A Goddess Spurned

The world is fire and ash; the world is a mirror image of the destruction inside of your heart. Embers float on the wind, spreading the flames further with every pulse of your heart. Your chest heaves, your lungs burn and ache with each breath that scratches at your throat. You stifle the scream building in your chest, holding on to your fury and pain like snakes writhing in the pit of your stomach. Father always told you revenge was bittersweet. Now you know it is more bitter than it is sweet. You aren’t sure it is worth it.

The wind carries a howl to your ears, and is soon joined by another further out. You relent and let your voice join them. You howl and rage as you storm forward, the fire dancing gleefully with you. You relish the screams of the people fleeing your flames. A mother drags her children behind her, towards the river past the village, and a dark shadow covers your mind. You sweep a hand forward; the flames leap to deny her a path. She screams all the louder, clutching her whimpering children closer. The shadow over your mind fights with the submerged part that balks at the sight of the children. Smoke shields them from view and the shadow triumphs.

—

You are hopelessly lost. Vines and thorns grab at your dress as you walk, ripping and tearing at the fabric. You push forward regardless, determined to find them. Your tongue darts out in an attempt to free your sticky lips from one another; you grimace as the metallic taste of blood explodes over your senses. Your grandmother’s tales said a coat of blood on your lips would grant you entrance to the Court; you pray she hadn’t been wrong. Your foot catches on a hidden branch and you sprawl face first into a clearing. You remain with your head hanging for a moment, fighting to not cry. You know if you start, you will not stop. You must not cry. You look up to a semi-circle of people seated on elaborate thrones in outfits grander than any you have ever seen before; you instinctively know they are the Court. You stand, brushing the dirt off your dress as you move to stand before them. You notice disgust apparent on most of the faces looking at you; your cheeks flush in shame. You know their disgust is not for the same reasons as your village, yet it hurts all the same. You had thought the Court above such petty human emotions. You kneel before the being in the center of the semi-circle; she looked at you with curiosity rather than disgust. You determine her to be the least likely to spurn your request.

“What have you come here for, child?” the being directly in front of you asks. Her voice is kind, soft like a bed of grass in the spring.

“I have come to beseech the Council for aid,” you manage to choke out, your voice quieter than you hoped it would be. Under their scrutiny, you wither and falter.

“Obviously,” a being to your left grumbles. “Just tell us what you want.”

You look at the beings around you, one by one, before meeting the eyes of the being directly in front of you.

“I wish to join your Council.”

—

The screams of the doomed have long since silenced. Quiet hangs heavy on the air as you stand, in the center of the village. The flames have had their fun and are beginning to drift to sleep; smoldering embers are all that is left, sighing as their lights settle into the ruins. You stand, panting with tears streaking your cheeks, in the wreckage you have caused. Your breath catches in your throat and you fall to your knees as another sob rips through your body. You wonder how you still have tears left to cry. You almost think you would prefer emptiness to this onslaught of emotions running rampant through you. You know that you would have preferred to have died with her. The shadow over your mind has turned to slumber just as your flames do.

A scraping from your right jerks you out of your thoughts and you whirl to face the sound. A boy freezes in his steps, hands held meekly up by his shoulders. You feel the broken pieces of your heart sink into your stomach; the shadow raises its head with an ugly, gleeful laugh. You wish he had run with the others.

“Why?” he asks, head tilting to the side.

“Please leave,” you say quietly, ignoring the harsh voice of the shadow. He shakes his head and takes a small step forward.

“Tell me why,” he says, using the voice you have heard mothers use on small children and wounded animals. Are you a wounded animal now?

“I am begging you, leave while I can still let you,” you plead. Your shadow hisses at the idea, wrapping tighter about your mind.

“Kill me if you must, just tell me why.”

You wish he wasn’t so foolishly stubborn. Why had you thought he wouldn’t be? He had always been this way.

—

“Please… I’ll do whatever you want of me,” you plead. The cold of the ground bites at your knees as you stare up at the Council. Their eyes look down on you in a variety of emotions; disgust is still chief among them, but you feel relieved that a few of them have changed to pity after hearing your story. You swallow against the lump in your throat, raise your chin and stiffen your back. “I’ll pay whatever price.”

“You should be careful about offering that, child,” the being directly in front of you says. “What you ask for will come with a very steep price.”

“I mean it. Whatever the price,” you answer, meeting her eyes without flinching.

“All in favor,” the being directly in front of you says; disapproval hangs heavy in her eyes. More than half of the beings raise their hands, and you begin to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Not so fast, pesky human,” a being to your right says. He had not raised his hand. “That kind of request only comes with the Council’s full approval.”

“Wh-what would it take to convince you?” you ask.

“Let us discuss the price you would pay,” he states, shifting in his throne. A being to your left - the worst of the disgusted looks came from her, you remember - speaks before he can finish his thought.

“We are out of balance as is. We do not need another god of grief. God of love. God of loss,” she shakes her head. “We do not need another.”

“What about a god of vengeance?” you ask.

“You would subject yourself to a life of darkness?” the being directly in front of you asks. The disapproval in her eyes has grown. The being to your right looks shocked; the being to your left looks interested, a dark shadow rising around her knees like a pet.

“If you will not grant me the power to bring her back, at least grant me the power to exact revenge. She deserves that much,” you answer.

“Revenge will not ease your pain, child,” a being next to the shadow being says.

“I do not want to ease my pain,” you say, pulling yourself to your feet. “I want to make them feel it, too.”

“All in favor,” the being directly in front of you says. Every hand raises. A pit of snakes knots in your stomach; the shadow pet around the being to your left laughs quietly.

—

You stare down at the broken body of your friend; the contents of your stomach threaten to come back up. The shadow in your mind has returned to quiet sleep. If only he hadn’t been so stubborn. She’s gone, why would you do this to yourself? His words echo in your head. The tears have finally stopped falling; replaced with a deeply unsettling emptiness. You turn away from his body and start to leave the village, stepping carefully over the burned shells of the people you once knew. You try not to think about who they used to be. Why would you do this to yourself?

Even in the end, he cared for your well-being more than his own. Maybe there was a world out there where you could have loved him as he loved you. You almost wish you could have lived in it. Maybe you could have asked the Council for that. You shove that thought away; it would have been living a lie, and you both had agreed you couldn’t do that. A false happiness was still a lie.

Wishing would not change the past.

You sink to your knees before her tombstone.

You think it only makes the injustice worse that they tried to be sorry about it after the fact. That they would mourn and say she would be missed, knowing full well it was their own actions, if not their own hands, that killed her. None of this would have happened if they had only accepted the love the two of you had had for each other.

“You wouldn’t have wanted this for me,” you whisper, the words grating sandpaper at your throat. You can see her sad smile in your head. “But I had to do something, and I was so angry.”

You trace your fingertips over her name carved in the stone, like you had once traced the lines of her face. The cold bites at your fingers.

“I know it’s not the legacy you wanted. But I’m afraid it’s the only legacy either of us will ever have.”

You stand on shaking legs and leave your village behind. You return to the Council of Beings and take your seat amongst them. You do not meet their eyes. The shadow in your mind slithers out and rests around your ankles. You vow that no one pushed to taking their own life will ever go unavenged while you draw breath.