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She was a child of the heavens. Once, people called her the Mother of all things, though she could no longer remember when that began.
She slept for centuries at a time. Beneath her closed eyelids, communities rotted away, seasons were born and buried, and children grew into people she would never truly know. But she watched them through dreams. Little lives weaving together like threads soaked in fate.
She loved it most when they laughed and smiled.
At such times, a rainbow would appear above their world, not because it had rained, it never did rain here. Rainbows were a simple creation made out of her happiness directed to them.
Her love was enormous. Sickeningly enormous. When her children began speaking of war, of blood, of bodies split open like ripe fruit, she would cover her ears. The voices always slipped through her fingers anyway.
She cannot call herself a goddess. For how much she tried to ignore it all, she failed.
Gods do not become attached like this.
A few decades ago, her eyes fell upon a small panda, abandoned in the middle of a forest. It lay in the grass like something the world had forgotten. It was a sight oh so sad. The trees leaned over it to hide it from the cruelty of it all and they only allowed her to find it.
Still, she searched for its family.
And she found nothing.
Only a waterfall. She didn't bother looking beneath it.
The baby cried in the way creatures cry when their bodies still remember the warmth of someone else's hands. It almost caused rain to spill from her eyes. It did not deserve to know pain from such a young age. She picked it up before she could stop herself.
Later, she would tell herself it was the right thing to do.
Later, she would tell herself many lies. But now, she cradled it into her arms as she would any other of her children. A temporary offer, she would not be the one to raise it. No, she's not supposed to get involved in her children's lives.
This child she would give to a family that was half human, half canine. He would stand out easily with his pandalike features. Even so, the love he would receive would be the same. Perhaps deeper. Strange families tend to love more intensely.
When the time came to place him in their arms, however, the baby did something unexpected. His tiny fingers wrapped around her pinky, and his face scrunched up as if he understood that yet, something else would be taken from him that night. She could never endure the sound of her children crying. Especially not when she herself was the reason.
“Shhh. I’ll stay close to you. You won’t even notice it, okay?”
Slowly, she removed one of her eyes with two fingers.
Blood immediately spilled out, thick and golden like melted metal. A few drops landed on the baby, and instead of crying, he laughed. A tiny, soundless laugh that made the room feel colder.
“Sorry about that.”
She wiped the blood from its cheek and the edge of its lips with her thumb. Then she wrapped the eye inside her palm. When she opened her fingers again, a tiny infant rested there instead, still almost shapeless, as though it had not fully decided what kind of creature it wanted to become. It immediately began to cry.
The little panda laughed harder.
“Hey. Don’t make fun of her.” Her voice softened. “She’s a piece of me. I made her so you wouldn’t be alone when I’m gone. Be kind to her.”
She gently touched his nose. Once again, the baby wrapped his fingers around her finger as though he feared she might disappear forever.
“Be a good child, alright? I’ll keep Katie with me for a little longer. Then I’ll return her to you.”
A child’s crying echoed from outside a door. A family opened it hesitantly, holding a baby of the same age in their arms. When they saw the other child, they showed no surprise. Only recognition. As though they had been expecting him all along.
That child would grow up knowing only one friend until the age of nineteen. He would learn hunting before trust. Lies before affection. He would look innocent, because the most dangerous creatures often look innocent when they are small.
In his mind, he would always know he is a child of the Mother.
And he had been the only one fortunate enough to meet Her.
That thought separated him from everyone else. Other lives seemed temporary to him, made of paper and flesh. Uninteresting. He simply spent his days waiting. He did not know exactly what for. Only that something was coming. He felt it in his blood the same way one senses a storm before clouds appear.
By thirteen, his patience had begun to rot.
He prayed day and night. He begged for a sign. A gift. Proof that she had not abandoned him. His mind rotten with all the possible implications and his hunger only grew and grew.
When even the prayers did nothing, he built a church.
He wanted to be heard desperately.
He filled it with stained glass that painted the floor like wounds when sunlight passed through. He gathered believers, he prayed again with a voice pure enough to travel upward and strike the doors of the messengers in heaven.
His blood hurt constantly. He clawed at his skin. It itched madly. Not deep enough to let that sacred thing out. His blood, almost a hue of gold, was different from everyone else’s. He knew that much. But pain was not what kept him awake at night.
It was Her eyes. The ones he only saw in dreams.
He saw things that should not fit inside the world in those. Tall figures behind windows. Faces inside dark, holy water. Children dancing on clouds. He marveled at everything that reminded him of Her.
Those who followed his teachings would never understand how beautiful the Goddess truly is. The Mother of all. They swallowed his lies eagerly, like starving animals that did not care what meat they were fed as long as it still bled.
And then she appeared.
A creature beautiful in the wrong way. Terribly familiar. And yet mortal.
She stood beneath the stained-glass windows, examining the church as though deciding whether she liked it or not. She was tall, not as tall as the Mother, but tall enough to make him feel like a child again.
Inside his head, something popped.
Ewroon approached her with courage built from years of lies.
“Who are you?” He asked boldly.
The girl smiled. A big, proud smile.
“I’m the goddess you worship.”
Ewroon stared at her silently for a few seconds.
Then he smiled too. A real, wide smile. The first one in years.
“No, you’re not. Blasphemy isn’t allowed inside my church.”
The first thing she did after all this time apart was lie to him. For some reason, that delighted him.
“I can prove it!” she said before removing her glasses.
One of her eyes glowed while holding an entire sky inside it. Stars drifted slowly behind her iris as though trapped there. The other was a plain ocean color with no real depth inside it, merely human beside the first.
There is no doubt.
It is her. Her predecessor.
And precisely because of that, Ewroon did not want to admit it yet.
“Heterochromia. Wow. That proves nothing.”
“Aw what? That usually works.”
How foolish. Ewroon slowly licked his lips as though sudden hunger had struck him. He has been hungry for a long time.
“Ehh, there’s a way for you to prove it actually.”
Her eyes widened with obvious curiosity. She's so easy to read. How endearing.
The priest pulled a small knife from the hidden pocket of his black robe. Its dark blade dangerously sharp.
“Give me your hand.”
Her instincts screamed danger, common sense told her that a priest would never harm a stranger inside his own church. So she placed her hand in his.
Then the knife came down.
Pain arrived instantly.
“Ouch!!”
She tried to pull away, but his grip suddenly became far too strong around her wrist. A deep cut split open her palm, and golden blood spilled out slowly, almost lazily.
Nothing had ever wounded her before. She had never seen her own blood.
Ewroon lowered his head and licked the blood from her hand with an expression that spoke of hideous devotion. His warm tongue slid over the wound, leaving behind a trail of saliva. Disgusting. It made Katie shiver.
When he lifted his head again, he smiled like a man who had just finished praying.
“Now you will never leave me again."