injured, and they both looked tired, dirty. “I am Neiya, Goddess of Love,” she spoke at last, thinking before adding “…and loss.” Her eyes followed the woman as she felt the grief roil within her. As the man lowered himself to the ground in humility, Neiya approached the pair.
“You… honor us with your presence, great Neiya,” the man murmured as humbly as he could muster, seeming a little off-guard. The woman watched her warily as he continued speaking. “Have you come in answer of our prayers?”
Neiya looked at the woman, studied the wariness in her eyes. She was angry. At her limit. Despairing. ”In a manner of speaking,” The goddess voiced in return, gliding soundlessly over the grass to close the distance between the three of them. The woman tensed up, but the man stood to place a hand on her arm.
“It’s alright, Sanya. A god has heard us.” He offered and gave a gentle smile towards Neiya. That much was certainly true, Neiya thought to herself.
”What ails you?” Neiya drew ever closer, extending her hand towards the woman slowly. The man began to speak in response, but the goddess did not listen to his words. Daring not to recoil, the woman remained in place as Neiya laid her hand on the mortal’s cheek. Tears rushed from the woman’s eyes and a sob bubbled up from the back of her throat. Neiya drew on her emotions, her loss. Her little village gone, attacked by a strange and hideous being twice the size of any human. What survivors had remained together after the attack had fallen one by one. Picked off by hunger, injuries, snakes, or other humans. Until only she and the man remained. Everyone she cared for was dead. Her bond to this man was one of trust grown out of necessity. ”I see,” Neiya offered with sadness mirroring that of the woman’s own as she removed her hand. The sobs died down slowly as the woman recovered, finally recoiling away from the goddess. Just to be certain, she repeated her gentle caress upon the man’s cheek, and she saw the same in him – simply muted. Hidden beneath the surface. ”You have lost all that you held dear. You two are all that remains to remember and cherish what once was. I am sorry.”
The man stammered briefly, unsure of what to say. Finding some courage, the woman called Sanya spoke up in his stead, oaken eyes staring down the goddess defiantly. “Will you help us? Avenge the fallen? Destroy the beast, and the Sentti tribe, for what they did to-.. to all of us.”
Neiya watched the both of them quietly for a moment, pondering what she had experienced, and the emotions that toiled within the woman. ”No. That would bring you no peace.”
The woman grew red with anger, fists clenching as her initial suspicions appeared to now be confirmed. Neiya continued before she could launch into an outburst. ”Nothing will bring you peace. Not truly. Neither of your lives will ever return to what they once were. You are forever changed by the horrors you have endured, by the people you have lost,” Neiya shifted her gaze between the two. The initial fury in the woman’s eyes seemed to abate for a time, and when her eyes locked with the goddesses’, she looked down with guilt and anguish. ”But you can live your life with new purpose. You can temper your existence with the pain you feel now. If what you truly wish is justice for those you lost, for revenge, then you must do so yourself.”
The man drew a shaky breath before finding his voice once more. “We are barely surviving, great one-... we are not fighters, nor do we desire revenge.”
“I do.” Sanya said through gritted teeth. The man blinked and looked towards his partner in survival.
“Sanya, I thought we talk-…”
“Enough, Yaian. You called for the gods and the gods came. Now she speaks and you refuse her words.” The woman continued with a venom to her tone, a returned determination. The touch of hatred that stemmed deep from within that pain in her core. “After all we have been through. After trolls, and kidnappings, and raids, you want to give up? Waste away here in the forest? I want to see their eyes when they realize they missed one. That’s what Saaen would have done for you. Or your father. Not this cowardice.”
Neiya watched the two of them for a time, before slowly lifting a hand to the jagged black tangle of horns on her shoulder. Centering herself with a breath, she pulled on one of her coiling horns, and it seemed to stretch and come loose with her coaxing. She slid both hands over it as she brought it down before the two humans, and the long black horn became slim and elongated. Slowly warping into a black, glasslike staff under Neiya’s caress, the new item slowly grew a silvery edge that expanded from one edge. Twisting and shifting under her administration, the creation slowly settled into a sleek and otherworldly spear, with a blade that seemed to shift ever so slightly in size whenever gazed upon. ”I will not fight your battles, mortal, but I offer you this. Do not reject who you have become. The pain is an honor, a mark of your character. It is the memory of those you cared for, however bitter. With this weapon, you can wield that bitter memory against those who have wronged you. I offer you Sorrowsting.”
Neiya extended the strange weapon to the woman, who hesitated only briefly before accepting the offering. Her words of thanks were muted, captivated by her tool of vengeance and deep in examining it. With an excuse of gathering their things, she wandered towards the edge of their little clearing.
The man was not pleased. A growing frustration and worry visibly forced onto his features, the man glanced after her as she walked off towards her quest for revenge. Before he could voice his concerns, Neiya extended her hands to take one of his. Caressing one of his fingers, a band of silver slowly materialized around his skin, adorned with a gemstone black as the night and glossy as the spear’s handle. ”It is not injury, starvation or age that will consume her. The grief she endures will never end.”
“But-… you are a goddess. That thing-... that thing you did with your hand. Can you not heal her?”
“There is nothing to heal. The woman you knew is gone. Her soul carries a heavy burden, as your own. You cannot return to who you once were, but you can lighten her burden. The gemstone will take her sorrow. Perhaps she will find a moment of peace.” Neiya removed her hands from his, leaving his finger adorned with an ornate ring. The black gemstone seemed to swirl and shift behind the gloss. ”This is your charge. To understand her loss, and lighten it. Perhaps then she will not walk to her doom.
“Will you not save her?”
”She does not want to be saved. She wants to avenge the fallen. There is beauty in grief. Or doom.”
The man seemed distraught at the goddess’ lesson. Neiya watched him twist and fidget in place, looking down to the ring slowly. He was about to speak, when the rustle of leaves brought his attention to the woman now leaving the clearing, scarpering away into the woods. A single moment of hesitation, a glance back to Neiya, who simply stared at him. Then he turned to run after his partner. She knew he would.
Neiya released a soft sigh as the man vanished into the forest. It was not long before she questioned her decision. Her judgement. No. She had given the woman what she wanted. She wouldn’t hurt her like that, deny her innermost desires. In that, there was some measure of peace. Some greater purpose, and power. She felt her own grip on reality strengthen. Her attunement to the grief and anguish in the world expanding. She had understood it, the core of that bitter fruit - the end result of happiness, of love. Her mastery grew, as her experience with the world did.
Satisfied enough to feel a lingering emptiness in place of doubt, Neiya drifted in another direction, resuming her aimless journey - lost to thought as the constant stream of emotion returned to the forefront.
